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Rise of Nationalism in India The policy of the Company in the wake of Industrial Revolution in England resulted in the de-industrialization of India. Thiscontinued until the beginning of the World War I. The British Government pursued a policy of free trade or laissez faire. Raw materials like cotton, jute and silks from India were taken to Britain The Indigo revolt of 1859 – 60 in Bengal was one of the responses from the Indian farmer to the oppressive policy of the British. Indian tenants were forced to grow indigo by their planters who were mostly Europeans.Peasants were forced to accept meagre amounts as advance and enter into unfair contracts Lord Canning Famines: 1770 and 1900, 25 million Indians died in famines William Digby, the editor of Madras Times, pointed out that during 1793-1900 alone an estimated five million people had died (1891-1900), 19 million had died in India in famines alone MADRAS TIMES English-language newspaper which was published in the then Madras Presidency from 1835 to 1921 Gantz and Sons, as the founding date of the newspaper.The paper was converted to a daily in 1860. The Madras Times was purchased by business magnate John Oakshott Robinson in 1921. The paper was subsequently merged with The Mail. 1866 Orissa Famine, for instance, while a million and a half people starved to death, the British exported 200 million pounds of rice to Britain Famine Commission was constituted (1867) under Henry Campbell due to Orissa famine of 1866 Dadabhai Naoroji to begin his lifelong investigations into Indian poverty. The failure of two successive monsoons caused a severe famine in the Madras Presidency during 1876-78. The viceroy Lytton adopted a hands-off approach similar to that followed in Orissa. An estimated 3.5 million people died in the Madras presidency. The introduction of plantation crops such as coffee, tea and sugar in Empire colonies such as Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Mauritius, Fiji, Malaya, the Caribbean islands, and South Africa required enormous labour In 1815, the Governor of Madras received a communication from the Governor of Ceylon asking for “coolies” to work on the coffee plantations. The Madras Governor forwarded this letter to the collector of Thanjavur, who reported that the people were very much attached to the soil and unless some incentive was provided it was not easy to make them move out of their native soil.But the outbreak of two famines (1833 and 1843) coolies in coffee and tea plantations under the indentured labour system. The abolition of slavery in British India in 1843 In 1837 the number of immigrant Tamil labourers employed in Ceylon coffee estate was estimated at 10,000 In 1846 its presence was estimated at 80,000 and in 1855 at 128,000 persons. In 1877, the famine year, there were nearly 380,000 Tamil labourers in Ceylon Indentured Labour: Under this penal contract system (indenture), labourers were hired for a period of five years and they could return to their homeland with passage paid at the end. The colonial state allowed agents (kanganis) to trick or kidnap indigent landless labourersThe percentage of deaths of indentured labour during 1856-57, in a ship bound for Trinidad from Kolkata is as follows: 12.3% of all males, 18.5% of the females, 28% of the boys 36% of the girls and 55% of the infants perished. Education in Pre-British India Education in pre-colonial India was characterised by segmentation along religious and caste lines.They studied in special seminaries such as Vidyalayas and Chatuspathis.The medium of instruction was Sanskrit, which was considered as the sacred language. Technical knowledge – especially in relation to architecture, metallurgy,.Another shortcoming of this system was that it barred women, lower castes and other underprivileged people from accessing education. The emphasis on rote learning was another impediment to innovation. the English Education Act was passed by the Council of India in 1835. T.B. Macaulay drafted this system of education introduced in India Universities were established in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta in 1857. T. B. Macaulay was India’s first law member of the Governor General in Council from 1834 to 1838.He introduced Public Instruction was formed in 1823 The Committee was split into two groups. The Orientalist group advocated education in vernacular languages. The Anglicists advocated Western education in English. Macaulay was on the side of Anglicists and wrote his famous ‘Minute on Indian Education’ in 1835 'be Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals and in intellect'.-Macaulay One of the earliest initiatives to impart modern education among Indians was taken up by the Christian missionaries But the challenge posed by Christianity led to various social and religious reform movements. 1. Reformist movements such as the Brahmo Samaj founded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the Prarthana Samaj, founded by Dr Atmaram Pandurang and the Aligarh Movement, represented by Syed Ahmad Khan; 2. Revivalist movements such as the Arya Samaj, the Ramakrishna Mission and the Deoband Movement. 3. There were social movements led by Jyotiba Phule in Pune, Narayana Guru and Ayyankali in Kerala and Ramalinga Adigal, Vaikunda Swamigal and later Iyothee Thassar in Tamilnadu It is worth recalling what Elphinstone, Governor of Bombay Presidency, wrote to Sir John Lawrence, future Viceroy of India (1864) about the British siege of Delhi during June-September, 1857: ‘...A wholesale vengeance is being taken without distinction of friend or foe. As regards the looting, we have indeed surpassed Nadirshah. Repressive as well as Exploitative Measures against Indians Repressive regulations like Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (1870), punishing attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government, and the Vernacular Press Act (1878). Role of Press Raja Rammohan Roy’s Sambad Kaumudi (1821) in Bengali and Mirat-Ul-Akbar (1822) in Persian Amrit Bazaar Patrika,Bengali-language newspaper that was founded in 1868 by brothers Sisir Kumar Ghosh and Motilal Ghosh The Bombay Chronicle Sir Pherozeshah Mehta ,Mumbai from 1910 to 1959 The Tribune, Dyal Singh Majithia,1881 The Indian Mirror, Man Mohan Ghosh and Devendranath Tagore founded the newspaper in 1861 The Hindu(1878) and Swadesamitran(1882) Aurobindo Ghose would write, ‘The mission of Nationalism, in our view, is to recover Indian thought, Indian character, Indian perceptions, Indian energy, Indian greatness and to solve the problems that perplex the world in an Indian spirit and from the Indian standpoint.’ Madras Native Association: the formation of the Madras Native Association (MNA) on 26 February 1852.Gajula Lakshminarasu, who inspired the foundation of MNA, was a prominent businessman in Madras city.In a petition submitted in December 1852, the MNA pointed out that the ryotwari and zamindari systems had thrown agricultural classes into deep distress.The MNA petition was discussed in the Parliament in March 1853. H. D. Seymour, Chairman of the Indian Reform Society, came to Madras in October 1853. He visited places like Guntur, Cuddalore, Tiruchirappalli, Salem and Tirunelveli. MNA sent its second petition to British Parliament, signed by fourteen thousand individuals, pleading the termination of Company rule in India. The life of MNA was short. Lakshminarasu died in 1866 and by 1881, the association ceased to exist Madras Mahajana Sabha (MMS) Madras Mahajana Sabha was organised. In the inaugural meeting held on 16 May 1884 the prominent participants were: G. Subramaniam, Viraraghavachari, Ananda Charlu, Rangiah, Balaji Rao and Salem Ramaswamy. Indian National Congress (INC): The Indian textile industry was campaigning for imposition of cotton import duties in 1875. 1877, demands for the Indianisation of Government services were made vociferously. There were protests against the Vernacular Press Act of 1878. In 1883, there was an agitation in favour of the Ilbert Bill. In December 1884, Allan Octavian Hume, a retired English ICS officer, presided over a meeting of the Theosophical Society in Madras The Indian National Congress was formed on 28 December 1885 in Bombay. Apart from A.O Hume, another important founding member was W C. Bonnerjee, who was elected the first president. Contributions of Early Nationalists (1885–1915): early nationalists in the INC came from the elite sections of the society. Lawyers, college and university teachers, doctors, journalists and such others represented the Congress.e INC a truly a national political organisation presenting petitions, prayers and memorandums and thereby earned the moniker of “Moderates” Leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai were advocating radical approaches instead of merely writing petitions, prayers and memorandums. These advocates of radical methods came to be called the “extremists” 1897 when Tilak raised the clarion call “Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it”.1885, one third of the members were journalists.Dadabhai Naoroji founded and edited two journals called Voice of India and RastGoftar.Surendranath Banerjea edited the newspaper called Bengalee.Bal Gangadhar Tilak edited Kesari and Mahratta.On 27 July 1897, Tilak was arrested and charged under Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code Dadabhai Naoroji, known as the ‘Grand Old Man of Indian Nationalism’, was a prominent early nationalist. He was elected to the Bombay Municipal Corporation and Town Council during the 1870s. Elected to the British Parliament in 1892, he founded the India Society (1865) and the East India Association (1866) in London. He was elected thrice as the President of the INC Indian nationalist movement was his book Poverty and Un-British Rule of the British in India (1901). In this book, he put forward the concept of ‘drain of wealth British India, taxes collected in India were spent for the welfare of England. Naoroji argued that India had exported an average of 13 million pounds worth of goods to Britain each year from 1835 to 1872 with no corresponding return. Britain, guaranteed interest to investors in railways, pensions to retired officials and generals, interest for the money borrowed from England to meet war expenses for the British conquest of territories in India as well as outside India going in the name of Home Charges, Naoroji asserted, made up a loss of 30 million pounds a year Rise of Extremism and Swadeshi Movement The nationalistic tone of the vernacular press became more pronounced during this time. The role played by Swadesamitran in Tamil Nadu, Kesari in Maharashtra, Yugantar in Bengal are a few examples. Barindra Kumar Ghosh, Abhinash Bhattacharya, and Bhupendranath Datta in Calcutta. Yugantar the Public Meetings Act (1907), the Explosive Substance Act (1908), the Newspaper (Incitement and Offence Act 1908) and the Indian Press Act (1910) On January 6, 1899, Lord Curzon was appointed the new Governor General and Viceroy of India. he reduced the number of elected Indian representatives in the Calcutta Corporation (1899) The University Act of 1904 brought the Calcutta University under the direct control of the government. The Official Secrets Act (1904) The scheme of partition was revived in March 1890.Assam, when Curzon went on a tour, he was requested by the European planters to make a maritime outlet closer to Calcutta to reduce their dependence on the Assam–Bengal railways. Following this, in December 1903 Curzon drew up a scheme in his Minutes on Territorial Redistribution of India, which was later modified and published as the Risely Papers The Bengal was to be divided into two provinces. The new Eastern Bengal and Assam were to include the divisions of Chittagong, Dhaka, parts of Rajshahi hills of Tippera, Assam province and Malda. There was a conscious attempt on the part of British administration to the Muslim population in Bengal. In his speech at Dhaka, in Februry 1904, Curzon assured the Muslims that in the new province of East Bengal partition of Bengal was officially declared on 19 July 1905 , Curzon drew up a scheme in his Minutes on Territorial Redistribution of India, which was later modified and published as the Risely Papers In 1891 Risley published a paper entitled The Study of Ethnology in India. It was a contribution to what Thomas Trautmann, a historian who has studied Indian society, describes as "the racial theory of Indian civilisation" “Bengal united is a power; Bengal divided will pull in several different directions” Said risely The report gave two reasons in support of partition: Relief of Bengal and the improvement of Assam. concealed information on how the plan was originally devised for the convenience of British officials and the European businessmen for the first time, the moderates went beyond their conventional political methods. It was decided, at a meeting in Calcutta on 17 July 1905, to extend the protest to the masses. In the same meeting, Surendranath Banerjee gave a call for the boycott of British goods and institutions. On 7 August, at another meeting at the Calcutta Town Hall, a formal proclamation of Swadeshi Movement was made. Sanjivini was the first newspaper to announce the Boycott on July 6th,1905. This newspaper was started by the K.K Mitra. The initial protest was as Boycott and later it became Swadeshi.Religious festivals such as the Durga Pujas were utilized to invoke the idea of boycott The day Bengal was officially partitioned – 16 Oct 1905 – was declared as a day of mourning. Thousands of people took bath in the Ganga and marched on the streets of Calcutta singing Bande Mataram ‘a revolt against their state of dependence…in all branches of their national life’,G. Subramaniam Gopal Krishna Gokhale, ‘the swadeshi movement is not only for the improvement of our industry but for an allround enhancement of our national life....’ R a b i n d r a n a t h Tagore outlined the constructive programme of atmashakti (self-help). “Swadeshi is that spirit in us which restricts us to the use and service of our immediate surroundings to the exclusion of more remote. I should use only things that are produced by my immediate neighbours and serve those industries by making them efficient and complete where they may be found wanting.”Gandhi Swadeshi means ‘of one’s own country’. The origin of the idea can be traced to 1872 when Mahadev Govind Ranade, in a series of lectures in Poona, popularized the idea of Swadeshi The idea of education in vernacular language made its appearance much before the swadeshi movement with the foundation of Dawn Society by Satish Chandra Mukherjee in 1902 On 5 November 1905, at the initiative of the Dawn Society, the National Council of Education was formed. On 15,August 1906, Bengal National College and a School were founded. A passionate appeal was made by Satish Chandra to the students to come out of ‘institutions of slavery.’ the campaigns conducted by Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal, often referred to as the Lal–Bal–Pal triumvirate, Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab, emerged as the epicenters of militant nationalism during swadesi movement Muslim league: Founded:Khwaja Salimullah Founded: 30 December 1906, Dhaka, Bangladesh Newspaper: Dawn Headquarters: Lucknow The All-India Muslim League (popularised as the Muslim League) was a political party established in 1906 in British India. The first session of the party was held in Karachi in 1907. Muhammad Ali Jinnah joined the league in 1913. In 1927 the League was divided into two factions regarding the issue of a joint electorates. Those who supported the joint electorates were led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah (known as Jinnah League) and those who opposed were led by Sir Muhammad Shafi (Shafi League)] In 1931 the party again split into two when Muhammad Ali Jinnah moved to London abandoning politics. The two factions were led by Abdul Aziz and Hafiz Hidayat. The two factions merged again when Jinnah returned to India in 1934. The last session was held in Karachi in 1943 and was presided by Muhammad Ali Jinnah. 1st session karachi-Adamjee Peerbhoy president 28th session -Madras- Jinna president SURAT SPLIT:-1907 the appointment of Lord Minto as the new Viceroy to India in 1906. two groups, a split was avoided, in the 1906 Calcutta session, by accepting demands of moderate leaders and electing Dadabhai Naoroji as president The militants proposed Lala Lajpat Rai’s name for the next Congress presidency opposing the moderate’s candidate Rash Behari Ghosh. Lala Lajpat Rai, however, turned down the offer to avoid the split. The matter finally boiled down to the question of retaining the four resolutions that were passed in the Calcutta session in 1906 1908 session of the Congress was attended only by the moderates who reiterated their loyalty to the Raj. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s novel, Anandmath was widely read by the revolutionaries in Bengal Alipore Bomb Case-1908 Anushilan Samity of Calcutta, founded by Jatindernath Banerjee and Barindarkumar Ghose, brother of Aurobindo Ghose in 24 march 1902 Similarly, the Dhaka Anushilan Samity was born in 1906. Founded by Pulin Behari Das.they launch of the revolutionary weekly Yugantar In 1906 Hemchandra Kanungo went abroad to get military training in Paris. After his return to India in 1908, he established a bomb factory along with a religious school at a garden house in Maniktala. A conspiracy was hatched there to kill Douglas Kingsford, notorious for his cruel ways of dealing with the swadeshi agitators. Two young revolutionaries - 18-year-old Khudiram Bose and 19-year-old Prafulla Chaki – were entrusted with the task of carrying out the killing. On 30 April 1908, they mistakenly threw a bomb on a carriage, that, instead of killing Kingsford, killed two English women. Prafulla Chaki committed suicide and Khudiram Bose was arrested and hanged for the murder. Aurobindo Ghose, along with his brother Barinder Kumar Ghose and thirty-five other comrades, were arrested. Chittaranjan Das took up the case. It came to be known as the Alipore Bomb case.no evidence to show that Aurobindo Ghose was involved in any conspiracy Barindra Ghose and Ullaskar Dutt were given the death penalty y (later commuted to the transportation of life), with the rest being condemned to transportation for life After,Aurobindo Ghose took to a spiritual path and shifted his base to Pondicherry, where he stayed until his death in 1950 Minto-Marley reforms:-1909 1908 the Morley-Minto constitutional reforms were announced.y Minto were highly divisive as it institutionalized communal electorates creating Hindu-Muslim divide The Newspapers (Incitement to Offence) Act, 1908 Indian Press Act 1910 made it mandatory for publishers and the printers to deposit a security that could be seized in case they printed ‘obnoxious material’ Swadeshi Campaign in Tamil Nadu Swadeshi movement in Tamil Nadu, notably in Tirunelveli district.Swadeshi meetings at the Marina beach in Madras were a regular sight. The Moore Market complex in Madras.1907, Bipin Chandra Pal came to Madras and his speeches on the Madras Beach V.O.C. and Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNC)-1906(Tuticorin to Colombo) In 1906, V.O.C. registered a joint stock company called The Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNC) with a capital of Rs 10 Lakh, divided into 40,000 shares of Rs. 25 each.Shares were open only to Indians, Ceylonese and other Asian nationals. V.O.C. purchased two steamships, S.S. Gallia and S.S. Lawoe Lokmanya Tilak wrote about the success of the Swadeshi Navigation Company in his papers Kesari and Mahratta.The initiative of V.O.C. was lauded by the national leaders. Aurobindo Ghose also lauded the Swadeshi efforts and helped to promote the sale of shares of the company. The major shareholders included Pandithurai and Haji Fakir Mohamed The Coral Mill Strike-1908 V.O.C. on his return decided to work on building a political organisation. While looking for an able orator, he came across Subramania Siva, a swadeshi preacher. the leaders addressed meetings almost on a daily basis at the beach in Tuticorin In 1908, the abject working and living conditions of the Coral Mill workers attracted the attention of V.O.C and Siva In March 1908, the workers of the Coral Cotton Mills, inspired by the address went on strike The strike of the mill workers was fully backed by the nationalist newspapers. The mill owners, however, did not budge and was supported by the government which had decided to suppress the strike.Finally, the mill owners decided to negotiate with the workers and concede their demands.Aurobindo Ghosh’s Bande Matram hailed the strike as “forging a bond between educated class and the masses, which is the first great step towards swaraj…. Every victory of Indian labour is a victory for the nation…. Subramania Bharati: Poet and Nationalist Subramaniam, along with five others, founded The Hindu (in English) and Swadesamitran (which was the first ever Tamil daily).1906 a book was published by Subramaniam to condemn the British actions during the Congress Conference in Barsal. Swadesamitran extensively reported nationalist activities, particularly the news regarding V.O.C Chakravartini, a Tamil monthly devoted to the cause of Indian women.meeting in 1905 with Sister Nivedita, an Irish woman and a disciple of Vivekananda, whom he referred to as Gurumani (teacher), greatly inspired his nationalist ideals Tilak grew after the Surat session of the Congress in 1907. He translated into Tamil Tilak’s Tenets of the New Party and a booklet on the Madras militants’ trip to the Surat Congress in 1907. Bharati edited a Tamil weekly India, which became the voice of the radicals. Arrest and imprisonment of V.O.C. and Subramania Siva March 9, 1907, Bipin Chandra Pal was released from prison after serving a sixmonth jail.The swadeshi leaders in Tamil Nadu planned to celebrate the day of his release as ‘Swarajya Day’ in Tirunelveli Date 9 March 1907 V.O.C., Subramania Siva and Padmanabha Iyengar defied the ban and went ahead. They were arrested on March 12, 1908, on charges of sedition.The municipality building and the police station in Tirunelveli were set on fire.the mill workers came out in large numbers to protest the arrest of swadeshi leaders. After a few incidents of confrontation with the protesting crowd, the police open fired, and four people were killed On 7 July 1908, V.O.C. and Subramania Siva were found guilty and imprisoned on charges of sedition. Siva was awarded a sentence of 10 years of transportation for his seditious speech whereas V.O.C. got a life term (20 years) for abetting him.V.O.C. was given another life sentence for his own seditious speech The protests were also punished and a punitive tax was imposed on the people of Tirunelveli and Tuticorin. Ashe Murder June 1911, the collector of Tirunelveli, Robert Ashe, was shot dead at Maniyachi Railway station by Vanchinathan. Born in the Travancore state in 1880, he was employed as a forest guard at Punalur in the then Travancore state. He was one of the members of a radical group called Bharat Mata Association.The association was to kill the europens. Vanchinathan was trained in the use of a revolver, as part of the mission, by V.V. Subramaniam in Pondicherry.Ashe at the Maniyachi Junction, Vanchinathan shot himself with the same pistol. Bharat Mata Association founded by Neelakantan Brahmachari in Shencottah(Sengottai)-1910 The Bharat Mata Society, founded by Lala Lajpat Rai and Sufi Amba Prasad in 1906 Impact of World War I on 3 Indian Freedom Movement: Home Rule Movement in India under the leadership of Dr Annie Besant in South India and Tilak in Western India.strength of Indian nationalism was increased by the agreement signed between Hindus and Muslims, known as the Lucknow Pact, in 1916 Treaty of Sevres-1920 signed thereafter undermined the position of Sultan of Turkey as Khalifa All India Home Rule League-1916 Besant played a similar role in the early part of the twentieth century. Besant was Irish by birth and had been active in the Irish home rule, fabian socialist and birth control movements She joined the Theosophical Society-1875,USA, and came to India in 1893. She founded the Central Hindu College in Benaras (later upgraded as Benaras Hindu University by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya in 1916). death of H. S. Olcott in 1907, Besant succeeded him as the international president of the Theosophical Society headquarters, Adyar in Chennai Besant entered into Indian Politics. She started a weekly The Commonweal in 1914.She published a book How India Wrought for Freedom in 1915.She gave the call, 'The moment of England's difficulty is the moment of India's opportunity' she started a daily newspaper New India on July 14, 1915. She revealed her concept of self-rule in a speech at Bombay: “I mean by self-government that the country shall have a government by councils, elected by the people, and responsible to the House On September 28, 1915, Besant made a formal declaration that she would start the Home Rule League Movement for India In 1916, two Home Rule Movements were launched in the country: one under Tilak and the other under Besant with their spheres of activity well demarcated. The twin objectives of the Home Rule League were the establishment of Home Rule for India in British Empire and arousing in the Indian masses a sense of pride for the Motherland (a) Tilak Home Rule League ak Home Rule League was set up at the Bombay Provincial conference held at Belgaum in April 1916 The popularity of his League was confined to Maharashtra and Karnataka but claimed a membership of 14,000 in April 1917 and 32,000 by early 1918. On 23 July 1916 on his 60th birthday Tilak was arrested for propagating the idea of Home Rule Besant's Home Rule League It refers to a self-government granted by a central or regional government to its dependent political units on condition that their people should remain politically loyal to it.the Government of Ireland Act (1920) in six counties of Northern Ireland and later by the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) in the remaining 26 counties in the south September 1916. Its branches were established at Kanpur, Allahabad, Benaras, Mathura, Calicut and Ahmednagar.She declared that "the price of India's loyalty is India's Freedom" In June 1917 Besant and her associates, B.P. Wadia and George Arundale were interred in Ootacamund.To support Besant, Sir S. Subramaniam renounced his knighthood At the AICC meeting convened on 28 July 1917 Tilak advocated the use of civil disobedience if they were not released. Jamnadas Dwarkadas and Shankerlal Banker, on the orders of Gandhi, collected one thousand signatures willing to defy the interment orders and march to Besant’s place of detention On 20 August 1917 the new Secretary of State Montagu announced that 'self-governing institutions and responsible government' was the goal of the British rule in India Decline of Home Rule Movement Home Rule Movement declined after Besant accepted the proposed Montagu– Chelmsford Reforms and Tilak went to Britain in September 1918 to pursue the libel case that he had filed against Valentine Chirol, the author of Indian Unrest.The Father of unrest called Tilk by Valantine Chirol Lucknow session-1916 1916 was therefore a historic year since the Congress, Muslim League and the Home Rule League held their annual sessions at Lucknow Ambika Charan Mazumdar, Congress president welcomed the extremists: "… after ten years of painful separation … Indian National Party have come to realize the fact that united they stand, but divided they fall, and brothers have at last met brothers..." Jinnah played a pivotal role during the Pact. The agreements accepted at Calcutta in November 1916.Besant and Tilak also played an important role in bringing the Congress and the Muslim League together popularly known as the Congress–League Pact or the Lucknow Pact Provisions of the Lucknow Pact-1916 Provinces should be freed as much as possible from Central control in administration and finance. Four-fifths of the Central and Provincial Legislative Councils should be elected, and one-fifth nominated The Lucknow Pact paved the way for Hindu-Muslim Unity. Sarojini Ammaiyar called Jinnah, the chief architect of the Lucknow Pact, “the Ambassador of Hindu–Muslim Unity Central investigation Department (CID) in 1903 to secretly collect information on the activities of nationalists. The Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act (1908) and the Explosives Substances Act (1908), and shortly thereafter the Indian Press Act (1910), and the Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act (1911) were passed. The Defence of India Act, 1915 (Hardinge 2) nationalist and revolutionary activities during the First World War Khilafat Movement-1919 Muslims in India also organised themselves under the leadership of the Ali brothers – Maulana Muhammad Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali started a movement known as Khilafat Movement e aim was to the support the Ottoman Empire and protest against the British rule in India Gandhi had been honoured with the Kaiser i Hind gold medal for his humanitarian work in South Africa. He had also received the Zulu War silver medal for his services as an officer of the Indian volunteer ambulance corps in 1906 and Boer War silver medal for his services as assistant superintendent of the Indian volunteer stretcher-bearer corps during Boer War of 1899–1900 demands of the Khilafat Movement were presented by Mohammad Ali to the diplomats in Paris in March 1920 the Urdu word khilaf (against) and used it as a symbol of general revolt against authority Rise of Labour Movement-1918 The success of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 also had its effect on Indian labour The first trade union in the modern sense, the Madras Labour Union, was formed in 1918 by B.P Wadia. The union was formed mainly due to the ill-treatment of Indian worker in the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills, Perambur The working conditions were poor. Short interval for mid-day meal, frequent assaults on workers the Indian Seamen’s Union both at Calcutta and Bombay, the Punjab Press Employers Association, the G.I.P. Railway Workers Union Bombay, M.S.M. Railwaymen’s Union, Union of the Postmen and Port Trust Employees Union at Bombay and Calcutta, the Jamshedpur Labour Association, the Indian Colliery Employees Association of Jharia and the Unions of employees of various railways. On 30 October 1920, representatives of 64 trade unions, with a membership of 140,854, met in Bombay and established the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) under the Chairmanship of Lala Lajpat Rai.the number of registered trade unions increased from 107 to 1833 in 1946–47 Jinna was the chief architect of the Lucknow pact Ghardar Party-1913 Lala Hardayal, who settled in San Francisco, founded Pacific Coast Hindustan Association in 1913, with Sohan Singh Bhakna as its president. This organization was popularly called Ghadar Party. (‘Ghadar’ means rebellion in Urdu.) The members of this party were largely immigrant Sikhs of US and Canada. The party published a journal called Ghadar. It began publication from San Francisco on November 1, 1913. Later it was published in Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi and other languages. A ship named Komagatamaru, filled with Indian immigrants was turned back from Canada. As the ship returned to India several of its passengers were killed or arrested in a clash with the British police. This incident left a deep mark on the Indian nationalist movement. Advent of Gandhi and Mass Mobilization Champaran Movement (1917) Indigo cultivators of the district Champaran in Bihar were severely exploited by the European planters. indigo on lease on 3/20th of their fields. Accompanied by local leaders such as Rajendra Prasad, Mazharul Huq, Acharya Kripalani and Mahadeva Desai, Gandhi conducted a detailed enquiry report was accepted and implemented resulting in the release of the indigo cultivators of the bondage of European planters who gradually had to withdraw from Champaran itself. Mill Workers’ Strike and Gandhi’s Fast at Ahmedabad (1918) dispute between the textile workers and the mill owners. He met both the parties and when the owners refused to accept the demands of the low paid workers, Gandhi advised them to go on strike demanding a 35 percent increase in their wages.Hunger strike (c) The Kheda Struggle (1918) The Kheda peasants who were also battling the plague epidemic, high prices and famine approached the Servants of India Society, of which Gandhi was a member, for help. Gandhi, along with Vithalbhai Patel, intervened on behalf of the poor peasants and advised them to withhold payment and ‘fight unto death against such a spirit of vindictiveness and tyranny.’ Vallabhbhai Patel, a young lawyer and Indulal Yagnik joined Gandhi in the movement and urged the ryots to be firm. The government repression included attachment of crops, taking possession of the belongings of the ryots and their cattle and in some cases auctioning them. Servants of India Society was founded by Gopal Krishna Gokhale in 1905 to unite and train Indians of different castes, regions and religions in welfare work.The organization has its headquarters in Pune (Maharashtra) and notable branches in Chennai (Madras), Mumbai (Bombay), Allahabad and Nagpur. Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms-1919 Edwin Montagu and Chelmsford, the Secretary of State for India and Viceroy respectively, announced their scheme of constitutional changes for India which came to be known as the Indian Councils Act of 1919 The governments in the provinces were given more share in the administration under ‘Dyarchy.’ Under this arrangement all important subjects like law and order and finance ‘reserved’ for the whitemen.health, educations and local self-government were ‘transferred’ to elected Indian representatives Ministers holding ‘transferred subjects’ were responsible to the legislatures; but those incharge of ‘reserved’ subjects were not further the Governor of the province could overrule the ministers under ‘special (veto) powers,’The part dealing with central legislature in the act created two houses of legislature (bicameral) The Indian National Congress met in a special session at Bombay in August 1918 to discuss the scheme. The congress termed the scheme ‘disappointing and unsatisfactory.’ The colonial government followed a ‘carrot and stick policy.’ There was a group of moderate / liberal political leaders who wanted to try and work the reforms The Non-Brahmin Movement The symptoms of their awakening were already visible in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The Namasudra movement in the Bengal and eastern India, the Adidharma movement in North Western India, the Satyashodhak movement in Western India and the Dravidian movements in South India Jyoti Rao Phule’s book of 1872 titled Gulamgiri. His organization, Satyashodak Sama-1872j, underscored the necessity to relieve the lower castes from the tyranny of Brahminism and the exploitative scriptures Two trends emerged from the nonBrahmin movements. One was what is called the process of ‘Sanskritisatian’ of the ‘lower’ castes and the second was a radical pro-poor and progressive peasant–labour movements. While the northern and eastern caste movements by and large were Sanskritic, the western and southern movements split and absorbed by the rising nationalist and Dravidian–Left movements. However all these movements were critical of what they called as ‘Brahmin domination’ and attacked their ‘monopoly’ The Brahmin monopoly was quite formidable as with only 3.2% of the population they had 72% of all graduates NonBrahmin Manifesto issued at the end of 1916. They asserted that they formed the ‘bulk of the tax payers, including a large majority of the zamindars, landlords and agriculturists’, yet they received no benefits from the state. Dalit-Bahujan-1956 movement under the leadership of Dr Ambedkar and the Self-Respect Movement-1925 under the leadership of Periyar Ramaswamy Non-cooperation Movement-1920 The was as part of the British policy of ‘rally the moderates and isolate the extremists’ that the Indian Councils Act 1919 and the Rowlatt Act of the same year were promulgated This Act empowered the government to imprison any person without trial.‘Satyagraha Sabha-1919’ founded by Gandhi.In the place of the old agitational methods such as meetings, boycott of foreign cloth and schools, picketing of toddy shops, petitions and demonstrations, a novel method was adopted. Now ‘Satyagraha’ was the weapon to be used with the wider participation of labour, artisan and peasant masses. The symbol of this change was to be khadi, which soon became the uniform of nationalist. Almost the entire country was electrified when Gandhi called upon the people to observe ‘hartal’(Strike) in March–April 1919 against the Rowlatt Ac-1919. Jallianwala Bagh Massacre-13-April-1919 On 13th April 1919, in Amritsar town, in the Jallianwala enclave, the most heinous of political crimes was perpetrated on an unarmed mass of people by the British regime. More than two thousand people had assembled at the venue. Satyapal and Saifuddin Kitchlew. Michael O’Dwyer was the Lt. Governor of Punjab and the military commander was General Reginald Dyer.They shooted the dead was only about 379 the real number was over a thousand.Protesting against the brutalities many celebrities renounced their titles, of whom Ravindranath Tagore was one.(Knight Wood). A Sikh teenager who was raised at Khalsa Orphanage named Udham Singh saw the happening in his own eyes. To avenge the killings of Jallianwalla Bagh, on 30 March 1940, he assassinated Michael O'Dwyer in Caxton Hall of London. Udham Sing was hanged at Pentonville jail, London Launch of Non-Cooperation Movement The Ali brothers – Shukha and Muhammed – and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad were the prime movers in the Khilafat movement. Khilafat Committee: Formed in Bombay in March 1919 to defend the powers of the Ottoman Caliph The All-India Khilafat Conference held at Delhi in November 1919.The Khilafat Conference, at the instance of Gandhi, decided to launch the non-cooperation movement from 31 August 1920 at Allahabad. Gandhi was a president. Non-cooperation movement included boycott of schools, colleges, courts, government offices, legislatures, foreign goods, return of government conferred titles and awards. Alternatively, national schools, panchayats were to be set up and swadeshi goods manufactured and used.c. A regular Congress session held at Nagpur in 1920 endorsed the earlier resolutions.. In order to broad base the Congress, the workers were to reach out to the villages and enroll the villagers in the Congress on a nominal fee of four annas (25 paise) The visit of Prince of Wales in 1921 to several cities in India was also boycotted. The calculation of the colonial government that the visit of the Prince would evoke loyal sentiments of the Indian people was proved wrong. South India surged forward during this phase of the struggle. The peasants of Andhra, withheld payment of taxes to the zamindars and the whole population of Chirala-Perala refused to pay taxes and vacated the town en-mass. Hundreds of village Patels and Shanbogues resigned their jobs. Non-Cooperation movement in Tamil Nadu was organised and led by stalwarts like C. Rajagopalachari, S. Satyamurthi and Periyar E.V.R. In Kerala, peasants organized anti-jenmi struggles In February 1922 Gandhi announced that he would lead a mass civil disobedience, including no tax campaigns, at Bardoli, if the government did not ensure press freedom and release the prisoners within seven days. Chauri Chaura Incident and Withdrawal of the Movement Rampa rebellion-1922-1924 (Andra) In south indian region,Manyam, or the Rampa rebellion, was a tribal revolt led by Alluri Sitarama Raju in the Rampa regions of present-day Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh. August 1922 to May 1924 The rebellion was fought against the British, who were oppressing the Adivasis in the Eastern Ghats. The Adivasis were living in poverty and were being exploited by the police, forest, and revenue officials. The rebellion was sparked when a tahsildar attempted to build a forest road using unpaid labor. The rebellion began with coordinated attacks on British police stations by Raju and his followers. The rebels were successful in defeating the British police five times by September. The rebellion was eventually put down, but it showed how tribal communities were fighting back against British rule. Raju was captured and killed in May 1924. He is now considered a folk hero in Andhra Pradesh Mapala-1921 (kerala) Malabar region Variyamkunnath Kunjahammed Haji. The rebellion was a response to British colonial rule and the feudal system controlled by Hindu landlords. The Moplahs were mostly cultivators who gained ownership of the land during the reign of Tipu Sultan. After the British took control of Malabar, they restored ownership rights to the Hindu landlords, who then increased rents and made the peasants insecure. The rebellion began on August 20, 1921, when the Moplahs clashed with the British police in Tirurangadi. The rebels attacked government offices, looted property, and targeted the homes of Hindu landlords. The British responded by deploying the Malabar Special Force, and the rebellion was largely suppressed by early 1922 The rebellion resulted in the deaths of around 10,000 people, including 2,339 rebels. There were also reports of forced conversions of Hindus to Islam.The Moplah Rebellion is considered a divisive event in the history of Hindu-Muslim relations in India. It is also part of the Khilafat Movement and the Indian independence movement. Chauri-Chaura, a village in Gorakhpur district of UP had an organized volunteer group which was participating and leading the picketing of liquor shops and local bazaar.against high prices. On 5 February 1922, a Congress procession, 3000 strong, was fired upon by police Enraged by the firing, the mob attacked and burnt down the police station. 22 policemen lost their lives. It was this incident which made Gandhi announce the suspension of the non-cooperation movement.Both Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose were critical of Gandhi, who was arrested and sentenced to 6 years in prison(but Gandhi realised after few years). Thus ended the non-cooperation movement.The Khilafat issue was made redundant when the people of Turkey under the leadership of Mustafa Kamal Pasha rose in revolt Swarajist Party and its Activities-1923 Chittaranjan Das and Motilal Nehru proposed a new line of activity. They wanted to return to active politics which included entry into electoral politics and demonstrate the nation.‘Swarajists and pro-changers’. In Tamil Nadu, Satyamurti joined this group. There was another group which opposed council entry and wanted to continue the Gandhian line by mobilizing the masses. This team led by Rajagopalachari, Vallabhai Patel and Rajendra Prasad was called ‘No changers.’ The pro-changers launched the Swaraj party-1923 as a part of the Congress.The Swarajya party did reasonably well in the elections to Central Assembly by winning 42 of the 101 seats open for election Meanwhile socialist ideas and its activists also had filled some space through their work among peasants and workers. The labour and peasant movements were organized by the ‘leftists’.Marxism as an ideology to criticise colonialism and capitalism had gained ground.Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose contributed to the spread of leftist ideology.. A group of youngsters with S A. Dange, M.N Roy, Muzaffar Ahmed along with elderly persons such as Singaravelu form Tamilnadu founded the peasants and worker’s parties Simon Commission(1927)– Nehru Report(1928) – Lahore Congress(1929) The British were due to consider and announce another instalment of preparation, it announced the setting up of Indian Statutory commission (known as ‘Simon Commission’ after its chairman).The commission had only white men as members and it was an insult to Indians. The Congress at its annual session in Madras in 1927 resolved to boycott the commission. The Muslim league and the Hindu Mahasabha also supported the decision The AllParties meet held in 1928 December at Calcutta failed to accept it on the issue of communal representation. Whenever the commission went protests were held and the slogan ‘Simon Go Back’ rent the air in bombay , Madras and calcutta It was at Calcutta that the Congress met in December 1928. To conciliate the left wing it was announced that Jawaharlal would be the President of the next session in 1929. Thus Jawaharlal Nehru, son of Motilal Nehru, who presided over Congress in 1928, succeeded his father. Lahore Congress Session-Poorna Swaraj It was at the Lahore session that the Congress declared that the objective of the Congress was the attainment of complete independence. On 31 December 1929 the tricolour flag of freedom was hoisted at Lahore. It was also decided that 26 January would be celebrated as Independence day every year. Dandi March-1930 against the unjust tax on salt, which is used by all. But the colonial government was taxing it and had a near monopoly over it. The Dandi March was to cover 375 kms from Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi on the Gujarat coast. Joined by a chosen band of 78 followers from all regions and social groups, after informing the colonial government in advance, Gandhi set out on the march and reached Dandi on the 25th day i.e. 6 April 1930. Throughout the period of the march the press covered the event in such a way that it had caught the attention of the entire world. He broke the salt law by picking up a fist full of salt. It was symbolic of the refusal of Indians to be under the repressive colonial government and its unjust laws Vedaranyam Salt Satyagraha In Tamilnadu, a salt march was led by Rajaji to Vedaranyam. Vedaranyam, situated 150 miles from Tiruchirapalli from where the march started, was an obscure coastal village in Thanjavur district. Rajaji had just been elected president of the Tamil Nadu Congress. The march started on 13th April and reached Vedaranyam on 28th April 1930. The Thajavur collector J.A Thorne had warned the public of severe action if the marchers were harboured. But the Satyagrahis were warmly welcomed and provided with food and shelter. Those who dared to offer food and shelter were severely dealt with. The Satyagrahis marched via Kumbakonam, Semmangudi, Thiruthuraipoondi where they were given good reception. The Round Table Conferences-1930,1931,1932 The Simon Commission had submitted the report to the government. The Congress, Muslim league and Hindu Mahasabha had boycotted., the government announced that it would convene a Round Table Conference (RTC) in London with leaders of different shades of Indian opinion Thus negotiations with Congress were started and the Gandhi-Irwin pact was signed on March 5, 1931. It marked the end of civil disobedience in India. The movement had generated worldwide publicity, and Viceroy Irwin was looking for a way to end it. That year Gandhi attended the Second Round Table Conference in London as the sole representative of the Congress. The government agreed to allow people to make salt for their consumption, release political prisoners who had not indulged in violence, and permitted the picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops. The Karachi Congress ratified the Gandhi–Irwin pact. However the Viceroy refused to commute the death sentence of Bhagat Singh and his comrades He returned empty handed and the Congress resolved on renewing the civil disobedience movement.The leftists were in the forefront of the struggles of the workers and peasants. The government was determined to crush the movement. All key leaders including Nehru, Khan Abdul Gafar Khan and finally Gandhi were all arrested. The Congress was banned.The movement started waning and it was officially suspended in May 1933 and withdrawn in May 1934 Emergence of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and the Separate Electorates Ambedkar joined the Elphinstone College, with the help of a scholarship and graduated in 1912. With the help of a scholarship from the Maharaja of Barona he went to United States and secured a postgraduate degree, and doctorate, from the Columbia University. Then he went to London to study law and economics. Ambedkar’s brilliance caught the attention of many. Already in 1916, he had participated in an international conference of Anthropology and presented a research paper on ‘Castes in India’, which was published later in the Indian Antiquary. These achievements and there round table conference of Ambedkar british government offers the invited him to interact with the Southborough or the Franchise Committee Franchise Committee-1932 Also known as the Lothian Committee, this was a constitutional advisory committee established in 1932. The committee was chaired by the Marquess of Lothian. The committee's recommendations included: Increasing the number of qualified voters in the provinces.Making special provisions to guarantee representation for women and the "untouchables".Establishing separate electorates and reserved seats for minorities. Ambedkar launched news journals and organizations. Mook Nayak(1920 in marathi) (leader of the dumb) was the journal to articulate his views and the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha (1924)(Association for the welfare of excluded) spearheaded his activities. Janata (1930-56), and Prabuddha Bharat (1956). Mahad Satyagraha or Chavdar Tale Satyagraha was a satyagraha led by B. R. Ambedkar on 20 March 1927 to allow untouchables to use water in a public tank in Mahad (currently in Raigad district) His intellectual attacks were directed against leaders of the Indian National Congress and the colonial bureaucracy. In the meanwhile the struggle for freedom under Congress and Gandhi’s leadership had reached a decisive phase with their declaration that their objective was to fight for complete independence or ‘Purna Swaraj’ Ambedkar on Separate Electorate for “Untouchables” The Congress and Gandhi were worried that separate electorates for untouchables would further weaken the national movement, as separate electorates to Muslims, Anglo Indians and other special interests had helped the British to successfully pursue its divide and rule policy Communal Award-1932 the British Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald. The British government announced in August 1932 what came to be known as the Communal Award. Ambedkar’s demands for separate electorates with reserved seats were conceded.It reserved 71 seats in the central legislature for the marginalised sections of society and gave away the Communal Award of having separate electorates.In the provincial legislatures, the number of reserved seats increased from 71 to 147(Later independence). Poona Pact Gandhi was deeply upset. He declared that he would resist separate electorates to untouchables ‘with his life’. He went on a fast unto death in the Yervada jail where he was imprisoned.The new agreement, between Ambedkar and Gandhians, called the ‘Poona Pact’(1932) was signed. Ambedkar and Party Politics Ambedkar launched two political parties. The first one was the Independent Labour party in 1937 and the second Scheduled Caste Federation in 1942. The colonial government recognizing his struggles and also to balance its support base used the services of Ambedkar. Thus he was made a member of the Defence Advisory Committee in 1942, and a few months later, a minister in the Viceroy’s cabinet. The Defence Advisory Committee was a war advisory council established in 1942 to include politicians, princes, and other interests in India's national life.Sir Malik Feroz Khan Noon was the head of the Defence portfolio on the Viceroy's Executive Council in 1942. His tenure lasted from 1942 to 1944 The Noakhali riots were a series of semi-organized massacres, rapes and abductions, combined with looting and arson of Hindu properties, perpetrated by the Muslim community in the districts of Noakhali in the Chittagong Division of Bengal (now in Bangladesh) in October–November 1946, a year before India's independence from British rule.The massacre of the Hindu population started on 10 October, on the day of Kojagari Lakshmi Puja] and continued unabated for about a week. Around 50,000 Hindus remained marooned in the affected areas under the strict surveillance of the Muslims, where the administration had no say.When elections were held in the provinces of India in 1937, the provincial power of Bengal came into the hands of the Muslims. However, during British rule, Hindus had been in control as the zamindars (local rulers). They were also better educated and wealthier. A section of Muslims was looking for an opportunity to vent their old grievances against Hindu zamindars (local rulers). And that was the opportunity they got at the end of British rule in India.Attempts to bar Hindus from entering jobs, the poor status of Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces, partition of Bengal, and the provocations by the Muslim League led to the event. The relationship between the Hindus and Muslims was very delicate. The Hindu-Muslim riots in Noakhali are believed to have been caused mainly by the resentment of Muslims against Hindus when the British rule was ending and the false claims of a massacre against Muslims in Calcutta. Furthermore, there were rumours that the Jaminder of Ramganj, Rajendra Lal Chowdhury, was going to sacrifice a Muslim boy instead of a goat in a sacrificial event that initiated the event. On 11 October 1946, riots started Mahatma Gandhi camped in Noakhali for four months and toured the district in a mission to restore peace and communal harmony. In the meantime, the Indian National Congress leadership started to accept the proposed Partition of India and the peace mission and other relief camps were abandoned. The majority of the survivors migrated to West Bengal, Tripura and Assam Gandhi did not participate in the first-ever Independence Day celebrations in New Delhi because he was saddened by the Partition of the country and was trying to restore peace in Bengal A) The Namasudra Movement - 1912 The Namasudra movement was a social and political movement in colonial Bengal against the caste oppression, discrimination, and deprivation of caste Hindus."Namasudra" may mean "a group of respected sudra".The Namasudras organized themselves with the help of Sri Harichand Thakur and his son Guruchand Thakur of the Matua sect.the chairmanship of Mukunda Bihari Mallick. By 1928, (B) The Adidharma Movement-1925 The Adi Dharm movement was founded in the first quarter of the 1920s by Babu Mangu Ram Mugowalia. The movement's goals included: Political assertion, Cultural transformation, and Spiritual regenerationThe movement's political organization, the Ad-Dharm Mandal, contested elections in 1937 and 1945-46. The Mandal won all but one seat in 1937, and Mangoo Ram was elected in 1945-46 after an alliance with the Unionist Party Adi Brahmo houses of worship all over Punjab (West and East) at Jullundur, Lyallpur, Lahore, Amritsar etc.’ (C) The Satyashodhak Movement-1873 The Satyashodhak Samaj was a social reform society founded by Jyotirao Phule on 24 September 1873. It espoused a mission of education and increased social rights and political access for underprivileged groups, focused especially on women, Shudras, and Dalits, in Maharashtra (D) The Dravidian Movement-1916 The Dravidian movement in British India started with the formation of the Justice Party on 20 November 1916 in Victoria Public Hall in Madras by C. Natesa Mudaliar along with T. M. Nair and P. Theagaraya Chetty as a result of a series of non-Brahmin conferences and meetings in the presidency. Period of Radicalism in Anti-imperialist Struggles s. The Communist Party of India (CPI) was formed, by M.N. Roy, Abani Mukherji, M.P.T. Acharya, Mohammad Ali and Mohammad Shafiq, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan then in the Soviet Union in October 1920.The first batch of radicals reached Peshawar on 3 June 1921 The Peshawar Conspiracy Cases were a set of five legal cases which took place between 1922 and 1927 in British India. The muhajirs, a group of Muslims, were inspired by communist revolutions and went to the Soviet Union for training in 1920. Some of them returned to India in 1921 from Tashkent to incite a revolution. series of five conspiracy cases were instituted against them between the years 1922 and 1927. The first of these was the Peshawar Conspiracy case. This was followed by the Kanpur (Bolshevik).Conspiracy case in (1924) and the most famous, the Meerut Conspiracy case (1929). Meanwhile, the CPI was formally founded on Indian soil in 1925 in Bombay Kanpur Conspiracy Case, 1924 Radicalism spread across the British Provinces – Bombay, Calcutta and Madras - and industrial centres like Kanpur in United Province (UP).As a result, trade unions emerged in the jute and cotton textile industries, the railway companies across the country and among workers in the various municipal bodies.The expression "Bolshevism", and later "Communism", has become established in Western historiography in the sense of a certain set of features of Soviet power in a certain political period. The Kanpur Conspiracy case of 1924 was one such move. Those charged with the conspiracy were communists and trade unionists. The accused were arrested spread over a period of six months. Eight of them were charged under Section 121-A of the Indian Penal Code – ‘to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of India from imperialistic Britain by a violent revolution’, and sent to various jails. The case came before Sessions Judge H.E. Holmes who had earned notoriety while serving as Sessions Judge of Gorakhpur for awarding death sentence to 172 peasants for their involvement in the Chauri chaura In the Kanpur Conspiracy case, Muzaffar Ahmed, Shaukat Usmani, Nalini Gupta and S. A. Dange were sent to jail, for four years of rigorous imprisonment 13 persons were originally accused in the Kanpur case: (1) M.N. Roy, (2) Muzaffar Ahmad, (3) Shaukat Usmani, (4) Ghulam Hussain, (5) S.A. Dange, (6) M. Singaravelar, (7) R.L. Sharma, (8) Nalini Gupta, (9) Shamuddin Hassan, (10) M.R.S Velayudhun, (11) Doctor Manilal, (12) Sampurnananda, (13) Satyabhakta 8 persons were charge-sheeted: M.N. Roy, Muzaffar Ahmad, S.A. Dange, Nalini Gupta, Ghulam Hussain, Singaravelar, Shaukat Usmani, and R.L. Sharma. Ghulam Hussain turned an approver. M.N. Roy and R.L. Sharma were charged in absentia as they were in Germany and Pondicherry (a French Territory) respectively. Singaravelar was released on bail due to his ill health. Finally the list got reduced to four M. Singaravelar (18 February 1860 – 11 February 1946), was born in Madras. He was an early Buddhist, and like many other communist leaders, he was also associated with Indian National Congress initially. However, after sometime he chose a radical path. Along with Thiru. V. Kalyanasundaram, he organised many trade unions in South India. On 1 May 1923, he organised the first ever celebration of May Day in the country. He was one of the main organisers of the strike in South Indian Railways (Golden Rock, Tiruchirappalli) in 1928 and was prosecuted for that. In December 1925, a Communist Conference of different communist groups, from all over India, was held.Singaravelar from Tamil Nadu took part in this conference.India was established, formally, with Bombay as its Headquarters. Meerut Conspiracy Case, 1929 The late 1920s witnessed a number of labour upsurges and this period of unrest extended into the decade of the Great Depression (1929–1939).The communists played a prominent role in organising the working class throughout this period. The Kharagpur Railway workshop strikes in February and September 1927, the Liluah Rail workshop strike between January and July 1928, the Calcutta scavengers’ strike in 1928, the several strikes in the jute mills in Bengal during July-August 1929, the strike at the Golden Rock workshop of the South Indian Railway,Tiruchirappalli, in July 1928, the textile workers’ strike in Bombay in April 1928 are some of the strikes that deserve mention. Government brought two draconian Acts - the Trade Disputes Act, 1928 and the Public Safety Bill, 1928. These Acts armed the government with powers to curtail civil liberties in general and suppress the trade union activities in particular. They arrested 32 leading activists of the Communist Party, from different parts of British India like Bombay, Calcutta, Punjab, Poona and United Provinces.The arrested also included three British communists-Philip Spratt, Ban Bradley and Lester Hutchinson – who had been sent by the Communist Party of Great Britain to help build the party in India.uild the party in India. Like those arrested in the Kanpur Conspiracy Case they were charged under Section 121A of the Indian Penal Code. All the 32 leaders arrested were brought to Meerut (in United Province then) and jailed. The National Meerut Prisoners' Defence Committee was formed in 1929 to defend prisoners in the Meerut Conspiracy Case.Famous Indian lawyers like K.F. Nariman and M.C. Chagla appeared in the court on behalf of the accused.The Sessions Court in Meerut awarded stringent sentences on 16 January 1933, four years after the arrests in 1929. 27 were convicted and sentenced to various duration of transportation.That three British nationals were also accused in the case, the case became known internationally too. Most importantly, even Romain Rolland and Albert Einstein raised their voice in support of the convicted.the sentences were considerably reduced in July 1933. Bhagat Singh and Kalpana Dutt “Why I am an Atheist”(1930-1931)-Book Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh was born to Kishan Singh (father) and Vidyavati Kaur (mother) on 28 September 1907 in Jaranwala, Lyallpur district, Punjab, now a part of Pakistan. His father was a liberal and his family was a family of freedom fighters. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre happened when Bhagat Singh was 14 years. Early in his youth, he was associated with the Naujawan Bharat Sabha (March 1926) and the Hindustan Republican Association(FOunded by Ramprasad Bismil, Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee and Sachin Sanya1924).Responding to the rise in anti-colonial sentiment in 1928, the HRA became the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, with the change of name probably being largely due to the influence of Bhagat Singh. The latter organisation was founded by Sachin Sanyal and Jogesh Chatterji. It was reorganised subsequently in September 1928 as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (H.S.R.A) by Bhagat Singh and his comrades. Socialist ideals and the October Revolution in Russia of 1917 were large influences on these revolutionaries. Bhagat Singh was one of the leaders of the H.S.R.A along with Chandrashekhar Azad, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar. The image that comes to our mind at the very mention of Bhagat Singh’s name is that of the bomb he threw in the Central Legislative Assembly on April 8, 1929. The bombs did not kill anybody. It was intended as a demonstrative action, an act of protest against the draconian laws of the British Lahore Conspiracy Case The H.S.R.A was a renewed chapter of the Hindustan Republican Association. Its aim was the overthrow of the capitalist and imperialist government and establish a socialist society through a revolution. The H.S.R.A involved a number of actions such as the murder of Saunders in Lahore. In that, Saunders was mistaken for the Superintendent of Police, Lahore, James A. Scott who was responsible for seriously assaulting Lajpat Rai, in December 1928, and Rai’s subsequent death. They also made an attempt to blow up the train in which Lord Irwin (Governor General and Viceroy of India, 1926-1931) was travelling, in December 1929, and a large number of such actions in Punjab and UP in 1930. Bhagat Singh along with Rajguru, Sukhdev, Jatindra Nath Das and 21 others were arrested and tried for the murder of Saunders (the case was known as the Second Lahore Conspiracy Case). Jatindra Nath Das died in the jail after 64 days of hunger strike against the discriminatory practices and poor conditions in jail It was in this case that Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death on 7 October 1930 they also shouted Inquilab Zindabad after this defence statement of his in the court.Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged early in the morning of March 23, 1931 in the Lahore Jail “Inquilab Zindabad” The slogan was coined by Maulana Hasrat Mohani, an Urdu poet, Indian freedom fighter, and leader of the Indian National Congress in 1921. Kalpana Dutt (1913–1995) Kalpana Dutt (known as Kalpana Joshi after her marriage to the communist leader P.C. Joshi. Surya Sen, the revolutionary leader of Chittagong armoury raid, told Ananda Gupta, ‘a dedicated band of youth must show the path of organised armed struggle in place of individual action. Most of us will have to die in the process but our sacrifice for such a noble cause will not go in vain.’ Among them, the most important group was the one led by Surya Sen, a school teacher by profession, in Bengal Chittagong Armoury Raid-20-April-1930 Surya Sen’s revolutionary group, the Indian Republican Army, was named after the Irish Republican Army. They planned a rebellion to occupy Chittagong in a guerrilla style operation. The Chittagong armouries were raided on the night of 18 April 1930. networks including the railways to isolate the region.. The raids and the resistance continued for the next three years. Often, they operated from the villages and the villagers, gave food and shelter It took three years to arrest Surya Sen, in February 1933, and eleven months before he was sent to the gallows on 12 January 1934. Kalpana Dutt was among those who participated in the raids.Tried along with Surya Sen, Kalpana was sentenced to transportation for life. The charge was “waging war against the King Emperor.” As all their activities started with the raid on the Armoury, the trial came to be known as the Chittagong Armoury Raid Trial. Kalpana Dutt recalls in her book Chittagong Armoury Raiders Reminiscences the revolutionary youth of Chittagong wanted “to inspire self-confidence by demonstrating that even without outside help it was possible to fight the Government. On 13 June 1932 in a face-to-face battle against government forces, two of the absconders of the Armoury Raid were killed, while they in turn killed Capt. Cameron, Commander of the government forces in the village of Dhalghat in the house of a poor Brahmin widow, Savitri Debi. After the incident the widow was arrested together with her children. Despite many offers and temptations, not a word could the police get out of the widow. They were uneducated and poor, yet they resisted all the temptation offers of gold and unflinchingly could bear all the tortures that were inflicted upon them. —From Kalpana Dutt’s autobiography Chittagong Armoury Raiders’ Reminiscences Karachi Session of the Indian National Congress, 1931 The freedom struggle was taking a new shape. Peasants organised themselves into Kisan Sabhas and industrial workers were organized by the trade unions, made their presence felt in a big way in the freedom struggle.The Karachi session held in March 1931, presided over by Sardar Valabhbhai Patel, adopted a resolution on Fundamental Rights and Duties and provided an insight into what the economic policy of an independent India Gandhian ideals and Nehru’s socialist vision also found a place in the list of rights that the Indian National Congress promised to ensure in free India. The Great Depression and its Impact on India Black Thursday: October 24, 1929, when 12.9 million shares were traded on the stock exchange Black Tuesday: October 29, 1929, when 16.4 million shares were traded The crash in the Wall Street (where the American Stock Exchange was located) triggered an economic depression of great magnitude. The Depression hit India too. British colonialism aggravated the situation in India. Depression affected both industrial and agrarian sectors. Labour unrest broke out in industrial centres such as Bombay, Calcutta, Kanpur, United Province and Madras against wage cuts, lay-offs and for the betterment of living conditions. In the agriculture sector, agricultural products, which depended on export markets like jute and raw cotton fell steeply.e agricultural products, which depended on export markets like jute and raw cotton fell steeply Industrial Development in India The British trade policy took a heavy toll on the indigenous industry.The first Indian to start a cotton mill was Cowasjee Nanabhoy Davar (1815–73), a Parsi, in Bombay in 1854. This was known as the Bombay Spinning and Weaving Company. The city’s leading traders, mostly Parsis, contributed to this endeavour. The American Civil War (1861–65) was a boon to the cotton farmers. But after the Civil War when Britain continued to import cotton from America, Indian cotton cultivators came to grief. Ahmedabad textiles mills were established by Indian entrepreneurs and both Ahmedabad and Bombay became prominent centres of cotton mills. By 1914, there were 129 spinning, weaving and other cotton mills within Bombay presidency. Between 1875–76 and 1913- 14, the number of cotton textile mills in India increased from 47 to 271. This Britishmanaged industry, run by railway companies, employed 98,723 persons in 1911.The first jute mill in Calcutta was founded in 1855.(Acland Mill) the Bengal Coal Company was set up in 1843(1837) in Raiganj by Dwarakanath Tagore (1794–1847), grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore. The coal industry picked up after 1892 and its growth peaked during First World War years. Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) – was set up by the Tatas in 1907 as a part of swadeshi effort in Sakchi, Bihar. Prior to this, a group of Europeans had attempted in 1875 to found the Bengal Iron Company. Following this, the Bengal Iron and Steel Company was set up in 1889. In 1870, James Erskine founded the Bengal Iron Works at a place which is now known as Kulti. The local people used to call it Kendwa karkhana. The open top blast furnaces used raw coal, but there was no demand. The government departments, such as the public works department, used iron castings and so they were interested. The plant was taken over by the government in 1881 and renamed Barakar Iron Works. In 1889, it was taken over by the newly formed Bengal Iron & Steel Co. In 1892, Martin & Company came in as managing agents the first time, an industrial commission was appointed in 1916. During the war-period, the cotton and jute industries showed much growth. Steel industry was yet another sector marked by substantial growth. The first Indian owned paper mill – Couper Paper Mill – was set up in 1882 in Lucknow. Following this, Itaghur Paper Mill (Elephant brand in 1882) and Bengal Paper Mill(1891), both owned by Europeans, were established. Cement manufacturing began in 1904 in Madras (Attempt but failure) with the establishment of South Indian Industries Ltd-1904 The first cement factory in India was established in 1904 in Porbandar, Gujarat government leather factory was set up in 1860 in Kanpur. The first Indian owned National Tannery( leather is made by treating animal skin with chemicals) was established in 1905 in Calcutta The Scindia Steam Navigation Company Limited (1919) was the pioneer. In 1939, they even took over the Bombay Steam Navigation Company Ltd., a British concern. Eight Indian concerns were operational in this sector. A new phase of production began with the Second World War, which led to the extension of manufacturing industries to machineries, aircrafts, locomotives The Scindia Steam Navigation Company, founded in 1919, is the second oldest shipping company of India. The first being the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company of VOC Pillai in today's Tamilnadu that was founded in 1906. navigation history was created when she journeyed Bombay to the United Kingdom Walchand Hirachand The National Maritime Day is celebrated in India on 5 April. Walchand died in 1953, and the Scindia Shipyard continued (Visakhapatnam)in 1961 renamed as Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) because of nationalized. Industrial Development in Tamilnadu during the Depression Coimbatore, after Stanes Mill (Coimbatore Spinning and Weaving Mills)Coimbatore Stanes Mill was established in 1896, no other mill could come up.A cement factory started at Madukkarai in Coimbatore district in 1932 gave fillip to the cement industry.e. The number of sugar factories in the province rose from two to eleven between 1931 and 1936 Communalism in Nationalist Politics Hindu Revivalism Sarvepalli Gopal, Hindu, revivalism found its voice in politics through the Arya Samaj, founded in 1875, Rise of Muslims Consciousness Syed Ahmed Khan, had assisted the birth of a Muslim national party and Muslim political ideology. them had sapped its vitality. From the Wahabis to the Khilafatists, grassroots activism played a significant role in the politicization of Muslims The Bengal government’s order in the 1870s to replace Urdu by Hindi, and the Perso-Arabic script by Nagri script in the courts and offices created apprehension in the minds of the Muslim professional group. Divide and Rule Policy of British Bombay Governor Elphinstone wrote, ‘Divide et Impera was the old Roman motto and it should be ours.’ Role of Syed Ahmed Khan Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the founder of Aligarh movement(1875) However, there were Muslim leaders like Badruddin Tyabji, Rahmatullah Sayani in Mumbai, Nawab Syed Mohammed Bahadur in Chennai and A. Rasul in Bengal who supported the Congress. But the majority of Muslims in north India toed the line of Syed Ahmed Khan, and preferred to support the British Syed Ameer Ali, the first Indian to find a place in London Privy Council, projected the Congress as a representative body of only the Hindus.Of the seventy-two delegates attending the first session of the Congress only two were Muslims in 1885. Communalism in Local Body Elections Lal Chand, the principal spokesperson of the Punjab Hindu Sabha(1909) and later the leader of Arya Samaj, highlighted the extent to which some Municipalities were organised on communal lines: ‘The members of the Committee arrange themselves in two rows, around the presidential chair. On the left are seated the representatives of the banner of Islam and on the right the descendants of old Rishis of Aryavarta. By this arrangement the members are constantly reminded that they are not simply Municipal Councillors, but they are as Muhammedans versus Hindus and vice-versa....’ Hindu and Muslim Communalism were products of middle class infighting utterly divorced from the consciousness of the Hindu and Muslim masses. —Jawaharlal Nehru.The most aggravating factor was Tilak’s effort to mobilise Hindus through the Ganapati festival.(1893) Formation of All India Muslim League 1 October 1906, a 35-member delegation of the Muslim nobles, aristocrats, legal professionals and other elite sections of the community mostly associated with the Aligarh movement gathered at Simla under the leadership of Aga Khan to present an address to Lord Minto, the viceroy. Though the Simla deputation failed to obtain because they demanded the government jobs for muslims. it worked as a catalyst for the foundation of the All India Muslim League (AIML) to safeguard the interests of the Muslims in 1907 Separate Electorate or Communal Electorate:Under this arrangement only Muslims could vote for the Muslim candidates. Minto-Morley Reforms,1909 provided for eight seats to Muslims in the Imperial Legislative Council, out of the 27 non officials to be elected. In the Legislative Council of the provinces seats reserved for the Muslim candidates were: Madras-4; Bombay-4; Bengal-5. Lady Minto: ‘I must send your Excellency a line to say that a very big thing has happened to-day. A work of statesmanship, that will affect Indian History for many a long year. It is nothing less than pulling of 62 million people from joining the ranks of seditious opposition.’Lord Minto adopted the strategy of DIvide and Rule. Emergence of the All India Hindu Mahasabha-Madan Mohan Malviya, 1915 the first all Indian Conference of Hindus was convened at Haridwar in 1915 In pursuance of the resolution passed at the fifth Punjab Hindu Conference at Ambala and the sixth conference at Ferozepur.The All India Hindu Mahasabha was started there with headquarters at DehraDun Hindus into the boycott of the visit of Prince of Wales in 1921, Swami Shradhananda tried to revive the Mahasabha by organizing cow-protection propaganda the Act of 1919, began to stake their political claims and in the process vied with each other to acquire power and position. Of 968 delegates attending the sixth annual conference of the Hindu Mahasabha in Varanasi in August 1923, 56.7 % came from the U.P. The United Provinces (UP), the Punjab, Delhi and Bihar together contributed 86.8 % of the delegates. Madras, Bombay and Bengal combined sent only 6.6% of the delegates In Allahabad, Motilal Nehru and Madan Mohan Malaviya confronted each other. When Nehru’s faction emerged victorious in the municipal elections of 1923, Malaviya’s faction began to exploit religious passions.The District Magistrate Crosthwaite who conducted the investigation reported: ‘The Malavia family have deliberately stirred up the Hindus and this has reacted on the Muslims.’ The Hindu Mahasabha, represented the forces of Hindu revivalism in the political domain, raised the slogan of ‘Akhand Hindustan’ against the Muslim League’s demand of separate electorates for Muslims Delhi Conference of Muslims and their Proposals Conference of Muslims, which met at Delhi on March 20, 1927 to give up separate electorates if four proposals were accepted. 1. the separation of Sind from Bombay 2. Reforms for the Frontier and Baluchistan 3. Representation by population in the Punjab and Bengal and 4. Thirty-three per cent seats for the Muslims in the Central Legislature Gandhi wrote, ‘There are as many religions as there are individuals, but those who are conscious of the spirit of the nationality do not interfere with one another’s religion. If Hindus believe that India should be peopled only by Hindus, they are living in a dream land. The Hindus, the Sikhs, the Muhammedans, the Parsis and the Christians who have made their country are fellow countrymen and they will have to live in unity if only for their interest. In no part of the world are one nationality and one religion synonymous terms nor has it ever been so in India.’ Jinnah who had taken the initiative to narrow down the breach between the two, and had been hailed the ambassador of HinduMuslim unity by Sarojini, All Parties Convention held in Calcutta in 1928 rejected all amendments and destroyed any possibility of unity. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (R.S.S.) founded in 1925 was expanding and its volunteers had shot upto 1,00,000. K.B. Hedgewar, V.D. Savarkar and M.S. Golwalker were attempting to elaborate on the concept of the Hindu Rashtra and openly advocated that ‘the non-Hindu people in Hindustan must adopt the Hindu culture and language... they must cease to be foreigners or may stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation claiming nothing.' V.D. Savarkar asserted that ‘We Hindus are a Nation by ourselves’. Though the Congress had forbidden its members from joining the Mahasabha or the R.S.S. as early as 1934, it was only in December 1938. In the 1937 elections, Congress won in seven of the eleven provinces and formed the largest party in three others.It succeeded in winning only 4.8 per cent of the Muslim votes. The Second World War broke out in 1939 and the Viceroy of India Linlithgow immediately announced that India was also at war.The Muslim League celebrated the end of Congress rule as a day of deliverance on 22 December 1939. It was in this atmosphere that the League passed its resolution on 26 March 1940 in Lahore demanding a separate nation for Muslims. it had been conceived ten years earlier by the poet–scholar Mohammad Iqbal. At the League’s annual conference at Allahabad (1930), Iqbal expressed his wish to see a consolidated North-west Indian Muslim State. It was then articulated forcefully by Rahmat Ali, a Cambridge student. The basis of League’s demand was its “Two Nation Theory” which first came from Sir Wazir Hasan in his presidential address at Bombay session of League in 1937. He said, “the Hindus and Mussalmans inhabiting this vast continent are not two communities but should be considered two nations in many respects. on March 23, 1940, the Muslim League formally adopted.the idea by passing a resolution.Muslim League openly boycotted the Quit India movement of 1942.e elections held in 1946 to the Constituent Assembly, Muslim League won all 30 seats reserved for Muslims in the Central Legislative Assembly and most of the reserved provincial seats as well.In 1946 Secretary of State PethickLawrence led a three-member Cabinet Mission to New Delhi with the hope of resolving the Congress–Muslim League deadlock and, thus, of transferring British power to a single Indian administration The plan proposed a three-tier federation for India, integrated by a central government in Delhi, which would be limited to handling foreign affairs, communications, defence, and only those finances required to take care of union matters. The subcontinent was to be divided into three major groups of provinces: Group A, to include the Hindu-majority provinces of the Bombay Presidency, Madras Presidency, the United Provinces, Bihar, Orissa and Central Provinces; Group B, to contain the Muslim-majority provinces of the Punjab, Sind, the North-West Frontier, and Baluchistan; Group C, to include the Muslim-majority Bengal and the Hindu-majority Assam Jinnah accepted the Cabinet Mission’s proposal, as did the Congress leaders. But after several weeks of behind-the-scene negotiations, on July 29, 1946, the Muslim League adopted a resolution rejecting the Cabinet Mission Plan and called upon the Muslims throughout India to observe a ‘Direct Action Day’ in protest on August 16. The rioting and killing that took place for four days in Calcutta led to a terrible violence resulting in thousands of deaths Mountbatten who succeeded Wavell came to India as Viceroy to effect the partition plan and transfer of power. During the Mughal Period the Official and Court language was Persian. Abolition of the Caliphate 1924 Last Phase of Indian National Movement Individual Satyagraha The programme began on October 17, 1940 with Vinobha Bhave offering Satyagraha near his Paunar ashram in Maharashtra. Gandhi suspended the Satyagraha in December 1940. It was revived with some changes and groups offered satyagrahas from January 1941 and was eventually withdrawn in August 1941 Japan Storm South-East Asia This was happening alongside the attack on Pearl Harbour, where Japanese war-planes bombed the American port on December 7, 1941. US President F.D. Roosevelt and Chinese President Chiang Kai-Shek were concerned with halting Japan on its march The Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army were left to the mercy of the Japanese forces. It was from among them that what would later on to become the Indian National Army (INA) would be raised.Churchill was worried that Calcutta and Madras might fall in Japanese hands Arrival of Cripps-1942 A delegation headed by Sir Stafford Cripps reached India in 22 March to 12 April 1942. That Cripps, a Labour party representative in the War cabinet under Churchill. Cripps promised Dominion Status and a constitution-making body after the war. The constitution making body was to be partly elected by the provincial assemblies and nominated members from the Princely states.It said that any province that was not prepared to accept the new constitution would have the right to enter into a separate agreement with Britain regarding its future status. The draft did not contain anything new. Nehru recalled later: ‘When I read these proposals for the first time I was profoundly depressed.’ Bose had addressed the people of India on the Azad Hind Radio broadcast from Germany in March 1942 founded and spoken. This was the context in which Gandhi thought of the Quit India movement. Quit India Movement-8-aug-1942 It was in this context that the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress met at Wardha on July 14, 1942C. Rajaji and Bhulabhai Desai who had reservations against launching a movement at that time resigned from the Congress Working Committee. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) is the executive committee of the Indian National Congress. It was formed in December 1920 at Nagpur session of INC which was headed by C. Vijayaraghavachariar. Gandhi expressed this in a press interview on May 16, 1942 where he said: ‘Leave India to God. If that is too much, then leave her to anarchy. This ordered disciplined anarchy should go and if there is complete lawlessness, I would risk it.’ The Mahatma called upon the people to ‘Do or Die’ and called the movement he launched from there as a ‘fight to the finish’. All the leaders of the Indian National Congress, including Gandhi, were arrested early in the morning on August 9, 1942.people clashed, often violently, with the police. Industrial workers across India went on strike. The Tata Steel Plant in Jamshedpur closed down by the striking workers for 13 days beginning August 20.The textile workers in Ahmedabad struck work for more than three months The momentum and its intensity was such that Linlithgow, wrote to Churchill, describing the protests as ‘by far the most serious rebellion since 1857, the gravity and extent of which we have so far concealed from the world for reasons of military security.’ the shape of attacks and destruction of communication facilities such as telegraph lines, railway stations and tracks and setting fire to government offices. This spread across the country and was most intense in Eastern United Provinces, Bihar, Maharashtra and in Bengal. The rebels even set up ‘national governments’ in pockets they liberated from the colonial administration. An instance of this was the ‘Tamluk Jatiya Sarkar’(1942) in the Midnapore district in Bengal that lasted until September 1944. There was a parallel government in Satara The Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar was formed on December 17, 1942 in the Tamluk and Contai subdivisions of the Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal. Gandhi’s 21 day fast in jail, beginning February 10, 1943 (Agha Khan jail in pune ) Spread and Intensity of the Movement. By the end of 1943, the number of persons arrested across India stood at 91, 836. The police shot dead 1060 persons during the same period. 208 police outposts, 332 railway stations and 945 post offices were destroyed or damaged very badly. At least 205 policemen defected and joined the rebels. R.H. Niblett, who served as District Collector of Azamgarh in eastern United Province, removed from service for being too mild with the rebels, recorded in his diary that the British unleashed ‘white terror’ using an ‘incendiary police to set fire to villages for several miles’ and that ‘reprisals (becoming) the rule of the day.’ Collective fines were imposed on all the people in a village where public property was destroyed. The press being censored, the rebels set up a clandestine radio broadcast system from Bombay. The transmitter was shifted from one place to another in and around the city. Usha Mehta was the force behind the clandestine radio(Secret radio) operations and its broadcast was heard as far away as Madras. Congress Radio started with a broadcast on 27 August 1942 at 7:30 p.m. from the top floor of the Sea View building in Chowpatty Bombay with Usha Mehta, the founder of the station, announcing, "This is the Congress Radio calling on (a wavelength of) 42.34 metres from somewhere in India." The location was kept a secret. Gandhi’s release from prison, on health grounds, on May 6, 1944.Lord Archibald Wavell, who had replaced Linlithgow as Viceroy in October 1943, had begun to work towards another round of negotiation Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA The forces, however, could not stand up to the Japanese army. The command of the British Indian Army in the South-East Asian front simply retreated leaving the ranks behind as Prisoners of War.Mohan Singh, an officer of the British Indian Army in Malaya, approached the Japanese for help. The fall of Singapore to the Japanese forces added to the strength of the POWs and Mohan Singh now had 45,000 POWs under his command. Of these, Mohan Singh had drafted about 40,000 men in the Indian National Army by the end of 1942. On July 2, 1943, Subhas Chandra Bose, reached Singapore. From there he went to Tokyo and after a meeting with Prime Minister Tojo, the Japanese leader declared that his country did not desire territorial expansion into India. Bose returned to Singapore and set up the Provisional Government of Free India on October 21, 1943. Subash and INA The Rani of Jhansi regiment of the INA was commanded by a medical doctor and daughter of freedom fighter Ammu Swaminathan from Madras, Dr Lakshmi. On July 6, 1944, Subhas Chandra Bose addressed a message to Gandhi. the Azad Hind Radio from Rangoon. Calling him the ‘Father of the Nation’, Bose appealed to Gandhi for his blessing in what he described as ‘India’s last war of independence.’ Shah Nawaz accompanied the Japanese army, in its march on Imphal.The INA trials were held at the Red Fort in New Delhi. The Indian National Congress fielded its best lawyers in defence of the INA soldiers. Nehru, who had given up his legal practice as early as in 1920 responding to Gandhi’s call for non-cooperation. The Indian National Congress, after the debacle at the Simla Conference (June 25 and July 14, 1945) plunged into reaching out to the masses by way of public meetings across the country. The INA figured more prominently as an issue in all these meetings than even the Congress’s pitch for votes in the elections (under the 1935 Act) that were expected soon. It was in this context that the colonial rulers sent up three prominent officers of the INA – Shah Nawaz Khan, P.K. Sehgal and G.S. Dhillon – to trial. The press in India reported the trials with all empathy and editorials sought the soldiers freed immediately The Muslim League, the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Hindu Maha Sabha, all those who had stayed clear of the Quit India campaign, joined the protests and raised funds for their defence. Although the trial court found Sehgal, Dhillon and Shah Nawaz Khan guilty of treason, the commander in chief remitted the sentences and set them free on January 6, 1946 The Royal Indian Navy Revolt B.C. Dutt, a rating (the designation for the Indians employed in the various war-ships and elsewhere in the Royal Indian Navy) in the HMIS Talwar was arrested for scribbling ‘Quit India’ on the panel of the ship The ratings resented the racist behaviour of the English commanders, the poor quality of the food and abuses that were the norm. Dutt’s arrest served as the trigger for the revolt on February 18, 1946. Soon, the workers in the textile mills of Bombay joined the struggle. The trade unions in Bombay and Calcutta called for a sympathy strike and the two cities turned into war zones On news of the Bombay revolt reaching Karachi, ratings in the HMIS Hindustan and other naval establishments in Karachi went on a lightning strike on February 19. The strike wave spread to almost all the naval establishments across India and at least 20,000 ratings from 78 ships and 20 shore establishments ended up revolting in the days after February 18, 1946. There were strikes, expressing support to the ratings in the Royal Indian Air Force stationed in Bombay, Poona, Calcutta, Jessore and Ambala units. The Sepoys in the army cantonment station at Jabalpur too went on strike Sardar Vallabhai Patel, then in Bombay, took the initiative to bring the revolt to an end Rajaji Proposals and the Wavell Plan-1944 the communal challenge persisted and the Muslim League pressed with its demand for a separate nation. The Lahore resolution of the Muslim League in March 1940 had altered the discourse from the Muslims being a ‘minority’ to the Muslims constituting a ‘nation In April 1944, when the Congress leaders were in jail, C.Rajaji put out a proposal to resolve the issue A post-war commission to be formed to demarcate the contiguous districts where the Muslims were in absolute majority and a plebiscite of the adult population there to ascertain whether they would prefer Pakistan; In case of a partition there would be a mutual agreement to run certain essential services, like defence or communication; The border districts could choose to join either of the two sovereign states; The implementation of the scheme would wait till after full transfer of power Wavell Plan In June 1945 Lord Wavell moved to negotiate and called for the Simla conference. The rest of the Congress leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and the Congress president, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad were released from jail. The Simla Conference held between June 25 and July 14, 1945 ended without resolution. The talks broke down on the right of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. inate members to the Viceroy’s Council. The Muslim League insisted on its exclusive right to nominate Muslim members to the Council. Its demand was that the Congress nominees shall only be caste Hindus and that the Indian National Congress should not nominate a Muslim or a member from the Scheduled Caste! The years between the Lahore resolution of 1940 and the Simla Conference in 1945 marked the consolidation of a Muslim national identity and the emergence of Jinnah as its sole spokesperson. It was at a convention of Muslim League Legislators in Delhi in April 1946, that Pakistan was defined as a ‘sovereign independent state’ composition in geographical terms as ‘the region consisting of the Muslim majority provinces of Bengal and Assam in the Northeast and the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan in the Northwest. The Congress president Maulana Abul Kalam Azad rejected this idea and held that the Congress stood for a united India with complete independence Labour Party government headed by Clement Attlee. Times had changed in a substantial sense. British Prime Minister, Attlee had declared the certainty of independence to India with only the terms left to be decided. Cabinet Mission and Mountbatten Plan Headed by Secretary of State for India, Sir Stafford Cripps with A.V.Alexander and Pethick Lawrence as members the mission landed in India in March 1946.way of elections across the provinces and the princely states and entrust this body with the task of making a constitution for free India. the Muslim League could dominate the administration in the North-East and North-West provinces while the Congress would administer rest of the provinces. Jinnah sounded out his acceptance of the idea on June 6, 1946. The Congress, meanwhile, perceived the Cabinet Mission’s plan as a clear sanction for the setting up of a Constituent Assembly. Nehru conveyed through his speech at the AICC, on July 7, 1946, that the Indian National Congress accepted the proposal. Subsequently, Jinnah on July 29, 1946, reacted to this and announced that the League stood opposed to the plan. After elaborate consultations, the viceroy issued invitations on 15 June 1946 to the 14 men to join the interim government. The invitees were: Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Rajaji and Hari Krishna Mahtab (on behalf of the INC); Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, Mohammed Ismail Khan, Khwaja Sir Nazimuddin and Abdul Rab Nishtar (from the Muslim League) and Sardar Baldev Singh (on behalf of the Sikh community), Sir N.P. Engineer (to represent the Parsis), Jagjivan Ram (representing the scheduled castes) and John Mathai (as representative of the Indian Christians).Meanwhile, the Congress proposed Zakir Hussain from its quota of five nominees to the interim council. The Muslim League objected to this and, on 29 July 1946, Jinnah announced that the League would not participate in the process to form the Constituent Assembly.On 12 August 1946, the viceroy announced that he was inviting Nehru (Congress president) to form the provisional government. After consultation with Nehru, 12 members of the National Interim Government were announced on 25 August 1946. Five Hindus, three Muslims and one representative each from the scheduled castes, Indian Christians, Sikhs and Parsis formed.Later Hare Krishna Mahtab was replaced by Sarat Chandra Bose. The Parsi nominee, N.P. Engineer was replaced by Cooverji Hormusji Bhabha. In place of the League’s nominees, the Congress put in the names of three of its own men: Asaf Ali, Shafaat Ahmed Khan and Syed Ali Zaheer. The League, meanwhile, gave a call for ‘Direct Action’ on 16 August 1946. There was bloodshed in Calcutta and several other places, including in Delhi.. Muslims who were hounded out of their homes in Delhi were held in transit camps (in Purana Quila and other places). It was only after Gandhi arrived there (on 9 September 1946) and conveyed that the Muslims were Indian nationals and hence must be protected by the Indian state (Nehru by then was the head of the interim government) that the Delhi authorities began organising rations and building latrines. interim government. Nehru assumed office on 2 September 1946.violence broke out across the country and more prominently in Bombay and Ahmedabad. Lord Wavell set out on another round of discussion and after sounding out Nehru, he proposed, once again, to Jinnah that the League participate The Muslim League accepted the proposal but Jinnah refused to join the cabinet. The interim cabinet was reconstituted on October 26, 1946. Those who joined on behalf of the League were Liaquat Ali Khan, I.I. Chundrigar, A. R. Nishtar, Ghazanfar Ali Khan and Jogendra Nath Mandal While the Congress scored impressive victories in the July–August 1946 elections and secured 199 from out of the 210 general seats, the Muslim League did equally well in seats reserved for the Muslims. The League’s tally was 76. All but one of the 76 seats came from the Muslim-reserved constituencies. Hence, only 207 members attended the first session of the Constituent Assembly on 9 December 1946.The proverbial last straw was the budget proposals presented by Liaquat Ali Khan in March 1947 for tax collection from 150 industies. Khan called this a ‘socialistic budget’. British Prime Minister Atlee’s statement in Parliament on February 2

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