Girangaon: The cradle of resistance

Girangaon, the mill district in Mumbai, played a significant role in India's labor movement, leading to improved working conditions and labor laws. It also became a center for Communist activity, including support for the naval mutiny in 1946. The Communists' opposition to the Congress-led government helped establish the state of Maharashtra in 1960.

Girangaon is where Narayan Lokhande, a well-known associate of Mahatma Phule and the founder of the India’s trade union movement, organised mill workers in the 19th century, fighting for improved working conditions and setting the ground for labour laws that benefited millions across the country. Lokhande was a pioneer in opposing the hiring of minors as mill workers. “As a result of this struggle, mill workers got a weekly holiday on Sunday, a half-hour break in the afternoon, working hours between 6.30 in the morning and sunset with extra pay for extra hours, compulsory dispensing of salaries to workers by the 15th of every month, among other benefits. Before Lokhande’s arrival, mill owners were revered as kind landlords, distributing largesse.

HT Image

Bal Gangadhar Tilak and his mentor Phule supported for Lokhande’s campaign, which saw textile workers mobilise in Mumbai, Surat, Kolkata, Chennai and Coimbatore. In Maharashtra, it went on to manifest a politically larger role beyond trade unionism.

It is here that Communists grabbed centre stage when the Naval Ratings in Bombay staged a mutiny in February 1946. In 2003, the late doyenne of the Communist struggle Ahilyabai Rangnekar told this writer that both the Muslim League and the Congress had declined to back the naval uprising. The Communist Party was approached by naval ratings, and in addition to offering support, it organised hundreds of textile workers to build barricades around Girangaon to stop British armoured vehicles being sent to end the uprising.

The Congress’s plan to separate Mumbai from the state helped the Communists become more mainstream. The Morarji Desai government in charge of what was still the Bombay Presidency, was fiercely opposed by them. On November 21, 1955, the state ordered the police to open fire on protestors at Flora Fountain, resulting in the deaths of 106 people. In just three months, the Communists established the Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti, combining forces with the Republican Party, the Peasants and Workers Party, and Praja Samajwadi Party. This alliance dealt a severe blow to the Congress during the 1957 assembly and parliamentary elections, as multiple Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti leaders emerged victorious. Confronted with defeat, the Centre accepted the establishment of the state of Maharashtra on May 1, 1960, with Mumbai serving as its capital.