| Popis: |
The period 1905–10 has been so far conventionally accepted as the Swadeshi and Boycott period and the first phase of revolutionary extremism, while it sometimes figures as a period constituting a prehistory of labour movements, popular politics, and communalism. This chapter investigates the relatively less studied telegraph strike of 1908. This strike occurred simultaneously in Rangoon, Moulmein, Calcutta, Allahabad, Agra, Bombay and Karachi. Both telegraph signallers and subordinate staff went on strike in these places. The strike was underway when the first revolutionary extremists were arrested in Calcutta. The entire focus of the government and the India Office in London was on this anarchist threat. Through a study of the information panic that ensued, this chapter examines these two events to argue for particular, though not necessarily co-ordinated, investments by different sections of the state and media in the construction of a narrative of events. |
