Who was the first general secretary of the Congress Socialist Party formed in 1934?
- A.Acharya Narendra Deva
- B.Jayaprakash Narayan
- C.Ram Manohar Lohia
- D.Minoo Masani
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Jayaprakash Narayan. The Congress Socialist Party was formed in 1934 as a group within the Indian National Congress to push it towards socialism, and Jayaprakash Narayan became its first general secretary. Option A is wrong only in the office named, because Acharya Narendra Deva was the first president of the party, and the examiner relies on candidates swapping the two posts. Option C is wrong because Ram Manohar Lohia, although a founder member and a leading thinker of the group, held charge of its foreign affairs work rather than the office of general secretary at its formation. Option D is wrong because Minoo Masani was also a founder member but is remembered later as a founder of the Swatantra Party in 1959. Note the year 1934, the same year in which the Communist Party was banned.
Read the full article: Trade Unions and the Left Movement in British India: Notes
Practice Questions
View allWho among the following was NOT associated with the Kanpur Conspiracy Case of 1924?
- A.Muzaffar Ahmed
- B.Nalini Gupta
- C.Shaukat Usmani
- D.M.A. Ansari
Show answer
Ansari. Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari was a physician and a Congress leader who presided over the Madras session of the Congress in 1927; he had nothing to do with the communist prosecutions and was never an accused in the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case.
Read the full explanation →The Bombay Mill-Hands Association, regarded as the first labour association in India, was founded in 1884 by
- A.Narayan Meghaji Lokhande
- B.Sasipada Banerjee
- C.B. P. Wadia
- D.Dewan Chaman Lall
Show answer
A follower of Jyotiba Phule and the editor of the Marathi paper Dinbandhu, Lokhande organised the Bombay mill workers in 1884 and placed their demands for shorter hours and a weekly holiday before the Factory Commission, which is why the body is called the first labour association in India.
Read the full explanation →The Madras Labour Union, considered the first trade union of India, was founded in 1918 by
- A.Singaravelu Chettiar
- B.B. P. Wadia
- C.N. M. Joshi
- D.S. A. Dange
Show answer
Bahman Pestonji Wadia, a theosophist associated with Annie Besant, organised the workers of the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills at Madras in 1918 into the Madras Labour Union, the first body in India with members, subscriptions and office bearers, and therefore the first trade union in the modern sense.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first president of the All India Trade Union Congress, founded in 1920?
- A.Dewan Chaman Lall
- B.Joseph Baptista
- C.Lala Lajpat Rai
- D.V. V. Giri
Show answer
The All India Trade Union Congress was founded at Bombay on 31 October 1920 and Lala Lajpat Rai, the Punjab Congress leader, took the chair as its first president, linking the labour cause to the national movement.
Read the full explanation →The Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association, known as the Majoor Mahajan Sangh and founded in 1920, grew out of a strike led by
- A.Mahatma Gandhi
- B.Vallabhbhai Patel
- C.Indulal Yagnik
- D.Lala Lajpat Rai
Show answer
In 1918 Gandhi led the Ahmedabad mill workers in their demand for a wage rise and undertook his first fast as a weapon in an industrial dispute; out of that struggle grew the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association in 1920, which stood for arbitration between workers and owners rather than class…
Read the full explanation →