UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 144 of 150

Correct — B, A-4, B-1, C-3, D-2. Say plainly at the outset what is wrong with this item: the commission's key pairs the United Trade Union Congress with the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and that pairing is factually incorrect. The CPI(M)'s trade-union wing is the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), founded in 1970; the UTUC, founded on 1 May 1949 at an All India Labour Conference in Calcutta, is politically tied to the Revolutionary Socialist Party, and the separate splinter UTUC (Lenin Sarani) is associated with the SUCI(C). CITU does not appear in List-II and the RSP does not appear in List-II, so no option in this question can pair the UTUC correctly. That is why the keyed answer nevertheless stands, and it stands by elimination. Three pairings in this item are genuinely correct: the All India Trade Union Congress, founded in 1920 and the oldest trade-union centre in India, is the CPI's (D-2); the Indian National Trade Union Congress, founded in 1947, is the Congress's (B-1); and the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, founded on 23 July 1955 by Dattopant Thengadi, belongs to the Sangh Parivar and is the labour organisation in the BJP's political family (A-4). Only option (b) gets those three right — (a) misassigns all three, (c) misassigns the BMS, and (d) misassigns all three — so (b) is the only selectable answer, with C-3 riding along as the residue the paper leaves you no way to fix. Learn the answer as the key gives it; learn the affiliation as UTUC-RSP and CITU-CPI(M).

• (a)A-3, B-2, C-1, D-4 — Wrong on every pairing that can be checked. It gives the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh to the CPI(M), the INTUC to the CPI, and the AITUC — the union centre the communists have run since 1920 — to the BJP. The last of these is impossible on dates alone, since the AITUC was founded in 1920 and the BJP in 1980.
• (c)A-2, B-4, C-3, D-1 — It matches the key on C-3 but breaks the two easiest pairs in the set. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, a Sangh Parivar body, is given to the Communist Party of India, and the INTUC — the Congress's own labour organisation, set up in 1947 — is handed to the BJP, while the AITUC is handed to the Congress. Any one of those is enough to reject it.
• (d)A-1, B-3, C-2, D-4 — A clean inversion of the political map. It makes the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh a Congress body, the INTUC a CPI(M) body and the AITUC a BJP body — three assignments that reverse the actual lineage of each union. The AITUC-BJP pairing again fails on chronology.

Indian trade unionism is organised into national centres, and almost every centre grew out of, or is aligned with, a political party — which is why 'party affiliation' is a testable fact rather than a matter of opinion. The All India Trade Union Congress, founded in 1920, is the oldest and became the Communist Party of India's arm. The Indian National Trade Union Congress was set up in 1947 as the Congress party's labour organisation. When the communist movement split in 1964, the CPI(M) built its own centre, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, founded in 1970. The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, founded on 23 July 1955 by Dattopant Thengadi, is the labour organisation of the Sangh Parivar — it is more precisely described as an RSS affiliate than a BJP one, since it predates the BJP (1980) by twenty-five years. The United Trade Union Congress, founded on 1 May 1949 at an All India Labour Conference in Calcutta, belongs to the Revolutionary Socialist Party.

Two things make this item hard in the wrong way. The first is the item's own defect: List-II offers four parties, one of which (the CPI(M)) has no union in List-I, while the union whose party is missing (UTUC-RSP) has to be given to somebody. A candidate who knows the subject well may reject the key's option on sight and lose the mark; the safe technique in a match-list question is therefore to score options by the pairs you are certain of and take the option that maximises them, rather than to insist that all four be right. The second is that the BMS-BJP pairing is loose but acceptable — the BMS is an RSS body, and the exam's shorthand treats the RSS and the BJP as one political family. Work the item in this order: AITUC to the CPI (the 1920 body), INTUC to the Congress (1947), BMS to the BJP side, and whatever is left to C. That order gets you to (b) without ever having to decide what the UTUC really is.

• The All India Trade Union Congress, founded in 1920, is India's oldest trade union centre and is affiliated to the Communist Party of India.
• The Indian National Trade Union Congress was founded in 1947 as the labour organisation of the Indian National Congress.
• The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh was founded on 23 July 1955 by Dattopant Thengadi; it is the labour wing of the RSS and functions within the BJP's political family, which it predates by twenty-five years.
• The United Trade Union Congress was founded on 1 May 1949 at an All India Labour Conference in Calcutta and is tied to the Revolutionary Socialist Party — not to the CPI(M), as this paper's key has it.
• The CPI(M)'s trade-union wing is the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), founded in 1970 after the 1964 split in the communist movement; CITU does not appear anywhere in this question.

• Assuming that every left-leaning union belongs to a communist party. The UTUC belongs to the Revolutionary Socialist Party, and its splinter UTUC (Lenin Sarani) to the SUCI(C).
• Forgetting that CITU, not UTUC, is the CPI(M)'s union — the single most repeated error in this area, and the error this paper's key itself makes.
• Reading the BMS as a creature of the BJP. It was founded in 1955 as an RSS affiliate, a quarter-century before the BJP existed, though examiners accept the BJP pairing.

UPPSC asks this as a four-item match with a code, or as a 'which pair is not correctly matched' item. UPSC prefers the colonial end of the story — the founding year of the AITUC, its first president, the Trade Unions Act 1926, the Trade Disputes Act 1929 — so revise both the founding dates and the present-day affiliations.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) is the trade-union organisation associated with

  • (a)the Communist Party of India
  • (b)the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
  • (c)the Revolutionary Socialist Party
  • (d)the Indian National Congress

  Answer(b) the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — CITU was formed in 1970 after the 1964 split, while the older AITUC stayed with the CPI.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is the oldest central trade union organisation in India?

  • (a)Indian National Trade Union Congress
  • (b)Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh
  • (c)All India Trade Union Congress
  • (d)Hind Mazdoor Sabha

  Answer(c) All India Trade Union Congress — founded in 1920, decades before the INTUC (1947), HMS (1948) and BMS (1955).