NATIONALISM IN INDIA -STUDY MATERIAL AND ASSIGNMENT

1Q. Why is growth of nationalism in the colonies linked to an anticolonial

movement?
1) People began discovering the unity in the process of the struggle against
colonialism. The sense of being oppressed under the British rule provided a
shared bond to the Indians that tied different groups together.
2) As each class group felt the effect of colonialism differently, so their notion for
freedom were not always the same. The congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to
force these groups together with one movement.
3) In spite of differences and conflicts, different groups and community under the
banner of Indian national congress participated in various movements against the
British.
2Q Impact of the First World War
 The First World War helped in the growth of the nationalist movement in India
 It led to an increase in defence expenditure which was financed by war loans
and taxes like customs duties were raised and income tax introduced.
 The war led to a price rise and hardship for common people.
 The war led to the forced recruitment of people.
 Acute shortage of food led to famine and misery. Millions of people died as a
result of famines and influenza epidemic.
 Indians felt that they were drawn into the war unnecessarily. This feeling united
Indians against the British.
3Q. Idea of Satyagraha
 The idea of Satyagraha emphasized on the power of truth.
 It suggested that if the cause was true if the struggle was against injustice,
then physical force was not necessary to fight the oppressor.
 Without seeking vengeance or being aggressive, a satyagrahi could win the
battle through nonviolence.
 This could be done by appealing to the conscience of the oppressor. The
oppressors – had to be persuaded to see the truth, instead of being forced to
accept the truth through the use of violence.

4Q. Early satyagraha movements successfully organized by Mahatma Gandhi.

 In 1917 he inspired the peasants to struggle against the oppressive plantation

system.
 He organized a Satyagraha to support the peasants of the Kheda district of
Gujarat. Affected by crop failure and a plague epidemic, the peasants of Kheda
could not pay the revenue and were demanding that revenue collection be
relaxed.
 In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organize a Satyagraha
movement among cotton mill workers.

5Q. The Rowlatt Act

Gandhiji launched a nationwide Satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act of
1919.

Provisions of the Rowlatt Act were:

 It allowed the arrest of people without trial for two years.
 The British government could arrest anyone and search any place without a
warrant.
  It gave the government the power to repress any political activity or
demonstration.

The Rowlatt Act was opposed by Indians in the following ways:

 A non-violent civil disobedience against the unjust law began.
 Rallies were organized in various cities.
 Workers went on strike in railway workshops.
 Shops were closed down in protest.

6Q. The reasons for starting the Khilafat Movement

Muslims all over the world began to protest against the treatment of the Khalifa
after the First World War. In India, too Khilafat Committee was formed under the
leadership of Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali.
 At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920 he convinced other
leaders of the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat
and Swaraj.
7Q Why Non-cooperation?
 In his book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule
was established in India with the cooperation of Indians. If Indians refused to
cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and Swaraj would
come.
 At the Congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, the Non-Cooperation
program was adopted.
 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.
 Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in January 1921. Unitedly Hindus
and Muslims responded to the call of Swaraj, but the term meant different
things to different people.

Differing Strands within the Movement

8Q. Non-Cooperation 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.
 Lawyers gave up their legal practices.
 The council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras.
 Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in
huge bonfires.
 Merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods.
 Production of Indian textile mills and handlooms went up.
The Non-Cooperation Movement in the cities gradually slowed down because:
 Khadi cloth was more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people
could not afford to buy it.
 The boycott of British institutions failed because Indian institutions could not be
set up in place of the British ones.
 Students and teachers began trickling back to government schools.
 The lawyers too joined back work in government courts.

9Q. Non-Cooperation Movement in the Countryside

 Peasants of Awadh were led by Baba Ramchandra, a sanyasi. The movement
was against talukdars and landlords.
 (a)The landlords and talukdars demanded exorbitantly high rents and other
cesses.
(b)Peasants had to do begar (unpaid work) and work at landlords’ farms without
any payment.
(c)As tenants they had no security of tenure, being regularly evicted.
 The peasant movement demanded a reduction of revenue, the abolition of
begar, and a social boycott of oppressive landlords.
 In many places, nai-dhobi bandhs were organized by panchayats to deprive
landlords of the services of barbers and watermen.
 Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up and headed by Jawaharlal Nehru,
 In 1921, the houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked, bazaars were
looted and grain hoards were taken over.

10Q. Tribal Peasants:

The causes that led the tribals to revolt in the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh were:

 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.
 Their livelihood was affected and their traditional rights were denied.
 They were forced to do begar (work without payment) for road building, the hill
people revolted.
Role of Alluri Sitaram Raju: in the Gudem hills of Andhra Pradesh.

 He started a militant guerrilla movement in the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh.

 The tribal people were against colonial policies. Their livelihood was affected
and their traditional rights were denied.
 Alluri Sitaram Raju was inspired by Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation movement and
persuaded people to wear khadi and give up drinking.
 But at the same time, he asserted that India could be liberated only by the use
of force, not non-violence.
 He claimed that he had a variety of special powers like making astrological
predictions, healing people, and surviving bullet shots.

11Q. Swaraj in the Plantations

Meaning of Swaraj for Plantation Workers: For plantation workers in Assam, Swaraj
meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space in which they were
enclosed, and it meant retaining a link with the village from which they had come.
 Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not
permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission, and in fact, they were
rarely given such permission.
 When they heard of the Non-Cooperation movement, thousands of workers
defied the authorities, left the plantations, and headed home.
 They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming, and everyone would be given land
in their own villages.
 They, however, never reached their destination. Stranded on the way by a
railway and steamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally beaten
up.

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.
12Q. Simon Commission: Set up in response to the nationalist movement, the
commission was to look into the functioning of the constitutional system in India and
suggest changes. The problem was that the commission did not have a single Indian
member. They were all British so it was boycotted by the Indians.
In an effort to win them over, the viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced in October 1929, a
vague offer of ‘dominion status’ for India in an unspecified future, and a Round
Table Conference to discuss a future constitution.

13Q. Lahore session of Congress-

 In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore

Congress finalized the demand for ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence for India.
 It was declared that 26 January 1930, would be celebrated as Independence
Day when people were to take a pledge to struggle for complete independence.
 CDM will be launched if their demands were not fulfilled.

14Q. The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement

 Gandhiji demanded to abolish the salt tax.
 Why salt was chosen as a symbol of protests?
(a) Salt was one of the most essential items of food consumed by both rich
and poor.
(b)Tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production made it
inaccessible to the poor people.
(c) Destruction of the salt led to wastage of a natural resource.
Features of the Civil Disobedience Movement:
 The movement started with Salt March. Thousands broke salt law.
 Foreign clothes and goods were boycotted.
 Liquor shops were picketed.
 Peasants refused to pay taxes.
 Violations of Forest Laws and people went to Reserved Forests to collect wood
and grazing cattle.
People were now asked not only to refuse cooperation with the British but also
to break colonial laws.

15Q. The reasons for the participation of various social classes and groups in the
Civil Disobedience Movement are as follows:
1. Rich peasants: Rich peasant communities like the Patidars of Gujarat & the
Jats of Uttar Pradesh joined the movement because being producers of
commercial crops they were hard hit by the trade depression and falling prices.
The refusal of the government to reduce the revenue demand made them fight
against high revenues.
2. Poor peasants: Joined the movement because they found it difficult to pay
rent. They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted.
3. Business class: They reacted against colonial policies that restricted activities
because they were keen on expanding their business and for this, they wanted
protection against imports of foreign goods. They thought that Swaraj would
cancel colonial restrictions and that trade would flourish without restrictions.
They also wanted protection against the rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio.
They formed the Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress in 1920 and the
Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927.
4. Industrial working class:
 They did not participate in large numbers except in the Nagpur region.
 Some workers did participate, selectively adopting some of the Gandhian
programs, like boycotts of foreign goods, as a part of their own
 movements against low wages and poor working conditions. Strikes by
workers in railways, mines and dock workers.
 Congress reaction- Did not support the demands of the workers as the
rich industrialists participated in CDM.
5. Women:
 There was large-scale participation of women in the movement. They
participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, and picketed foreign
cloth and liquor shops. Many went to jail.
 Congress welcomed their symbolic presence but Gandhi believed that the
duty of the women was to look after home and hearth, be good mothers
and wives.
6. Merchants and Industrialists:
 Indian merchants and industrialists were keen on expanding their businesses
and reacted against colonial policies that restricted business activities.
 They wanted protection against imports of foreign goods, and a rupee-
sterling foreign exchange ratio that would discourage imports.
 To organize business interests, they formed the Indian Industrial and
Commercial Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian Chamber of
Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927.
 Led by prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G. D. Birla,
the industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian economy and
supported the Civil Disobedience Movement.
 They gave financial assistance and refused to buy or sell imported goods.
 Most businessmen wanted to flourish in trade without constraints.
The limitations of the Civil Disobedience Movement were:
 Half-hearted participation of untouchables. Congress had ignored the Dalits for
fear of offending the Sanatanis, the conservative high-caste Hindus.
 After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, a large section of
Muslims felt alienated from Congress.(a) Because of close association of the INC
with Hindu political parties like Hindu Mahasabha. (b) they wanted separate
 This provoked Hindu-Muslim communal clashes and riots in various cities.
16Q Some of the Muslim political organizations in India were lukewarm in their
response to the Civil Disobedience Movement:
 Large sections of Muslims were lukewarm in their response to the Civil
Disobedience movement.
 The decline of Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements led to the alienation of
Muslims from Congress.
 From the mid-1920s, the Congress was seen to be visibly associated with Hindu
nationalist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha.
 Relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened and communal riots took
place.
 The Muslim League gained prominence with its claim of representing Muslims
and demanding a separate electorate for them.
Untouchability:
 Mahatma Gandhi was against untouchability. He declared that Swaraj would not
come for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated. He called the
‘Untouchables’ harijan or the children of God.
 He organized satyagraha to secure their entry into temples, and access to the
public wells, tanks, roads, and schools.
 He himself cleaned toilets to dignify the work of the sweepers.
Poona Pact of September 1932:
The Poona Pact of September 1932 gave the Depressed Classes (Schedule Castes)
reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils, but they were to be voted
in by the general electorate. Gandhi believed that separate electorates for Dalits
would slow down the process of their integration in the society.
17Q The Sense of Collective Belonging
 The identity of the nation is most often symbolized by the image of Bharat
Mata.
 Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the
motherland.
 Moved by the Swadeshi movement, Abanindranath Tagore painted Bharat Mata
and portrayed it as an ascetic figure. She is shown as calm, composed, divine,
and spiritual.
 Ideas of nationalism also developed through a movement to revive Indian
folklore.
 Icons and symbols in unifying people and inspire in them a feeling of
nationalism.
 During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolor flag (red, green, and
yellow) was designed.
 Reinterpretation of history to instill a sense of pride in the nation.

Reinterpretation of history created a sense of collective belongingness among the

different communities of India:
 By the end of the nineteenth century many Indians began feeling that to instill a
sense of pride in the nation.
 The British saw Indians as backward and primitive, incapable of governing
themselves.
 In response, Indians began looking into the past to discover India’s great
achievements. They wrote about the glorious developments in ancient times
when art and architecture, science and mathematics, religion and culture, law
and philosophy, and crafts and trade flourished.
 These nationalist histories urged the readers to take pride in India’s great
achievements in the past and struggle to change the miserable conditions of life
under British rule.

 Bharat Mata, Abanindranath Tagore, 1905

 Abanindranath Tagore painted the above image of Bharat Mata.
 In this painting Bharat Mata is portrayed as an ascetic figure; she is calm,
composed, divine, and spiritual.

18Q- Main features of the Gandhi Irwin pact –

1) Gandhi consented to participate in the second Round Table Conference in
London and suspend the civil disobedience movement.
2) The government agreed to release all political prisoners and return their
confiscated property.
3) People were allowed to peacefully protest against liquor shops.
4) Those living in the coastal areas were allowed to manufacture salt.

ASSIGNMENT
 1. How did people belonging to different communities, regions, and language
groups in India develop a sense of collective belonging? Elucidate.
2. How did the non-cooperation movement spread to the countryside and threw
into its fold the struggles of peasants and tribal communities? Elaborate.
3. The plantation workers in Assam had their own understanding of Mahatma
Gandhi and the notion of Swaraj. Support the statement with arguments.

4. Why and how did different social groups join the civil disobedience movement?
5. Not all social groups were moved by the abstract concept of Swaraj. Support the
statement in the light of the attitude of the untouchables and Muslims during
the civil disobedience movement.
6. Briefly describe the salt march undertaken by Gandhi. What was its importance
and effects? Also describe the various other activities that took place during the
first phase of the CDM.
7. Describe the way. Gandhiji achieved Hindu Muslim unity for a broad-based
movement during NCM.
OR
How did Khilafat issue became a part of national movement?
8. Describe the Poona pact of September 1932.
9. Describe the views of Mahatma Gandhi on untouchability and his efforts to get
Hurricanes their rights.
Growth of nationalism in India:
In India the growth of modern nationalism is closely connected to the anti-colonial movement.
 People discovered their unity during their struggle against colonialism.
 The sense of being oppressed under colonialism provided a bond that tied many different
groups together.
 The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to bring these groups together within one