In 1948, when independent India was a year old, its workers had two big national trade union federations – one drifting towards the Communists, one tied to the Congress. A third group, led by socialists and independents, decided workers needed a home that belonged to no party at all. The result was the Hind Mazdoor Sabha, founded in the last week of December 1948. This article tells that story and the longer labour-movement history that made a third federation necessary.
By 1948, India’s labour movement already had two big trade union federations, each tied closely to a political party. A third group of socialists, Forward Bloc followers, and independents decided the workers needed a home that wasn’t tied to either.
MCQquestion.comModHist0351 · Modern Indian History
A Third Union Federation
The founding of the Hind Mazdoor Sabha, December 1948
Before 1948
Two federations already exist
The All-India Trade Union Congress and the Indian National Trade Union Congress each carry close party ties.
24–26 Dec 1948
A trade union conference convenes
Over 600 union leaders, representing 427 unions and 600,000 workers, meet in Calcutta.
29 Dec 1948
The Hind Mazdoor Sabha is founded
Founded at Howrah by socialists, Forward Bloc followers, and independent unionists, including Ashok Mehta, T.S. Ramanujam, and G.G. Mehta.
Leadership
Ruikar president, Mehta secretary
R.S. Ruikar becomes president and Ashok Mehta general secretary of the new federation.
A federation, not a party wing
The Hind Mazdoor Sabha’s founders deliberately chose to organise workers separately from Congress and Communist Party structures alike.
Must Know
Why Workers Organized: 1918-1920
- MechanismRapid industrialisation after 1850 – cotton mills, jute mills, railways, mines – created a wage-labour class, and the First World War (1914-18) pushed prices up faster than wages, giving workers a concrete grievance.
- WhyWorkers could not bargain alone: the employer held all the cards, so the only route to shorter hours, better pay and safety was collective action – forming a union.
- HowThe first wave came in 1918: the Madras Labour Union (B.P. Wadia) and the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association (Gandhi and Anusuyabehn Sarabhai) showed that strikes and negotiation could win.
- In practiceBy 1920 the movement went national: the All-India Trade Union Congress was founded in Bombay in October 1920, bringing local unions under one federation.
- ResultTrade unionism was now a permanent feature of Indian politics – the ground on which HMS would later be built.
The All-India Trade Union Congress (1920)
- StoryThe AITUC, India’s first national trade union federation, was founded in Bombay on 31 October 1920 with Lala Lajpat Rai as president and Dewan Chaman Lal as general secretary.
- WhyNational federations mattered because strikes and wage disputes crossed local boundaries: a federation could coordinate, raise funds and speak to the government with one voice.
- HowN.M. Joshi, a Gokhale-follower, was a key founder and later represented Indian workers at the International Labour Organization – making the AITUC the voice of labour abroad too.
- InsteadThe AITUC began as a broad platform of moderates, nationalists and communists – but that internal mix would tear it apart within a decade.
- TakeawayThe 1920 founding date and its founders are exam favourites: Lajpat Rai (president), Chaman Lal (secretary), N.M. Joshi (organizer).
Why a Third Federation
- StoryBy 1948 Indian labour had two national federations: the AITUC, increasingly under communist leadership, and the INTUC, created by the Congress in 1947.
- WhySocialists, Forward Bloc followers and independent unionists did not want workers’ organizations to be wings of any party – they wanted trade unionism with its own logic.
- HowThe Congress Socialist Party leaders had been working inside the AITUC, but after 1947 the communist and Congress blocs each claimed the workers; a third space had to be built.
- In practiceThe new federation gathered the Indian Federation of Labour, the Hind Mazdoor Panchayat and unaffiliated unions – a coalition of the non-party left.
- ResultThat coalition became the Hind Mazdoor Sabha – India’s third national labour federation.
The Founding Conference, December 1948
- StoryA trade union conference met in Calcutta from 24 to 26 December 1948, drawing over 600 leaders representing 427 unions and about 600,000 workers.
- HowOn 29 December 1948 the new federation was formally founded at Howrah, West Bengal – hence the name Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS).
- WhyCalcutta was chosen because the jute-mill and engineering workers of Bengal were the most organized and most split between party blocs – the right place to launch an independent federation.
- In practiceThe founding merged the Indian Federation of Labour and the Hind Mazdoor Panchayat, plus socialist-led unions from across the country.
- TakeawayThe dates matter for exams: conference 24-26 December 1948, formal founding 29 December 1948 at Howrah.
The Founders and First Leadership
- StoryR.S. Ruikar was elected the first president of the HMS and Ashok Mehta its first general secretary.
- WhoThe wider founding group included T.S. Ramanujam, G.G. Mehta, Basawon Singh, Maniben Kara, Sibnath Banerjee, R.A. Khedgikar and V.S. Mathur.
- WhyThe founders were drawn from the Congress Socialist Party, the Forward Bloc and independent unions – precisely the groups that had refused to line up behind Congress or Communist labour politics.
- HowAshok Mehta, a socialist who had left the Congress, later entered government as a minister – but the HMS he helped build kept its independent trade-union identity.
- ResultThe leadership mix explains the HMS’s character: socialist in politics, non-party in organization.
Good to Know
INTUC: The Congress Federation (1947)
- StoryThe Indian National Trade Union Congress was founded in May 1947 with the backing of the Congress and Sardar Patel, as the Congress wing of the labour movement.
- WhyCongress wanted its own labour federation after the AITUC came under communist control – a party-aligned union to counter communist influence among workers.
- HowINTUC’s first president was Harihar Nath Shastri (a Congress labour leader) and it drew on Gandhi’s and Ahmedabad’s model of peaceful, arbitration-minded trade unionism.
- InsteadWhere AITUC used strikes as class struggle, INTUC preferred negotiation and conciliation – the ideological fault line that made a socialist third federation necessary.
- ResultBy 1948 the INTUC and AITUC each claimed the workers; the HMS was founded to be a third, party-free path.
The Communist Turn in the AITUC (1928-1931)
- MechanismThrough the 1920s communists won control of major unions – the Girni Kamgar Union in Bombay (1928-29 textile strike), railways, jute – and by 1928-29 they dominated the AITUC.
- WhyTheir line was revolutionary: the national movement led by Gandhi was ‘bourgeois’, and workers should fight for class victory, not join Congress agitations.
- HowThe British struck back with the Meerut Conspiracy Case (1929), jailing communist leaders; moderates led by N.M. Joshi left to form the Indian Trade Union Federation the same year.
- ResultIn 1931 the communists themselves seceded from the AITUC and formed the Red Trade Union Congress – the split that permanently divided Indian labour along party lines.
- In practiceThis 1928-31 history is exactly what CDS tested: the communists left the AITUC in 1931 because, by 1928, they had broken with the mainstream national movement.
The Legal Framework: Trade Unions Act 1926
- MechanismThe Indian Trade Unions Act, 1926 gave unions legal registration and, crucially, immunity from civil and criminal liability for legitimate trade-union activity.
- WhyBefore the Act, union organizers could be sued for conspiracy or prosecuted for ‘intimidation’ – the Act made strikes and picketing legal when conducted within its rules.
- HowRegistration required a constitution, a majority of office-bearers being actual workers, and audited accounts – trade-offs that made unions accountable in return for protection.
- In practiceThe 1926 Act was the legal floor on which AITUC, INTUC and later the HMS operated – the framework every federation had to work within.
- ResultLabour law after 1947 – the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 and the new labour codes – builds on this 1926 foundation.
Key Labour Struggles of the 1920s
- StoryThe 1920s saw labour’s great early battles: the Ahmedabad mill strikes led by Gandhi and Anusuyabehn Sarabhai (1918-19), the Bombay textile strike of 1928-29 led by the communist Girni Kamgar Union, and jute-mill struggles in Bengal.
- HowWomen were central: Maniben Kara, Ushabai Dange and Anasuya Behn organised and led workers in these strikes – a fact exams check directly.
- WhyThese struggles built the cadres, the unions and the confidence that later federations like the HMS inherited.
- InsteadAhmedabad’s path (arbitration, Gandhi) and Bombay’s path (communist-led confrontation) were the two models – and the HMS would sit closer to the first while refusing both parties.
- ResultBy 1947 there were hundreds of registered unions – enough to sustain three national federations.
✅ Test Yourself
Work through a 5-question chain on the Hind Mazdoor Sabha (1948), then keep practising with a random Indian Polity question.
Great to Know
The Socialist-Congress-Communist Triangle in Labour
- MechanismIndian labour after 1920 was shaped by three ideological poles: Congress nationalism (INTUC), communist class struggle (AITUC) and socialist ‘party-free’ trade unionism (HMS).
- WhyEach pole had its own answer to the basic question – should unions serve a party’s political project or the workers’ independent interest? – and the answer dictated alliances.
- HowThe late 1930s briefly united the left (the ‘trade union unity’ phase around the 1938 Congress-allied coordination), but the war and Partition re-split it along party lines.
- In practiceThe 1948 HMS founding was the socialists’ formal answer: independent organization, socialist politics, no party control.
- So whatEvery later split in Indian labour – UTUC (1949), CITU (1970), BMS (1955) – repeats this pattern of party-aligned federations.
UTUC and the 1949 Breakaway
- StoryWithin months of the HMS’s founding, a radical wing – revolutionaries who thought the HMS too moderate – left to form the United Trades Union Congress (UTUC) in 1949.
- WhyThe split repeated the movement’s oldest pattern: any federation that includes several party currents sooner or later sheds its extremes.
- HowUTUC drew on revolutionary nationalists and left the HMS’s socialist mainstream, creating a fourth national centre within a year of the third.
- InsteadThe HMS founders had hoped to unite all non-party workers; the UTUC break showed how hard that unity was to hold.
- ResultBy 1950 India had four national federations – INTUC, AITUC, HMS and UTUC – each with its own political colour.
Labour’s Place in the New Republic
- So whatThe Constitution made labour a fundamental right: Article 19(1)(c) guarantees the right to form associations and unions, and Article 43 (a Directive Principle) asks the State to secure a living wage and decent conditions.
- WhyThe 19th-century worker had no legal voice; after 1950 every worker’s union had constitutional protection – the legal end-point of the 1918-1920 organizing wave.
- HowStatute filled in the details: the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 for conciliation and adjudication, the Factories Act and later the Minimum Wages Act for conditions.
- In practiceThe HMS operated inside this framework: registered under the 1926 Act, contesting wage boards and labour courts, affiliating internationally with the ICFTU (1949).
- ResultLabour moved from strike-politics to institutional politics – bargaining, adjudication and legislation.
HMS’s Programme and Style
- MechanismThe HMS combined three instruments: collective bargaining for wages and conditions, welfare work (education, cooperatives, housing) for workers’ families, and political pressure – without party membership being compulsory.
- WhyIts founders believed unions should be democratic, open and independent: the worker’s interest, not the party’s, should set the agenda.
- HowInternationally it affiliated to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in 1949, the western, non-communist labour international – a deliberate contrast with the AITUC’s communist links.
- In practiceOver the decades HMS leaders served in governments and wage boards while the federation stayed formally non-party.
- ResultThis style – socialist leaning, institutionally independent – is the HMS’s lasting identity.
Where HMS Stands Today
- StoryToday the HMS remains one of India’s principal central labour organizations, recognized alongside INTUC, AITUC, CITU and BMS in tripartite wage and labour bodies.
- WhyIts survival matters because the 1948 founding principle – a workers’ federation independent of party control – is still the exception in Indian labour, where party-linked federations dominate.
- HowIt organises across sectors – engineering, textiles, plantations, transport, services – and continues to press workers’ claims in the era of labour-code reforms.
- In practiceWhen you see a federation name in a strike or a wage-board dispute, recognizing its 1948 lineage (AITUC-communist, INTUC-Congress, HMS-socialist, CITU-CPI(M), BMS-RSS) explains its stand.
- So whatThe founding of the HMS in December 1948 is not just history – it set the pattern of India’s labour politics that still operates today.
PYQ / Exam Angle
UPSC CSP 2018: Founders of the HMS
- QuestionUPSC asked who founded the Hind Mazdoor Sabha established in 1948 – Ashok Mehta, T.S. Ramanujam and G.G. Mehta.
- WhyThe question tests the exact founders and the federation’s socialist, non-party character – the single most-repeated exam point about the HMS.
- LinkSource: UPSC CSP 2018, GS Paper I (see Q70).
CDS (II) 2020: Who Created the AITUC
- QuestionCDS asked who created the first All India Trade Union Congress in 1920 – N.M. Joshi.
- WhyThe trap is party loyalty: Wadia founded the Madras Labour Union, Dange and Ranadive were communists – only Joshi belongs to the 1920 founding generation of the AITUC.
- LinkSource: CDS (II) 2020, General Knowledge (see Q16).
CDS (II) 2020: India’s First Trade Union
- QuestionCDS asked which was India’s first trade union in the proper sense – the Madras Labour Union.
- WhyThe qualifying phrase ‘proper sense’ points to B.P. Wadia’s Madras Labour Union (1918) – a continuous, dues-paying union – rather than earlier benevolent societies.
- LinkSource: CDS (II) 2020, General Knowledge (see Q17).
CDS (I) 2022: Gandhi’s Early Struggles Chronology
- QuestionCDS asked the chronological order of Champaran, the Ahmedabad Mill Strike, the Satyagraha Sabha and Jallianwala Bagh.
- WhyThe order is 1917 (Champaran) to 1918 (Ahmedabad mill strike, Gandhi’s first labour battle) to February 1919 (Satyagraha Sabha) to April 1919 (Jallianwala) – a favourite Gandhi-timeline test.
- LinkSource: CDS (I) 2022, General Knowledge (see Q69).
CDS (II) 2022: Women Labour Leaders
- QuestionCDS asked which of four names was NOT a woman labour leader of the 1920s – Sarala Devi Chaudhurani.
- WhyThe genuine labour leaders are Anasuya Behn (Ahmedabad), Ushabai Dange (Bombay) and Prabhabati Devi (jute workers); Sarala Devi Chaudhurani was a Bengal writer-educationist, not a strike organizer.
- LinkSource: CDS (II) 2022, General Knowledge (see Q116).
CDS (II) 2017: The Communist Walkout
- QuestionCDS asked whether the communists left the AITUC in 1931 and whether, by 1928, they had broken with the mainstream national movement.
- WhyBoth statements are true, and the second explains the first: the communists’ revolutionary break with the national movement is why they quit the AITUC and formed the Red Trade Union Congress.
- LinkSource: CDS (II) 2017, General Knowledge (see Q35).
Current Affairs / So What
The Labour Codes: Reforming the 1926 Framework
- DevelopmentIn 2020 Parliament replaced 29 labour laws with four codes – wages, industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety – the biggest overhaul since the 1926 Act.
- Why it mattersThe Industrial Relations Code changes how unions are recognised and how strikes can be called, while the wages code universalises minimum-wage coverage – directly reshaping the rules HMS and other federations work under.
- So whatState rules are still rolling out through 2025-26, and unions continue to contest details – the 1948 question of who represents workers and on what terms is being re-argued today.
Gig Workers and the Social Security Code
- DevelopmentIn 2025 the Supreme Court (Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers v. Union of India) directed the Centre to stop delaying gig-worker welfare under the Social Security Code, and states like Karnataka and Rajasthan are legislating for platform workers.
- Why it mattersPlatform workers – delivery riders, cab drivers – fall outside the classic trade-union and industrial-disputes framework the 1920s movement built, so their rights need new law.
- So whatThe question the 1918 pioneers first asked – who is a worker and what power does she have – is being answered again, a century later, for the gig economy.
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