India 1920

Synopsis

The All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was formed in 1920 by leaders of the Indian National Congress and others to provide representation for India at the League of Nations' International Labor Organization (ILO). Although the AITUC was created initially for this specific purpose, it also was a consequence of a growing Indian labor movement. In the late nineteenth century, many Indian workers in various sectors of the economy had begun to organize and protest, in large part in response to the conditions imposed by the British colonial rulers. The Indian labor movement continued to expand in the early twentieth century. As was the case in many parts of the world, there was a particularly dramatic wave of working-class activity in the years immediately following World War I. Between 1917 and 1920, when the AITUC was formed, Indians began to form their first truly...