Janab A.M.A. Zaman was an Indian politician and trade unionist. As of 1936 he served as councillor in the Calcutta Municipal Corporation.[1] He won the Hooghly labour seat in the 1936–1937 Bengal Legislative Assembly election.[2] At the time he belonged to the Congress Socialist Party, but he was known for shifting party affiliations frequently.[2]
A.M.A. Zaman was involved in different trade unions. He was a leader of Jute mill workers during the struggle for independence.[3] Whereas many other leaders hailed from the bhadralok, upper classes, A.M.A. Zaman hailed from a working-class background and had been a jute mill worker himself.[4] In the midst of the 1936–1937 labour unrest he founded a jute mill workers union, which was registered in 1936.[5] In July 1937 A.M.A. Zaman was convicted of rioting at a strike in the Wellington Jute Mills in Rishra, but thousands of Hooghly workers turned to the streets to demand his release.[5] A.M.A. Zaman was one of the key speakers of the mass labour rally in Calcutta of 29 July 1937.[6] In December 1937 he was elected general secretary of the Bengal Provincial Trade Union Congress.[2] However, his influence in Hooghly decreased as sardars and babus disseminated a rumour that he had taken a bribe from mill management.[7]
A.M.A. Zaman left the CSP in 1939, after which the party ceased to be influential in Hooghly District.[8] He belonged to the grouping that opposed Indrajit Gupta's influence in the BPTUC.[9]
A.M.A. Zaman was re-elected from the Hooghly-cum-Serampore Registered Factories, Labour seat in the Bengal Legislative Assembly in the 1946 election.[10] He belonged to the Indian National Congress during this period.[11]
After Independence, A.M.A. Zaman won the Jalangi constituency seat of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly in the 1951 election as an Indian National Congress candidate.[12][13] As of 1956 he served as Parliamentary Secretary for the Labour Department.[14]
He was the founding president of the Shiva Glass Employees Union during his tenure as legislator.[15]
References
edit- ^ Calcutta Municipal Gazette. Vol. 24. Office of the Registrar of Newspapers. Press in India. 1936. p. 533.
- ^ a b c Nirban Basu (1 January 1992). The Political Parties and the Labour Politics, 1937–47: With Special Reference to Bengal. Minerva Associates (Publications). pp. 29, 79, 145. ISBN 978-81-85195-48-3.
- ^ Hasan, Mushirul; Bhattacharya, Sabyasachi; Indian Council of Historical Research (2008). Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India 1939. Oxford University Press. p. 1051. ISBN 978-0-19-569651-6.
- ^ Anthony Cox (2 April 2013). Empire, Industry and Class: The Imperial Nexus of Jute, 1840–1940. Routledge. p. 227. ISBN 978-1-135-12730-5.
- ^ a b Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000). Rethinking Working-class History: Bengal, 1890–1940. Princeton University Press. pp. 129, 139. ISBN 0-691-07030-X.
- ^ Pranab Kumar Chatterjee (1991). Struggle and Strife in Urban Bengal, 1937–47: A Study of Calcutta-based Urban Politics in Bengal. Das Gupta & Company. p. 52.
- ^ Arjan de Haan (1994). Unsettled settlers: migrant workers and industrial capitalism in Calcutta. Uitgeverij Verloren. p. 170. ISBN 90-6550-418-4.
- ^ Nirban Basu (1994). The working class movement: a study of jute mills of Bengal, 1937–47. K.P. Bagchi & Co. p. 258. ISBN 978-81-7074-148-0.
- ^ Rakesh Batabyal (1 May 2005). Communalism in Bengal: From Famine To Noakhali, 1943–47. SAGE Publications. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-7619-3335-9.
- ^ Gautam Chattopadhyay (1984). Bengal Electoral Politics and Freedom Struggle, 1862–1947. Indian Council of Historical Research. p. 232.
- ^ Bimal J. Dev; Dilip Kumar Lahiri (1985). Assam Muslims: Politics & Cohesion. Mittal Publications. p. 102. GGKEY:0HUQDGDS59Y.
- ^ "General Elections, India, 1951, to the Legislative Assembly of West Bengal" (PDF). Constituency-wise Data. Election Commission. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
- ^ Communist Party of India (Marxist). West Bengal State Committee. Election results of West Bengal: statistics & analysis, 1952–1991. The Committee. p. 422.
- ^ West Bengal (India). Legislature. Legislative Assembly (3 July 1956). Assembly Proceedings: official report. West Bengal Government Press. p. ii.
- ^ India. Supreme Court (1950). Supreme Court Labour Judgments, 1950–1976: Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (Contd.) to Industrial Disputes (Punjab Amendment) Act. 1957. Law Publishing House. p. 2834.