The modern working class is the outcome of industrial revolution. It grew under many distortions of the colonial era in India. It emerged as a colonial appendage of metropolitan England and destroyed, at the outset, the traditional economic order without developing a substitute. Capitalism, in India, had a tortuous and belated development, with a bearing on the character of the working class and its movement, following the usual route of mercantile capitalism (1500–1760), classical capitalism cum industrial revolution (1765–1870), and imperial cum monopoly capitalism (1870–1949). At present, the neo-imperial capitalism of multinational companies prevails.

Some political developments of this tortuous period that shaped history, in general, and India, in particular, deserve mention. These include the Battle of Plassey (1757), the Third War of Panipat (1761), the Third Maratha War (1818) and the Sikh War (1845). Some historic events in England had their impact on the colonies, especially the Republican Revolution of England (1649), the Great Reconciliation cum Peaceful Revolution (1688), the entry of the Hanover Dynasty of Germany to the throne of England, George the Third’s rule and the loss America, the industrial development, James Watt’s Steam Engine (1761), Hargreave’s Spinning Mill (1765) and Faraday’s dynamo (1821). Coal became the major source of energy, leading to steam power, electric power and electronic power. A new dynamic world unfolded itself.

The triumph of machines over man became synonymous with that of capitalism over feudalism. The feudals failed. A new force — labour — took birth to counter capital. The Combination Act (1799), titled An Act to prevent Unlawful Combinations of Workmen, prohibiting trade unions and collective bargaining by British workers was enforced to cripple labour. The General Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800 were passed at a time of great economic and social insecurity in Britain while the country was at war with France. The Acts banned combinations among groups of working people, and while not entirely destroying trade unionism, offered such powers to employers as to make them almost invulnerable to disputes with their workforces. The Acts were eventually repealed by the 1824 Combination Act when the post-war social unrest had lessened. However, a series of strikes prompted the government of the day to enact the 1825 Combination Act, which withdrew the immunities from prosecution granted in 1824. Despite this setback, trade unionism in Britain developed substantially in the mid-nineteenth century under the 1825 Act. A law was passed in Briton, declaring machine breaking a capital offence. In 1813, 18 workers of Yorkshire were hanged for breaking machines that were snatching work from the labour. Marx contended, “It took both time and experience before the working people learnt to distinguish between machines and its employment by capital and to direct their attacks not against the material instrument of production but against the mode in which they are used.”

Machine breaking was replaced by organised trade unions. The Combination Act was repealed in 1824. The Electoral Reform Bill came in 1836. A people’s charter of demands was formed, demanding Universal Suffrage at 21. The movement, known as the Chartist Movement, continued despite failing initially in 1848. In England, the industrial workers obtained the right to vote through the Representation of People’s Act of 1867 and 1884.

In India, the struggle of the industrial workers and the colliery workers constituted the main base of the industrial actvity in the nineteenth century, bringing the coal belt of eastern India into the picture. Work in the underground coal mines was hazardous. A Directorate General of Mines Safety came into existence on January 7, 1900. The mine workers faced two hurdles First, they required extra safety provisions while working underground since there was more risk of accidents. The second hurdle was the general working environment connected with their type of work and its seclusion from other normal work. Colliery workers worldwide had a different set of rules, laws and society compared to workers of other industries. The atrocious nature of work in underground mines even with all precautions and safety measures involved a degree of brutalisation and risks that set colliery workers apart from every other worker, and even human beings. Despite these hazards, the mining industry had an important place in every country.

In India, raw material needed cheap transportation across the country. This could only be provided by the railways, using coal as the fuel. Two British private companies, the Great Indian Railway Company and the Great Peninsular Railway Company, started working. Rail lines, 20 miles long, were laid in 1853; in 1857, railway lines were laid over 288 miles. The revolt of 1857–58 to end the British rule resulted in the hastening of the pace of construction Coal was discovered and began being used in 1770. But its actual necessity was felt hundred years later. The Bengal Coal Company was founded in 1893 and the large collieries in Jharia came into operation at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century. With underground mines going deeper, the question of safety and hazards were highlighted, and were the main challenges before the industry.

Whereas mines became deeper for better extraction, laws were bypassed. Miners were forced to work in subhuman conditions, putting heir lives at risk. Most of the safety provisions were only on paper. The large-scale stealing of coal, that is, illegal mining, was practised surreptitiously by the colliery owners in the beginning. It now occurs openly, bidding good bye to all the provisions of safety, dignity, rules and laws. Except for their meagre livelihoods, the poor miners had nothing. Drawn mainly from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, desperately poor and in search of jobs, miners were mostly from eastern UP, Bihar and Jharkhand.

Initially, miners worked for more than 18 hours in underground mines. A majority of the miners used to live as the worst form of bonded labour in camps, popularly known as Gorakapuri camp, named after the place in eastern UP. In some centres, these conditions continued even after independence. These changed only after nationalisation and when the miners revolted against the bondage in Dharmabandh, Madhuband and Kustore collieries. Some of the abandoned barracks in different collieries still carry the legacy of the old tyranny and exploitation.

Some features of the areas deserve mention. First, the working class movements in colonial and dependent countries remained varied, depending on the local features. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Asian, Africa and Latin American countries were drawn into the orbit of the world capitalist economy. The export of capital to colonies started. Social institutions were responsible for the great difficulties faced by the emerging proletariat on its path of self determination. The petty, bourgeois mentality among the ruling class added to the problem. Age-long submissiveness to power and colonies made the awakening even more difficult. National liberation movements were giving rise to the struggle of the proletariat, uniting them with other social and political groups fighting for national liberation. The struggle of the hired labour in colonial and dependent countries started first by uniting and forming their own organisations and sometimes uniting with the national bourgeois. Lenin viewed the Latin American state as politically independent but financially dependent upon imperialism. Preservation of slavery until late 1880 in countries such as Brazil and Cuba seriously held back social transformation. The United States annexed Panama (1903). In Argentina, May Day was celebrated in 1890 and a Socialist Party was formed, which united with the Second International. In Brazil, the development of the labour movement started between 1870 and 1900. May Day was celebrated in Cuba in 1890. A Socialist Congress was held in Brazil in 1892. Cuba was occupied by the US troops in 1898. Latin America, thus, limped into the twentieth century; it has now emerged as a leading force in the twenty-first century under the leadership of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Up to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, feudal and even pre-feudal relations prevailed in Asia. Capitalism expanded in a distorted form. Colonies were drawn into commodity exchange but not with capitalist production relations. With imperialism, the export of capital started. Capitalist production was transplanted to the colonies, depriving most of them of the possibility of normal development. At the end of nineteenth century, a struggle, led by Sun Yat-Sen, started in China to save it from complete enslavement. It first undertook the main task of overthrowing the Manchu dynasty and then proclaimed China a republic (1894). The radical elements in the movement later got crystalised. They led a long struggle that ultimately developed into the Chinese revolution in 1949 under the leadership of Mao. India was the largest colony of British imperialism and, therefore, soon developed into the centre of the anti-imperialist struggle. At the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, there were anti-imperialist movements in Indonesia, Vietnam, Burma, Ceylon, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Persia, and other colonies and semi colonies. Political unrest was closely related to economic, social and political movements. The textile industry and the iron and steel industry were started. A new class — the working class — was born. Many new centres such as Calcutta (Kolkata), Madras (Chennai), Ahmedabad and Kanpur were founded. The first conference of its kind, the All India Conference of workers was held in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1920 giving the new class a shape and guidance. Thus, was born the politics of liberation.

In India, strikes and the general movements began in the late 1870s. The first to rise in protest were the industrial proletariat of the textile workers of Bombay and the colliery workers of Calcutta. The employees worked in extremely hard and hazardous conditions. The textile workers’ movement in Bombay shook not only the industries but created epoch-making history. Their protest against the arrest of Bal Gangadhar Tilak in Bombay attracted the attention of Lenin in Russia. The political impact of trade union movement created a stir in society much before independence. Unfortunately, today, the financial gain or loss of every movement is meticulously calculated before launching any struggle.

Apart from the ideological questions that were raised, the issues debated are of great value even today. The attitude of international social democracy to nationality and national colonial issues was closely bound to its views on state and revolution. The Second International in its London Congress passed a resolution clearly in favour of the right of the nations to self determination (1896) with Edward Bernstein and Karl Kautsky opposing while Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zet Kin and Lenin strongly upholding the anti-colonial views and revolutionary class struggle.

In any underdeveloped, post-colonial country, tension prevails between decaying feudalism and belated capitalism. Economic, social, cultural and regional exploitation generally happens in combination. Depending on the circumstances, any of them can constitute the main contradiction within the society. The calculation of the main contradiction and its isolation is the main problem of any social scientist.

Later on, the struggle for emancipation was to be combined with the struggle against the feudal exploitation to draw a line to shape the national liberation movement in which even the middle class had a leading role. Whether economic exploitation is overt or covert, even a national liberation movement becomes an extended class struggle. Against the principal enemy, all other classes join hands in the struggle.

According to Marx, “A violent outburst took place sooner in the extremities of the bourgeois organisation than at the heart where regulation is more possible.” The internal colony, the Dalits, tribals and the Harijan-inhabited areas, constitute the extremities of the bourgeois organism in India and it is natural that violent outburst, should take place there. It is for this reason the tribal and social question has become important in the Indian revolution and even in general politics.