Nationalism in India

Important facts/years

1498 A.D – Vasco da Gama reached India via Cape of Good Hope

1600 A.D – Formation of East India Company in England

1612 A.D – First factory (place where British factors i.e officials reside) at Surat

1651 A.D – First factory in Bengal

1757 A.D – Battle of Plassey

1764 A.D – Battle of Buxar

1765 A.D – Diwani rights to E.I.C

1773 A.D – Regulating Act, Warren Hastings became First Governor General of India

East India Company rule expands (1757- 1857)

1799 A.D – Kingdom of Mysore annexed

1819 A.D – Peswa of Maratha Kingdom defeated

1849 A.D – Punjab annexed

Note – Till 1857, 63% of land of India under direct rule of E.I.C

First War of India’s Independence 1857

Result – Powers of East India Company transferred to British Parliament. Governor General

now known as Viceroy.

Economic exploitation of India continues.

Emergence of nationalism/ national movement in India

Reason; Sense of oppressed under colonial rule

1885 – Indian National congress formed

Founder – A.O Hume

First President – W.C Bonnerjee

First Session – Bombay

Indian national movement divided into three Phases:

1. 1885 – 1905 ® Moderate period

2. 1905 – 1919 ® Extremist period,

3. 1919 – 1947 ® Gandhian period

Note: Partition of Bengal 1905

The First World War (1914 – 18)

            Effects:

             (1) 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.

            (2) Through the war years prices increased (inflation) – doubling between 1913 and 1918 – leading to extreme hardship for the common people.

            (3) Forced recruitment for army in rural areas caused widespread anger.

            Condition during war period:

®        In 1918-19 and 1920-21, 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 to 13 million people perished as a result of famines   and the epidemic.

®        At this stage Gandhiji emerged as new leader

Arrival of Gandhi and the Idea of Satyagraha

®        Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in January 1915.

®        Gandhiji had come from South Africa where he had successfully fought the racist regime with a novel method of mass agitation, which he called satyagraha.

®        According to “satyagraha”

®        “Physical force not necessary to fight oppressor”. Satyagrahi can win through non- violence.

®        How? By appealing to the conscience ( i.e bad or good ) of oppressor, persuade him to see the truth. According to Mahatama Gandhi it is “ passive resistance”, it is the weapon of weak but can be used by strong will only.

            First Satyagraha

®          1916-17: Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to struggle against the oppressive    plantation system.

®        1917: Mahatama Gandhi 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 revenue collection be relaxed.

®        1918: Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organize a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

            The Rowlatt Act(1919):

            Passed by Sydney Rowlatt (Judge).He was the President of Sedition Committee.

            Meaning of sedition: rebel, uprising, political uprising

            This Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.

            Feature:

             It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.

            Reaction:

            Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha hartal on 6 April.

            The British administration decided to clamp down on nationalists. Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from entering Delhi.

Jallianwalla Bagh incident (13 April 1919)

®        On 10 April, the police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession,who were demanding the release of two popular leaders Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kithlew.

            It provoked people resulting in widespread attacks on banks, post offices and railway stations.

®        Martial law (military rule on emergency basis,when civil government i.e police fail to function effectively) was imposed and General Dyer took command. Incharge - General Dyer.

®        On 13 April the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day a crowd of villagers who had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh. Being from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that had been imposed.

®        Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. His objective, as he declared later, was to ‘produce a moral effect’, to create in the minds of satyagrahis a feeling of terror and awe.

Khilafat Movement (1919-1924)

            Khilafat issue: The First World War had ended with the defeat of 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/ Muslim world (the Khalifa).

            Reactions by Muslims of India:

            To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.

           

            Main leaders: Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali,

            Both began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi 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.

           

Non-cooperation Movement

®        Calcutta session Sept.1920- Proposal of NCM in support of Khilafat as well as for Swaraj by Mahatma Gandhi

®        Why NCM?

            In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would come.

®        Nagpur session Dec.1920- NCM adopted by Congress members.

            The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in January 1921

           

            Differing Strands within the Movement:

            Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its own specific aspiration. All of them responded to the call of Swaraj, but the term meant different things to different people.

           

            The Movement in the Towns: 

®        The movement started with middle-class participation in the cities.

®        Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and colleges, headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal practices.

®        The council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras, where the Justice Party, the party of the non-Brahmans, felt that entering the council was one way of gaining some power – something that usually only Brahmans had access to.

            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.

®        Production of Indian textile mills and handlooms went up.

            Reasons for Slowdown of Movement:

®         Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.

®        Similarly the boycott of British institutions posed a problem. For the movement to be successful, alternative Indian institutions had to be set up so that they could be used in place of the British ones. These were slow to come up. So students and teachers began trickling back to government schools and lawyers joined back work in government courts.

Rebellion in the Countryside (rural areas):

             (a) Awadh Peasant Movement:

®        Leader-  Baba Ramchandra – a sanyasi who had earlier been to Fiji as an indentured labourer.

®        The movement here was against talukdars(A land holder with administrative powers over a district of 84 villages in Punjab, Rajasthan and rest of northern India during colonial period) 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.

®        In many places nai – dhobi bandhs were organised by panchayats to deprive landlords of the services of even barbers and washermen.

®        By October, 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. As the movement spread in 1921, the houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked, bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over.

®        6 Jan. 1921, police in United province (U.P) fired on peasants near Rai Bareli.

             In many places local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared that no taxes were to be paid and land was to be redistributed among the poor. The name of the Mahatma was being invoked to sanction all action and aspirations.

           

            (b)Tribal Peasants

®        In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s – not a form of struggle that the Congress could approve

®        Reason for movement:

            Against forest laws

®        Leader: Alluri Sitaram Raju

            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. Captivated by Raju, the rebels proclaimed that he was an incarnation of God. Raju talked of the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi, said he was inspired by the Non-Cooperation Movement, and 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 guerrilla warfare for achieving swaraj. Raju was captured and executed in 1924, and over time became a folk hero.

            (c) Swaraj in the Plantations

®        Led by plantation workers in Assam,

®        Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission.

®        When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations .

®        They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming and everyone would be given land in their own villages. They, however, never reached their destination. Stranded on the way by a railway and steamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally beaten up.

            Chauri Chaura incident (Feb.1922)

            During N.C.M a peaceful demonstration turned violent at Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur district, U.P). About 22 policemen burnt alive in police station.

            In February 1922, Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement.

Towards Civil Disobedience Movement

            1. Formation of Swaraj Party:

            Government of India Act of 1919 provided Indians to participate in provincial council elections. They felt that it was important to oppose British policies within the councils, argue for reform and also demonstrate that these councils were not truly democratic. C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within the Congress to argue for a return to council politics.

           

            Factors which shaped Indian politics in 1920s:

            (1) Great Economic Depression1929:

            Agricultural prices began to fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930.

            As the demand for agricultural goods fell and exports declined, peasants found it difficult to sell their harvests and pay their revenue.

             By 1930, the countryside was in turmoil.

            (2) Simon Commission

            Against this background the new Tory government in Britain constituted a Statutory (constitutional) Commission under Sir John Simon and 6 other members in 1927.

             It reached India in 1928.

            Reason of formation:

            To study constitutional reforms of Government of India Act 1919

            Problem:

            The commission did not have a single Indian member. They were all British.

            Reaction of Indians;

            When the Simon Commission arrived in India, it was greeted with the slogan ‘Go back Simon’.

             In an effort to win them over, the viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced in October 1929, a vague offer of ‘dominion status’ for India in an unspecified future, and a Round Table Conference to discuss a future constitution.

            Meaning of Dominion status:

            It means semi- autonomous political status (self govern under British sovereignty)

           

            (3) Lahore session 1929:

            In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress formalised the demand of ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence for India. It was declared that 26 January 1930, would be celebrated as the Independence Day when people were to take a pledge to struggle for complete independence. But the celebrations attracted very little attention. So Mahatma Gandhi had to find a way to relate this abstract idea of freedom to more concrete issues of everyday life.

           

        Salt March

            On 31 January 1930, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands.

            The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax. Salt was something consumed by the rich and the poor alike, and it was one of the most essential items of food. The tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production, Mahatma Gandhi declared, revealed the most oppressive face of British rule.

            If the demands were not fulfilled by 11 March, the letter stated, the Congress would launch a civil disobedience campaign. Irwin was unwilling to negotiate.

            March 12, 1930 Mahatma 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 Gujarati coastal town of Dandi. The volunteers walked for 24 days, about 10 miles a day. Thousands came to hear Mahatma Gandhi wherever he stopped, and he told them what he meant by swaraj and urged them to peacefully defy the British. 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

            Response of British Rulers

            Worried by the developments, the colonial government began arresting the Congress leaders one by one. This led to violent clashes in many palaces.

           

            Frontier Gandhi

            Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of C.D.M in North-Weast Frontier province,when he was arrested in April 1930, angry crowds demonstrated in the streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars and police firing. Many were killed.

           

            Arrest of Gandhi

            A month later, when Mahatma Gandhi himself was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal buildings, lawcourts and railway stations – all structures that symbolised British rule. A frightened government responded with a policy of brutal repression. Peaceful satyagrahis were attacked, women and children were beaten, and about 100,000 people were arrested.

           

            Round Table Conferences:

            Irwin organized 3 Round Table conferences in London

            Reason: To discuss with Indian leaders about constitutional reforms put forward by Simon Commission and appease Indian leaders.

            First Round Table conference (Nov.1930)

            INC leaders did not participated as Gandhi was busy in CDM against British

           

            Withdrawal of CDM

            During C.D.M industrial workers attacked police posts, municipal buildings, lawcourts       and railway stations and all structures that symbolised British rule.

             In such a situation, Mahatma Gandhi once again decided to call off the movement and    entered into a pact with Irwin on 5 March 1931.

            Gandhi- Irwin Pact 1931

            Gandhiji consented to participate in Second Round Table Conference (the Congress     had boycotted the first Round Table Conference) in London

            The government agreed to release the political prisoners.

           

            In December 1931.Gandhiji went to London for the conference, but the negotiations          broke down and he returned disappointed. Back in India, with great apprehension,         Mahatma Gandhi relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement. For over a year, the          movement continued, but by 1934 it lost its momentum.

People’s participation in the Movement

            Farmers in rural area

            In the countryside, rich peasant communities – like the Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh – were active in the movement.

            Reason

            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. And the refusal of the government to reduce the revenue demand led to widespread resentment.

            At times forcing reluctant members, to participate in the boycott programmes

            The poorer peasantry were not just interested in the 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 decreased, the small tenants found it difficult to pay their rent.

            The Congress was unwilling to support ‘no rent’ campaigns in most places because it  might upset the rich peasants and landlords,. So the relationship between the poor peasants and the Congress remained uncertain.

            Businessmen i.e merchants and industrialists

            Reacted against colonial policies that restricted business activities

            Demands:

            1. They wanted protection against imports of foreign goods,

            2. Favorable 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 prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G. D. Birla. They supported CDM.

            Industrial Workers

            The industrial working classes did not participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement in large numbers, except in the Nagpur region. As the industrialists came closer to the Congress, workers stayed aloof.

            However few participated.

             Example: There were strikes by railway workers in 1930 and dockworkers in 1932.

            In 1930 thousands of workers in Chotanagpur tin mines wore Gandhi caps and participated in protest rallies and boycott campaigns.

             But the Congress was reluctant to include workers’ demands as part of its programme of struggle. It felt that this would alienate industrialists and divide the anti-imperial forces.

            Women’s Participation

            Another important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement was the large-scale participation of women.

            Many went to jail. In urban areas these women were from high-caste families; in rural areas they came from rich peasant households.

The Limits of Civil Disobedience

            Participation of Dalits

            Earlier the Congress had ignored the dalits, for fear of offending the sanatanis (the conservative high-caste Hindus).

            But Mahatma Gandhi declared that swaraj would not come for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated.

             He called the ‘untouchables’ harijan, 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 (the sweepers), and persuaded upper castes to change their heart and give up ‘the sin of untouchability’.

             But many dalit leaders were keen on a different political solution to the problems of the community.

            They began organising themselves, demanding reserved seats in educational institutions, and a separate electorate that would choose dalit members for legislative councils. Political empowerment, they believed, would resolve the problems of their social disabilities.

            Dalit participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement was therefore limited, particularly in the Maharashtra and Nagpur region where their organisation was quite strong.

            Dr B.R. Ambedkar, who organised the dalits into the Depressed Classes Association in 1930, clashed with Mahatma Gandhi at the Second Round Table Conference by demanding separate electorates for dalits.

            When the British government conceded Ambedkar’s demand, Gandhiji began a fast unto death. He believed that separate electorates for dalits would slow down the process of their integration into society.

           

            Poona Pact 1932:

            Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhiji’s position and the result was the Poona Pact of September 1932. It gave the Depressed Classes (later to be known as the Schedule Castes) reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils, but they were to be voted in by the general electorate.

            Participation of Muslims

            From the mid-1920s the Congress came to be more visibly associated with openly Hindu religious nationalist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha.

            As relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened, each community organised religious processions with militant fervour, provoking Hindu-Muslim communal clashes and riots in various cities. Every riot deepened the distance between the two communities.

            In 1930, Muhammad Iqbal, emphasized on the importance of separate electorate for the minority political interests. (The right to Separate electorate was already given to Muslims in 1909)

            Muhammad Ali Jinnah, one of the leaders of the Muslim League, was willing to give up the demand for separate electorates, if Muslims were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in proportion to population in the Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal and Punjab).

            Negotiations over the question of representation continued but all hope of resolving the issue at the All Parties Conference in 1928 disappeared when M.R. Jayakar of the Hindu Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise.

            Thus when the Civil Disobedience Movement started there was thus an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust between communities.

The Sense of Collective Belonging

            Nationalism spreads when people begin to believe that they are all part of the same nation, when they discover some unity that binds them together. This sense of collective belonging came partly through the experience of united struggles.

            But there were also a variety of cultural processes through which nationalism captured people’s imagination.

            History and fiction, folklore and songs, popular prints and symbols, all played a part in the making of nationalism.

            Nation Depicted in Images

            Example 1. It was in the twentieth century, with the growth of nationalism, that the identity of India came to be visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata. The image was first created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. In the 1870s he wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the motherland. Later it was included in his novel Anandamath and widely sung during the Swadeshi movement in Bengal. Moved by the Swadeshi movement, Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata.

           

            Example 2. Folklores: In Madras, Natesa Sastri published a massive four-volume collection of Tamil folk tales, The Folklore of Southern India. He believed that folklore was national literature; it was ‘the most trustworthy manifestation of people’s real thoughts and characteristics’.

           

            Example 3. National Flag:

            During the Swadeshi movement (1906) in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green and yellow) was designed. It had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims.

            By 1921, Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolour (red, green and white) and had a spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help. Carrying the flag, holding it aloft, during marches became a symbol of defiance.

            Example 4. Reinterpretation of History

            Another means of creating a feeling of nationalism was through reinterpretation of history. The British saw Indians as backward and primitive, incapable of governing themselves. In response, Indians began looking into the past to discover India’s great achievements. They wrote about the glorious developments in ancient times when art and architecture, science and mathematics, religion and culture, law and philosophy, crafts and trade had flourished. This glorious time, in their view, was followed by a history of decline, when India was colonised.