NATIONALISM IN INDIA
• Nationalism means sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all
others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as
opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.
• Nationalism brought a change in people's understanding of who they were, and what
defined their identity and sense of belonging
• Nationalism in Europe came to be associated with the formation of nation-states.
• In India and many other colonies, the growth of modern nationalism is intimately
connected to the anti-colonial movement.
• In the process of their struggle against colonialism people began to discover their unity.
• The sense of being oppressed under colonialism provided a shared bond that tied
many different groups together.
• But each class and group felt the effect of colonialism differently, their experiences
were varied, and their notions of freedom were not always the same.
• The congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one
movement, but the unity did not emerge without conflicts.
In this chapter we will pick up from the 1920s and study the Non-Cooperation and Civil
Disobedience movements.
• In this chapter we will explore how Congress sought to develop the national
movement, how different social groups participated in the movement and how
nationalism captured the imagination of people.
The first world war, Khilafat, and Non-Cooperation
• The war led to the creation of a new economic and political situation.
• It led to a huge increase in defense expenditure which was financed by war loans and
increasing taxes.
• Custom duties were raised and income tax was introduced.
• During the war years the prices increased - doubling between 1913 and 1918.
• It led to extreme hardship for the poor people.
• Villages were called upon to supply soldiers.
• Forced recruitment of soldiers in rural areas caused widespread anger.
• In 1918-19 and 1920-21 crops failed in many parts of India, resulting in acute
shortages of food.
• Country was also hit by the Influenza epidemic.
• According to the census of 1921, 12 to 13 million people perished as a result of
famines and the epidemic.
THE IDEA OF SATYAGRAHA
• Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in January 1915 . He had come from South Africa
where he had successfully fought racist regime with a novel method of mass agitation,
which he called Satyagraha.
• The idea of Satyagraha emphasised the power of truth and the need to search for truth.
The idea of Satyagraha suggested that if the cause was true, if the struggle was against
injustice, then there is no need for physical force to be used to fight the oppressor.
• Without seeking vengeance or being aggressive, a satyagrahi could win the battle
through non-violence.
• This could be done by appealing to the conscience of the oppressor. People - including
the oppressors - had to be persuaded to see the truth, instead of being forced to
accept the truth through the violence.
• By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph.
• Mahatma Gandhi believed that this dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.
After arriving in India, Mahatma Gandhi successfully organised satyagraha movements
in various places.
• In 1917 he traveled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to struggle against
the oppressive plantation system.
• In 1917, he organised a satyagraha to support the peasants of the Kheda district of
Gujarat. Affected by crop failure and a plague epidemic, the peasants of Kheda could
not pay the revenue, and were demanding that revenue collection be relaxed.
• In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organise a satyagraha movement
amongst cotton mill workers.
The Rowlatt Act :
• Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed
Rowlatt Act (1919). This Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial
Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.
• It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed
detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
• Mahatma Gandhi wanted non-violent civil disobedience against such unjust laws,
which would start with a hartal on 6 April.
• Rallies were organised in various cities.
• Workers went on strike in railway workshops, and shops closed down.
• Alarmed by the popular upsurge, and scared that the lines. of communication such as
railways and telegraph would be disrupted, the British administration decided to clamp
down on nationalist.
• Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from
entering Delhi.
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.
Jallianwala Bagh Masscare
• On 13 April the infamous Jallianwala Bagh incident took place.
On that day a large crowd gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwala Bagh. Some people
came to protest against the government's repressive measures and some came to attend the
annual Baisakhi fair.
• Many villagers from outside the city were unaware about the imposed martial law..
• General Dyer entered the area, blocked all exit points and opened fire on the crowd,
killing hundreds of people.
• His object as he declared after the incident was to 'produce a moral effect', to create a
feeling of terror and awe in the minds of satyagrahis.
• Crowds took to the streets in many north Indian towns as the news of Jallianwala Bagh
spread. Strikes were organised, clashes took place with the police and government
buildings were attacked.
• Government responded with brutal repression, seeking to humiliate and terrorise
people.
• Satyagrahis were forced to rub their nose on the grounds, crawl on the streets, and do
salaam (salute) to all sahibs.
• People were flogged and villagers (around Gujranwala in Punjab, now in Pakistan) were
bombed.
• Seeing the magnitude of violence Mahatma Gandhi decided to call off the movement
Khilafat Movement:
Rowlatt satyagraha had been a widespread movement, it was still limited mostly to cities and
towns Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India.
However, Mahatma Gandhi was certain that no such movement could be organised without
bringing the Hindus and Muslims together. One way of bringing both the communities together
was to take up the Khilafat issue.
• The First world war ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey.
Rumours were spread that a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman
emperor the spiritual head of the Islamic world (the khalifa).
To defend the Khalifa's temporal powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in
March 1919.
• Muhammad All and Shaukat All began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi about the
possibility of a united mass action.
• Gandhiji saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a united
national movement.
• In September 1920, at the Calcutta session of the Congress, Gandhi convinced other
leaders of the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khalifa as well
as Swaraj.
Why Non-cooperation Movement?
In Gandhiji's famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was
established in India. with the c ooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this
cooperation.
If Indians would have refused to cooperate, British rule in India would have collapsed within a
year, and swaraj would come.
• Gandhi proposed that movement should unfold in stages.
1. The movement should begin with surrendering of titles that the government has
awarded.
2. Boycott of civil services, army, police, courts and legislative councils, schools and
foreign goods. Then, in case the government used repression, a full civil disobedience
campaign would be launched.
3. Mahatma Gandhi and Shaukat Ali through the summer of 1920, toured extensively,
mobilising popular support for the movement.
Many within congress were reluctant to boycott the council elections scheduled for
November 1920, they feared that movement might lead to popular violence.
• Congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, a compromise was worked out and
the Non-cooperation programme was adopted.
Differing Strands within the Movement
• The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in January 1921. Various social
groups participated in this movemen t. Everyone had their own specific aspirations.
Everyone responded to the call of Swaraj but its meaning was different for different
people.
The Movement in the Towns
The movement started with middle class participation in the cities. Thousands of students left
government-controlled schools and colleges. Headmasters and teachers resigned. Lawyers
gave up their legal practices.
The council elections were boycotted in most of the provinces except Madras, where the
Justice Party, the party of the non-brahmans, felt that entering the council was one way of
gaining some power - something that only Brahmans had access to
The effects of Non-cooperation on the economic front were more dramatic
• 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 value from Rs
102 crores to Rs 57 crore.
In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance foreign
trade. People began discarding imported clothes and wearing only Indian ones. Production of
Indian textiles and Handlooms went up. But the movement slowed down for a variety of
reasons in the cities. Khadi cloth was more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor
people could not afford to buy it.
Boycott of British institutions posed a problem.
Alternative Indian institutions had to be set up so that they could be used in place of the British
ones, for the movement to be successful. Students and teachers began trickling back to the
government schools and lawyers joined back work in government courts.
Rebellion in the Countryside
The Non-cooperation movement spread to the countryside from the cities and included the
struggles of peasants and tribals in it.
• In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra - a sanyasi who had earlier been to
Fiji as an indentured labourer.
• The movement was against the Talukdars and landlords who demanded exorbitantly
high rents and a variety of other cesses from the peasants. Peasants had to do begar
and work at landlord's farms without any payments.
• As tenants they had no security of tenure. Being regularly evicted so that they could
acquire no right over the leased land
The peasant movement demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and social boycott
of oppressive landlords.
Nai - Dhobi bandhs were organised by panchayats to deprive landlords of the services of even
barbers and washermen.
• In June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru began going around the villages in Awadh. By October,
the Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and
a few others. Over 300 branches had been set up in the villages around the region.
The effort of the Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant movement into a wider
struggle. However, the peasant movement developed in a way that the Congress leadership
was unhappy with.
• In 1921 the houses of Talukdars and merchants were attacked.
• Bazaars were looted.
• Grain hoards were taken over.
In many places, the local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared that no taxes were
to be paid and land was to be redistributed among the poor. The name of the Mahatma was
being invoked to sanction all actions and aspirations.
Bardoli Satyagraha
In 1928, Vallabhbhai Patel led the peasant movement in Bardoli. A taluka in Gujarat, against
enhancement of land revenue. This movement came to be known as Bardoli Satyagraha.This
movement was success under the able leadership of Vallabhbhai Patel. The struggle was
widely publicised and generated immense sympathy in many parts of India.
Idea of Swaraj for Tribal Peasants
Tribal peasants interpreted the message of Mahatma Gandhi and the idea of Swaraj in another
way. In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early
1920s. It was kind of a struggle that the Congress could never approve off. In the forest
regions, the colonial government had closed large forest areas, preventing people from
entering the forests to graze their cattle, or to collect fuelwood and fruits This act enraged the
hill people.
Not only their livelihoods were affected but they felt that their traditional rights were being
denied. The government began forcing them to contribute begar for road building, and the hill
people revolted.
Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed that he had a variety of special powers; he could make correct
astrological predictions and heal people. He claimed that he could even survive bullet shots.
Captivated by Raju, the rebels proclaimed that he was an incarnation of God...Raju talked of
the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi, Raju was. inspired by the Non-cooperation Movement.
Raju persuaded people to wear Khadi and give up drinkingRaju was of the opinion that India
could be liberated only by the use of force and not by non-violence. Gudem rebels attacked
the 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.
Swaraj in the plantations
Workers too had their different understanding of Mahatma Gandhi and notion of swaraj. For
the plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out the
confined space in which they were enclosed.
It meant retaining a link with the village they had come from.
Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the
tea gardens without permission, and in fact they were rarely given such permissions.
After hearing of the Non-cooperation movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities.
They left the plantation and headed home. The workers believed that Gandhi Raj was coming
and every worker would be given land in their own villages.
However, they never reached their destination
Stranded on the way by a railway and streamer strike, they were caught by the police and
brutally beaten up. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways, Imagining it to be a time
when all the suffering and all the troubles would be over.
The tribals chanted Gandhiji's name and raised slogans demanding Swatantra Bharat', they
were also emotionally relating to an all-India agitation. When they acted in the name of
Mahatma Gandhi, or linked their movement to that of the congress, they were Identifying with
a movement which went beyond the limits of their immediate locality.
The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement
On 31 January 1930, Mahatma Gandhi sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands.
Among the demands, the most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax, which is
consumed by the rich and the poor. The demands needed to be fulfilled by 11 March, or else
Congress would start a civil disobedience campaign. The famous salt march was started by
Mahatma Gandhi, accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers. The march was over 240
miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi. On 6 April,
he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling seawater.
This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.
The movement spread across the world and salt law was broken in different parts of the
country. Foreign clothes were boycotted, peasants refused to pay revenue, and in many
places, forest law was violated. In April 1930, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of
Mahatma Gandhi, was arrested. Mahatma Gandhi was arrested a month later, which led to
attacks on all structures that symbolised British rule. By witnessing the horrific situation,
Mahatma Gandhi decided to call off the movement and entered into a pact with Irwin on 5
March 1931. Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhiji consented to participate in a Round Table
Conference in London. When the conference broke down, Mahatma Gandhi returned to India
disappointed and relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement. It continued for almost a
year, but by 1934 it lost its momentum.
How Participants saw the movement
Rich Peasant Communities
Patidars of Gujarat and 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. Their
cash income disappeared, they found it impossible to pay the government's revenue demand.
Refusal of the government to reduce the revenue demand led to widespread resentment.
Rich peasants became enthusiastic supporters of the Civil Disobedience Movement,
organising their communities, and at times forcing reluctant members to participate in. the
boycott programmes. For them the fight for Swaraj was a struggle against high
revenues. They were deeply disappointed when the movement was called off in 1931
without revenue rates being revised.
So when the movement was restarted in 1932, many of them refused to participate.
1. Poorer Peasantry
Poorer peasantry was not just interested in lowering revenue demand. They were small
tenants cultivating land they had rented from landlords depression continued and cash
incomes dwindled, the small tenants found it difficult to pay their rent. They wanted the
unpaid rent to the landlords to be remitted.
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 in most places. The relationship between the
poor peasants and the Congress remained uncertain.
Business Classes
During the First World War, Indian merchants and industrialists had made huge profits and
had become powerful. Keen on expanding their business, they now reacted against the
colonial policies that restricted business activities. They wanted protection against imports of
foreign goods
A rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio that would discourage imports. To organise
business interests, they formed the Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress in 1920 and
the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927. Led by
prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G.D. Birla, the industrialists
attacked colonial control over the Indian economy, and supported the Civil Disobedience
movement when it was first launched.
They gave financial assistance and refused to buy or sell imported goods.Most businessmen
came to see swaraj as a time when colonial restrictions on business would no longer exist
and trade and industry would flourish without constraints. Failure at the Round Table
Conference, business groups were no longer uniformly enthusiastic.
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.
Industrial Working Classes
The industrial working classes did not participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement in large
numbers, except in the Nagpur region. Workers stayed aloof, as the Industrialists came closer
to the Congress but 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 the 1930 and dockworkers in 1932 . In 1930
thousands of workers in Chotanagpur tin mines wore Gandhi caps and participated in the
protest rallies and boycott campaigns. Congress was reluctant to include workers demands
as part of its programme of struggle. Congress felt that this would alienate industrialists and
divide the anti-imperial forces.
Another important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement was the large-scale
participation of women. But, for a long time, Congress was reluctant to allow women to hold
any position of authority within the organisation.
The Limits of Civil Disobedience
Dalits, addressed as untouchables, were not moved by the concept of Swaraj. Mahatma
Gandhi used to call them Harijans or the children of God, without whom swaraj could not be
achieved. He organised satyagraha for the untouchables, but they were keen on a
different political solution to the problems of the community. They demanded reserved seats
in educational institutions and a separate electorate.
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. The Poona Pact of September 1932 gave the Depressed
Classes (later to be known as the Scheduled Castes) reserved seats in provincial and central
legislative councils. After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, Muslims
felt alienated from Congress, due to which the relations between Hindus and Muslims
worsened.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was willing to give up the demand for separate electorates if Muslims
were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in proportion to the
population in the Muslim-dominated provinces. Nevertheless, the 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.
The Sense of Collective Belonging
Nationalism spreads when people begin to believe that they are all part of the same nation.
History and fiction, folklore and songs, and popular prints and symbols all played a part in the
making of nationalism. Finally, in the twentieth century, the identity of India came to be
visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay created
the image, and in the 1870s, he wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the motherland.
Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata portrayed as an ascetic
figure; she is calm, composed, divine and spiritual. In late-nineteenth-century India,
nationalists began recording folk tales sung by bards, and they toured villages to gather folk
songs and legends.
During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green and yellow) was
designed, which had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British India and a crescent
moon representing Hindus and Muslims.
By 1921, Gandhiji designed the Swaraj flag, a tricolour (red, green and white) and had a
spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help.
The failure of the Cripps Mission and the effects of World War II created widespread
disappointment in India. This made Gandhiji to launch a movement calling for a complete
withdrawal of the British from India. In its meeting in Wardha on 14 July 1942, The Congress
Working Committee, passed the historic 'Quit India' resolution Demanding the immediate
power to Indians and quit India.
On 8 August 1942 in Bombay, the All India Congress Committee endorsed the resolution
which called for a non-violent mass struggle on the widest possible scale. throughout the
country. It was on this occasion that Gandhiji delivered the famous 'DO or Die' speech. The
call for 'Quit India' almost brought the state machinery to a standstill in large parts of the
country as people voluntarily threw themselves into the thick of the movement. Hartals were
observed by people, and demonstrations and processions were accompanied by national
songs and slogans It was truly a mass movement which brought into its ambit thousands of
ordinary people, namely students, workers and peasants.
The mass movement also saw the active participation of leaders, namely, Jayprakash
Narayan, Aruna Asaf Ali and Ram Manohar Lohia and many women such as Matangini Hazra
in Bengal, Kanaklata Barua in Assam and Rama Devi in Odisha. The British responded with
much force, yet it took more than a year to suppress the movement.
Conclusion:
In the first half of the twentieth century a growing anger against the colonial government was
thus bringing togethe r various groups and classes of Indians into a common struggle for
freedom. Under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Congress tried to channel people's
grievances into organised movements for independence. Through such movements the
nationalists tried to forge a national unity diverse groups and classes participated in these.
movements with varied aspirations and expectations.
As their grievances were wide-ranging, freedom from colonial rule also meant different things
to different people. The Congress continuously attempted to resolve differences, and ensure
that the demands of one group did not alienate another. What was emerging was a nation with
many voices wanting freedom from colonial rule.
