Cross-Class Urban Politics and The Labour in Bengal
Keywords:
Urban Politics, Politics, Labour, BengalAbstract
Political machines are the strongest political force in most Indian urban centres. Political parties as a political mechanism played a vital role in the politics. In urban centres, due to the multi-cultural and multi-occupational composition of the population, particularly in the labour world, political parties set forth their dominant influence. Laboring class becomes an automatic and ultimate political consequences of the political parties.Being pushed out from their ancestral villages for the severe poverty to earn their minimum livelihood, pulled into the newly industrial set ups and though the workers’ nostalgia for village life persisted and continued their primordial character in their new industrial career, in initial stages, workers had their associations and meeting points in and around mills and its neighbor hood - gradually and finally, their associations as well as even their meetings-gatherings, their village-ties, their linguistic-ethnicity - all converted into the political motivations.[1]
My purpose is to focus on the aspects of the political culture and organizations of the working people presenting their discontents and movements at the national and regional context. In this background, I will try to throw light upon the politics of labour in the period between 1929 and 1959, the earlier was the year of first great general strike in colonial age, and the latter was the first great general strike in post-Independent period. In this regard, it is to be remembered that the most of the colonies were moving towards ‘constitutional decolonization’. From this perception, the labour rebellion regarding their various kinds of demand as well as outlooks gave the birth of so manylabour associations and also trade unions.
In this context, the labourers became the principle product in urban politicsin the days of anti-imperialist movements, and even in the post-Independence scenario, the political mechanism, it deserves to mention, usually formed a cross – class allianceaccording to the political compulsion.In cross-class relationship, I’ve tried to correlate the urban politics between two classes, in one hand the working class and on the other the capitalist class. No doubt, within the urban politics, the twin character of the political parties be observed. Because,cross – class alliance is a very necessary to political leaders not in the vortex of the political functionaries only, but the political machines necessary to govern successfully using government resources to broken a deal among the classes also.