Nationalism in India

[Link] did Nationalism emerge in India?

 The growth of modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anti colonial movement
 People began discovering their unity in the process of their struggle with colonialism.
 The sense of being oppressed under colonialism provided a shared bond that tied many
different groups together

[Link] implications did the First World War have on India?

 It led to a huge increase in defence expenditure which was financed by war loans and
increasing taxes.
 Customs duties were raised and income tax introduced
 Through the war years prices increased, doubling between 1913-1918 leading to extreme
hardship for the common people
 Villages were called upon to supply soldiers and forced recruitment took place in rural areas
 Crops failed in many parts of India, resulting in acute shortages of food
 This was accompanied by an influenza epidemic, According to the census of 1921, 12-13
million people perished as a result of famines and the epidemic

(Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in January 1915 after fighing the racist regime in South Africa.
He was leading the workers from Newcastle to Transvaal)

[Link] is Satyagraha, Where did Gandhi organise Satyagraha movements.

Satyagraha stood for Agitation of Truth, it suggested that if the cause was true, if the struggle was
against injustice, then physical force was not necessary to fight the oppressor.

Gandhi organised Satyagraha in:

1. In 1916, Gandhi travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to struggle against
the oppressive plantation system
2. In 1917, he organised a satyagraha to support the peasants of the Kheda district of Gujarat,
affected by crop failure and a plague epidemic, the peasants of Kheda could not pay the
revenue and were demanding that the revenue collection be relaxed.
3. In 1918, Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organise a satyagraha movement amongst cotton
mill workers.

[Link] was the Rowlatt Act?

1. Rowlatt Act was introduced in 1919.

2. This act was hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council, although it was
completely opposed by Indian members.
3. It had given the Government enormous powers to repress political activities.
4. It allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years

(On April 6 Gandhi organised a non-violent hartal against the Rowlatt Act, Rallies were organised,
workers went on strike in railway workshops, and shops closed down)

(The British were alarmed by this and clamped down on nationalists. Local leaders were picked up
from Amritsar and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from entering Delhi)
(On 10 April, the police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession, provoking widespread attacks
on banks, post offices and railway stations.)

[Link] a brief note on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre

 On 13 April the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place.

 On that day a large crowd gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
 Some came to protest against the government’s new repressive measures. Others had come
to attend the annual Baisakhi fair
 Being from outside the city, many villagers were unaware of the martial law that had been
imposed.
 General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing
hundreds.
 His object, as he declared later, was to ‘produce a moral effect’, to create in the minds of
satyagrahis a feeling of terror and awe.

[Link] did people react to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre?/ Why did Gandhi withdraw the Non-
Cooperation Movement??

 As the news of the Jallianwala Bagh spread, crowds took to the streets in many north Indian
towns.
 There were strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on government buildings.
 The government responded with brutal repression, seeking to humiliate and terrorise
people.
 Satyagrahis were forced to rub their noses on the ground, crawl on the streets, and do
salaam to all sahibs
 People were flogged and villages were bombed (around Gujranwala in Punjab)
 Seeing violence spread, Mahatma Gandhi called off the movement

[Link] a brief note on the Khilafat committee.

 The First World War had ended with the defeat of the Ottoman Turkey. And there were
rumours that a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman emperor – the
spiritual head of the Islamic world (the Khalifa).
 To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay,
March 1919.
 A young generation of muslim leaders like the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali
began discussing about the possibility of a united mass action on the issue.
 Gandhiji saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a unified
national movement.

[Link] did non cooperation movement (1921) begin?

 Thousands of students left government controlled schools and colleges, headmasters and
teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal practices.
 Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in huge
bonfires.
 The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs 102
crore to Rs 57 crore.
 People began discarding imported clothes and wearing only Indian ones, production of
Indian textiles and handlooms went up.
[Link] did non cooperation movement fail?

 Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass produced mill cloth and poor people could
not afford to buy it.
 The boycott of British institutions requires alternative Indian institutions, these were slow to
come up.

[Link] a brief note on the peasants of Awadh

 In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra.

 The movement here was against talukdars and landlords who demanded from peasants
exorbitantly high rents and a variety of other cesses.
 Peasants had to do begar and work at landlords’ farms without any payment.
 The peasant movement demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and social
boycott of oppressive landlords
 As the movement spread in 1921, the houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked,
bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over.

(On 6 January 1921, the police in United Provinces fired at peasants near Rae Bareli)

[Link] a brief note on the tribals of Andhra Pradesh

 In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early
1920s
 Here, the colonial governmetn had closed large forest areas, preventing people from
entering the forests to graze their cattle, or to collect fuelwood and fruits. This enraged the
hill people
 The person who came to lead them was an interesting figure. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed
that he had a variety of special powers: he could make correct astrological predictions and
heal people, and he could survive even bullet shots.
 Raju persuaded people to wear khadi and give up drinking. But at the same time he asserted
that India could be liberated only by the use of force, not non-violence.
 The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British officials and carried on
guerilla warfare for achieving swaraj.
 Raju was captured and executed in 1924, and over time became a folk hero

[Link] a brief note on the plantations of Assam

 For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the
confined space in which they were enclosed.
 Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave
the tea gardens without permission, and in fact they were rarely given such permission.
 When they heard of the Non Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the
authorities, left the plantations and headed home.
 Stranded on the way by a railway and streamer strike, they were caught by the police and
brutally beaten up.

[Link] 2 factors that shaped Indian politics towards the late 1920s

1. The worldwide economic depression which led to a fall in agricultural prices.

2. The setting up of the Simon Commission by the Tory Government in Britain which had not a
single Indian member
[Link] did the civil disobedience movement begin?

 On 31 January 1930, Gandhi sent a letter o Viceroy irwin stating 11 demands

 These demands were wide rangin so all classes within Indian society could identify with
them
 The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax
 When these demands were not fulfilled by 11 March, Gandhi started his famous salt march
accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers.
 The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujurati coasted
town
 On 6 April he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by
boiling sea water.
 This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement

[Link] was the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930)?

 The people were asked not only to refuse cooperation with the British, but also to break
colonial laws
 Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured salt and
demonstrated in front of government salt factories
 As the movement spread, foreign cloth was boycotted, and liquor shops picketed.
 Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes, village officials resigned and in many
places forest people violated forest laws – going into Reserved Forests to collect wood and
graze cattle

(When Abdul Ghaffar Khan was arrested, angry crowds demonstrated in the streets of Peshwar.
When Gandhi was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal buildings
lawcourts, and railway stations)

[Link] was the Gandhi-Irwin pact?

 Gandhi decided to call of the civil disobedience movement and entered into a pact with
Irwin on 5 March 1931
 By this Gandhi-Irwin pact, Gandhi consented to participate in a Round Table Conference in
London and the government agreed to release the political prisoners
 In December 1931, Gandhiji went to London for the conference but negotiations broke
down and he returned disappointed.

19. How did the following groups participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement?

a). Rich peasant communities

 Rich Peasant communities like the Patidars of Gujurat and the Jats of UP were active in the
movement
 Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by the trade depression and
falling prices
 As their cash income disappeared, they found it impossible to pay the government’s revenue
demand
 For them, the fight for swaraj was a struggle against high revenue

b).Poor peasant communities

  The poorer peasantry were not just interested in lowering of the revenue demand.
 Many of them were small tenants cultivating land they had rented from landlords.
 As the depression continued and cash incomes dwindled, the small tenants found it difficult
to pay their rent.
 They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted.

c).Business classes

 Indian merchants and industrialists had made huge profits and become powerful.
 Keen on expanding their business, they now reacted against colonial policies that restricted
business activities.
 They wanted protection against import of foreign goods, and a rupee-sterling foreign
exchange ratio that would discourage imports.
 To organise business interests, they formed the Indian Industrial and Commercial congress in
1920 and the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927.
Led by Purshottamdas Thakurdas and [Link]

d).Industrial classes

 The industrial working classes did not participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement in
large numbers, except in the Nagpur region.
 Workers selectively adopted ideas of the Gandhian programme, like boycott of foreign
goods, as part of their own movements against low wages and poor working conditions
 In 1930 thousands of workers in Chotanagpur in mines wore Gandhi caps and participated in
protest rallies and boycott campaigns

e).Women

 Women participated in protest marches, manufactured salt and picketed foreign cloth and
liquor shops.
 In urban areas these women were from high-cast families; in rural areas they came from rich
peasant households.
 Moved by Gandhiji’s call they began to see service to the nation as a sacred duty of women

(In 1928, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) was founded at a meeting in Ferozeshah
Kotla ground in Delhi. Led by Bhagat Singh, Jatin Das and Ajoy Ghosh, the HSRA targeted some of the
symbols of British power. In 1929, Bhagat Singh threw a bomb in the Legislative Assembly and
attempted to blow up the train that Lord Irwin was travelling in. he was executed when he was 23.)

(In 1928, Vallabhbhai Patel led the peasant movement in Bardoli, a taluka in Gujarat, against
enhancement of land revenue. Known as the Bardoli Satyagraha, this movement was a success
under the able leadership of Vallabhbhai Patel. The struggle was widely publicised and generated
immense sympathy in many parts of India.)

(Lala Lajpat Rai was assaulted by the British police during a peaceful demonstration against the
Simon Commission. He succumbed to injuries that were inflicted on him during the demonstration)

(In Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur, a peaceful demonstration in a bazaar turned into a violent clash
with the police.)

[Link] did Gandhi help untouchables?

  He called the untouchables ‘harijans’ or the children of god, organised satyagraha to secure
them entry into temples, and access to public wells, tanks, roads and schools
 He himself cleaned toilets to dignify the work of the bhangi, and persuaded upper castes to
change their heart and give up the ‘sin of untouchability’

[Link] the limits of civil disobedience movement

 Dalit participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement was limited, particularly in the
Maharashtra and Nagpur region.
 Some of the Muslim political organizations in India were also Lukewarm in their response to
the Civil Disobedience Movement. After Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement Muslims felt
alienated from the congress

(The image of Bharat Mata was first created by Bankum Chandra Chattopadhyay, he also wrote
vande matram in his novel Anandamath)

[Link] a note on Bharat mata

Bharat Mata is portrayed as an ascetic figure, she is calm, composed, divine and spiritual. In
subsequent years, the image of Bharat Mata acquired many different forms. Devotion to this mother
figure came to be seen as evidence of one’s nationalism

(In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore himself began collecting ballads, nursery rhymes and myths, and led
the movement for folk revival)

(In Madras, Natesa Sastri published a massive 4 volume collection of Tamil folk tales, the folklore of
souther india)

(in Bengal, a tricolour flag was designed (red, green, yellow) with eight lotuses representing 8
provinces of British India, and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims. Gandhiji had
designed the swaraj flag. It was again a tricolour and had a spinning wheel in the centre representing
the gandhian idea of self help)

[Link] was the poona pact?

The poona pact of september 1932 gave the depressed classes reserved seats in provincial and
central legislative councils, but they were to be voted in by the general electorate.

[Link] were muslims lukewarm in their response to the civil disobedience movement?

 After the decline of the Non cooperation khilafat movement, a large section of muslims felt
alienated from the congress
 The congress came to be more visibly associated with openly Hindu religious nationalist
groups like the Hindu Mahasaba
 As relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened, each community organised religious
processions with militant fervour, provoking Hindu-Muslim communal clashes in various
cities.

Missed imp points

  The Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few
others. Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the villages around the
region. This was done to integrate the Awadh peasants into the national struggle

(Calcutta session in 1920, planning of non cooperation)

(Nagpur session in 1920, start of non cooperation)

(Madras session in 1927, boycott of Simon commission)