¹ A much-discussed work on Indian labour history, though it challenges the previously established tools of analysis but, as the author himself admits, shares this basic question. Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Rethinking Working Class History (first published, Princeton University Press, 1989), Paperback edition, Oxford Press, 1996, p. xviGoogle Scholar.

² In the case of the railways this point has been emphatically made by Chandra, Bipan, The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India, New Delhi, 1966Google Scholar; Jagga, Lajpat, Emeregence of the Labour Movement on the Railway in India, 1899–1925- A Preliminary Survey, M. Phil Dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 1978Google Scholar; his article, “Colonial Railwaymen and British Rule: A Probe into Railway Agitation in India, 1919–1922”, Studies in History, Vol. III, nos. 1&2, 1981, also takes a similar line of argument. David Arnold in his study of Industrial violence in the Madras presidency says, “The comparatively privileged position of European and Eurasian workers was deeply resented by Indians and often a root cause of violence. . .” Arnold, “Industrial Violence in Colonial India”, Comparative Study of Society and History, 22, no. 2, 1980, p. 236. Ian Kerr appears not very receptive to the idea of ‘colonial despotism’ along racial lines but accepts that ‘managerial brutality does appear to have been the deciding factor in pushing some workers beyond peaceful protest and into violence’. Kerr, Building the Railways of the Raj, New Delhi, 1995, p. 178. A recent work by Chitra Joshi offers a fresh insight into the negotiative politics of the constitution of the authority of managers or of the imposition of a certain work culture and work discipline on the workers. Joshi, Lost Worlds: Indian Labour and Its Forgotten Histories, New Delhi, 2003.

³ Jagga, “Colonial Railwaymen”, p. 106.

⁴ See the recent article by Ian Kerr dealing with the ‘representation’ and ‘representations’ of the railways for a discussion on the functions of railways, in terms of their politics of representations to different and varied target groups. “Representation and Representations of the Railways of Colonial and Post-Colonial South Asia”, Modern Asian Studies, 37, 2, 2003.

⁵ For railways as a tool of ‘economic imperialism’, see, Lehmann, Fredrick, “Great Britain and the supply of Railway Locomotives in India: A Case study of ‘Economic Imperialism,”’ Indian Economic Social History Review, vol. II, no. 4, 1965Google Scholar. Jagga's contention about ‘imperial arrogance’ and ‘humiliation’ through the railways as inscripted in the form of ‘colonial reality’ on to the ‘Indian mind’ obscures the difference between economic objectives and the fallouts of the introduction of railways on the one hand and the apparent racial ideology that worked behind that on the other.

⁶ A few poets like Ambikadutt Vyas, Shri Bakas Kavi, Kavi Tanki and Shahwaan, writing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries have described railways in this way. See, Durgashankar Prasad Singh, Bhojpuri ke Kavi Aur Kavya, edited by Vishwanath Prasad, Bihar Rashtrabhasha Parishad, Patna, 2001, (first edition 1957), pp. 186, 150, 149, 150, 209.

⁷ Jagga, “Colonial Railwaymen”, p. 114.

⁸ See Tables 1 and 2.

⁹ Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India, Calcutta, 1931, p. 143. [Henceforth RCL].

¹⁰ Extract from the confidential diary of superintendent of Police, Balasore, for the week ending the 3rd October, 1920, file no. 318 of 1920, Government of Bihar and Orissa, Political Department Special Section, Bihar State Archives. [Henceforth GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., BSA]. The Following account is based on this source unless otherwise mentioned.

¹¹ Report from SP, BNR to the office of the DIG, Crime and Railways, Patna, 9th October 1920, Ibid. This report categorically stated the reason for the strike to be the transfer of Mr Woodhouse.

¹² RCL, pp. 140–41.

¹³ Letters to the President, Railway Board, July1922-July 1923, N. M. Joshi Private Papers, First Instalment, file no. 11, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi [Henceforth NMML].

¹⁴ Joshi, Lost Worlds, p. 54.

¹⁵ M. K. Mast, Trade Union Movements in Indian Railways, Meerut, 1969. p. 7.

¹⁶ Memorandum Submitted by the Deputation of the Delegates representing the Anglo-Indian and Domiciled European community of India and Burma to the Right Hon. The Secretary of State for India, 30th July, 1925 in Railway Department, Establishment Branch, 2395E/2–3-B, October 1927, National Archives of India, New Delhi [Henceforth NAI].

¹⁷ Railway Department, Establishment Branch, 4615 E/2–4-B, August 1927, NAI.

¹⁸ In the Letter to the Secretary, Railway Board, 4th March 1927, Ibid. The actual date of the formation of an Auxiliary Force is not known, but in the aftermath of 1857, the idea of having some sort of Voluntary Infantry Corps at places where a considerable number of Europeans resided was raised in the early 1860s. Railway workshop-towns and changing stations were specially discussed. See Proceedings 23–24, Railway-A, Public Works Department, 1865, NAI.

¹⁹ Memorandum, Railway Department, Establishment Branch, 2395E/2–3-B, October 1927.

²⁰ Jagga, “Colonial Railwaymen”, p. 133.

²¹ Railway Department, Establishment Branch, no. 2076 E—19/1-B, October 1920, NAI.

²² Panchanan Saha, History of the Working Class Movement in Bengal, New Delhi, 1978, p. 75.

²³ GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 247 of 1920, BSA.

²⁴ GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 376 of 1920, BSA. The order started from shunters, passed drivers, drivers, first class goods drivers, and finally to passenger drivers. The following account is based on this source unless otherwise mentioned.

²⁵ Bihar Special Branch had received this wire from the Allahabad CID. Confidential Note of Bihar Special Branch, Patna dated 24th February 1921, Ibid.

²⁶ Saha informs us that being dissatisfied with the RWA, Indian office bearers took an initiative in organizing a separate union, the Indian Labour Union on 14th November, 1920. Later this union was known as BNR Railway Labour Union. Saha, History of the Working Class Movement, p. 76.

²⁷ Confidential copy of a Demi-Official Letter no. C/79/21 dated 28th February 1921, from SP, BNR, Kharagpur to the 1st Assistant to the DIG of Police, Crime and Railways, Bihar and Orissa in GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 376 of 1920, BSA.

²⁸ GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 376 of 1920, BSA.

²⁹ Jagga, “Colonial Railwaymen”, pp. 134–5.

³⁰ Though the first conference from which the AIRF was formed was held on 16th February 1925, before that a conference was held in Calcutta in 1924, which laid the ground for the formation of the Federation. See Nrisingha Chakrabarty, History of Railway Trade Union Movement—A Study, A CITU Publication, New Delhi, 1985, p. 20.

³¹ H. N. Mitra, ed., Indian Annual Register, 1922, in file 168 of 1928, P. C. Joshi's Collection of Pamphlets and Periodicals held at the Archives on Contemporary History, JNU, New Delhi, p. 2. [Emphasis added]. (Henceforth ACH).

³² RCL, p. 333.

³³ Mast, Trade Union Movement, p. 21.

³⁴ Railway Department, Establishment Branch, no. 1189-E-18/1–3, September 1918, NAI.

³⁵ GOBO, Pol., Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 376 of 1920, BSA.

³⁶ Extract from the confidential diary of the SP, EIR, Patna, for the week ending the 18th December 1920, Ibid.

³⁷ Home Department, Police-B, Proceedings no. 293–4 (secret), March 1921, NAI.

³⁸ Railway Department, Establishment Branch, 1189-E-18/1–3, September 1918, NAI.

³⁹ File no. 168 of 1928, p. 2, ACH.

⁴⁰ GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 318 of 1920, BSA. The following account is from different official letters attached in this file. All references are from this source unless otherwise mentioned.

⁴¹ GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 318 of 1920, BSA.

⁴² Railway Department, Establishment Branch, 1189-E-18/1–3, September 1918, NAI. (Emphasis added).

⁴³ Searchlight, 1st September 1918, (Microfilm copy in the NNML, Delhi). (Emphasis added).

⁴⁴ File no. 168 of 1928, p. 1, ACH.

⁴⁵ File no. 185 of 1921, ACH.

⁴⁶ Nayak, 27th July, Bengal Native Newspapers, July–December, 1921, file no. 182 of 1921, ACH.

⁴⁷ Amrit Bazar Patrika, 16th October 1920, file no. 292 of 1920, ACH.

⁴⁸ Gyan Pandey, Congress and the Nation c. 1917–1947, Occasional Paper no. 69, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 1983, (copy in the NNML).

⁴⁹ K. K. Datta, Gandhiji in Bihar, Patna, 1969, pp. 75–6.

⁵⁰ Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, “The Indian Working Class and the Nationalist Movement”, South Asia, 1986, p. 59.

⁵¹ Ibid., p. 58.

⁵² File no. 185 of 1921, ACH.

⁵³ Government of India, Home Political, file no. 821 of 1922, NAI.

⁵⁴ Ibid.

⁵⁵ Home Department, Bengal Selections, January to June 1922, file no. 109 of 1922, ACH.

⁵⁶ Letter from Chief Secretary to DIG, Crime & Railways, 1st February 1921, GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 318 of 1920, BSA.

⁵⁷ RCL, p. 334.

⁵⁸ Ibid., p. 335.

⁵⁹ Pandey, Congress and the Nation, p. 23.

⁶⁰ Railway Establishment Proceedings, 1324 E- 21/1B, November 1921, NAI.

⁶¹ Low, D. A., ed., Congress and the Raj: Facets of the Indian Struggle, 1919–1947, London, 1977, p. 17Google Scholar.

⁶² Datta, Partha, “Strikes in Greater Calcutta Region 1918–1924”, Indian Economic Social History Review, 30, no. 1, 1993, pp. 81–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶³ Ibid., p. 82.

⁶⁴ RCL, p. 334.

⁶⁵ Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, “The Role of Outsiders”, Mimeo., pp. 6–7.

⁶⁶ Roy, M. N., “The Railway Strike in India”, published in International Press Correspondence, vol. 2, no. 37, 1922, kept in file no. 88 of 1922, ACH. Roy at this time was writing from MoscowGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁷ Mast, Trade Union Movement, p. 24.

⁶⁸ Sen, Sukomal, Working Class of India: History of Emergence and Movement—1830–1970, Calcutta, 1977, pp. 71–77Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Ordinary cotton clothes or dhotis which used to cost Rs 4 to 5 a pair, were now available for not less than Rs 9 to 10. The price of common articles including eatables like sugar, salt, rice, and wheat also went up. See P. Datta, “Strikes in Greater Calcutta Region”. Also see Sanat Bose, who argues, “. . . with extremely few exceptions the strikes arose from demands for higher wages; and the general origin of the demands was the rise in the cost of living which resulted from the great war.” Bose, “Industrial Unrest and Growth of Labour Unions in Bengal, 1920–1924”, Economic and Political Weekly, special number, November 1981, p. 1850.

⁷⁰ Sen, Working Class of India, p. 86.

⁷¹ The following account of the strike is from GOBO, Pol., Dept., Spl., Sec., file no. 406 of 1919, BSA, unless otherwise mentioned.

⁷² With an expansion of the Jamalpur workshop during 1896–97, three coolie trains were started to bring in the labour daily. Huddleston, G., History of East India Railway, Calcutta, 1906, p. 245Google Scholar.

⁷³ GOBO, Pol., Dept., Spl., Sec., file no. 406 of 1919, BSA.

⁷⁴ The letter said, ‘O! brothers, if we are patient we must get all our demands. Don't be impatient. One who suffers trouble must enjoy in the end. So when we are suffering trouble for the present, we shall certainly enjoy the pleasure in the future.’ This is a common folk wisdom, which speaks in the language of undergoing suffering in the present to be rewarded in the future.

⁷⁵ Tejashwar Prasad floated a ‘People's Association’, a body that lately took some interest in the ongoing strike. However, not much is known about him or his association. The colonial authorities regarded him as someone who was eager to get his association recognised as an intermediary between authorities and the workers. Home Political-A, proceedings 366–372, February 1920, NAI.

⁷⁶ Confidential Report from the SP, Monghyr, GOBO, Pol., Dept., Spl., Sec., file no. 406 of 1919, BSA.

⁷⁷ GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., File no. 376 of 1920, BSA.

⁷⁸ Sarkar, Sumit, “The Conditions and Nature of Subaltern Militancy: Bengal from Swadeshi to Non-cooperation, c. 1905–22”, in Guha, Ranjit, ed., Subaltern Studies III: Writings on South Asian History and Society, New Delhi, 1984, p. 275, fn. 17Google Scholar. Sarkar therefore proposes that popular outbursts cannot be explained by immediate economic factors like price fluctuations alone. Ibid., p. 277. Elsewhere, he also says that the basic assumption behind much economic determinism—that growing misery is a sufficient explanation for popular action—is in fact extremely dubious. Sarkar, Popular Movements and Middle Class Leadership in Late Colonial India: Perspectives and Problems of a ‘History from Below’, Calcutta, 1983, p. 40.

⁷⁹ Railway General Proceedings, nos. 129–31—B, February 1913, NAI.

⁸⁰ R. G. Progs, nos. 110–114, October 1915, NAI.

⁸¹ Arnold, “Industrial Violence” p. 250. An account of the Lilooah workshop strike is indicative of these interrelated forces. During the strike of 1927–28, the slogans of ‘lal jhanda ki jai’ (salute to the red flag), was accompanied by ‘ganga mai ki jai’ (salute to the river Ganges). Gautam Chattopadhyaya says, ‘when the communist leaders returned from the nearby market . . . they found three separate cooking-places set up by the workers, one for Muslims, one for Brahmins, and one for so-called low caste Hindus. After heated arguments the worker activists replied “jaan dene ke liye taiyar hai comrade, lekin dharma kaise chorega?”. (We are ready to sacrifice our lives, but how can we give up our dharma). (Dharma can only be loosely translated as religion). Chattopadhyaya, “The Working Class in India's Struggle for freedom—A Historical Perspective”, Presidential Address Section III, Modern Indian History, Indian History Congress, 47th session, Srinagar, 7–9th October 1986, p. 19.

⁸² Dipesh Chakrabarty has done a descriptive study of these two activities for the period until 1900. Railway coolies were mostly involved in these cases. He argues that these ‘crimes’ in fact acquired the first rude semblance of a protest in the hands of these low-rank railway coolies, gangmen, and other menials. Chakrabarty, “Early Railwaymen in India: ‘Dacoity and ‘Train-wrecking c. 1860–1900” in Barun De, ed., Essays in Honour of Prof. S. C. Sarkar, New Delhi, 1976, p. 531.

⁸³ Arnold, “Industrial Violence”.

⁸⁴ Arnold, “Industrial Violence”, p. 240; Chakrabarty, “Early Railwaymen”, pp. 531–35.

⁸⁵ Report of the Railway Police Committee Simla, 1921. The Committee made its inquiries by distributing questionnaires to staff on different railway systems. On being asked, “How far such pilferage were due to the act or connivance of the railway staff”, the reply from Bengal, and Bihar & Orissa was that “it was entirely or almost entirely due to them.” Mr Ezecheil, SP, Railway Police, Sealdah, said that on one occasion he had heard a station master saying to a guard, ‘is that all the fish that has come? What am I going to eat today’? Too much reliance on this reporting may however blur the picture. Since railways staff like watchmen, were responsible for the safety of goods, they may easily have become victims of the allegation of connivance. However, the point that there were increased cases of railway pilferage with or without railways staff itself portrays the flip side of the ongoing Non-cooperation Movement, which certainly was rhetorically and ideologically, if not politically, based on the high moral principles of satyagraha and ahimsa. The workers, for instance, questioned these grounds, during the EIR strike of February 1922. On being rebuked by the local Congress leader that they were fighting not so much for Swaraj as for their own interest, the workers retorted pertinently: pet ke waaste (fighting for our hunger). File no. 88 of 1922, ACH.

⁸⁶ See Table 3.

⁸⁷ Datta, Gandhiji in Bihar, p. 76.

⁸⁸ File no. 185 of 1921, ACH.

⁸⁹ File no 88 of 1922, ACH.

⁹⁰ Sarkar, Popular Movements, p. 50.

⁹¹ The role of sadhus constitutes a separate theme of study. What is intended here is to use their activities as a window to open up a brief discussion on the mobilizational aspects and nature of languages and signs used for such mobilizations.

⁹² Home Department, Political Section, file no. 118 of 1922, NAI.

⁹³ It is not clear from the Report who this Acharya was. The linkages with the Arya Samaj were not only evident by an active role played by Shraddhananda, but also by the choice of selecting Hardwar as the seat of the Sadhu Sabha. The Arya Samaj Gurukul Kangri School in Hardwar was described as a training ground for these political sanyasis.

⁹⁴ Paragraph 120 of the Bihar and Orissa Police Abstract of Intelligence Extract, Bombay Extract dated 15th January 1921 in GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 80 of 1921, BSA.

⁹⁵ Gyan Pandey has brilliantly demonstrated this overlapping area of Indian nationalism in the last two chapters of his book, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India, New Delhi, 1992.

⁹⁶ The following account is based on GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no., 653 of 1921, BSA, unless otherwise mentioned.

⁹⁷ GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no., 4 of 1921, BSA, p. 76, 42. The term “injection” here refers to injunction.

⁹⁸ Ibid.

⁹⁹ “Gandhi as Mahatma”, in Ranajit Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies III: Writings on the History of South Asia, New Delhi, 1984.

¹⁰⁰ The following account is based on GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 4 of 1921, BSA, unless otherwise mentioned.

¹⁰¹ Appendix G in GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 80 of 1921, BSA.

¹⁰² GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 4 of 1921, BSA.

¹⁰³ For a discussion on the forms of boycott, see Guha, Ranajit, “Discipline and Mobilize”, in Chatterjee, Partha and Pandey, Gyan, eds., Subaltern Studies VII: writings on History of South Asia, New Delhi, 1992Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ Appendix G in GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 80 of 1921, BSA.

¹⁰⁵ He was the first to open the campaign of the Kisan Sabha in Darbhanga in 1919. The Report says that he was a Rajput from Manjhe in Chapra district and had been a Sanyasi for some years in Benares at the Aparnath-Ka-Tegra Asthan and was personally known to Balgangadhar Tilak and Madan Mohan Malviya, two leading nationalist leaders of their times. GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 333 of 1920, BSA.

¹⁰⁶ Home Department, Political Section, file no. 118 of 1922, NAI.

¹⁰⁷ This has not been explored and the statement is just a reflection on the possibility of such connections. The term ‘subterranean’ here signifies those ways and forms of disseminating and circulating ideas, which though not disjointed with the larger nationalist agenda of the period, varied in terms of expressions and modes of explanations.

¹⁰⁸ Home Department, Political Section, file no. 118 of 1922, NAI. [Emphasis added].

¹⁰⁹ This does not purport to deny their appeal among and attempts to mobilize the industrial workers. Bishwananda was indeed instrumental in influencing the menials at Adra to go on strike. There were others who were equally influential. But the workers' response to these sadhus, as to other forces and groups, was diverse, at times going by their preaching and at others refusing them.

¹¹⁰ Sumit Sarkar, “Subaltern Militancy”, pp. 308–9, 314–16.

¹¹¹ This has been dealt with at some length in my unpublished paper, “Forms of Workers' Protest Amidst Dilemmas of Contesting Mobilizations: The Jamalpur Strike of 1919 and 1928”, presented at the All India Labour History Conference in November 2005, Delhi.

¹¹² GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no., 143 of 1921, BSA.

¹¹³ GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 376 of 1920, BSA.

¹¹⁴ See file no. 91 of 1922, ACH, for a lengthy discussion on how to mobilize and use the services of ‘loyal’ citizens during a period of crisis.

¹¹⁵ Noted by Chief Secretary in a Correspondence to DIG, Crime & Railways, in GOBO, Pol. Dept., Spl. Sec., file no. 318 of 1920, BSA.