Militancy Without Unity: Fragmented Solidarities and the Crisis of Trade Unionism in India Before Liberalisation

Why did India's trade unions-once capable of dramatic strikes and sustained shop‑floor mobilisation-prove so vulnerable under economic liberalisation? Militancy Without Unity argues that this paradox stemmed less from the 1990s reforms than from organisational weaknesses accumulated over preceding decades. Drawing on Baroda's labour movement, the book shows how party‑aligned federations, fragmented solidarities rooted in caste, community, and neighbourhood, and stratified leadership repeatedly undermined collective power, producing militancy without durable unity. Using archival research, field interviews, a rare activist survey, quantitative analysis, and a major pharmaceutical strike case study, the book examines mobilisation as a dynamic process shaped by grievance, polarisation, leadership, and shifting alliances. It develops an original fourfold typology of trade‑union leadership-outsider Bosses and Deputies, insider Prominents and Non‑Prominents-and demonstrates how these strata shaped mobilisation, organisational cohesion, and collective action. Moving beyond Baroda, the book offers a broader sociological explanation of how leadership, solidarity, class consciousness, mobilisation, and institutional fragility interact in labour movements.Combining historical depth with sociological analysis, it provides fresh insight into why labour militancy repeatedly failed to generate durable organisational unity. The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of labour studies, especially trade unionism, development studies, politics, and South Asian studies.

About the Author

Pravin J. Patel is the former Vice-Chancellor of Sardar Patel University and former Professor of Sociology at The M. S. University of Baroda. His research focuses on labour studies, industrial sociology, social movements, and political sociology. He has authored several books and numerous research articles.