The strike that shocked India

Witness History

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals, History

4.5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

When one and a half million Indian railway workers went on strike for 20 days in 1974 it brought the country to a halt. Essential food, goods and workers were unable to reach their destinations. Despite this, the general public were largely sympathetic to the strike as they too felt a sense of anger at the government over the economy and allegations of corruption. Claire Bowes has been talking to union leader Subhash Malgi about why the government attempt to prevent the action with mass arrests and harassment backfired and to author Stephen Sherlock about how it became - what was at the time - the biggest strike in history and led to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's declaration the following year of a national state of emergency.

Photo: Train from Darjeeling to Siliguri 1970. Credit: Paolo KOCH/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.
0:29.2	Hello and thanks for downloading witness history on the BBC World Service with me Claire Bose.
0:42.1	Today we go back to 1974 and the largest ever industrial action in the world
0:49.0	when one and a half million railway workers went on strike in India. The following year the
0:56.2	Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a national state of emergency,
1:01.3	effectively a police state.
1:05.0	The rail strike was in fact,
1:10.0	The rail strike was in fact forced on as by Mrs. Gandhi.
1:12.0	I then called it as a dress rehearsal for a fascist
1:14.8	to take over of our country. A fascist takeover of the country. George Fernandez was no
1:21.1	fan of Mrs. Gandhi. He led the first ever nationwide strike on the
1:26.4	railways in India's history. This industrial action was one of several triggers
1:32.2	which prompted Indira Gandhi's suspension of democratic and civil rights.
1:37.0	We thought the country was racing towards anarchy and chaos and somehow it had to be stuck.
1:42.0	That was the major consideration.
	...

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