Port Workers’ Collective Action in Bengal under British Rule

Abstract

This study focuses on Calcutta, a major maritime trade and industrial labour center in Bengal under British colonial control, and its port workers’ collective action history. The enormous growth of colonial commerce in the 19th and 20th centuries made the port economy vital to the British imperial system. The construction of this economic infrastructure relied significantly on a vast workforce of dock labourers who worked irregularly, for low wages, and under exploitative conditions under contractor-based labour arrangements. From my perspective, structural inequities determined port workers’ daily experiences and progressively developed the conditions for labour consciousness and collective organization. The study examines how migrant workers from varied regional, linguistic, and social origins formed a single identity via occupational experiences, urban community life, and Calcutta docklands interaction. It examines how labour grievances, workplace conflicts, and politics shape dock worker solidarity. The article also examines how the colonial state and port authorities managed labour unrest while protecting colonial business through regulatory frameworks and administrative structures. This study argues that dock workers’ collective actions were an important part of working-class politics in late colonial Bengal by locating port labour struggles within colonial capitalism and urban social development. Their mobilization undermined the colonial port economy’s hierarchical labour arrangements and contributed to modern India’s labour movement and anti-colonial political participation.