NATIONALISM IN INDIA

INTRODUCTION

• In India and other colonies, the growth of modern nationalism

is intimately connected to the anti-colonial movement.
• The sense of being oppressed under colonialism provided a
shared bond that tied many different groups together.
• But each class and group felt the effects of colonialism
differently, their experiences were varied, and their notions of
freedom were not always the same.
• Different nationalist leaders tried to unite these groups
together within one movement.
FIRST WORLD WAR
 IMPLICATIONS OF FIRST WORLD WAR ON
INDIA
• The war created a new political and economic situation.
• It led to a huge increase in defence expenditure which was financed by
war loans and increasing taxes: custom duties were raised and income tax
was introduced.
• Through the war years prices increased- doubling between 1913 and
1918- leading to extreme hardship for the common people.
• Villages were called upon to supply soldiers and the forced recruitment 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. This was accompanied by an influenza epidemic.
• According to the census, 12 to 13 million people perished because of this.
 THE IDEA OF SATYAGRAHA

• It emphasised the power of truth and the need to search for

truth.
• It suggested that if the cause was true, if the struggle was
against injustice, then physical force was not necessary to fight
the oppressor. Without 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
truth through the use of violence.
• Mahatma Gandhi believed that this dharma of non-violence could
unite all Indians.
• He championed the practice of satyagraha in South Africa.
• After arriving in India in 1915, he successfully organized satyagraha
movements in various places.
• Champaran satyagraha: In 1917, Mahatma Gandhi inspired the
peasants in Bihar to struggle against the oppressive plantation
system. It is also called as first civil disobedience movement.
• Ahmedabad mill strike: In 1918, Gandhi intervened in a dispute
between cotton mill owners of Ahmedabad and the workers over
the issue of discontinuation of plague bonus. It was his first hunger
strike in India.
• Kheda satyagraha: In 1918 because of drought, the crops
failed in Kheda district of Gujarat. The farmers were forced
to pay the taxes by the government. Gandhi asked them to
not pay the taxes. It is also called as first non-cooperation
movement.
 THE ROWLATT ACT

• British government after the end of First World War promised

to give some autonomy and the right of self determination to
the Indians.
• But this was just an eye wash. After the end of war, they
resorted to the policy of ‘carrot and stick’.
• The carrot was represented by the Government of India Act
of 1919 (Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms), while measures such
as Rowlatt Act represented the stick.
• The 1919 reforms did not satisfy political demands in India.
• The Rowlatt Act allowed political activists to be arrested
without trial. They can be arrested on the mere suspicion of
treason.
• It was hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative
Council despite the united opposition of the Indian
members.
• Mahatma Gandhi in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide
satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act. He wanted non-violent
civil disobedience against such unjust laws, which would start
with a hartal on 6 April.
• Rallies were organized in various cities, workers went on
strike in railway workshops, and shops closed down
• Alarmed by the popular upsurge, and scared that lines of
communication such as the railways and telegraph would be
disrupted, the British government decided to clamp down on
nationalists.
• Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar and Gandhi was
barred from entering Delhi. But situation became very
explosive in Punjab.
 JALLIANWALA BAGH MASSACRE (APRIL 13,
1919)

• Ameristar was the worst affected by violence.

• On April 9, two nationalist leaders, Dr. Satyapal and Saifuddin
Kitchlew were arrested by the British officials as they had
addressed protest meetings.
• This caused resentment among the Indian protestors who
came out to show solidarity with their leaders. However,
some protestors were killed as the police resorted to firing.
• Army was called upon to calm the situation and martial law
was imposed. General Dyer took the command.
• On 13 April, a large crowd gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh to
celebrate the Baisakhi festival.
• Local leaders had also called for a protest meeting at the
venue..
• Being from outside the city, many villagers were unaware of
the martial law that had been imposed.
• General Dyer entered the area, blocked the only exit point
and opened fire on the unarmed crowd, killing hundreds.
• No warning was issued, no instruction to disperse was given.
• His objective was to produce a moral effect, to create in the
minds of satyagrahis a feeling of terror.
• As the news of Jallianwala Bagh spread, crowds took the
streets in many North Indian towns.
• There were strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on
government buildings.
• The government responded with brutal repression, seeking to
humiliate and terrorise people: satyagrahis were forced to rub
their noses on the ground, crawl on the streets, and do salaam
(salute) to all sahibs; people were flogged and villages (around
Gujranwala in Pakistan) were bombed.
• Seeing violence spread, Mahatma Gandhi called off the
movement against Rowlatt Act.
 KHILAFAT

• Although the Rowlatt satyagraha was a widespread movement, it

was still limited to cities and towns.
• Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to launch a more broad based
movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement
could be organised without bringing the Hindus and Muslims
together.
• One way of doing this, was to take up the Khilafat issue.
• The First World War ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey
and a very harsh treaty was 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.
• Ali Brothers (Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali) began discussing
with Mahatma Gandhi about the possibility of united mass
action on the issue.
• Gandhi saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the
umbrella of a united national movement.
• At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920,
Mahatma Gandhi convinced other leaders of need to start a
non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as
for swaraj.
 WHY NON-COOPERATION?

• In his famous book ‘Hind Swaraj’ (1909) Mahatma Gandhi

declared that British rule was established in India with the
cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this
cooperation.
• If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would
collapse within a year, and swaraj would come.
 HOW COULD NON-COOPERATION BECOME
A MOVEMENT?

• Gandhi proposed that the movement should unfold in stages.

• It should begin with the surrender of titles that the government
awarded, and a 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.
• Through the summer of 1920 Mahatma Gandhi and Shaukat Ali
toured extensively, mobilizing popular support for the
movement.
• Many within the Congress were, however, concerned about the
proposals. They were reluctant to boycott the council elections
scheduled for November 1920, and they feared that the
movement might lead to violence.
• In the months between September and December there was an
intense tussle within the Congress.
• Finally, at the Congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, a
compromise was worked out and the Non-Cooperation
programme was adopted.
• The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in January 1921.
Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its
own specific aspiration.
• All of them responded to the call of Swaraj, but the term meant
different things to different people.
 THE MOVEMENT IN THE TOWNS

• It started with middle-class participation in the cities.

• Students left government controlled schools and colleges,
headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their
legal practices.
• The council elections were boycotted in most provinces except
Madras, where the Justice Party, the party of the non-Brahmins,
felt that entering the council was one way of gaining some
power- something that usually only Brahmins had access to.
• In the economic sphere, foreign goods were boycotted,
liquor shops were picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in huge
bonfires.
• The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922,
it’s value dropping from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore.
• In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in
foreign goods or finance foreign trade.
• As the boycott movement spread, and people began
discarding imported clothes wearing only Indian ones,
production of Indian textile mills and handlooms went up.
• But this movement in the cities gradually slowed down for a
variety of reasons.
• Khadi was more expensive than mass produced mill cloth.
Therefore, people could not boycott the imported cloth for
long.
• Similarly, because of lack of alternative options of
educational institutions, students and teachers could not
boycott British institutions for long.
• Lawyers also joined back work in government courts.
 REBELLION IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

• In the countryside, it drew into its fold the struggles of peasants and
tribals which were developing in different part of India in the years
after the war.
• In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra- a sanyasi who had
earlier been to Fiji as an indentured labourer (a form of labour
where a parson agrees to work for a specific periodof time without
any pay usually in exchange for compensation or to pay debt).
• The movement here was against talukdars and landlords who
demanded from peasants exorbitantly high rents and a variety of
other cesses.
• Peasants had to do begar and work at landlords’ farms without any
payment.
• 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.
• In many places, landlords were denied the services of barbers and
washermen.
• In June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru began going around villages in
Awadh, talking to the villagers, and trying to understand their
grievances.
• By October, the Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed by
Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramachandra and a few others.
• So with the start of non-cooperation movement, the effort of the
Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the
wider struggle.
• The peasant movement, however, developed in forms that the
Congress leadership was unhappy with.
• In 1921, the houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked,
bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over.
• Local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared that no
taxes were to be paid and land was to be distributed among poor.
• Tribal peasants interpreted the message 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. This form of struggle was not
approved by the Congress.
• The main contestation of tribals was control of forest areas by the
colonial government. Not only they thought their livelihoods are
getting affected but they felt that their traditional rights were being
denied.
• When the government began forcing them to contribute begar for
road building, they revolted.
• Alluri Sitaram Raju came forward to lead them.
• He claimed that he had a variety special powers: he could make correct
astrological predictions and heal people, and he could survive even bullet
shots.
• The rebels proclaimed that he was an incarnation of of God.
• He was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and the Non-cooperation
Movement, and persuaded people wear khadi and gave up drinking.
• But at the same time he asserted that India could be liberated only by
the use of force.
• The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British
officials and carried on guerrilla warfare for achieving swaraj.
• Raju was captured and executed in 1924, and over time became a folk
hero.
 SWARAJ IN THE PLANTATIONS

• For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to

move freely in and out of the confined space in which they are
enclosed.
• 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 permission
• When they heard of Non-cooperation Movement, thousands
of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations and
headed home.
• They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming and everyone would be
given land in their own villages.
• However, they never reached their destination as they were stranded
on the way by a railway and steamer strike. They were caught by the
police and brutally beaten up.
• The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress
programme. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways.
• Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhi’s name and raised slogan
‘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.
 CHAURI CHAURA INCIDENT

• Non-cooperation movement was called off in February 1922

by Mahatma Gandhi because it turned violent in many places.
• On 5 February 1922, police beated and opened fire on the
crowd campaigning against liquor sale and high food prices in
Chauri Chaura near Gorakhpur.
• The agitated crowd set the police station on fire leading to
the death of 22 policemen.
• Within the Congress, some leaders were by now tired of mass
struggles and wanted to participate in elections to the provincial
councils that had been set up by the Government of India Act of
1919.
• They thought that it was important to oppose British policies
within the councils, argue for reform and also demonstrate that
these councils were not truly democratic.
• Chitranjan Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within
the Congress to argue for a return to council politics.
• However, younger leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru pressed for more
radical mass agitation and for full independence.
 INDIAN POLITICS AFTER 1925

• Two factors shaped Indian politics towards the late 1920s.

• The first was the effect of the worldwide economic
depression also known as Great Depression. Agricultural
prices began to fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930. As the
demand for agricultural goods fell and exports declined,
peasants found it difficult to sell their harvest and pay their
revenue. By the 1930, the countryside was in turmoil.
• Second factor was the constitution of Simon Commission. It
was a statutory commission constituted under the
Government of India Act of 1919.
• It was given the responsibility to look after the functioning of the
constitutional system in India and to suggest changes.
• But the problem was that it did not have even a single Indian
member. They were all British.
• When the Simon Commission arrived in India in 1928, it was
greeted with the slogan ‘Go back Simon’.
• All parties, including the Congress and the Muslim League,
participated in the demonstrations.
• In an effort to win them over, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced in
1929, a vague offer of ‘dominion status’ for India in an unspecified
future, and a Round Table Conference to discuss a future
constitution.
• This did not satisfy the Congress leaders.
• The radicals within the Congress, led by Jawaharlal Nehru and
Subhash Chandra Bose, became more assertive.
• The liberals and moderates, who were proposing a
constitutional system within the framework of British dominion,
gradually lost their influence.
• In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru,
the Lahore Congress formalised the demand of ‘Purna Swaraj’
or full independence for India.
• It was declared that 26 January 1930, would be celebrated as the
Independence Day when people were to take a pledge to
struggle for complete independence..
• But the celebrations attracted very little attention.
• So Gandhi had to find a way to relate this abstract idea of
freedom to more concrete issues of everyday life.
 THE SALT MARCH AND THE CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT

• Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unite the

nation.
• On 31 January 1930, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating
11 demands. Some of these were of general interest; others
were specific demands of different classes, from industrialists
to peasants.
• The idea was to make the demands wide-ranging, so that all
classes within Indian society could identify with them and
everyone could be brought together in a united campaign.
• The abolition of salt tax was one of the most important
demand. Gandhi declared that tax on salt and the government
monopoly over its production revealed the most oppressive
face of British rule.
• His letter was an ultimatum. If the demands were not fulfilled
by 11 March, the Congress would launch a civil disobedience
campaign, the letter stated.
• Viceroy Irwin was unwilling to negotiate.
• So Gandhi started his famous salt March accompanied by his
78 followers.
• The march started from Gandhi’s Ashram in Sabarmati and
ended in Gujarati coastal town of Dandi, covering a distance
of about 385-388 Km.
• On 6 April he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the
law, manufacturing salt by boiling water.
• This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience
Movement.
• Under Civil Disobedience Movement, people were not only asked
to refuse cooperation with the British but also to break colonial
laws.
• Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law,
manufactured salt and demonstrated in front of government salt
factories.
• As the movement spread, foreign cloth was boycotted, and liquor
shops were picketed.
• Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes, village
officials resigned, and in many places forest people violated forest
laws- going into Reserved Forests to collect wood and graze
cattle.
 ACTION TAKEN BY COLONIAL GOVERNMENT

• Worried by all this, the colonial government began arresting the

Congress leaders one by one.
• This led to violent clashes in many places.
• When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Mahatma Gandhi,
was arrested in April 1930, angry crowd demonstrated in the
streets of Peshawar, facing armored cars and police firing.
• Many were killed.
• A month later, when Gandhi was arrested, industrial workers in
Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal buildings, law courts and
railway stations- all symbols of British rule.
• A frightened government responded with a policy of brutal
repression. Peaceful satyagrahis were attacked, women and
children were beaten, and about one lakh people were
arrested.
• In such a situation, Gandhi once again decided to call off the
movement and entered with Irwin on 5 March 1931.
• By this Gandhi-Irwin pact, Gandhi consented to participate
in a Round Table Conference in London and the
government agreed to release the political prisoners.
• In December 1931, Gandhi went to London for the
conference, but he returned disappointed.
• Back in India, the government had begun a new cycle of
repression.
• Important leaders were in jail, Congress was declared illegal
and a series of measures had been imposed to prevent
meetings, demonstrations and boycotts.
• With great apprehension, Gandhi relaunched the movement.
• It continued for a year, but by 1934 it lost its momentum.
 HOW PARTICIPANTS SAW THE MOVEMENT

Rich peasant
• In the countryside, rich peasant communities- like Patidars of
Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar- were active in the movement.
• Being producers of commercial crops, they were hardly hit by the
great depression and falling prices. As their cash income disappeared,
they found it impossible to pay the revenue. The government also
refused to reduce the revenue demand.
• For them the fight for swaraj was a struggle against high revenues.
They were disappointed when the movement was called off. So when
the movement was restarted, many of them refused to participate.
Poor peasants
• Their demand was not just reduction in rates of revenue but
they also wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be
remitted.
• Apprehensive of raising issues that might upset the rich
peasants and landlords, the Congress was unwilling to
support ‘no rent’ campaigns in most places.
• These poor peasants were supported by Socialists and
Communists.
Business class
• During the WW1, Indian merchants and industrialists had made
huge profits and become powerful.
• Now they were reacting against colonial policies that restricted
business activities. They wanted protection against imported
goods, and a rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio that would
discourage imports.
• To organize their demands, they formed the Indian Industrial and
Commercial Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian
Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927.
• They were led by industrialists like Purushottam Thakurdas and
G.D. Birla.
• They supported the Civil Disobedience Movement.
• They gave financial assistance and refused to buy or sell
imported goods.
• Their demands were no governmental restrictions on
economic activities and businesses.
• After the failure of the Round Table Conference, they were no
longer enthusiastic.
• They were worried by growing influence of socialism in
Congress, militant activities and disruption of businesses.
Industrial workers
• They did not participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement In large
numbers, except in the Nagpur region.
• The Congress was reluctant to include worker’s demands as part of its
programme of struggle. It felt that this would alienate industrialists and
divide the anti imperial forces.
• Some of the workers did participate in boycotting foreign goods as part
of their own movements against low wages and poor working conditions.
• There were strikes by railway workers in 1930 and dockworkers in 1932.
• In 1930 thousands of workers in Chotanagpur tin mines wore Gandhi
caps and participated in protest rallies and boycott campaigns.
Women
• They joined Gandhi in his Dandi march, participated in protests,
manufactured salt, picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops. Many
of them went to jail also.
• In urban areas these women were from high caste families and
in rural areas they came from rich peasant households.
• But this did not result in any radical change in the way the
position of women was visualized.
• Gandhi was convinced that it was the duty of women to look
after home and hearth, be good mothers and good wives.
• And for a very long time the Congress was reluctant to allow
women to hold any position of authority.
 THE LIMITS OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Dalits/ Depressed Class/ Untouchables

• For long the Congress had ignored the dalits, for fear of offending
uppercase Hindus.
• But Mahatma Gandhi declared that swaraj would not come for a
hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated.
• He called them ‘harijans’, organised satyagrahas to secure them
entry into temples, access to public wells, tanks, roads and schools.
• He himself cleaned toilets to dignify the work of the sweepers and
pursuaded upper castes to change their heart and give up the sin
of untouchability.
• But many dalit leaders believed that only political
empowerment (reserved seats in educational institutions
and separate electorates) would resolve the problems of
their social disabilities.
• Therefore, dalit participation in Civil Disobedience
Movement was limited, particularly in the Maharashtra and
Nagpur region.
• Dr. B.R. Ambedkar organised them into the Depressed
Classes Association in 1930 and clashed with Gandhi at the
second round table conference by demanding separate
electorates for dalits.
• When the British government conceded Ambedkar’s
demand, Gandhi began a fast unto death.
• He believed that this would slow down the process of their
assimilation into society.
• Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhi’s position and the
result was the Poona Pact of 1932.
• It gave the Depressed Classes reserved seats in Provincial
and Central Legislative Councils.
• The Dalit movement, however, continued to be
apprehensive of the Congress led national movement.
Muslims
• Some of the Muslim political organizations in India were
lukewarm in their response to the Civil Disobedience
Movement.
• After the decline of the Non-cooperation Movement, a large
section of Muslims felt alienated from the Congress.
• From the mid 1920s the Congress came to be more visibly
associated with Hindu religious nationalist groups like the Hindu
Mahasabha.
• As relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened, each
community provoked communal clashes and riots.
• The Congress and the Muslim League made efforts to
negotiate an alliance but nothing happened.
• The difference was over the question of representation in the
future assemblies that were to be elected.
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah was willing to give up the demand for
separate electorate, if Muslims were assured reserved seats in
the Central Legislative Council and representation in
proportion to population in the Muslim dominated provinces
(Bengal and Punjab).
• At the All Parties Conference in 1928 all hopes of resolving
this issue disappeared when M.R. Jayakar of the Hindu
Mahasabha strongly opposed it.
• When the Civil Disobedience Movement started there was an
atmosphere suspicion and distrust between the two
communities.
• Alienated from the Congress, a large section of Muslims could
not respond to it.
• Many Muslim leaders expressed their concern about the status
of Muslims as a minority within India. They feared that the
culture and identity of minorities would be submerged under
the domination of a Hindu majority.
 MUHAMMAD IQBAL

• As president of the Muslim League in 1930, he emphasized

the importance of separate electorates for the Muslims. He
suggested that it is necessary to safeguard the political
interests of Muslims.
• His idea of communalism was that each community is
entitled to a development on the lines of its own culture and
tradition. He believed that it should be integral to the
formation of a harmonious society in a country like India.
• He was against the western concept of nation and
nationalism.
 QUIT INDIA MOVEMENT

• The failure of Cripps Mission and the effects of World War II

created widespread discontentment in India.
• This led Gandhi to launch a movement calling for complete
withdrawal of the British from India.
• On 14th July, 1942, the Congress Working Committee in its
meeting in Wardha passed the ‘Quit India’ resolution demanding
the immediate transfer of power to Indians.
• On 8 August 1942 in Bombay, the All India Congress Committee
endorsed that the movement should be non-violent and the
struggle should be on the widest scale possible.
• Mahatma Gandhi also delivered his famous ‘Do or Die’
speech.
• People observed hartals, and demonstrations and
processions were accompanied by national songs and
slogans.
• The British responded with much force, yet it took more
than a year to suppress the movement.
• Jayaprakash Narayan, Aruna Asaf Ali, Ram Manohar Lohia,
Matangini Hazra in Bengal, Kanaklata Barua in Assam and
Rama Devi in Odisha were active participants.
 THE SENSE OF COLLECTIVE BELONGING

• Nationalism spreads when people begin to believe that they are

all part of the same nation, when they discover some unity binds
them together.
• In India, this sense of collective belonging came partly through the
experience of united struggles. But there were also a variety of
cultural processes through which nationalism captured people’s
imagination.
• History and fiction, folklore and songs, popular prints and
symbols also played a role.
• It was in 20th century, with the growth of nationalism, that the
identity of India came to be visually associated with the image of
Bharat Mata.
• The first image was created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.
In the 1870s he wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the
motherland. Later it was included in his novel ‘Anandmath’ and
widely sung during the Swadeshi movement in Bengal.
• Moved by Swadeshi movement, Abanindranath Tagore painted his
famous image of Bharat Mata. In this painting, she is portrayed as
an ascetic figure; she is calm, composed, divine and spiritual.
• In late 19th century India, nationalists began recording folk
tales sung by bards and they toured the villages to gather
folk songs and legends.
• These tales, they believed gave a true picture of traditional
culture that had been corrupted and damaged by outside
forces.
• In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore himself began collecting
ballads, nursery rhymes and myths.
• In Madras, Natesa Shastri published a four volume collection
of Tamil folk tales, ‘The folklore of Southern India’.
• As the national movement developed, leaders became more
aware of such icons and symbols.
• During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red,
green and yellow) was designed. It had eight lotuses
representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent
moon, representing Hindus and Muslims.
• By 1921, Mahatma Gandhi had designed the Swaraj flag.

• Another means of creating a feeling of nationalism was

through reinterpretation of history.
• The British saw Indians as backwards and primitive,
incapable of governing themselves. In response, Indians
began looking into the past to discover India’s great
achievements.
• These nationalist histories urged the readers to take pride
in India’s great achievements in the past and struggle to
change the conditions of life under British rule.
• But this alienated the non-Hindu communities.