• In colonies, the spread of modern nationalism is directly related to the anti-colonial movement.
  • Unity found through freedom struggles.
  • Oppression: a common tie
• Each class and group felt the effects of colonialism differently, they had different experiences, and their notions of freedom were sometimes different.
• The Congress, under Mahatma Gandhi tried to merge these groups together within one movement. But the unity did not emerge without conflict.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE YEAR 1919

After 1919, the national movement for independence spread to new areas, incorporated new social groups, and developed new modes of struggle.

the first world war

• A new economic and political situation.
• Huge increase in defense expenditure
  • financed by war loans and increasing taxes-
    • customs duties raised
    • income tax introduced
• Prices increased (doubling between 1913 and 1918)– extreme hardship for the common people.
• Villages told to supply soldiers.
  • forced recruitment: widespread anger
• In 1918-19 and 1920-21:
  • crops failed in many parts of India, resulting in acute shortages of food.
  • influenza epidemic hit the country.
    • As per the census of 1921: 12 to 13 million people died due to famines and the epidemic.

Mahatma Gandhi comes back

• Returned from South Africa to India in January 1915.
• He successfully organised satyagraha movements in various places.

The Rowlatt Act, 1919

• Gandhiji decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act (1919).
• Rowlatt Act:
  • Excessive powers to government to repress political activities.
  • Allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
• It was speedily passed by the Imperial Legislative Council despite united opposition by the Indian members.
• Gandhiji wanted non-violent civil disobedience against such unjust laws, starting with a hartal on 6 April.
• Rallies organised in various cities, workers went on strike in railway workshops, and shops closed down.
• Alarmed by the upsurge, and scared that communication methods like railways and telegraph would be disrupted, the colonial administration decided to get hold of the nationalists.
  • Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar.
  • Mahatma Gandhi was barred from entering Delhi.
• 10 April: police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession.
  • This provoked widespread attacks on banks, post offices and railway stations.
    • Martial law was imposed;
    • General Dyer took command.

Jallianwalla Bagh massacre

• April 13: 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 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.
• News of Jallianwalla Bagh spread, crowds took to the streets in many north Indian towns.
  • Strikes & clashes with the police and attacks on government buildings.
  • The government responded with brutal repression, sought to humiliate and terrorise people:
    • satyagrahis 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.

Khilafat movement

• While the Rowlatt satyagraha had been a widespread movement, it was limited mostly to cities and towns.
• Mahatma Gandhi now felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India.
  • But bringing the Hindus and Muslims closer together was a necessity for that.
• One method: take up the Khilafat issue.
• World War I had ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey.
  • Rumours: a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman emperor – the spiritual head of the Islamic world (the Khalifa).
• March 1919, Bombay: Khilafat Committee formed to defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers.
  • 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 include Muslims in a unified national movement.
• September 1920, Calcutta session of the Congress in: he convinced other leaders of the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

SATYAGRAHA

• 1917: Mahatma Gandhi had come from South Africa, after successfully fighting the racist regime with a novel method of mass agitation, called satyagraha.
• Persuade people (including the oppressors) to see the truth without violence.
  • By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph.
  • He believed that this dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.
• In 1917:
  • Champaran, Bihar: he inspired the peasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
  • He organized 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,
    • they were demanding that revenue collection be relaxed.
• In Ahmedabad, 1918, Mahatma Gandhi organised a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

Why Non-cooperation?

• 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.

Non-cooperation to become a movement: 

• Gandhiji proposed that the movement should unfold in stages:
  1. Surrender of titles that the government awarded.
  2. Boycott of civil services, army, police, courts and legislative councils, schools, and foreign goods.
  3. If the government used repression, a full civil disobedience campaign would be launched.
• Summer of 1920, Mahatma Gandhi & Shaukat Ali toured extensively to gain support for the movement.

 

Chapter-2

Nationalism in India

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

The national movement spread to new areas in the years following 1919. It began by involving new social groups and the development of new modes of struggle. So, what were these changes, and what effect did they have?

Let's talk about it.

During the First World War, defence spending had surged. To fund World War I, the British government imposed massive taxes and duties on Indians. During the war years (1913-1918), the prices of goods more than doubled, resulting in extreme hardship for the common people. Another source of the commoners' rage was the army's forceful recruitment of the villagers.

The situation worsened in 1918-1919 and 1920-21 as a result of crop failure in many parts of the country, leading to an increase in food prices. Later on, people were confronted with an influenza epidemic. According to the 1921 census, 12 to 13 million people died as a result of famines and epidemics. The people of India believed that once the war ended, their hardships would also end. That, however, never occurred. At this point, Mahatma Gandhi emerged as a new leader, proposing a new strategy for resisting British rule. His plan was to engage in Satyagraha. So, what exactly is Satyagraha? Let us talk about it.

The idea of Satyagraha

In January 1915, Mahatma Gandhi returned to India. He previously lived in South Africa, where he was successful in fighting the injustice of racial discrimination. He chose a new method of mass agitation, but in a peaceful manner, for this. This became known as Satyagraha. Satyagraha was based on a belief in the power of truth and the need to seek it. The main philosophy underlying the Satyagraha concept was that if the cause was just and the struggle was against injustice, there was no need to use physical force to fight the oppressor. The battle could be won through nonviolence by appealing to the oppressor's conscience. Even the oppressor was persuaded to see and accept the truth. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this nonviolent dharma could unite all Indians.

Following his arrival in India in 1915, Mahatma Gandhi successfully carried out satyagraha movements in various places. In 1917, he founded the Satyagraha movement in Champaran (Bihar) to fight for the rights of peasants who were being oppressed by indigo planters. Then, in 1918, he organised Satyagraha to aid the peasants of Gujarat's Kheda district. In Kheda, the government confiscated landowners' lands for nonpayment of taxes. The landowners, on the other hand, had already expressed their inability to pay due to crop failure caused by the famine. In 1918, he also launched a Satyagraha campaign against cotton mill workers.

Gandhiji, encouraged by his previous success, decided to launch a nationwide Satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act of 1919. The question arose as to what Rowlatt's act was. The Rowlatt Act of 1919, on the other hand, allowed the British government to detain any political prisoner for a period of two years without trial. The Imperial Legislative Council rushed this act through despite opposition from Indian members. This act granted the British government vast powers to suppress political activity.

In response to such unjust laws, Mahatma Gandhi decided to launch a nonviolent civil disobedience movement. On April 6, he decided to start with a hartal. Rallies were held in various cities, and railway workshop workers went on strike. To suppress the upsurge, the British government decided to crack down on nationalists. The government began to pick up local leaders from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was denied entry into Delhi. The police opened fire on a peaceful procession in Amritsar on April 10th. This incited people to attack banks, post offices, and railway stations. The government declared martial law, which means that normal civilian functions would be under direct military control. The command was given to General Dyer.

On April 13, 1919, a large crowd gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh enclosed ground. Some had come to protest the government's new laws and policies, while others had come to attend the Baisakhi fair. Some of those who came to the fair were strangers who were unaware of the martial law that had been imposed in the area. Dyer barricaded the exit and opened fire on the people in the crowd. Hundreds of men and women, including children, were killed. Dyer later stated that his goal in carrying out the massacre was to inculcate fear in the minds of satyagrahis.

The news about Jallianwala Bagh quickly spread. In many North Indian towns, large crowds took to the streets. Strikes, protests, and clashes with police occurred. Even government buildings were targeted. The British government reacted in a ruthless manner to this. People were tortured both physically and mentally. Nationalists were humiliated by being forced to rub their noses on the ground, crawl through the streets, and salute all sahibs. Not only that, but people were flogged (beaten) and villages were bombed (in the vicinity of Gujranwala in Punjab, now in Pakistan). When he saw the violence spreading, Mahatma Gandhi called a halt to the movement.

Despite the fact that the Satyagraha was a widespread movement, it was limited to cities and towns. As a result, Mahatma Gandhi decided to launch a more widespread movement in India. At the same time, he considered bringing Hindus and Muslims together to make this movement more certain and realistic. In order to make it work, he decided to bring up the Khilafat issue. So, what exactly was the Khilafat movement?

The Ottoman emperor of Turkey was defeated by the British during World War I. He was referred to as the Khalifa, or spiritual leader of the Muslim world. The British forced Khalifa to sign a harsh peace treaty, according to reports. The Indian Muslims were enraged by this. In order to defend the Khalifa's temporal powers, Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali formed the Khilafat committee in Bombay in March 1919. Both brothers discussed the possibility of a united mass action on the issue with Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhiji saw it as an opportunity to unite Hindus and Muslims in a unified national movement. So, in the September 1920 session of Congress in Calcutta, he convinced other leaders to join him, and a non-cooperation movement was launched in support of Khilafat as well as Swaraj.

We have learned about Satyagraha up to this point. We learned how it was organised, as well as the concept of a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat and Swaraj (self government). But the question here is why Gandhiji chose non-cooperation. What was the goal of starting this movement? So, how about we check this?

Why Non-cooperation?

According to Mahatma Gandhi's famous book Hind Swaraj (1909), British rule came about as a result of Indian cooperation. He believed that if Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would end in a year and Swaraj would take its place. Gandhiji decided to work on the movement in stages in order to make it a reality. As a result, it was done as follows:

• Initially, the titles awarded by the British government were to be surrendered by the people.
• Civil services, the army, the police, the courts and legislative councils, schools, and foreign goods are all being boycotted.
• If the government used repression, a full-fledged civil disobedience campaign was to be launched.

Throughout the summer of 1920, Mahatma Gandhi and Shaukat Ali toured extensively to gain support for the movement.

On the other hand, some members of Congress were unwilling to support this movement. They were opposed to boycotting the council election scheduled for November 1920. The majority of them were afraid of any act of violence. As a result, there was a tussle among members of Congress between September and December. However, at the Nagpur session of Congress in December 1920, a compromise was reached, leading to the adoption of the non-cooperation movement. Though this movement began on a national level, those involved in it each had their own point of view.