POLITICS IN INDIAN TRADE UNION MOVEMENT 5 some of them also thought of forming a separate political party on the model of the British Labour Party. As they did not realize that circumstances which gave birth to the British Labour Party did not obtain in a colonial country like India, they failed to achieve their objective. But they genuinely believed that conditions of the Indian worker could definitely be improved through constitutional means—appropriate labour legislation at home and putting pressure on the government through the newly set up 1 L 0. Naturally, the line of demarcation between these two groups was very thin, because though known as social workers or philanthropists, most of the leaders belonging to the first group also held political views which were very close to the line of political thinking of the Moderates. Thus, sharing as he did Annie Besant's political view ('Home Rule'), Wadia was also the Assistant Editor of her newspaper, New India. So he cannot strictly be called a non-political social worker. Similarly, though not actually connected with politics, Andrews's close association and collaboration with Gandhi, particularly in trade union activities, make it difficult to identify him only as a Christian philanthropist. Being basically constitutionalists in their outlook, these leaders tried to conduct their union activities accordingly. Both these groups, therefore, discouraged militant working class actions, including strikes. If on some occasions they had to lead a strike, that was because events forced them to do so. They wanted however to settle matters through negotiations with the employers whenever possible, with the least possible impact on the existing socio-political set-up. Lack of Common Ideology c) A SECTION OF CONGRESS LEADERS (Jawaharlal Nehru, C R Das, Lala Lajpat Rai, Subhas Bose). They belonged to the 'left' of the anti-imperialist movement, and lent their support to the workers' movement with a view to drawing the latter into the fold of their political movement. (Some extremists like Nani Gopal Mukherjee of the Jamshedpur Laboilr Association also actively participated in organizing workers during this period). It is to be remembered that these leaders did not participate in trade union activities in their individual capacities only. The Congress itself was keen to organize labour for the same purpose. Thus at its 31st session (Amritsar, 1919), the following resolution was passed: "This Congress urges its Provincial Committees and other affiliated associations to promote labour unions throughout the country with