Q1] How is the growth of nationalism in India

linked to anticolonial movement?

1. The growth of modern nationalism is
intimately connected to the anti-colonial
movement.

2. People began discovering their unity in the

process of their struggle with colonialism.

3. The sense of being oppressed under

colonialism provided a shared bond that tied
many different groups together.

4. 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.

5. The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried

to forge these groups together within one
movement. But the unity did not emerge
without conflict.
Q2] What progress takes place in the National
Movement after 1919?
In the years after 1919, we see the national
 movement spreading to new areas,
incorporating new social groups, and
developing new modes of struggle.
Q3] Highlight the economic and political
conditions or challenges faced by the Indians
during and after the First World War.
1. The war created a new economic and
political situation.
It led to a huge increase in defence
expenditure which was financed by war loans
and increasing taxes.
Customs duties were raised and income tax
introduced.

2. Through the war years prices increased –

doubling between 1913 and 1918 – leading to
extreme hardship for the common people.

3. Villages were called upon to supply

soldiers, and the forced recruitment in rural
areas caused widespread anger.

4. Then in 1918-19 and 1920-21, crops failed

in many parts of India, resulting in acute
shortages of food.
 5. This was accompanied by an influenza
epidemic. According to the census of 1921, 12
to 13 million people perished as a result of
famines and the epidemic.
Q4] When did Mahatma Gandhi return to India
and from where?
Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in January
1915, from South Africa.
Q5] What was Satyagraha? Explain it in the
words of Gandhi.
Satyagraha was a novel method of mass
agitation which comprises of two words-
‘satya’ [truth] and ‘agrah’ [appeal].
It means adopting nonviolent agitation/
movement.
1. The idea of Satyagraha emphasised the
power of truth and the need to search for truth.

2. It suggested that if the cause was true, if the

struggle was against injustice, then physical
force was not necessary to fight the oppressor.

3. Without seeking vengeance or being

 aggressive, a satyagrahi could win the battle
through nonviolence. This could be done by
appealing to the conscience of the oppressor.

4. People – including the oppressors – had to

be persuaded to see the truth, instead of being
forced to accept truth through the use of
violence.

5. By this struggle, truth was bound to

ultimately triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed
that this dharma of non-violence could unite
all Indians.
Q6] Explain the Satyagraha movement
organized by Gandhi between 1916-1918.
1. After arriving in India, Mahatma Gandhi
successfully organised satyagraha movements
in various places. In 1916 he travelled to
Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to
struggle against the oppressive plantation
system.

2. Then 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.

3. In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to

Ahmedabad to organise a Satyagraha
movement amongst cotton mill workers.
Q7] What was Rowalatt Act?
Emboldened with this success, Gandhi in 1919
decided to launch a nationwide Satyagraha
against the proposed Rowalatt 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
Q8] Why did Gandhi decide to organize a
hartal on 6th April, 1919? How did the Indian
& British police react?
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 lines of communication such as the
railways and telegraph would be disrupted, the
British administration decided to clamp down
on nationalists. 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.
Q9] Write a short note on Jalliawala Bagh
incident. How did the Indians and British react
to it?
On 13 April the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh
incident took place. On that day a large crowd
gathered in the enclosed ground of
Jallianwalla Bagh. Some came to protest
against the government’s new repressive
measures. Others had come to attend the
annual Baisakhi fair. Being from outside the
city, many villagers were unaware of the
martial law that had been imposed. Dyer
entered the area, blocked the exit points, and
opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds.
His object, as he declared later, was to
‘produce a moral effect’, to create in the minds
of satyagrahis a feeling of terror and awe.
As the news of Jallianwalla Bagh spread,
crowds took to 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 Punjab, now in Pakistan) were
bombed. Seeing violence spread, Mahatma
Gandhi called off the movement.
Q10] What was the Khilafat issue?
Why did Gandhi decide to start Khilafat
Movement?
While the Rowlatt Satyagraha had been a
widespread movement, it was still limited
mostly to cities and towns. Mahatma Gandhi
now 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
closer together. One way of doing this, he felt,
was to take up the Khilafat issue. The First
World War had ended with the defeat of
Ottoman Turkey. And there were rumours 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. A young generation of Muslim leaders
like the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat
Ali, began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi
about the possibility of a united mass action on
the issue. Gandhi saw this as an opportunity to
 bring Muslims under the umbrella of a unified
national movement. At the Calcutta session of
the Congress in September 1920, he convinced
other leaders of the need to start a non-
cooperation movement in support of Khilafat
as well as for swaraj
Q11] When and which book was written by
Gandhi? What was its theme?
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.
Q12] Mention 3 proposal with reference to
NCOM as suggested by Gandhi.
1. Gandhi proposed that the movement should
unfold in stages. It should begin with the
surrender of titles that the government
awarded.

2. A boycott of civil services, army, police,

courts and legislative councils, schools, and
 foreign goods.

3. Then, in case the government used

repression, a full civil disobedience campaign
would be launched.
Q13] When did Mahatma Gandhi and Shaukat
Ali tour and why?
Through the summer of 1920 Mahatma
Gandhi and Shaukat Ali toured extensively,
mobilising popular support for the movement.
Q14] When were the council elections
scheduled?
November 1920
Q15] Why did many within the congress
reluctant to boycott?
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 popular
violence.
Q16] When and how was the non- cooperation
program adopted?
 In the months between September and
December there was an intense tussle within
the Congress. For a while there seemed no
meeting point between the supporters and the
opponents of the movement. Finally, at the
Congress session at Nagpur in December
1920, a compromise was worked out and the
Non-Cooperation programme was adopted.
Q17] When did Non-Cooperation start?
The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement
began in January 1921.

Q18] “Different social group conceived the idea

of NCOM in different ways.” How did the
movement unfold in cities and town?
1. BOYCOTT OF BRITISH EDUCATION
INSTITUTION & COURTS
The movement started with middle-class
participation in the cities. Thousands of
students left government-controlled schools
and colleges, headmasters and teachers
resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal
practices.
 2. BOYCOTT OF ASSEMBLY ELECTION
The council elections were boycotted in most
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 usually only
Brahmans had access to.

3. BOYCOTT OF FOREIGN GOODS

Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops
picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in huge
bonfires. The import of foreign cloth halved
between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping
from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore.

4. REFUSAL OF MERCHANTS OF
TRADERS
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 and
wearing only Indian ones, production of Indian
textile mills and handlooms went up.
Q19] Why did NCOM gradually slowdown in
cities and towns?
 1. The movement in the cities gradually
slowed down for a variety of reasons.
Khadi cloth was often more expensive
than mass-produced mill cloth and poor
people could not afford to buy it.

2. Similarly the boycott of British

institutions posed a problem. For the
movement to be successful, alternative
Indian institutions had to be set up so that
they could be used in place of the British
ones.

3. These were slow to come up. So

students and teachers began trickling back
to government schools and lawyers joined
back work in government courts.
Q20] Discuss the effects of the Non-
Cooperation movement on the economy of
India.
OR
“The effect of the Non-cooperation
movement of the economic front were
more dramatic.” Justify the statement.
1. The effects of non-cooperation on the
 economic front were more dramatic.
Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor
shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in
huge bonfires.

2. The import of foreign cloth halved

between 1921 and 1922, its value
dropping from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57
crore.

3. In many places merchants and traders

refused to trade in foreign goods or
finance foreign trade.

4. As the boycott movement spread, and

people began discarding imported clothes
and wearing only Indian ones.

5. Production of Indian textile mills and

handlooms went up.
Q21] Discuss the movement led by the
pheasants of Awadh against Talukdars &
landlords.
OR
Who was Babu Ramchandra? Discuss his
contribution.
1. In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba
Ramchandra – a sanyasi who had earlier
been to Fiji as an indentured labourer. The
movement here was against Talukdars and
landlords who demanded from peasant’s
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.

2. The peasant movement demanded

reduction of revenue, abolition of begar,
and social boycott of oppressive landlords.
In many places nai – dhobi bandhs were
organised by panchayats to deprive
landlords of the services of even barbers
and washer men.

3. In June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru began

going around the villages in Awadh,
talking to the villagers, and trying to
 understand their grievances.

4. By October, the Oudh Kisan Sabha was

set up headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba
Ramchandra and a few others. Within a
month, over 300 branches had been set up
in the villages around the region.

5. However the movement spread in 1921,

the houses of Talukdars and merchants
were attacked, bazaars were looted, and
grain hoards were taken over and the
movement turned violent.
Q22] Analyse the features of the Gudem
rebellion.
OR
Why did the tribal revolt in the Gudem
region? How did the NCOM spread there?
OR
Who was Aluri Sitaram Raju? Discuss his
contribution in the revolt of tribals against
colonial rule.
Tribal peasants interpreted the message of
Mahatma Gandhi and the idea of swaraj in
yet another way. In the Gudem Hills of
Andhra Pradesh, for instance, a militant
guerrilla movement spread in the early
1920s – not a form of struggle that the
Congress could approve. Here, as in other
forest regions, the colonial government
had closed large forest areas, preventing
people from entering the forests to graze
their cattle, or to collect fuel wood and
fruits. This enraged the hill people. Not
only were their livelihoods affected but
they felt that their traditional rights were
being denied.
When the government began forcing them
to contribute begar for road building, the
hill people revolted.
The person who came to lead them was an
interesting figure. Aluri Sitaram Raju
claimed that he had a variety of special
powers: he could make correct astrological
predictions and heal people, and he could
survive even bullet shots.
Captivated by Raju, the rebels proclaimed
that he was an incarnation of God. Raju
talked of the greatness of Mahatma
Gandhi, said he was inspired by the Non-
 Cooperation Movement, and persuaded
people to wear khadi and give up drinking.
But at the same time he asserted that India
could be liberated only by the use of force,
not non-violence. 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.
Q23] What was Inland Emigrant Act?
OR
How did NCOM spread in the plantation
area? What did freedom mean to the
plantation workers of Assam?
OR
“Plantation Workers too had their own
understand of Mahatma Gandhi and the
notion of Swaraj?” Justify the statement.
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.
For plantation workers in Assam, freedom
 meant the right to move freely in and out
of the confined space in which they were
enclosed.
It meant retaining a link with the village
from which they had come.
When they heard of the 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. They,
however, never reached their destination.
Q24] Who raised the slogan of ‘Swatantra
Bharat’ for the first time?
The tribals chanted Gandhi’s name and
raised slogans demanding ‘Swatantra
Bharat’, they were also emotionally
relating to an all-India agitation.
53 Nationalism in India As you have seen,
modern nationalism in Europe came to be
associated with the formation of nation-
states. It also meant a change in people’s
understanding of who they were, and what
defined their identity and sense of
belonging. New symbols and icons, new
songs and ideas forged new links and
redefined the boundaries of communities.
In most countries the making of this new
national identity was a long process. How
did this consciousness emerge in India? In
India, as in Vietnam and many other
colonies, the growth of modern
nationalism is intimately connected to the
anti-colonial movement. People began
discovering their unity in the process of
their struggle with colonialism. 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. The Congress under
Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these
groups together within one movement. But
the unity did not emerge without conflict.
In an earlier textbook you have read about
the growth of nationalism in India up to
the first decade of the twentieth century. In
this chapter we will pick up the story from
the 1920s and study the NonCooperation
and Civil Disobedience Movements. We
will explore how the Congress sought to
develop the national movement, how
different social groups participated in the
movement, and how nationalism captured
the imagination of people. Nationalism in
India Nationalism in India Chapter III Fig.
1 – 6 April 1919. Mass processions on the
streets became a common feature during
the national movement. India and the
Contemporary World 54 1 The First
World War, Khilafat and Non-
Cooperation In the years after 1919, we
see the national movement spreading to
new areas, incorporating new social
groups, and developing new modes of
struggle. How do we understand these
developments? What implications did they
have? First of all, the war created a new
economic and political situation. It led to a
huge increase in defence expenditure
which was financed by war loans and
increasing taxes: customs duties were
raised and income tax 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. Then
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 of 1921, 12 to 13 million
people perished as a result of famines and
the epidemic. People hoped that their
hardships would end after the war was
over. But that did not happen. At this stage
a new leader appeared and suggested a
new mode of struggle. 1.1 The Idea of
Satyagraha Mahatma Gandhi returned to
India in January 1915. As you know, he
had come from South Africa where he had
successfully fought New words Forced
recruitment – A process by which the
colonial state forced people to join the
army Fig. 2 – Indian workers in South
Africa march through Volksrust, 6
November 1913. Mahatma Gandhi was
leading the workers from Newcastle to
Transvaal. When the marchers were
stopped and Gandhiji arrested, thousands
of more workers joined the satyagraha
against racist laws that denied rights to
non-whites. 55 Nationalism in India the
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. 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 seeking vengeance
or being aggressive, a satyagrahi could
win the battle through nonviolence. 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. 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 1916 he travelled to
Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants
to struggle against the oppressive
plantation system.Then 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. 1.2 The Rowlatt Act
Emboldened with this success, 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 lines of communication
such as the railways and telegraph would
be disrupted, the British administration
decided to clamp down on nationalists.
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.
Mahatma Gandhi on Satyagraha ‘It is said
of “passive resistance” that it is the
weapon of the weak, but the power which
is the subject of this article can be used
only by the strong. This power is not
passive resistance; indeed it calls for
intense activity. The movement in South
Africa was not passive but active … ‘
Satyagraha is not physical force. A
satyagrahi does not inflict pain on the
adversary; he does not seek his destruction
… In the use of satyagraha, there is no ill-
will whatever. ‘ Satyagraha is pure soul-
force. Truth is the very substance of the
soul. That is why this force is called
satyagraha. The soul is informed with
knowledge. In it burns the flame of love.
… Nonviolence is the supreme dharma …
‘It is certain that India cannot rival Britain
or Europe in force of arms. The British
worship the war-god and they can all of
them become, as they are becoming,
bearers of arms. The hundreds of millions
in India can never carry arms. They have
made the religion of non-violence their
own ...’ Source Source A Read the text
carefully. What did Mahatma Gandhi
mean when he said satyagraha is active
resistance? Activity India and the
Contemporary World 56 On 13 April the
infamous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took
place. On that day a large crowd gathered
in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla
Bagh. Some came to protest against the
government’s new repressive measures.
Others had come to attend the annual
Baisakhi fair. Being from outside the city,
many villagers were unaware of the
martial law that had been imposed. Dyer
entered the area, blocked the exit points,
and opened fire on the crowd, killing
hundreds. His object, as he declared later,
was to ‘produce a moral effect’, to create
in the minds of satyagrahis a feeling of
terror and awe. As the news of
Jallianwalla Bagh spread, crowds took to
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 Punjab, now in
Pakistan) were bombed. Seeing violence
spread, Mahatma Gandhi called off the
movement. While the Rowlatt satyagraha
had been a widespread movement, it was
still limited mostly to cities and towns.
Mahatma Gandhi now 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 closer
together. One way of doing this, he felt,
was to take up the Khilafat issue. The First
World War had ended with the defeat of
Ottoman Turkey. And there were rumours
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. A young
generation of Muslim leaders like the
brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali,
began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi
about the possibility of a united mass
action on the issue. Gandhiji saw this as an
opportunity to bring Muslims under the
umbrella of a unified national movement.
At the Calcutta session of the Congress in
September 1920, he convinced other
leaders of the need to start a non-
cooperation movement in support of
Khilafat as well as for swaraj. 1.3 Why
Non-cooperation? In his famous book
Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi
declared that British rule was established
in India with the cooperation of Fig. 3 –
General Dyer’s ‘crawling orders’ being
administered by British soldiers, Amritsar,
Punjab, 1919. 57 Nationalism in India
New words Boycott – The refusal to deal
and associate with people, or participate in
activities, or buy and use things; usually a
form of protest 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?
Gandhiji 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, mobilising
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
popular violence. In the months between
September and December there was an
intense tussle within the Congress. For a
while there seemed no meeting point
between the supporters and the opponents
of the movement. Finally, at the Congress
session at Nagpur in December 1920, a
compromise was worked out and the Non-
Cooperation programme was adopted.
How did the movement unfold? Who
participated in it? How did different social
groups conceive of the idea of Non-
Cooperation? Fig. 4 – The boycott of
foreign cloth, July 1922. Foreign cloth was
seen as the symbol of Western economic
and cultural domination. India and the
Contemporary World 58 2 Differing
Strands within the Movement 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
theerrterm meant different things to
different people. 2.1 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, 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-
Brahmans, felt that entering the council
was one way of gaining some power –
something that usually only Brahmans had
access to. The effects of non-cooperation
on the economic front were more
dramatic. Foreign goods were boycotted,
liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth
burnt in huge bonfires. The import of
foreign cloth halved between 1921 and
1922, its 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 and
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 cloth was often more
expensive than massproduced mill cloth
and poor people could not afford to buy it.
How then could they boycott mill cloth for
too long? Similarly the boycott of British
institutions posed a problem. For the
movement to be successful, alternative
Indian institutions had to be set up so that
they could be used in place of the British
ones. These were slow to come up. So
students and teachers began trickling back
to government schools and lawyers joined
back work in government courts. 2.2
Rebellion in the Countryside From the
cities, the Non-Cooperation Movement
spread to the countryside. It drew into its
fold the struggles of peasants and tribals
New words Picket – A form of
demonstration or protest by which people
block the entrance to a shop, factory or
office The year is 1921. You are a student
in a government-controlled school. Design
a poster urging school students to answer
Gandhiji’s call to join the Non-
Cooperation Movement. Activity 59
Nationalism in India which were
developing in different parts 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. 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 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,
talking to the villagers, and trying to
understand their grievances. By October,
the Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed
by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra
and a few others. Within a month, over
300 branches had been set up in the
villages around the region. So when the
NonCooperation Movement began the
following year, 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. As the movement spread in
1921, the houses of talukdars and
merchants were attacked, bazaars were
looted, and grain hoards were taken over.
In many places 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 action and aspirations. New
words Begar – Labour that villagers were
forced to contribute without any payment
If you were a peasant in Uttar Pradesh in
1920, how would you have responded to
Gandhiji’s call for Swaraj? Give reasons
for your response. Activity On 6 January
1921, the police in United Provinces fired
at peasants near Rae Bareli. Jawaharlal
Nehru wanted to go to the place of firing,
but was stopped by the police. Agitated
and angry, Nehru addressed the peasants
who gathered around him. This is how he
later described the meeting: ‘They
behaved as brave men, calm and unruffled
in the face of danger. I do not know how
they felt but I know what my feelings
were. For a moment my blood was up,
non-violence was almost forgotten – but
for a moment only. The thought of the
great leader, who by God’s goodness has
been sent to lead us to victory, came to
me, and I saw the kisans seated and
standing near me, less excited, more
peaceful than I was – and the moment of
weakness passed, I spoke to them in all
humility on non-violence – I needed the
lesson more than they – and they heeded
me and peacefully dispersed.’ Quoted in
Sarvapalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A
Biography, Vol. I. Source Source B India
and the Contemporary World 60 Tribal
peasants interpreted the message of
Mahatma Gandhi and the idea of swaraj in
yet another way. In the Gudem Hills of
Andhra Pradesh, for instance, a militant
guerrilla movement spread in the early
1920s – not a form of struggle that the
Congress could approve. Here, as in other
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 enraged the hill people. Not
only were their livelihoods affected but
they felt that their traditional rights were
being denied. When the government began
forcing them to contribute begar for road
building, the hill people revolted. The
person who came to lead them was an
interesting figure. Alluri Sitaram Raju
claimed that he had a variety of special
powers: he could make correct astrological
predictions and heal people, and he could
survive even bullet shots. Captivated by
Raju, the rebels proclaimed that he was an
incarnation of God. Raju talked of the
greatness of Mahatma Gandhi, said he was
inspired by the Non-Cooperation
Movement, and persuaded people to wear
khadi and give up drinking. But at the
same time he asserted that India could be
liberated only by the use of force, not non-
violence. 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. 2.3 Swaraj in the
Plantations Workers too had their own
understanding of Mahatma Gandhi and the
notion of swaraj. For plantation workers in
Assam, freedom meant the right to move
freely in and out of the confined space in
which they were enclosed, and it meant
retaining a link with the village from
which they had come. 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 the 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. They,
however, never reached their destination.
Stranded on the way by a railway and
steamer strike, they were caught by the
police and brutally beaten up. Find out
about other participants in the National
Movement who were captured and put to
death by the British. Can you think of a
similar example from the national
movement in Indo-China (Chapter 2)?
Activity 61 Nationalism in India The
visions of these movements were not
defined by the Congress programme. They
interpreted the term swaraj in their own
ways, imagining it to be a time when all
suffering and all troubles would be over.
Yet, when 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. Fig. 5 – Chauri Chaura, 1922. At
Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur, a peaceful
demonstration in a bazaar turned into a
violent clash with the police. Hearing of
the incident, Mahatma Gandhi called a
halt to the Non-Cooperation Movement.
India and the Contemporary World 62 3
Towards Civil Disobedience In February
1922, Mahatma Gandhi decided to
withdraw the Non-Cooperation
Movement. He felt the movement was
turning violent in many places and
satyagrahis needed to be properly trained
before they would be ready for mass
struggles. 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 felt that it was
important to oppose British policies within
the councils, argue for reform and also
demonstrate that these councils were not
truly democratic. C. R. Das and Motilal
Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within the
Congress to argue for a return to council
politics. But younger leaders like
Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra
Bose pressed for more radical mass
agitation and for full independence. In
such a situation of internal debate and
dissension two factors again shaped Indian
politics towards the late 1920s. The first
was the effect of the worldwide economic
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 harvests and pay their
revenue. By 1930, the countryside was in
turmoil. Against this background the new
Tory government in Britain constituted a
Statutory Commission under Sir John
Simon. Set up in response to the
nationalist movement, the commission
was to look into the functioning of the
constitutional system in India and suggest
changes. The problem was that the
commission did not have 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 October 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 Fig. 6 – Meeting of
Congress leaders at Allahabad, 1931.
Apart from Mahatma Gandhi, you can see
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (extreme left),
Jawaharlal Nehru (extreme right) and
Subhas Chandra Bose (fifth from right).
63 Nationalism in India Jawaharlal Nehru
and Subhas 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 Mahatma Gandhi had to find a way to
relate this abstract idea of freedom to more
concrete issues of everyday life. 3.1 The
Salt March and the Civil Disobedience
Movement Mahatma Gandhi found in salt
a powerful symbol that could unite the
nation. On 31 January 1930, he sent a
letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven
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 most
stirring of all was the demand to abolish
the salt tax. Salt was something consumed
by the rich and the poor alike, and it was
one of the most essential items of food.
The tax on salt and the government
monopoly over its production, Mahatma
Gandhi declared, revealed the most
oppressive face of British rule. Mahatma
Gandhi’s letter was, in a way, an
ultimatum. If the demands were not
fulfilled by 11 March, the letter stated, the
Congress would launch a civil
disobedience campaign. Irwin was
unwilling to negotiate. So Mahatma
Gandhi started his famous salt march
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. The
volunteers walked for 24 days, about 10
miles a day. Thousands came to hear
Mahatma Gandhi wherever he stopped,
and he told them what he meant by swaraj
and urged them to peacefully defy the
British. On 6 April he reached Dandi, and
ceremonially violated the law,
manufacturing salt by boiling sea water.
This marked the beginning of the Civil
Disobedience Movement. How was this
movement different from the Non-
Cooperation Movement? People were now
asked not only to refuse cooperation The
Independence Day Pledge, 26 January
1930 ‘We believe that it is the inalienable
right of the Indian people, as of any other
people, to have freedom and to enjoy the
fruits of their toil and have the necessities
of life, so that they may have full
opportunities of growth. We believe also
that if any government deprives a people
of these rights and oppresses them, the
people have a further right to alter it or to
abolish it. The British Government in
India has not only deprived the Indian
people of their freedom but has based
itself on the exploitation of the masses,
and has ruined India economically,
politically, culturally, and spiritually. We
believe, therefore, that India must sever
the British connection and attain Purna
Swaraj or Complete Independence.’
Source C Source India and the
Contemporary World 64 with the British,
as they had done in 1921-22, 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. Worried
by the developments, the colonial
government began arresting the Congress
leaders one by one. This led to violent
clashes in many palaces. When Abdul
Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of
Mahatma Gandhi, was arrested in April
1930, angry crowds demonstrated in the
streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars
and police firing. Many were killed. A
month later, when Mahatma Gandhi
himself was arrested, industrial workers in
Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal
buildings, lawcourts and railway stations –
all structures that symbolised British rule.
A frightened government responded with a
policy of brutal repression. Peaceful
satyagrahis were attacked, women and
children were beaten, and about 100,000
people were arrested. In such a situation,
Mahatma Gandhi once again decided to
call off the movement and entered into a
pact with Irwin on 5 March 1931. By this
Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhiji consented to
participate in a Round Table Conference
(the Congress had boycotted the first Fig.
7 – The Dandi march. During the salt
march Mahatma Gandhi was accompanied
by 78 volunteers. On the way they were
joined by thousands. Fig. 8 – Police
cracked down on satyagrahis, 1930. 65
Nationalism in India Round Table
Conference) in London and the
government agreed to release the political
prisoners. In December 1931, Gandhiji
went to London for the conference, but the
negotiations broke down and he returned
disappointed. Back in India, he discovered
that the government had begun a new
cycle of repression. Ghaffar Khan and
Jawaharlal Nehru were both in jail, the
Congress had been declared illegal, and a
series of measures had been imposed to
prevent meetings, demonstrations and
boycotts. With great apprehension,
Mahatma Gandhi relaunched the Civil
Disobedience Movement. For over a year,
the movement continued, but by 1934 it
lost its momentum. 3.2 How Participants
saw the Movement Let us now look at the
different social groups that participated in
the Civil Disobedience Movement. Why
did they join the movement? What were
their ideals? What did swaraj mean to
them? In the countryside, rich peasant
communities – like the Patidars of Gujarat
and the 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.
As their cash income disappeared, they
found it impossible to pay the
government’s revenue demand. And the
refusal of the government to reduce the
revenue demand led to widespread
resentment. These 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. But they were deeply
disappointed when the movement was
called off in 1931 without the revenue
rates being revised. So when the
movement was restarted in 1932, many of
them refused to participate. The poorer
peasantry were not just interested in the
lowering of the revenue demand. Many of
them were small tenants cultivating land
they had rented from landlords. As the
Depression continued and cash incomes
dwindled, the small tenants found it
difficult to pay their rent. They wanted the
unpaid rent to the landlord 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. So the relationship between the
poor peasants and the Congress remained
uncertain. ‘To the altar of this revolution
we have brought our youth as incense’
Many nationalists thought that the struggle
against the British could not be won
through non-violence. In 1928, the
Hindustan Socialist Republican Army
(HSRA) was founded at a meeting in
Ferozeshah Kotla ground in Delhi.
Amongst its leaders were Bhagat Singh,
Jatin Das and Ajoy Ghosh. In a series of
dramatic actions in different parts of India,
the HSRA targeted some of the symbols of
British power. In April 1929, Bhagat
Singh and Batukeswar Dutta threw a bomb
in the Legislative Assembly. In the same
year there was an attempt to blow up the
train that Lord Irwin was travelling in.
Bhagat Singh was 23 when he was tried
and executed by the colonial government.
During his trial, Bhagat Singh stated that
he did not wish to glorify ‘the cult of the
bomb and pistol’ but wanted a revolution
in society: ‘Revolution is the inalienable
right of mankind. Freedom is the
imprescriptible birthright of all. The
labourer is the real sustainer of society …
To the altar of this revolution we have
brought our youth as incense, for no
sacrifice is too great for so magnificent a
cause. We are content. We await the
advent of revolution. Inquilab Zindabad!’
Box 1 India and the Contemporary World
66 What about the business classes? How
did they relate to the Civil Disobedience
Movement? During the First World War,
Indian merchants and industrialists had
made huge profits and become powerful
(see Chapter 5). Keen on expanding their
business, they now reacted against
colonial policies that restricted business
activities. They wanted protection against
imports of foreign goods, and 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. But after the failure of
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. The
industrial working classes did not
participate in the Civil Disobedience
Movement in large numbers, except in the
Nagpur region. As the industrialists came
closer to the Congress, workers stayed
aloof. But in spite of that, 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 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. But the
Congress was reluctant to include
workers’ demands as part of its
programme of struggle. It felt that this
would alienate industrialists and divide the
antiimperial forces. Another important
feature of the Civil Disobedience
Movement was the large-scale
participation of women. During Gandhiji’s
salt march, thousands of women came out
of their homes to listen to him. They
participated in protest marches,
manufactured salt, and Some important
dates 1918-19 Distressed UP peasants
organised by Baba Ramchandra. April
1919 Gandhian hartal against Rowlatt Act;
Jallianwala Bagh massacre. January 1921
Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movement
launched. February 1922 Chauri Chaura;
Gandhiji withdraws NonCooperation
movement. May 1924 Alluri Sitarama
Raju arrested ending a two-year armed
tribal struggle. December 1929 Lahore
Congress; Congress adopts the demand for
‘Purna Swaraj’. 1930 Ambedkar
establishes Depressed Classes Association.
March 1930 Gandhiji begins Civil
Disobedience Movement by breaking salt
law at Dandi. March 1931 Gandhiji ends
Civil Disobedience Movement. December
1931 Second Round Table Conference.
1932 Civil Disobedience re-launched. 67
Nationalism in India picketed foreign
cloth and liquor shops. Many went to jail.
In urban areas these women were from
high-caste families; in rural areas they
came from rich peasant households.
Moved by Gandhiji’s call, they began to
see service to the nation as a sacred duty
of women. Yet, this increased public role
did not necessarily mean any radical
change in the way the position of women
was visualised. Gandhiji was convinced
that it was the duty of women to look after
home and hearth, be good mothers and
good wives. And for a long time the
Congress was reluctant to allow women to
hold any position of authority within the
organisation. It was keen only on their
symbolic presence. 3.3 The Limits of Civil
Disobedience Not all social groups were
moved by the abstract concept of swaraj.
One such group was the nation’s
‘untouchables’, who from around the
1930s had begun to call themselves dalit
or oppressed. For long the Congress had
ignored the dalits, for fear of offending the
sanatanis, the conservative high-caste
Hindus. But Mahatma Gandhi declared
that swaraj would not come for a hundred
years if untouchability was not eliminated.
He called the ‘untouchables’ harijan, Why
did various classes and groups of Indians
participate in the Civil Disobedience
Movement? Discuss Fig. 9 – Women join
nationalist processions. During the
national movement, many women, for the
first time in their lives, moved out of their
homes on to a public arena. Amongst the
marchers you can see many old women,
and mothers with children in their arms.
India and the Contemporary World 68 or
the children of God, organised satyagraha
to secure them entry into temples, and
access to public wells, tanks, roads and
schools. He himself cleaned toilets to
dignify the work of the bhangi (the
sweepers), and persuaded upper castes to
change their heart and give up ‘the sin of
untouchability’. But many dalit leaders
were keen on a different political solution
to the problems of the community. They
began organising themselves, demanding
reserved seats in educational institutions,
and a separate electorate that would
choose dalit members for legislative
councils. Political empowerment, they
believed, would resolve the problems of
their social disabilities. Dalit participation
in the Civil Disobedience Movement was
therefore limited, particularly in the
Maharashtra and Nagpur region where
their organisation was quite strong. 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.
When the British government conceded
Ambedkar’s demand, Gandhiji began a
fast unto death. He believed that separate
electorates for dalits would slow down the
process of their integration into society.
Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhiji’s
position and the result was the Poona Pact
of September 1932. It gave the Depressed
Classes (later to be known as the Schedule
Castes) reserved seats in provincial and
central legislative councils, but they were
to be voted in by the general electorate.
The dalit movement, however, continued
to be apprehensive of the Congressled
national movement. Some of the Muslim
political organisations in India were also
lukewarm in their response to the Civil
Disobedience Movement. After the
decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat
movement, a large section of Muslims felt
alienated from the Congress. From the
mid-1920s the Congress came to be more
visibly associated with openly Hindu
religious nationalist groups like the Hindu
Mahasabha. As relations between Hindus
and Muslims worsened, each community
organised religious processions with
militant fervour, provoking Hindu-Muslim
communal clashes and riots in various
cities. Every riot deepened the distance
between the two communities. The
Congress and the Muslim League made
efforts to renegotiate an alliance, and in
1927 it appeared that such a unity could be
forged. The important differences were
over the question of representation in the
future assemblies that were to be elected.
Muhammad Ali Fig. 10 – Mahatma
Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana
Azad at Sevagram Ashram, Wardha, 1935.
69 Nationalism in India Jinnah, one of the
leaders of the Muslim League, 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 population
in the Muslim-dominated provinces
(Bengal and Punjab). Negotiations over
the question of representation continued
but all 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. When the Civil
Disobedience Movement started there was
thus an atmosphere of suspicion and
distrust between communities. Alienated
from the Congress, large sections of
Muslims could not respond to the call for a
united struggle. Many Muslim leaders and
intellectuals 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.
In 1930, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, as
president of the Muslim League, reiterated
the importance of separate electorates for
the Muslims as an important safeguard for
their minority political interests. His
statement is supposed to have provided the
intellectual justification for the Pakistan
demand that came up in subsequent years.
This is what he said: ‘I have no hesitation
in declaring that if the principle that the
Indian Muslim is entitled to full and free
development on the lines of his own
culture and tradition in his own Indian
home-lands is recognised as the basis of a
permanent communal settlement, he will
be ready to stake his all for the freedom of
India. The principle that each group is
entitled to free development on its own
lines is not inspired by any feeling of
narrow communalism … A community
which is inspired by feelings of ill-will
towards other communities is low and
ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for
the customs, laws, religions and social
institutions of other communities. Nay, it
is my duty according to the teachings of
the Quran, even to defend their places of
worship, if need be. Yet I love the
communal group which is the source of
life and behaviour and which has formed
me what I am by giving me its religion, its
literature, its thought, its culture and
thereby its whole past as a living operative
factor in my present consciousness …
‘Communalism in its higher aspect, then,
is indispensable to the formation of a
harmonious whole in a country like India.
The units of Indian society are not
territorial as in European countries … The
principle of European democracy cannot
be applied to India without recognising the
fact of communal groups. The Muslim
demand for the creation of a Muslim India
within India is, therefore, perfectly
justified… ‘The Hindu thinks that separate
electorates are contrary to the spirit of true
nationalism, because he understands the
word “nation” to mean a kind of universal
amalgamation in which no communal
entity ought to retain its private
individuality. Such a state of things,
however, does not exist. India is a land of
racial and religious variety. Add to this the
general economic inferiority of the
Muslims, their enormous debt, especially
in the Punjab, and their insufficient
majorities in some of the provinces, as at
present constituted and you will begin to
see clearly the meaning of our anxiety to
retain separate electorates.’ Source D
Source Read the Source D carefully. Do
you agree with Iqbal’s idea of
communalism? Can you define
communalism in a different way? Discuss
India and the Contemporary World 70 4
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 that
binds them together. But how did the
nation become a reality in the minds of
people? How did people belonging to
different communities, regions or
language groups develop a sense of
collective belonging? 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, all played a part in the
making of nationalism. Fig. 11 – Bal
Gangadhar Tilak, an early-twentieth-
century print. Notice how Tilak is
surrounded by symbols of unity. The
sacred institutions of different faiths
(temple, church, masjid) frame the central
figure. 71 Nationalism in India The
identity of the nation, as you know (see
Chapter 1), is most often symbolised in a
figure or image. This helps create an
image with which people can identify the
nation. It was in the twentieth century,
with the growth of nationalism, that the
identity of India came to be visually
associated with the image of Bharat Mata.
The image was first 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 Anandamath and widely sung
during the Swadeshi movement in Bengal.
Moved by the Swadeshi movement,
Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous
image of Bharat Mata (see Fig. 12). In this
painting Bharat Mata is portrayed as an
ascetic figure; she is calm, composed,
divine and spiritual. In subsequent years,
the image of Bharat Mata acquired many
different forms, as it circulated in popular
prints, and was painted by different artists
(see Fig. 14). Devotion to this mother
figure came to be seen as evidence of
one’s nationalism. Ideas of nationalism
also developed through a movement to
revive Indian folklore. In late-nineteenth-
century India, nationalists began recording
folk tales sung by bards and they toured
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.
It was essential to preserve this folk
tradition in order to discover one’s
national identity and restore a sense of
pride in one’s past. In Bengal,
Rabindranath Tagore himself began
collecting ballads, nursery rhymes and
myths, and led the movement for folk Fig.
12 – Bharat Mata, Abanindranath Tagore,
1905. Notice that the mother figure here is
shown as dispensing learning, food and
clothing. The mala in one hand
emphasises her ascetic quality.
Abanindranath Tagore, like Ravi Varma
before him, tried to develop a style of
painting that could be seen as truly Indian.
Fig. 13 – Jawaharlal Nehru, a popular
print. Nehru is here shown holding the
image of Bharat Mata and the map of
India close to his heart. In a lot of popular
prints, nationalist leaders are shown
offering their heads to Bharat Mata. The
idea of sacrifice for the mother was
powerful within popular imagination.
India and the Contemporary World 72 ‘In
earlier times, foreign travellers in India
marvelled at the courage, truthfulness and
modesty of the people of the Arya vamsa;
now they remark mainly on the absence of
those qualities. In those days Hindus
would set out on conquest and hoist their
flags in Tartar, China and other countries;
now a few soldiers from a tiny island far
away are lording it over the land of India.’
Tarinicharan Chattopadhyay,
Bharatbarsher Itihas (The History of
Bharatbarsh), vol. 1, 1858. Source E
Source revival. In Madras, Natesa Sastri
published a massive four-volume
collection of Tamil folk tales, The
Folklore of Southern India. He believed
that folklore was national literature; it was
‘the most trustworthy manifestation of
people’s real thoughts and characteristics’.
As the national movement developed,
nationalist leaders became more and more
aware of such icons and symbols in
unifying people and inspiring in them a
feeling of nationalism. 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, Gandhiji had designed the
Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolour (red,
green and white) and had a spinning wheel
in the centre, representing the Gandhian
ideal of self-help. Carrying the flag,
holding it aloft, during marches became a
symbol of defiance. Another means of
creating a feeling of nationalism was
through reinterpretation of history. By the
end of the nineteenth century many
Indians began feeling that to instill a sense
of pride in the nation, Indian history had to
be thought about differently. The British
saw Indians as backward and primitive,
incapable of governing themselves. In
response, Indians began looking into the
past to discover India’s great
achievements. They wrote about the
glorious developments in ancient times
when art and architecture, science and
mathematics, religion and culture, law and
philosophy, crafts and trade had
flourished. This glorious time, in their
view, was followed by a history of
decline, when India was colonised. These
nationalist histories urged the readers to
take pride in India’s great achievements in
the past and struggle to change the
miserable conditions of life under British
rule. These efforts to unify people were
not without problems. When the past
being glorified was Hindu, when the
images celebrated were drawn from Hindu
iconography, then people of other
communities felt left out. Fig. 14 – Bharat
Mata. This figure of Bharat Mata is a
contrast to the one painted by
Abanindranath Tagore. Here she is shown
with a trishul, standing beside a lion and
an elephant – both symbols of power and
authority. Look at Figs. 12 and 14. Do you
think these images will appeal to all castes
and communities? Explain your views
briefly. Activity 73 Nationalism in India
Conclusion A growing anger against the
colonial government was thus bringing
together various groups and classes of
Indians into a common struggle for
freedom in the first half of the twentieth
century. The Congress under the
leadership of Mahatma Gandhi tried to
channel people’s grievances into organised
movements for independence. Through
such movements the nationalists tried to
forge a national unity. But as we have
seen, 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. This is precisely why the unity
within the movement often broke down.
The high points of Congress activity and
nationalist unity were followed by phases
of disunity and inner conflict between
groups. In other words, what was
emerging was a nation with many voices
wanting freedom from colonial rule. India
and the Contemporary World 74 Discuss
Project 1. List all the different social
groups which joined the Non-Cooperation
Movement of 1921. Then choose any three
and write about their hopes and struggles
to show why they joined the movement. 2.
Discuss the Salt March to make clear why
it was an effective symbol of resistance
against colonialism. 3. Imagine you are a
woman participating in the Civil
Disobedience Movement. Explain what
the experience meant to your life. 4. Why
did political leaders differ sharply over the
question of separate electorates? Find out
about the anti-colonial movement in
Kenya. Compare and contrast India’s
national movement with the ways in which
Kenya became independent. Discuss Write
in brief 1. Explain: a) Why growth of
nationalism in the colonies is linked to an
anti-colonial movement. b) How the First
World War helped in the growth of the
National Movement in India. c) Why
Indians were outraged by the Rowlatt Act.
d) Why Gandhiji decided to withdraw the
Non-Cooperation Movement. 2. What is
meant by the idea of satyagraha? 3. Write
a newspaper report on: a) The Jallianwala
Bagh massacre b) The Simon Commission
4. Compare the images of Bharat Mata in
this chapter with the image of Germania in
Chapter 1. Write in brief Project