Nationalism in India

Introduction

This chapter will take a look at India from the 1920s and ahead, with emphasis on the Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience movements.

• In India as well as many other ex-colonies, the growth of modern nationalism is intimately connected with the anti-colonial movement.
• Oppression under colonialism forged a shared bond that tied many different groups together.
• Even then, each class and group felt the effects of colonialism differently, therefore their notions of freedom were not the same.
• The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together, but this unity did not emerge without conflict.

1. The First World War, Khilafat, and Non-Cooperation

• World War 1 created a new economical and political situation, including:

  • A huge increase in defence expenditure, which was financed by war loans and increased taxation.
  • Prices increased, doubling between 1913 and 1918, which led to extreme economic hardship for the common people.
  • Villages were called upon for forced military recruitment, which caused widespread anger.

• To add to the fun, crops failed in many parts of India between the years 1918-19 and 1920-21, which caused an acute food shortage.

• Ofcourse there was an epidemic too. Influenza, in this case. As per the 1921 census, 12-13 million people perished in that epidemic.

• People hoped that the hardships would end once the war was over. But it didn’t.

• At just the right time, a new leader appeared, and suggested a new mode of struggle.

1.1 The idea of Satyagraha

• Mahatma Gandhi successfully fought the racist regime in South Africa with his new method of peaceful protest called Satyagraha.

• Satyagraha emphasised the power of truth and the need to search for truth.

• Satyagraha suggested that if the cause for struggle is against injustice, then there is no need for physical brute force.

• Gandhi believed that opressors should be persuaded to see the truth, rather than being violently forced to accept the truth.

• After arriving in India, Mahatma Gandhi organised various satyagraha movements, including:

  • Champaran, Bihar (1917): peasants struggle against the plantation system.
  • Kheda, Gujarat (1917/18): relaxation of tax collection, as the peasants of Kheda were affected by crop failures and a plague epidemic.
  • Ahemedabad, Gujarat (1918): for a wage raise of cotton mill workers.

1.2 The Rowlatt Act

Mahatma Gandhi wanted a non-violent civil disobedience against such unjust laws, which would start with a hartal on 6 April 1919.

Rallies were organised, workers went on strikes, and shops closed down.
Alarmed by this and scared that communication lines, like railways and telegrams will be disrupted, the British administration decided to stop the nationalists.

Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from entering Delhi.

1.2.1 The Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre

• On 10 April, the police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession, which provoked widespread attacks on banks, post offices and railway stations.
• As the situation got out of control, direct military control was imposed and General Dyer took command.
• On 13 April 1919, the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh massacre took place.
  • A large crowd had gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
  • Some people came to protest, while others had come to attend the annual Baisakhi fair.
  • Many villagers were unaware of the martial law that had been imposed.
  • General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exits, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds,
  • In a later statement, he said that his object was “to produce a moral effect”, and to terrify the satyagrahis.

1.2.2 Aftermath of the Massacre

• Crowds took to the streets in many North Indian towns as the news of the massacre spread.
• There were strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on government buildings.
• The government responded with brutality, trying to terrorise and humiliate the people.
• Satyagrahis were forced to rub their noses on the ground and crawl on the streets.
• People were flogged.
• Villages (around what is Pakistan today) were bombed.

Seeing all this violence and brutality, Gandhiji called off the movement.

Khilafat

• The Ottoman Turkey was defeated in the First World War.
• There were rumours that a harsh treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman emperor, who was also the spiritual head of the Islamic world (Khalifa).
• Mahatma Gandhi wanted to unite Hindus and Muslims, so decided to take up the Khilafat issue.
• A Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
• The Khalifat movement was lead by the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali.
• Gandhiji convinced the Congress to start a non-cooperation movement in support of both Khilafat and Swaraj in the Calcutta Session of 1920.

Why Non-Cooperation?

In Gandhiji’s book Hind Swaraj (1909), he declred that British Raj was established because of Indian cooperation and it survives because if Indian cooperation. If refuse to cooperate, British Raj will collapse within a year.

How could Non-Cooperation become a movement?

Gandhiji proposed that the movement will unfold in the following stages:

1. Surrender of titles given by the Govt, and a boycott of the army, civil services, courts, legislative councils, the police, schools and foreign goods.
2. If govt will launch a repression (which they obviously will do), a full-on civil disobedience campaign will be launched and the British laws would be broken.

Gathering support for the movement

• Shaukat Ali and Mahatma Gandhi travelled extensively throughout 1920 gathering popular support for the movement.

• The Congress did not initially want to adopt the movement, because:

  1. They wanted to participate in the November 1920 Council Elections.
  2. They feared the movement might cause mass violence.

• Between September and December 1920, there was an intense tussle within the Congress.

• The Congress’s December 1920 Session in Nagpur worked out a compromise and adopted the Non-Cooperation Movement.

2. Differing Stands within the movement

The Non-Cooperation Movement and the term Dwaraj meant different things for different people. A lot of social groups participated in this movement, though each had their own interpretations and aspirations.

2.1 The Movement in the Towns

Participation of the middle-class in the cities

• Thousands of studenst left govt-controlled schools and colleges.
• Teachers and headmasters resigned.
• Lawyers gave up their practices.
• The council elections were boycotted everywhere except in Madras (because the Justice Party—which constituted mostly of non-Brahmins—felt that entering the council was the only way to get some power, which was something only Brahmins had access to otherwise).

Effects of Non-Cooperation on the economic front

• Foreign goods were boycotted
• Liquor shops were picketed
• Foreign cloth was burnt in huge bonfires
• The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, dropping from ₹102 crore to ₹57 crore.
• Many merchants and traders refused to trade foreign goods or to deal with foreign finances.
• People began discarding imported clothes and started using only Indian ones, which caused production fo Indian textiles to go up.

Slowing down of the movement

The movement gradually slowed down because of the following reasons:

• Khadi clothes—as they were often handmade—coat more than the mass produced imported cloth and poor people couldn’t afford to buy it.
• Since there were few Indian institutions back then that were as good as the British ones, teachers and student slowly trickled back to their old institutions.
• Lawyers too needed money to buy food, so they too returned to work in government courts.

2.2 Rebellion in the countryside

Awadh

• In Awadh, peasants were lead by Baba Ramachandra, who was a sanyasi who earlier worked as an indentured labourer in Fiji.

• The movement was against talukdars and landlords who demanded very high cesses and taxes and forced the peasants to do begar (unpaid labour) in landlords' lands.

• The peasants had no secure housing, and were regularly evicted so they couldn’t acquire the rights to the land.

• The peasant movement demanded, among other things, the following:

  • Reduction of taxes
  • Abolition of begar
  • Social boycott of oppresive landlords

• In various places, nai-dhobi bandhs (babers-washermen strikes) were organised.

• In June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru had talks with villagersbof Awadh, trying to understand their grievances.

• The Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up, headed by Nehru, Baba Ramchandra, etc.

• The Congress intended to incorporate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider movement.

• However the peasants' struggle took a different direction, which did not align with the Congress' goals.

• The movement took a violent turn and, in 1921, many talukdars and merchants were attacked, bazaars were looted and hoarded grains were taken over.

• The local leaders told the peasants that Gandhiji had declared that they need not pay taxes and the land may be redistributed among the poor.

• Gandhiji had become a great figure in the minds of the people and his name was invoked to sanction every action and wish.

The Gudem Rebellion and Alluri Sitaram Raju

• The tribal peasants interpreted swaraj in yet another way.
• A militant guerilla movement spread in the early 1920s in the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh.
• The colonial government had closed off large forest areas here and in many other places, preventing people from grazing their cattle or collecting fruits and fuelwood.
• The people who depended on this for their livelihood were understandably upset.
• To make matters worse, the government asked them to contribute begar for road building.
• This enraged them and they revolted.
• The leader of this revolt was a rather interesting person known as Alluri Sitaram Raju.
• He claimed that he had mystical powers. It was said that he could maje correct astrological predictions and also heal people. Legend has it that he could survive even bullet shots.
• Raju twas inspired by Gandhiji and the Non-Cooperation Movement.
• He persuaded people to wear Khadi and to give up drinking.
• But he strongly asserted that India can only be liberated through the use of force and that non-violence will not work.
• Raju and the Gudem rebels attacked police stations and killed British officials and carried on guerilla warfare.
• Raju was arrested and executed in 1924.

2.3 Swaraj in the Plantations of Assam

• As per the Inland Emigration Actnof 1859, plantation workers could not leave their plantations without permission, and were bery rarely given permission, if at all.
• After hearing about the Non-Cooperation Movement, thoudands of plantation workers defied their masters and left the plantations to head home.
• They firmly believed that Gandhi Raj was comung and everyine would be guven land in their villages.
• They, however, could not reach their villages, and were caught and brutally beaten up by the police.

3. Towards Civil Disobedience

3.1 Sociopolitical and Economic decline

Internal Debates within the Congress

• Mahatma Gandhi withdrawthe Non-Cooperation movement in Februaury 1922.
• He thought that the movement was turning too violent.
• He felt that satyagrahis needed to be properly trained for mass struggle.
• The Congress leaders were getting tired of Gandhiji’s mass struggles and they wanted to participate in the council elections which were set up by the Goverment of India Act (1919).
• The older leaders like C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within the Congress as they wanted to return to council pokitics.
• According to them it was important to oppise British policies and to argue for reform within the councils.
• The younger leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chadra Bose wanted more radical movements for independence.

The Great Depression

• Agricultural Prices began to fall from 1926 and completely collapsed after 1930.
• Peasants found it hard to sell their harvest and pay their revenue.
• The countryside was in turmoil by 1930.

The Simon Commission

• A Statutory Commission was set up under Sir John Simon as a response to the nationalist movement.
• There was not a single Indian member in the commission.
• The commission was set up to look into the constitutional sytem of India and suggest changes.