All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC)

Context:

The trade union movement was led by All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) founded in 1920. Lala Lajpat Rai was its first president and Dewan Chaman Lal its general secretary. Tilak was also one of the moving spirits. Lala Lajpat Rai was the first President.

Lajpat Rai was the first to link capitalism with imperialism. He stated that “imperialism and militarism are the twin children of capitalism”.

The prominent Congress and swarajist leader C.R. Das  presided over the third and the fourth sessions of the AITUC. The Gaya session of  the. Congress (1922) welcomed the  formation of the AITUC and a committee was formed to assist  it. C.R. Das advocated that the Congress should take up the  workers’ and peasants’ cause and incorporate them in the  struggle for swaraj or else they would get isolated from  the  movement. Other leaders who kept close contacts with the AITUC included Nehru, Sabhas Bose, C.F. Andrews, J.M.  Sengupta, Satyamurthy, V.V. Giri and Sarojini Naidu. In the  beginning, the AITUC was influenced by social democratic  ideas of the British Labour Party. The Gandhian philosophy  of non-violence, trusteeship and class-collaboration had great  influence on the movement. Gandhiji helped Anasuya Sarabai organise the  Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association (1918).

 

Improvisation: TH;