Yay, It's Sunday! But Do You Know Whom To Thank For Your Off? This Mumbai Mill Worker

News18

06-07-2025

Last Updated:
India's Sunday holiday tradition can be traced back to a 19th-century movement led by Mumbai mill worker leader Narayan Meghaji Lokhande.
If you spent your Sunday lounging in bed, grabbing brunch with friends or catching up on sleep, you have someone rather unexpected to thank — not a government, not a king, but a determined mill worker from 19th-century Bombay (now Mumbai).
An Instagram reel has sparked curiosity about the origins of the Sunday holiday in India — and surprisingly, it leads back to the fight of Narayan Meghaji Lokhande, a labour leader who once stood up for Bombay's mill workers. The reel, which blends history with storytelling, shares that while British officials in colonial India were granted Sundays off as early as 1843, most Indian workers were still expected to toil every day of the week.
That started to change in 1883. Lokhande began pushing for weekly offs for mill workers in Bombay. His request was rejected repeatedly — for seven years. But Lokhande did not give up. Eventually, his persistence paid off.
By 1890, Sunday came to be recognised as a weekly holiday for mill workers, and slowly, other businesses followed suit.
Today, most Indians enjoy Sundays off, a luxury that traces back to that very struggle — something the reel highlights in an engaging, visual manner. It's a slice of history few of us were taught in school. But now, with such informative posts online, these lesser-known facts are finally getting the attention they deserve.
Watch the video here:
What Off Day Means For Hindus, Jains And Buddhists
An opinion piece in the New Indian Express explains that the concept of a fixed weekly holiday like Sunday is largely borrowed from the West — particularly from Abrahamic religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam, each of which have specific weekly days of worship and rest.
In contrast, Indic traditions like Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism followed a different rhythm. The lunar calendar, rather than a rigid seven-day week, shaped people's schedules. Festivals lasted several days and often aligned with agricultural cycles, giving communities time to rest after intense periods of work. Days like Ekadashi (the 11th day of the lunar fortnight) were observed for fasting and prayer, but there was no universal day of rest observed by all.
As the New Indian Express piece notes, even Buddhism's Uposatha — a day of meditation and cleansing — wasn't fixed to Sundays. In fact, countries like Sri Lanka observed it only on full and new moon days, and in Southeast Asia, it became more regular but still didn't dominate social life the way Sunday does today.
The British introduced Sunday as a uniform day off in the 1840s, applying it across offices, factories, and educational institutions governed by their rules. Still, the average Indian worker remained unaffected by this change for decades. It wasn't until India's industrialisation picked up and new labour laws were enforced — such as the Factory Acts of 1881 and 1891 — that weekly offs became more formalised.
So next time on a Sunday, when you're sipping coffee and scrolling Instagram, spare a thought for Narayan Meghaji Lokhande — the man who turned a dream of rest into a right. And maybe, hit replay on that reel.
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