Swaraj Party

• It was established as the Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party, was a political party formed in India on 1 January 1923 after the Gaya annual conference of INC  in December 1922.
• It sought greater self-government and political freedom for the Indian people from the British Raj.
• The two most important leaders were Chittaranjan Das, its president, and Motilal Nehru, its secretary.
• Many candidates of the Swaraj Party were elected to the central legislative assembly and provincial legislative council in the 1923 elections.
• As a result of the Bengal Partition, the Swaraj Party won the most seats during elections to the Bengal Legislative Council in 1923.
• The party disintegrated after the death of C. R. Das.

Swarajists

• After his release from prison in 1924, Gandhi sought to bring back the Swarajists to the Congress and re-unite the party.
• Gandhi's supporters were in a vast majority in the Congress, and the Congress still remained India's largest political party, but Gandhi felt it necessary to heal the divide with the Swarajists, so as to heal the nation's wounds over the 1922 suspension.
• The Swarajists sought more representation in the Congress offices, and an end to the mandatory requirement for Congressmen to spin khadi cloth and do social service as a prerequisite for office.
• This was opposed by Gandhi's supporters, men like Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad, who became known as the No Changers as opposed to the Swarajist Changers.
• Gandhi relaxed the rules on spinning and named some Swarajists to important positions in the Congress Party.
• He also encouraged the Congress to support those Swarajists elected to the councils, so as not to embarrass them and leave them rudderless before the British authorities.

Kanpur Bolshevik conspiracy case 1924

• In this case, newly emerged communists of India were trailed by the British for conspiring against the Government.
• Some newly turned communists named M N Roy, Muzaffar Ahamed, S A Dange, Shaukat Usmani, Nalini Gupta, Singaravelu Chettiar, Ghulam Hussain were caught by the Government and were trailed for conspiring against the Government.
• In this case, M N Roy was charged in absentia, so he was not arrested.
• Ghulam Hussain turned a British informer and was pardoned.
• Rest all people were arrested and sent to jail for 4 years.

Trade Unions in India

• In 1890 in Maharashtra, N.M. Lokhandey established the ‘Bombay Millhands’ Association’, and in 1898, he started publishing a journal entitled ‘Dinbandhu’ in Marathi.
• This was in the period just after the passing of the 'First' Factories Act in 1881 by the British Government of the time.
• The following years saw the formation of several labour associations and unions.
• The first clearly registered trade-union is considered to be the Madras Labour Union founded by B.P. Wadia in 1918, while the first trade union federation to be set up was the All India Trade Union Congress in 1920.

All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC)

• The most important development in the workers’ movement was the formation of All-India Trade Union Congress under the leadership of Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai.
• The formation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1919 acted as a catalyst for it.
• The members selected from AITUC represented the Indian Labour at the ILO.
• Lala Lajpat Rai became the first president of the AITUC and Joseph Baptista its vice president.
• In the beginning, the AITUC was influenced by social democratic ideas of the British Labour Party.
• The Gandhian philosophy of non-violence, trusteeship and class-collaboration had great influence on AITUC.