Women in Labour Movement

In 1917 Anasuya Sarabhai had led the Ahmedabad textile workers’ strike and in 1920 under her leadership the Majoor Mahajan, the Ahmedabad textile mill workers union was established. By the late 1920s, the presence of women in the workers’ movement was noticeable. There were several prominent women unionists and women workers were consciously organized and a special role was given to them in the workers’ movement. Bombay was the center of this development and Maniben Kara emerged as the socialist leader of railway workers and Ushabai Dange and Parvati Bhore as Communist leaders of textile workers. In the 1928-29 Bombay textile mill workers’ strike, women played a leading role, as they did in the Calcutta strike during the same years.