Nationalism in India...............Part I

SUMMARY OF THE TOPICS  ON WHICH QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ARE GIVEN: 

The First World War, Khilafat and Non-Cooperation

Differing Strands within the Movement

Towards Civil Disobedience

The Sense of Collective Belonging

I. Answer the following questions :

Q1.What was the effect of World War I on India? Discuss.

1. The World War I created a new economic and political situation.
2. It led to a huge increase in defence expenditure which was financed by war loans and increasing taxes:
3. Customs duties were raised and income tax introduced. 
4. Through the war years prices increased leading to extreme hardship for the common people. 
5. Villages were called upon to supply soldiers,and the forced recruitment in rural areas caused widespread anger.
6. In 1918-19 and 1920-21, crops failed in many parts of India,
   resulting in acute shortages of food. 
7. 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.
8. People hoped that their hardships would end after the war was over but that did not happen.

Q2.  How will you define Satyagraha? What was the philosophy behind Satyagraha?

                                      or 

What is meant by the idea of  Satyagraha? 

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 and 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 non violence.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.
6. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

Q3. What was the Rowlatt Act? Why did Gandhiji decide to launch a nationwide Satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act 1919? Explain the reaction of Indian people against the Rowlatt Act. 

1. Rowlatt Act of 1919 was hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members. 
2. It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years. 
3. Mahatma Gandhi wanted non-violent civil disobedience against such unjust laws, which would start with a hartal on 6 April.
4. Rallies were organised in various cities, workers went on strike in railway workshops, and shops closed down. 
5. Alarmed by the popular upsurge and scared that lines of communication such as the railways and telegraph would be disrupted, the British administration clamped down on nationalists. 
6. Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from entering Delhi.
7. On 10 April, the police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession, provoking widespread attacks on banks, post offices and railway stations. 
8. Martial law was imposed and General Dyer took command.

Q4.Write a short note on Jallianwala Bagh incident . What was the reaction of people immediately after Jallianwalla Bagh incident? How did the government react to the Satyagrahis?

1. On 13 April  large crowd gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
2. Some came to protest against the government’s new repressive measures and others had come to attend the annual Baisakhi fair. 
3. Being from outside the city many villagers were unaware of the martial law that had been imposed. 
4. General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. 
5. His object, was to ‘produce a moral effect’, to create in the minds of satyagrahis a feeling of terror and awe.
6. As the news of Jallianwalla Bagh spread, crowds took to the streets in many north Indian towns. 
7. There were strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on government buildings.
8. The government responded with brutal repression, seeking to humiliate and terrorise people. 
9. Satyagrahis were forced to rub their noses on the ground, crawl on the streets, and do salaam to all sahibs.
10. People were flogged and villages were bombed. 
11. Seeing violence spread, Mahatma Gandhi called off the movement.

Q5. What was Khilafat Movement?What were the main aims of the Khilafat movement? How did the Khilafat movement help to forge unity between Hindus and Muslims in India?

1. The First World War had ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey.  A harsh peace treaty was imposed on the Ottoman emperor – the spiritual head of the Islamic world (the Khalifa). 
2. To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
3. Two brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali,discussed with Mahatma Gandhi about the possibility of a united mass action on the issue. 
4. Gandhiji saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement. 
5. 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. 
6. Though Rowlatt satyagraha had been a widespread movement, it was still limited mostly to cities and towns. 
7. Mahatma Gandhi saw this as an opportunity to unite Hindus and Muslims.

Q6. Mention three main proposals with reference to Non-Cooperation Movement, as suggested by Mahatma Gandhi.

1. Gandhiji suggested that the movement should unfold in stages. 
2. 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. 
3. Then, in case the government used repression, a full civil disobedience campaign would be launched.

Q7. How did Non-Cooperation Movement start in cities? Explain its economic effects.

1. The movement started with middle-class participation in the cities.
2. Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and
   colleges, headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal practices. 
3. 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.
4. Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed,and foreign cloth burnt in huge bonfires. 
5. The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore. 
6. In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance foreign trade. 
7. 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.

Q8. Why did Non-Cooperation Movement gradually slowed down in cities.

1. The Non-Cooperation Movement in the cities gradually slowed down because:- 
2. Khadi cloth was more expensive than mass produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.
3. The boycott of British institutions posed a problem for the movement to be successful as 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.

Q9. How did Non-Cooperation Movement spread to the country side?

1. Once the movement started it began to spread in the countryside
2. In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra.
3. The movement here was against talukdars and landlords who demanded from peasants high rents and a variety of other cesses. 
4. Peasants had to do begar and work at landlords’ farms without any payment.
5. As tenants they had no security of tenure, being regularly evicted so that they could acquire no right over the leased land. 
6. The peasant movement demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and social boycott of oppressive landlords.
7. In many places nai – dhobi bandhs were organised by panchayats to deprive landlords of the services of even barbers and washermen. 
8. The Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others.
9. As the peasant movement spread the houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked, bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over.
10. In manyplaces local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared thatno taxes were to be paid and land was to be redistributed among the poor. 
11. The name of the Mahatma was being invoked to sanction all action and aspirations.

Q10. Discuss the struggle for Swaraj in Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh.

1. In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s. 
2. The colonial government had closed large forest areas, preventing people from entering the forests to graze their cattle, or to collect fuelwood and fruits.
3. This enraged the hill people as not only were their livelihoods
   affected but they felt that their traditional rights were being denied.
4. When the government began forcing them to contribute begar
   for road building, the hill people revolted. 
5. Alluri Sitaram Raju  lead the forest rebels.
6. Raju talked of the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi, and persuaded people to wear khadi and give up drinking.
7. But at the same time he asserted that India could be liberated only by the use of force, not non-violence. 
8. The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British officials and carried on guerrilla warfare for achieving swaraj.
9. Raju was captured and executed  and over time became a folk hero.

Q11. What was the meaning of swaraj for the plantation workers in Assam?

1. For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space in which they were enclosed. 
2. It also  meant retaining a link with the village from which they had come. 
3. 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. 
4. When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations and headed home. 
5. They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming and everyone would be given land in their own villages.
6. They never reached their destination. Stranded on the way by a railway and steamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally beaten up.

Q12. Why did Gandhiji call off Non-Cooperation movement?

1. In 1922, at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur, a peaceful demonstration in a bazaar turned into a violent clash with the police.
2. Gandhiji felt the movement was turning violent in many places and satyagrahis needed to be properly trained before they would be ready for mass struggles. 
3. Within the Congress also some leaders were by now tired of mass struggles and wanted to participate in elections to the provincial councils that had been setup by the Government of India Act of 1919. 
4. 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.. 
5. Because of these Mahatma Gandhi called off  Non-Cooperation Movement.

Q13. What was Simon Commission? What was the people's reaction to it?

1. The new Tory government in Britain constituted a Statutory Commission under Sir John Simon. 
2. It was set up in response to the nationalist movement.
3. 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’. 
4. All parties, including the Congress and the Muslim League, participated in the demonstrations.

Q14. What is known as Gandhi Irwin Pact?  

The viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced in October 1929, a vague offer
of ‘dominion status’ for India in  and a Round Table Conference to discuss a future constitution.

1. This pact was signed between Mahatma Gandhi and the then Viceroy of India, Lord Irwin on 5 March 1931. Salient features of this act were as following:
2. The Congress would participate in the Round Table Conference. 
3. The Congress would discontinue the Civil Disobedience Movement.
4. The Government would withdraw all ordinances issued to curb the Congress.
5. The Government would withdraw all prosecutions relating to offenses other than violent one.
6. The Government would release all persons undergoing sentences of imprisonment for their activities in the civil disobedience movement.

Q15. Write a short note on Dandi march.

1. Mahatma Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unite the nation. 
2. On 31 January 1930, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands  of different classes, from industrialists to peasants. 
3. 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. 
4. 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. 
5. The tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production, Mahatma Gandhi declared an ultimatum that if the demands were not fulfilled by 11 March, the Congress would launch a civil disobedience campaign. 
6. Irwin was unwilling to negotiate. 
7. So Mahatma Gandhi started his famous salt march accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers. 
8. The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi. 
9. The volunteers walked for 24 days,about 10 miles a day. 
10. 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.
11. On 6 April he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling sea water.
12. This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Q16. How did the people and colonial government react to the Civil Disobedience Movement? Explain.

1. People were now asked not only to refuse cooperation with the British but also to break colonial laws. 
2. Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured salt and demonstrated in front of government salt factories. 
3. As the movement spread, foreign cloth was boycotted, and liquor shops were picketed.
4. 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.
5. Worried by the developments, the colonial government began
   arresting the Congress leaders one by one which led to violent clashes in many places. 
6. When Abdul Ghaffar Khan was arrested in April 1930, angry crowds demonstrated in the streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars and police firing  and many were killed. 
7. When Mahatma Gandhi was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal buildings, lawcourts and railway stations –all structures that symbolised British rule.
8. 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.
9. Mahatma Gandhi once again decided to call off the movement and entered into a pact with Irwin on 5 March 1931.