Nationalism in India
How did nationalism
emerge in India? (How was nationalism associated with Anti-colonial Movement in
India?)
1. People began discovering
their unity in the process of their struggle with colonialism.
2. The sense of being oppressed
under colonialism provided a shared bond that tied many different
groups together.
3. The Congress Party
united all these groups together within one movement.
4. People
were united under Mahatma Gandhi and he tried to forge these groups
together within one movement.
5. In India,
the growth of modern nationalism is intimately connected to the
anti-colonial movement.
Effects of World
War I in India
1. First World War created a new
economic and political situation. It led to a huge increase of taxes like customs
duties and income tax was introduced.
2. Through the war years prices
increased which led to extreme hardship for the common people.
3. Villages were called upon to
supply soldiers, and the forced recruitment in rural areas caused
widespread anger.
4. From 1918 to 1921, crops failed
in many parts of India, resulting in acute shortages of food. This was
accompanied by an influenza epidemic.
5. According to the census of
1921, 12 to 13 million people perished as a result of famines and the
epidemic.
What is Satyagraha?
1. The idea of Satyagraha emphasized
the power of truth and the need to search for truth. Gahdhiji suggested
that if the struggle was against truth and injustice, without seeking angry,
vengeance or aggression, a satyagrahi could win the battle through nonviolence.
Successful
Satyagraha movements from 1916 to1918
Mahatma Gandhi
successfully organized three Satyagraha movements in various
places.
1. In 1916 Mahatma Gandhi
travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to struggle against the
oppressive plantation system.
2. Then in 1917, Mahatma Gandhi organized
a satyagraha to support the peasants of the Kheda district of Gujarat who were
affected by crop failure and a plague epidemic and were demanding that revenue
collection be relaxed.
3. In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to
Ahmedabad to organize a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.
The Rowlatt Act and
Rowlatt Satyagraha
1. Rowlatt Act (1919) gave the
government enormous powers to repress political activities and allowed
detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
2. Mahatma Gandhi wanted
non-violent civil disobedience against such unjust laws, which would start with
a hartal on 6 April 1919.
3. Rallies were organised in
various cities, workers went on strike in railway workshops, and shops closed
down.
Causes for
Jallianwalla Bagh massacre
1. To repress Rowlatt Satyagraha
local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from
entering Delhi.
2. On 10 April, the police in
Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession, provoking widespread attacks on
banks, post offices and railway stations. Martial law was imposed and General
Dyer took command.
3. On 13 April a large crowd
gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh to attend the annual
Baisakhi fair. Being from outside the city, many villagers were unaware of the
martial law that had been imposed.
4. General Dyer entered the
area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds.
5. As the news of
Jallianwalla Bagh spread, crowds took to the streets in many north Indian
towns. There were strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on government
buildings.
6. The government responded with brutal repression,
seeking to humiliate and terrorise people. Seeing violence spread, Mahatma
Gandhi called off the Rowlatt Satyagraha movement.
Khilafat Committee
and Khilafat Movement
1. The
First World War had ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey and a harsh peace
treaty( removing religious powers) was imposed on the Ottoman Emperor (
Khalifa) – the spiritual head of the Islamic world.
2. To defend the
Khalifa’s temporal powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in
Bombay in March 1919.
3. Young Muslim leaders
like Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, began a movement against the British in
India which is called Khilafat Movement.
4. Gandhiji saw
this as an opportunity to bring Muslims and Hindus under the umbrella of
a unified national movement.
5. 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.
Why did Gandhiji organize
Non-cooperation?
1. Mahatma
Gandhi declared that British rule was established and survived in India with
the cooperation of Indians.
2. If Indians refused
to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj
would come.
How could (idea of)
non-cooperation become a mass movement?
(How was Non
Cooperation movement unfolded in Stages?)
1. Gandhiji proposed
that the movement should begin with the surrender of titles that the government
awarded.
2. The movement
should continue with boycott of civil services, army, police, courts and
legislative councils, schools, and foreign goods.
3. Then, in case
the government used repression, a full civil disobedience campaign would be
launched.
How did different
social groups conceive of the idea of Non-Cooperation?
The Movement in the
Towns with middle-class
participation
1. The movement
started with thousands of students left government-controlled schools and colleges,
headmasters and teachers resigned.
2. Lawyers gave
up their legal practices and boycotted courts.
3. The council
elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras.
4. Foreign goods
were boycotted, liquor shops were picketed and foreign cloth burnt in huge
bonfires.
5. In many
places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance
foreign trade.
Why did the
movement in the cities gradually slow down? Give reasons.
1. Khadi cloth
was often more expensive than mass produced mill cloth and poor people could
not afford to buy it. Common people began to wear foreign cloth.
2. Similarly the
boycott of British educational institutions posed a problem because there were
no alternative Indian institutions. So students and teachers began trickling back
to government schools.
3. Lawyers and
officers could not survive without income so they joined back work in government
courts and offices.
Rebellion in the
Countryside of Awadh
1. In Awadh,
peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra – a sanyasi who had earlier
been to Fiji as an indentured labourer. The movement was against talukdars
and landlords who demanded high rents, free labour and a variety of other
taxes.
2. The peasant movement
demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and social
boycott of oppressive landlords. In many places barbers and washer men refused
to serve the landlords (nai– dhobi bandh)
3. By October,
1920 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. When the Non-
Cooperation Movement began, 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.
Rebellion in the
forest of Andhra Pradesh
1. In the Gudem
Hills of Andhra Pradesh, the colonial government had closed large forest areas,
preventing people from entering the forests to graze their cattle, or to
collect fuel wood and fruits.
2. This enraged
the hill people. 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.
3. The person
who came to lead them was Alluri Sitaram Raju who 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.
4. Raju was
inspired by the Non-Cooperation Movement and Gandhiji. He persuaded people to
wear khadi and give up drinking. But at the same time he asserted
that India could be liberated only by the use of force, not non-violence.
5. The Gudem
rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British officials and
carried on guerrilla warfare for achieving swaraj. Raju was captured and executed
in 1924, and over time became a folk hero.
Plantation workers
and Non Cooperation Movement
1. Under the
Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave
the tea gardens.
2. When they
heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the
authorities, left the plantations and headed home (Bihar, Bengal and Orissa).
3. 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 retaining a
link with the village from which they had come.
4. They believed
that Gandhi Raj has come and everyone would be given land in their own
villages.
5. On the way to
steamer and railway stations they were caught by the police and brutally beaten
up.
What were the two factors that shaped Indian politics
towards the late 1920s?
1. The
first was the effect of the worldwide economic depression. Agricultural prices began
to fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930.
2. As the demand
for agricultural goods fell and exports declined, peasants found it difficult
to sell their harvests and pay their revenue.
Simon Commission
1. In 1928 a
commission was appointed under Sir John Simon called Simon Commission.
2. It was
appointed to look into the functioning of the constitutional system in India
and suggest changes.
3. The problem
was that the commission did not have a single Indian member. They were all
British.
4. When the
Simon Commission arrived in India it was greeted with the slogan ‘Go back Simon’.
5. All parties,
including the Congress and the Muslim League, participated in the demonstrations.
Round Table
Conferences
1. Lord Irwin,
the viceroy of India announced (1929) a vague offer of ‘dominion status’ for
India in an unspecified future, and a Round Table Conference to discuss a
future constitution.
2. There were
three Round Table Conferences held in London. Gandhiji attended the second
Round Table Conference.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Ambedkar
ultimately accepted Gandhiji’s position and the result was the Poona Pact of
September 1932.
Lahore Congress
Session-1929
1. Jawaharlal
Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose became more assertive and brought radical ideas
into the Congress party.
2. In December
1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress formalized
the demand of ‘Purna Swaraj’ or complete independence for India.
3. It was
declared that if British government does not grant self-rule within a year, on 26
January1930 the congress party would celebrate the day as the Independence Day.
The Salt March and
the Civil Disobedience Movement
1. Mahatma
Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unite the nation. Salt was
the item consumed by the rich and the poor alike, and it was one of the most
essential items of food.
2. The tax on
salt and the government monopoly over its production made Mahatma Gandhi to
launch a civil disobedience campaign.
3. Mahatma
Gandhi started his famous salt march accompanied by 78 of his trusted
volunteers.
4. The march was
over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal
town of Dandi.
5. On 6 April he
reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the salt law, manufacturing salt by boiling
sea water. This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.
How was Civil Disobedience Movement different from
the Non-Cooperation Movement?
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Civil Disobedience Movement
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Non-Cooperation Movement
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People were now asked not only to
refuse cooperation with the British, but also to break colonial laws
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People were asked to refuse
cooperation
with the British,
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Participation of Muslim was less.
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Participation of Muslim was more in
Non Cooperation Movement
|
|
Dalit participation in the Civil
Disobedience Movement was therefore limited,
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Dalit participation in the Non
Cooperation was not there.
|
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Participation of women was more in
Non Cooperation Movement
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Participation of women was less in
Non Cooperation Movement
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A frightened
government responded with a policy of brutal repression during the Civil
Disobedience Movement- Discuss
1. Thousands in
different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured salt and
demonstrated in front of government salt factories.
2. As the
movement spread, foreign cloth was boycotted, and liquor shops were picketed.
Peasants refused to pay revenue and taxes, village officials resigned.
3. In many
places forest people violated forest laws – going into Reserved Forests to
collect wood and graze cattle.
4. When Abdul
Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, was arrested angry crowds demonstrated
in the streets of Peshawar, facing armored cars and police firing. Many were
killed.
5. When Mahatma Gandhi
himself was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts,
municipal buildings, law courts and railway stations –all structures that symbolized
British rule.
Gandhi-Irwin Pact
1. Mahatma
Gandhi called off the movement and entered into a pact with Irwin called
Gandhi-Irwin Pact.
2. According to
the pact Gandhiji agreed to participate in the 2ndRound Table
Conference in London.
3. Lord Irwin
agreed to release the political prisoners.
Poona Pact:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Ambedkar
ultimately accepted Gandhiji’s position and the result was the Poona Pact of
September 1932.
4. According to
Poona Pact Gandhiji promised to give reservations to dalits after independence.
5. According to
Poona Pact B.R Ambedkar agreed to give away the separate electorate for Dalits.
How did different social groups participate in
the Civil Disobedience Movement?
1. Rich peasant communities:–
· Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh –
were active in the movement.
· Being producers of commercial crops, they were very
hard hit by the trade depression and falling prices.
· As their cash income disappeared, they found it
impossible to pay the government’s revenue demand.
· These rich peasants became enthusiastic supporters
of the Civil Disobedience Movement. They demanded to reduce the land revenue.
· 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.
2. The poor peasants: –
· 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 (removed)
· They joined a variety of radical movements, often
led by Socialists and Communists.
· Apprehensive of raising issues that might upset the
rich peasants and landlords, the Congress was unwilling to support ‘no rent’
campaigns of poor peasants in most places.
· So the relationship between the poor peasants and
the Congress remained uncertain.
3. The business classes (Industrialists):
· Indian merchants and industrialists had made huge
profits during W W 1and now reacted
against colonial policies that restricted business activities
· They wanted protection against imports of foreign
goods, and a rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio that would discourage
imports.
· To organise business interests, they formed the
Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress 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.
· They were apprehensive of the spread of militant
activities, and worried about prolonged disruption of business, as well as of
the growing influence of socialism amongst the younger members of the Congress.
4. The industrial workers:
· The industrial working classes did not participate
in the Civil Disobedience Movement in large numbers, except in the Nagpur
region.
· As the industrialists came closer to the Congress,
workers stayed aloof.
· But in spite of that, 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
· 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 because their demands are against
industrialists.
5. Participation of Women:
· During Gandhiji’s salt march, thousands of women
came out of their homes to participate in protest marches, manufacture salt,
and picket foreign cloth and liquor shops.
· Many went to jail. 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.
· 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. It was keen only on their symbolic presence.
The Limits of Civil
Disobedience
Dalits
1. For long the
Congress had ignored the dalits. But Mahatma Gandhi declared that swaraj would
not come for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated.
2. 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.
3. 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’.
4. Dalit leaders
began organising themselves into associations, demanding reserved seats in educational
institutions, and a separate electorate that would choose dalit members for
legislative councils.
5. Dalit
participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement was therefore limited, particularly
in the Maharashtra and Nagpur region where their organisation was quite strong.
Muslim Political
Organisations:
1. After the
decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, a large section of Muslims
felt alienated from the Congress.
2. From the mid-1920s
the Congress came to be more visibly associated with openly Hindu religious
nationalist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha.
3. As relations
between Hindus and Muslims worsened, each community organised religious
processions with militant fervour, provoking Hindu-Muslim communal clashes and
riots in various cities.
4. The Congress
and the Muslim League made efforts to renegotiate an alliance. Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
was willing to give up the demand for separate electorates, if Muslims were
assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly.
5. Negotiations
over the question of representation continued but all hope of resolving the
issue at the All Parties Conference in 1928 disappeared when M.R. Jayakar of
the Hindu Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise.
6. When the Civil Disobedience Movement started
there was large sections of Muslims could not respond to the call for a united
struggle.
How did people
belonging to different communities, regions or language groups develop a sense
of collective belonging?
There were a variety of cultural processes through which
nationalism captured people’s imagination- discuss
1. Image of Bharat Mata
· In the 20thcentury the identity of India
came to be visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata.
· The image was first created by Bankim Chandra
Chattopadhyay.
· Abanindra nath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat
Mata and portrayed it as an ascetic figure, calm, composed, divine and
spiritual.
· In subsequent
years, the image of Bharat Mata acquired many different forms, as it circulated
in popular prints, and was painted by different artists.
· Devotion to this mother figure came to be seen as
evidence of one’s nationalism.
2. Vande Mataram
· In the1870s Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay 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 and other national
movements.
3. Indian folklore
· Nationalists believed that our traditional culture had
been corrupted and damaged by outside forces.
· It was essential to preserve this folk
tradition in order to discover one’s
national identity and restore a sense of pride in one’s past
· Nationalists began recording folk tales sung by
bards and they toured villages to gather folk songs and legends.
· In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore himself
began collecting ballads, nursery rhymes and myths, and led the movement for
folk revival.
· In Madras, Natesa Sastri published
a massive four-volume collection of Tamil folk tales, The Folklore of
Southern India.
4. The tricolour flag
· Nationalist leaders became more and more aware of using
national flag and believed that such symbols would unify the people and inspire
them a feeling of nationalism
· During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a
tricolour flag (red, green and yellow) was designed and used.
· It had eight lotuses representing eight provinces
of British India, and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims
· By1921,
Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolor (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.
5. Reinterpretation of Indian history
·
Another means of creating a feeling of
nationalism was through reinterpretation of our history.
·
Many Indians began feeling that to
instill a sense of pride in the nation, Indian history had to be thought about
differently.
·
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 in art and architecture, science and
mathematics, religion and culture, law and philosophy, crafts and trade had
flourished.
·
In their view this glorious time was
followed by a history of decline, when India was colonised. These nationalist
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.
Assignment for Nationalism in India
1. What were the major Effects of
World War I in India?
2.
How did
nationalism emerge in India? (How was nationalism associated with Anti-colonial
Movement in India?)
3. What is Satyagraha?
4. What were the Successful
Satyagraha movements organized by Gandhi from 1916 to1918?
5. What is the Rowlatt Act?
6. What were the developments that
took place during Rowlatt Satyagraha?
7. Why did Gandhi call off Rowlatt
Satyagraha?
8. How would you explain the Jallianwalla
Bagh massacre?
9. Why was the Khilafat Committee
founded?
10. Why was the Khilafat Movement organized?
11. Why did Gandhi organize
Non-cooperation?
12. How could (idea of) non-cooperation
become a mass movement?
13. How was Non Cooperation movement
unfolded in Stages?
14. How did different social groups
conceive of the idea of Non-Cooperation?
15. How did middle-class participate
in the Non Cooperation Movement from Towns and cities?
16. Why did the movement in the
cities gradually slow down? Give reasons.
17. How did the Rebellion in the Countryside
of Awadh become a part of the Non Cooperation Movement?
18. How did the Rebellion in the
forest of Andhra Pradesh become a part of the Non Cooperation Movement?
19. How did the Plantation workers
take part in the Non Cooperation Movement?
20. Why did Gandhi call off the Non
Cooperation Movement?
21.
What were
the two factors that shaped Indian politics towards the late 1920s?
22. What is Simon Commission? Why did
it come to India?
23. Write a note on the Round Table
Conferences
24. What were the two major decisions
taken at the Lahore Congress Session-1929?
25. Why did Gandhi organize the Salt
March?
26. Why did Gandhi begin the Civil
Disobedience Movement in 1930?
27.
How was Civil
Disobedience Movement different from the Non Cooperation Movement?
28.
A frightened government responded with a policy of
brutal repression during the Civil Disobedience Movement- Discuss
29. What was the Gandhi-Irwin Pact?
30. What was the Poona Pact?
31.
How did
different social groups participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement?
32. How did the Rich peasant
communities participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement?
33. How did the poor peasants participate
in the Civil Disobedience Movement?
34. How did the business classes
(Industrialists) participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement?
35. How did the Industrial
workers participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement?
36. How did women participate in
the Civil Disobedience Movement?
37. Explain the Limits of Civil
Disobedience movement.
38. How did Dalits participate
in the Civil Disobedience Movement?
39. How did Muslim Political Organizations
participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement?
40. How did people belonging to
different communities, regions or language groups develop a sense of collective
belonging?
41.
There
were a variety of cultural processes
through which nationalism captured people’s imagination- discuss
42. How did the use of Image of Bharat
Mata develop nationalism in the minds of people?
43. How did the use of the slogan Vande
Mataram develop nationalism in the minds of people?
44. How did the collection and use of
Indian folklore develop nationalism in the minds of people?
45.
How did
use of National flag develop nationalism in the minds of people?
46.
Why
did national leaders want to reinterpret Indian history?
