Impact of First world war, Khilafat, NonCooperation and Differing Strands within the Movement.

 

the first world war, khilafat and non-cooperation
    Growth of Nationalism
    In India, the growth of  modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anticolonial 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 experience were varied.
    The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement, But the unity did not emerge without conflict.
    
    Contribution of 1st World War towards Nationalism
    The war created a new economic and political situation. It led to 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.

    The Idea of Satyagraha
    Mahatma Gandhi successfully fought the racist regime with a nobel 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.
    By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this Dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

    Satyagraha movements in various places
    In 1916 he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the pleasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
    In 1917, 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 to be relaxed.
    In 1918, Ahmedabad too organised a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

    The Rowlatt Act
    Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act. 1919.
    This Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.
    It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
    On 13 April the famous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day a crowd of villagers had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
    Being from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that had beed imposed. 
General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. 
    His object, 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. 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 sallam (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 Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Khilafat Movement
    Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing the Hindus and Muslims 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 (Khalifa or Caliph).
    To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
    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 Hindus and Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement.
    At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, he convinced leaders of the congress  about the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

    Why Non-cooperation ?
    In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would be achieved.
    Gandihiji 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.

Illustration 1
    How Non-Cooperation movement was to unfold?
Solution
    Movement was to be unfold in stages beginning with surrender of titles awarded by Government.
Illustration 2
    Who planned the Non-cooperation movement.
Solution
    Muhammad Ali, Shankat Ali and Mahatma Ghandhi
Illustration 3
    How did different social groups conceive the idea of Non Cooperation.
Solution
    Both Hindus and Muslims were suffering from common problems related to British Government moreover Hindus co-opreted in Khilafat movement of Muslims so both these social groups conceive the idea of Non-cooperation.

    Try yourself
1.    How did modern nationalism grow in India?
2.    What was the oppressive plantation system at Champaran?
3.    Why Rowlatt Act was opposed?

Differing Strands within the Movement :
    Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its own specific aspiration. 
    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.
    Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth were 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. 
    (i)    Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.
    (ii)    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 the work in government courts.

    Rebellion in the Countryside : Peasants & Tribal Peasants
    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.
    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.
    Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up and headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the village around the region. So when the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider struggle.

    Tribal Peasants
    In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s. Here, 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.
    When the government began forceing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill people revolted. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed that 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.
    He 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.

    Swaraj in the Plantations: Plantation worker in Assam
    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 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.
    The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress programme. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways. Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji’s name and raised slogans demanding ‘Swatantra Bharat’, they were also emotionally relating to an all India agitation.

Illustration 4
    Why is the role of middle class considered essential for the success of revolution?
Solution
    Role of middle class is essential for the success of revolution or movement because
    (a)    They consist of the largest number of population.
    (b)    They have inellectuals in their class.
    (c)    They are close to both upper and the lower classes
    (d)    Their members are present at all the levels of the government as government servants.

Illustration 5
    Why Khadi was introduced?
Solution
    Aim of introducing Khadi was to popularise India cloths as a symbolic of Swadeshi and to support the growth of Indian textile industry.

Illustration 6
    Which rebels attacked police stations and killed British officials through guerrilla warfare for Swaraj?
Solution
    Gudem rebels of Andhra Pradesh

    Try yourself
4.    Why Non-cooperation movement gradually slowed down?
5.    Who was Baba Ramchandra?
6.    What were the demands of peasant movements of Awadh?

Impact of First world war, Khilafat, NonCooperation and Differing Strands within the Movement.

 

the first world war, khilafat and non-cooperation
    Growth of Nationalism
    In India, the growth of  modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anticolonial 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 experience were varied.
    The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement, But the unity did not emerge without conflict.
    
    Contribution of 1st World War towards Nationalism
    The war created a new economic and political situation. It led to 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.

    The Idea of Satyagraha
    Mahatma Gandhi successfully fought the racist regime with a nobel 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.
    By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this Dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

    Satyagraha movements in various places
    In 1916 he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the pleasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
    In 1917, 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 to be relaxed.
    In 1918, Ahmedabad too organised a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

    The Rowlatt Act
    Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act. 1919.
    This Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.
    It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
    On 13 April the famous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day a crowd of villagers had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
    Being from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that had beed imposed. 
General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. 
    His object, 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. 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 sallam (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 Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Khilafat Movement
    Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing the Hindus and Muslims 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 (Khalifa or Caliph).
    To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
    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 Hindus and Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement.
    At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, he convinced leaders of the congress  about the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

    Why Non-cooperation ?
    In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would be achieved.
    Gandihiji 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.

Illustration 1
    How Non-Cooperation movement was to unfold?
Solution
    Movement was to be unfold in stages beginning with surrender of titles awarded by Government.
Illustration 2
    Who planned the Non-cooperation movement.
Solution
    Muhammad Ali, Shankat Ali and Mahatma Ghandhi
Illustration 3
    How did different social groups conceive the idea of Non Cooperation.
Solution
    Both Hindus and Muslims were suffering from common problems related to British Government moreover Hindus co-opreted in Khilafat movement of Muslims so both these social groups conceive the idea of Non-cooperation.

    Try yourself
1.    How did modern nationalism grow in India?
2.    What was the oppressive plantation system at Champaran?
3.    Why Rowlatt Act was opposed?

Differing Strands within the Movement :
    Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its own specific aspiration. 
    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.
    Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth were 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. 
    (i)    Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.
    (ii)    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 the work in government courts.

    Rebellion in the Countryside : Peasants & Tribal Peasants
    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.
    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.
    Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up and headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the village around the region. So when the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider struggle.

    Tribal Peasants
    In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s. Here, 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.
    When the government began forceing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill people revolted. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed that 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.
    He 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.

    Swaraj in the Plantations: Plantation worker in Assam
    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 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.
    The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress programme. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways. Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji’s name and raised slogans demanding ‘Swatantra Bharat’, they were also emotionally relating to an all India agitation.

Illustration 4
    Why is the role of middle class considered essential for the success of revolution?
Solution
    Role of middle class is essential for the success of revolution or movement because
    (a)    They consist of the largest number of population.
    (b)    They have inellectuals in their class.
    (c)    They are close to both upper and the lower classes
    (d)    Their members are present at all the levels of the government as government servants.

Illustration 5
    Why Khadi was introduced?
Solution
    Aim of introducing Khadi was to popularise India cloths as a symbolic of Swadeshi and to support the growth of Indian textile industry.

Illustration 6
    Which rebels attacked police stations and killed British officials through guerrilla warfare for Swaraj?
Solution
    Gudem rebels of Andhra Pradesh

    Try yourself
4.    Why Non-cooperation movement gradually slowed down?
5.    Who was Baba Ramchandra?
6.    What were the demands of peasant movements of Awadh?

Impact of First world war, Khilafat, NonCooperation and Differing Strands within the Movement.

 

the first world war, khilafat and non-cooperation
    Growth of Nationalism
    In India, the growth of  modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anticolonial 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 experience were varied.
    The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement, But the unity did not emerge without conflict.
    
    Contribution of 1st World War towards Nationalism
    The war created a new economic and political situation. It led to 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.

    The Idea of Satyagraha
    Mahatma Gandhi successfully fought the racist regime with a nobel 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.
    By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this Dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

    Satyagraha movements in various places
    In 1916 he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the pleasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
    In 1917, 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 to be relaxed.
    In 1918, Ahmedabad too organised a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

    The Rowlatt Act
    Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act. 1919.
    This Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.
    It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
    On 13 April the famous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day a crowd of villagers had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
    Being from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that had beed imposed. 
General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. 
    His object, 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. 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 sallam (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 Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Khilafat Movement
    Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing the Hindus and Muslims 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 (Khalifa or Caliph).
    To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
    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 Hindus and Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement.
    At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, he convinced leaders of the congress  about the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

    Why Non-cooperation ?
    In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would be achieved.
    Gandihiji 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.

Illustration 1
    How Non-Cooperation movement was to unfold?
Solution
    Movement was to be unfold in stages beginning with surrender of titles awarded by Government.
Illustration 2
    Who planned the Non-cooperation movement.
Solution
    Muhammad Ali, Shankat Ali and Mahatma Ghandhi
Illustration 3
    How did different social groups conceive the idea of Non Cooperation.
Solution
    Both Hindus and Muslims were suffering from common problems related to British Government moreover Hindus co-opreted in Khilafat movement of Muslims so both these social groups conceive the idea of Non-cooperation.

    Try yourself
1.    How did modern nationalism grow in India?
2.    What was the oppressive plantation system at Champaran?
3.    Why Rowlatt Act was opposed?

Differing Strands within the Movement :
    Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its own specific aspiration. 
    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.
    Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth were 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. 
    (i)    Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.
    (ii)    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 the work in government courts.

    Rebellion in the Countryside : Peasants & Tribal Peasants
    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.
    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.
    Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up and headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the village around the region. So when the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider struggle.

    Tribal Peasants
    In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s. Here, 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.
    When the government began forceing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill people revolted. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed that 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.
    He 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.

    Swaraj in the Plantations: Plantation worker in Assam
    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 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.
    The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress programme. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways. Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji’s name and raised slogans demanding ‘Swatantra Bharat’, they were also emotionally relating to an all India agitation.

Illustration 4
    Why is the role of middle class considered essential for the success of revolution?
Solution
    Role of middle class is essential for the success of revolution or movement because
    (a)    They consist of the largest number of population.
    (b)    They have inellectuals in their class.
    (c)    They are close to both upper and the lower classes
    (d)    Their members are present at all the levels of the government as government servants.

Illustration 5
    Why Khadi was introduced?
Solution
    Aim of introducing Khadi was to popularise India cloths as a symbolic of Swadeshi and to support the growth of Indian textile industry.

Illustration 6
    Which rebels attacked police stations and killed British officials through guerrilla warfare for Swaraj?
Solution
    Gudem rebels of Andhra Pradesh

    Try yourself
4.    Why Non-cooperation movement gradually slowed down?
5.    Who was Baba Ramchandra?
6.    What were the demands of peasant movements of Awadh?

Impact of First world war, Khilafat, NonCooperation and Differing Strands within the Movement.

 

the first world war, khilafat and non-cooperation
    Growth of Nationalism
    In India, the growth of  modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anticolonial 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 experience were varied.
    The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement, But the unity did not emerge without conflict.
    
    Contribution of 1st World War towards Nationalism
    The war created a new economic and political situation. It led to 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.

    The Idea of Satyagraha
    Mahatma Gandhi successfully fought the racist regime with a nobel 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.
    By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this Dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

    Satyagraha movements in various places
    In 1916 he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the pleasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
    In 1917, 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 to be relaxed.
    In 1918, Ahmedabad too organised a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

    The Rowlatt Act
    Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act. 1919.
    This Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.
    It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
    On 13 April the famous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day a crowd of villagers had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
    Being from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that had beed imposed. 
General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. 
    His object, 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. 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 sallam (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 Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Khilafat Movement
    Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing the Hindus and Muslims 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 (Khalifa or Caliph).
    To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
    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 Hindus and Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement.
    At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, he convinced leaders of the congress  about the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

    Why Non-cooperation ?
    In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would be achieved.
    Gandihiji 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.

Illustration 1
    How Non-Cooperation movement was to unfold?
Solution
    Movement was to be unfold in stages beginning with surrender of titles awarded by Government.
Illustration 2
    Who planned the Non-cooperation movement.
Solution
    Muhammad Ali, Shankat Ali and Mahatma Ghandhi
Illustration 3
    How did different social groups conceive the idea of Non Cooperation.
Solution
    Both Hindus and Muslims were suffering from common problems related to British Government moreover Hindus co-opreted in Khilafat movement of Muslims so both these social groups conceive the idea of Non-cooperation.

    Try yourself
1.    How did modern nationalism grow in India?
2.    What was the oppressive plantation system at Champaran?
3.    Why Rowlatt Act was opposed?

Differing Strands within the Movement :
    Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its own specific aspiration. 
    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.
    Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth were 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. 
    (i)    Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.
    (ii)    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 the work in government courts.

    Rebellion in the Countryside : Peasants & Tribal Peasants
    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.
    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.
    Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up and headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the village around the region. So when the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider struggle.

    Tribal Peasants
    In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s. Here, 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.
    When the government began forceing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill people revolted. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed that 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.
    He 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.

    Swaraj in the Plantations: Plantation worker in Assam
    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 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.
    The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress programme. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways. Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji’s name and raised slogans demanding ‘Swatantra Bharat’, they were also emotionally relating to an all India agitation.

Illustration 4
    Why is the role of middle class considered essential for the success of revolution?
Solution
    Role of middle class is essential for the success of revolution or movement because
    (a)    They consist of the largest number of population.
    (b)    They have inellectuals in their class.
    (c)    They are close to both upper and the lower classes
    (d)    Their members are present at all the levels of the government as government servants.

Illustration 5
    Why Khadi was introduced?
Solution
    Aim of introducing Khadi was to popularise India cloths as a symbolic of Swadeshi and to support the growth of Indian textile industry.

Illustration 6
    Which rebels attacked police stations and killed British officials through guerrilla warfare for Swaraj?
Solution
    Gudem rebels of Andhra Pradesh

    Try yourself
4.    Why Non-cooperation movement gradually slowed down?
5.    Who was Baba Ramchandra?
6.    What were the demands of peasant movements of Awadh?

Impact of First world war, Khilafat, NonCooperation and Differing Strands within the Movement.

 

the first world war, khilafat and non-cooperation
    Growth of Nationalism
    In India, the growth of  modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anticolonial 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 experience were varied.
    The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement, But the unity did not emerge without conflict.
    
    Contribution of 1st World War towards Nationalism
    The war created a new economic and political situation. It led to 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.

    The Idea of Satyagraha
    Mahatma Gandhi successfully fought the racist regime with a nobel 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.
    By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this Dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

    Satyagraha movements in various places
    In 1916 he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the pleasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
    In 1917, 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 to be relaxed.
    In 1918, Ahmedabad too organised a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

    The Rowlatt Act
    Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act. 1919.
    This Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.
    It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
    On 13 April the famous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day a crowd of villagers had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
    Being from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that had beed imposed. 
General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. 
    His object, 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. 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 sallam (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 Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Khilafat Movement
    Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing the Hindus and Muslims 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 (Khalifa or Caliph).
    To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
    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 Hindus and Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement.
    At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, he convinced leaders of the congress  about the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

    Why Non-cooperation ?
    In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would be achieved.
    Gandihiji 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.

Illustration 1
    How Non-Cooperation movement was to unfold?
Solution
    Movement was to be unfold in stages beginning with surrender of titles awarded by Government.
Illustration 2
    Who planned the Non-cooperation movement.
Solution
    Muhammad Ali, Shankat Ali and Mahatma Ghandhi
Illustration 3
    How did different social groups conceive the idea of Non Cooperation.
Solution
    Both Hindus and Muslims were suffering from common problems related to British Government moreover Hindus co-opreted in Khilafat movement of Muslims so both these social groups conceive the idea of Non-cooperation.

    Try yourself
1.    How did modern nationalism grow in India?
2.    What was the oppressive plantation system at Champaran?
3.    Why Rowlatt Act was opposed?

Differing Strands within the Movement :
    Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its own specific aspiration. 
    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.
    Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth were 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. 
    (i)    Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.
    (ii)    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 the work in government courts.

    Rebellion in the Countryside : Peasants & Tribal Peasants
    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.
    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.
    Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up and headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the village around the region. So when the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider struggle.

    Tribal Peasants
    In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s. Here, 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.
    When the government began forceing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill people revolted. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed that 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.
    He 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.

    Swaraj in the Plantations: Plantation worker in Assam
    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 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.
    The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress programme. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways. Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji’s name and raised slogans demanding ‘Swatantra Bharat’, they were also emotionally relating to an all India agitation.

Illustration 4
    Why is the role of middle class considered essential for the success of revolution?
Solution
    Role of middle class is essential for the success of revolution or movement because
    (a)    They consist of the largest number of population.
    (b)    They have inellectuals in their class.
    (c)    They are close to both upper and the lower classes
    (d)    Their members are present at all the levels of the government as government servants.

Illustration 5
    Why Khadi was introduced?
Solution
    Aim of introducing Khadi was to popularise India cloths as a symbolic of Swadeshi and to support the growth of Indian textile industry.

Illustration 6
    Which rebels attacked police stations and killed British officials through guerrilla warfare for Swaraj?
Solution
    Gudem rebels of Andhra Pradesh

    Try yourself
4.    Why Non-cooperation movement gradually slowed down?
5.    Who was Baba Ramchandra?
6.    What were the demands of peasant movements of Awadh?

Impact of First world war, Khilafat, NonCooperation and Differing Strands within the Movement.

 

the first world war, khilafat and non-cooperation
    Growth of Nationalism
    In India, the growth of  modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anticolonial 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 experience were varied.
    The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement, But the unity did not emerge without conflict.
    
    Contribution of 1st World War towards Nationalism
    The war created a new economic and political situation. It led to 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.

    The Idea of Satyagraha
    Mahatma Gandhi successfully fought the racist regime with a nobel 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.
    By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this Dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

    Satyagraha movements in various places
    In 1916 he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the pleasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
    In 1917, 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 to be relaxed.
    In 1918, Ahmedabad too organised a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

    The Rowlatt Act
    Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act. 1919.
    This Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.
    It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
    On 13 April the famous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day a crowd of villagers had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
    Being from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that had beed imposed. 
General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. 
    His object, 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. 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 sallam (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 Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Khilafat Movement
    Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing the Hindus and Muslims 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 (Khalifa or Caliph).
    To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
    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 Hindus and Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement.
    At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, he convinced leaders of the congress  about the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

    Why Non-cooperation ?
    In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would be achieved.
    Gandihiji 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.

Illustration 1
    How Non-Cooperation movement was to unfold?
Solution
    Movement was to be unfold in stages beginning with surrender of titles awarded by Government.
Illustration 2
    Who planned the Non-cooperation movement.
Solution
    Muhammad Ali, Shankat Ali and Mahatma Ghandhi
Illustration 3
    How did different social groups conceive the idea of Non Cooperation.
Solution
    Both Hindus and Muslims were suffering from common problems related to British Government moreover Hindus co-opreted in Khilafat movement of Muslims so both these social groups conceive the idea of Non-cooperation.

    Try yourself
1.    How did modern nationalism grow in India?
2.    What was the oppressive plantation system at Champaran?
3.    Why Rowlatt Act was opposed?

Differing Strands within the Movement :
    Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its own specific aspiration. 
    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.
    Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth were 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. 
    (i)    Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.
    (ii)    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 the work in government courts.

    Rebellion in the Countryside : Peasants & Tribal Peasants
    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.
    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.
    Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up and headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the village around the region. So when the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider struggle.

    Tribal Peasants
    In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s. Here, 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.
    When the government began forceing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill people revolted. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed that 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.
    He 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.

    Swaraj in the Plantations: Plantation worker in Assam
    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 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.
    The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress programme. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways. Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji’s name and raised slogans demanding ‘Swatantra Bharat’, they were also emotionally relating to an all India agitation.

Illustration 4
    Why is the role of middle class considered essential for the success of revolution?
Solution
    Role of middle class is essential for the success of revolution or movement because
    (a)    They consist of the largest number of population.
    (b)    They have inellectuals in their class.
    (c)    They are close to both upper and the lower classes
    (d)    Their members are present at all the levels of the government as government servants.

Illustration 5
    Why Khadi was introduced?
Solution
    Aim of introducing Khadi was to popularise India cloths as a symbolic of Swadeshi and to support the growth of Indian textile industry.

Illustration 6
    Which rebels attacked police stations and killed British officials through guerrilla warfare for Swaraj?
Solution
    Gudem rebels of Andhra Pradesh

    Try yourself
4.    Why Non-cooperation movement gradually slowed down?
5.    Who was Baba Ramchandra?
6.    What were the demands of peasant movements of Awadh?

Impact of First world war, Khilafat, NonCooperation and Differing Strands within the Movement.

 

the first world war, khilafat and non-cooperation
    Growth of Nationalism
    In India, the growth of  modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anticolonial 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 experience were varied.
    The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement, But the unity did not emerge without conflict.
    
    Contribution of 1st World War towards Nationalism
    The war created a new economic and political situation. It led to 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.

    The Idea of Satyagraha
    Mahatma Gandhi successfully fought the racist regime with a nobel 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.
    By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this Dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

    Satyagraha movements in various places
    In 1916 he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the pleasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
    In 1917, 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 to be relaxed.
    In 1918, Ahmedabad too organised a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

    The Rowlatt Act
    Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act. 1919.
    This Act had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members.
    It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
    On 13 April the famous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day a crowd of villagers had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
    Being from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that had beed imposed. 
General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. 
    His object, 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. 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 sallam (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 Rowlatt Satyagraha.

Khilafat Movement
    Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing the Hindus and Muslims 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 (Khalifa or Caliph).
    To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919.
    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 Hindus and Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement.
    At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, he convinced leaders of the congress  about the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

    Why Non-cooperation ?
    In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would be achieved.
    Gandihiji 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.

Illustration 1
    How Non-Cooperation movement was to unfold?
Solution
    Movement was to be unfold in stages beginning with surrender of titles awarded by Government.
Illustration 2
    Who planned the Non-cooperation movement.
Solution
    Muhammad Ali, Shankat Ali and Mahatma Ghandhi
Illustration 3
    How did different social groups conceive the idea of Non Cooperation.
Solution
    Both Hindus and Muslims were suffering from common problems related to British Government moreover Hindus co-opreted in Khilafat movement of Muslims so both these social groups conceive the idea of Non-cooperation.

    Try yourself
1.    How did modern nationalism grow in India?
2.    What was the oppressive plantation system at Champaran?
3.    Why Rowlatt Act was opposed?

Differing Strands within the Movement :
    Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its own specific aspiration. 
    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.
    Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth were 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. 
    (i)    Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.
    (ii)    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 the work in government courts.

    Rebellion in the Countryside : Peasants & Tribal Peasants
    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.
    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.
    Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up and headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the village around the region. So when the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider struggle.

    Tribal Peasants
    In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s. Here, 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.
    When the government began forceing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill people revolted. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed that 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.
    He 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.

    Swaraj in the Plantations: Plantation worker in Assam
    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 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.
    The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress programme. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways. Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji’s name and raised slogans demanding ‘Swatantra Bharat’, they were also emotionally relating to an all India agitation.

Illustration 4
    Why is the role of middle class considered essential for the success of revolution?
Solution
    Role of middle class is essential for the success of revolution or movement because
    (a)    They consist of the largest number of population.
    (b)    They have inellectuals in their class.
    (c)    They are close to both upper and the lower classes
    (d)    Their members are present at all the levels of the government as government servants.

Illustration 5
    Why Khadi was introduced?
Solution
    Aim of introducing Khadi was to popularise India cloths as a symbolic of Swadeshi and to support the growth of Indian textile industry.

Illustration 6
    Which rebels attacked police stations and killed British officials through guerrilla warfare for Swaraj?
Solution
    Gudem rebels of Andhra Pradesh

    Try yourself
4.    Why Non-cooperation movement gradually slowed down?
5.    Who was Baba Ramchandra?
6.    What were the demands of peasant movements of Awadh?