HISTORY

• Many dispossessed peasants took to robbery and dacoity.
• Indigo Revolt of 1859-60
• By the end of 1860 indigo cultivation was virtually wiped out from the districts of Bengal
• A major reason for the success of the Indigo revolt was the tremendous initiative, cooperation, organization and discipline of the ryots.
• Another was the complete unity among Hindu and Muslim peasants
• Another significant feature was the role of intelligentsia of Bengal which organized a powerful campaign in support of the rebellious peasantry.
• The government’s response to the revolt was rather restrained and not as harsh as in the case of civil rebellions and tribal uprisings.
• The government appointed the Indigo Commission to enquire into the problems of indigo cultivation. The report of the commission exposed the coercion and corruption in indigo cultivation
• The government issued a notification in November 1960 that ryots could not be compelled to sow indigo and all disputes were to be settled by legal means.

Late Peasant Movements

• Three important peasant movements of the early twentieth century:
  • Kisan Sabha and Eka movements in Avadh in UP
  • Mappila rebellion in Malabar
  • Bardoli Satyagrah in Gujarat
• The UP Kisan Sabha was set up in February 1918 through the efforts of Gauri Shankar Mishra and Indra Narain Dwivedi with the support of Madan Mohan Malviya.
• By June 1919, it had established about 450 branches in 173 tehsils of the province.
• In August 1921, Mappila (Muslim) tenants rebelled. Their grievances related to lack of any security of tenure, renewal fees, high rents and other oppressive labndlord exactions.
• The no-tax movement was launched in Bardoli taluq of Surat district in Gujarat in 1928.

The Working Class Movements

• There were some working class movements in second half of 19^th However, they were impulsive and not very well organized.
• The early nationalists had a lukewarm attitude towards the question of workers. This war because initially Congress wanted to focus on issues which were of common concern to all the people of India.
• There was a difference in attitude of the nationalists towards workers in indigenous and European enterprises.
• The most important feature of the labour movement during the Swadeshi days was the shift from agitation and struggles on purely economic questions to the involvement of the worker with the wider political issues of the day.
• The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was founded in 1920.
• IN 1918 Gandhi founded the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association.
• The AITUC in November 1927 took a decision to boycott the Simon Commission and many workers participated in the massive Simon boycott demonstrations.
• Alarmed by worker’s movement, the government enacted repressive laws like the Public Safety Act and Trade Disputes Acts and arrested the entire radical leadership of the labour movement and launched the Meerut Conspiracy Case against them.
• The labour movement suffered a major setback partially due to this government offensive and partially due to a shift in stance of the communist led wing of the movement.
• From the end of 1928, the communists stopped aligning them with the national movement.
• Communists got isolated within the AITUC and were thrown out in the split of 1931.
• BY 1934, the communists re-entered the mainstream nationalist politics.
• The working class of Bombay held an anti-war strike on 2 October, 1939.
• With the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, the communists changed their policy and asked the people to support the allied forces instead of holding anti-war strikes.
• The communists dissociated themselves from the Quit India movement launched in 1942.
• The last years of colonial rule also saw a remarkably sharp increase in strikes on economic issues all over the country – the all India strike of the post and telegraph department employees being the most well known among them.

Raja Rammohan Roy:

RRM Roy was a social reformer and intellectual in the early nineteenth century Bengal. He is most widely known for founding the Brahmo Samaj and his relentless campaign against the practice of Sati and child marriage.

Debendranath Tagore:

Brahmo Samaj:

BS was founded in 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy with the purpose of purifying Hinduism and to preach monotheism or belief in one God.

• The socio-religious reforms are also referred to as the Indian renaissance
• The socio-cultural regeneration in nineteenth century India was occasioned by the colonial presence, but not created by it.
• Formation of the Brahmo Samaj in 1828.
• Paramhansa Mandali, Prathna Samaj, Arya Samaj, Kayasth Sabha: UP, Sarin Sabha: Punjab, Satya Sodhak Samaj: Maharashtra, Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sabha: Kerala
• Ahmadiya and Aligarh Movements: Muslims, Singh Sabha: Sikhs, Rehnumai Mazdeyasan Sabha: Parsees
• Their attention was focused on worldly existence.
• The idea of otherworldliness and salvation were not a part of their agenda.
• At that time the influence of religion and superstition was overwhelming. Position of priests strong; that of women weak.
• Caste was another debilitating factor
• Neither a revival of the past nor a total break with tradition was contemplated.
• Rationalism and religious universalism influenced the reform movement.
• Development of universalistic perspective on religion
• Lex Loci Act propsed in 1845 and passed in 1850 provided the right to inherit ancestral property to Hindu converts to Christianity.
• The culture faced a threat from the colonial rule.

Disillusionment of the nationalists with moderate policies

• The moderates thought that the British could be reformed from within
• Politically conscious Indians were convinced that the purpose of the British rule was to exploit India economically
• The nationalists realized that Indian industries could not flourish except under an Indian government
• Disastrous famines from 1896 to 1900 took a toll of over 90 lakh lives
• The Indian Councils Act of 1892 was a disappointment
• The Natu brothers were deported in 1897 without trial
• In 1897 B G Tilak was sentenced to long term imprisonment for arousing the people against the government
• In 1904, the Indian Official Secrets Act was passed restricting the freedom of the Press
• Primary and technical education was not making any progress
• Thus, increasing number of Indians were getting convinced that self-government was essential for the sake of economic, political and cultural progress of the country

Growth of Self-respect and  self-confidence

• Tilak, Aurobindo and Pal preached the message of self-respect
• They said to the people that remedy to their condition lay in their own hand and they should therefore become strong
• Swami Vivekananda’s messages

Growth of education and unemployment

International Influences

• Rise of modern Japan after 1868
• Defeat of the Italian army by the Ethiopians in 1896 and of Russia by Japan in 1905 exploded the myth of European superiority

Existence of a Militant Nationalist School of Thought

• The Akali movement
• The movement arose with the objective of freeing the Gurudwaras from the control of ignorant and corrupt priests (mahants).
• Apart from the mahants, after the British annexation of Punjab in 1849, some control over the Gurudwaras was exercised by Government-nominated managers and custodians, who often collaborated with mahants.
• The government gave full support to the mahants. It used them to preach loyalism to the Sikhs and to keep them away from the rising nationalist movement.
• The agitation for the reform of Gurudwaras developed during 1920 when the reformers organized groups of volunteers known as jathas to compel the mahants and the government appointed managers to hand over control of the Gurudwaras to the local devotees.
• Tens of Gurudwaras were liberated within an year.
• To manage the control of Golden Temple and othe rGurudwaras the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee was formed in November 1920.
• Feeling the need to give the reform movement a structure, the Shiromani Akali Dal was established in December 1920.
• The SGPC and Akali Dal accepted complete non-violence as their creed.
• There was a clash between the mahant and the Akalis over surrendering the gurudwara at Nanakana. This led to killing of about 100 akalis.
• The Nankana tragedy led to the involvement of Sikhs on a large scale in the national movement.
• Keys Affair: In October 1921, the government refused to surrender the possession fo the keys of the Toshakhana of the golden temple of the Akalis. This led to protests. Leaders like Baba Kharak Singh and Master Tara Singh were arrested. Later, the government surrendered the keys to keep the Sikhs from revolting.
• Guru ka Bagh gurudwara in Ghokewala was under dispute as the mahant there claimed that the land attached to it was his personal possession. When few akalis cut down a tree on that land they were arrested on the complain of the mahant. Seeing this thousands of akalis came and started cutting down the trees. About 4000 akalis were arrested. Later, the government didn’t arrest but started beating them up severly. But the alakis kept turning up. Ultimately the government had to surrender.
• The akali movement made a huge contribution to the national awakening of Punjab.
• However, the movement encouraged a certain religiosity which would be later utilized by communalism.
• In 1923, the Congress decided to take active steps towards the eradication of untouchability.
• The basic strategy it adopted was to educate and mobilize opinion among caste hindus.
• Immediately after the Kakinada session, the Kerala Provincial Congress Committee (KPCC) took up the eradication of untouchability as an urgent issue.
• KPCC adeiced to organize an procession on the temple roads in Vaikom, a village in Travancore, on 30 March 1924.
• During the processions, the satyagrahis were arrested and sentenced to imprisonment.
• On the death of Maharaja in August 1924, the Maharani released the Satyagrahis.
• Gandhiji visited Kerala to discuss the opening of temple with Maharani. A compromise was reached whereby all roads except for the ones in the Sankethan of the temple were opened to the harijans.
• In his Kerala tour, Gandhi didn’t visit a single temple because avarnas were kept out of them.
• The weakness of the anti-caste movement was that through it aroused people against untouchability it lacked a strategy of ending the caste system itself.

• Gandhiji was arrested in 1922 and sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment. The result was the spread of disintegration, disorganization and demoralization in the nationalist ranks.
• After a defeat of their resolution of ‘either mending or ending’ in the Congress, CR Das and Motilal Nehru resigned and formed the Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party in December 1922.
  • It was to function as a group within the congress
• How to carry on political work in the movements’ non-active phases. The swarajists said that work in the council was necessary to fill the temporary political void. The no-changers believed otherwise.
• Major no-changers: Sardar Patel, Dr Ansari, Rajendra Prasad
• The no-changers opposed council-entry mainly on the ground that parliamentary work would lead to the neglect of constructive and other work among the masses , the loss of revolutionary zeal and political corruption.
• Despite the differences, he two groups had a lot in common.
  • The need for unity was very strongly felt by all the Congressmen after the 1907 debacle.
  • Both realized that the real sanctions which would compel the government to accept the national demands would be forged only by a mass movement.
  • Both groups fully accepted the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.
• In the session held in 1923, the congressmen were permitted to stand as candidates and exercise their franchise in the forthcoming elections.
• Gandhiji was released on February 5, 1924. He did not agree with the Swarajists. However, slowly he moved towards an accommodation with the swarajists.
• On 6 November 1924, Gandhiji brought the strife between the Swarajists and no-changers to an end, by signing a joint statement with Das and Motilal that the Swarajists Party would carry on work in the legislatures on behalf of the Congress and as an integral part of the Congress. This decision was endorsed in Belgaum.
• The Swarajists did well in the elections and won 42 out of 101 seats in the Central Legislative Assembly.
• In March 1925, Vithalbhai J Patel was elected as he President (speaker) of the Central Legislative Assembly.
• The achievement of the Swarajists lay in filling the political void at a time when the national movement was recouping its strength.
  • They also exposed the hollowness of the reforms of 1919
• After the petering out of the NCM communalism took stronghold
  • Even within the Congress, a group known as ‘responsivists’, including Madan Mohan Malviya, Lala Lajpat Rai and NC Kelkar, offered cooperation to the government so that the so-called Hindu interests might be safeguarded.

Emergence of socialism in the 1920s in the nationalist ranks

• JL Nehru and SC Bose
• Raised the question of internal class oppression by capitalists and landlords
• MN Roy became the first Indian to be elected to the leadership of the Communist International
• Muzaffer Ahmed and SA Dange were tried in the Kanpur Conspiracy Case
• 1925: Communist Party of India was formed
• All India Trade Union Congress
• Various Strikes: Bombay textile mills, Jamshedpur, Kharagpur

• Bardoli Satyagraha (1928)
  • Peasants under the leadership of Sardar Patel organized no tax campaign
• Indian Youth were becoming active
  • First All Bengal Conference of Students held in 1928 presided by JL Nehru
• Hindustan Republican Association: 1924
  • Kakori Conspiracy Case (1925)
  • Four, including Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan were hanged.
• Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (1928)
  • On 17^th December 1928, Bhagat Singh, Azad and Rajguru assassinated Saunders
  • Bhagat Singh and BK Dutt threw bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly on 8 April 1929 to let the people know of their changed political objectives
• Chittagong Armoury Raid: 1030, Surya Sen
  • Participation of young women