While delivering a speech in Dumka, Jharkhand, on Tuesday, 28 May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a remark about how a Jharkhand district attempted to change the weekly holiday from Sunday to Friday.
He further claimed that the British colonisers and people of the Christian faith were responsible for bringing Sunday as a holiday in India.
"In our country, there is a holiday on Sunday. When the British used to rule here, the Christian community used to celebrate the holiday (on Sunday), this tradition started from that time. Sunday is not associated with Hindus, it is associated with the Christian community. This has been going on for the last 200-300 years. Now, they (Jharkhand) in one of the districts, stopped Sunday as an official holiday and declared Friday to be the official holiday. Now, a fight started with the Christians too. First they fought with the Hindus community and now the Christians. What is going on."
You can listen to this part at the 34:55 timestamp in this video shared by the official YouTube account of PM Modi.
But is this true?: No. In India, Sundays were declared a holiday for all labourers in 1890 by the Bombay Mill Hands Association following the efforts of social reformer and activist Narayan Meghaji Lokhande.
Time travel: When Was Sunday Declared as a Holiday?
He introduced the first civil legislation concerning Sunday in AD 321 where he declared that no work happen on a Sunday (except farming) and this day could be dedicated to worshiping the Sun and attending the church.
Thus, Sunday was termed as the day of the Sun and God.
History Lessons from Indian History
Lokhande, a social reformer and an activist born in Pune district of Maharashtra, was acclaimed as 'Father of the Trade Union Movement in India'.
He took over the management of the Marathi-language newspaper Deenbandhu from 1880 onwards after quitting his job in a cotton mill in Mumbai.
Following this, he founded Millhands' Association and later started the first labour association in India called as the Bombay Mill Hands Association.
Along with others, he took part in the fight to establish rights and bring justice to the peasants, labourers and the workers.
He noticed that the Britishers made the mill workers work seven days a week and demanded a change. He started campaigning in 1884 for Sunday to be declared as holiday.
We found a journal article, 'Narayan Meghaji Lokhande: The Father of Trade Union Movement in India' by Nalini Pandit, published in 1997.
It mentioned that finally in 1890, after 10,000 workers protested, the Mill Owners Association gave in and declared Sunday as the holiday for the workers.
Not only this but the association, under Lokhande's efforts, also brought in several other changes including:
Mill workers would get a weekly holiday on Sunday.
Workers would be entitled to half-hour recess in the afternoon.
The mill will start working from 6:30 AM and close by sunset.
The salaries of the workers will be given by the 15th of every month.
NM Lokhande Maharashtra Institute of Labour Studies was established on 7 July 1947 by Guljarilal Nanda, former Acting Prime Minister of India and Labour Minister of the Bombay Province.
The official website of this college also mentions the same information about Sunday being declared as a holiday in 1890.
In fact, the Hindu calendar also starts on Sunday (Ravivāra) and it is marked as the day of the Solar deity (Surya Devta), as per the Hindu tradition. It is believed that worshiping him on this day would bring peace and prosperity in life.
What Do Experts Say?
We also spoke to historian Dr Ruchika Sharma about this matter, who stated that this idea of having a "day of not doing any work" surely has a Christian and Jewish angle to it.
"But associating Sunday as a holiday with communities like these is a very myopic view. Now, post-industrialisation, it is very important to have Sunday as a holiday and it is actually a right that workers have actually demanded and won after days of struggle. Even leaders like former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru were pro-holidays as any workers' right," she adds.
"You can't say that the Christian community has given us Sunday as holiday because they don't own the idea of this. Many people now have holidays on Saturdays as well. And such claims do disservice to years of workers' struggle and their fight for their rights," she adds.
Dr Maya John, Labour Historian, told The Quint that it is unfortunate that the Sunday weekly holiday is being given a communal colour, for which Indian workers have fought tooth and nail.
"The ruling elites should instead concentrate on the denial of weekly holidays to majority of Indian workers, which has become a very rampant practice. Further, most of the workers in this country are denied paid weekly holidays by the Labour Department's miscalculation of the monthly minimum wage as per 26 days rather than on the basis of 30 days," she adds.
Rejimon Kuttappan, a labour rights researcher and ILO fellow on labour migration explains how the practice of having a Sunday off was not initially followed in India until Lokhande fought for it.
"Lokhande spearheaded an agitation against mill owners, demanding fair wages, a healthy working environment, and the protection of labor rights and liberties. He was a Dalit, and if Indian workers enjoy any rights today, it is largely due to the efforts of Dalit leaders like Lokhande and Dr BR Ambedkar, " he adds.
We also found a document titled, "Evolution of Trade Unions in India" by VV Giri National Labour Institute and it also mentioned that a memorandum demanding a weekly holiday on Sundat was accepted by Bombay Millowner’s Association on 10 June 1890.
We also reached out to Akash Bhattacharya, Political Activist, All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) who clarified that the claim made by PM Modi is false.
He further specifies that having Sunday as a holiday is not solely based on the Christian system and Indians went with the same weekly off because Sunday is considered sacred in many South Asian cultures as well. "In Hindu traditions, Sunday day is associated with the Sun God," he adds.
Bhattacharya says, "Importantly, the region to which Lokhande belonged was an important site of the Khandoba cult. Widely popular in Maharashtra and Karnataka, they considered Sunday as a sacred day and an opportune day for worshipping Khandoba. Thus even in religious terms, the sacrality of Sunday extends far beyond Christianity and is shared by popular Indian religious traditions."
So clearly, PM Modi's claim where he associated Sunday holiday only with Christianity is misleading.
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