NAGPUR, Aug 11: A dingy, dilapidated concrete structure in a bylane off Kingsway at Mohan Nagar, near the Kasturchand Park, houses an old, rickety printing press.

Very few people know that the press, now lying in obscurity, has a glorious past, one that is closely associated with India's Freedom Movement. This was the press that printed Indian Labour Journal, a powerful anti-establishment journal that created ripples among the British rulers.

Founded during the peak of Freedom Movement, Indian Labour Journal was a weekly tabloid that stopped publication on the eve of Independence in 1947. Its founder-editor, the late G V Rahgavan managed to rattle the British with his telling commentaries in the column Epistles Brief and Frank

.Raghavan, who was initiated into politics by C Rajagopalachari, was one of the famous socialist leaders and freedom fighters of the region. Closely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jay Prakash Narayan and V V Giri, he served in the Bengal Nagpur Railways for three decades and initiated many welfare measures for the employees.

Most importantly, he was the founder vice-president of All India Railway Federation, of which JP was the president.

``The press always throbbed with life. There were 200-odd people employed here,'' recalls Rangachari, Raghavan's son who runs an advertising agency. Today there are hardly six people to run it and all it serves is to print some commercial matter.

Indian Labour Journal used to carry articles by veteran leaders of Independence Movement, including Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The articles were mainly aimed at the `comrades' working in the railways, which was the biggest employer at that time, says Rangachari. ``In those days there was no industry or organised labour.

The Tatas were the only industrial group and the Birlas were a trading group.''

The national leaders sought to unify the railway workers numbering lakhs and employed with the various railway companies of that time like the Bengal Nagpur railways, BBCI, Nizam State Railways and so on. ``There were no training institutes.

But the Indians ran the railways so efficiently that the British learnt within no time that the `natives' were more intelligent than their western counterparts,'' says Rangachari.

The formation of the All India Railway Federation was the first step towards organising this brilliant but scattered workforce which formed a substantial part of the mass movement.

It was easy to motivate the labourers as the British had rubbed them the wrong way with their snobbish attitude. ``For the same amount of work a white man got three times the salary as an Indian would get,'' says Rangachari.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.