Simon Commission (1927)

  • Indian Statutory Commission chaired by Simon to go into the question of further constitutional reform
  • All its seven members were Englishmen. Clement Attlee was one of the members.
  • Lord Birkinhead was the secretary of state at that time
  • At its Madras session in 1927 INC decided to boycott the commission “at every stage and in every form”
    • ML and Hindu Mahasabha supported Congress
  • Nehru Report, 1928
    • Dominion status
    • Contained Bill of Rights
    • No state religion
    • Federal form
    • Linguistically determined provinces
    • No separate electorates
    • All Party Convention, held at Calcutta in 1928, failed to pass the report
    • Muslim league rejected the proposals of the report
    • Jinnah drafted his fourteen points
    • Hindu Mahasabha and Sikh League also objected
  • Poorna Swaraj
    • Resolution passed at the Lahore session in 1929
    • On 31 December 1929, the tri-color was hoisted
    • On 26 January 1930, Independence Day was celebrated

 

consolidation and reorganization within the country

Post-independence consolidation and reorganization within the country

Its a new topic added to the syllabus but the question regarding the state reorganization have been asked in the past… few institutes are suggesting india after gandhi by ghua or India since independence by bipin chandra… i dont feel that we shud read such large books for the said topic rather den i am uploading two files go through them
 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_FR6Jkv0z2cOGFoWWdzcjdGRUE/edit?usp=sharing
and
 https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_FR6Jkv0z2cbHNoSlVBcjYzZEk/edit?usp=sharing
and still who want big books the links are as follows
india after gandhi 
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_FR6Jkv0z2cZ0pKOUZJbVJqYVk/edit?usp=sharing

World War I and Indian Nationalism-

  • Increasing number of Indians from Punjab were emigrating to North America.
  • The British government thought that these emigrants would be affected by the idea of . Hence, they tried to restrict emigration.
  • Tarak Nath Das, an Indian student in Canada, started a paper called Free Hindustan.
  • The Hindi Association was setup in Portland in May 1913.
  • Under the Leadership of Lala Har Dayal, a weekly paper, The Ghadar was started and a headquarters called Yugantar Ashram was set up in San Fransisco.
  • On November 1, 1913, the first issue of Ghadar was published in Urdu and on December 9, the Gurumukhi edition.
  • In 1914, three events influenced the course of the Ghadar movement:
    • The arrest and escape of Har Dayal
    • The Komagata Maru incident
    • Outbreak of the first world war
  • Gharadites came to India and made several attempts to instill the Indian Population to revolt. However, this was of no avail.
  • The Ghadar movement was very secular in nature.
  • Ghadar militants were distinguished by their secular, egalitarian, democratic and non-chauvinistic internationalist outlook.
  • The major weakness of the Ghadar leaders was that they completely under-estimated the extent and amount of preparation at every level – organizational, ideological, strategic, tactical, financial – that was necessary before an attempt at an armed revolt could be organized.
  • It also failed to generate an effective and sustained leadership that was capable of integrating the various aspects of the movement.
  • Another weakness was its almost non-existent organizational structure.
  • Some important leaders: Baba Gurmukh Singh, Kartar Singh Saraba, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Rahmat Ali Shah, Bhai Parmanand and Mohammad Barkatullah.
  • Inspired by the Ghadar Party, 700 soldiers at Singapore revolted under the leadership of Jamadar Chisti Khan and Subedar Dundey Khan. The rebellion was crushed.
  • Other revolutionaries: Jatin Mukharjee, Rash Bihari Bose, Raja Mahendra Pratab, Lala Hardayal, Abdul Rahim, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi, Champakaraman Pillai, Sardar Singh Rana and Madame Cama

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Freedom of Press

  • On 29th January 1780, the Hickey’s Bengal Gazette or the Calcutta General Advertizer was published. It was the first English newspaper to be printed in the Indian sub-continent.
  • The press was the chief instrument of forming a nationalist ideology
  • The resolutions and proceedings of the Congress were propagated through press. Trivia: nearly one third of the founding fathers of congress in 1885 were journalists.

 

  • Main news papers and editors

 

    • The Hindu and Swadesamitran: G Subramaniya Iyer
    • Kesari and Mahratta: BG Tilak
    • Bengalee: S N Banerjea
    • Amrita Bazar Patrika: Sisir Kumar Ghosh and Motilal Ghosh
    • Sudharak: GK Gokhale
    • Indian Mirror: N N Sen
    • Voice of India: Dadabhai Naoroji
    • Hindustani and Advocate: GP Varma
    • Tribune and Akhbar-i-Am in Punjab
    • Indu Prakash, Dnyan Prakahs, Kal and Gujarati in Bombay
    • Som Prakash, Banganivasi and Sadharani in Bengal

 

  • Newspaper was not confined to the literates. It would reach the villages and would be read by a reader to tens of others.
  • Reading and discussing newspaper became a form of political participation.
  • Nearly all the major political controversies of the day were conducted through the Press.
  • ‘Oppose, oppose, oppose’ was the motto of the Indian press.
  • The section 124A of the IPC was such as to punish a person who evoked feelings of disaffection to the government.
  • The Indian journalists remained outside 124A by adopting methods such as quoting the socialist and anti-imperialist newspapers of England or letters from radical British citizens
  • The increasing influence of the newspapers led the government to pass the Vernacular Press Act of 1978, directed only against Indian language newspapers.
    • It was passed very secretively
    • The act provided for the confiscation of the printing press, paper and other materials of a newspaper if the government believed that it was publishing seditious materials and had flouted an official warning.
    • Due to the agitations, it was repealed in 1881 by Lord Ripon.
  • SN Banerjee was the first Indian to go to jail in performance of his duty as a journalist.

 

B G Tilak

 

  • The man who is most frequently associated with the struggle for the Freedom of Press during the nationalist movement is Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
  • In 1881, along with G G Agarkar, he founded the newspapers Kesari and Mahratta.
  • In 1893, he started the practice of using the traditional religious Ganapati festival to propagate nationalist ideas through patriotic songs and speeches.
  • In 1896, he started the Shivaji festival to stimulate nationalism among young Maharashtrians.
  • He brought peasants and farmers into the national movement.
  • He organized a no-tax campaign in Maharashtra in 1896-97
  • Plague in Poona in 1897.
  • Popular resentment against the official plague measures resulted in the assassination of Rand, the Chairman of the Plague Committee in Poona, and Lt. Ayerst by the Chaphekar brothers on 27 June 1898.
  • Since 1894, anger had been rising against the government due to the tariff, currency and famine policy.
  • Tilak was arrested and sentenced to 18 month rigorous imprisonment in 1897. This led to country wide protests and Tilak was given the title of Lokmanya.
  • Tilak was again arrested and tried on 24 June 1908 on the charge of sedition under article 124A. He was sentenced to 6 years of transportation. This led to nationwide protests and closing down of markets for a week. Later, in 1922 Gandhi was tried on the same act and he said that he is proud to be associated with Tilak’s name.

 

 

Famous Personalities of Fredom Struggle of India

Keshab Chander Sen :-

? was an Indian Bengali Hindu philosopher and social reformer who attempted to incorporate Christian theology within the framework of Hindu thought.He was born on 19th November 1838 in Kolkata. He was a descendant of the medieval Sena kings of Bengal.

? He was so influenced by the ideas of Brahmo Samaj that he joined the Calcutta Brahmo Samaj in 1857.

? At the age of 19, Keshab Chandra Sen started social work by establishing an evening school for adults.

? He used the medium of Press to spread social consciousness and development.

? he started a fortnightly journal ‘Indian Mirror’

? Keshab Chandra Sen was associated with many revolutionary programs of social reform like liberation of women from the social bindings, education of women and the poor workers, eradication of social evils like untouchability and casteism, spread of vernacular and various charitable works for the oppressed people.

? He took the initiative to introduce legislation to curb polygamy and child marriage and promoted inter-caste marriage.

? he was given the title of ‘Acharya’ of the ‘Brahmo Samaj’ by Devendranath Tagore. But due to the differences in the beliefs and philosophies of Devendranath Tagore and Keshab Chandra Sen, Brahmo Samaj split into two.

? founded his own breakaway “Brahmo Samaj of India” in 1866

? he propagated the Navavidhan, the New Dispensation or the Religion of Harmony. He preached bhakti, which was inspired from both Chaitanya and Christ.

 


Theodore Beck:-
was a British educationalist working for the British Raj in India, who was invited by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to serve as the first principal of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at the age 24. in Aligarh, which would later evolve into the Aligarh Muslim University. He was also opposed to join the Congress.


Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan

? An Afghan Pashtun political and spiritual leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule in India.

? A lifelong pacifist, a devout Muslim,and a close friend of Mohandas Gandhi

? he was also known as Fakhri Afghan (“The Afghan pride”), Badshah Khan and Sarhaddi Gandhi (Urdu, Hindi lit.,
“Frontier Gandhi”)

? he decided social activism and reform would be more beneficial for Pashtuns. This ultimately led to the formation of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement (Servants of God). The movement’s success triggered a harsh crackdown

against him and his supporters and he was sent into exile.

? It was at this stage in the late 1920s that he formed an alliance with Gandhi and the Indian National Congress. This alliance was to last till the 1947 partition of India.

? Ghaffar Khan strongly opposed the Muslim League’s demand for the partition of India.
? In 1987 he became the first person without Indian citizenship to be awarded the Bharat Ratna


Sajjad Zaheer

? was a renowned Urdu writer, Marxist thinker

? Famously known as Bannay Mian, Zaheer was born in Lukhnow, the former state of Oudh

? He was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India and later in 1948, the Communist Party of Pakistan, along with Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

? A collection of short stories, Angaray, which had stories by Sajjad Zaheer

? and was immediately banned in India by the British Government in 1933, “for hurting the religious susceptibilities of a section of the community.” This gave rise to the All-India Progressive Writers’ Movement & Association of which both Sajjad Zaheer and Ahmed Ali were co-founders.

? The first official conference of the Association was held in Lucknow in 1936 which was presided over by Munshi Premchand.

? LITERARY CONTRIBUTION:-London Ki Ek Raat- a novel.,Roshnai, a collection of essays on progressive writing and the progressive writers movement., Zikre Hafiz, his research based book on Persian poet Hafez.,Pighla Nilam, his last book,a collection of his poetry.


WW HUNTER

? Scottish historian, statistician, a compiler and a member of theIndian Civil Service, who later became Vice President of Royal Asiatic Society

? In 1869 Lord Mayo, the then governor-general, asked Hunter to submit a scheme for a comprehensive Statistical Survey of India. And the The Imperial Gazetteer of India was published in 1881.

? In 1882 presided over the commission on Indian Education

? in 1886 he was elected vice-chancellor of the University of Calcutta.


Achyut Patwardhan

? was an Indian independence activist and political leader and founder of the Socialist Party of India. He was also a philosopher who believed fundamental change in society begins with man himself,

? He studied Communist and Socialist literature, resigned his Professorship and plunged in 1932 into Gandhiji’s civil disobedience movement. He was imprisoned several times.
? In 1934 he and his associates in jail formed the Congress Socialistic Party with a view to working for socialistic objectives from within the Congress.

? He took a prominent part in the Quit India movement. he went underground, and ably directed the movement of a parallel government mainly in the Satara district.

? In 1947 they formed the Socialist Party of India, independently of the Congress. In 1950 Achyut retired from politics


LALA HAR DAYAL

? Indian revolutionary and scholar who was dedicated to the removal of British influence in India.

? On a Government of India scholarship to St. John’s College at Oxford, he became a supporter of the Indian revolutionary movement. In 1907 Har Dayal resigned his scholarship

? He returned to India in 1908 to further indigenous political institutions and to arouse his countrymen against British rule, butthe government thwarted his work, and he soon returned to Europe.

? In 1913 he formed the Ghadar rebellion (Gadar) Party to organize a against the British government of India.


Jiddu Krishnamurti

? was an Indian writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and bringing about positive change in society

? He constantly stressed the need for a revolution in the psyche of every human being and emphasized that such revolution cannot be brought about by any external entity, be it religious, political, or social.

? He claimed allegiance to no nationality, caste, religion, or philosophy, and spent the most of his life traveling the world, speaking to large and small groups and individuals

? His supporters, working through non-profit foundations in India, Great Britain and the United States, oversee several independent schools based on his views on education.


Gopi Krishna

? was a yogi, mystic, teacher, social reformer, and writer

? His autobiography is known under the title Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man.,in it he has put this amazing aspect of our nature in a logical, consistent and scientific light, and presented us with a new understanding of the goal of evolution, both as individuals and as a species.

? he himself has started to search the life of geniuses and enlightented persons in history for clues of kundalini awakening. He proposed an organisation to be erected to conduct scientific research on the matter. The research should, according to him, consist of research on biological processes in the body, psychological and sociological
research of living persons. According to Mr. Krishna the lives of historical persons should also be investigated.


Sir Muhammad Iqbal or Allama Iqbal
? was a philosopher,poet and politician in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement.

? He is considered one of the most important figures in Urdu literature, with literary work in both the Urdu and Persian languages

? his best known Urdu works are Bang-i-Dara, Bal-i-Jibril, Zarb-i Kalim and a part of Armughan-e-Hijaz.

? Iqbal became a member of the London branch of the All India Muslim League,in one of his most famous speeches, Iqbal pushed for the creation of a Muslim state in Northwest India.

? Pakistan Government had recognised him as its “national poet”


Tanguturi Prakasam Pantulu

? was an Indian politician and Freedom Fighter , prominent Telugu barrister and the first Chief Minister of the Indian province Andhra state. He was also known as Andhra Kesari

?  He was elected the general secretary of the Congress Party in December 1921 at the Ahmedabad session


Maulana Mohammad  Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali

? were Indian Muslim leaders, activists, scholars, journalists and poets, and was among the leading figures of the Khilafat Movement

? Maulana Mohammad Ali Jouhar had spent four years in prison for advocating resistance to the British and support for the caliphate.

? publish the Urdu weekly Hamdard and the English weekly Comrade.

? form the All India Khilafat Committee. The organization was based in Lucknow,

? In 1920 an alliance was made between Khilafat leaders and the Indian National Congress, to work and fight together for the causes of Khilafat and Swaraj.

? Many Hindu religious and political leaders identified the Khilafat cause as Islamic fundamentalism based on a pan-Islamic agenda. And many Muslim leaders viewed the Indian National Congress as becoming increasingly dominated by Hindu fundamentalists and thus the Ali brothers began distancing themselves from Gandhi
and the Congress.


Dr. Dhondo Keshav Karve

? popularly known as Maharishi Karve, was a social reformer in India in the field of women’s welfare.

? Mr Karve decided to continue the work of promoting women’s education in India. The Government of India awarded Dhondo Keshav Karve its highest civilian award, Bh?rat Ratna,

? founded Widhaw?-Wiw?hottejak Mandali, which, besides encouraging marriages of widows, also helped the needy children of widows.

? established a Hindu Widows’ Home Association


Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna

? was as Indian revolutionary, the founding president of the Ghadar Party, and a leading member of the party involved in the Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915.

? Tried at the Lahore Conspiracy trial, Sohan Singh served sixteen years of a life sentence for his part in the conspiracy before he was released in 1930.

? He later worked closely with the Indian labour movement, devoting considerable time to the Kisan Sabha and
the Communist Party of India.


Alluri Sita Rama Raju

? was an Indian revolutionary involved in the independence movement.

? Raju led the ill-fated “Rampa Rebellion” of 1922–24, during which a band of tribal leaders and other sympathizers fought against the British Raj. He was referred to as “Manyam Veerudu” (“Hero of the Jungles”) by the local people.


Baba Ram Chandra or Shridhar Balwant Jodhpurkar

? was an Indian trade unionist ,who organised the farmers of Oudh, India into forming a united front to fight against the abuses of landlords in the 1920s and 1930s ,and formed the Oudh Kisan Sabha

? He was also an influential figure in the history of Fiji, and owed his inspiration to take up the cause of the down-trodden to his 12 years as an indentured labourer in Fiji and to his efforts to end the indenture system. He was a Brahmin, of Maharashtrian origin. He left for Fiji as an indentured labourer in 1904


Sir Thomas Roe

? diplomat and author who advanced England’s mercantile interest in Asia and was prominent in negotiations during the Thirty Years’ War.

? Roe began his diplomatic career in India as ambassador to the court of the Mogul emperor J?h?ng?r.

? As ambassador to Constantinople (1621–28), Roe obtained increased privileges for the English merchants trading in the Ottoman Empire.

? He negotiated a treaty with Algiers, then subject to Ottoman rule, resulting in the release of several hundred Englishmen captured by the Barbary pirates


Romesh Chunder Dutt

? was an Indian civil servant, economic historian, writer, and translator of Ramayana and Mahabharata.

? As an ics officier Dutt was especially troubled by the lack of assured tenants’ rights or rights of transfer for those who tilled the land. He considered the land taxes to be ruinous, a block to savings, and the source of famines.

? .He was president of the Indian National Congress in 1899.

? Dutt served as the first president of Bangiya Sahitya Parishad

? Dutt traced a decline in standards of living to the nineteenth-century deindustrialization of the subcontinent and
the narrowing of sources of wealth

? Wrote economic history of india under british rule


Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi

? was the queen of the Maratha-ruled princely state of Jhansi, situated in the north-central part of India.

? She was one of the leading figures of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and a symbol of resistance to the rule of the British East India Company in the subcontinent.after she was forcibly retired by the British due to a controversial law of “Doctrine of Lapse”

? Hugh Rose ,the army commander ,commented that the Jhansi Rani Lakshmibai is “personable, clever and beautiful” and she is “the most dangerous of all Indian leaders ”


Lala Har Dayal
? was a Indian nationalist revolutionary who founded the Ghadar Party in America.

? The movement began with a group of immigrants known as the Hindustani Workers of the Pacific Coast.

? In a letter toThe Indian Sociologist he started , published in 1907, to explore anarchist ideas, In April 1914, he was arrested by the United States government for spreading anarchist literature and fled to Berlin, Germany.


 

 

Spread of Modern Education

1781: Hastings set up the Calcutta Madrasah for the study and teaching of Muslim law and related subjects

1791: Jonathan Duncan started a Sanskrit College at Varanasi for the study of Hindu law and philosophy.

1813: Charter of 1813 directed the Company to spend Rs. 1 lakh for promoting modern sciences in the country. This sum was however made available only in 1823.

1835: Macaulay’s minute.

English was made the medium of instruction in schools. Education of masses was however neglected. British advocated the ‘downward filtration theory’ for education. As per this theory, since the allocated funds could educate only a handful of Indians, it was decided to spend them in educating a few persons from the upper and middle classes who were expected to assume the task of educating the masses and spreading modern ideas among them.

1844: Compulsion for applicants for government employment to possess knowledge of English. This made the English medium schools more popular.

1854: Wood’s Dispatch asked the government of India to assume responsibility for the education of the masses. It thus repudiated the ‘downward filtration theory’. As a result, Departments of Education were instituted in all provinces and universities were setup in 1857 at Madras, Calcutta and Bombay.

The main reason why British adopted some measures towards education in India was because:

  1. They needed educated people to man their system of administration. It was not possible to get enough Englishmen to man all the posts.
  2. Another important motive was the belief that educated Indians would help expand the market for British manufactures in India.
  3.  Lastly, it was expected to reconcile the people of India to British rule.

Major drawbacks of the English education system:

  1. Neglect of mass education. Mass literacy in India was hardly better in 1921 than in 1821. High fees in schools and colleges led to the education becoming a monopoly of the rich.
  2. Almost total neglect of the education of girls. As late as 1921 only 2 percent Indian women could read and write.
  3. Neglect of scientific and technical education.
  4. The government was never willing to spend more than a scanty sum on education.

Development of Education

 

  • Charter act of 1813
    • Sanctioned 1 lakh rupees annually for promoting education and modern sciences
    • Not made available till 1823
  • Orientalist-Anglicist Controversy
  • Lord Macaulay’s minute (1835)
  • Wood’s Despatch (1854)
    • Rejected the downward filtration theory
    • Asked the government of India to assume the responsibility of education of the masses
    • English as medium for higher studies and vernaculars at school level
  • 1857: University of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras
  • Hunter Commission (1882-83)
    • State care required for promotion and spread of primary and secondary education
    • Transfer control of primary education to district and municipal boards
  • Raleigh Commission, 1902
  • Universities Act 1904
  • Saddler Education Commission (1917-19)
    • School course should cover 12 years
    • Less rigidity in framing university regulations
  • Hartog Committee (1929)
    • No hasty expansion or compulsion of education
  • Wardha Scheme of basic education (1937)
    • Vocation based education

 

Gandhi’s early career and activism

  • Gandhi was the first Indian barrister to have come to South Africa.
  • He was faced with various racial discriminations within days of his arrival in SA.
  • He led the Indian struggle in SA.
  • The first phase of Gandhi’s political activities from 1894-1906 may be classified as the ‘moderate’ phase.
  • He set up the Natal Indian Congress and started a paper called Indian Opinion.
  • By 1906, Gandhiji, having fully tried the ‘Moderate’ methods of struggle, was becoming convinced that these would not lead anywhere.
  • The second phase, begun in 1906, was characterized by the use of passive resistance, Satyagraha. There was no fear of jails.
  • South Africa prepared Gandhiji for leadership of the Indian national struggle:
    • He had the invaluable experience of leading poor Indian labourers.
    • SA built up his faith in the capacity of the Indian masses to participate in and sacrifice for a cause that moved them.
    • Gandhiji also had the opportunity of leading Indians belonging to different religions.
  • South Africa provided Gandhiji with an opportunity for evolving his own style of politics and leadership.
  • Gandhi returned to India on January 9, 1915
  • He founded the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad in 1916
  • Initially he was politically idle. He spent his time studying the situation of the country.
  • He was deeply convinced that the only viable method of political struggle was satyagraha.
  • During the course of 1917 and early 1918, he was involved in three significant struggles – in Champaran in Bihar, in Ahmedabad and in Kheda in Gujarat. The common feature of these struggles was that they related to specific local issues and that they were fought for the economic demands of the masses.
  • Champaran Satyagraha (1917)
    • Peasantry on the indigo plantations in Champaran, Bihar was excessively oppressed by the Eurpoean planters.
    • On the invitation of the peasants he went to Champaran and began to conduct a detailed inquiry into the condition of the peasantry
    • The government was forced to set up a committee with Gandhi as one of the members. The sufferings of the peasants was reduced.
    • Others in this movement: Rajendra Prasad, Mazhar-ul-Haq, J B Kriplani, Narhari Parekh and Mahadev Desai.
  • Ahmedabad Mill Strike (1918)
    • Dispute between workers and mill owners
    • Gandhi advised workers to go on a non-violent strike. He himself took to fast
    • Owners yielded and gave a 35 percent increase in wages to the workers
  • Kheda Satyagraha (1918)
    • Despite crop failure in Kheda the government insisted on full land revenue
    • Gandhi advised the peasants to withhold payment.
    • Govt issued instructions that revenue should be collected from only those farmers who could afford to pay
    • Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel played a major role in this satyagraha.
  • Impact of these early experiences
    • Brought Gandhiji in close contact with the masses
    • He identified his life and manner of living with the life of the common people
  • He had three main aims
    • Hindu-Muslim Unity
    • Fight against untouchability
    • Raising the social status of the women
  • Gandhiji’s first major nation-wide protest was against the Rowlatt Bills in 1919. He formed the Satyagraha Sabha whose members took a pledge to disobey the Act and thus to court arrest and imprisonment.
  • Satyagraha was launched. The form of protest finally decided was the observance of a nation-wide hartal accompanied by fasting and prayer.
  • However, protests were generally accompanied by violence and disorder.
  • In Punjab, the situation was particularly violent. Genral Dyer was called to control the situation. On 13 April, Baisakhi Day, General Dyer ordered to open fire on unarmed crowd in Jallianwala Bagh. The government estimate was 379 dead, other estimates were considerably higher.
  • Gandhiji, overwhelmed by the total atmosphere of violence, withdrew the movement on 18 April.
  • Difference between earlier methods of struggle and satyagraha
    • Earlier, the movement had confined its struggle to agitation. They used to hold meetings, demonstrate, boycott etc
    • Through Satyagraha they could act now.
    • The new movement relied increasingly on the political support of the peasants, artisans and urban poor.
    • Gandhiji increasingly turned the face of nationalism towards the common man
  • Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
    • On April 13, 1919 a large crowd had gathered in Amritsar to protest against the arrest of their leaders, Dr. Saifudding Kitchlew and Dr. Satyapal
    • General Dyer opened fire
    • Widespread criticism. Tagore returned his knighthood.

 

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The Asiatic Society of bengal

? founded in 1784, by Sir William Jones, a British lawyer and Orientalist, to encourage Oriental studies.

? it was the vehicle for his ideas about the importance of Hindu culture and learning and about the vital role of Sanskrit in the Aryan languages.

? Headquarters are in Kolkata.

? The society owns an art collection that includes paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and Joshua Reynolds.

? The society’s library contains some 100,000 general volumes, and its Sanskrit section has more than 27,000 books, manuscripts, prints, coins, and engravings. The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal is published regularly.

 

Rise of National Movement and Indian National Congress

Why did national movement arise?

  • Indian nationalism rose to meet the challenges of foreign domination
  • The British rule and its direct and indirect consequences provided the material and the moral and intellectual conditions for the development of a national movement in India.
  • Clash of interest between the interests of the Indian people with British interests in India
  • Increasingly, the British rule became the major cause of India’s economic backwardness
  • Every class gradually discovered that their interests were suffering at the hands of the British
    • Peasant: Govt took a large part of produce away as land revenue. Laws favoured the Zamindars
    • Artisans: Foreign competition ruined the
    • Workers: The government sided with the capitalists
    • Intelligentsia: They found that the British policies were guided by the interests of British capitalists and were keeping the country economically backward. Politically, the British had no commitment of guiding India towards self-government.
    • Indian capitalists: the Growth of Indian industries was constrained by the unfavourable trade, tariff, Taxation and transport policies of the government.
    • Zamindars, landlords and princes were the only ones whose interests coincided with those of the British. Hence they remained loyal to them.
  • Hence, it was the intrinsic nature of foreign imperialism and its harmful effect on the lives of the Indian people that led to the rise of the national movement. This movement could be called the national movement because it united people from different parts of the country as never before for a single cause.

 

What factors strengthened and facilitated the national movement?

  • Administration and Economic Unification of the country
    • Introduction of modern trade and industries on all-India scale had increasingly made India’s economic life a single whole and interlinked the economic fate of people living in different parts of the country.
    • Introduction of railways, telegraph and unified postal system brought together different parts of the country and promoted contact among people like never before.
    • This unification led to the emergence of the Indian nation
  • Western Thought and Education
    • A large number of Indians imbibed a modern rational, secular, democratic and nationalist political outlook
    • They began to study, admire and emulate the contemporary nationalist movements of European nations
    • The western education per se did not create the national movement. It only enabled the educated Indians to imbibe western thought and thus to assume the Leadership of the national movement and to give it a democratic and modern direction
    • Modern education created a certain uniformity and community of outlook and interests among the education Indians.
  • Role of Press and Literature
    • Large number of nationalist newspapers appeared in the second half of the 19th century
    • They criticized the policies of the British government and put forth the Indian point of view
    • National literature in form of essays, novels and poetry also played an important role. Bamkin Chandra, Tagore: Bengali; Bhartendu Harishchandra: Hindi; Lakshmikanth Bezbarua: Assamese; Vishnu Shastri Chiplunkar: Marathi; Subramanya Bharti: Tamil; Altaf Husain Hali: Urdu
  • Rediscovery of India’s past
    • The British had lowered the self confidence of the Indian through the propaganda that Indians are incapable of self-government
    • Nationalist leaders referred to the cultural heritage of India to counter this propaganda. They referred to political achievements of rulers like Ashoka, Chandragupta Vikramaditya and Akbar.
    • However, some nationalists went to the extent of glorifying the past uncritically. They emphasized on the achievements of ancient India and not Medieval India. This encouraged the growth of communal sentiments.
  • Racial arrogance of the rulers
    • Englishmen adopted a tone of racial superiority in their dealings with the Indians
    • Failure of Justice whenever an Englishman was involved in a dispute with an Indian.
    • Indians kept out of European clubs and often were not permitted to travel in same compartment as Englishmen

 

Rise of Indian National Congress

 

Predecessors of INC

  • East India Association
    • By Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866 in London
    • To discuss the Indian question and to influence the British public men to discuss Indian welfare
    • Branches of the association in prominent Indian cities
  • Indian Association
    • Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose in 1876, Calcutta
    • The aim of creating strong public opinion in the country on political questions and the unification of the Indian people on a common political programme
  • Poona Sarvajanik Sabha
    • Justice Ranade, 1870
  • Madras Mahajan Sabha
    • Viraraghavachari, Anand Charloo, G Subramanian Aiyer, 1884
  • Bombay Presidency Association
    • Pherozshah Mehta, K T Telang, Badruddin Tyabji, 1885
  • These organizations were narrow in their scope and functioning. They dealt mostly with local questions and their membership were confined to a few people belonging to a single city or province

 

Indian National Congress

  • Indian National Congress was founded on 28 December 1885 by 72 political workers. A O Hume was the first secretary and was instrumental in establishing the Congress
  • First session in Bombay. President: W C Bonnerjee
  • With the formation of INC, the Indian National Movement was launched in a small but organized manner
  • The Congress itself was to serve not as a party but as a movement
  • Congress was democratic. The delegates to INC were elected by different local organizations and groups
  • Sovereignty of the people
  • In 1890, Kadambini Ganguli, the first woman graduate of Calcutta University addressed the Congress session
  • Safety Valve Theory
    • The INC was started under the official direction, guidance and advice of Lord Dufferin, the Viceroy, to provide a safe, mild, peaceful and constitutional outlet or safety valve for the rising discontent among the masses, which was inevitably leading towards a popular and violent revolution.

Does the safety valve theory explain the formation of Congress?

  • The safety valve theory is inadequate and misleading
  • INC represented the urge of the Indian educated class to set up a national organization to work for their political and Economic Development
  • A number of organizations, as mentioned above, had already been started by the Indians towards that end
  • Hume’s presence in Congress was used to allay official suspicions

 

 

Why was there a need for an All-India organization?

  • Vernacular Press Act, 1878
  • Ilbert Bill (1883) which would allow Indian judges to try Europeans was opposed by the European community and was finally enacted in a highly compromised state in 1884.
  • The Indians realized that they could not get the Ilbert bill passed because they were not united on all India level. Hence need for INC was felt.
  • In order to give birth to the national movement
    • Creation of national leadership was important
    • Collective identification was created

 

Aims of INC

  • Promotion of friendly relations between nationalist political workers from different parts of the country
  • Development and consolidation of the feeling of national unity irrespective of caste, religion or province
  • Formulation of popular demands and their presentation before the government
  • Training and organization of public opinion in the country

 

  • The first major objective of the Indian national movement was to promote weld Indians into a nation, to create an  Indian identity
  • Fuller development and consolidation of sentiments of national unity
    • Efforts for unity: In an effort to reach all regions, it was decided to rotate the congress session among different parts of the country. The President was to belong to a region other than where the congress session was being held.
    • To reach out to the followers of all religions and to remove the fears of the minorities, a rule was made at the 1888 session that no resolution was to be passed to which an overwhelming majority of Hindu or Muslim delegates objected.
    • In 1889, a minority clause was adopted in the resolution demanding reform of legislative councils. According to the clause, wherever Parsis, Christians, Muslims or Hindus were a minority their number elected to the councils would not be less than their proportion in the Population.
    • To build a secular nation, the congress itself had to be intensely secular
  • The second major objective of the early congress was to create a common political platform or programme around which political workers in different parts of the country could gather and conduct their political activities.
    • Due to its focus solely on political issues congress did not take up the question of social reform.
  • Since this form of political participation was new to India, the arousal, training, organization and consolidation of public opinion was seen as a major task by the congress leaders.
    • Going beyond the redressal of immediate grievances and organize sustained political activity.

 

Non Co-operation and Khilafat Movement

  • Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms 1919: Dyarchy
  • In a system called “dyarchy,” the nation-building departments of government — agriculture, education, public works, and the like — were placed under ministers who were individually responsible to the legislature. The departments that made up the “steel frame” of British rule — finance, revenue, and home affairs — were retained by executive councillors who were nominated by the Governor.
  • The Hunter Committee report praised the actions of general Dyer.
  • Khilafat Movement
    • For support of Turkey
    • Khilafat Committee formed under the leadership of Ali Brothers, Maulana Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Hasrat Mohani
    • The promises made to the Khilafat Committee were not kept after the World War.
    • The All-India Khilafat Conference held at Delhi in November 1919 decided to withdraw all cooperation from the government if their demands were not met.
    • On June 9 1920, the Khilafat Committee at Allahabad unanimously accepted the suggestion of non-cooperation and asked Gandhiji to lead the movement.
  • Khilafat movement cemented Hindu-Muslim unity
    • Gandhiji looked upon the Khilafat agitation as “an opportunity of uniting Hindus and Mohammedans as would not arise in a hundred years”
  • The non-cooperation movement was launched on August 1, 1920. Lokmanya Tilak passed away on the same day.
  • People countrywide observed hartal and took out processions.
  • The congress met in September at Calcutta and accepted non-co-operation as its own.
  • The programme of non-cooperation included:
    • Surrender of titles and honors
    • Boycott of government affiliated schools and colleges, law courts, foreign cloth and could be extended to resignation from government services.
    • Mass civil disobedience including the non-payment of taxes.
    • National schools and colleges were to be set up
    • Panchayats were to be established to settle disputes
    • Hand-spinning and weaving was encouraged
    • People were asked to maintain Hindu-Muslim unity, give up untouchability and observe strict non-violence.
  • Changes in Congress to attain the new objective:
    • At the Nagpur session in 1920 changes in the Constitution of Congress were made.
    • The goal of congress was changed from the attainment of self-government by constitutional and legal means to the attainment of Swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means.
    • The Congress now had a Working Committee of fifteen members to look after its day to day affairs.
    • Provincial congress committees were now organized on a linguistic basis.
    • Mahalla and ward committees were formed.
    • The membership fee was reduced to 4 annas a years to enable poor to become members.
    • This was not without opposition however. Some members still believed in the traditional methods. Leaders like Jinnah, GS Khaparde, Bipin Chandra Pal and Annie Besant left congress during this time.
  • Gandhiji, along with the Ali brother, undertook a nationwide tour to address people.
  • Thousands of students left government schools and joined national schools.
  • The most successful item of the programme was the boycott of foreign cloth.
  • Picketing of toddy shops was also very popular.
  • Students let government schools and colleges. IT was during this time that Jamia Milia Islamia of Aligarh, the Bihar Vidyapith, the Kashi Vidyapith and the Gujarat Vidyapith came into existence.
  • Lawyers such as  Deshbandhu CR Das, Motilal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Saifudiin Kitchlew, C Rajagopalachari, Sardar Patel, T Prakasam and Asaf Ali gave up their legal practice.
  • Tilak Swarajya Fund was started to finance the NCM.
  • In 1921, Khilafat Committee issued a resolution that no muslim should serve in the British Indian army.
  • The visit of the Prince of Wales on 17th November 1921 was observed as a day of hartal all over the country.
  • The Congress Volunteer Corps emerged as a powerful parallel police.
  • By December 1921, the government felt that things were going too far and announced a change of policy by declaring the volunteer corps illegal and arresting all those who claimed to be its members.
  • Thousands of peasants and tenants participated in the movement.
  • In Punjab, the Akali movement to remove corrupt mahants from the Gurudwaras was started.
  • Assam: Tea plantation workers went on strike. Midnapore: peasants refused to pay Union Board taxes.                 Guntur (Chirala): Agitation led by Duggirala Gopalakrishayya                       Malabar: Mohlahs (muslim peasants) created a powerful anti-zamindari movement.
  • As the government refused to yield, Gandhiji announced that mass civil disobedience would begin in Bardoli taluqa of Surat.
  • However, in Chauri Chaura, Gorakhpur on 5 February 1922 crowd set fire on a police station and killed some policemen. On hearing this, Gandhiji decided to withdraw the movement.
  • The congress working committee ratified his decision. Thus, on February 12, 1922, the non-cooperation movement came to an end.
  • Assessing the Withdrawal:
    • Some scholars say that Gandhiji withdrew the movement because he wanted to protect the interests of the propertied class.
    • Some argue that there was no logic why a small incident should lead to withdrawal of the movement itself.
    • However, government could use Chauri Chaura to justify its repression of the movement.
    • If movement was started at that time, it would have been defeated due to the repression of the government.
    • Gandhiji was protecting the movement from likely repression, and the people from demoralization.
    • Mass movements tend to ebb in some time. Hence, withdrawal is a part of the strategy of mass movements.
  • Gandhiji was tried in 1922 and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.
    • He invited the court to award him “the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime, and what appears to be the highest duty of a citizen”.
  • Positives out of the non-cooperation movement:
    • Congress started commanding the support and sympathy of vast sections of the Indian people.
    • Millions of Indians became politically involved. Women were drawn into the movement.
    • Muslims participated heavily and communal unity was maintained.
    • Strengthened the national movement. Nationalist sentiments and the national movement had reached the remotest corners of the land.
    • People gained tremendous self-confidence and self-esteem.