In India and many other colonies, the growth of modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anti-colonial movement. People began discovering their unity in the process of their struggle with colonialism. The sense of being oppressed under colonialism provided a shared bond that tied many different groups together.

But each class and group felt the effects of colonialism differently, their experiences were varied, and their notions of freedom were not always the same. The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement. But the unity did not emerge without conflict.

2.1 Impact of First World War on India

2.2 The Idea of Satyagraha

Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in January 1915 from South Africa, where he had successfully fought the racist regime with a novel method of mass agitation he called satyagraha.

Early Satyagraha Movements by Gandhi

2.3 The Rowlatt Act (1919)

Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre — 13 April 1919

2.4 The Khilafat Issue and Non-Cooperation

2.5 Why Non-Cooperation?

In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909), 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.

Many within Congress were concerned — reluctant to boycott council elections (November 1920) and feared movement might lead to popular violence. After intense tussle, at the Congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, a compromise was worked out and the Non-Cooperation programme was adopted.

Fig. 4 — The boycott of foreign cloth, July 1922. Foreign cloth was seen as the symbol of Western economic and cultural domination. The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore.

The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in January 1921. Various social groups participated, each with its own specific aspiration. All responded to the call of Swaraj, but the term meant different things to different people.

3.1 The Movement in the Towns

• Started with middle-class participation in cities
• Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and colleges
• Headmasters and teachers resigned; lawyers gave up their legal practices
• Council elections boycotted in most provinces except Madras — where the Justice Party (party of non-Brahmans) felt entering council was a way to gain power usually only available to Brahmans
• Foreign goods boycotted, liquor shops picketed, foreign cloth burnt in huge bonfires
• Import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922 (Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore)
• In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods
• Production of Indian textile mills and handlooms went up

3.2 Rebellion in the Countryside

Awadh Peasant Movement

• Led by Baba Ramchandra — a sanyasi who had earlier been to Fiji as an indentured labourer
• Movement was against talukdars and landlords who demanded exorbitantly high rents and a variety of other cesses
• Peasants had to do begar (forced unpaid labour) at landlords’ farms
• No security of tenure — regularly evicted so they could acquire no right over leased land
• Demands: reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, social boycott of oppressive landlords
• Nai-dhobi bandhs organised by panchayats to deprive landlords of services of barbers and washermen
• In June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru went around villages in Awadh; by October 1920, Oudh Kisan Sabha set up headed by Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and others; over 300 branches within a month
• In 1921 as movement spread: houses of talukdars and merchants attacked, bazaars looted, grain hoards taken over
• Local leaders told peasants that Gandhi had declared no taxes were to be paid and land was to be redistributed

Tribal Peasants — Gudem Hills, Andhra Pradesh

• Militant guerrilla movement spread in early 1920s in Gudem Hills
• Colonial government had closed large forest areas — preventing people from grazing cattle, collecting fuelwood and fruits
• When government began forcing them to contribute begar for road building, hill people revolted
• Leader: Alluri Sitaram Raju — claimed he could make correct astrological predictions, heal people, survive bullet shots; rebels proclaimed him an incarnation of God
• Raju talked of greatness of Gandhi, said he was inspired by Non-Cooperation Movement; persuaded people to wear khadi and give up drinking
• BUT asserted India could be liberated only by use of force, not non-violence
• Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British officials, carried on guerrilla warfare
• Raju was captured and executed in 1924; over time became a folk hero

3.3 Swaraj in the Plantations

Fig. 5 — Chauri Chaura, 1922. At Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur, a peaceful demonstration in a bazaar turned into a violent clash with the police. Hearing of the incident, Mahatma Gandhi called a halt to the Non-Cooperation Movement.

Internal Congress Debate after Non-Cooperation

Two Factors Shaping Indian Politics in Late 1920s

• Worldwide economic depression: Agricultural prices began to fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930; peasants found it difficult to sell harvests and pay revenue; by 1930 countryside was in turmoil
• Simon Commission: New Tory government in Britain constituted a Statutory Commission under Sir John Simon to look into the constitutional system in India and suggest changes. The commission did not have a single Indian member — all were British

Fig. 6 — Meeting of Congress leaders at Allahabad, 1931. Apart from Mahatma Gandhi, you can see Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (extreme left), Jawaharlal Nehru (extreme right) and Subhas Chandra Bose (fifth from right).

4.1 The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement

Fig. 7 — The Dandi march. During the salt march Mahatma Gandhi was accompanied by 78 volunteers. On the way they were joined by thousands.

Civil Disobedience Movement — Spread and Repression

• Thousands broke the salt law, manufactured salt, demonstrated in front of government salt factories
• Foreign cloth boycotted; liquor shops picketed
• Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes
• Village officials resigned
• Forest people violated forest laws — going into Reserved Forests to collect wood and graze cattle
• Government began arresting Congress leaders one by one
• When Abdul Ghaffar Khan (devout disciple of Gandhi) was arrested in April 1930, angry crowds demonstrated in streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars and police firing — many killed
• When Gandhi himself was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal buildings, lawcourts, railway stations
• About 100,000 people arrested

6.1 Dalits and the Movement

• Dalits (the nation’s ‘untouchables’) had from around the 1930s begun calling themselves dalit or oppressed
• For long the Congress had ignored the dalits for fear of offending the sanatanis (conservative high-caste Hindus)
• Gandhi declared swaraj would not come for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated
• He called the ‘untouchables’ harijan (children of God)
• Organised satyagraha to secure them entry into temples and access to public wells, tanks, roads and schools
• He himself cleaned toilets to dignify the work of the bhangi (sweepers)
• Dalit leaders were keen on a different political solution: demanding reserved seats in educational institutions and a separate electorate that would choose dalit members for legislative councils
• Dalit participation in Civil Disobedience Movement was limited, particularly in Maharashtra and Nagpur region where their organisation was quite strong

Fig. 10 — Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Azad at Sevagram Ashram, Wardha, 1935. This photograph reflects the importance of Hindu-Muslim unity in the national movement.

6.2 Muslims and the Movement

• Many Muslim political organisations were lukewarm in their response to the Civil Disobedience Movement
• After decline of Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement, a large section of Muslims felt alienated from the Congress
• From mid-1920s Congress came to be more visibly associated with openly Hindu religious nationalist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha
• Relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened; communal clashes and riots in various cities
• Congress and Muslim League made efforts to renegotiate alliance — in 1927 it appeared such unity could be forged
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah was willing to give up demand for separate electorates if Muslims were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and proportional representation in Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal and Punjab)
• All hope disappeared at the All Parties Conference in 1928 when M.R. Jayakar of Hindu Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise

Nationalism spreads when people begin to believe that they are all part of the same nation. This sense of collective belonging came partly through the experience of united struggles. But there were also a variety of cultural processes through which nationalism captured people’s imagination.

7.1 Bharat Mata

• Identity of India came to be visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata
• Image was first created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
• In the 1870s he wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the motherland
• Later included in his novel Anandamath and widely sung during the Swadeshi movement in Bengal
• Moved by the Swadeshi movement, Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata (1905)
• In the painting, Bharat Mata is portrayed as an ascetic figure — calm, composed, divine and spiritual
• The mala in one hand emphasises her ascetic quality
• She is shown as dispensing learning, food and clothing
• Devotion to this mother figure came to be seen as evidence of one’s nationalism

Fig. 12 — Bharat Mata, Abanindranath Tagore, 1905. Notice that the mother figure here is shown as dispensing learning, food and clothing. The mala in one hand emphasises her ascetic quality. Abanindranath Tagore, like Ravi Varma before him, tried to develop a style of painting that could be seen as truly Indian.

7.2 Revival of Indian Folklore

• In late-nineteenth-century India, nationalists began recording folk tales sung by bards and toured villages to gather folk songs and legends
• These tales, they believed, gave a true picture of traditional culture that had been corrupted and damaged by outside forces
• Essential to preserve folk tradition to discover national identity and restore pride in one’s past
• In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore began collecting ballads, nursery rhymes and myths, and led the movement for folk revival
• In Madras, Natesa Sastri published a massive four-volume collection of Tamil folk tales — ‘The Folklore of Southern India’
• He believed: folklore was national literature — ‘the most trustworthy manifestation of people’s real thoughts and characteristics’

7.3 Nationalist Flags and Symbols

7.4 Reinterpretation of History

• By end of 19th century, many Indians began feeling that Indian history had to be thought about differently to instill pride in the nation
• Indians began looking into the past to discover India’s great achievements in ancient times: art and architecture, science and mathematics, religion and culture, law and philosophy, crafts and trade
• These nationalist histories urged readers to take pride in India’s great achievements in the past and struggle to change the miserable conditions under British rule
• Problem: When the past being glorified was Hindu, when images celebrated were drawn from Hindu iconography, then people of other communities felt left out