Nationalism in India PDF

Nationalism in India - The First World War, Khilafat and Non-Cooperation - First of all, the war created a new economic and political situation. It led to a huge increase in defence expenditure which was financed by war loans and increasing taxes: customs duties were raised and inc...

Nationalism in India - The First World War, Khilafat and Non-Cooperation - First of all, the war created a new economic and political situation. It led to a huge increase in defence expenditure which was financed by war loans and increasing taxes: customs duties were raised and income tax introduced. Prices increased -- doubling between **1913 and 1918.** - Villages were called upon to supply soldiers, and the forced recruitment in rural areas caused widespread anger. - Then in **1918-19 and 1920-21**, crops failed in many parts of India, resulting in acute shortages of food. This was accompanied by an influenza epidemic. According to the census of **1921**, **12 to 13 million** people perished as a result of famines and the epidemic. - The Idea of Satyagraha - Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in **January 1915**. He had come from South Africa where he had successfully fought the racist regime with a novel method of mass agitation, which he called satyagraha. - It emphasised the power of truth and the need to search for truth and suggested that if the cause was true, then physical force was not necessary to fight the oppressor. People -- including the oppressors -- had to be persuaded to see the truth, instead of being forced to accept truth through the use of violence. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians. - After arriving in India, he successfully organised satyagraha movements in various places- 1. **1917**- Champaran, Bihar- He went to inspire the peasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation system. 2. **1917**-Kheda, Gujarat- He organized a satyagraha to support the peasants who had been affected by crop failure and a plague epidemic, unable to pay the revenue and were demanding that revenue collection be relaxed. 3. **1918**- Ahmedabad -- A satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers. - The Rowlatt Act - Motivated by the successes of the satyagraha, Gandhiji in **1919** decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act **(1919)**. - It was passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members. It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years. - Mahatma Gandhi wanted non-violent civil disobedience against such unjust laws, starting with a hartal (protest), on **6 April**. - Rallies were organised in various cities, workers went on strike in railway workshops, and shops closed down. Alarmed by the popular upsurge, the British administration decided to clamp down on nationalists and banned Mahatma Gandhi from entering Delhi. - On **10 April**, the police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession. Martial law (replacement of civilian government by military rule) was imposed and General Dyer took command. - On **13 April**, the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day a large crowd gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh. Some came to protest against the government's new repressive measures. Others had come to attend the annual Baisakhi fair. Being from outside the city, many villagers were unaware of the martial law that had been imposed. Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. His motive was to create a feeling of terror and awe in the minds of satyagrahis. - Failure of the Civil Disobedience Movement- 1. As the news of Jallianwalla Bagh spread, crowds took to the streets in many north Indian towns. 2. There were strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on government buildings. The government responded with brutal repression, seeking to humiliate and terrorise people. 3. Seeing violence spread, Mahatma Gandhi called off the movement. - The Rowlatt Satyagraha was still limited to cities and towns. Mahatma Gandhi now felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing the Hindus and Muslims closer together. One way of doing this, he felt, was to take up the Khilafat issue- 1. The First World War had ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey. And there were rumours that a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman emperor -- the spiritual head of the Islamic world (the Khalifa). 2. To protect the Khalifa's powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in **March 1919.** 3. A young generation of Muslim leaders like the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi about the possibility of a united mass action on the issue 4. Gandhiji saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement. At the Calcutta session of the Congress in **September 1920,** he convinced other leaders of the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj. 5. The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in Jan.1921. - Why Non-cooperation? - In Gandhiji's famous book**, Hind Swaraj (1909),** he declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians and could only collapse with their non-cooperation. - Gandhiji proposed that the movement should unfold in stages- 1. It should begin with the surrender of titles that the government awarded, and a boycott of civil services and foreign goods. 2. Then, in case the government used repression, a full civil disobedience campaign would be launched. - Through **the summer of 1920** Mahatma Gandhi and Shaukat Ali toured thoroughly garnering popular support for the movement. - Many within the Congress were reluctant to boycott the council elections scheduled for **November 1920**, and they feared that the movement might lead to popular violence. Between September and December there was an intense dispute within the Congress. - Finally, at the Congress session at Nagpur **in December 1920**, a compromise was worked out and the Non-Cooperation programme was adopted. - Differing Strands within the Movement - The Movement in the Towns - The movement started with middle-class participation in the cities. 1. Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and colleges, headmasters and teachers resigned. 2. Lawyers gave up their legal practices. 3. The council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras, where the Justice Party, the party of the non-Brahmans, felt that entering the council was one way of gaining some power -- something that usually only Brahmans had access to. - Effects of the Non-Cooperation movement on the economic front- 1. Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in huge bonfires. 2. **The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore.** 3. Merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance foreign trade. 4. People began discarding imported clothes and wearing only Indian ones, production of Indian textile mills and handlooms went up. - **Reasons for the slowing down of the movement-** 1. Khadi cloth was more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people couldn't afford to buy it. 2. In order for the British institutions to be boycotted successfully, their Indian alternatives had to be created, which were slow to come up. So, students and teachers went back to government schools and lawyers joined back work in government courts. - Rebellion in the Countryside - In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra -- a sanyasi (hermit) who had earlier been to Fiji as an indentured (relating to an agreement in which someone works for someone else until they have paid back a debt) labourer. 1. The movement here was against landlords who demanded high rents and made the peasants perform begar (work without pay) at their farms. 2. The peasant movement demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and social boycott of oppressive landlords. 3. **In June 1920,** Jawaharlal Nehru began going around the villages in Awadh, talking to the villagers, and trying to understand their grievances. By October, the Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month**, over 300 branches** had been set up in the villages around the region. 4. **In 1921, the houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked**, bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over. 5. In many places local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared that no taxes were to be paid and land was to be redistributed among the poor. The name of the Mahatma was being invoked to sanction all action and aspirations. - Tribal peasants interpreted the message of Mahatma Gandhi and the idea of swaraj in yet another way. 1. In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, for instance, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s. 2. Cause- The colonial government had closed large forest areas, preventing people from entering the forests to graze their cattle, or to collect fuelwood and fruits. 3. Not only were their livelihoods affected but they felt that their traditional rights were being denied. When the government began forcing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill people revolted. 4. Their leader, **Alluri Sitaram Raju** claimed that he had a variety of special powers: he could make correct astrological predictions and heal people, and he could survive even bullet shots. 5. Raju talked of the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi, but at the same time he asserted that India could be liberated only by the use of force, not non-violence. The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British officials and carried on guerrilla warfare for achieving swaraj. 6. **Raju was captured and executed in 1924.** - Swaraj in the Plantations - For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space in which they were enclosed, and it meant eliminating a link with the village from which they had come. - Under **the Inland Emigration Act of 1859**, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission, which they were rarely given. - When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations and headed home. They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming and everyone would be given land in their own villages. They, however, never reached their destination. Stranded on the way by a railway and steamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally beaten up. - Their interpretation of the word 'swaraj' meant a time when all suffering and all troubles would be over. Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji's name and raised slogans demanding 'Swatantra Bharat', they were also emotionally relating to an all-India agitation. - Towards Civil Disobedience - **In February 1922,** Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement. He felt the movement was turning violent in many places and satyagrahis needed to be properly trained before they would be ready for mass struggles. - Many Congress leaders were by now tired of mass struggles and wanted to participate in elections to the provincial councils that had been set up by the **Government of India Act of 1919.** - C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within the Congress to argue for a return to council politics. But younger leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose pressed for more radical mass agitation and for full independence. - Factors that shaped Indian Politics- 1. Effect of the Great Economic Depression- **Agricultural prices began to fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930.** As the demand for agricultural goods fell and exports declined, peasants found it difficult to sell their harvests and pay their revenue. **By 1930, the countryside was in turmoil.** 2. The Tory Government- It was set up under Sir John Simon as a response to the nationalist movement. Its purpose was to look into the functioning of the constitutional system in India and suggest changes. The problem was that the commission did not have a single Indian member. They were all British. a. When the Simon Commission arrived in India in 1928, it was greeted with the slogan 'Go back Simon'. All parties participated in this demonstration. b. On **31 Oct. 1929**, Lord Irwin, the Viceroy of India announced that the government would meet with Indian representatives in London for a Round Table Conference. c. The radicals within the Congress, led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose, became more dominant while the liberals and moderates, who were proposing a constitutional system within the framework of British dominion (a government system where India would have its own constitution and more self-governance, but still remain under British rule) lost their influence. d. In **December 1929**, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress formalised the demand of 'Purna Swaraj' or full independence for India. It was declared that 26 January 1930, would be celebrated as the Independence Day when people were to take a pledge to struggle for complete independence. - The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement - On **31 January 1930**, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands. Some of these were of general interest; others were specific demands of different classes, from industrialists to peasants. The idea was to make the demands wide-ranging, so that all classes could be brought together in a united campaign. 1. The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax as it was one of the most essential items of food. The tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production, Mahatma Gandhi declared, revealed the most oppressive face of British rule. 2. This letter was an ultimatum. If the demands were not fulfilled by 11 March, the letter stated, the Congress would launch a civil disobedience campaign. Irwin was unwilling to negotiate. So, Mahatma Gandhi started his famous salt march accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers. 3. The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji's ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi. The volunteers walked for 24 days, about 10 miles a day. **On 6 April** he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling sea water. - Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured salt and demonstrated in front of government salt factories. As the movement spread, peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes, village officials resigned, and in many places forest people violated forest laws -- going into Reserved Forests to collect wood and graze cattle. - Worried by the developments, the colonial government began arresting the Congress leaders one by one. 1. When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, was **arrested in April 1930**, angry crowds demonstrated in the streets of Peshawar. 2. In **May 1930**, when Mahatma Gandhi himself was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked all structures that symbolised British rule. 3. Peaceful satyagrahis were attacked, women and children were beaten, and about 100,000 people were arrested. - Mahatma Gandhi once again decided to call off the movement and entered into a pact with Irwin **on 5 March 1931.** By this Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhiji consented to participate in the Round Table Conference and the government agreed to release the political prisoners. 1. **In December 1931**, Gandhiji went to London for the conference, but the negotiations broke down and he returned disappointed. 2. Back in India, Ghaffar Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru were both in jail, the Congress had been declared illegal, and a series of measures had been imposed to prevent meetings, demonstrations and boycotts. 3. With great apprehension, Mahatma Gandhi relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement. For over a year, the movement continued, but by **1934 it lost its momentum.** - How Participants saw the Movement - Rich peasant communities -- like the Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh -- were active in the movement. 1. Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by the trade depression and falling prices. As their cash income disappeared, they found it impossible to pay the government's revenue demand. And the refusal of the government to reduce the revenue demand led to widespread resentment. This led to them being enthusiastic supporters of the Civil Disobedience Movement. 2. For them the fight for swaraj was a struggle against high revenues. But they were deeply disappointed when the movement was called off in 1931 without the revenue rates being revised. So, when the movement was restarted in 1932, many of them refused to participate. - The poorer peasantry were small tenants cultivating land they had rented from landlords. 1. As the Depression continued and cash incomes dwindled, the small tenants found it difficult to pay their rent. They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted. 2. They joined a variety of radical movements, often led by Socialists and Communists. Worried of raising issues that might upset the rich peasants and landlords, the Congress was unwilling to support 'no rent' campaigns in most places. So, the relationship between the poor peasants and the Congress remained uncertain. - The business classes (merchants and industrialists) made huge profits during World War One. 1. Keen on expanding their business, they now reacted against colonial policies that restricted business activities. 2. To organise business interests, **they formed the Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927. Led by prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G. D. Birla**, the industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian economy, and supported the Civil Disobedience Movement when it was first launched. 3. They gave financial assistance and refused to buy or sell imported goods and came to see swaraj as time when colonial restrictions on business would no longer exist and the trade and other industries would flourish. 4. They were worried about prolonged disruption of business, as well as of the growing influence of socialism amongst the younger members of the Congress. - The industrial working classes did not participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement in large numbers, except in the Nagpur region. 1. Some workers did participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement, selectively adopting some of the ideas of the Gandhian programme, like boycott of foreign goods, as part of their own movements against low wages and poor working conditions. 2. **There were strikes by railway workers in 1930 and dockworkers in 1932. In 1930 thousands of workers in Chotanagpur** tin mines wore Gandhi caps and participated in protest rallies and boycott campaigns. But the Congress was reluctant to include workers' demands as part of its programme of struggle. It felt that this would alienate industrialists. - Another important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement was the large-scale participation of women. 1. During Gandhiji's salt march, thousands of women came out of their homes to listen to him. They participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, and destroyed foreign cloth and liquor shops. 2. In urban areas these women were from high-caste families; in rural areas they came from rich peasant households. Moved by Gandhiji's call, they began to see service to the nation as a sacred duty of women. Yet, this increased public role did not necessarily mean any change in the way the women were visualised. 3. Gandhiji was convinced that it was the duty of women to look after home and hearth, be good mothers and good wives. And for a long time, the Congress was reluctant to allow women to hold any position of authority within the organisation. - The Limits of Civil Disobedience - The nation's 'untouchables' were not moved by the abstract concept of swaraj. Around the 1930s had begun to call themselves dalit or oppressed. For long the Congress had ignored the Dalits, for fear of offending the sanatanis, the conservative high-caste Hindus. 1. But Mahatma Gandhi declared that swaraj would not come for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated. a. He called the 'untouchables' harijan, or the children of God, organised satyagraha to secure them entry into temples, and access to public wells, tanks, roads and schools. b. He himself cleaned toilets to dignify the work of the Bhangi (the sweepers), and persuaded upper castes to change their heart and give up 'the sin of untouchability'. 2. Many dalit leaders began organising themselves, demanding reserved seats in educational institutions, and a separate electorate that would choose dalit members for legislative councils. Political empowerment, they believed, would resolve the problems of their social disabilities. 3. Dalit participation the Civil Disobedience Movement was limited particularly in the Maharashtra and Nagpur regions, where their organisation was quite strong. - **Dr B.R. Ambedkar, who organised the dalits into the Depressed Classes Association in 1930**, clashed with Mahatma Gandhi at the second Round Table Conference by demanding separate electorates for dalits. 1. When the British government conceded Ambedkar's demand, Gandhiji began a fast unto death. He believed that separate electorates for dalits would slow down the process of their integration into society. Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhiji's position and the result was **the Poona Pact of September 1932**. It gave the Depressed Classes (later to be known as the Schedule Castes) reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils. - Muslim political organisations in India had an uninterested response to the Civil Disobedience Movement. After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement, a large section of Muslims felt alienated from the Congress. From the mid-1920s the Congress came to be more visibly associated with openly Hindu religious nationalist groups. 1. As relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened, each community organised religious processions with an aggressive attitude, provoking Hindu-Muslim communal clashes and riots in various cities which deepened the distance between the two communities. 2. The Congress and the Muslim League made efforts to renegotiate an alliance, and in 1927 it appeared that such a unity could be forged. a. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a member of the Muslim League, one of the leaders of the Muslim League, was willing to give up the demand for separate electorates, if Muslims were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in proportion to population in the Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal and Punjab). b. The hope of resolving the communal issue disappeared when n M.R. Jayakar of the Hindu Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise. c. When the Civil Disobedience Movement started there was thus an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust between communities. Many Muslim leaders and intellectuals expressed their concern about the status of Muslims as a minority within India. They feared that the culture and identity of minorities would be submerged under the domination of a Hindu majority. - The Sense of Collective Belonging - This sense of collective belonging came partly through the experience of united struggles. But there were also a variety of cultural processes through which nationalism captured people's imagination. History and fiction, folklore and songs, popular prints and symbols, all played a part in the making of nationalism. - Bharat Mata- The Allegory of India 1. The image was first created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. In the 1870s he wrote 'Vande Mataram' as a hymn to the motherland. Later it was included in his novel Anandamath and widely sung during the Swadeshi movement in Bengal. 2. Moved by the Swadeshi movement, Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata, portraying her as an ascetic (characterized by severe self-discipline and abstention from all forms of indulgence, typically for religious reasons) figure, she is calm, composed, divine and spiritual. 3. Devotion to this mother figure came to be seen as evidence of one's nationalism. - Movements to revive Indian Folklore 1. In late-nineteenth-century India, nationalists began recording folk tales sung by bards and they toured villages to gather folk songs and legends. These tales, they believed, gave a true picture of traditional culture that had been corrupted and damaged by outside forces. 2. In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore himself led the revolution for folk revival. 3. In Madras, Natesa Sastri published a massive four-volume collection of Tamil folk tales, The Folklore of Southern India. He believed that folklore was national literature. - Symbols 1. During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green and yellow) was designed. It had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims. 2. By 1921, Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolour (red, green and white) and had a spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help. Carrying the flag, holding it aloft, during marches became a symbol of defiance. - Reinterpretation of History 1. By the end of the nineteenth century many Indians began feeling that to instil a sense of pride in the nation, Indian history had to be thought about differently. 2. The British saw Indians as backward and primitive, incapable of governing themselves. In response, Indians began looking into the past to discover India's great achievements. They wrote about the glorious developments in ancient times when art and architecture, science and mathematics, religion and culture, law and philosophy, crafts and trade had flourished. 3. This glorious time, in their view, was followed by a history of decline, when India was colonised. These histories urged the readers to take pride in India's great achievements in the past and struggle to change the miserable conditions of life under British rule. - Conclusion 1. The Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi tried to channel people's grievances into organised movements for independence. Through such movements the nationalists tried to forge a national unity. 2. The Congress continuously attempted to resolve differences, and ensure that the demands of one group did not alienate another. This is precisely why the unity within the movement often broke down. The high points of Congress activity and nationalist unity were followed by phases of disunity and inner conflict between groups.