Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh

The BMS itself claims to have more than 10 million members. According to provisional statistics from the Ministry of Labour, the BMS had a membership of 6,215,797 in 2002. The BMS protested against the neoliberal policies of the Narasimha Rao Government, the Deve Gowda Government, and the Gujral Government. During the tenure of the NDA Government also which had “friends” of BMS in it, BMS had to oppose the anti-labour policies. During the second Modi Government, it called for a nationwide movement on 10 June 2020 to protest against the privatisation of public-sector undertakings (PSUs).

History

The BMS has its origins in the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS), which established its labour wing at its all-India session in Jodhpur in January 1955. In July 1955, its founding conference formally declared it to be the labour front of the Jan Sangh. Subsequently it credited its formation to RSS instead. It was considered to be a reaction to the organizations with leftist ideologies as well as with "imported ideologies such as communism and capitalism" that dominated post-independent India

For the first 12 years it functioned without a formal organizational structure. But it continued to establish state units and trained cadre of young workers. In 1967, a national executive was elected for the first time.

The Sino-Indian War of 1962 lent momentum to the anti-communist messaging and the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war further benefited their politics. This provided an indirect boost to both Jan Sangh and BMS.

In 1974, BMS joined the all-India general strike to support Jayaprakash Narayan's movement against the Indira Gandhi government. BMS General Secretary Dattopant Thengdi resigned the union post to serve as secretary of Narayan's Lok Sangharsh Samiti. Many BMS functionaries with RSS links were jailed, following a ban on RSS. Although it was a setback at that time, it generated a larger base for the organization in subsequent years.