B.A. (Hons.

) English Semester-I

Generic Elective
Nationalism in India

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

University of Delhi

Department of Political Science

 Generic Elective
Nationalism in India

CONTENTS

Unit I
Lesson 1 : Approaches to the Study of Nationalism Mohan Kumar
Prem Kumar Bharti
Unit II
Lesson 2 : Reformism and Anti-Reformism in Nishant Yadav
the Nineteenth Century
Lesson 3 : Social and Religious Movements in
the 19th Century Nishant Yadav

Unit III
Lesson 4 : Nationalist Politics and Expansion of the Social Base
Lesson 5 : Gandhi and Mass Mobilisation Amaresh Ganguli
Lesson 6 : Socialist Alternatives
Unit IV
Lesson 7 : Social Movements : Women, Caste, Amaresh Ganguli
Peasant, Tribal and Workers
Unit V
Lesson 8 : Growth of Communalism Amaresh Ganguli
Lesson 9 : Partition and Independence Amaresh Ganguli

SCHOOL OF OPEN LEARNING

University of Delhi
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 Unit I
LESSON 1- APPROACHES TO THE STUDY
OFNATIONALISM

Mohan Kumar
Assistant Professor
Bhagini Nivedita College
University of Delhi

Prem Kumar Bharti

Research Scholar
Department of African Studies
University of Delhi

“Nationalism like virtue, has its own reward”.

-Mahatma Gandhi.

Nationalism is vast movement of a whole people against the internal oppression as well as external
domination. It is a struggle for national self-respect, national well-being and national
enlightenment. It acted as a vehicle of political, social and economic change. In order to strengthen
the spirit of nationalism there is a need of common language, culture homogenization, central
monitoring and formal education system. Nationalism has lot to do with the understanding of
society and finding one’s identity.
Nationalist movements brings various groups people together which aims to build a secular and
socialist nation. It binds people together. It is basically oppose to foreign rule. The evolutions of
nationalism in various countries have different political, social and cultural characteristics. First of
all the concept of nationalism was emerged in Europe in 17th century. Further, in 18th, 19th and 20th
centuries the process of nation-formation continued all around the world. It was an organized
movement to overthrow the despotic foreign rule and bring nations on the path of full development
as a free and independent nation.

What Is Nationalism?
Nationalism is an ideology and most powerful force even today. It is a sentiments and feelings for
which masses live and die. It is combined with the ideology of liberalism, socialism, fascism and
ex-colonial peoples. It means love for motherland or homeland and promotion of one’s culture and
civilization. Western scholars who gave ideas of nationalism are Geller, Anderson, Hans kohn and
Hobsbawm whereas Indian thinkers who dealt with nation, nationalism and nationhood are
Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, Sri Aurbindo, Tilak, Tagore, vivekanand and Deen Dayal Upadhyay.

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Nationalism stems from the idea that people shares common cultural ethos, occupying a
geographical entity, and shares strong bond of common interests.
Gandhi wanted Indian nationalism to be non-violent and anti-militaristic. His nationalism does
not devised to harm any nation or individuals, he believes on the idea of Swaraj. He just wants
freedom from the British rules. He aimed at the moral regeneration. Ambedkar in his book
‘Pakistan or the partition of India’ described nationality as ‘consciousness of kind, awareness of
the existence of that tie of kinship’ and nationalism as ‘the desire for a separate national existence
for those who are bound by this tie of kinship’. According to him there are two conditions to be
met for nationality to grow into nationalism.
First, there must be a will among people to live as a nation and Second, there must be a territory
which the people can acquire and make it the cultural home of the nation.
Gandhi and Ambedkar both stresses on the need of common language in order to strengthen the
unity and spirit of nationalism. They believe people speaking different languages may have
problem of expressing their thoughts. Gandhi advises people to enrich one’s mother tongue.
Geller says “nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness; it invents nations
where they do not exist”. Whereas Louis L Snyder writes “nationalism is a product of political,
economic, social and intellectual factors at a certain stage in history, is a condition of mind, feeling
or sentiment a group of people liking in a well defined geographical area, speaking a common
language, possessing a literature in which the aspirations of the nation have been expressed,
attached to common tradition and common customs, venerating its own heroes and in some case,
having a common religion”.

Rise of Nationalism and National Identity

The rise of nationalism in Europe took place with the rise of the national consciousness and
differentiation of nationalities which took place between 15th and 18th centuries. Hayes argued that
the factors responsible for the rise of national consciousness are: linguistic and literacy, political,
economic, commercial and ecclesiastical religious and cultural. The principle factors which laid
rise of nationalism can be enumerated as (a) The rise of renaissance and reformation (b) the
collapse of authority of church (c) abolition of higher rate of tariffs which resulted in the peaceful
condition of trade (d) the desire for peace, order and security (e) awareness among people
regarding their rights and liberty and (f) the doctrine of territorial sovereignty.
According to Beetham, there are mainly three factors which led to the rise of nationalism:
economic, military and cultural. Because of the rise renaissances and reformation, the laws were
made by the state regarding administration and taxation which helped in the establishment of
national market, which provides base for national industry and further road to conquer the foreign
markets. The creation of national unified economy gave rise to welfare state in the 20th century.
Welfare state looks after the wellbeing of its citizens. Secondly, in the military competition, states
based upon common nationality proved to be better and they can rely on the loyalty of their

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national army. Thirdly, the nation-state fulfills the cultural- religious, ethnic and linguistic
demands of people.
Now moving towards the national identity aspect, according to Guibernau, there are three factors
which help in the creation of national identity. (1) Development of printing press and creation of
vernacular languages: It creates a sense of belonging to a community. Gandhi and Amedkar too
talked about the glorification of mother tongue. (2) Relationship between national identity and
culture: It raises the question of – who am I? Common culture favours the creation of solidarity
bond among members of a similar community and allows them to imagine the community they
belong to as separate and distinct from others. And (3) Common symbols and rituals: It binds
people together of various cultures and social background. It creates a sense of group identity.
People sharing the same culture experience a common past. Symbols like flag have the power
represent a nation. A soldier dies for his flag does so because it represents his country.

Approaches of Nationalism
There is a strong relation between the history and nationalism. It emerges as a response to historical
changes. Historical occurrence is filled with debates and contradictions. It is viewed from various
perspectives and makes a wide variety of opposing assumptions. It is even more fascinating in
India’s case, the study of colonialism and nationalism in India has been done from four major
perspectives.

1. Imperialist approach
2. Nationalist approach
3. Marxist approach
4. Subaltern approach and

Imperialist Approach
The imperialist approach also known as the Cambridge school approach emerged during the era
of viceroys Lore Dufferin, Curzon and Minto. It was brought into public domain by V. Chirol,
Vereny Lovett and Montagu Chelmsford report. It has two aspects i.e. Liberal and Conservative.
The liberal version of it was elaborated by Coupland and Percival spear. They claim that India
under the British rule was evolved to a stage that it can march forward towards the path of self-
governance. Colonial exploitation, underdevelopment and other anti- imperialism was totally
denied by this school of thought. The proponents of Conservative version are Anil Seal, Gallagher,
Broom field, Judith Brown and others. They deny the colonialism as a reason behind the social,
economic and political exploitations. They believe that it was simply a foreign rule. They are not
in the favour of over throwing the colonial state. They do not consider India as a nation. For them,
India as a nation was a myth. They regard India as a negation of various castes and religious groups.

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This approach defines national movement as motiveless and just struggle for power among various
Indian elites (lawyers, doctors, modern professionals) and between them and foreign elites to serve
their own narrow interests. They are exploiting, deceiving and oppressing the people in the name
of nation. Their aim is to accumulate more and more wealth and gain status in society. There
interests do not coincide with that of common people. It was believed that nationalism in India
was weak because imperialism in India was weak as it depends upon the local collaborators.

Criticism
According to Bipin Chandra this school of historians denies the presence of exploitative and
dominating nature of British rule and nationalism as a movement by Indian people to overthrow
imperialism for the establishment if an independent nation state. Categories such as nation,
ideology, state, mass mobilization, used by historians to analyze national movements and
revolutionary process in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America are also missing. This approach
not only denies the presence of colonial exploitation and under development but also ignores those
who have sacrificed their lives for the anti-imperialist cause. Moreover it too denies any active
role played by workers, peasants, women and middle-class in anti-imperialist struggle.

The Nationalist Approach

The nationalist approach in the earlier phase was described by scholars such as S.N.Banegjee, Lala
Lajpat Rai, A.C.Majumdar, R.G.Pradhan, Pattabhi Sitaramayya, C.F.Andrews and later by
B.R.Nanda, Amles Tripathi and Bisheshwar Prasad. They blame Britishers for the backwardness
of the Indian economy. They say that due to this economic exploitation only modern industry and
agriculture failed in India. The historians on a whole feel that the nationalist movement was the
result of the spread and realization of liberty. They too feel that the awareness among the people
of their exploitation has united them. The rise of patriotic feeling, conceit in old traditions, customs
and values and hatred towards the colonial rule has combindly set up the foundation for a separate
and peaceful nation. This approach historian takes full cognizance of the process of India becoming
a nation, and sees the national movement as the movement of the people.
Nationalism was also associated with the views of B.Anderson, E.Gellener and A.D.Smith. In his
book ‘Imagined Communities, Anderson writes that nation and nationalism are the product of
Modern world. Anderson argues that the rise of capitalism and inclusion of masses into politics is
necessary for the development of nations. On the other hand, Gellener sees nation as the product
of modernization and economic development.

Criticism
The major weakness, of this approach is that scholars tend to ignore the inner contradictions of
Indian society which was divided on the basis of various caste and class. The nationalist movement
represents the interest of whole nation against colonialism, but in reality only few classes were

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represented. There was constant struggle between different social, ideological perspective for
hegemony over the movement. This approach in present context usually takes up the position
adopted by right wing of the nationalist movement and equates it with the movement as a whole.
Their treatment of the strategic and ideological dimensions of the movement is also inadequate.

Marxist Apporch
“The nation that oppresses another nation forges its own chains”.

- Karl Marx
Marxist approach criticizes the Imperialist approach. In the beginning this approach was forwarded
by Karl Marx and F. Engels, further forwarded by Rajni Palme Dutt and A.R. Desai. According to
Marx societies were divided on the basis of class rather than on nationalities. He considered
nationalism as an expression of bourgeois interests. Marx’s believes only economic factor changes
history, religion does not play any role. He dubbed religion ‘the opium of the people’. In
‘Communist Manifesto’ Marx writes that working men have no country… the nationality of the
worker is neither French, English nor German, the only thing belong to them is their labour. He
believes in the theory of revolution and urges workers to fight for their rights as they have nothing
to lose but their chains. He says that capitalism was destroying the nationalism. The revolt of
workers and peasants in countries oppressed by imperialism takes the form of nationalism.
The basic fact about colonialism is economic exploitation. The analysis of colonialism from
economic point of view was given by Dadabhai Naoroji and R.C.Dutt. Their central idea revolves
around the ‘drain of wealth’, deindustrialization, commercialization of agriculture, unfair tariffs
and foreign capital domination. Marxist approach believes that colonialism transform Indian
society via various mode of production i.e. feudalism to capitalism. It introduced modern means
of transport, communication and education but all these efforts are made only to fulfill the interests
of British capitalist class in India. The exploitative nature of Britishers led to clash of interests of
Britishers and Indians which manifested themselves in the national awakening and national
movement. The movement began by various sections of society to end the evil effects of British
rule, to gain political freedom and to march nation on the path of progress and prosperity.

Features
• The acceptance of socialist vision of independent India;
• Anti-imperialist, anti-landlordism;
• Economic and social transformation of society;
• Anti-fascist, anti-colonial and anti-war.

Criticism

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Bipin Chandra points out that Marxist approach failed to fully integrate primary anti-imperialist
contradiction and the secondary inner contradictions and tend to counter pose the anti-imperialist
struggle to the class struggle. They also see national movements as only a bourgeois class
movement. They see bourgeoisie playing the dominant role in the movement- they tend to equate
the national leadership with the bourgeoisie or capitalist class. They divided the society on the
basis of class rather than on national identity. For Marxist nationalism is a false consciousness.

Subaltern Approach
Another group of historians dealing with the nationalist movements are subaltern school of
thought. This approach was the first which focuses on the lower class individual of the society.
Major proponents of this approach are Ranjit Guha and Gyan Pandey. They divide the society into
two group’s i.e.

1. The Elite and

2. The Subordinate masses.

The elite are holders of truth, consumers and producers of knowledge, they are regarded as the
privileged groups in all types of society, and they decide the standards of rights, liberty and justice.
The subordinate masses consists of poor peasants, workers, labourers, artisans, out-castes, down-
trodden, migrants, bonded labour, tribals, women, untouchables and other marginalized class..
They works under the elite class and are considered unprivileged groups. They are also exploited
by the elite class.
Subaltern scholars argue that in Indian society differences was mainly among the elite and
subaltern groups. They blame elite class for the limited growth of nation. They believe that Indian
people are never united against anti-imperialist struggle and there was no any entity as nation,
nationalism and national movements. There were two only two separate movements i.e. the bogus
national movement of the elite and anti-imperialist movement of subalterns. The scholars
summarized the subaltern history and politics from below.
This approach says that consciousness of the sarkar, sahukar and zamindars was different from
that of national leadership. They just fight to fulfill their own elfish motives. Mainly subordinate
groups were the victims of colonialism.
In the 20th century the scholar who forwarded the subaltern philosophy and fight for the rights of
lower strata was Ambedkar. He wanted equality and civil rights for those who for centuries
deprived of them. He believes that in the absence of complete freedom of people, nationalism
becomes a conduit of internal slavery, organized tyranny for the poor and depressed classes. He
aimed to build a casteless and classless society. He asks people to fight against casteism,
communalism and separatism as they divide society which is against the spirit of nationalism.

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Criticism
This approach denies the historical and anti-colonial struggles that Indian people had upraised.
There were internal differences among the elite and subordinate masses; they fight among
themselves rather than fighting against the imperialism as a single unit. It advocates a general
ahistorical glorification of all forms of militancy and consciousness and advocates an equally
ahistorical contempt for all forms of activity organized by intelligentsia and other elites.

Merits of Nationalism
• Nationalism helps to promote internationalism.
• It is a vital force which unites peoples. It makes no compromise with tyranny governments.
• It promotes civilization and cultures. It gives birth to democratic and secular ideas.
• It promotes mutual cooperation and brotherhood.
• Through nationalism caste and class division vanishes.
• The tide of imperialism and colonialism can be checked by the forces of nationalism.
• It provides stability to the state and makes people loyal towards one’s nation.
• It creates a fertile ground for healthy competition and brings country on the path of
prosperity and modernity.

Conclusion
In the 20th century, the period between the two world wars, the Russian revolution and the rise of
fascism were important landmark in the spread of nationalist spirit.
It started from Europe and then spread to the land of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Due to
national liberation movement many countries got independence from the imperialist and
colonialist powers. New nations like China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Vietnam, Nepal and South
Africa grew on the world scene. They further prepared their constitution and considered the
sovereign nation.
The whole of Indian society and economy was affected due to the exploitative nature of Britishers.
The main objective of the national movement was to bring various caste, class and religion people
together and develop a sense of brotherhood and fraternity. Today, nationalism is probably the
most important factor in international politics. The feeling of nationalism was the main driving
force behind the independence struggle in India. In the contemporary era nationalism has become
a religion and an institution; people worship their nations. The state is regarded as the motherland
or the fatherland. No any individual approach will define nationalism in proper sense, therefore
assimilation of all approaches are necessary to understand the all aspects of nationalism.

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Exercise
1. Define the concept of nationalism and factors of its emergence?
2. Critically analyze the various approaches of nationalism.
3. Explain the merits and demerits of nationalism with suitable examples.
4. How subaltern approach is different from the imperialist approach? Explain.

Bibliography
Alosius, S. Nationalism without a nation in India.
Chandra, bipin (1989) India’s struggle for independence.
Chandra, bipin (2012) History of Modern India, New Delhi.
Guha, Ranjit. subaltern studies, volume 1.
Sarkar, sumit (1989) modern India, Palgrave Macmillan, UK.
Vermani, R.C (2010) colonialism and nationalism in India, New Delhi.

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 Unit II

LESSON 2- REFORMISM AND ANTI-REFORMISM IN THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY

Nishant Yadav
Research Scholar
Department of Political Science
University of Delhi

Reformism and Anti-Reformism in the Nineteenth Century

The dawn of the 19th century witnessed the birth of new vision- a modern vision among some
enlightened sections of the Indian society. This enlightened vision was to shape the course of
events for decades to come and even beyond. The process of reawaking sometimes, not always
follow the intention of Renaissances, gave rise to some undesirable by-products that often become
a part of reform movements in the whole of the Indian subcontinent. Although, the majority of
reformation associated with religious beliefs and therefore most of the movement of the 19th
century was the socio-religious character. Here, we are giving a complete overview of the Socio-
Religious Reform and Anti-Reform Movements in India that will enhance the knowledge of
students to understand, how Indian Society transformed after reform movements.

Since these social and religious reform movements knowledge spread among all the communities.
Reformers worked for the abolition of caste, untouchability, Parda Pratha, Sati, child marriages
etc. these reforms were partly supported by britishers and they formed many rules and regulations
to annihilate these problems from the society.

There were two kinds of reform movements in the 19th century in India:

Reformism and Anti-Reformism

Reformism:-

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In 19th centuary india witnessed socio religious reform movement. From this period of time many
scholars including Indian and western started glorifying the India’s ancient history, art, philosophy,
science, and religious faith etc. this growing knowledge and scientific temperament proved to be
a great catalyst and provided to the Indians a sense of pride in their glorious past. Due to these
social revolutions, many social reformers attacked on inhuman practices, superstitions to bring a
sea change in the society. These socio religious reforms movements can be bifurcate into two
schools viz. Reformism and Anti-Reformism. The colonial rule reflected that many of the Indian
social practices and institutions had become obsolete and they needed reforms. This school felt
shackled in within the archaic traditional set up and wanted to inculcate the liberal ideas and
education to reform the society. This was called reformism. On the other hand the Anti-Reformism
focused on golden ancient period of India and efforts to bring back the past glory. Reformists
included the newly emerging western educated section of society in India, who pioneered reform
movements to bring about conclusive changes in Indian society. Raja Rammohan Roy was one
example. These movements responded with the time and scientific temper of the modern era.

• Brahmo Samaj

To carry out social and religious reforms, Raja Rammohan Roy founded a new religious society
in 1828 which came be known as Brahmo Samaj. This was the first organization of religious
reforms. It was based on rationalism and believed in the philosophy of Vedas. The Brahmo Samaj
discarded meaningless rites and rituals. It opposed Sati Pratha and got it denounced. Raja
Rammohan Roy was the first person who spread the national consciousness in India and advocated
for equality and dignified life.

Raja Rammohan Roy was the central figure of this cultural awakening. He is known as the “father
of the Indian Renaissance”. Rammohan Roy was a great patriot, scholar, and humanist. He was
moved by deep love for the country and worked throughout his life for the social, religious,
intellectual and political regeneration of the Indians. Rammohan Roy was born in 1772 in
Radhanagar, a small village in Bengal. As a young man, he had studied Sanskrit literature and
Hindu philosophy in Varanasi and Persian, Arabic and Koran in Patna. He was a great scholar Roy
who mastered several languages including English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

In 1814, Rammohan Roy settled in Calcutta and dedicated his life to the cause of social and
religious reform. As a social reformer, Rammohan Roy fought relentlessly against social evils like

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sati, polygamy, child marriage, female infanticide, and caste discrimination. He organized a
movement against the inhuman custom of sati and helped William Bentinck to pass a law banning
the practice (1829). It was the first successful social movement against an age-old social evil.

Rammohan Roy was one of the earliest propagators of modern Western education. He looked upon
it as a major instrument for the spread of modern ideas in the country. He has associated with the
foundation of the Hindu College in Calcutta (which later came to be known as the Presidency
College). He also maintained at his own cost an English school in Calcutta. Also, he established a
Vedanta College where both Indian learning and Western social and physical science courses were
offered.

The great social reformer Raja Rammohan Roy continuously struggled to eliminate the social evils
from the society. He emphasized that ancient hindu textbooks vedas and upnishads and talked
about monotheism. He made a great effort to substantiate his views and translated the vedas and
upnishads into Bengali. It was his great work that he wrote gift to monotheism in Persian language.
He firmly believed in Vedanta and tried to preserve the hindu religious philosophy from the attack
of Christian missionaries. He was the opinion that Hinduism should be molded in its own way
without being affected by other religious philosophies.

Debendranath Tagore:-

Debendranath Tagore, the father of Rabindranath Tagore, was responsible for revitalizing the
Brahmo Samaj. Under him, the first step was taken to convert the Brahmo Samaj into a separate
religious and social community. He represented the best in traditional Indian learning and the new
thought of the West. In 1839, he founded the Tatvabodhini Sabha to propagate Rammohan Roy's
ideas. He promoted a magazine to do a systematic study of India's past in the Bengali language.
The Samaj actively Debendranath Tagore supported the movements for widow remarriage, the
abolition of polygamy, women’s education and the improvement in the condition of the peasantry.

• The Prarthana Samaj:-

In 1867, the Prarthana Samaj was started in Maharashtra to reform Hinduism and preach the
worship of one God. Mahadev Govind Ranade and R.G. Bhandarkar were the two great leaders of
the Samaj. The Prarthana Samaj did in Maharashtra what the Brahmo Samaj did in Bengal.

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It attacked the caste system and the predominance of the Brahmins, campaigned against child
marriage and the purdah system, preached widow remarriage and emphasized female education.
To reform Hinduism, Ranade started the Widow Remarriage Association and the Deccan
Education Society. In 1887, Ranade founded the National Social Conference intending to
introduce social reforms throughout the country. Ranade was also one of the founders of the Indian
National Congress. Ranade was also associated with Widow Remarriage Association that was co-
founded by Vishnu Shastri Pandit in Bombay in 1861. It promoted widow remarriage and
campaigned against child marriages, the heavy cost of marriages and custom-like the shaving of
widow's head, etc.

• Young Bengal Movement:-

This movement was started by Henry Louis Vivian Derozio in Calcutta in the 1820’s. Derozio was
an Anglo-Indian college teacher in Calcutta and he encouraged radical thinking among his
students. He criticized the prevailing religious practices of orthodox Hinduism. He also inspired
free-thinking and propagated the spirit of liberty, equality, and freedom.

The establishment of the Hindu College in 1817 was a major event in the history of Bengal. It
played an important role in carrying forward the reformist movement that had already emerged in
the province. A radical movement for the reform of the Hindu Society, known as the Young Bengal
Movement, started in the college. Its leader was Henry Vivian Derozio, a teacher of the Hindu
College. Derozio was born in 1809. He was of mixed parentage, his father was Portuguese and his
mother was Indian. In 1826, at the age of 17, he joined the Hindu College as a teacher and taught
there till 1831.

Derozio was deeply influenced by the revolutionary ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity. He
was a brilliant teacher and within a short period, he drew around him a group of intelligent boys
in the college. He inspired his students to think rationally and freely, to question authority, to love
liberty, equality, and freedom and to worship truth. By organizing an association for debates and
discussions on literature, philosophy, history, and science he spread radical ideas.

The movement started by Derozio was called the Young Bengal Movement and his followers were
known as the Derozians. They condemned religious rites and the rituals and pleaded for the
eradication of social evils, female education, and improvement in the condition of women. Derozio
was a poet, teacher, reformer and a fiery journalist. He was perhaps the first nationalist poet of

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modern India. He was removed from the Hindu College because of his radicalism and died soon
after at the age of 22. The Derozians could not lead a very successful movement because social
conditions were not yet ripe for their ideas to flourish. Yet they carried forward Rammohan’s
tradition of educating the people on social, economic and political questions.

• Satyasodhak Samaj:-

This society was founded by Jyotirao Govindrao Phule on 24 September 1873 in present-day
Maharashtra. It campaigned against idolatry and the caste system. It advocated rational thinking
and rejected priesthood. Jyotirao Phule is said to have used the term ‘Dalit’ for the oppressed
castes.

Jyotirao Govindrao Phule's prominent role in bringing about, reforms in Maharashtra. He fought
for improving the condition of women, the poor and the untouchables. He started a school for the
education of girls of the lower castes and founded an association called the Satyasodhak Samaj.
People from all castes and religions were allowed to join the association. He was opposed to the
domination of the Brahmins and started the practice of conducting marriages without Brahmin
priests.

• Keshab Chandra Sen:-

Keshab Chandra Sen carried on an intensive program of social reform. He set up schools,
organized famine relief and propagated widow remarriage. In 1872 the Government passed the
Native (Civil) Marriages Act legalizing marriages performed according to Brahmo Samaj rites.

• Dadoba Pandurang:-

He founded Paramhansa Sabha in 1840, was the first reform organization of the 19th century in
Maharashtra. Its main objective was to demolish all caste distinctions.

• K Sridharalu Naidu:-

He founded Veda Samaj in Madras, under the guidance of Keshab Chandra Sen in 1864. It changed
into Brahmo Samaj of Southern India in 1871. It also abstains from patronizing dancing girls, child
marriage and polygamy.

• H P Blavatsky:-

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She started Theosophical movement (Literally means all-inclusive) in New York with Col. H. S.
Olcott (American) in 1875. They arrived in India in 1879 and established the headquarters of the
society at Adyar near Madras in 1882. Theosophists popularised the study of oriental classics,
especially Upanishads and Bhagwat Gita.

• Swami Sahajanand:-

He founded Swami Narain Sect in Gujarat. The main focus of the sect was social unity and
harmony. It encouraged widow remarriage and the discouraged institution of Sati, female
infanticide etc.

• Behramii M Malabari:-

He founded Seva Sadon in 1885. He opposed to child marriage and compulsory widowhood. This
humanitarian organization focused on the welfare of socially deprived people especially women.

• E V Ramaswami Naicker:-

He started the Self-respect Movement, which was popularly known as Periyar. He vehemently
supported the Harijans and became a hero of Satyagraha at Vaikom, Kerala, started his paper, Kudi
Arasu in 1925 and turned into a radical social reformer. Self-respect league was merged with
Justice Party in 1944 from Dravida Kazhagam.

• TK Madhavan, K Kellapan and Keshava Menon:-

Vaikom Satyagraha (Kerala, 1924-25) was led by TK Madhavan, K Kellapan and Keshava Menon.
It was the first organized temple entry movement of the depressed classes.

Anti-Reformist:-

These movements started reviving ancient Indian traditions and thoughts and believed that the
western thinking ruined Indian culture and ethos during the 1870s in Bengal and 1890s in
Maharashtra. Anti-Reformism began to replace the popularity of Brahmo Samaj and Prarthana
Samaj, and a new note of assertive, even aggressive theism began to be heard above the voice of
rationalism which had reverberated in the land for nearly forty years.

In Bengal, this tendency found expression through the leadership of the orthodox section of the
Hindu middle class led by Radhakanto Deb of Sova Bazar, who had founded the Dharma Sabha
in opposition to Ram Mohan Roy’s Brahmo Sabha in 1830. But this movement could not make

14
any head-way and the radicals of Young Bengal and the reformers like Dwarakanath and
Devendranath held the field for nearly half a century. The social reform movement was supported
by Akshay Kumar Datta, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, Ramtanu Lahiri, Rajnarayan Bose and others
whose co-operation largely enhanced the reputation of the Brahmo society. In the decades
following the Revolt of 1857, new factors came into play and modified social attitudes. The ideas
and influence of radicalism and the urgency for social reforms began to recede bringing
conservative tendencies into the foreground. The change became marked in Bengal in the seventies
and Maharashtra in the eighties.

In Bengal two ideas, nationalism and romanticism swayed the minds of the people. There were
feelings of individual self-assertion and pride in the past heritage, resentment against the
haughtiness and oppression of the ruling class, sympathy for the misery and poverty of the rural
people and yearning for liberty and equality. These urges naturally stimulated the desire for
political emancipation without which the social reforms seemed to be impossible. A deep sense of
pride was roused by religious movements initially. It was fed by archaeological discoveries and
the works of the Indologists as also by historical studies. "Ancient literature, philosophy, science,
law, arts and monuments which had been buried in oblivion were raised to life, and they
enormously enhanced the reputation of India in the world and the self-respect of the people in their
estimation". The result was a revulsion against the Western culture and religion and an eagerness
to repudiate Western superiority of every kind.
The movement that followed came to be known as neo-Hinduism which had numerous adherents
who were divided into two schools, one opposed to all reforms and the other while admitting
reforms would not agree to changes in substance. The first school was pioneered by Sasadhar
Tarkachuramani and the second by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Those who were nearer to the
views of Pandit Sasadhar Tarkachuramani were Krishnaprasanna Sen, Nabin Chandra Sen, Hem
Chandra Bandyopadhyaya. “The most influential pioneer of the movement in Bengal was Bankim
Chandra Chatterjee. He represented the general awakening which was taking place in the old
traditional sects in the nineteenth century”.

Bankim Chandra combined his nationalist fervor with deep religious devotion. His English
education and study of Kant, Bentham, Fichte, Mill, and Spencer had aroused and sharpened his
critical faculties. Comte's Positivism had deeply influenced his thoughts. He grew into an ardent
advocate of the study of Western Sciences. But the Utilitarianism of Bentham, nor Hedonism of

15
Spencer nor godless positivism of Comte could satisfy him fully. He found intellectual satisfaction
in the study of Hindu-Philosophy and religion. His methodology was, however, of Western
philosophy which shaped his approach towards religion. ‘He aimed to develop independence of
outlook, to overthrow the domination of Western thought, and speak to the masses in the languages
they understand’. ‘Religion to him was the instrument for the moral and political regene-ration
society’.

Bankim Chandra was not in favor of piecemeal acts of reforms. He fervently believed that moral
and religious regeneration alone could remold society. He believed in fullest and harmonious
development of the individuals which could, according to him, be achieved through Anusilan
Dharma, i.e., religion of discipline which was based on love for self (Atma Priti), love for relations,
(Swajan Priti), love for the country (Swadesh Priti) and love for the humanity as a whole (Jagat
Priti). Thus Bankim Chandra’s ideas were a mixture of morality with nationalism, patriotism and
internationalism.

• Arya Samaj

Another organization in northern India which aimed to strengthen Hinduism through reform was
the Arya Samaj. Founded in 1875 in Bombay by Swami Dayanand Saraswati, this society strove
against idolatry, polytheism, rituals, priesthood, animal sacrifice, child marriage, and the caste
system. It also encourages the dissemination of western scientific knowledge. Dayanand
Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj in Rajkot, was born into a Brahmin family in Kathiawar,
Gujarat, in 1824. At the early age of 14, he rebelled against the practice of idol worship. He ran
away from home at the age of twenty. For the next fifteen years, he wandered all over India
meditating and studying the ancient Hindu scriptures.

In 1863 Swami Dayanand started preaching his doctrine of one God. He questioned the
meaningless rituals, decried polytheism and image worship and denounced the caste system. He
wanted to purify Hinduism and attacked the evils that had crept into Hindu society. Dayanand
Saraswati believed that the Vedas contained the knowledge imparted to men by God, and hence
its study alone could solve all social problems. So he propagated the motto “Back to the Vedas.”
Asserting that the Vedas made no mention of untouchability, child marriage and the subjugation
of women, Swami Dayanand attacked these practices vehemently. Dayanand began the suddhi
movement which enabled the Hindus who had accepted Islam or Christianity to return to

16
Hinduism, their original faith. Dayanand published his religious commentaries in Hindi to make
the common people understand his preachings.

The Satyarth Prakash was his most important work. The Swami worked actively for the
regeneration of India. In 1875, Swami Dayanand founded the Arya Samaj in Bombay. The Arya
Samaj made significant contributions to the fields of education and social and religious reforms.
After his death, his followers had established the Dayanand Anglo Vedic Schools first in Lahore
and then in other parts of India. Gurukuls were also established to propagate traditional ideals of
education. A network of schools and colleges both for boys and girls were also established by the
Arya Samaj. The Arya Samaj influenced mostly the people of northern India, especially Uttar
Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Punjab. Although it was not a political organization, the Arya
Samaj played a positive role in creating a nationalist pride in Indian tradition and culture.

• Theosophical Society:-

Though Annie Besant's name is most associated with this society, it was founded by Madame
Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott in New York (later shifted to Madras) in 1875. It promoted the study
of ancient Hindu, Buddhist and Zoroastrian philosophies. It promoted the concept of universal
brotherhood as expounded in the Upanishads and Vedas. It laid stress on occultism.

Many Europeans were attracted towards Hindu philosophy. In 1875, a Russian spiritualist named
Madame Blavatsky and an American called Colonel Olcott founded the Theosophical Society in
America. The society was greatly influenced by the Indian doctrine of karma. In 1886 they founded
the Theosophical Society at Adyar near Madras.

Annie Besant, an Irish woman who came to India in 1893, helped the Theosophist movement to
gain strength. She propagated Vedic philosophy and urged Indians to take pride in their culture.
The Theosophists stood for the revival of the ancient Indian religion and universal brotherhood.
The uniqueness of the movement lay in the fact that it was spearheaded by foreigners who glorified
Indian religious and philosophical traditions. Annie Besant was the founder of the Central Hindu
College in Banaras, which later developed into the Banaras Hindu University. Annie Besant herself
made India her permanent home and played a prominent role in Indian politics. In 1917, she was
elected President of the Indian National Congress.

Ramakrishna Mission:

17
In 1892 on the banks of Hooghly swami Vivekanand established the Ramakrishna Mission. Bengal
being the prime ‘karma-bhoomi’ of Ramakrishna, Belur seemed the best place to spread the
teachings of his Guru. Based on Swami Ramkrishna’s teachings, Ramakrishna mission focused on
the universality of spiritual phenomenon’s and opposed the ideas which fell out of the vedantic
understanding of the religion and society. They saw God in every creature of the nature, and which
consequently led them to oppose the practices like caste system. Vivekanand always tried to
balance the material and spiritual, for him material was the mean to atain the spiritual perfection.
Adequate material situations were prerequisite for that and from this vision he focused on social
welfare and upliftment of material conditions of Indian population. So they opened schools,
hospitals, charitable trusts and so on. Underlying meaning of prime Hindu spiritual texts is the
presence of god in every element of nature, which makes it mandatory for every spiritual seeker
to serve the mankind, service becomes God, as there lies no difference between the cause, means
and the goal. This very understanding works as the prime value for the mission, and the mission
did everything to achieve this through various acts, as mentioned above.

Swami Ramkrishna was truly a paramhamsa and one of the greatest saints in modern Indian era.
Though he was born in a poor family but in spiritual context he was the richest person of his time.
Since childhood his only interest was to understand the nature of the self. He started his spiritual
journey as a priest in kali temple at Dakshineshwar, where he showed the true meaning of bhakti
path, boundless of rituals and only based on your love for the deity. As per his other biographers,
later on he practiced various other spiritual paths to ascertain the truth from different dimensions.
This hands on experience on the subject enabled him to influence people deeply, even though he
never had any formal education on the subject.

His experiments with the spirituality led him to this conclusion that there lies an under-current of
spirituality in every path (be it bhakti, gnyan, karma or religions like islam and christianity), and
each path is based on certain universal principles like love, compassion, restraint and so on. As per
him, any seeker could approach God only if she has enough devotion and love for him. For him,
various paths were just different ways of worshipping the same God. Some see God as formless,
some out of love give him a form, but ultimately all were walking in the same direction and with
the same motive. He insisted that meditation, surrendering nature, renunciation and devotion were
the pillars on which a seeker truly relies.

Swami Vivekananda:

Swami Vivekanand was born in January 1863, in Calcutta. His birth name was Narendra Nath
Dutta, and he got his formal education from Scottish Church College. From the beginning he had
deep interest in philosophy which led him to extensive study of western and indian philosophical
thought. He too, from an early age was interested in the mysteries of spiritual world, and his
curiosity took him to many teacher’s of that time. Though after meeting Swami Ramakrishna he
got engrossed in Ramakrishna’s profound understanding of the subject and experiential methods.
Soon he got initiation and became a full time monk once Ramakrishna left his body. Vivekanand’s
vision was to spread the teachings of his Guru in a manner which could suit the current society.

Just like his Guru, Vivekananda focused on the universality of the various religions and spiritual
paths and focused on the service of mankind. For him equality and love for each other were the

18
most important virtues, which led him to oppose the prevalent practices of superstitions, orthodox
ceremonies, untouchability and so on. He understood the importance of inclusivity and for this he
traveled the world. His command on Hindu scriptures was exemplary, which helped him in
spreading the teachings of his master. It was a first when an Indian ‘saint’ talked at the Parliament
of World Religions in Chicago (1893), and his speech created the bridge on which seekers have
been walking since. American media gave him the title of ‘Orator by Divine Right’. After this he
went on to give discourses in the other parts of USA and various European Countries as well. His
lectures shed a new light on Indian spiritual knowledge and broke many stereotypes regarding
Indian culture.

He definitely was a spiritual leader, however In India, he was seen majorly as a social reformer.
While focusing on universal values like tolerance and love for each other, he tried to motivate the
well off section of the society to help the poor. He saw it as a duty and responsibility rather than
an act of mercy. In contemporary times his teachings are still relevant, and the impact still goes
on. Even though he died at the mere age of 39, but his teaching are still the base of social
advancements.

• Radhakant Deb:-

He founded Dharma Sabha in 1830, to counter the ideas of Brahamo Samaj and advocated the
status quo and opposed the abolition of Sati.

• Balak Singh:-

He started the Namdhari Movement in 1857 who advocated the forbidden of learning English and
taking up a Government job.

• Thakur Singh Sandhawalia and Giani Gian Singh:-

They founded Singh Sabha in 1875 in Amritsar with two main objectives (a) to bring to Sikh
community the benefits of western enlightenment through Western education; (b) To counter
Hindu and Christian Missionaries that were influencing the Sikh community.

Movements among the Muslims:

Movements for socio-religious reforms among the Muslims emerged late. Most Muslims feared
that Western education would endanger their religion as it was un-Islamic. During the first half of
the 19th century, only a handful of Muslims had accepted English education. The Muhammedan
Literary Society, established by Nawab Abdul Latif in 1863, was one of the earliest institutions
that attempted to spread modern education. Abdul Latif also tried to remove social abuses and
promote Hindu- Muslim unity.

19
 • Shah Walliullah:-

He started the Wahabi Movement. It was an Anti-Reformist movement with the slogan to return
to pure Islam. Jihad was declared with the prime objective of converting Dar-UL-Harb (land of
infidels) into Dar-UL-Islam (land of Islam).

• Haji Shariat Ullah:-

He founded an orthodox Islamic Movement, i.e. Farazi Movement. He called for a return to Faraid
(the obligatory duties of Islam) like names, Zakat, Haj, fasting in Ramzan, etc. In 1804, Haji
Shariat Ullah began to preach his doctrine by attacking the superstitions and corruptions of the
Islamic society.

• Mirza Ghulam Ahmed:-

He founded the Ahmadiya Movement in 1889 to liberalize the tenets of Islam in the context of
modern enlightenment. He believed in rationalism and stood for the Western system of education.
He claimed himself as the Messiah and the incarnation of Jesus and Krishna.

• Aligarh Movement: -

Aligarh movement is the most significant movement when it comes to Muslim community. This
movement was organized by great Muslim reformer Syed Ahmed Khan. Being a judicial officer
in a company, he realized that there are many social evils and there is no better education system.
He advocated English medium education for Muslims.

In 1862, he founded scientific society to get the English books translated in urdu language. It
helped him to carry out social reforms. His biggest work was establishment of Mohammandan
Orient College. Which later came to be known as Aligarh Muslim University. It was a modern
institution to impact modern ideas to the students. He worked to abolish pardah system and
criticized polygamy. He emphasized on rationality and pure interpretation of Kuran.

Syed Ahmad Khan Syed Ahmad Khan believed that the interest of the Muslims would be best
served through cooperation with the British Government. It was only through the guidance of the
British that India could mature into a full-fledged nation. So he opposed the participation of the
Muslims in the activities of the Indian National Congress.

• Deoband Movement:-

20
This was started in 1867 in Deoband in UP by theologians, Muhammad Qasim Nanawatawi and
Rashid Ahmad Gangohi. It was an anti-British movement that aimed at the uplifting the Muslims
through educational efforts.

They started the Deoband Movement at Deoband, Saharanpur in 1866 with two main objectives-
(i) popularizing the teaching of the Kuran and Hadith and (ii) To initiate Jihad against foreign rule.
They did not support Western education and culture. They advocated the unity of all religions.

Movements among the Parsis and the Sikhs:

The Parsi Religious Reform Association was started in 1851. It campaigned against orthodoxy in
religion. Dadabhai Naoroji along with his Western-educated, progressive Parsis like Sorabjee
Bengali, JB Wacha, KR Cama, Naoroji Furdonji etc, founded Rahanumai Mazdayasanan Sabha or
religious reform association in 1851 with the objective of social regeneration of Parsis, removal of
the purdah system, raising the age of marriage and, education of women.

Religious and social movements among the Sikhs were undertaken by various gurus who tried to
bring about positive changes in the Sikh religion. Baba Dayal Das propagated the Nirankar
(formless) idea of God. By the end of the 19th century, a new reform movement called the Akali
Movement was launched to reform the corrupt management of Gurdwaras.

Characteristics of the Reform and Anti-reforms Movements:-

An analysis of the reform movements of the 19th century brings out several common features:

• All the reformers propagated the idea of one God and the basic unity of all religions. Thus,
they tried to bridge the gap between different religious beliefs.
• All the reformers attacked priesthood, rituals, idolatry and polytheism. The humanitarian
aspect of these reform movements was expressed in their attack on the caste system and
the custom of child marriage.
• The reformers attempted to improve the status of girls and women in society. They all
emphasized the need for female education.
• By attacking the caste system and untouchability, the reformers helped to unify the people
of India into one nation.
• The reform and Anti-reforms movements fostered feelings of self-respect, self-reliance,
and patriotism among the Indians.

21
Contribution of the Reform and Anti-Reforms Movements:-

The urgent need for social and religious reform that began to manifest itself from the early decades
of the 19th century arose in response to the contact with Western culture and education. The
weakness and decay of Indian society were evident to educated Indians who started to work
systematically for their removal. They were no longer willing to accept the traditions, beliefs, and
practices of Hindu society simply because they had been observed for centuries. The impact of
Western ideas gave birth to a new awakening. The change that took place in the Indian social
scenario is popularly known as the Renaissance.

Many reformers like Dayanand Saraswati and Vivekananda upheld Indian philosophy and culture.
This instilled in Indians a sense of pride and faith in their own culture. Female education was
promoted. Schools for girls were set up. Even medical colleges were established for women. This
led to the development, though slow, of girls’ education. The cultural and ideological struggle
taken up by the socio-religious movements helped to build up national consciousness. They, thus,
paved the way for the growth of nationalism.

The British Government did not take substantial steps to educate women. Still, by the end of the
19th century, several women had become aware of the need for social reform. Pandita Rama bai
had been educated in the United States and England. She wrote about the unequal treatment meted
out to the women of India. She founded the Arya Mahila Sabha in Pune and opened the Sarda
Sadan for helping destitute widows. Sarojini Naidu was a renowned poet and social worker. She
inspired the masses with the spirit of nationalism through her patriotic poems. She stood for voting
rights for women and took an active interest in the political situation in the country. She also helped
to set up the All India Women's Conference.

Literature was used as a powerful weapon for spreading social awareness among people. It was
also used for promoting social reforms. The social reformers made valuable contributions to
literature. Bharatendu Harish Chandra, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, and Rabindranath Tagore
spread the ideas of social reform and condemned social injustice in Hindi and Bengali. Poets like
Iqbal and Subramania Bharati inspired the masses. Premchand wrote about the sufferings of the
poor and thus made the people aware of social injustice. Rabindranath Tagore composed the
National Anthem. Bankim Chandra and Iqbal composed two other national songs Bande Mataram
and Saare Jahan Se Achchha.

22
BIBLIOGRAPHY -:

• Saha, Santosh C. (1995-1996). Religious Revivalism Among the Hindus in India:

Ideologies of the Fundamentalist Movements in Recent Decades. Indian Journal of Asian
Affairs Vol. 8/9, No. 1/2. pp. 35-54
• Kumar, Krishna (Oct., 1990). Hindu Revivalism and Education in North-Central India.
Vol. 18, No. 10. pp. 4-26
• Kaufman, Michael T. A Hindu Revival Movement in India is hoping to Assimilate
Untouchables. TNT. November 29, 1981, Section 1, Page 14
• https://www.writing-endeavour.com/blog/revival-sermon-manuscript-p66.html
• http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_lajpatrai_1924/09part.htm
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23
 LESSON 3- SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN
THE 19THCENTURY
Nishant Yadav
Research Scholar
Department of Political Science
University of Delhi

The social problem has been considered as a deviation from the social ideal that can be solved by
collective efforts. Two elements are important in this definition - a situation that is less than ideal
i.e., undesirable or extraordinary and which can be cured by collective effort. Although it is not
easy to determine which is ideal and which one is not. There is no criterion that can be used to test
it, yet it is clear that the social norm is not an arbitrary idea or opinion. According to Walsh and
Farfe, the social problem is considered as a deviation from the social ideal which can only be
solved by collective efforts. As the social norm constantly changes, social problems also change
over the time. A social problem which was not considered as a problem a few decades ago can
become a serious social problem after two decades. For example, before the 1940s in our country,
population explosion was not seen as a social problem but in the 1950s, it became a serious social
problem. A social problem is a situation in which a large number of individuals deviate from the
desired social norms and affect a large part of society. Such deviations may result in harmful
consequences, which can only be solved collectively. In this way, no one or someone is responsible
for any social problem and it is not just a matter of one person or some people to get control over
it. Its responsibility lies on the whole society in general. A social problem is such a form of human
behavior that is perceived by large section of society as a violation of widely accepted and
approved norms. Such as alcoholism, corruption, unemployment etc.
It was in the the19th century that Indian glorious traditions were studied. A number of scholars
began to study Indian history, its philosophical traditions, scientific inventions and its diverse
literature. The past which reminded people of the silent glory now became the roots for a sense of
civilization and reason for pride in their indegenous knowledge. A number of superstitions were
also being reformed with clearing the air about the past with the study by such scholars. Reformers
understood the challenge of reform as superstitions and traditional inhuman practices had both
social and religious characters; such studies helped the movements.
Social and religious reforms attacked bigotry, superstition and was anti hierarchy, against the
priestly class. Their main aims were abolition of caste system, sati pratha, illiteracy and parda
system among others. It was also observed that such reforms were supported by all communities

24
of India. Reformers were supported by the British officials in direct or indirect ways. British
Government framed regulations and reformative steps. Many reformers also supported such
British regulations.

Major Religious and Social Problems of the 19th Century:-

Caste System and Untouchability
India is the largest democracy in the world. In 21st century, India is constantly on the path of
progress, fighting against religious superstitions and social evils. India is divided into several
castes and religions. Traditionally, Indian society was divided into four groups based on their
occupation - Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras. But there was no hierarchy in this
division. This Varna system takes the form of a caste system based on birth in the later Vedic
period, which establishes the discriminatory hierarchy in the society. In the caste system, Shudras,
presently moreover constitutes Dalits, are at the bottom of the hierarchy who have been treated as
second class citizens in the society.
Due to the caste system, untouchability was prevalent in Indian society. Its roots lies deep into our
social and religious system. The untouchables were not allowed to touch public things, drink water
from the water sources of the villages or cities, were not even allowed to visit temples nor were
they allowed to marry anyone from any other caste group. The numbers of Dalits were more than
20% of the entire Hindu population. Untouchables were the victims of discrimination and many
other forms of restrictions.
Sati Pratha
In the practice of Sati, the surviving widows were burnt alive on the funeral pyre of dead husband.
'Sati' (the feminine form of the word Satya) was a custom in some Hindu communities where a
widow sat into the funeral fire along with her husband's body. The word is derived from the
goddess Sati, also known as Dakshayani. Goddess Sati sacrificed her life in the fire of yagya as
her father Raja Daksha insulted her husband lord Shiva. Raja Rammohan Roy termed the practice
of Sati as a gross injustice done to women, calling it shameful for the entire Hindu society. The
result of his efforts was that the government declared the practice of Sati a punishable offense and
made a rule to punish those who encouraged or engaged in such practices. In 1829, bypassing a
law against the practice of sati, the burning of widows alive was stopped. First, this law was
implemented in Bengal, then in 1830, it was also implemented in Madras and Bombay.
Infanticide
This cruel practice was prevalent in north India. The girl child were killed in their childhood as
they were often considered as an economic burden in the society or due to other reasons. Both the
progressive Indians and the Britishers sharply criticized this practice. Ultimately, infant killing
was considered a crime equivalent to simple murder. Residents of the princely states of India were
also told that they should consider such an act as a crime equivalent to culpable homicide.

25
Infanticide was declared an offense equivalent to homicide under 21st act of Bengal in 1975. In
1870 some more laws were enacted to stop this practice.

Widow Remarriage
This is an extremely prominent issue for the Brahmo Samaj to address and it has done
commendable work to make it popular. But the most important contribution to this field was that
of Ishwarchand Vidyasagar (1820–91). Ishwarchand Vidyasagar was the teacher of Sanskrit
College at Calcutta. He argued, based on Sanskrit and Vedic references, that the Vedas allow
widow remarriage. He sent an application containing about 1,000 signatures to the government.
His efforts eventually led to the Hindu Widow Re-marriage Act in 1856, according to which widow
marriage was considered valid and children born from such marriages were declared valid. In
Maharashtra, Jagannath Shankar Seth and Bhau Daji also did important work in this direction.
Vishnu Shastri Pandit founded the Widow Re-marriage Association in 1850. Karsondas Moolji
established the Satya Prakash in Gujurat, 1852, took significant steps for remarriage of widows.
Professor Karve of Fergusson College, Bombay married a widow himself in 1893 when he was a
widower. He was the secretary of the 'Widow Reunification Association'. In 1899 he established a
widow's ashram in Poona where widows were provided with means of livelihood. In 1906, she
founded the Indian Women's University in Bombay. Legally, the first widow remarriage took place
on 7 December 1856 in Calcutta. With this B. M. Malabari, Narmada, Justice Govind Mahadev
Ranade, and K.K. Natarajan also made commendable efforts towards widow remarriage.
Child Marriage
Social reformers also strongly opposed child marriage, which resulted in the enactment of the
'Native Marriage Act' in 1872. Under this act, the marriage of below the age of 14 years old girl
was forbidden. But this law was not very effective. Finally, the Consensus Age Act was passed in
1891 with the efforts of B. M. Malabari, a Zoroastrian religious reformer. In which marriage of
girls below 12 years of age was banned. The Sharda Act was passed in 1930 due to the relentless
efforts of Harvilas Sharda. By this act, the marriage of a boy below 18 years of age and a girl under
14 years of age was declared illegal. After independence, the Government of India enacted the
Prevention of Child Marriage Act (Amended) in 1978, by which the age of marriage of a child was
increased from 18 to 21 years and that of the girl child from 14 to 18 years. Also, there is a
provision of punishment against those who married a child.
Woman Education
In the 19th century, there was a misconception in the society that Hindu scriptures do not allow
female education and on receiving education, the gods will punish her with legalism. The first
attempt in this direction was made by Christian missionaries and established Calcutta Tarun Stree
(female) Sabha in 1819. In 1849, the Calcutta Education Council President J.E.D. Bethun founded

26
the Bethun School. The effort taken by Bethun was considered as the first strong initiative towards
female education. But in the field of women's education, Ishwarchand Vidyasagar's contribution
is great. He was associated with at least 35 girls' schools in Bengal and his works in the field of
women education will always be remembered. Students of Bombay's Elphinstone Institute also
contributed significantly to the field of women's education.
Charles Wood's Dispatch of 1854 also emphasized the promotion of female education. In 1914,
the Female Medical Service did a commendable job by training women in the field of nursing and
midwifery. Indian Women's University, started by Prof. D. K. Karve, was considered as a
milestone in the direction of women's education in 1916. In the same year, Lady Herding Medical
College was established in Delhi. After the establishment of Dufferin Hospital in 1880, health and
medical assistance were started providing to women.
Religious and Social Movements:-
Religious and social movements begin to address the above mentioned social problems. The
religious and social reform movement in India has not only been a movement of protest and dissent
but has also been corrective, reactionary as well as socio-religious and freedom movement. These
movements came into existence through intellectual development, social structures, ideological
preferences and knowledge of the truth, etc. It is a well-known fact that the features of the society
shape the form of the movements. Therefore, only the elements of social structure and the future
image of the society provide the focal point for the social reform movements.
The social movement in our country was religious till the British period. However, national
movements that emerged after 1930 were clearly against the forces of imperialism and colonialism.
But after independence a new situation was emerged like political maladministration, economic
exploitation, dehumanizing women and cultural dominance etc.
Reform movements are often marked on the basis of identification of target groups like tribal
movement, Harijan movement, women's movement, peasant movement, the student movement,
industrial workers' movement, etc. Similarly, they are also marked on the basis of nature of the
collectiveness against the groups they are fighting against. Such as anti-Brahminism, anti-leftist,
anti-Dalit, etc. Movements are also known for purposes like the anti-Hindi movement. The
movements are also known by their top leadership like Gandhi movement, Ramakrishna
movement, JP movement, etc. In the same sequence of reform movements, we will present a brief
excerpt of the radical changes made in Indian society by the continuous efforts of prominent
persons, which are as follows:
Hindu life Philosophy
Traditional Indian society means a society in which man is completely made up of desires. As he
desires, so will his insight or understanding, as will his understanding, so will his deeds, and as his
deeds become, so will his fate become. Therefore, if some of man's desires remain in his lifetime,
then he will be born again, but if any of his desires are not incomplete, then he becomes united

27
with Brahman ie God. In such a situation, the suppression of insight is necessary for the destruction
of desires. It is the will of man that keeps him trapped in the net of this world or he is trapped in
the bond of birth and death. Therefore, karma is the link between rebirth and desires.
Thus, after getting rid of desires, man becomes immortal and attains salvation. But it would be
wrong to say that this is the only approach to Hindu philosophy. In fact in Hindu literature, there
are many attitudes towards the ultimate truth. One view is given in the Gita regarding the
renunciation of desires. The philosophy of karma is the new philosophy of life in the Gita. In the
Gita, instead of getting rid of desires, the emphasis is on their pure sublimation and this can be
done only by understanding the true nature of karma.
Hindu philosophy, on the one hand, believes in the continuity of the present with the past and on
the other hand, expresses the present in the future. There are motives behind the reverence of
Hindus towards traditions. Through this, equanimity and coherence is achieved in thought.
Different states only show the difference in force in different time zones. For example, the truth
was religion in the Satyuga, yagna in the Tretayuga, knowledge in the Dwaparyuga and charity in
the Kali Yuga. Hindu philosophy also believes in some spiritual ideas, such as sin, virtue, religion,
etc. We can see the discussion on these ideas as the core belief of Hindutva.
Raja Rammohan Roy
Rammohan Roy was a man of the modern era. He struggled for reform against social evils in the
society. Tagore said, “Rammohan was the only person in his time, in the whole world of men, to
realize completely the significance of the Modern Age”. Roy established a religious society,
Amitya Sabha on the ideas of rationalism and the ideas prescribed by the Vedas. Amitya Sabha
was later called the Bramho Samaj which aimed at uplifting the dignity of human beings, reforming
social evils such as sati and idolatry. Roy was in stark opposition of rigidness of caste system in
Indian society which, according to him, has destroyed the unity of the county. It was argued that
Roy’s ideas and practices showcases the rise of the ‘national’ consciousness of the Indian people.
Roy’s ideas were influenced by Hindu texts namely, Vedas and Upnishads. He translated them in
Bengali. His vision was to transform hinduism into a new form which would be in accordance to
the current times. Roy believed in Hindu philosophy of Vedanta and wanted to protect it from the
attack of the missionaries.
Vivekananda
Vivekananda's main goal was to strengthen the youth of India by removing both physical and
mental weakness, and to achieve strength, he considered physical exercise and the attainment of
knowledge. For them, strength is life and weakness is death, for all the problems of India, whether
social or political, their solution lies in India's culture and philosophy. Vivekananda was against
religious orthodoxy and superstition. In his speeches and lectures, he used to argue vigorously
against social evils. However, his real contribution to India was to revive the true meaning of
Hinduism.

28
In 1893, Swami Vivekananda at the World's Religion Conference in Chicago broadcast the real
culture and philosophy of India to the world. His lectures and speeches proved that Hinduism is
no less than anyone. With unceasing efforts, he explained the pride and importance in the minds
of the youth of the country so that they can face the world with full confidence. He stood fast
against any kind of religious evils and any kind of social evils issued by the orthodox and believed
that untouchability would have to be abolished if the nation had to move forward.
Dayanand Saraswati
Swami Dayanand Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj in 1875 to further his ideas. Their main goal
was to propagate and reform Hindu religion and to reestablish Vedic religions in true form. Uniting
India socially, religiously and politically and preventing Western influence on Indian civilizations
and culture. Swami Dayanand Saraswati believed in the teaching of the Vedas and gave a slogan,
'Vedas ki Lauto'. Due to the spread of idolatry and other superstitions, they have opposed the theme
'worship' of Hinduism. He was very aggressively opposed to all social evils like caste system etc.
But he believed that this practice is appropriate based on profession and work, not based on birth.
He was a supporter of women's right to education and equal social status, as well as campaign
against untouchability and child marriage, etc. He was also an advocate of inter-caste marriages,
widow marriages, freedom of education and higher education for Shudras and women. Annie
Besant had said that Swamiji was the only person who declared that "India is for Indians".
Jyotiba Phule
His first and most important work was for the education of women and his first follower was his
wife himself who always shared her dreams and supported her throughout her life. In 1848, Jyotiba
opened a school for girls to create a just and equal society for their fantasies and aspirations. It was
the first girls' school in the country. His wife Savitribai used to work there as a teacher. In 1851,
he started a bigger and better school which became very famous. There was no discrimination
based on caste, religion, and creed and its doors were open to all.
Jyotiba Phule was against child marriage as well as a supporter of widow remarriage. Jyotiba was
actively engaged for the salvation of the so-called low caste, especially for the untouchables, but
he was perhaps the first person who gave the untouchables the name 'Dalit'. He raised the
Satyashodhak Samaj on 24 September 1873 to uplift the lower castes and untouchables. The main
objective of this society was that no one should be discriminated against based on caste, religion
and gender and a common society should be created. Satyashodhak Samaj was also against
religious orthodoxy and superstition like idolatry, need of priests and irrational customs, etc.
Aligarh Movement:-
The Aligarh Movement was a significant social and religious reform movement among muslisms
chiefly organised by Syed Ahmad Khan. He was born in 1817 into a Muslim noble family. Khan
joined the service of the Company as a judicial officer.. According to Khan, the Muslims had to

29
adapt themselves to the ways of the British where they would learn western language, education
and they would take up government services.
Aligarh Movement was an intellectual movement. Syed Ahmend Khan founded the Scientific
Society in 1862 which aimed at translating books on sciences and other subjects from English to
Urdu. Khan also started an English-Urdu Journal for the ideas of social reform to reach to the
masses. The roots of Aligarh Muslim University was also laid down by Khan by the establishment
of Mohammedan Oriental College which helped the students to develop a so called modern
outlook.
Khan also worked for the reform of the Muslism social system. He was campaigning against
purdah system, polygamy and divorce system in Muslim tradition. he believed such traditions were
irrational and thus prescribed a rational interpretation of the holy book of Kuran whilst retaining
the essence of Islam intact.
According to Khan, the British were competent in pushing forward the interest of the Muslism and
the Muslims should cooperate with the British government He believed that India could only
mature in their guidance and could only become a nation with their help thus opposed participation
of Muslims in the independence struggles by the Indian National …
Brahmo Samaj in Bengal, Arya Samaj in Punjab, Paramhamsa Mandalis and Prarthana Samaj in
Maharashtra, Ahmadiya, Aligarh movements, Singh Sabha, Rehnumai Mazdeyasan Sabha, etc.
were some of the socio-religious organizations which tried to relieve their religions from the
burdens of blind faith and superstitions. Religious reformation was a major concern of these
movements, but none of them was exclusively religious in character but were strongly humanist
in inspiration, their attention was focused on worldly existence. Rationalism and religious
universalism were the important idea which influenced these reform movements as they pushed
forward a secular outlook.
Indian Independence Movement and Social Reform
Even in the Indian independence movement, considering the principle of freedom and equality as
paramount, the caste highs were declared wrong. Nationalist leaders and organizations also
advocated caste privileges, struggle for equal civil rights and the principle of independent
development of all. During this period, there was some improvement in the condition of the Dalits
by actively participating in programs such as public participation, public meetings, and the
Satyagraha movement. The rulers of Travancore, Indore, and Dewas took initiative on their own
and gave the untouchables the right to visit temples. After the 19th century, this campaign also
spread to South India and Kammas, Reddy and Vellala also actively participated in it. EVs in South
India in the 1920s. Ramaswamy Naikar also demanded the removal of the ban on Dalits entering
temples. Sri Narayana Guru in Kerala struggled to improve the condition of Dalits throughout his
life. He appealed to the Dalits to fight against the upper castes. Shri Guru gave the slogan, "There

30
is one God, one caste and one religion for all mankind". Sahadaran Auyappan, a disciple of Sri
Narayana Guru, changed this slogan and raised the slogan of no God, no religion for all mankind.
But despite all these efforts, the campaigns against the caste system during the British rule could
not achieve the desired success. Because the British government also had its limitations, due to
which it could not fight openly against the upper class or the conservative class. Apart from this,
reform of the lower castes was impossible without political and economic upliftment. The
constitutional changes that occurred during and after independence tried to fight these evils more
harshly, which are as follows:
Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar
The main objective of Dr. Ambedkar was to fight for the rights of the lower castes and the
untouchables and root out this evil. Under section 1919 of the Government of India at that time,
Ambedkar demanded separate elections for the lower castes and untouchables. He also demanded
reservation for such communities. Ambedkar started several publications by himself such as the
weekly, Silent Nayak; Excluded India, a regular magazine aimed at spreading awareness to fight
for the rights of lower castes and untouchables. To generate socio-political awareness among the
untouchables, on 20 July 1924, the Bahishkrit Hitkarni Sabha was established in Bombay. And
asked the government to 'educate, rebel and organize' Dalits and untouchables to get their rightful
place in the society to pay attention to their issues. He started a public movement against
discrimination. In 1932, at the Third Round Table Conference in Britain in which Dr. Ambedkar
also participated, the British Government announced the infamous Community Award according
to which there was a provision for separate elections for different communities in British India.
Therefore, untouchables were counted as separate electorates. This meant that only untouchables
had the right to vote in the seat where the untouchables fought. Being communal and divisive by
nature, this system was strongly opposed by Mahatma Gandhi which divides Hindus into two parts.
Dr. Ambedkar was in favor of this system because he thought that more and more Dalit people
would be selected for the assembly. Poona pact occurred between Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi
on 25 September 1932 in which separate Electoral College was rejected, but reservation of seats
for Dalit class remained. Hence, untouchables will not be separated from Hindus from now on, but
seats will be reserved for them. On the same advice, the Constitution of India in 1950 gave the
benefit of reservation to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Apart from this, Dr. Ambedkar's
biggest contribution in the making of modern India was as the chairman of the Drafting Committee,
the most important aspect of which is the socio-political and economic justice and equality in it.
Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi was determined to eradicate untouchability from society. His ideas were based on
humanism and logic. According to him, the scriptures do not recognize untouchability and even if
there is such a provision in some scriptures, it should not be taken into account because it is
contrary to the principles of evil truth. In 1932, he founded the All India Harijan Association. Apart

31
from this, Gandhi emphasized on Sarvodaya, under which labor will be valued, not wealth, feelings
of affection and cooperation, not hatred and seclusion, instead of exploitation, there will be a
tendency to renounce instead of a tendency to abstain and accumulate, in the society, there will be
harmony among everyone.
Gandhi was a strong opponent of big industries and mechanization, he called this system of
industrialism a satanic system. Gandhi believed that the system of industrialism is the name of a
system based on the exploitation of man by man. The system of industrialism will only increase
inequality, in this system justice will not be done to the last people. Gandhi talks about setting up
small scale industries, handicrafts, handloom industries and all such other industries related to
workers, which can provide a maximum number of people. In small scale industries and other
small local industries, the poor laborers, the common man, and the working class can manage their
bread two times. Gandhi used to criticize big industries as poverty alleviation and advocated for
handloom and small scale industries to be replaced.
Conclusion:-
Indian society, in the 19th century, was trapped in a web of religious superstitions and social
obscurities more so because of the advent of modern thoughts and ideas with the coming of the
British. The major social problems which came in the preview of the reform movements were
emancipation of women in which sati, infanticide, child and widow remarriage, Casteism,
untouchability were taken up for enlightening the society, and in the religious spheres main issues
like idolatry, polytheism, religious superstitions and exploitation by priests were taken up.
In the process of appeasing the upper class orthodox population of India, the British came up with
two important legislations which were to uplift the status of women. Sati was declared illegal in
1829 as well as infanticide. In 1856, widow remarriage was permitted with the passage of the law.
alongside such measures of women upliftment, laws like sanction of inter caste and inter
communal marriages were passed in 1872. Sharda Act was passed in 1929 which said that a girl
child below 14 and a male child below 18 could not be married.
Indian national movement took to the role of reformation of the society in the 20th century and
after. Indian languages were used to reach to the people. A number of novels, dramas, poetry and
cinema were used to propagate social messages of reform.
Indian women played a key role in the struggle against all forms of suppression including
independence of the country. a number of people, reform societies and organizations were working
towards removal of social evils. It was argued that because of such reforms in society, women
could actively participate in struggles for independence. Many other superstitions were also on the
verge of going away such as it was now accepted that people could travel abroad which was earlier
considered to be a sin of the highest form.
In conclusion at the end of the chapter, it can be said that India is a large country inhabited by
people of different religions, languages, food, caste, and dress. Unity in diversity which has

32
identity and pride, but diversity is also the mother of many problems. Sometimes it becomes
difficult to keep harmony between different religious or caste groups, people speaking different
languages or living in different regions. People of different religions and sects also have different
ideologies. Regionalism, linguism, communalism or casteism prevailing in the country are the
result of these variations. Social evils like superstition and conservatism arising from these
variations hold back the progress of the country. Apart from this, illiteracy and poverty in the
country are the biggest hindrances in the path of our progress. Both these factors inhibit the overall
intellectual and physical development of humans. As long as there is illiteracy and poverty in the
society, no country can develop in real terms.
However, these reform movements were confined by and large to a region or other and also were
confined to a particular caste or religion. Even if there were differences in their methods, all of
them had a common concern that is the regeneration of society through social and educational
reforms. Much significant contributions were made by these reform movements in the evolution
of modern India. They stood for the democratization of the society, removal of superstitions and
decadent customs, spread of enlightenment and development of a rational and modern outlook.
This led to the national awakening in India.
In addition to the constitution, we are seeing that the government is also making a lot of statutory
efforts under which it is creating all the welfare policies, but in a country with such a large
population, only the government cannot find the solutions to these problems. It is not only the
State’s responsibility but it is the responsibility of the whole society and all the citizens of the
society. For this, public awareness is necessary so that people become aware and understand their
duties. This responsibility becomes even greater on the youth and future generations of the country.
All the youth of the country must oppose these evils prevailing in the society and make every effort
to stop them. If this effort is made whole-heartedly, then these social evils can be eradicated.
Bibliography:-
Chidambaram, S. Srinivasachari (1947).Social and religious movements in the nineteenth century.
National Information and Publications.
Jones, Kenneth W. (1989). Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India. UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Michaels, Axel (2004). Hinduism: Past and Present. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Patnaik, Asit Kumar (2000).Socio-religious Reforms in Orissa in the 19th Century. Orissa (India):
Punthi Pustak.
Paramarthalingam, C. (1995). Social Reform Movement in Tamil Nadu in the 19th Century with
Special Reference to St. Ramalinga. Tamil Nadu (India): Rajakumari Publications.
Shah, Ghanshyam (2004).Social Movements in India: A Review of the Literature. New Delhi:
Sage Publications.

33
Sen, Siba Pada (1979). Social and Religious Reform Movements in the Nineteenth and Twentieth
Centuries. Calcutta (India): Institute of Historical Studies.

34
 Unit III

35
indeed the merger by which the British Indian Association was formed, included the Bengal
Landholders Society. In 1875 the Indian Association, founded by Surendra Nath Banerjea, was
the first organisation representative of the educated middle class in opposition to the domination
of the big landowners. Branches, both of the more reactionary British Indian Association and of
the more progressive Indian association, were founded in various parts of India. In 1883 the
Indian Association of Calcutta called the first all-India National Conference, which was attended
by representatives from Bengal, Madras, Bombay and the United provinces. The National
Conference of 1883 was held under the presidency of Ananda Mohan Bose who later became
President of the National Congress in 1898; in his opening address he dec]aired the Conference to
be the first stage to a National Parliament. Thus the conception of an Indian National Congress
had already been formed and was maturing from the initiative and activity of the Indian
representatives themselves when the Government intervened to take a hand. The Government did
not found a movement which had no prev:ous existence or basis. The Government stepped in to
take charge of a movement which was in any case coming into existence and whose development
it foresaw was inevitable.' (Source: R. Palme Duu, 'India Today', 1947, pp. 310-311, Manisha Publishers,
Calculla, India)

So by 28 th of December, 1885 when the Congress met for the first time, there was a clear
realisation in the intelligentsia nationwide that there were common objectives for which the
people of India needed to struggle for. Even as colonial administrators and ideologues argued
that India could never be a free and united nation because India was merely a conglomeration of
different races and castes and creeds, Indian leaders like Surendranath Banerjea and Tilak kept
countering by saying that India was a 'nation in the making'. The Congress leaders were
convinced that objective historical forces were bringing the Indian people together and the main
objective at that stage of the national struggle at that time was to promote national unity and
nationalism. So that became the main objective of the Congress. To create national unity or what
we seek to do by giving out calls nowadays for 'national integration' or 'unity in diversity, was
the main theme of the exertion of the founding leaders. Toe aims and objectives of the Congress
laid down by the first president W.C. Bonnerji was the 'fuller development and consolidation or
the sentiments of national unity. The Indu Praksh, a prominent Bombay newspaper wrote of the
first congress session as marking the 'beginning of a new life .... . .it will greatly help in creating
a national feeling and binding together distant people by common sympathies, and common
ends'. (Source: Bipan Chandra and others, 'India's Struggle for Independence', Penguin
Books, 1989, New Delhi, quoted in p.75)
To balance regional aspirations and promote unity, even at that early stage it was decided
that the Congress session would be rotated among different parts of the country and the president
would belong to a region other than were the session of the Congress was being held. To
promote communal harmony and prevent any potential discord or cause for disunity a rule was
passed that no resolution was to be passed which had an overwhelming majority of Hindu or
Muslim delegates objecting to it.

The Congress-also-decided very early that to be a national organisation it must confine

itse]f to causes which were common to people all over the country in their dealings with the
British. Hence agitation on social reform issues, it was decided, had to be kept away from!
Dadabhai Naoroji had maintained that they must meet 'as a political body to represent to our
rulers our political aspirations'.
Political action of the early leaders consisted of organising popular participation,
mobilisation and agitations and also of course not only making repeated representations and

36
appeals to the British governments and legislatures but also directly to the British people in
whose good sense there was much faith in sections of the Indian leadership. Also Indians were
not familiar with the democratic notion that politics and political opinion is not the sole preserve
of the upper strata of society and it was important for the whole of the people to fonn a political
opinion for it to carry democratic weight. Among the first and important objectives of the
Congress was to organise the arousal of this consciousness and then train and consolidate the
public opinion. It was felt by the leaders of the movement at the time that as a first step the
educated classes should be politicised and united from all regions of the country and thereafter
the process could be extended to other sections. W.C. Bonnerji bad declared as the first Congress
President that the one of the major congress objectives was the 'eradication, by direct friendly
personal intercourse, of all possible race, creed, or provincial intimacy amongst all lovers of our
country .... and the promotion of personal intimacy and friendship amongst all tbe more earnest
workers in our country's cause in (all) parts of the Empire'.
The Congress, even though conceived as a movement rather than as a party, was at first,
not inclined towards mass demonstrations and protest marches etc. The principal tools of
political action continued to be petitions, prayers and memorials. Later leaders who were not as
moderate and hence came to be describes by historians as extremists were extremely critical of
these methods but the fact remains that in a situation of relatively zero sense of political
nationalism and unity, the moderate phase did play an important role. Some moderate leaders
even saw the initial phase as such. When Gokbale had expressed disappointment with the two
line reply that the government had sent to a carefully and laboriously prepared memorial by the
Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, Justice Ranade bad told him: 'You don't realise our place in the history
of our country. These memorials are nominally addressed to Government, in reality they are
addressed to the people, so that they may learn how to think in these matters. This work must be
clone for many years, without expecting any other result, because politics of this kind is
altogether new in this land'. The preaching and adoption of the methods of political democracy
being amongst the main aims from the beginning the Congress was organised like a parliament
1 with issues being decided thorough debate and discussion and occasionally through the vote.
In the spread of the nationalist spirit the nationalist newspapers most of which predated
the foundation of the congress played a very important role. They spread the word on the
economic exploitation of India in an imperial economy powerfully and far and wide as most of
them being in the vernacular or regional languages. For instance the Kesari from Poona wrote on
28th of January, 1896: "Surely India is treated as a vast pasture reserved solely for the Europeans
to feed upon". The drain theory of Dadabhai Naoroji and others proved very valuable in rallying
nationalist opinion. The moderates started a campaign of making Indians aware that a large part
of India's capital and wealth was being drained out or exported to Britain unilaterally or without
return in the form of interest on loans, earnings of British capital invested in India, and the
salaries and pensions of the civil and military personnel serving in India. This explanation of the
process of imperial colonial economic exploitation by the British caught the imagination of the
common man to a certain extent. To a British response that notwithstanding the economic flows
British rule bad brought security of life and property to the mass of Indian people, Dadabhai
Naoroji responded as follows:
'The romance is that there is security of life and property in India; the reality is that there
is no such thing. There is security of life and property in one sense or way - i.e., the people are
secure from any violence from each other of from Native despots. . . .But from England's own
grasp there is no security of property at all, and, as a consequence, no security of life. India's
property is not secure. What is secure, and well secure, is that England is perfectly safe and
secure, and does so with perfect security, to carry away from India. and to eat up in India, her

37
property at the present rate of 30000000 or 40000000 pounds a year. 1 therefore venture to
submit that India does not enjoy security of her property and life. To millions in India Life is
simply '·half-feeding" or starvation, or famines and disease.' (Source: Bipan Chandra, Ama.fesh
Triparhi, Bamn De, 'Freedom Struggle', National Book Trust, p.60 [quoted in})
The other major area of thrust for the moderates was demanding administrative measures
from the British government of U1e day. They relentlessly attacked the British government in
their writings, petitions and appeals for the corruption, inefficiency and oppression of the officer
class. Their most important demand was that the higher levels of the civil services should be
opeo to Indians. Economic, moral and political grounds were put forward for this demand. The
economic demand. was that since higher salaries were paid to British officers and the money
ultimately flowed out of the country, not appointing Indians to the highest levels was a huge
drain on Indian finances. Politically it was argued the European civil servants ignored the needs
of Indians and favoured the needs of European capitalists. Morally the Indian nationalists argued
not appointing Indians to the highest levels of the civil service meat giving out the message that
Indians are permanently inferior to Europeans. The aberrations and tyrannical acts of the officers
of the civil service were constantly brought to light by the nationalist newspapers. Ultimately the
moderates decided to raise the demand for separation of the executive and the judiciary on the
plea that that would afford some protection to the people against the arbitrary acts of the police
and bureaucracy by keeping open a route for seeking remedy before the law courts. The Indian
nationaljsts brought to light the bias of the judicial process every time an Indian was involved in
a criminal dispute with an European and protested the high cost of seeking legal remedy.
Another issue raised by the early nationalists or moderates was the right to bear arms, which the
nationalists had argued was a natural right of all people.
The moderates aJso agitated for the increase in the scope and quantum of welfare services
of the British Indian government. One major area of welfare was education of the masses where
the nationalist wanted a big increase. Another area was extensive medical and health facilities. It
is indeed ironical that even fifty years after the independence of India these continue to be the
main areas of concern in modem India.
The moderates also demanded that measures be undertook to develop Indian industries
and agriculture and took up the cause of Indian workers who had migrated to distant British
colonies like South Africa, Malaya, Fiji etc etc. The moderates forcefully took up the issue of
workers in European owned plantations, who lived and worked in near slavery like conditions
but interestingly never took up the cause of workers in Indian owned factories and mines who it
could be argued were exploited no less. In this case the 'Indian leaders gave precedence to the
interests of Indian capitalists'. (Source: Ibid. p.62)
Another cause that helped the early Indian nationalists or the moderates to further their
political role was the defence of civil rights and in particular the right to free speech and the
freedom of the press. When in 1878. The Vernacular Press act was passed it was opposed tooth
and nail till it was repealed in 1880. Also in the J 890s the government tried to curb newspaper
criticism under the garb of protecting official secrets which was opposed by the moderates.

In 1897 B.G. Tilak and several other editors were charged with spreading criminal
disaffection against the British government in their nationalist newspapers. Tilak was sentenced
to 18 months rigorous imprisonment. Two Poona leaders, the Natu Brothers were deported for
the same reason and without trial. In response to this action the nationalist newspapers and the
leaders of the nationalist struggle launched a huge protest movement. Tilak who was already
well know became popular all India and was given the title of Lokmanya.

38
 The response of the government to the movement for press freedom was very firm and
harsh. The government passed many laws to curb press freedom and increased the powers of the
police as a result of which nationalist workers could now be dealt with in the same manner as
goondas and other bad characters. A national wide struggle was organised by the moderates and
this fight for basic civil freedoms now became an inseparable part of the movement.
Even though Indians at first never demanded freedom and probably never imagined that
they would some day actually make such a demand, the moderates from the very beginnjng did
nevertheless demand progressive self-government The moderates demanded that there should be
greater participation in the existing Viceroys Legislative Councils. Even though the council had
been expanded in 1861 and the provision made for a few non-official Indian representatives,
these were often rich landholders or merchants, who invariably toed the official government line.
The moderates demanded a widening of the powers of the council and an increase in the powers
of the members to discuss the budget and to question and criticise the day to day administration.
They also demanded that membership on the council should be by election of the representatives
of the people. In 1892 the moderates had some success wnen the government passed the new
Indian Councils Act. The Act increased the number of non-official members some of whom were
to be indirectly elected and would have the right to speak on the budget but not to vote on it. This
token reform meant merely to take away the issue from the nationalists left them utterly
disappointed. So they promptly went back and raised the slogan of 'no taxation without
representation' and demanded that there be a non-official elected majority in the Councils and
there be a non-official Indian control over the public purse. Interestingly, whlle these demands
were very democratic other logical democratic demands like extending voting rights to all
Indians and to women was not demanded at any stage. This tended to sustain the impression that
politics was for the middle and upper classes. At the tum of the century, all these demands were
advanced hugely and a full self-governing status like in Canada and Australia was asked for by
the moderates. They wanted full legislative and fiscal control of India for the elected
representatives of the people. So the whole system was sought to be changed. Dadabhai Naoroji
became the first Indian to use the term Swarajya or self-rule in 1906 at the Calcutta Session of
the Congress. Hence Bipan Chadra and others comment that: 'Thus, the basic difference of the
early nationalists with the later nationalists did not lie in a different definition of the nationalist
political goal .......The real difference lay in the method of struggle to achieve the agreed goals
and the character of the social classes and groups on whom the struggle would be based. In other
words, the difference was not in the goals but on how to realise them in practice.
The moderates began to be called 'moderates' due to their methods of political action.
The methods of agitation were always strictly within the four comers of the law and the aim was
constitutional agitation with orderly political progress albeit at a slow pace. They sought to
educate the mass of Indian people on political questions and raise the level of political
consciousness. They also sought to get the Indian people to transcend regional and provincial
identities and build a united nationalist political opinion.
One of their methods was speeches of a high political and intellectual calibre in political
meetings where resolutions setting forth demands for the government were passed. Another
method was the press whereby the through the nationalist newspapers a daily attack of the
Government was carried out. On a regular basis and relentlessly petitions and memorials were
sent by them to the high Government officials and the British Parliament directly. These
documents were prepared by the western educated professionals like lawyers and judges from
amongst the leadership of the national movement with the full application of all their talents and
training.

39
 The moderates, or some sections of them. were convinced that the British public at large
and the members of the British parliament were not aware of the real conditions in India and had
some faith in the sense of fairness of the British people. So they believed the British people
should be approached directly. So deputations of leading Indian leaders were sent to Britain and
in 1889 a British Committee of the National Congress was founded and in l 890 this committee
started a journal in Britain called India. Dadabhai Naoroji spent a major part of his life and
income doing propaganda work in En�land and ultimately in 1892 got elected to the British
Parliament to be able to voice Indian demands there.
The main drawback of the moderates was that they tried so little and succeeded so little in
involving the vast mass of the people of India to participate in the freedom struggle. Some of
them had a low opinion of the discretion and judgement of the common poor Indian. Gokhale for
instance commented that India was beset with 'endless divisions and sub-divisions in the
country, the bulk of the population ignorant and clinging with a tenacity to the old modes of
thought and sentiment, which are averse to all changes and do not understand change'. (Sourc�:
Ibid. P.67) They wished to wait for the political consciousness of the nation to ripen and for a
sense of national unity to be forged before they would launch a more daring struggle when
perhaps the best way to create those conditions may have been to launch a struggle in the course
of which all those desired political developments in the mass of the people would have happened
on its own. The moderates \\ ere also very wary of the power of the British crown. Gokhale for
instance had out it thus:
'You do not realise the enormous reserve of power behind the Government. If the
Congress were to do anything such as you suggest, the Government would have no difficulty in
throttling it in five minutes.' (S01me: Ibid. P. 68 fquoted i11JJ
It has been argued that the early nationalists or the moderates as they came to be dubbed
achieved very little by way of practical success. Mo tly the British government adopted a policy
of ignoring them and treating them with contempt. In fact as and when necessary the government
continued to be even more regressive and repressive rather than becoming more accommodative
of civil liberties. Combined with the fact that a very narrow base of people of India were even
aware of them and their activities, much less involved with them, and the attitude of beggary
though prayers and petitions that they were seen to have, they lost respect very rapidly
particularly when a more militant breed of nationalists appeared ion the scene in the first decade
of the twentieth century.
Unlike later on, when the sheer personal sacrifice of Gandhi who led the life of a sanyasi
of sorts accompanied with huge personal sacrifice. the relatively elitist lifestyle 0f the leaders of
the moderates failed to create any mass enthusiasm and upsurge of emotional following. This
was no less a drawback than any other.
However from the historical point of view the moderates did end up playing a very
important role that may not have been obvious to most of them at the time. Bipan Chandra.
Amales Tripathi and Barun Dey comments on their role in as follows:
'But historically viewed, the political record of the early nationalists is not all that bleak.
On the contrary, it is quite bright if the immense difficulties of the task they had undertaken are
kept in view. In fact, it was their very achievements in the wider sense that led to the more
advanced stages of the national movement and made their own approach historically obsolete.
Thus the early nationalists represented the most progressive force of the times. They made
possible a decisive shift in Indian politics.

40
 They succeeded in creating a wide political awakening and in arousing among the middle
and lower middle class Indians and the intelligentsia the feeling that they belonged to one
common nation - the Indian nation. They made the people of India conscious of the bonds of
common political, economic, and cultural interests and of the existence of a common enemy in
imperialism and thus helped to weld them in a common nationality. They popularised among the
people the ideas of democracy civil liberty. It was in the course of the building up of the National
congress and other popular and nationalist associations that the Indians acquired a practical
knowledge of democracy at a time when the rulers constantly told them that they were fit only
for 'benevolent' or 'oriental' despotism. Moreover, a large number of nationalist political
workers were trained in the art of modem politics, and the people familiarised with the concepts
and ideas of modem politics.

Most of all they did pioneering work in mercilessly exposing the true character of British
imperialism in India. They linked nearly every important economic question with the politically
dependent status of the country. And, therefore, even though they were moderate in politics and
political methods, they successfully brought to light the most important political and economic
aspect of the Indian reality - that Indian being ruled by a foreign power for the purposes of
economic exploitation. Any regime is politically secure only so long as the people have a basic
faith in its benevolent character or they are at east willing to acquiesce in its continuation. This
provides legitimacy to the regime; this is its moral foundation. The economic agitation of the
early nationalists completely undermined this moral foundation of British rule.' (Source: Ibid. pp.
74-75)

They further comment: 'the period from 1858 to 1905 was the seed-time of Indian
nationalism; and the early nationalists sowed the seeds well and deep ......Instead of basing their
nationalism or appeals to shallow sentiments and passing emotions, or abstract rights of freedom
and liberty, or on obscurantist appeals to the past, they rooted it in a hard-headed and penetrating
analysis of the complex mechanisms of modem imperialism and the chief contradiction between
the interests of the Indian people and the British rule .........The result was that they evolved a
common political and economic programme which united rather than divided the different
sections of the people ......Later on Indian people could gather round this programme and wage
powerful struggles'. (Source: Ibid. pp. 75-76)

Here it may be remembered what were the principal economic impacts of the changes the
colonial British introduced. The most important impact was
{a) the transformation of the village economy,
{b) the introduction of private property in land,
(c) a new land revenue system,
(d) commercialisation of agriculture by the introduction of cash crops
(e) ruination of village handicrafts all of which caused rural indebtedness and poverty
not to mention led to the transfer of land from cultivating to non-cultivating owners.

Naturally therefore peasant movements were so widespread. Also movements by tribals

were witnessed. Women for the first time also started stepping out of the homes and
participating.

41
 At the turn of the century and in the decades immediately before and after, important
changes took place in the character of the national movement. In brief the era of the moderates
gradually gave way to the era of the extremists.

It was a combination of factors that resulted in hardening of views leading up to the

beginning of an extremist approach. On the one hand was the total failure of the old guard
moderates to achieve much in terms of concessions and rights won from the British and a very
hostile attitude that they (the British) adopted towards Indian leaders and on the other hand was
the coming forward of a much larger cJass of Indians, particularly young people, who were
growing very impatient and disappointed with their lot. They were upset with both their
economic lot and the total lack of advancement of political rights and freedoms under the
Congress leadership of the moderates. For the first time there was a cJass of educated
unemployed. Also the economic misery of the peasants and workers bad continued to increase all
throughout the second half of the nineteenth century and by the turn of the century it was worse
than at any time before, with famines being a regular affair in the countryside and near slavery
like conditions of workers in plantations and factories and mines, even in those owned by
Indians. In such dire circumstances the role of religious revivalists also became important who
reminded Hindus in particular of their glorious past of the Vedas and Upanishads and inspired
them to bold action and the spirit of sacrifice of the sort they had not contemplated before.

Interestingly some moderate leaders had almost foreseen the arrival of extremism. D.E.
Wacha for instance had written to Dadabhai Naoroji in a letter dated 12th of January, 1905 that:
'The very discontent and impatience it (the congress) has evoked against itself as slow and non­
progressive among the rising generation are among its best results or fruits. It is its own
evolution and progress ...(the task is) to evolve the required revolution - wnether it wouW be
peaceful or violent. The character of the revolution will depend upon the wisdom or on-wisdom
of the British Government and action of the British people.' (Source: Bipan Chandra, Amales Trpathi,
Barun Dey, 'Freedom Struggle', National Book Trust, New Delhi, 1994, p.75 [quoted in])

The British government had grown increasingly vary of the motives of the Congress over
the years and by the beginning of the twentieth century was definitely quite hostile to anything it
proposed. So the moderates were cJearly failing. Gokhale, almost the chief ideologue of the
moderates, expressed their frustration when be complained in his last years that, "the
bureaucracy was growing frankly selfish and openly hostile to National aspirations. It was not so
in the past''. (Source: Official History of 1he Indian National Congress, 1935, p. 151) There was a constant
attempt to pass draconian legislations and firmly deal with the ever restless Congress leaders by
arrests and deportations. There was even an attempt made to undermine the movement by
separating muslims and encouraging them to see the Congress as a Hindu organisation.
Ultimately this effort was to bear tremendous fruits for the British because first Sir Syed Ahmed
Khan and later M.A. Jinnah broke away from the Congress effort and ultimately caused the
partition of India at the time of independence.

However, the immediate cause or trigger of tbe rise of the extremists was the decision of the
British to partition Bengal, which gave a huge boost to the Swadeshi Movement and made it a
nationwide mainstream mass movement. This was a dramatic development which really changed

42
the course of the freedom struggle. Bipan Chandra and others comment on the rise of the
movement an cites the evidence for it as follows:
'The Swadeshi Movement had its genesis in the anti-partition movement which was started to
oppose the British decision to partition Bengal. There was no questioning the fact that Bengal
with a population of 78 million (about a quarter of the population of British India) had indeed
become administratively unwieldy. Equally there was no escaping the fact that the real motive
for partitioning Bengal was political. India nationalism was gaining in strength and partition
expected to weaken what was perceived as the nerve centre of Indian nationalism at the time.
The attempt, in the words of Lord Curzon, the Viceroy,(1899-1905) was to 'dethrone Calcutta'
from its position as the 'centre from which the Congress Party is manipulated throughout Bengal,
and indeed, the whole of India .....The centre of successful intrigue,' and 'divide the Bengali
speaking population.' Risley, the Home Secretary to the Govemmenc of India. was more blunt.
He said on 6 December 1904: 'Bengal united. is power, Bengal divided, will pull several
different ways. That is what the Congress leaders feel; their apprehension\ are perfectly correct
and they fonn one of the great merits of the scheme ...in this scheme .... one of our main objects is
to split up and thereby weaken a solid body of opponents to our rule.'
(Source: Bipan Chandra and others, 'India's Strugglt for Independence', Penguin Books. Ntw Delhi, 1989, pp.
124-125)

Lord Hardinge even admitted later that "the desire to aim a blow at the Bengalis
overcame all other considerations" when the decision to partition Bengal was taken.

When faced with the huge public outrage and fury over the decision. the reaction of
Lord Curzon was finn and despotic. He wrote to the Secretary of State saying: 'If we are weak
enough to yield to their clamour now, we shall not be able to dismember or reduce Bengal again;
and you will be cementing and solidifying a force already formidable, and certain to be a source
of increasing trouble in the future'. (Source: Ibid.) The most sinister aspect of the move though was
the attempt at communalising the situation and dividing Hindus and Muslims to prop up Muslim
communalists as a counter to the Congress and the National Movement. Curzon was blunt in his
wooing of muslims. In a speech at Dacca he told Bengali Muslims that partition would enable
them to have Dacca as the capital of a new Muslim majority province and which would 'invest
the Mohammedans in Eastern Bengal with a unity which they have never enjoyed since the days
of the old Mussulman Viceroys and Kings' and the muslims would get a 'better deal' and would
be freed of the 'pernicious influence of Calcutta'. (Source; Ibid. [quoted in])

The public outrage and spontaneous protest against it was unprecedented. In the first two
months following the announcement 500 meetings were held in Eastern Bengal alone. Fifty
thousand pamphlets authored by leaders like Surendranath Banerjea were distributed and the
nationalist vernacular press launched a sustained attack in its daily publications. Vast protest
meetings were held in the town halls particularly in Calcutta and _petitions were sent to the
secretary of state. Of the _petitions sixty nine memoranda were sent from the Dacca division alone
and some were signed by as many 70000 people, a huge number given the level of politicisation
of those times. Leaders like Surendranath Banerjea, even though be was moderate toured the
country asking people to boycott Manchester cloth and Liverpool salt. On September 1si_ 1905
the government announced that partition would ta1ce effect from 161h of October. Immediately
protest meetings were held all over Bengal the very next day. Many of these meetings drew
crowds of ten to twelve thousand, a very large number for those days, which rattled the British
administration. The success of the movement can be gauged from the fact that the value of
British cloth sold in some of the mofussil districts fell by five to fifteen times between September

43
1904 and September 1905. The actual day of partition was declared a day of mourning in Bengal
and people fasted and no fires were lit at the cooking hearth. In Calcutta a hartal was declared.
People took out processions and band after band walked barefoot, bathed in the Ganges in the
morning and then paraded the streets singing Bande Mataram which almost became like the
anthem of the movement. People tied rachis on each other's hand as a symbol of the unity of the
two halves of Bengal. Later in the day Anadamohan Bose and Surendranath Banerjea addressed
two huge mass meetings, which drew crowds of 50000 to 70000 people. This was the biggest
meeting ever held under the nationalist banner ever anywhere before. Within a few hours of the
meeting Rs.50000 was raised for the movement. Up to this time, not withstanding the strong
Hindu cultural undercurrent in term symbolisms anyway that had come to the fore in the
movement and the constant efforts to divide the people along Hindu-Muslim lines by the British,
there was some level of unity which was to be destroyed later. For instance, while describing the
success of the movement against the partition of Bengal, Abdul Rasul, the President of the
Barisal Congress m April 1906 said: 'What we couJd not have accomplished in 50or 100 years,
the great disaster, the partition of Bengal, has done for us in six months. Its fruits have been the
great national movement known as the Swadeshi Movement'. (Source: ibid. ,p. 127 [quoted in])

The leaders running the show were mostly the moderate Congress leaders only who were
professionals and liberals from professions like law, journalism and academics. It is interesting
to note that this was the time when moderate techniques had full sway. The people and their
leaders were content to adopt methods like petitions, memoranda, speeches, public meetings and
press campaigns. No violent or even mildly confrontationist in a violent sense was contemplated
at all. In fact this was possibly why even zamindars and rich merchants who had hitherto kept
away from supporting the congress joined and offered support to the cause. Also of course for
the first time perhaps women came out in the struggle as well. But the real moving force behind
the movement for the first time were students who formed the bulwark of the anti-partition and
Swadeshi campaigns.

The leaders bad hoped that with their political action sufficient force of public opinion
would be created in Indian and England to force the government to relent and reverse the
partition of Bengal. Needless to say no such thing happened. This was to prove to be a major
disappointment, which among otber reasons, one may safely assume caused the eventual
subconscious shift in public consciousness towards a more extremist approach.

Even though the Swadeshi Movement was started with a resolution in the Town Hall of
Calcutta on 7th of August, 1905 in a meeting called to protest the partition decision, the anti­
partition movement and the Swadeshi movement were the work of the entire national leadership
and the whole of the national movement against British rule got energised a sa consequence.
Gokhale presiding over the Benaras Congress, referred to the partition as a 'cruel wrong' and "a
complete illustration of the worst features of the present system of bureaucratic rule, its utter
contempt for public opinion, its arrogant pretensions to superior wisdom, its reckless disregard of
the most cherished feeling of the people .. .Its cool preference of service interests to those of the
governed'. (Source: Bipa11 Chandra, Am.ales Trpathi, Banm Dey, 'Freedom Struggle', National Book Trust, New
Delhi, 1994, p.83 [quoted in])

The idea of Swadeshi had not been new though by this time. Gopal Rao Deshmukh, G.V.
Joshi and M.G. Ranade of Maharashtra and Rajnarain Bose, Nabagopal Mitra and the Tagore
Family of Bengal had been votaries of Swadeshi for long. As early as 1870 Bholanath Chandra
bad recommended boycott of British goods to bring pressure on the British public. Tilak had run

44
a constant boycott campaign. So be worked very hard in making the Swadeshi Movement a
success in Poona and Bombay. Ajit Singh and La1a Lajpat Rai spread the message of boycott in
Punjab and other parts of India and Syed Haider Raza led the movement in Delhi. Chidambaram
Pillai led the movement in the Madras Presidency where B.C. Pal also carried out a fiery lecture
tour. The boycott message also spread to Kangra, Jammu, Multan and Haridwar. The Swadeshi
Movement in many ways crated the statures or identities of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, B. C. Pal and
Lala Lajpat Rai in the combined famous christening of 'Lal-Bal-Pal' that became so famous. It
had been realised by the end of the first decade of the new century that Swadeshi and boycott
should be complementary and one can't succeed without the other. This though did for the first
time bring out in the open the differences in approach and beliefs of the Moderates and the
Extremists. The moderates were not opposed to the idea of adopting 'Swadeshi' but they were
against the idea of adopting boycott of English goods as a political weapon. They felt this would
harm the movement because they still saw the English people and Parliament as reasonable
quarters in whose sense of reason and fair play a successful appeal could be made. Also many of
the moderates were not fighting for complete independence but for some sort of self-rule or self­
governing system that they agreed to call 'Swarajya'.

Here lay a major difference between the moderates and the extremists and also the major
reason why extremists progressively began to appeal more to the masses than the moderates. The
moderates all through had taken a public position that was ultimately accepting of British rule in
a sense and merely sought some form of partial self-government at best like in Australia or
Canada. There is a belief among historians that this approach was basically strategic and was
adopted merely because the moderates realised that they were in no position to take on the might
of the British Empire. While that may have been true of some of the leaders if not all, it is
nevertheless instructive to peruse some of the public declarations of the early nationalist or
moderates which made it easy for the extremist later to attack them or their pro-western
orientation and consequent unfitness for running the national movement. Ananda Mohan Bose
for instance, the President of the 1998 Congress had declared in that meeting that "the educated
classes are the friends and not the foes of England - her natural and necessary allies in the great
work that lies before her". Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, later to be the chief of the moderate camp in
the power struggle against the extremists had declared in 1890: "I have no fears but that British
statesmen will ultimately respond to the Call". Surendranath Banerjea, another moderate
stalwart, had proclaimed that the ideal of Congressmen was to "work with unwavering loyalty to
the British connection - for the object was not the suppression of British rule in India, but the
broadening of its basis, the liberalising of its spirit. the ennobling of its character and placing it
on the unchangeable foundation of a nation's affections". (Source: R.P. Dutt, 'India Today', Manislia
Publishus, Calcuna, p. 322[quoted in})

Even as the moderate leaders took such postt1ons the economic lot of the people
particularly of farmers and workers continued to worsen. Even educated people began to find it
difficult to be economically successfully. �d along with that emerged particularly in Bengal
and Maharashtra a sort of cultural revivalism based on Hinduism that hadn't been seen before.
Bankimchandra's hymn Bandemataram in Bengal helped revive the cult of the Mother Goddess
and the culture of violent physical revolution to overthrow enemies that went along with it. In
Maharashtra, Tilak played the most important role, successfully giving a nationalist edge to the
movement based on Hindu culture. Also the institution of celebrating Ganesh Puja, which was
started at about this time played a very important role in consolidating this process. The
Ramakrishna Movement and Swami Vivekananda in particular with his rousing and blood
stirring spee ches roused the whole of India. He declared: 'If there is a sin in the world, it is

45
weakness; avoid all weakness, weakness is sin, weakness is death ...Ant.I here is the test of
truth .... anything that makes you weak physicaJly, ioteJJectually and spiritually, reject as poison,
there is no life in it, it cannot be true'. Vivekananda was a genuine social reformer though who
boldly declared that religion was not for empty bellies and asked first of all for India to be freed
of the ancient sources of weaknesses emanating from the caste system and the practice of priest
craft and of extreme poverty and deprivation. He asked "When, 0 Lord, shall our land be free
from the eternal dwelling upon the past?". His speeches al the World Parliament of Religions
created a huge impact and gave a sudden sense of immense pride and confidence in the
intellectual and philosophical legacy of ancient Hind texts particularly the Upanisads that Swami
referred to as the 'Vedanta'. He boldly declared that it had been the mjssion of India and Indian
culture throughout history to pursue the highest spiritual and philosophical goals as opposed to
the materialism of the west from which also emanated their need for colonial expansion. Later
Swami Dayanand's work with the Arya Samaj put down the roots of the same message in the
north.

A major benefit of this cultural revivalism was that Indians felt the need for full self­
reliance in economic activity. Indians therefore started chemical factories and soap factories and
even a steam ship company was started so that dependence on British companies could be
avoided. The share capital of the Tata Steel Company was easily subscribed to by Indians and
the company could start operations eventually.

B.G. Tilak was the most importatn leader of the extremists. Other important leaders were
B.C. Pal and Arubindo Ghosh from Bengal. Lala Lajpat Rai also supported the extremists when
the difference between the moderates and extremists came out in the open. The extremists asked
for three important changes from that of the moderates: first, hey wanted the people of India to
arise and demand full and complete freedom or Puma Swaraj as opposed to some sort of self­
governing system won by appealing to the the benevolence and sense of fair play of the British
parliament and people. They believed that full freedom should be snatched from the British by
the Indian people rising together as one and in doing so no suffering or sacrifice should be too
much for the Indian people. Therefore they were quite willing to boycott foreign goods in the
adoption of swadeshi even if by doing that they hurt the interests of common businessman and
worker of Britain as opposed to the British Indian Government and thereby create ill will.
Secondly they totally repudiated the notion that Indian needed the 'benevolent guidance' and
assistance of Britain and the British system of advanced education and technical and scientific
capabilitjes for rapid development They believed that because they were the sons and daughters
of an ancient and possibly superior culture they were good enough to bring about all the
development that the people of India needed. They therefore wanted complete independence and
immediately. Thirdly, unlike the moderates who were ever wary of the power of the British
Empire to quell any attempt by Indians to seek freedom at once by use of their superior military
and administrative strengths, the extremists had a fanatical and almost mythological belief in the
power of the Indian masses to prevail and win freedom through mass action.

Apart from lhe Swadesru and the boycott of foreign goods to which the moderates had
agreed with the greatest of reluctance and only for a temporary period, the extremists extended
the tool of boycott to government schools and colleges, courts, titles and even essential
government services. They also took to the organisation of massive strikes to make operation of
the British government impossible. Their declared that their aim was to 'make the administration
under present conditions impossible by an organised refusaJ to do anything which shall help
either the British Commerce in the exploitation of the country or British officialdom in the

46
administration of it'. They took control of the Swadeshi movement in Bengal after 1905 and
launched into a fierce campaign of boycott and resistance. Initially they were intending only to
oppose by the power of peaceful resistance but some like Aurobindo Ghosh had kept open the
option of resorting to violence if all else failed and the British resorted to ruthless suppression as
he feared they would. Aurobindo Ghosh also chose to describe the Indian nation as a mother
goddess, the first time this was done, and declared that participation in the struggle was worship.
Later during the revolutionary terrorist phase taking purifying dips in the Ganges and praying in
Kali temples before launching attacks became the norm for the terrorists. Initially though they
imagined that perfectly peacefully when everybody from the clwwkidar to the constable, the
deputy and the munsif and the clerk to the sepoys and the soJdiers of the armed forces all
unitedly and together resigned from their functions, British rue would find it difficult to operate
for even half a second.

The boycott of foreign goods was the technique of resistance of the extremists that met
with the greatest success. Apart from boycott of foreign goods, even picketing of shops selling
foreign goods became commonplace in even remote towns and villages. Women refused to wear
bangles that were not Indian and washermen refused to wash foreign clothes and in some places
even priests refused to accept offerings that contained foreign sugar.

Unlike at anytime before mass protests, processions and public meetings now
became important tools to make the depth of Swadesbi nationalist sentiment obvious
because for the first time masses really were participating. Corps of volunteers or
samitis was another tool that was developed by the extremists with great effect. The
Swadeshi Bandhab Samiti set up by Ashwani Kumar Dutt, a school teacher, in Barisal
in eastern Bengal attracted great attention becase it had 159 branches that covered the
remotest corners of the district and Dutt was able to generate mass following that
distinguished itself by the fact that while he, the leader, was Hindu, most of his
followers were the Muslim peasantry of the region. The samitis took the message of
Swadeshi to the villages through lectures and songs with the help of magic lanterns and
gave physical and moral training to their members. They also did social work during
famines and epidemics, organised schools, and trained people in Swadeshi crafts and
ran arbitration courts so that people can solve their disputes without turning to the
British legal system. By august 1906 the Barisal Samiti had reportedly settled 523
disputes through eighty-nine arbitration committees totally alarming the British
administration. Within a few years though when the British cracked down on the
extremists Ashwani Kumar Dutt was among the leaders from Bengal to be deported.

The Ganapati and Sbivaji Festivals made popular by Tilak in Maharashtra became a
powerful tool to spread the message and were also adopted in Bengal where jatras (village
drama shows) were extensively used to transmit political ideas at the village level where people
got exposed to modern political ideas (of representative democracy) for the first time. Tilak's
role cannot be over emphasised. He devoted his entire life to the freedom movement. He was a
graduate of the Bombay University and started many newspapers and journals. He used his talent
for journalism to mould public opinion in favour of the political aims and objectives of the
national struggle. Along with G.G. Agarkar he founded the English newspaper Maratha and
another in Marathi called the Kesari. Significantly Tilak was the first one to advice peasants in

47
 Maharshtra to not pay the exploitative and totally tructive land revenues when their crops
failed owing to drought or famine or pestilence. WhetViceroy Elgin imposed an excise duty on
Indian mill-made cloth to aid British imports, be lau ched a campaign for the boycott of English
cloth. The British got very alarmed with Tilak and arrested him in 1897. He was charged with
spreading hatred and disaffection against the Government which led to the killing of British
Plague Officers, Rand and Ayerst. His defence was bold and unflinching and he roared like a
lion in court, which was reported by the nationalist press on a day to day basis. He refused to
apologise for having spread disaffection and accepted the 18 months of rigorous imprisonment
that was laid down for him with pride. His bold example and sacrifice had a huge impact on the
nation and the whole nation was filled with a surge of nationalist emotion.

Marxist historians like R.P. Dutt have taken a less than lionising view of the stance and
activities of the extremists. He comments as follows on the rise and growth of the extremists:
"The starting point of the opposition leadership, as against the Old Guard, was undoubtedly the
desire to make a break with compromising policies of conciliation with imperialism, and to enter
on a path of decisive and uncompromising struggle against imperialism. To this extent they were
a radical and potentially revolutionary force. But this desire was still a subjective desire on their
· part. There was no basis yet of the mass movement to make such a decisive struggle possible.
Their appeal reached to the discontented lower middle class and to the hearts of the literate
youth, especially to the poorer students and the new growing army of unemployed or poorly paid
intellectuals, whose situation was becoming increasingly desperate in the opening years of the
twentieth century, as it became manifest that there was no avenue or fulfilment for them under
imperialist conditions, and who were little inclined to be patient with the slow and comfortable
doctrines of gradual advance preached by the solidly established upper class leaders. Such
elements can provide, in periods of social transition and the impending break-up of an old order,
very considerable dynamic forces of unrest and potential revolutionary energy� but they are by
the nature of their situation incapable of realising their aspirations, until they find their role in
relationship to the mass movement, and can only seek satisfaction either in exalted verbal
protest, or in anarchist individualist and ultimately politically ineffective forms of action.

Had the new leaders been equipped with a modem social and political outlook. they
would have understood that their main task and the task of their supporters lay in the
development of the organisation of the working cJass and of the mass of the peasantry on the
basis of their social, economic and political struggle for liberation. But to have demanded such
an understanding in the conditions of the first decade of the twentieth century in India would
have been to demand an understanding in advance of the existing stage of social development.

Cut off from any scientific social and political theory, the new leaders sought to find the
secret of the compromising in-effectiveness of the Moderate leaders in their "denationalised"
"Westernising" tendencies. and concentrated their attack against these tendencies. Thus they
fixed their attack against precisely those tendencies in respect of which the older Moderate
leaders were progressive. Against these, they sought to build the national movement on the basis
of the still massive forces of social conservatism m India, on the basis of Orthodox Hinduism
and the affirmation of the supposed spiritual superiority of the ancient Hindu or "Aryan"
civilisation to modern "western" civilisation. They sought to build the national movement, the
most advanced movement in India, on the basis of Orthodox Hinduism and the affinnation of the
supposed spiritual superiority of the ancient Hindu or•· Aryan" civilisation to modem "Western"
civilisation. They sought to build the national movement, the most advanced movement in India,
on the basis of the most antiquated religion and religious superstitions.' (Source: R.P. Dutt, 'India

48
 R.P. Dutt points out as evidence of this
Today'. Manislw Publishers, Calcuua, l11dia, 1970, pp. 324-25)
new alliance between radical nationalism and Orthodox Hinduism the support that Tilak offered
for instance in 1890 to the fight against the Age of Consent Bill. which sought lo raise the age of
consummation of marriage of girls from ren years to twelve year�. Older moderates stalwarts like
Justice Ranade had fought long and for this Bill to be passed. which they had advocated as an
essential social refonn legislation to the British. Tilak later organised Cow Protection Societies
and was of course the prime mover behind the cult of Ganapati lhat caught on hugely and aided
this new form of extremist and militant nationalism that exlremisl leaders like him hoped to
foster. In Bengal the cult of won.hipping the Mother Godess Kali that overnight became a rage
was symptomatic of the same phenomenon. So R.P. Dutt further comments:
'It is necessary to recognise the national patriotic purpose which underlay these religious fonns.
Beneath the protection of the religious cover widespread national agitation was conducted
through annual festivals and mass gatherings. an organisation was developed with the formation
of leagues under religious titles and gymnastic societies of the }Outh. Under conditions of sever
imperialistic repression of all direct political agitation and organisation, before the national
movement had reached any mass basis, the use of such forms was justifiable. It was not a
question, however, only of the formal cover. or of the historical form of growth of a political
movement. The insistence on orthodox religion as the heart of the national movement, and the
proclamation of the supposed spiritual superiority of the ancient Hindu civilisation to modem
"Western" civilisation (what modem psychologists would no doubt term a compensatory
delusion), inevitably retarded and weakened the real advance of the national movement and of
political consciousness, while the emphasis on Hinduism must bear a share of the responsibility
for the alienation of wide sections of Muslim opinion from the national
movement.................. How this outlook arose we have seen. The Orthodox Nationalists saw
the old upper-class Moderate leaders saturated with the "denationalised" outlook and methods,
learning, social life and politics of the British bourgeoisie. Against this "denationalisation" or
capitulation to British culture they sought to lead a revolt. But on what basis could they lead a
revolt? . They were themselves, in fact, tied to the narrow range of the bourgeois outlook
(socialism had not yet in practice made any contact with Indian political life at that time), and
hence could not see with critical understanding the workings of capitalism alike on its positive
side and its negative side. In consequence they could not see that the so-called "British" culture
they were denouncing was in reality the culture of capitalism� that the national movement, in so
far as it was led by the bourgeois. could not yet transcend that basis; and that the only final
progressive opposition to that culture could come fonn the working class. They could not. on the
basis of experience then in India, have any conception of the rising working class outlook and
culture which alone can be the alternative and successor to bourgeois culture going beyond it,
taking what is of value and leaving the rest. Therefore, when they came to look for a firm ground
of opposition to the conqueror's culture. they could only find for a basis the pre-capitali\t culture
of India before the conquest............Against the overwhelming nood of British bourgeois
culture and ideology, which they saw complete!) conquering the Indian bourgeois and
intelligentsia, they sought to hold forward the feeble shield of a reconstructed Hindu ideology
which had no longer any natural basis for its existence in actual !ife conditions. All social and
scientific development was condemned by the more extreme devotees of this gospel as the
conquerors' culture: every form of antiquated tradition, even abuse, privilege and obscurantism,
was treated with respect and veneration ...... So it came about that these militant national leaders
of the people, devoted and fearless as many of them were. who should have been leading the
people forward along the path of emancipation and under,tanding. away from all the evil relics
of the past. appeared instead in practice as the champions of social reaction and superstition, of
caste division and privilege. as the allies of all 1he "black" forces. seeking to hold down the

49
antiquated pre-British social and ideological fetters upon the people in the name of a high-flown
mystical "national" appeal ....The Orthodox Nationalists believed that in this way they were
building up a mass national movement of opposition to imperialism. Only so can be explained
that a man of the intellectual calibre of Tilak should have lent himself to such agitations as his
campaign in defence of child-marriage or his cow Protection Society . ... But this policy was, in
fact, not only vicious in principle, but mistaken in tactics. It not only inevitably weakened the
advance of the political consciousness and clarity of the movement (nearly all the best-known
leaders of Extremism moved later in varying degree to co-operation with imperialism, or to
speculative abstraction from politics, and found themselves out of sympathy with the subsequent
advance of the movement), but also divided the advancing forces. The programme of social
reaction alienated many who would have been ready to support a more militant national policy,
but were too clear sighted to accept the reactionary and metaphysical rubbish which was being
offered as a substitute for a left-wing programme'. (Source: Ibid. Pp. 326-28) He further comments
that 'Orthodox Nationalists, while building on the religious basis for their argument, could derive
no weapon or plan of action there from save the universal weapon of desperate, but impotent,
petty-bourgeois elements divorced from any mass movement - individual terrorism. Even here
the fruits of the very vague general religious incitation and exaltation, and formation of secret
societies, were very meagre .. ... ....When by 1905 the situation was ripe for a new stage of
struggle, the main weapon which was found was one which was remote from all the previous
religious and metaphysical speculations, and bore an essentially modem and economic character
- the weapon of the economic boycott. In the choice of this weapon, which was the only possible
effective weapon at the time, was expressed the bourgeois character of the movement; and
indeed support of this weapon was taken up by the Moderate leaders'. (Source: Ibid. p.329)

By 1908 the extremist phase in the national movement, for all its impact, had begun to
fail. The British were quite alarmed by the violent revolutionary potential of the movement that
was developing and decided to finish it off by a following two-pronged strategy. One, by cruelly
and ruthlessly curbing the extremists and the other by accentuating and encouraging the
difference between the moderates and the extremists. They decided to pretend to take measures,
which will create the impression that the moderates were achieving success in their goals, so that
the extremist's approach would get discredited and people would feel wary of following them.
The repressive measures that were introduced were bans and controls on meetings, rallies and
processions and the press. Students wbo participated in the Swadeshi movement were expelled
from schools and colleges, debarred from applying for government service (the principal
economic attraction in seeking an education it may be imagined) and also fined School students
were arrested merely for singing national songs. There were 550 political cases filed before the
courts in Bengal alone. Also of course the police took to violently and brutaJly beating up
participants like never before.

In 1907 and 1908 nine major leaders of the movement in Bengal including Ashwani
Kumar Dutt and Krishna Kwnar Mitra were deported. Tilak was given a six years imprisonment
and in Punjab, Ajit Singh and Lajpat Rai were also deported. In Madras Chidambaram Pillai and
in Andhra Harisarvottam Rao were arrested. B.C. Pal retired from active politics in view of this
advancing age and in the face of the severe police repression. Aurobindo Ghosh had a spiritual
transformation and decided that he wanted to spend the Iest of his life like a Sanyasi in search of
the higher truths of Upanishadic Hinduism. He went away to Ponclichery and founded an ashram
there.

50
 Apart from this sudden exit of so many of the extremist voices the constant squabbling
within the Congress with the moderates and their gradual separation leading to a split in 1907
had left the movement considerably weakened. The bitterness between the two sides, moderates
and extremists, can be gauged from the following that H.A. Wadya, a leader close the moderate
stalwart Sir Pherozshah Mehta wrote in an article after referring to the extremists as the 'worst
enemies of our cause':
'The union of these men (the extremists) with the Congress is the union of a diseased limb to a
healthy body, and the only remedy is surgical severance, if the Congress is to be saved from
death by blood poisoning'. (Source: Bipan Chandra and others, 'India's Stmgg/e for Independence', Penguin
Books, New Delhi, 1989, p. 139)

This severance happened in the Surat Congress session in December of 1907. Before the
session there had been a rumour that the moderates would try to scuttle the four Calcutta
Resolutions of the earlier congress in Calcutta in 1906 in which the Moderates under Dadabhai
Naoroji bad somewhat compromised with the Extremists and agreed to many revolutionary
demands. The resolutions had accepted the for the first time the idea of a Swaraj, support for the
boycott of foreign goods which the moderates were ver uncomfortable about, support for
Swadeshi or indigenous industries and a campaign of National Education. So Swaraj, Boycott,
Swadeshi and National Education had become the four cardinal points of the Congress
programme. Also apart from the rumour there had been mass meetings held in Surat over three
days prior to the session in which much ridicule and venom had been heaped on the Moderates,
which had deeply hurt their senior leaders. When the session started the Extremists wanted a
guarantee on the four resolutions that they would be passed and to force the Moderates to do so
they opposed the duly elected President for the year, Rash Behari Ghosh who was a Moderate.
As soon as the session started because there were people on both sides who had come prepared
for confrontation, there was a chaos and people were fighting each other by shouting at each
other and throwing blows and chairs. Somebody in crowd threw a shoe at the dias, where
Pberozshah Mehta and Surendranatb Banerjea was sitting and the shoe hit Sir Pherozshah. As
soon as this happened the police came and cleared the hall and the Congress Session was over.
When the news spread of the breakdown of the congress there was gloom all over the country
among nationalists but the British were triumphant. Lord Minto wrote to Lord Morley that the
'Congress collapse' at Surat was 'a great triumph for us·. Bipan Chandra and others comment on
the opposing positions that the Extremists and the Moderates took as follows:
'Both sides had it wrong - from the nationalist point of view as well as their own factional point
of view. The Moderates did not see that the colonial state was negotiating with them not because
of their inherent political strength but because of the fear of the Extremists. The Extremists did
not see that the Moderates were their natural outer defence line (in terms of civil liberties and so
on) and that they did not possess the required strength to face the colonial state's juggernaut.
Neither saw that in a vast country like India run by a powerful imperialist nation only a broad
based united movement had any chance of success'. (Source: Ibid. p.139)

As has been mentioned above the British had decided particularly after the collapse of the
Surat Congress in 1907 that their strategy from them on apart from a brutal suppression of the
Extremists would also include granting some achievements to the Moderates to "rally'' to enable
them to capture the driving seat of the movement. So the British in 1909 under the so called
Morley-Minto Reforms extended the system of indirectl) elected representation under the
amended Indian Councils Act of 1892 by permitting a minority of such indirectly elected
representatives in the Central Legislative Council and a majority in the Provincial Councils. Both
the councils were advisory bodies and had no real powers. The Moderates saw this move as a

51
success of theirs and later when in 1911 the revision of the Partition of Bengal was announced,
the Moderates were convinced beyond all doubt that their was the right path and so the
spokesman of the Congress lost no time in declaring that "every heart is beating in unison with
reverence and devotion to the British throne, overflowing with revived confidence in and
gratitude towards British statesmanship". (Source: R.P. Dutt. 'India Today', Manisha Publishers, Calc11tta,
Indfa. 1970, p. 331 [quoted in])

So R.P. Dutt sums up the successes and failures of the Extremists as follows:
'The revision of the Partition of Bengal in 1911 represented a partial victory of the boycott
movement. The wave of struggle which had developed during the years 1906-1911, did not
maintain its strength during the immediately succeeding years; but the penuanent advance which
had been achieved in the stature of the national movement was never lost. Despite all the
limitations of the Extremist leaders of those pre-1914 years, they bad achieved a great and lasting
work; the Indian claim to freedom had for the first time during those years. been brought to the
forefront of world political questions; and the seed of the aim of complete national liberation,
and of determined struggle to achieve it, had been implanted in the political movement, and was
destined in the subsequent years to strike root in the masses of the people'. (Source: Ibid. pp. 331-32)

EXERCISE
1. What were the various phases of the nationalist movement? Discuss fully.

SUGGESTED READINGS
4. India's Struggle for Freedom, Bipan Chandra (& others), Penguin,
New Delhi, 1989

5. India Today, R. Palme Dutt, Manisha, Calcutta, 1970

6. Social Background of Indian Nationalism, A. R. Desai,
Popular Prakasban, Bombay, 1966

52
 LESSON 5
GANDID AND MASS MOBILISATION
Amaresh Ganguli
'Zakir Hussain College
University of Delhi

Objectives

After reading this article you will be familiar with:

► Gandhi's idea of the Indian National Identity
► The techniques adopted by Gandhi; non-cooperation and civil disobedience
► The K.hilafat movement and Gandhi's role

When Gandhiji emerged in the national movement after his South African experience in
the post first world period with the non-cooperation movement. India by this time had seen
through the peasant struggles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries including the revolt of
1857. The social reform movements - the Brahmo Samaj, Dayanand Saraswati's Arya Samaj
Movements etc passed into liberal phases subsequently with the formation of the Indian National
Congress in 1885 and leaders like Gokhale, Ranade, Dadabhai Naoroji, W.C. Banerjee etc. The
whole movement was socially forward but politically backward. It was the militant nationalism
of the famous Lal-Bal-Pal with their slogan of 'Swaraj is my birth right' to a revolutionary
terrorism with bombs, pistols, individual killings as a method with individual martyrs like Surya
Sen and Bhagat Singh which formed the backround to Gandhi's emergence.

It was only after this that the age of Gandhi began and his continued dominance and
leadership of the national movement as the pre-dominant leader of the Indian National Congress
till the achievement of independence. Therefore it was a challenge for the Indian nationalist
leadership to develop a national identity, a method of struggle and transform the movement into
a mass movement of the Indian people.

Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi is significant because he could understand and bring the
Indian masses - men and women - urban and rural - into the national movement. It was a radical
break from the earlier methods of struggle.

Before we start discussing Gandhi's views on nation, nationhood, or nationalism it is ,·

necessary to have a brief overview of the whole period of the freedom movement when Gandhi
occupied the centre stage. It is true that Gandhi could evolve a program of struggle which could
recognise the role of the masses and the mass actions which involved every section of the society
and for the first time it was under his leadership that Indian national movement became a multi­
class nationalist movement and it was under his leadership that masses came out to court arrest,
jails and cold face police firing and created an undying hatred against the British rule and a thrust
for swaraj or freedom. It should also be remembered that Gandhi provided a program of action
for each sections of the society. For peasantry, non-payment of land tax, for students, boycott of
educational institutions, for lawyers, desertion of the courts, for women - picketing the liquor
shops, foreign cloth shops and he asked the people as a whole to violate 'lawless laws' and it is

53
under his call that millions of Indian-. joined the demonstrations and marched into jails using
methods of satyagraha, non-cooperation, and civil disobedience. His use of hunger strikes, mass
demonstrations, deliberate courting of jails were the principal weapons which he added to the
nationalist struggle. The period between 1919 to independence is marked by three important
struggles - Non-cooperation movement of 1919. Civii Disobedience movement of J 930, with its
call of complete independence and the famous Quit Indian Movement of 1942.

The Non-cooperation movement was a significant movement because it unveiled in a real

sense and on a massive scale the satyagraha technique of Gandhi for the first time. The
movement, which lasted from 1920 to 1922 organised resistance to British occupation of India
through non-violent means like refusing to buy British goods, adopting local handicrafts and
klzadi, picketing of liquor shops etc. The Gandhian ideals of ahimsa or non-violence were put
into practice and demonstrated to hundreds of thousands of people and the British rulers for the
first tirnr on such a large scale. It is significant to remember the relentless colonial oppression,
exem•·. ed by the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, economic hardships of the common man, popular
reser ,nrnt with the British over Indian soldiers dying in World War I while fighting as part of
the British Army, in battles that othetwise had nothing to do with India all added to the
enthusiasm for the movement. Earlier political leaders like Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Annie
Besant. Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Bal Gangadhar Tilak for home rule were accompanied only
by petitions and major public meetings and never caused disruption or obstruction of government
services and perhaps that is why the British did not take them very seriously. at least partly. The
success of the revolt was a total shock to the British authorities. However on February 4, 1922, in
the Chauri Chaura, after violent clashes between the local police and the protestors in which
three protestors were killed by police firing, the police station was set on fire by the mob who
had been fired upon. killing 22 of the police officers present inside.

This was unacceptable to Gandhi's ideas of non-violence and be was disappointed that
the revolt had lost its non-violent character. Gandhi immediately appealed for the violent
resistances to end and even went on a fast lasting 3 weeks, and finally called off the mass civil
disobedience movement.

The Civil Disobedience Movement was launched under Gandhi's leadership in 1930. The
Simon Commission, constituted in November 1927 by the British Government to prepare and
finalize a constitution for India and consisting of members of the British Parliament only, was
boycotted by all sections of the Indian political groups at that time Including Congress as it was
an 'All-White Commission' consisting only of the British. There was massive opposition to the
Simon Commission in Bengal and a bartal or general strike was observed on 3 February 1928 in
various parts of the province. Massive demonstrations were held in Calcutta on 19
February1928, the day of Simon•� arrival in the city. On 1 March 1928, meetings were held
simultaneously in all thirty-two wards of Calcutta City urging people to renew the movement for
boycott of British goods.

Following the rejection of the recommendations of the Simon Commission by the

Indians, an All-Party Conference was held at Bombay in May 1928 presided by M A Ansari and
the Conference appointed a drafting committee under Motilal Nehru to draw up a constitution for
India. The Nehru Report was accepted by all sections of Indian society except by a section of
Indian Muslims. In December 1928, the Indian National Congress pressed the British
Government to accept the Nehru Report in its entirety. The Calcutta Session of the Indian
Congress (December 1928) virtually gave an ultimatum to the British Government, that if

54
dominion status were not conceded by December 1929, a countrywide Civil Disobedience
Movement would be launched. The British Government, however. declared in May 1929 that
India would get dominion status within the Empire very soon.

The most important action in the movement was the SALT SATYAGRAHA in which Gandhiji
undertook his most famous campaign, a march of about 400 kilometres [240 miles] from his
commune in Ahmedabad to Dandi, on the coast of Gujarat between 12 March and 6 April 1930.
The march is usually known as the Dandi March. At Dandi, in protest against British taxes on
salt, he and thousands of followers broke the law by making their own salt from seawater. It took
24 days to complete this march and along the way Gandhi addressed people and gave many
speeches.

In April 1930 there were violent police-crowd clashes in Calcutta. 100,000 people were
imprisoned. In Peshawar unarmed demonstrators were fired upon in the Qissa Khwani bazaar
massacre. This catapulted the then newly formed Khudai Khidmatgar movement (founded by
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi) onto the national scene. When Gandhi was in
jail, the first Round Table Conference was held in London in November 1930. without
representation from the Indian National Congress. The ban upon the Congress was removed
because of economic hardships caused by the long satyagraha campaign and Gandhi, along with
other members of the Congress Working Committee, was released from prison in January 1931
so that they may be able to attend the conference.

In March 1931, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed, and the British agreed to set all
political prisoners free. At this time the death sentence to revolutionary extremist Bhagat Singh
and his two comrades was not taken back by the British as demanded which further fired up the
peple and the masses. Gandhi agreed to discontinue the civil disobedience movement and
participate as the sole representative of the Congress in the second Round Table Conference,
which was held in London in September 1931. However, the conference ended in failure in
December 1931 and . Gandhi returned to India. The civil disobedience movement was resumed
in January 1932 and later the Quit India Movement of 1942 became the biggest civil
disobedience action on the satyagraha strategy of Gandhi.

It is in the background of the mass movements that Gandhi and his role must be understood.

Therefore the person Gandhi, his technique of struggle, his concept of national identity
was radically different as Professor Bhikhu Parekh has commented:
'He more or less completely bypassed the dominant nationalist vocabulary and showed that it
was possible to articulate and defend the case for independence in a very different language. He
showed that not every movement for independence is national, not every national struggle is
nationalist and that not every nationalist movement need articulate itself in the language of
European rather than home-grown theories of nationalism'. (Source: Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's
Political Philosophy, p. 3)

Many of the other leaders who came before Gandhi were western trained lawyers or
intellectuals and saw many positives to the Western British way of life and were demanding
from the British the same liberal system and parliamentary democracy on the basis of self­
determination that the British had in their own homeland and also hoped to stop the economic
exploitation of colonial rule. But Gandhi focussed on the way of life of the Indian village and its
thousands of years old substantially self-contained and self-sufficient system to argue for a
55
different kind of national life where that way of life would be valued and protected and it's
strengths fully taken advantage of in the interest of the nation. He also argued the basic purpose
of life in the Indian national understanding was spiritual growth (or attaining moksha) and one of
the best facilitators of this moral cultivation was the simple and sustainable way of life of the
Indian village.

Prof. Bhikhu Parekh has commented:

'For Gandhi British imperialism dominated India at three related but different levels. At the
political level the arrogant colonial government oppressed the lndian people and denied their
right to run their affair� themselves. At the economic level it exploited and impoverished them,
destroyed their indigenous industries and subordinated their interests to those of the British
economy. In Gandhj's view this was far more disturbing than political oppression and could
continue even if India became independent. At the most disturbing moral and cultural level 1
British imperialism destroyed the identity and integrity of Indian civilisation and turned the
Indians into brown Englishmen. Gandhi was convinced that the rule of British civilisation could
continue even if the British government were to stop ruling over India and British capital to
cease exploiting it. British imperialism was unacceptable not only because of its political and
even economic but moral and cultural consequences. The struggle against it had therefore to be
mounted and independence obtained at all three levels, especially the last. At the cultural level
the anti-imperialist struggle had to be fought on two fronts simultaneously. First, British
civilisation. which so infatuated and blinded the Indians to the moral enormity of foreign rule
and legitimised their economic and political domination must be subjected to a thorough-going
critique. Second, the basic structure of Indian civilisation, which they largely saw through the
biased British perspective. must be sensitively teased out and defended.

In interpreting British imperialism in this way, Gandhi integrated and went beyond the
three different types of critique advanced by his predecessors. Broadly speaking Dadabhai
Naoroji, Surendra Nath Banerjee. Gokhale and the so-called liberals had welcomed the political
and cultural advantages of British rule but attacked it on the grounds that it had drained India's
wealth, ruined its industries, imposed unfair trading arrangements and subordinated its economic
development to British colonial interests. Although mindful of its economic and cultural
consequences, the leader� of the terrorist movements in Bengal and Maharashtra attacked it on
political grounds and were the first to develop a distinctive theory of political as distinct from
cultural nationalism. They argued that the Indians have as much right to run their affairs as the
British had to run theirs. that coloniali m was a form of slavery and outrage to Indian dignity and
self-respect. and that the 'honour· of ·mother India· demanded that she should be freed of the
'foreign yoke·. In a culture which conceptualises energy in feminine terms and associates
activity and restlessness with woman and passivity and detachment with ma, it was not at all
surprising that the votaries of violence should have idealised 'mother' India and drawn
inspiration from the Godess Kali. Finally Vivekananda, B.C. Pal, Tilak and the so-called
conservative leaders concentrated on the need to preserve the integrity of traditional ways of life
and thought. They introduced the concept of Indian civilisation to match the one championed by
the British, sharply distingui!Jied the two and attacked foreign rule not so much because it
involved economic exploitation and violated Indian pride as because it imposed an alien
materialist civilisation on India's essentially spiritual one.

Gandlu's critique of British rule encompassed all three..............He was even more
sensitive to the integnty of Indian civilisation than were the conservative leaders. Indeed he
argued that most of them were even more interested in the ·synthesis' of the two civilisations
56
than in the integrity of their own, bad unwittingly reinterpreted and anglicised it far more than
they reaJised or cared to admit, and that their critique of British imperialism was half-hearted and
lacked moraJ depth. Gandhi's critique not only incJuded but also related and integrated the three
earlier critiques into a comprehensive theoretical framework. He argued that political
independence was important not only as an expression of India's pride and a necessary means to
stop its economic exploitation but also to preserve its civilisation, without which politicaJ
independence remained fragile. The economic exploitation had to be ended not only to sustain
Indian independence an� improve the living conditions of its people but also to preserve the
social and economic basis of its civilisation.' (Source: Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political
Philosophy, pp. 19-20)

In fact Gandhi saw India as a battleground between the immoral western civilisation of
which the British were an excellent example (and which he was convinced would ultimately not
last because it was based on immoraJ values like greed which led to violence) and the sustainable
moral civilisation of India where the focus was on helping each soul find his spiritual saJvation
or God. In fact even in his own life that was his priority.

He wrote once: 'I count no sacrifice too great for the sake of seeing God face to face. The
whole of my activity. whether it may be called social, political, humanitarian or ethicaJ, is
directed to that end. And as I know that God is found more often in the lowliest of His creatures
than in the high and mighty, I am struggling to reach the status of these. I cannot do so without
their service. Hence my passion for the service of the suppressed classes. And as I cannot render
this service without entering politics, I find myself in them.' (Source: Young India, 1924)

His chosen way of reaching God was thus service of the poor and the oppressed but in a
non-violent manner because violence would be sinful, non-spiritual, and non-religious. Thus he
could not agree with Communists for instance who suggested that the rich and powerful will not
give their relationship of dominance and exploitation of the poor and the weak without coercion
or force because it was not to their advantage. But Gandhi's approach was to strive for a change
of heart and shun violence strictly and under all provocations and circumstances.

He once told the wife of bis British surgeon in 1924: 'My own motive is to put forth all
my energy in an attempt to save Indian, that is, ancient culture, from impending destruction by
modem, that is, Western cuJture being imposed upon India. The essence of ancient culture is
based upon the practice of the utmost non-violence. Its motto is the good of all including every
living thing, whereas Western culture is frankJy based upon violence.' (Source: Gandhi to Mrs.
Maddock, Collected Works of MK Gandhi, Vol. 23, p. 243)

While Gandhi was critical of the modem western civilisation and saw it as a danger he
was not a nationalist in the narrow extreme sense, who hated other countries and wanted
domination over them to spread bis own version of what is superior civilisation. He was open to
eventuaJly spreading the message of his understanding of what should be a superior and
sustainable civilisation to the whole world eventually but only after first establishing it well in
the country of it's origin. In fact he was not averse to using the term Ram Raj even to refer to the
India of his dreams even though the term is obviously open to communally sensitive
interpretations.

57
 But he had clarified that by ' ..Ramraj l do not mean Hindu Raj. I mean by Ramraj Divine
Raj, The Kingdom of God'. (Source: Young India, Sept. 19, 1929) Further clarity on bis
conception of Ram Raj can be obtained from his other comments like:
'The Ramraj of my dream ensures the rights alike of prince and pauper.' (Source: Anand Bazar
Patrika, Aug. 2, 1934)
'There can be no Ramraj in the present state of iniquitous inequalities, in which a few roll in
riches and the masses do not get even enough to eat.' (Source: Harijan, June 1, 1947)
'The ancient ideal of Ramraj is undoubtedly one of true democracy, in which the meanest citizen
could be sure of swift justice without an elaborate and costly procedure.' (Source: Young India,
Sept. 19, 1929)

As is clear from the above, to understand Gandhian nationalism it is important to

understand his critique of modem western civilisation. Gandhi wanted Indian nationalism to be
about rejecting the British and western model of modem civilisation and a return to the basics of
what he saw as India's ancient genius. He was deeply aware that most people arguing for
freedom were not appreciative quite so much of the glory of that civilisation and merely wanted
a change of political rulers.

He once commented: '[You] want English rule without the Englishman. You want the
tiger's nature, not the tiger; that is to say, you would make India English. And when it becomes
English, it will be called not Hindustan but Englistan. That is not the Swaraj I want.' (Source:
Hind Swaraj, p. 15)

Prof. Bhikhu Parekh has succinctly explained Gandhi's understanding of modem civilisation as
fo1lows:
'For Gandhi modern civilisation was propelled by the two inter-related principles of greed and
want. It was controlled by 'a few capitalist owners' who had only one aim, to make profit, and
only one means to do so, to produce goods that satisfied people's wants. They had a vital vested
interest in constantly whetting jaded appetites, planting new wants and creating a moral climate
in which not to want the goods daily pumped into the market and to keep pace with the latest
fashions was to be abnormal and archaic. Indeed, since self-discipline or restriction of desires,
the very emblem of human dignity, threatened to cause mass unemployment, throw the economic
system out of gear and cause human suffering, it was seen as anti-social and immoral. Not
surprisingly men saw themselves not as self-determining moral subjects but as consumers or
vehicles for the satisfaction of externally-induced wants.

The capitalist search for profits led to mechanisation and 'industrialism'. For Gandhi
machines relieved drudgery, created leisure, increased efficiency and were indispensable when
there was a shortage of labour. Their use must therefore be guided by a well-considered moral
theory indicating how men should live, spend their free time and relate to one another. Since the
modem economy lacked such a theory and was only propelled by the search for profit, it
mechanised production without any regard for its wider moral, cultural and other consequences.
Machines were introduced even when there was no obvious need for them and were in fact likely
to throw thousands out of work. This was justified either in the name of increased leisure without
anyone asking why it was important and what to do with it, or of cheaper goods, as if man was
only a passive consumer and not an active moral being for whose sanity, self-respect and dignity
the right to work was far more important than the febrile gratification of trivial wants. Treated
with the veneration and awe accorded to Gods in primitive societies, machines had come to cast
a magic spell on modern man and followed their own will. For G andhi the mechanisation or

58
fetishism of technology was closely tied up with the larger phenomenon of industrialism, another
apparently self-propelling and endless process of creating larger and larger industries with no
other purpose than to produce cheap consumer goods and maximise profit. He argued that since
modern economic life followed an inexorable momentum of its own, it reduced men to its
helpless and passive victims and represented a new form of slavery, more comfortable and
invidious and hence more dangerous than the earlier ones.
Based on the belief that life was continuous motion and movement, that unless one was
constantly on the move one was not alive and that the faster the tempo of life the more alive one
was, modem civilisation was inherently re tless and intolerant of stability. It aimed to conquer
time and space and developed increasingly speedier mode of transport and communication. Cars
were replaced by trains and the later by planes, but no one asked why one needed to travel so fast
and what one intended to do with the time saved. Thanks to its restless and 'mindless activism'
incorrectly equated with dynamism and energy, modem civilisation undermined man's unity
with his environment and fellow men and destroyed stable and long-established communities. In
the absence of natural and social roots and stable and enduring landmarks which alone gave man
a sense of identity and continuity, modem man had become abstract, indetenninate and empty.
He was not internally or organically related to others and his relations with them were not
grounded in the sentiments of fellow feeling and good will. Everyone was a stranger to everyone
else and no one cared for or knew how to behave towards others .............

In Gandhi's view the exploitation of one's fellow men was built into the very structure of
modem civilisation. Consumers were constantly manipulated into desiring things they did not
need and which were not in their long-term interest. Workers were made to do boring jobs at
subsistence wages under inhuman conditions and given little opportunity or encouragement to
develop their intellectual and moral potential. The poor were treated with contempt and held
responsible for their own misfortunes. The weaker races were treated as if they were animals and
bought and sold and brutally exploited. The weaker nations were conquered, mercilessly
oppressed and used as dumping grounds for surplus goods and as sources of cheap raw materials.
For Gandhi imperialism was only an acute manifestation of the aggressive and exploiting
impulse lying at the very heart of modem civilisation and at work in all areas of human
relationships.' (Source: Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, pp. 22-23)

Gandhi was troubled by the fact that modem civilisation entailed a certain surrender of
the individual to the institutionalised modem state which undermined the individual's cultivation
of his human powers of self-determination, autonomy, self-knowledge (in the spiritual sense),
self-discipline and social cooperation. Gandhi was naturally therefore not very impressed by
modem institutions and systems of education, law, medicine, media etc and even the system of a
modem democratic state led by the functioning of a parliament at the top. Gandhi was deeply
disturbed by the education system that the modem British western state had imposed on India as
can be judged from his following comment in a letter to an associate:
'the system of education at present in vogue is wholly unsuited to India's needs, is a bad copy of
the Western model and it has by reason of the medium of instruction being a foreign language
sapped the energy of youths who have passed through our schools and colleges and has produced
an army of clerks and office-seekers. It has dried up all originality, impoverished the vernaculars
and has deprived the masses of the benefit of higher knowledge which would otherwise have
percolated to them through the intercourse of the educated classes with them. The system has
resulted in creating a gulf between educated India and the masses. It has stimulated the brain but
starved the spirit for want of a religious basis for education and emaciated the body for want of
training in handicrafts. It bas criminally neglected the greatest need of India in that there is no

59
agricultural training worth the name ......' (Source: Collected Works of MK Gandhi, Vol. 14)
Gandhi was deeply disturbed by the fact that modem western English education was creating a
divide in Indian society between those who were English educated and those who were not.
Professor Judith Brown in her biography of Gandhi bas explained how this led to Gandhi's
search for a common national language - probably one of the first people to carry out this task.
She has commented:
'His increasing emphasis on the divisiveness of contemporary Indian education showed his
growing identification with the poor in his homeland rather than with the educated with whom he
would naturally have fitted by virtue of his own education and professional training. His concern
for what education was doing to India and Indians also led him into deeper consideration of the
problem of finding a genuinely national language rather than English, with all its drawbacks of
social exclusiveness and association with the political and cultural rejection of the nation's own
rich heritage. As early as December 1916 he presided at a conference on this issue; in October
1917 he was president of a Gujarat educational conference at which he dealt with the question of
a national language as well as wider educational issues. His preference was for Hindi as spoken
by north Indians, Muslim and Hindu, which could be written in either Devanagri or Persian
scripts. This was to be a significant aspect of his work for a new national identity and true swaraj
until the end of his life'. (Source: Judith M. Brown, Gandhi - Prisoner of Hope, p. 107, Oxford
University Press)

Gandhi was against the whole attitude and approach of modern western allopathic
medical science. In fact in his own personal life he experimented with Indian healing methods
whenever possible in his ashrams and elsewhere and would be much disturbed if he had to see a
doctor either for himself or any of his family members.

Gandhi was also deeply distressed with the British system of law even though he was a
London trained lawyer himself professionally. Bhikhu Parekh has brought out Gandhi's
objections to the British system of legal dispute resolution rather well: 'Gandhi thought that ...
dehumanising phenomenon ... was evident in the field of law. Men were intelligent and moral
beings capable of resolving their differences by discussing them in the spirit of charity and good
will or by seeking the arbitration of widely respected men and women in their community.
Instead, every time he failed to get what he thought was his due, modem man rushed to the court
of law where trained experts in the esoteric body of legal knowledge conducted expensive and
incomprehensible debates about him without his participation. ...the legal establishment reduced
him to a case to be discussed as if he were a child to be tutored into what to say about his own
actions and incapable of participating in their evaluation. ... the legal system did little to develop
and mobilise man· s moral impulses and capacities for reflection and introspection. Instead it
required him to alienate them to a central agency telling him how to run his life and conduct his
relations with others, including his own neighbours, wife, ex-wife and children. Gandhi found it
strange that modem man who talked so much about his self-respect and dignity, did not find all
this deeply humiliating.' (Source: Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, p. 27)

In fact Gandhi was not convinced even by the western model of the state itself.

He once commented: 'The state represents violence in a concentrated and organised

form. The individual has a soul but the state is a soul-less machine, it can never be weaned from
violence to which it owes its very existence.' (Source: The Modem Review, Oct.1935)

60
 Prof. Bhikhu Parekh has explained well the reason why Gandhi saw the modem state as
violent: 'Gandhi argued that the highly centralised and bureaucratic modern state enjoying and
jealously guarding its monopoly of political power was a necessary product of modern
civilisation. Competitive and aggressive men ruthlessly pursuing their own intere ts could only
be held together by a well-armed state. Since they were all strangers to one another and lacked
the bond of good will and mutual concern, their relations could only be regulated by impersonal
rules imposed and enforced by such a powerful external agency as the state. The centralisation of
production in the modem economy created social and economic problems of national and
international magnitude, and again required a centralised political agency to deal with them.
Unemployment, poverty and the social and economic inequalities created by the modem
economy led to acute and legitimate discontent and required a well armed state to deter its
desperate citizens from resorting to violence. · Shorn of all the camouflage the exploitation of the
masses of Europe is sustained by violence'. Gandhi argued. The centralised modem state was
also necessary to protect international markets ad overseas investments ..............Even as the
state monopolised all political power, it tended to monopolise all morality. Since its atomic and
morally depleted citizens lacked organic bonds and the capacity to organise and run their social
relations themselves, the state wa.� the sole source of moral order. It alone guaranteed civiljsed
existence and saved society from social disintegration. As such it came to be seen as the highest
moral institution, whose preservation was a supreme moral value .........

Gandhi argued that. although the state claimed to be a moral institution transcending
narrow group interests and pursuing the well being of the whole community, it was in fact little
more than an arena of conflict between organised interests manipulated and controlled by the
more powerful among them. Since men of independent spirit and honour generally avoided it, it
was largely in the care of men and women forging convenient alliances with powerful interest
groups and using it to serve their interests. Gandhi thought that in these respects the democratic
governments were no better than the undemocratic and belonged to the 'same species'. They
were just as vulnerable to the pressures of the dominant class and just as 'ruthless' and ready to
use violence in the pursuit of its interests. In its actual practice a democracy was basically a form
of government in which a 'few men capture power in the name of the people and abuse it', a
'game of chess' between rival parties with the people aJ> 'pawns'. Although the fact that
democratic government was periodically elected by and accountable to ordinary people made a
difference, it also served as a 'camouflage' hiding the basic fact that the masses were often
'exploited by the ruling class ....under the sacred name of democracy'. Democracy thus veiled
and conferred moral legitimacy on the reality of exploitation, and had only a marginal moraJ
edge over fascism.' (Source: ibid., pp. 28-29)

Gandhi believed that parliament is basically a 'talking shop' where the political parties
manipulate public opinion to maintain their positions of power and sub-serve the interests of
powerful people and who followed the party line without referring issues to the test of their
consciences. Gandhi also felt in a electoral democracy the voters are susceptible to thinking
along the lines of short term interests and were influenced by the media. He saw the media
functioning of modem civilisation with deep suspicion. He once conunented on the newspapers
(there was no broadcast media or television at that time and newspapers were the main media
outlets) in Britain:
'To the English voters their newspapers is their Bible. They take their cue from their newspapers
which are often dishonest. The same fact is differently interpreted by different newspapers,
according to the party in whose interests they are edited.' (Hind Swamj, p. 33)

61
 Gandhi believed in a modern capitalist system independence of the press is a mere slogan
and media independence is impossible because the press was owned by the capitalist c]ass for
manufacturing public opinion. They were not concerned with truth but propaganda of what
served the interests of the owners and their friends and did nol serve the purpose of educating
public opinion.

Therefore for Gandhi the task was to build a new nation which will preserve its own
civilisation. This strength according to Gandhi was to be found mainly in the way of life and
civilisation of lndia·s villages. Bik.hu Parekh comments: 'In Gandhi's view every civilisation had
its own distinctive natura1 and social basis. Modern civilisation was born and couJd only survive
in the cities, and was naturally carried all over the world by the commercial classes. Indian
civilisation bad, by contrast, been cradled and nurtured in the villages, and only the rural masses
were its natural custodians. So long as their way of life was intact, its integrity and survival was
guaranteed. If the villages were to disappear and their traditional moral and social structure was
to be shattered, it would lose its socio-economic basis and its fate would be sealed forever. Since
the civilisations that had so far come to India were all rural and thus posed no threat to it, it was
easily able to accommodate and enter into a dialogue with them. Modem urban civilisation
presented a deadly and unprecedented challenge and required a most discriminating and cautious
response.' (Source: Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, p. 43)

Gandhi was convinced the British could conquer India mainly due to the selfishness and
lack of unity of Indians and a degeneration in the national character. He thus saw it as a priority
to rebuild the national character. Here his views are al.most identical to what Swami
Vivekananda had preached decades before. Gandhi came on the scene but could never gather
much of a national audience for it outside the educated classes. Gandhi like Swami Vivekananda
was particularly exercised about the degeneration of the Hindu character. He believed Indians
(and Hindus in particular) had lost courage, physical, intellectual and moral. They could not take
the moral decisions to decide what is right and wrong and then whatever the consequences stand
up for it. Thus Indians ended up compromising in all kinds of indignities and humiliations and
violations of the self-respect and personal dignity.

Gandhi thought Indians had lost the national character and 'would i;iot fearlessly walk to
the gallows or stand a shower of bullets and yet say "we will not work for you"'. (Source:
Collected Works, Vol 14, p. 510) Gandhi further analysed it was the lack of courage in the
national character that bred suspicion, distrust and jealousy and said 'What I would rid ourselves
of is distrust of one another and imputation of motives. Our sin is not our differences but our
littleness .... It is not our differences that really matter. It is the meanness behind it that is
undoubtedly ugly'. (Source: Young India, 16 Feb, 1934) Again that it was because of the
jealousy and mutual distrust that Indians were most 'uncharitable to one another' and blaming
others rather than themselves for their mistakes had 'become a second nature with them'.
(Source: Raglzavan Iyer, The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Oxford:
Claredon Press, 1987, vol. JI, p. 539) Gandhi was convinced the British East Indian Company
could not have established their presence in India leading to the eventual enslavement of India if
different groups of selfish Indians had not done private deals with them and instead stood up as
one in refusing to cooperate with the British empire. Bhikhu Parekh comments on bow Gandhi
also saw this as an explanation for the steady erosion of the ranks of the Hindus also. He says
Gandhi felt:
'Thanks to their preoccupation with narrow personal interests and mutual distrust, the Indians
lacked the capacity to pursue a common cause. Everyone went his own way and resisted the

62
 discipline of a common organisation. They were 'like children in political matters ....[who] do
not understand the principle that the public good is also one· s own good·. They did not take a
long term view of their interests and appreciate that these were best secured within a larger
organisational framework whose preservation benefited them all. In Gandhi's view they only
acted in a concerted manner when inspired and organised by great leaders and broke up into
loose atoms once the later disappeared.
Gandhi also pointed to the absence of a social conscience among bis countrymen. They were
'callous' about the conditions of the poor and underprivileged. Their doctrine of the unity of man
had remained merely 'philosophical' and was rarely practiced, which is why a large umber of
lower caste Hindus had embraced such egalitarian religions as Islam and Christianity.' (Source:
Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, pp. 47-48)

Gandhi's strong feelings about the inadequacy of the national character can be gauged from the
following words of his:
'What are OUT failings, then, because of which we are helpless and cannot stop the profuse flow
of wealth from OUT country, and in virtue of which our children get no milk, three crores of our
people get only one meal a day, raids occur in broad daylight in Kheda district, and epidemics
like plague and cholera cannot be eradicated in our country while they can in others? How is it
that the haughty Sir Michael O'Dwyer and the insolent General Dyer can crush us like so many
bugs and the priest in Shim.la can write unworthy things about us; how is it that an intolerable
injustice has been done to us in the Punjab?.

The reason is our inveterate selfishness, our inability to make sacrifices for our country,
our dishonesty, our timidity, our hypocrisy and our ignorance. Everybody is selfish, more or less,
but we seem to be more selfish than others. We make some self-sacrifice in family matters, but
very little of it for national work. Just look at our streets, our cities and our trains. In all these, we
can see the condition of the country. How little attention is paid to the condition of others in
streets, in the town as a whole and in trains?. We do not hesitate to throw refuse out of our
courtyard on to the street; standing in the balcony, we throw out refuse or spit, without pausing
to consider whether we are not inconveniencing the passers-by. When we are building a house,
we take little thought of the inconvenience that may be caused to our neighbours. In cities, we
keep the tap open, and thinking that it is not our water which flows away, we allow it to run
waste. The same thing is seen in the trains. We secure a seat for ourselves by book or crook and,
if possible, prevent others from getting in. No matter if others are inconvenjenced, we start
smoking. We do not hesitate to throw banana skins and sugar-cane peelings right in front of our
neighbours. When we go to draw from a tap, we take little thought for others. Many such
instances of our selfishness can be listed.

Where so much selfishness exists, bow can one expect self-sacrifice? Does the
businessman cleanse his business of dishonesty for the sake of his country? Does he forgo bis
profit? Does be stop speculation in cotton for his country's sake? Is any effort made to keep
down milk prices by giving up the profit from its export? How many give up a job when
necessary, for the sake of the country?

Where are the men who will reduce their luxuries and adopt simplicity and use the money
so saved for the country? If it is necessary for the country's sake to go to jail, bow many will
come forward? .
,,. Our dishonesty is there for all to see. We believe that business can never be carried on
honestly. Those who have the chance never refuse a bribe... Our hypocrisy is only a little less

63
than that of the British. We have experience of this every moment. In our meeting and in all
other activities of our lives, we try to show ourselves other than what we are.

We have made cowardice especially our own. Nobody wants bloodshed in connection
with non-co-operation, and yet it its out of this fear of bloodshed that we do not want to do
anything. We are possessed by the fear of the Government's armed might that we dare not take
any step. And so we submit to force in every matter and allow dacoits to plunder us in broad
daylight.

What shall I say about our hypocrisy? It has increased in every field. Weakness is always
accompanied by hypocrisy. Moreover, where the people want to be upright but can not be so,
hypocrisy will naturally increase� for, if we are not upright, we are anxious to seem so and thus
we add another moral weakness to the one which we already possess. Hypocrisy had entered our
religion as well, and that so fully that the marks which we put on our forehead, the rosary and
things of that kind have ceased to be tokens of piety and become signs of impiety.' (Source:
Raghavan Iyer, The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Oxford: Claredon Press,
1987, vol. I, pp.307[)

Gandhi was determined that the most important task in the task of building a strong
national identity and a nationalist character - a process be referred to as national regeneration,
was to reform the character of Indians. And in this he saw no use in a blind adoption of western
modem civilisation. He was of the conviction that while western civilisation may not all be
totally bad (even though he did think it was inferior to India's naturally spiritual minded
civilisation) Indians had to adopt what suited Indians and was good for India. He was of the view
the Indian civilisation had been evolved by the Indian people and reflected their unique and
historically emerged swabhava.

Interestingly Gandhi was also not exactly in favour of going back to the exact situation of
ancient Vedic times as he believed every age had its own yug-dhanna and the task of Indians
was only to take inspiration and guidance from the past but device a new yug-dharma for the
modem times.

The Gandhian programme for national regeneration according to Bhikhu Parekh was
'highly complex and involved a cluster of inter-related strategies of which cultivating the
swadeshi spirit, satyagraha and the Constructive Programme were the most important.'
Swadeshi was at the heart of Gandhian nationalism and it is important to understand his
understanding of it because even though its origins predated Gandhi's entry in the freedom
struggle he had a greater impact in making it widely respected and followed and of course be
also redefined it. Bikhu Parekh explains Gandhi's wide meaning of swadeshi beautifully as
follows and deserves to be quoted in full:
'For Gandhi every man was born and grew up in a specific community with its own distinct
ways of life and thought evolved over a long period of time. The community was not a mere
collection of institutions and practices but an ordered and well knit whole informed by a specific
spirit and ethos. It provided its members with an organised environment vital for their orderly
growth, a ready network of supportive relationships, a body of institutions and practices essential
for structuring their otherwise chaotic selves, a foci for sentiments and loyalties without which
oo moral life was possjble and a rich culture. In these and other ways it profoundly shaped their
personalities, modes of thought and feeling, deepest instincts and aspirations and their innermost
being. Every community in tum was inextricably bound up with a specific natural environment
64
within which it had grown up. which had cradled and nursed it and in the coun,e of interacting
with which it had developed its distinctive customs. habits and ways of life and thought. The
natural environment was not external to it but integrated into its lustory and culture and suffused
with its collective memories. images. hopes and aspirations. As Gandhi put it. a community's
culture or way of life constituted its soul or spirit and its natural habitat it� body. The two formed
an indissoluble unity and inescapable basis of human existence.
...Gandhi used the term Swadesh to refer to this unity. swa meaning one's own and desh the total
cultural and natural environment of which one was an inseparable part. Desh was both a cultural
and ecological unit and signified the traditional way of life obtaining within a specific territorial
unit. The territorial reference was as important as the cultural. Desh did not mean a state or a
polity for a way of life might not be organised in such a manner; nor a mere piece of territory
unless it was inhabited and culturaJly appropriated by a community of men sharing a common
way of life; nor a cultural group unless it occupied a specific territorial unit and its cultural
boundaries coincided with the territorial. The castes. religious and cultures constituting the
Indian mosaic were not deshas; India. a civiJisational cum territorial unit., uniting them all in
terms of a common way of life was. In classical Indian political thought every territorial unit
distinguished by a distinct way of life was called a desh and India was a desh composed of
smaller deshas, each a distinct cultural and ecological unit but united with. the others by a shared
civilisation. Gandhi agreed except that he thought of the constituent units as pradeshas or
subordinate or quasi-deshas.

The swadeshi spirit which Gandhi variously translated as the community, national or
patriotic spirit or the sprit of nationality and sharply distinguished from nationalism, basically
referred to the way an individual related and responded to his des/r. Since he was profoundly
shaped by and unintelligible outside it, he should accept the inescapable fact that it was the
necessary basis and context of his existence and that he owed his humanity to it. He should show
a basic existential loyalty and gratitude to it and accept his share of the responsibility to preserve
its integrity. He should recognise himself as an heir to the countless generations of men and
women whose efforts and sacrifices made it what it is and cherish his heritage.' (Source: Bhikhu
Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, pp.56-57)

Prof. Judith Brown has commented that sn·adeshi was an essential part of Gandhi's
spiritual philosophy of simplicit) in material living. which in turn would make it possible for
Indians to rely on their essential strength. She comments: 'An integral part of Gandhi's thinking
on simplicity of living was the idea of swadeshi. literally meaning 'belonging to one's own
country '. It was a politico-economic strategy which had been employed against the British in
India while Gandhi wac; in South Africa. But to bim it had a for deeper meaning than the mere
boycott of British goods in as attempt to erode the financial aspects of British interests in India.
For Gandhi it was inextricably tied to the values of simplicity anc.l self-reliance. of limiting one's
wants, and of the worth of manual labour: (Source: Judith M. Brmm, Gandhi - Prisoner of
Hope, pp.90-91, Oxford University Press)

Writing in 1909 Gandhi wrote: 'Swadeshi carries a great and profound meaning. It does
not mean merely the use of what is produced in one's country .... there is another meaning
implicit in it which is far greater and much more important. Simdeshi means reliance on our own
strength.' (Source: Indian Opinion, 1909)

Satyagraha was an important part of Gandhi·s national regeneration campaign and his
main tool for political struggle - a method that he devised because he found it mo t in tune with

65
the Indian's character but which has now indeed become internationally famous and even in this
country has undergone a strange sort of distorted revival at least in popular art because of the
popularising of what has come to be known as 'Gandhigiri' after the success of a Bollywood film
where this term was first used. Gandhiji had decided that from the spiritual point of view non­
violence is sin and unacceptable but one nevertheless had to find a way for standing up to the
truth of exploitation whenever it happened and struggle to stop it. What was his answer - his
answer was what he called satyagraha. He saw in the strategy of satyagraha many advantages
but none of the disadvantages of military training. It was free from blame of violence but
required courage all the same. It could be carried out at different levels (from simple protest
meetings to even sacrifice of life) and by different sections of the population (from children to
women even). Most importantly it relied for its success on the strength of numbers, which India
could provide in plenty owing to its huge population. Also it could be withdrawn easily and
rapidly once started and did not necessarily escalate into a anything bloody involving death. It
required a strange kind of courage based on the quite obstinacy and tenacity of purpose, which
Gandhi probably saw, as one of the main characteristics of Indians, specially the rural masses.
The satyagraha strategy bad the further advantage that it never need be declared to have failed
once started. One could always withdraw claiming partial success. As it did not involve a direct
forceful challenge to the government, it denied the latter the excuse to use indiscriminate and
massive violence that could frighten and prematurely kill a movement. Also if the government
did become violent, it lost good will and political mileage. On the other band if it agreed to the
demands it meant the agitating masses gained a sense of success and power. Gandhi called
satyagraha the 'trump-card' and regarded it as particularly suited to India. Gandhi himself had
said that he never told the people involved that they were about to stage a satyagraha, he simply
led the protest and later told them later that they in fact had already launched a satyagraha.
Satyagraha was a fascinating example of the swadeshi spirit because instead of condemning the
lack of courage and some abstractly desirable qualities of character in the Indian people, it
accepted and built on those that they had in plenty.

Another important element in Gandhi's national regeneration idea was to carry out what
he called his Constructive Programme. He believed India needed to be built up from the very
bottom and only that would create the social, economic and ultimately moral and spiritual
revolution that in his idea of Indian nationhood has to be the priority in contrast with other
nations. He believed other nations may focus on other things but in India the task was to preserve
and manifest our spiritual genius. Gandhi identified eighteen essential areas: Hindu-Muslim
unity, removal of untouchability, a ban on alcohol or prohibition, the promotion and use of
khadi, development of village industries and craft based education, equality for women, health
education for promoting Indian systems of medicine and the Indian way of healthy living, use of
indigenous languages or vernaculars, the adoption of a common national language for which his
preference was llindi, the promotion of what he called economic trusteeship, building up
peasants and workers organisations. integration of the tribal people into mainstream political and
economic life, a detailed code of conduct for students, helping lepers and beggars and promoting
respect for animals. In this entire list and how Gandhi proposed to go about them the one major
point to remember is that Gandhi would only accept and approve of non-violent methods even if
they weren't practical or productive of concrete results in the short term or a reasonable period of
time. For instance, Gandhi was convinced untouchability could be abolished by personal
example and active promotion of the cause. He was convinced a change of heart was all that was
needed and a non-violent persuasion without the least coercion, legal or othew r ise, was only
morally acceptable and enough to get rid of even such horrible evils. Similarly with the problem
of the rich-poor divide and poverty and the continued economic exploitation by the upper classes

66
Gandhi was for promoting what he ca11ed 'trusteeship' or the notion among the rich that they
hold the wealth on behalf of the entire people and it was their duty to personally use only the
least bit of it and do the utmost for the poor. He was not convinced that they may not want to
give up their position of enjoyment of wealth for the public good just by moral sermons and that
there may be needed laws and a state directed, at least partial re-distribution of property to
eradicate poverty and the class system that perpetuated the riches of some and the poverty of
many. And the reason is al] coercion, legal or otherwise, was violent to him and not in tune with
bis principle of ahimsa. In fact that was the stated rea"on of his for rejecting socialism and
communism. He bluntly said: 'What does communism mean in the ht\t analysis? It means a
classless society - an ideal that is worth striving for. Only 1 part company with it when force is
called to aid for achieving it.' (Source: Harija11, March 13. 1937) Agam: 'Our Socialism or
Communism, should be based on non-violence and on harmonious co-operation of labour and
capital, landlord and tenant.' (Source: Amrira Ba :ar Patrika, Au gust 3, 1934) Or: 'Communism
of the Russian type, that is communism which is imposed on a people, would be repugnant to
India. If communism came without any violence, it would be welcome. For, then, no property
would be held by anybody except on behalf the people and for the people. A millionam.· may
have his millions, but he will hold them for the people.' (Source: Harijan, March 13, 1941) So
Gandhi was ready to take the risk of having a millionaire class many of whose members were
financiers of the Congress and Gandhi's ashrams and hope that they will stop acting in their own
self-interest and instead act in the interests of the poor. Some Marxist commentators have
suggested that for Gandhi the priority was a controlled mass movement so that the ruling upper
classes and their advantageous positions were not threatened and the fact that he never suggested
anything very radical was the secret of success of the Gandhian Congress. Historian Sumit
Sarkar for instance has commented: 'As a politician and not just a saint, Gandhi in practice
sometimes settled for less than complete non-violence (as when he campaigned for military
recruitment in 1918 in the hope of winning post-war political concessions). and his repeated
insistence that even violence was preferable to cowardly surrender to injustice sometimes created
delicate problems of interpretation. But historically much more significant than his personal
philosophy (full accepted only by a relatively small group of disciples) was the way in which the
resultant perspective of controlled mass participation objectively fined in with the interests and
sentiments of socially-decisive sections of the Indian people. Indian politicians before Gandhi, as
we have seen, had tended to oscillate between Moderate 'mendicancy' and individual terrorism
basically because of their social inhibitions about uncontrolled mass movements. The Gandhian
model would prove acceptable also to business, as well as to relatively better off or locally
dominant sections of the peasantry, all of whom stood to lose something if political struggle
turned into uninhibited and violent social revolution. In more general terms, as we shall see, the
doctrine of ahirnsa lay at the heart of the essentially unifying, ·umbrella-type· role assumed by
Gandhi and the Gandhian Congress. mediating internal social conflicts. contributing greatly to
joint national struggle against foreign rule, but also leading to periodic retreats and c;ome major
reverses.' (Source: Sumit Sarkar, Modem India 1885-1947, pp.179-80) Bhikhu Parekh has
disagreed with Marxist commentators that Gandhi was a mascot or spokesman of the capitalist
class and bas commented Gandhi did agree eventually to use state power, on a suggestion from a
group of socialists Jed by Prof. Dantwala. in a manner that he would have generally regarded as
immoral and violent in what must be seen as an evolution of his thoughts. He has pointed out
how Gandhi eventually agreed to impose if necessary trusteeship by law, a very high level of
taxation to what was prevailing in his time and even a nationalising of vital industries. (Source:
Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, p. 140) In general on the nationalist relevance of
the Constructive Program he has rightly commented: • Although several items in the Constructive
Program had only a limited practical impact, tt� symboltc and pedagogical value was

67
considerable. First, for the first time during the struggle for independence, Indians were provided
with a clear, albeit limited, statement of social and economic objectives. Second, they were
specific and within the range of every one of them. In a country long accustomed to finding
plausible alibis for inaction, Gandhi's highly practical programme had the great merit of ruling
out all excuses. Third, his constant emphasis on it reminded the country that political
independence had no meaning without comprehensive national regeneration, and that all political
power was ultimately derived from a united and disciplined people. Finally. the Constructive
Programme enabled Gandhi to build up a dedicated group of grass roots workers capable of
mobilising the masses ...As Gandhi understood them suryagraha was primarily concerned with
the moral and political, and the Constructive Programme with the social and economic
regeneration of India, and the swadeshi spirit was the overarching principle inspiring and guiding
them.' (Source: Blzikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, p. 63)

Gandhi did more than anybody else to create and make popular the idea of an Indian
nation. Unlike western notions of nation that is a homogenous and self-conscious ethnic and
cultural or ethno-cultural unit, Gandhi fashioned an idea of a nation that was a synthesis of many
cultures and religious faiths based on an appeal to the need for preserving the integrity of the
way of life and culture of the Indian village. He argued the Indian village was very flexible in
understanding and adopting influences from other cultures and had done so for thousands of
years and bad a traditional and suswnable way of life close to nature that they must bold on to at
all cost. The genius of Gandhi was that be managed to convey in his own way this understanding
of the Indian nation and his passionate nationalism to the poor and illiterate masses even. Prof.
Judith Brown bas concluded well when she writes:
'Gandhj was an ingenious and sensitive artist in symbols. In his own person as a self-denying
holy man, by his speeches full of pictorial images and references to the great Hindu myths, by
his emphasis on the charkha and on the wearing of kJiadi as a uniform to obliterate distinctions
of region and caste, be portrayed and publicized in a world with few mass communications and
low literacy, an ideal of an Indian nation which was accessible even to the poor ad un-politicised.
For many, at least for a time, the ideal of the nation and a sense of national identity were lifted
out of the rough and often sordid world of politics, although the inevitable struggles and intrigues
accompanying any shifts of power in a complex polity jostled uneasily with the vision of
nationhood and often threatened to engulf it. A new nation had to be fashioned out of the
numerous loyalties and contests for dominance, which were the stuff of Indian politics. Gandhi
knew this full well as he agonized over political strategies, as he attempted to minimize conflict
among Indians and generate a moral community which encompassed and purified old loyalties.'
(Source: Judith M. Brown, Gandhi - Prisoner of Hope, p. 386, Oxford University Press)

Gandhi adopted many methods to create a reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims.
On a day to day level he was always asking and cajoling Hindus, in his public speeches and
utterances, to be friendly and decent with Muslims by avoiding playing music outside mosques
or taking out processions and he would in tum ask Muslims to avoid cow slaughter. At a
personal level he had close relationships with many Muslims and of course people from other
faiths who usually maintained their lifelong friendships and loyalties to him which shows his
feelings towards them were most likely entirely genuine and not part of any symbolism or
political agenda necessarily. At the level of Congress politics his great move was seeking and
making an alliance with Muslim groups for the Khilafat cause which be hoped would unite the
two communities into one fighting political force. Later for various reasons bis attempts failed.

68
 For Gandhi. Hindu-Muslim divisions were unacceptable because his idea of Indian
fundamentally had as one of its elements the harmonious co-existence and co-operation of
different communities which functioned and lived together while at the same time maintained
their distinct ideas and roles. Gandhi was passionate to uphold this view of what constituted
Indian civilisation. His depth of feeling on the matter can be gauged from some of the following
definitions of swaraj that he gave in 1921 in the Gujarati publication Navajivan:
(It may be noted Gandhi used to advance various definitions of swaraj to make his ideas clearer.)
'Swaraj means that Hindus, Muslims. Sikhs, Parsis, Christians. and Jews should all be able to
follow their own faith and should respect those of others.·
'Complete disappearance of the evil passions in the hearts of Hindus and Muslims. This means
that a Hindu should respect Muslim• s feelings and should be ready to lay down his life for him,
and vice versa. Muslims should not slaughter cows for the purpose of hurting Hindus; on the
contrary, they should on their own refrain from cow-slaughter so as to spare the latter's feelings.
Likewise, without asking for anything in return, Hindus should stop playing music before
mosques with the purpose of hurting Muslims, should actually feel proud in not playing music
while passing by a mosque.'
(Source: Navajivan, 14-08-1921, Collected Works of MK Gandhi, Vol. 20, p. 506)

A major part of his strategy was to work on removing the daily irritants in the
relationship between Hindus and Muslims. He genuinely believed if Hindus and Muslims start
behaving well with each other in a spirit of genuine friendship and decency and mutual tolerance
for some time, then nothing would come in the way - not the British policy of 'divide and rule'
nor the deep distrust between the two communities with its roots in history. His main appeal and
attempt can be understood for instance from the following writing of his that was published in
his journal Young India in 1921:
'That unity in strength is not merely a copybook maxim but a rule of life is in no case so clearly
illustrated as in th! problem of Hindu-Muslim unity. Divided we must fall. Any third power may
easily enslave India so long as we Hindus and Mussulmans are ready to cut each other's throats.
Hindu-Muslim unity means not unity only between Hindus and Mussulmans but between all
those who believe India to be their home, no matter to what faith they belong. I am fully aware
that we have not yet attained that unity to such an extent as to bear any strain. It is a daily
growing plant, as yet in delicate infancy, requiring special care and attention. The thing became
clear in Nellore when the problem confronted me in a concrete shape. The relations between the
two were none too happy. They fought only about two years ago over what appeared to me to be
a small matter. It was the eternal question of playing music whilst passing mosques. I hold that
we may not dignify every trifle into a matter of deep religious importance. Therefore a Hindu
may not insist on playing music whilst passing a mosque. He may not even quote precedents in
his own or any other place for the sake of playing music. It is not a matter of vital importance for
him to play music whilst passing a mosque. One can easily appreciate the Mussulman sentiment
of having solemn silence near a mosque the whole of the twenty-four hours. What is a non­
essential to a Hindu may be an essential to a Mussulman. And in all non-essential matters a
Hindu must yield for the asking. It is criminal folly to quarrel over trivialities. The unity we
desire will last only if we cultivate a yielding and a charitable disposition towards one another.
The cow is as dear as life to a Hindu; the Mussulman should therefore voluntarily accommodate
his Hindu bother. Silence at his prayer is a precious thing for a Mussulman. Every Hindu should
voluntarily respect his MussuJman brother's sentiment. This however is a counsel of perfection.
There are nasty Hindus as there are nasty Mussulmans who would pick a quarrel for nothing. For
these we must provide panchayats of unimpeachable probity and imperturbability whose

69
decisions must be binding on both partie�. Public opinion should be cultivated in favour of the
decisions of such panchayats so that no one would question them.

I know that there is much. too much distrust of one another as yet. Many Hindus distrust
Mussulman honesty. They believe that swaraj means Mussulman raj, for they argue that without
the British, Mussulmans of India will aid Mussulman powers to build a Mussulman empire in
India. MussuJmans on the other hand fear that the Hindus, being in an overwhelming majority,
will smother them. Such an attitude of mind betokens impotence on either's part. If not their
nobility, their desire to live in peace would dictate a policy of mutual trust and mutuaJ
forbearance. There is nothing in either religion to keep the two apart. The days of forcible
conversion are gone. Save for the cow, Hindus can have no ground for quarrel with Mussulmans.
The latter are under no religiou� obligation to slaughter a cow. The fact is we have never before
now endeavoured to come together to adjust our differences and to live as friends bound to one
another as children of the same sacred soil.'
(Source: Young India, Ma)' 1 /, /92))

The Khilafat Movement was a reaction against imperial British expansion in the context
of the First World War. As the war progressed what shocked Indians the most, particularly
Muslims, was the dismantling of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Caliph was looked
upon by large sections of Indian Muslims as their religious head particularly since the end of the
Mughal Empire in 1857. Turkey was the also largest Muslim power at the time of the First
World War. So the decisions of the allies in complete violation of the pre-war promise of Lloyd
George, the British Prime Minister of presen·ing the Ottoman Empire came as a jolt. The allies
decision to break up the Ottoman Empire and the landing of Greeks and Italians in Turkey
shocked the Indian muslims who felt any weakening of the Caliphate would weaken the position
of muslims who were under imperialist domination elsewhere in the world. The reaction took the
form of what came to be known as the Khilafat Movement. The young muslims of India of India
over night became deeply anti-imperialist and anti-British and therefore nationalist. This was a
set back in terms of power over muslims for the traditional upper class leadership of the Muslim
League who had all along kept on arguing that the interests of the muslims was different from
that of Hindus and the mu�lims should side with the British to have an advantage over Hindus. A
negative side to this though was the fact that now the educated and fairly militant nationalist
muslim was entering the realm of political activity not with a secular radical approach like his
Hindu brothers to rise up against the economic and politicaJ exploitation of Indians by an
imperialist power but because holy places in far away Turkey were in danger and because the
Turkish CaJiphate was under threat. The whole appeal was on narrow religious lines and the
cultural appeal that went with it ,,. as of the middle-east and not of South Asia.

It was one of Gandhi's main strategic moves to take up the issue of Khilafat which
excepting a very small rather fundamentalist fringe, the vast majority of Muslims were not reaJly
very enthusiastic about as it involved the queiitions of far away Turkey and did not really touch
the lives of the average Indian Muslim. Gandhi hoped that Khilafat will endear Hindus to
Muslims and remove the deep distrust and chasm in terms of identity. The move to adopt the
Khilafat cause surprised Hindus and even many in the Congress but Gandhi was adamant that it
should be taken up with full energy. He even linked it to the Hindu's desire to see cow-slaughter
end and told them the way forward was through Khilafat. For instance in a speech in Kanpur in
1921 he said: • ...Cow protection also depends on Khilafat. Hindus must be prepared to make
sacrifices for Khilafat without desiring anything in return. Every morning I pray for the cows.

70
Cow slaughter is the result of the sins committed by Hindus; it is owing to these sins that we are
deprived of the sympathy of our brethren. We must repent for those sins. For a satisfactory
solution of the Khilafat question it is of utmost importance that there should be Hindu-Muslim
unity. Khilafat alone will unite the two communities'. (Source: Collected Works of MK Gandhi, Vol. 20,
p. 482)

EXERCISES

1. Discuss Gandhi's role in the national movement from the point of view of the new ideas,
techniques and symbols that he introduced.
2. Discuss Gandhi's adoption and participation in the Khilafat Movement from the point of
view of bis strategy to foster communal amity and unity between Hindus and Muslims.

SUGGESTED READING

Collected Works of M.K. Gandhi

71
 LESSON6
SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVES

Objectives

After reading this article you will be familiar with:

► The Revolutionary Extremists
► The Congress Socialists
► The Communists

By the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century the economic
structure of Indian had transfonned. The self-contained village economy, which was also self­
sustaining in many ways and had been there for thousands of years, was giving way under the
crushing weight of the colonial system of taxation (of agriculture). Naturally there was an exodus
from the villages to the towns in search of jobs in the new centres of industrial production set up
initially by the British capitalists and later by the Indian trader turned capitalist. Also village and
town handcrafts bad come under huge strain both due to competition from factory made goods
and also because of a severe decline in the main class of patrons the craftsmen depended upon. In
the case of town handicrafts, the consuming class being feudal lords, kings and princes and also a
section of rich merchants, financiers and indigenous bankers. The ruined and declining craftsmen
either chose to become poor landless agricultural labourers serving zamindars or joined the
exodus of the poor and the hungry and the dispossessed moving to cities in search of factory
jobs. As may be imagined both due to the abundant supply of desperate hungry workers and the
axiom of profit maximisation or greed that capitalist enterprises operate under, there eventually
came to be unimaginable and unprecedented exploitation of this new class of proletariat
industrial workers. There were no political forces voicing the interests of or representing this
class at first, nor were there laws as yet to protect their most basic rights and to prevent their
extreme and utterly inhuman exploitation. It was a matter of time before they would rise up for
themselves and would come to be excellently guided and led by some devoted individuals from
the educated middle and upper classes, who came to imbibe Marxist and leftist ideology in the
course of their own intellectual journeys.

So the exploited peasant of the village living in some instances in slave like conditions under all
powerful zamindars and the industrial workers in the urban manufacturing centres living in utter
poverty and squalor came to constitute the new class ofioclia's proletariaL

It is instructive to have a more detailed and vivid idea of exactly how full of misery the life of an
industrial worker and bis fami]y was in those days. A.A. Purcell and J. Hallswort.h,
representatives of the British Trade Union Congress bad visited India to study the conditions of
the working class and were shocked at the conditions. They reported for instance that ' .. enquiries
go to show that the vast majority of workers in India do not receive more than about one shilling
per day' and gave the fo1lowing account of the living conditions:
' .... We visited the workers quarters wherever we stayed and had we not seen them we co]d not
have believed that such evil places existed ...... Here is a group of houses in 'lines', the owner of
which charges the tenant of each dwelling 4 shilling 6 dimes a month as rent Each house,
consisting of one dark room used for all purposes. living, cooking and sleeping. is 9 feet by 9
feet, with mud walls and loose tiled roof, and has a small open compound in front, a comer of

72
which is used as a latrine. There is no ventilation in the living room except by a broken roof or
that obtained through the entrance door when open. Outside the dwelling is a long narrow
channel which receives the waste matter of all descriptions and where flies and other insects
abound ....Outside all the houses on the edge of each side of the strip of land between the 'lines'
are the exposed gulleys, at some places stopped up with garbage, refuse and other waste matter,
giving forth horrible smells repellent in the extreme. It is obvious'tbat these gulleys are often
used as conveniences, especially by children .... The overcrowding and in sanitary conditions
almost everywhere prevailing demonstrate the callousness and wanton neglect of their obvious
duties by the authorities concerned.'(A.A. Purcell and J. HaL/swonh, •Report on Labour Conditions in India·,
Trade Union Congress, United Kingdom of Britain, 1928, p. JO (quoted in R.P. Dutt, 'India Today', Manishi
Publishers, Calcuua, 1970, p.387-88)

The above description is confirmed by Indian observers as well as follows:

'Nothing can equal, for squalor and filth and stench, the bustee (worker's quarters) in Howrah
and the suburbs north of Calcutta .....The great majority of the workers in the jute mills are
compelled to live in private bustees. Under the Bengal Municipalities Act the duty of improving
the slum areas is cast on the owners who make very handsome incomes from the poor occupants.
But vested interests see to it that these busreesi - 'filthy desease ridden hovels'. As they have
been called, with no windows, chimneys or fireplaces, and the doorways so low that one has to
bend almost on one's knees to enter. There is neither light nor water supply, and of course no
sanitary arrangements. Access to groups ofbustees is usually along a narrow tunnel of filth,
breeding almost throughout the year, but particularly during the rains, myriads of mosquitoes and
flies..... '(Source: Shiva Rao, 'The Industrial Work.er in India', pp. 113-14)

Workers were usually not paid enough to begin with and even the inflation in basic food stuffs
was never matched with wage increases resulting in near starvation conditions. Between 1914
and I918 in Bombay, there was an increase of nearly 80-100% rise in food grain prices whereas
in a large mill like C.N. Wadia's Century Mills for instance there was only a counter balancing
wage increase of 15%. The mill owners though, the C.N. Wadia group, earned a fantastic profit
of Rs. 22.5 lakhs in 1918 on an invested capital of as low as Rs.20 lakh only. There was a huge
labour movement through out the first decades of the new century but the plight of industrial
workers and their exploitation never really abated. In 1938, S.V. Paru1ekar, the Indian delegate at
the International Labour Conference reported to the conference:
'In India the vast majority of workers get a wage which is not enough tprovide them with the
meanest necessity of life. The report of an enquiry into the working class budgets in Bombay by
Mr. Findlay Shirras in 1921 states that the industrial worker consumes the maximum cereals
allowed by the Famine Code but less than the diet issued to criminals in jail under the Bombay
Prisons Code. The conditions have deteriorated since the publication of that report, as the
earnings are lower today than what they were in 1921.

The wage census carried out by the Bombay Government in 1935 reveals the fact that in cotton
textiles, which is one of the premier and most organised industries, the monthly earnings of 18
per cent of the workers in Gokak were between 3 shilling and 9 shilling, of 32 per cent of the
workers in Sbolapur between 7 shilling 6 dimes and 15 shillings and of 20 per cent of the
workers below 22 shilling 6 dimes and 30 shilling in the city of Bombay.

The level of wages in unorganised industries, whose number is very large in India, can better be
imagined than described. Taking advantage of the cla,;s of expropriated peasants which is
incessantly increasing by leaps and bounds, the employers have driven the wage far below the

73
subsistence level and do not allow it co rise co a point which the conditions of industry can
pennit....
The workers of India are unprotected against risks of sickness, unemployment, old age and
death ......The Government of India have consistently refused to devise any scheme of benefits
for the unemployed ....Suicides by workers to protect themselves against unemployment are in
evidence and deaths due to hunger are recorded in the municipal reports for the city of
Bombay.'(Source: S.V. Parulekar, Indian Worker's Delegate, International LabourConference, Geneva, July, 1938
(quoted in quoted in R.P. Dutt, 'India Today', Manishi Publishers, Calcutta, 1970, pp.388-89)

The low wages and unimaginable living conditions of the workers enabled the capitalists
whether British or foreign to pile up huge profits which were often many times the invested
capital even. It was inevitable that people living in such conditions would rise and revolt. As R.P.
Dutt puts it:
'This is the background of the Indian Labour Movement. It is to the millions living in these
conditions that Socialism and Trade Union have brought for the power of combination, and the
first vision of a goal which can end their misery.'(Source: R.P. Dutt, 'India Today', Manishi Publishers,
Calcutta, 1970, p. 402)

It is not clear when exactly strikes began as a form of protest but there is record of a strike in
1877 at the Empress Mills at Nagpur over wage rates. In the period 1882 and 1890 there were
twenty-five strikes in the Bombay and Madras presidencies.

There was a meeting of Bombay mill workers in 1884 called by a local journalist and editor,
N.M. Lokhande, who drew up a list of demands for limitation of hours of work, a weekly rest
day, a noontime recess and compensation for injuries, to present to the Factories Commission as
the demands of the Bombay workers. Lokhande started calling his organisation of workers the
'Bombay Millhands Association' and called himself the President. He also started a journal
Dinabandhu or Friend of the Poor. Lokhande was an educated intellectual of sorts and was a
great philanthropic promoter of the causes of labourers but his organisation was not really a trade
union. It had no membership, no funds and no rules. He basically acted as• a well meaning
advisor to workers who came to him with their problems. He had also once served in the
government's Factories Commission.

Even though there was no organised trade union as such, there continued throughout workers
spontaneous agitations every now and then. There was a strike in the famous Budge Budge Jute
Mills in 1895 and also a strike by workers in Ahmedabad textile industry. The level of gradual
worker consolidation can be judged from the following account of the situation:
'Despite almost universal testimony before Commissions between 1880 and 1908 to the effect
that thee were no actual unions, many stated that the labourers in an individual mill were often
able to act in unison and that, as a group, they were very independent. The inspector of boilers
spoke in 1892 of 'an unnamed and unwritten bond of union among the workers peculiar to the
people': and the Collector of Bombay wrote that although this was little more than in the air' it it
was 'powerful'. 'I believe' he wrote to the Government, 'it has had much to do with the
prolonged maintenance of what seems to be a monopoly or almost a monopoly wage.' Sir David
Sasoon said in 1908 that if labour 'bad no proper organisation, they had an understanding among
themselves'. Mr.Barucha, lately Director of Industries in Bombay Presidency, stated that 'the
mill hands were all powerful against the owners, and could combine, though they had not got a
trade union' ....... '(R.P. Dutt. 'India Today'. Manishi Publishers, Calcuha, /970, pp. 403-4 (quoted in))

74
So R.P. Dutt concludes although 'there was not yet any organisation, it would be a mistake to
under estimate the growth of solidarity in action and elementary class-consciousness of the
Indian industrial workers during the decades preceding 1914' .(Source: ibid. p.401 J

From 1905 onwards an interesting thing began to happen by way of a huge advance of worker
mobilisation. The national movement, which was coming under the influence of the extremists
and as a consequence becoming a lot more militant, found in the working class a huge usable
pool of willing and courageous agitators. The Swadeshi leaders realised the power of organising
labour into a movement, which could then advance the cause of the freedom struggle. So they
showed great enthusiasm in organising stable trade unions or trade union like groups, strikes,
legal aid to workers and fund collection drives. Public meetings were organised in support of
striking workers and were addressed by leaders of the stature of B.C. Pal, C.R. Das and
LiaqatHussain. The most energetic of the Swadeshi leaders working for the rights of workers and
involved in supporting them were AshwinicoomarBanerji. Prabhat Kumar Roy Chowdhuri,
Premtosh Bose and Apurba Kumar Ghose. They were very successful in organising workers in
the Government Press, Railways and the jute industry - all areas were either foreign capitalists or
the government rather than Indian capitalists were the controlling/owning authorities.

How much the labour movement and the national movement had converged can be gauged from
for instance the hugely successful six-day political strike populated mainly by the industrial
working class in 1908 against Tilak's imprisonment. Yet workers were too uneducated and mired
in poverty and illiteracy to be able to organise themselves into trade unions but fortunately every
now and then and here and there throughout the length and breadth of the country philanthropic
individuals kept coming forward to lend a helping hand to the workers. In 1910 for instance, a
'KamgarHitavardhakSabha' was formed by some well meaning social workers and
philanthropists in Bombay to aid workers.

Here it is important to remember the developments in the Congress. The Indian National
Congress split in 1907 and almost at the same time revolutionary terrorism or extremism made
its appearance particularly in Bengal and the two developments were connected. The failure of
the Moderates had become apparent by now because they had failed to work with and take the
common mass of people with them. Also there attempts were rebuffed by the British with
contempt and the nationalists were branded 'disloyal babus', 'seditious brahmins' and 'violent
villains' etc. The path was set towards extremism by leaders like Tilak and AurobindoGhosh
who were not ready to show patience for the foolish ineffective methods of the moderates. There
was a fierce confrontation between the Extremists and the Moderates in the Congress session
held in December, 1907 with the two sides coming to blows and abuses with shows thrown at
respected leader. This internecine warfare within the Congress bad the effect of declining the
national movement in general. That set the stage of the rise of the revolutionary terrorists or
extremists. As Bipan Chandra puts it: 'The end of 1907 brought another political trend to the
fore. The impatient young men of Bengal took to the path of individual heroism and
revolutionary terrorism (a term we use without any pejorative meaning and for want of a
different term). This was primarily because they could find no other way of expressing their
patriotism.' Further the extremists had pointed out the failures of the Moderates but could not
themselves lead an effective agitation. So Bipan Chandra comments: 'Unsuprisingly, the
Extremists waffling failed to impress the youth who decided to take recourse to physical force.
The Yugantar, a newspaper echoing this feeling of disaffection, wrote in April. 1906, after the
police assault on the peaceful Barisal Conference: 'The thirty crores of people inhabiting India

75
must raise their sixty crores of hands to slop this curse of oppression. Force must be stopped by
force'. (Source: Bipan Chandra, India ·s Struggle for I ndependence, p. 143)

The early beginnings of revolutionary terrorism along with Congress-Muslim League unity and
the first demands of immediate self-government also aided the growth of the mass movements.
The years of the First World War and the immediate post war years including the years following
the communist revolution in Russia were to prove the most eventful in the advance of the trade
union movement. The reasons were both economic and political for this spurt in activity.
Economically, in conditions of a constant increase (even doubling) in the prices of essentials
without a corresponding increase in the wages on the one hand there was fantastic profiteering
by the capitalists, both foreign and Indian on the other. All of this enabled a wave of
revolutionary militant fervour.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 and its implications as it dawned on the intelJigentsia leading
the Jabour class and the workers themselves created a surge of enthusiasm and hope. The hope
was that if common people in Russia - workers, peasants and the intelligentsia - could unite and
overthrow the mighty Czarist empire and establish a social order where there was no exploitation
of one human being buy another, then perhaps the Indian people could also do so. Socialist
doctrines, particularly Marxism. the guiding theory of the Bolshevik Party, acquired a sudden
attraction. B.C. Pal. the extremist leader wrote in 1919 that ' ...after the downfall of the Czar,
there has grown up all over the world a new power, the power of the people determined to rescue
their legitimate rights - the right to Jive freely and happily without being exploited and
victimised by the wealthier and the so called higher classes'. (Source: Bipan Chandra and others,
'India's srrugglefor Independence', Penguin Books, 1989, p.297)

The revolutionary terrorists relied on assassinations and hit and run methods. They attracted the
anention of the general public with their heroisms but no mass movement got triggered. Bipan
Chandra has commented: 'Revolutionary terrorism gradually petered out. Lacking a mass base,
despite remarkable heroism, the individual revolutionaries, organised in small secret groups,
could not withstand suppression by the still strong colonial state. But despite their small numbers
and eventual failure, they made a valuable contribution to the growth of nationalism in India. As
a historian has put it, 'they gave us back the pride of our manhood'.'
(Source: Bipan Chandra and others, 'ltulw '.s .stmgg/efor Independence', Penguin Books, 1989, p.145)

A huge strike wave started in 1918, which swept the country throughout 1919 and 1920. There
were massive and repeated strikes by workers in all the industrial centres - Bombay, Calcutta,
Ahmedabad, Madras etc and both workers of government facilities and industries owned by
capitalists saw strike action. A slrike that started in the Bombay cotton mills towards the end of
1918 saw by the January 1919, 125000 workers participating in it and gradually all the workers
of the industry joined the strike. It was in the response of the working class to the agitation
against the Rowlatt Act which demonstrated the political role of the workers in the national
struggle very prominently. In the first six months of 1920. there were 200 strikes involving 15
lakh workers.

In 1918, the first organised Indian trade union with membership lists and subscriptions, the
Madras Labour Union, was started by two young men, G. Ramanajulu Naidu and G.
ChelvapathiChetti. connected with Annie Besant's movement in Madras and was presided over
by B.P. Wadia, Besant's collegue. There were 125 unions with a membership 250000 by 1920.
Even though the emergence of a trade union movement was the best thing that could have

76
happened to the cause of the Indian working class for the times, there were nevertheless some
deficiencies in terms of ideology and character. R. P. Dutt comments on it as follows:
'Unions were formed by the score during this period. Many were essentially strike comrniu1:es,
springing up in the conditions of an immediate struggle, but without staying power. While the
workers were ready for struggle the facilities for office organisation were inevitably in other
hands. Hence there arose the contradictions of the early Indian labour movement. There was not
yet any political movement on the basis of socialism, of the conceptions of the working class and
the class struggle. In consequence, the so-called "outsiders" or helpers from other class elements
who came forward, for varying reasons, to give their assistance in the work of organisation, and
whose assistance was in fact indispensable in this initial period, came without understanding of
the aims and needs of the labour movement, and brought with them the conceptions of middle
class politics. Whether their aims were philanthropic, as in some cases, careerist� as in others, or
actuated by devotion to the national political struggle, as in others, they brought with them an
alien outlook, and were incapable of guiding the young working class movement on the basis of
the class struggle which the workers were in fact waging. This misfortune long dogged the
Indian labour movement, seriously hampering the splendid militancy and heroism of the
workers: and its influence still remains.'(Source: R.P. Dutt, 'India Today', Manishi Publishers, Calcutta,
1970, p. 406)

In 1920 the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was founded as a sort of federation of
Indian trade unions. The inaugural session was held in Bombay in 1920 and the extremist leader
LajpatRai became the President and Joseph Baptista the Vice President. The immediate impetus
for starting the congress may have been to nominate a representative for the International Labour
Congress at Geneva. The founders of the Congress were motivated by the Washington Labour
Conference and had felt that it would be helpful to develop a unified voice of the labour
movement not only in India but also worldwide. The other aims were undertaking welfare
measures, lobbying for legislation for workers with the imperial British government, mor� and
social improvement of workers and in the whole working without provoking class conflict which
many of the leaders felt would at that juncture weaken the national movement. Gandhi, possibly
anxious that a class conflict would break out between the exploited working class and the
capitalist class, whether Indian or British, had gone so far as to start bis own trade union
movement, the Ah:medabad Textile Labour Association in 1918 with a separatist slant from the
movements in the rest of the country. He propounded bis 'Trusteeship' principle and declared
that owners and capitalists should behave like trustees or philanthropic managers of the
industries they control. That the interests of the capitalists and the workers were directly against
each other's was something be wished to be brushed aside and instead wanted everybody to
perform and function at high moral level of character and generosity to which he himself could
have and did confirm. The Marxist view of Gandhi's position is that it was essentially de facto
class collaborationist and against the interests of the workers as the capitalist with his axiomatic
focus on profits could never be a trustee of worker's interests. He was being asked to perform a
contradictory set of roles thereby. To be fair to Gandhi, be did ask the workers to perform
Satyagraha and assert their rights if the owners did not take care of them but on the whole his
approach had a 'restraining role' against the pressure for militancy which was coming 'from
below' as SumitSarkar puts it. (Source: SumitSarkar, 'Modem India', Macmillan, New Delhi, 1983, p.176)

He comments thus: 'In general, however, as in Bombay in January 1919, the pressure for
militancy came from below rather than from these early unions which played a restraining role.
The early middle-class union leaders were at best inspired by nationalism. but often were quite
loyalist in their politics, like N.M. Joshi in Bombay or K.C. Roycbaudhuri in- Calcutta. The

77
restraining role was most unequivocal in the Gandhjan Textile Labour Association
(MajoorMahajan) of Ahmedabad, but Wadia, too, opposed a strike in Binny 's in July 1918 on
the ground that soldiers (fighting for the British) needed unfforms' .(Source: ibid.) He further points
out as follows bow strikes were not the only form of protest of the rising exploited militant
industrial working class:
'Strikes were only one form of expression of acute popular distress and discontent caused by
factors like prices, a poor harve t and scarcity conditions over much of the country in 1918-1919,
the influenza epidemic of 1918-19 l 9, and artisan unemployment (handloom cotton
production ..... .touched an all time low in 19919-20). A more elementaJ form was that of food
riots; the looting of small-town markets and city grain shops. And the seizure of debt-bonds. 115
grain shops were looted in the Bombay mill area in the food riots of early 1918, while the
account books of Marwaris were seized by railwaymen. There were food riots in the Krishna­
Godavari delta region in May 1918, followed by three days of intensive riots in Madras city in
September in which textile and railway workers played an important part. In Bengal 38 hat
looting cases with 859 convictions were reported from Noakhali, Chittagong, Rangpur, Dinajpur,
Khulna, 24 Parganas and Jessore districts in 1919-20'.

Upto 1927, says R.P. Dutt, the AITUC had a very limited practical connection with the working
class struggJe, but a new dawn started to break from this time onwards for the workers
movement.(R.P. Duu, 'India Today·, Mamshi Publishers, Calcutta, /970, p. 409) This happened with the
rise of the left in Indian politics and the communist movement and the new left turn that a new
generation of leaders began to give to the national movement particularly within the Congress.

All along, with the rise of the working class in the urban industrial centres there was also a
growth of organisations of poor peasants who rose in spontaneous revolt against exploitation
gradually over time helped and aided by the middle class leadership intelligentsia of the national
movement. The most important peasant struggles happened in the second and third decade of the
century. The Kisa11Sabha and Eka movements in Avadh in U.P., the Mappila rebellion in
Malabar and the BardoliSatyagrahai in Gujrat. The movement in Avadb and Pratapgarh that
Baba Ram Chandra later came to be known as the Eka movement or unity movement after the
alliance of Congress and League and the Khilafat agitation when Congress and Khilafat leaders
joined the movement of farmers and gave it a huge thrust. Another movement which also helped
organise the rural proletariat was the Bardolisatyagraha which made VallabhBhai Patel famous.
This movement united the whole nation and became part of the national movement. It was also
the first instance of Gandhian methods succeeding.

The British had been watching with increasing alarm the organised rise of the industrial and
peasant working classes in the first decades of the new century but after the 1917 Russian
Revolution they were almost in panic that this movement would soon come under the influence
and control of communbts who just about also appearing on the Indian scene. One British
government report from this tin1e refers to the need to direct the movement into "safe'' channels
and the "right type" of trade unionism. This was also the reason why the British government
enacted the Trade union Act, 1926 legislation with its special emphasis on restricting political
activities. The government was in general all the time on the look because they did not want a
political woring
k
class awakening. They feared such an awakening could mean that they would
be co-opted in the natJonal movement of the Congress thereby granting it a strength it did not
have or even more dangerously they would come under the influence of the communists.

78
But despite all obstacles and confusions, the beginnings of a working class political awakening
werestarted and socialist and communist ideas slowly started reaching Indian shores. British
officials at first tried to pretend that communism in India would be nothing more than a
conspiracy batch.eel from Moscow but as SumitSarkar puts it:
' .... Indian Communism really sprang.... from roots within the national movement itself, as
disillusioned revolutionaries, Non-Cooperators, K.hilafatists. and labour and peasant activists
sought new roads to political and social emancipation·.

M. N. Roy (whose real name was Naren Bhattacharya) was probably India's first communist. He
attended the second Congress of the Communist International in 1919. :f!ere however he had a
major disagreement with Lenin regarding the strategy that communists should adopt in colonial
countries like India. Lenin believed that the communists should lie low in countries like India at
first and join the mainstream national movements, like that of the Congress under the leadership
of charismatic leaders like Gandhi. M.N. Roy argued that people in India were already
disillusioned with bourgeois-nationalist leaders like Gandhi and were 'moving towards
revolution independently of the bourgeois-nationalist movement'. This difference on approach
among communists would later become an even bigger issue and would become the cause of the
divisions and factionalisms which continues among Indian communists to this day. In October
1920, M.N. Roy, AbaniMuk:berji (who was a former revolutionary terrorist and had converted to
communism) and some others formed the first Communist Party of India in October 1920. Some
Khilafat workers and leaders like Mohammad Ali and Mohammad Shafiq also joined the party.
He later shifted his headquarters to Berlin and started a fortnightly Vanguard of Indian
Independence and also published a pioneering attempt at analysing Indian economy and society
from a Marxist standpoint, India in Transition. There were also individuals and groups outside
India who were veering towards Marxism. The individuals like VirendranathChattopadhya,
BhupendranathDutt and Barkatullah who had started the India independence Party also adopted a
socialist approach and even tried to secure Soviet backing but the effort got scuttled by M.N.
Roy who saw them as factionalist. Also by the middle of 1920, a section of the Ghadr Movement
in exile under the influence of people like Rattan Singh, Santokh Singh and Teja Singh
Swatantra bad turned communist.

There had emerged many individuals and groups or factions over the period of the struggles of
the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movements who had turned to communism being
disappointed with those movements and the leadership of Gandhi. The most prominent of such
leaders and individuals were S.A. Dange in Maharashtra (Bombay), Muzaffar Ahmed in Calcutta
and Singravelu in Madras and ghulamHussain in Lahore. By the end of 1922 through the help of
NaliniGupta( who had been a revolutionary terrorist) and ShaukatUsmani (who had been a
khilafat activist) M.N. Roy established contact with the communist activists. Abani Mukherjee
who bad fallen out with M.N. Roy also made similar attempts on behalf of the rival
Chattopadhya group. Left nationalist journals like Atmashakti and Dhumketu in Calcutta and
Navyug in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.appeared which started publishing articles explaining
socialism and celebrating the leadership of Lenin in Russia. Even from time to time extracts were
published from the communist journal Vanguard. From August 1922, Dange started bringing out
the weekly Socialist from Bombay, the first communist journal to be published from India. Thus
a loose coalition of communist groups in a sort of a distant contact with each other emerged
along with M.N. Roy and his supporters.

Most of these communist groups came together in Kanpur in December, 1925 to form an all­
India organisation under the name of the communist Party of India (CPI). At this stage the

79
strategy the communists adopted was two fold. One, to have a secret illegal organisation which
will propagate the ideas of communism and the other to form a group within the Congress which
will try to give the Congress a socialist direction. So the CPI called upon all its members to enrol
themselves as members of the Congress. They were told to form a strong left wing within the
Congress and all its organs and to try to transform the Congress into a radical mass-based
organisation.

The communists adopted the strategy of organising workers and peasants groups all over the
country and to work within the Congress using these groups. In 1928 all the provincial
organisations or groups were organised into a Workers and Peasants Party (WPP) and all
communists became members of this party. The purpose of the WPP was to work within the
Congress and make it a 'party of the people' and also 'independently organise workers and
peasants in class organisations in class organizations, to enable first the achievement of complete
independence and ultimately of socialism'.(Source: Bipan Chandra and others, 'India's struggle for
Independence', Penguin Books, 1989, p. 30/JThe WPPs expanded fast and soon within the Congress the
communist influence became substantial. In addition to the effort of the communists there were
also then young individual leaders like Jawabarlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose who were
advocating a socialist path vigorously. The youth of the Congress had turned on the whole leftist
under the influence of these leaders and the WPPs. The WPPs also managed to make rapid
progress in the trade union movement and thus gradually made great strides within the working
class. The left gained prominence and consequently power within the Congress led national
movement because by now the vast majority of the foot soldiers of the mass rallies and
demonstrations were from the working classes and the majority of the working classes and trade
unions were under the influence of socialist or communist leaders or groups.

The British government meanwhile had got very alarmed at the rising communist influence. In
1924 under a Labour Government in England, the famous Cawnpore Trial (the Kanpur
Bolshevik Conspiracy Case) was staged and four communist leaders Dauge, ShaukatUsmani,
Muzaffar Ahmed and Nalini Gupta were tried and sentenced to four years imprisonment. This
only served to make people of India even more aware of the communist cause and point of view
and united the working classes of India in a strong bond.

1927 and 1928 were very good years for the communist movement as the left leaning leaders of
the congress seemed to be holding the reigns of the movement with the huge mass backing of the
working class participants particularly in the industrial centres. At the Delhi session of the Trade
Union Congress in 1927, which was attended by the British communist M.P.,
ShapurjiSaklatvala, a Parsi, the most militant voices in the working classes at the time emerged
and seemed to be being beard more than ever before.
The rise of the working classes in 1927-28 was qualitatively different from earlier times. The
Marxist historian R.P. Dutt comments on it as follows:
'1928 saw the greatest tide of working class advance and activity of any year of the post war
period. The centre of this advance was in Bombay. For the first time a working class leadership
had emerged, close to the workers in the factories, guided by the principles of the ciass struggle,
and operating as a single force in the economic and political field. The response of the workers
was overwhelming. The political strikes and demonstrations against the arrival of the Simon
Commission in February placed the working class for the moment in the vanguard of the national
struggle; for both the Congress leadership and the refonnist trade-union leadership had frowned
on the project and were startled by its success. Many of the Bombay municipal workers were

80
victimised and discharged for their participation; a further strike compelled their reinstatement'.
(Source: R.P. Dun, 'India Today', Manishi Publishers, Calcuua, 1970, p. 412)

There were massive strikes all over the country in 1928 and not just in Bombay. The number of
strikes totalled more than the number of strikes in the previous five years together. The most
dramatic strike action happened in Bombay's textile industry. The entire mill labour of 150000
struck work and stood united against every form of pressure and Government violence. The
strike was originally directed against downsizing or job cuts and a wage reduction of 7.5%, but
as the strike found success the demands were expanded. Initially the Congress supported
reformist trade unions opposed the strike and N.M. Joshi described their position as that of
"lookers on" but later as the strike became a roaring success they were forced to offer grudging
support to it. The government adopted every method to break the will of the workers, but failed
to break the strike. Finally it appointed the Fawcett Commission, which recommended the
acceptance of the demand for withdrawal of the 7.5% wage cut and some other demands of the
workers.

This and other successes under the leadership of the communists sent the British government
almost into a panic. Lord Irwin in his speech to the Legislative Assembly in January, 1929
almost admitted the level of anxiety of the government when in his speech to the Legislative
Assembly he said "the disquieting spread of communist doctrines has been causing anxiety" and
declared his intension to clamp down on leftist forces. The press in England also took up the
issue of communist influence and raised a hue and cry. The Indian national press of the reformist
trade unions and many congress leaders joined in the outcry. The Bombay Chronicle reported in
May 1929 that "for months past socialistic principles have been preached in India at various
conferences, especially those of peasants and workers". These nationalist leaders were afraid that
the ground was slipping from under their feet and they would lose control of the national
movement.

In March 1929, the government arrested thirty two left and communist activists including three
British Communists - Philip Spratt, Ben Bradley and Lester Hutchinson - who had come to
lnclia to help organise the trade union movement. The aim was to put the top leadership of the
left out of action with the hope that that would take the trade union and national movements out
of communist influence and give time to the refonnists to reclaim their control. The thirty two
accused were put up for trial at Meerut, in what came to be known as the famous Meerut
Conspiracy Case. This case was to become a historic event in the history of India's left
movement because it served to rivet the attention of the whole nation on the communist cause
and gave communists a platfonn to state their ideology and beliefs. Many nationalist leaders like
Jawaharlal Nehru, M.A. Ansari, and M.C. Chagla came forward to join the defence team of
lawyers defending the prisoners in court and even Gandhiji felt the need to visit the prisoners in
jail. The speeches made by the prisoners during the trial were carried by the nationalist
newspapers and thus a whole nation got a chance to become familiar with communist ideas. The
opportunity that the communist leaders got can be gauged for instance from the following that
one of the charged, GopenChakravarty, said as part of his statement in court:
"Emancipation of the Working class from the exploitation and oppression of capitalism being my
aim it was my fundamental task to devote myself to the work of Trade Union organisations
which were very weak and undeveloped at the time.

One of the basic principles of Trade Union movement is that it brings together all the wage
earners in an industry and organises them on class basis. A Trade Union if it is to be a genuine

81
workers organisation must represent their economic class interests against the employers and
capitalists as a class. A Trade Union must necessarily defeat its own end if it fails to teach be
workers the basic principles of class consciousness and solidarity".

In January 1933, after a long trial the leaders were given unbelievably harsh and extreme
sentences. Muzaffar Ahmed was to be jailed for life. Oange, Ghate, Joglekar, Nimbkar and
Spratt were sentenced for twelve years, Mirajkar, Bradley and Usmani were jailed for ten years
and the lightest sentence that was awarded was for ten years of rigorous imprisonment. Later the
international uproar and agitation that followed had succeeded in reducing some of the sentences.

The leftist unions had taken comnlete control of the national All India Trade Union Congress by
the end of 1929 and as soon as this happened the reformist groups spilt the movement and
walked out with their meagre following. Unfortunately the left themselves on the question of the
most effective strategy for growth were not united and themselves split. The section that believed
that the time had come for communists to go it alone and to strike it out as a distinct political
identity and have a separate role for itself from the Congress, essentially the most ideologically
purist communist section, formed the Red Trade Union Congress. A less extreme communist
faction went another way and formed National Trade Union Federation. So the trade union
movement in a way got split three ways.

The split at the party levels among the leftist forces was even more ugly and damaging. Bipan
Chandra gives the following account of it and comments on it as follows:
• As if the Government blow was not enough, the Communists inflicted a more deadly blow on
themselves by taking a sudden lurch towards what is described in leftist terminology as sectarian
politics or 'leftist deviation'.

Guided by the resolutions of the Sixth Congress of the Communist International, the
Communists broke their connection with the National Congress and declared it to be a class
party of the bourgeoisie. Moreover, the Congress and the bourgeoisie it supposedly represented
were declared to have become supporters of imperialism. Congress plans to organise a mass
movement around the slogan of PumaSwaraj were seen as sham efforts to gain influence over
the masses by bourgeoisie leaders who were working for a compromise with British imperialism.
Congress left leaders such as Nehru and Bose, were declared as agents of the bourgeoisie within
the national movement' who were out to 'bamboozle the mass of workers and keep the masses
under bourgeois influence. The Communists were now out to 'expose' all talk of non-violent
struggle and advance the slogan of anned struggle against imperialism. In 1931, the Gandhi­
Irwin Pact was described as a proof of the Congress betrayal of nationalism.

Finally, the Workers and Peasants Party was also dissolved on the ground that it was unadvisable
to form a tow class (workers and peasants) party for it was likely to fall prey to prey bourgeoisie
influences. The Communists were to concentrate, instead, instead, on the formation of an 'illegal,
independent and centralized' communist party. The result of this sudden shift in the Communists
political position was their isolation from the national movement at the very moment when it was
gearing up for its greatest mass struggle and conditions were ripe for massive growth in the
influence of the Left over it Further, the Communists split into several splinter groups. The
Government took further advantage of this situation and, in 1934, declared the Communist Party
of India (CPD illegal' .(Source: Bipan Chandra and others. 'India's struggle for Independence', Penguin Books,
1989, p. 302)

82
This clid not end the left movement if that is what the imperial British government had hoped to
achieve. Instead attracted by the strong radical stance of the CPI. the glorious example of the
Soviet Union and being clisappointed with the Gandhi led Civil Disobeclience Movement, many
your people and the former revolutionary terrorists who had turned into Marxists over the years
joined the CPI. On the other hand within the Congress many people with a leftist orientation
refused to leave the field to the right and the capitaJists and quit the Civil Disobedience
Movement So they continue to struggle with their approach within the movement. Thus the left
movement was saved.

(In 1934 a group of young left nationaJist elements within the Congress bad also formed the
Congress Socialist Party to push for a leftist direction within the Congress but that will be
discussed a little later.)

In 1935, the communist advance got a great leap forward when under the leadership of P.C. Joshi
the Communist Party of India was reorganised. This was also facilitated by the direction of the
decisions of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International meeting at Moscow in August
1935. The Communist International looking at the world faced with the threat of Fascism
decided that the earlier position of going it alone needed to be changed and in all colonial
capitalists countries the communists should attempt to forge a united front with all socialists and
other anti-fascists and even with bourgeoisie led nationalist movements. So the Inclian
communists in line with this change in the thinking of the Communist International decided that
they would once again try to infiltrate the Congress and change it from within along socialist
lines. The document that laid out the theoretical basis for this appeared in early 1936 (as an
article by R.P. Dutt and Ben Bradley in the British Communist journal lAbour Monthly) and was
called the Dutt-Bradley Thesis which called for converting the Congress into an 'anti-imperialist
people's front'. This paper also called for specific action to ensure that trade unions and peasant
organisations be given collective affiliation of the Congress, elections to be contested on a
radical programme, but for office entry to be repudiated, and the raising of a principal positive
slogan that the Constituent Assembly should be elected by universal suffrage. Jawaharlal Nehru
had already made such a demand in 1930 and Dutt and Bradley had met him in Lausanne shortly
before they wrote their article. The party declared that under the circumstances that the Indian
national movement was operating under, the National Congress could play 'a great part and a
foremost part in the work of realizing the anti-imperialist people's front' and in 1938 went even
further and declared that the Congress was 'the central mass political organisation of the Indian
people ranged against imperialism'.
(Source: Guidelines of the History of the Communist Party of India. issued by the Central Party Education
Departmenl, New Delhi, 1974, pp. 46 wuJ 54)

They had realised that for the moment the national movement was really the most important
class struggle underway and if it wasn' l it needed to be made into one by not leaving the
capitalist bourgeoisie inside the Congress remaining unchallenged and with a free hand to do as
it will. SumitSarkar says that apart from the change in line of the comintem, there were also
internal pressures which aided this change 'for the aftermath of the Civil Disobedience
Movement brought into the Communist movement a new generation of disillusioned Gandhian
nationalists and revolutionary terrorists with much wider contacts with and prestige among the
nationalist mainstream than the Bombay and Calcutta sects of the 1920s could have possibly
enjoyed' .(Source: SumitSarkar, 'Modem India', Macmillan. New Delhi, 1983, p. 335)

The communists jumped into C ongress work with great energy and many even managed to get
nominated to district and provincial committees and almost twenty managed to reach the All

83
India Congress Committee. The communists also launched into peasant movements in Kerala,
Andhra, Bengal and Punjab and were hugely successful. As a result of this new initiative the
communists and other leftists regained their reputation of being the most militant anti-British and
anti-imperialist fighters.

Even before the formal change of line under P.C. Joshi in 1935 there had been an undercurrent of
moves from J 934 onwards towards unity among all the groups and individuals of a leftist
persuasion particularly among communists. The communists and the followers of M.N. Roy who
had earlier separated himself from the mainstream communist movement tried came together and
tried to organise a general strike in textiles in 1934, and there were big strikes in Sholapur
(February-May), Nagpur (May-July) and, a Bombay general strike from April. Apart from the
reorganisation of industrial workers and trade union movements there was also a great advance
in terms of organising and advancing peasant organisations, in many places for the first time.
Surnit Sarkar offers the foJJowing detailed account of this great historically significant
development as follows:
'The new spirit of unity among Left-Nationalists, Socialists and Communists found expression
also through the formation of the All India KisanSabha during the Lucknow and Faizpur
Congress sessions. The initiative at first had come from Andhra where N.G. Ranga, leader since
1933-34 of the Provincial Ryot's Association and a separate ZaminRyot's Association for
zamindari tenants, had been trying from 1935 both to extend the Kisan movement to the other
three linguistic regions of Madras Presidency, as well as to draw in sections of agricultural
labourers. A South Indian Federation of Peasants and Agricultural Labour.Started in April 1935
with Ranga as general Secretary, suggested in its conference of October 1935 the immediate
formation of an All India Kisan body. The socialists took up the idea at their Meerut Conference
in January 1936, and though Bihar (the other main base of the early Kisan movement) seems to
have been unenthusiastic at first about what was feared would be rather formal unity, Sahajnand
Saraswati eventually agreed to preside over the first session of the All India Kisan Sabha in
Lucknow in April, 1936. Another notable pioneer lndulalYajnik, the disillusioned Gadhian
veteran from Gujrat who became editor of the Kisan Bulletin. As was probably inevitable, the
Kisan Sabhas focussed mainly on the grievances of peasants with some (and at times
considerable) land vis-a-vis zamindars, traders, money lenders, and the government. The Kisan
Manifesto of August 1936 demanded abolition of zamindari, a graduated tax on agricultural
incomes in excess of Rs 500 in place of the present land revenue, and cancellation of debts. It
included also a minimum charter of demands: 50% cut in revenue and rent. full occupancy rights
to all tenants, abolition of beggar, scaling-down of debts and interest-rates, and restoration of
customary forest rights. The problems of class-differences within the peasantry, and of tensions
between landholding peasants and landless labourers. would remain to plague the KisanSabha
(and the entire left) throughout both in theory and practice. But the Kisan Manifesto did suggest
transfer of uncultivated government and zamindari lands to peasants with less than five acres and
to the landless, who would hopefully get organised into co-operatives; there was no demand,
however, for any general ceiling on landholding. Sahajanand in an early issue of the Kisan
Bulletin wanted an enquiry into agricultural wages, and visualized improvement in agrarian
labour conditions 'by negotiating with the peasants. and by assisting their organised strike
against zamindars and planters' -an interesting but not unnatural distinction' .(Source: SumitSarlcar,
'Modem Indi a', Macmillan, Ne,,..,• Delhi, 1983, p. 339-41)

During the period 1930-34, another important development had been the formation of the
Congress Socialist Party. The process started in jails where some young Congressmen who had
got disappointed with the Gandhian strategy of alternatively starting struggles and then

84
withdrawing, sometimes apparently for no reason, only restart a new struggle after some time,
read and learnt about the Marxist ideology and of the glorious example of the Soviet Union. At
the time the only major Marxist alternative was the CPI (Communist Party of India) but the fact
that they stood separate from the National Congress, the major anti-imperialist mass struggle of
the nation dissuaded them from joining up with the CPI. So they decided that they needed to stay
within the Congress and steer it away from bourgeoisie capitalist and zamindari interests towards
socialism and class equality and social justice. The most important meetings of his group were
held in Nasik jails in1933 where the main participants were Jayaprakash Narayan, Achhut
Patwardhan, Yusuf Mehrali, Ashok Mehta and MinooMasani. The U.P. Congress leader
Sampumanad, their associate drafted a document called •A Tentative Socialist Programme for
India' in April J 934 and the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) was formally started in next month
at a conference in Patna chaired by Narendra Dev. The CSP decided that the most important
struggle underway was the nationalist struggle led by the National Congress for national freedom
and that that struggle was a necessary route to socialism which was thus relatively secondary.
They decided that all socialists must join the Congress and work within it for they would have no
chance of success in influencing anything if they stayed out. As Acharya Narendra Dev, one of
their major leaders, expressed it in 1934: 'it would be a suicidal policy for us to cut ourselves off
from the national movement that the Congress undoubtedly represents; that they must give the
Congress and the national movement a socialist direction; and that to achieve this objective they
must organise the workers and peasants in their class organisations, wage struggles for their
economic demands and make them the social base of the national struggle' .(Bipan Chandra and
othus, 'India's struggle for Independence', Penguin Books, 1989, pp. 304-05 (quoted in) The CSP planned to
work to spread the socialist ideology inside the Congress and make people familiar with it and
also to steer the party into adopting a radical pro-labour and pro-peasant stand on current
economic issues. They also decided that their effort would be of gradual persuasion and not of
any event based dramatic showdown resulting in a triumph for their camp. As Jayaprakash
Narayan instructed bis followers in 1934: 'We are placing before the Congress a programme and
we want the Congress to accept it. If the Congress does not accept it, we do not say we are going
out of the Congress. If today we fail, tomorrow we will try and if tomorrow we fail, we will try
again' .(Sourct: ibid. p.305)

The immediate tactical aim of the CSP was to gradually replace the leadership of the party at all
levels particularly at the top to begin with because it was strongly felt by them that the leadership
was incapable of transforming the struggle of the Congress into a peasant and labour supported
mass struggle. They wished to replace the top leadership by members from their own group
offering themselves as the centre of an alternative socialist leadership for the party. In this
respect one cant help but conclude they were rather ambitious. At the Meerul meeting of the CSP
in 1935 itself they had declared to themselves that their task was to 'wean away the anti­
imperialist elements in the Congress away from its present bourgeoisie leadership and to bring
them under the leadership of revolutionary socialism'. (Source: ibid.)Later they realised the
difficulty of achieving this aim and decided to try and infiltrate the leadership at all levels.
Initially they had quite a bit of success in provinces like U.P. for instance where they managed to
pack the Provincial Congress Committee with a majority of members of their persuasion but a lot
of this early success was due to what Sumit Sarkar says was 'opportunistic support' and
'factional quarrels'.

As for ideological clarity and unity among the leaders of the CSP there wasn't much, according
to SumitSarkar. He comments on it as follows:

85
• Ambiguities were there from the beginning, for the CSP wanted to remain within the Congress,
but was sharply opposed to its leadership and ready to cooperate with non-Congress Leftist
groups. The ideology of its founders ranged from vague and mixed-up radical nationalism to
fairly firm advocacy of Marxian 'scientific socialism'. which Narendra Dev at the Patna meeting
distinguished sharply from mere 'social reformism'. Right leaning Congress leaders disliked the
new trend intensely, Sitaramayya going so far as to describe its founders as 'scum' in a letter to
Patel on 21 September 1934, and the Working Committee in June 1934 condemned 'loose talk
about confiscation of private property and necessity of class war'as contrary to non-violence.
Nehru was sympathetic, but never formally joined the CSP........'.(Source: ibid. p. 332)Su�tSarkar
also points out that eventually most of the CSP leaders went on to have 'extremely chequered
and by no means consistently Leftist political careers in the future' .(Source: ibid. p. 333)

Bipan Chandra (and others) comment on the ideological variety of Congress Socialist Party
(CSP) as follows:
'From the beginning the CSP leaders were divided into three broad ideological currents: the
Marxian, the Fabian and the current influenced by Gandhiji. This would not have been a major
weakness - in fact it might have been a source of strength - for a broad socialist party, which
was a movement. But the CSP was already a part, and a cadre-based party at that, within a
movement that was the National Congress. Moreover, the Marxism of the 1930s was incapable
of accepting as legitimate such diversity of political currents on the Left. The result was a
confusion which plagued the CSP till the very end. The party's basic ideological differences
were papered over for a long time because of tbe personal bonds of friendship and a sense of
comradeship among most of the founding leaders of the party, the acceptance of
AcharyaNarendraDev and Jayaprakash Narayan as its senior leaders, and its commitment to
nationalism and socialism.

Despite the ideological diversity among the leaders, the CSP as a whole accepted a basic
identification of socialism with Marxjsm. Jayaprakasb Narayan, for example, observed in his
book Why Socialism? that 'today more than ever before it is possible to say that there is only one
type, one theory of socialism - Marxism''. (Source: ibid. p. 306)

The CSP activists achieved some striking successes throughout out 1933-34 in developing close
connections with the emerging K.isanSabha Movement, particularly in Bihar and Andhra, and
very soon were being almost seen as their representatives in the Congress by large sections of
peasants. They organised several kisan marches throughout coastal Andhra districts and the
Ellore Zamindari Ryots conference in 1933 demanding abolition of zamindari for instance and
the CSP leader, N.G. Ranga started an Indian Peasant Institute at Nidubrolu to train kisan cadres.

Later after the 1935 shift of the party's stance in the CPI of joining the national movement under
tbe leadership of the Congress, the CSP and the communists of the CPI and other communist
groups converged in their political purpose. SumitSarkar points out that 'the CSP throughout the
mid and late-1930s acted objectively as a kind of bridge across which radical nationalists passed
on their road to the full fledged Marxism of the Communist Party'. N.G. Ranga, a major CSP
leader, for instance even bitterly complained later that the CPI had weaned away one-third of the
2000 peasant youths he bad trained at Nidubrolu, and almost 90% of the original Andhra CSP
membership.(Source: SumitSarkar, 'Modem India', Macmillan, New Delhi, 1983, p. 334)

86
The strong leftist influence on the Congress led National Movement ultimately happened to a
very large extent due to lhe convictions. efforts and influence of l\\ o leading and charismatic
leaders - Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose.

Jawaharlal Nehru had been sent to Brussels in February 1927 to particip,ue in the 'Congress
against Colonial Oppression and Impcnalism · where he met many representatives of the third
world nationalist and socialist forces leaving him very impre sed with the anti-imperialist
socialist solidarity and his famous biographer S. Gopal believes this participation had been a
•turning point' in his 'mental development'. He was appointed honorary president of the League
against Imperialism and for National Independence. He and his father were invited to the Soviet
Union in November 1927. The Soviet visit moved him from profoundly and at a very deep level
gave him his lifelong commitment for socialism. He wrote glowingly of the impressions that
country made on him for the Hindu newspaper and his writings were later published in a book
form in 1928 as Soviet Russia. The title page of the book quoted Wordsworth on the French
Revolution ('Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven') and be
clearly indicated his approval of the 'country of the hammer and sickle. where workers and
peasants sit on the thrones of the mighty'.(Source: SumitSarka,. 'Modern India', Macmillan, New Delhi,
1983, p. 253 (quoted inJ Nehru as a rising leader of the Congress particularly of the youth was
gaining in prominence and so when he declared in December 1928 while addressing a Socialist
Youth Conference that independence was ·a necessary preliminary to communistic society'
clearly indicating thereby that that would be his ideal. he attracted attention. Jawaharlal could
only become the president of the Congress because of Gandhi's support who probably realised
that the restive youth sold on communhm would not put up with a candidate from the
bourgeoisie right of the party. He was clearly the compromise in many ways. Jawaharlal made
bis ideological preferences clear in the first of his many brilliant presidential addresses in
December 1929 at the Lahore session of the Congress putting before the party a new
internationalist and socially-radical perspective for the freedom movement. He bluntly a11d
boldly declared:
'I must frankly confess that I am a socialist and a republican, and am no believer in kings and
princes, or in the order which produces the modem kings and princes of industry ...' .(Source; ibid.
p. 283) Without pulling any punches he ridiculed the ·trusteeship' concept of Gandhi which
Gandhi bad been trying to use in zamindar-peasant and capital-labour conflicts by saying: 'Many
Englishmen honestly consider themselves the trustees for India, and yet to what a condition they
have reduced our country!'.

Later in his life Jawaharlal moved from the left to the centre and even allowed his leftist leanings
and principles to be compromised under the pressure of Indian capitalists. Indian capitalists and
the far right had always been alarmed at the leftist development in the Congres.., and were
fighting a cold war of sorts from the thirties onwards to . ideline and root out all leftist and
communist influence. When Jawaharlal Nehru was in jail in 1931 he worked out a fairly radical
agrarian program and the basic element what \\as to become the hasic clement of a left
nationalist strategy in the mid-1930s - the demand for a Constituent Assembly as the central
political slogan. Later though he diluted most of his radical proposals and again and again would
surrender to Gandhiji's wishes. Perhaps he had been morally weakened after the death of his
father, Moutai Nehru. � also realised that it was Gandhi and not he who had the mas, appeal to
unite and keep the notational movement on track.

Subhash Chandra Bose came on the political scene in 1920-21 when he re ·igned from the ICS
and joined the Non- Cooperation and Khilafat Movement. R'- an unde, study of sorts of

87
DeshBandhuCbittaRanjan Das. The ICS was the most prestigious professional occupation those
days in tenns of social status and prestige and so his resigning itself attracted a lot of attention.

From the 1920s onwards, post the Russian Revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union,
leftist thoughts had started influencing lnctian leaders, some anyway and C.R Das had been one
such leader. As early as in 1924, as President of the Fourth Congress of theof the All lnctia Trade
Union Congress (AITUC), the DeshBandhu declared:
'Swaraj must be for the 98 percent toiling masse� and not for the two percent upper classes.
Swaraj must not mean mere replacement of the white by the brown bureaucracy.' (Source:
GautamChaJtopadhya, 'Subhash Chandra, Indian Leftist Movement and the Communist Party', in Subhash Chandra
Bose, HarAnand Pub/icarion, 1998. New Delhi, p. 80 (quoted in))How alarmed the British had been at the
development of leftist influence can be gauged from a secret wire that the Viceroy of India sent
in 1922 to the Secretary of State for Inctia saying, "a section of the extremists, C.R. Das mcluded,
and some newspapers have been attracted by M.N. Roy's doctrine of rousing the masses. The
methods and ideas of the Bolshevists also naturally appeal to men like the Bengal ex­
detenus." .(Source: ibid.)

Subhash Bose bad thus in probability come under leftist influence under C.R. Das. He was
invited along with the son of C.R. Das to attend the Communist International as delegates not as
communists but as left wing Indian nationalists along with a full-fledged communist like S.A.
Dange. The Communist International at that time as per its then policy was trying to forge unity
in anti-colonial movements and hence invited Bose even though he wasn't seen as a full
communist. He had become friendly to communists over the years and at this stage helped them
by giving shelter to underground communists from abroad like Abani Mukherjee and Nalini
Gupta. He offered a platfonn mainly within the Congress for people with a leftist persuasion to
congregate around. He was in jail between 1924 and 1927. In the interim years the participation
of industrial workers in the national struggle increased and they provided the bulk of the
participants more than ever before. Also the trade union movement gathered pace and there was
massive strike action all over the country panicularly in the jute, textile and railway industries. In
the agitation against the Simon Commission the working class was at the forefront and provided
the bulk of the people-power in the general strikes and the black flag demonstrations. These
strikes were increasingly mostly organised jointly by Left-wing Congressmen, ·socialists and
Communists who were thus winning the opportunity to influence Congress policy more than
ever before.

Thus when in the Calcutta session of the Congress Subhasb Chandra moved an amendment to
the main resolution asking for complete independence and not Dominion Status to be made the
official goal of the Inctian National Congress and the amendment was narrowly defeated because
of opposition from Gandhi, Rajendra Prasad and Vallabhai Patel etcetc - the same Gandhi plus
right-wing combination with increasing acquiesces from Nehru, and who would triumph
repeatedly and tone down and even eliminate leftist influence over the next decades - the rank
and file of the left nationalists was naturally ctisappointed. The very next day, a massive
demonstration of industrial workers, jointly led by left-wing nationalists, socialists and
communists, entering the Congress panda/ and unanimously adopting a resolution declaring
complete independence to be the immediate goal of the Inctian working class movement.

The British in their attempts at controlling the national movement bad all along focussed the
most on the leftists who they saw as the most dangerous enemies to their interests and just after
Subhash Chandra had been elected President of the All Inctia Trade union congress with

88
communist support alongside S.V Deshpande, a Bombay communist who was elected general
secretary. he was badly beaten up and arrested by the British Police on January 26, 1931 for
leading the Independence Day demonstration even though he was the elected Mayor of the
Calcutta corporation at that point.

At this point, the unfortunate historic turning away from mainstream national movements was
effected by the international communist movement and the Indian communists following that
line ended up describing genuine left nationalists like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subbash Bose as
"representatives of the capitalists working class working against the fundamental interests of the
toiling masses of our country''. But by 1935 the communists changed their policy again and were
ready to work with the broad nationalist movement. Subha h Chandra Bose spent three years in
Europe to recover from his illness but came back soon to take over as the President of the Bengal
Provincial Congress Committee. His relationship with the communists was as close as ever and
his vice-president in the Provincial Congress Committee was one Bankim Mukherjee, an
outstanding communist leader. Another communist leader, PancbugopalBhaduri became his
assistant secretary.

Needless to say, the constant identification of Subhasb Chandra had made him many enemies
from the right and bourgeoisie inside the Congress and now the Congress was spilt down the
middle along right left lines. In 1938 Subbash Chandra had been unanimously elected as the
President in the Haripura session but in 1939 when the question of his re-election came up, the
entire Right-wing congress leadership opposed it. At that point P.C. Joshi, who was general
secretary of the illegal CPI asked communists in the legal communist weekly to help in re­
electing Subhash. Congress Socialists, foJlowers of M.N. Roy and the communists unitedly
supported Subhash and he was re-elected defeating the official Congress candidate,
PattabhiSitaramayya. Subhash Chandra's victory was seen by the left rank and file as their
victory and Subhash wrote an article in the communist journal called 'Carry Forward the
Heritage of Struggle' saying "My heartiest congratulations to the National Front for its consistent
stand for the national line of struggle and for the unification and consolidation of Left
forces" .(Source: ibid.)

So in 1939 in a way came the finest hour for the unity of leftist forces trying to steer the
Congress away from bourgeoisies capitalist forces but it was not to last, as is evident from the
following account of the flurry of action that Subhash led from then on:
'In July, 1939, Subhash Chandra took the initiative to form the Left Consolidation Committee
(LCC), primarily with strong communist support. Apart from the communists, the committee
included representatives of the followers of M.N. Roy, a section of the Congress Socialist Party
and the outstanding militant Bihar peasant leader Swami SahajanandSaraswati. This, in fact, was
the heyday of Left unity in India and the period when relations between Subhash Chandra Bose
and the Indian communist leaders were the most cordial.
In September, 1939, the Second World War broke out. Subhash Chandra Bose, who had
meanwhile built up his own organisation - the All India Forward Block - had declared quite
some time before the Second World War that the object of the Forward Bloc was to "rally" all
radical and anti-imperialist progres ive elements in the country on the basis of a minimum
program representing the greatest common measure of agreement among radicals of all shades of
opinion. Subha h Chandra bad hoped that the Socialists, Communists and Royists would join his
Forward Bloc. However, that did not happen. The Socialists, Communists, and Royists were
certainly agreeable to joint activities and action with the Forward Bloc, but did not join it. The
CPI, while strongly condemning the attacks of the Right-wing Congress leadership against
89
Subhash Bose, did not endorse the policy of Forward Bloc. While Subbash Chandra was
prepared to go forward with or without the Congress, the CPI declared that the correct tactics
were to push the entire congress towards struggle.
Subhash Chandra, therefore, persuaded his All India Forward Bloc, during its first conference at
Bombay in the middle of 1939, to approve the fonnation of a Left Consolidation Committee,
which would be a relatively loose alliance. The LCC was to have an equal number of
representatives from the Forward Bloc, the CPL the CSP and the Royists. This alliance was
unstable for more than one reason. The CPI and CSP, by this time, were almost always at each
other's throat, while the strident anti-Fascism of M.N. Roy was not to the liking of many
Forward Bloc leaders, like SatyaRanjanBakshi and H.V. Karnath, who held strong anti-Soviet
views.' (Source: ibid.)

The beginning of the Second World War triggered a series of events. Subhash Chandra Bose was
of the view that Indian National Movement should take advantage of the war situation and CPI
was in agreement with him. The illegal CPI in its politbureau meeting of October, 1939,
declared: "The task of the Indian people is the revolutionary utilisation of the war crisis for the
achievement of national freedom .....the capture of power is an immediately realisable
goal'' .(Source: ibid.)

The right wing of the Congress with the full support and acquiescence of Gandhi and a passive
ambiguous approach of sorts from Nehru decided to offer full support to the British to fight
Fascism. Subhash Bose in 1940 at the annual conference of the All India Students Federation, a
united organization of Leftists in which the communists were dominant, declared in a speech that
the Right wing Congress leadership was shirking from a struggle. "I presume", he said, "that
they are afraid that once a nation-wide campaign is launched, the control and leadership of the
nationalist movement will pass out of their hands ...The time ba� come for all of us to dare and
act ...only then shall we win victory and swaraj" .(Source: ibid.) Due to these statements and the
rather opposite stand of the Congress Right, the British government re.alised in no time that the
Subhash Bose - CPI combine posed the greatest threat to their rule and immediately launched
into a campaign of repression arresting known communists and the supporters of the Forward
Bloc. Subhash himself was arrested under the Defence of India Act in Calcutta on July 2, 1940
and lodged in the Presidency jail.

The famous history of what happened after that with Subhash Bose's escape from prison and his
going to Germany and later forming the Indian National Army to fight a war against British
occupation of India with help from the Axis powers is well known. He chose the Axis Powers as
his main allies during the Second World War acting on the basis of the age-old premise of an
'enemy's enemy is a friend' but unfortunately no political force back home could support him in
this strategic ploy. Since the Soviet Union was at war with Hitler's Germany and due to the
ideological principles of Fascism, the CPI bad to oppose any alliance however strategic or
temporary and they did. M.N. Roy and his Radical Democratic Party had opposed fascism
vehemently through out and so were in no position to offer any support to Subbash Bose's plans.
Nor did the CSP support him and both Nehru and to a lesser extent AbuJKalam Azad opposed
the stand Subhash took. There were elements in the extreme right wing and from the Hindu right
within the Congress who had sympathies for Fascism but they were so much to the right and in
close collaboration with Indian capitalists that they couldn't possibly have emerged as allies of
Subhash Chandra Bose. SardarVallabbai Patel for instance bad strong sympathies for Hitler,
Mussolini and the Japanese military forces.

90
Thus Bose was in an opposite camp to the left from this period on but GautamChattopadhya says
communist historians should accept that the assessment of the Indian Communist Movement at
that time about Subhash Bose of him having become a quisling of the Axis Powers was wrong
which be says bas not been borne out by historical evidence that emerged in later years. But he
also says that all admirers of Netaji have to admit that Subhash Bose did fail to estimate the
extent of evil of the Axis Powers and the ideology of imperialism and racist dictatorship that they
followed. He says there is every possibility that in the light of the further evidence that emerged
on these regimes after his death he would have reviewed his alliance just as all the nationalist
movements in Malaya, Indonesia and the Phili'ppines did. Gautam Chattopadhaya sums up the
impact of Subhasb Chandra Bose in his life (and even after his death) on the national movement
as follows:
' . . .in the explosive and unprecedented post-war revolutionary upsurges in India from November
1945 to February, 1946, when millions of workers, peasants, students as well as members of the
Indian armed forces threw up barricades and hoisted the banner of revolt for the overthrow of the
British rule in India, the driving force in every revolt was the legend of Netaji Subhash Chandra
Bose and his INA. In all these revolts, the CPI and all other Leftists played a heroic and glorious
part. Thus in a profounder sense, Left unity on a grand scale was forged by Netaji Subbash
Chandra Bose - not by himself in person but by his immortal legend' .(Source:ibid. p. 89)

Whether it was the contribution of charismatic individuals like Subhash Chandra Bose or not it is
remarkable that the broad left -- the CPI, CSP, Nehru. Bose himself and other left groups could
and did function together since l 935 for so long. This was made possible more than anything by
the fact that they shared a common political programme, which enabled them, despite ideological
and organisational differences to work together. The main program that the left adhered to were:
l . A consistent and militant anti-imperialism (which distinguished them quite starkly at times
from the Congress Right and even Gandhi who every· now and then appeared to look like they
were well wishers of the British colonial rule of India)
2. Finn anti-landlordism (on which again the Right and even Gandhi varied from being
ambiguous to being totally against any measures introduced to eliminate or diminish the evil of
zamindari)
3. Organising and promoting the Trade Union Movement and Kisa11Sabhas which for the first
time gave the workers and peasants any sort of a voice
4. The promotion of the acceptance of a socialistic vision of society in independent India and of a
socialistic program of the economic and social transformation of society
5. An anti-fascist, anti-colonial and anti-war foreign policy.

Bipan Chandra and others believe part of this failure of the Left was due to the tendency of the
Left of fighting the dominant Congress leadership on wrong issues and their inability to show
'ideological and tactical flexibility'. They comment as follows:
'It (the left) sought to oppose the right wing with simplistic formulae and radical rhetoric. It
fought the right wing on slippery and wrong grounds. It chose to fight no on questions of
ideology but on methods of struggle and on tactics. For example, its most serious charge against
the Congress right-wing was that it wanted to compromise with imperialism, that its was
frightened of mass struggle, that its anti-imperialism was not whole hearted because of
bourgeoisie influence over it. The right wing had little difficulty in disposing of these charges.
The people rightly believed it and not the Left. Three important occasions may be cites as
example. In 19336-37, the Left fought the Right within the Congress on the issue of elections
and office acceptance, which was seen as a compromise with imperialism. In 1939-42, the fight
was waged on the issue of the initiation of a mass movement, when Gandhi's reluctance was

91
seen as an aspect of his soft attitude towards imperialism and as the missing of a golden
opportunity. And, in 1945-47, the Left confronted the dominant Congress leadership, including
Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Azad, on the question of imperialism's last ditch effort to
prolong their domination and the tired congress leadershjp's hunger for power or even
betrayal .....The Left also failed to make a deep study of Indian reality .....saw the dominant
Congress leadership as bourgeois, its policy of negotiations as working towards a 'compromise'
with imperialism .......It took recourse to a simplistic model of analysing Indian social classes
and their political behaviour.........constantly counter posed armed struggle to non-violence as a
superior form and method of struggle, rather than concentrating on the nature of mass
involvement and mobilization and ideology. It was convinced that the masses were ever ready
for struggles in any form if only the leaders were willing to initiate them. It constantly over
estimated its support among the people. Above all, the Left failed to grasp the Gandhian strategy
of struggle.'(Source: Bipan Chandra and others, 'India's struggle for independence', Pen8IIIII Hooks. 1989, pp.
307-8) They also of course point out that the weakness of disunity in the left \\las also a major
reason for their failure.

Sumit Sarkar points out that the years 1935-36 'saw the emergence of a pattern in Indian politics
which would be repeated often, both before and after independence......outwardly, all the signs
were of a significant lurch to the Left: growing Socialist and communist activity (despite the
1934 ban on the CPI), numerous labour and peasant struggles, the formation of several Left-led
all-India mass organisations, and Congress Presidential addresses by Nehru ......which formally
seemed to embody virtually all the radical aspirations and programmes of the Left ........ yet in
the end the IUght within the Congress was able to skilfully and effectiveJy ride and indeed utilize
the storm .........' .(Source: SumitSarlcar, 'Modem India', Macmilla11, Nei" Delhi, 1983, p. 338)

The events of the Tripuri session of the Congress in 1939 contains all the elements of what ailed
the left movement. At the 1939 Tripuri session, eight CSP leaders proposed to Bose that be stand
for the Presidency of the Congress. Bose raised the demand for a radical call of a 'National
Demand' for Swaraj which would be time bound and linked his candidature to trus demand but
SumitSarkar believes 'it is difficult to avoid the impression that the issue was to a considerable
extent personal'.(Source: SumitSarlcar. 'Modem India', Macmillan, New De/It,, 1983, p. 372) The congress
high command had been ever getting increasingly hostile to any labour or peasant militancy
under the influence of leaders in the party close to zamindari and industrial interests and of
course those communities in general had been generous with funding to the Congress. So when
Bose's nomination was announced against their candidate Sitarammaya, a confrontation was set
up and the entire left rallied around Bo e. Gandhi explicitly declared that Sitaramayya was his
candidate after Maulana Azad had withdrawn, who had been a third candidate. Subbash Bose
was elected by 1580 votes against 1377 of the right wing Sitararnrnaya. What happened after that
is very interesting. Surnit Sarkar comments on it as follows:
'Immensely superior tactics and Left's lack of unity enabled Gandhi and the Congress IUght to
snatch victory from the jaws of an apparently decisive defeat. Gandhi immediately made the
issue a matter of his own personal prestige by declaring Sitarammaya's defeat to be more 'mine
than his'(31 January). On 22 February 13 out of the 15 members of the old Working Committee
resigned, on the ground that Subhash had publicly criticized them; they included, after the usual
wobbling and on a somewhat different pretext, Nehru. The Tripuri session (8-12 march) found
Bose temporarily almost incapacitated by illness, and Gandhi back from a fast in Rajkot which
had won some concessions for the time being. The Right pressed home their offensive through
the famous resolution moved b GovindBallav Pant expressing confidence in the old Working

92
Committee, reiterating his faith in the Gandhian policies followed during the last 20 years, and
asking Bose to nominate his new executive 'in accordance with the wishes of Gandhiji'. The
resolution was carried by 2 18 to 133 votes in the Subjects Committee, and by an overwhelming
majority through show of hands in the open session. Nehru's support was not unexpected: apart
from bis ultimate loyalty to Gandhi, his personal equation with Bose had never been happy. But
Socialists, Royists and Communists (except for some Bengal members like BankimMukberji)
also failed to oppose the Pant resolution out of a desire to avoid a complete split. Jayaprakasb
(Narayan) even moved, and Nehru and the Communist Bhardawaj supported. the extremely
diluted National Demand resolution which dropped Bose's idea of a time-bound uJtimatum and
merely called for preparations for a struggle to achieve a Constituent Assembly through
strengthening the Congress .........It may be argued that a more fundamenta1 mistake from the
Left point of view lay in the failure both before and after Tripuri to resist more effectively the
increasingly anti-labour and anti-kisan policies of the Congress ministries. This was the result of
a united front which in practice at times came to be identified with a desire to retain unity with
top Congress leaders at all costs ......'. (Source: ibid.. pp.373-74)

QUESTIONS
1. Why did the revolutionary extremists emerge and what were their successes?
2. Trace the origin and development of the Communists.
3. Write an essay on the Congress Socialists.

SUGGESTED READINGS

I. Modem India 1857-1947, SumitSarkar, Macmillan, New Delhi, 1983

2. India Today, R. Palme Dutt, Manisha, Calcutta, 1970

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 Unit IV
LESSON7
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: WOMEN, CASTE, PEASANT,
TRIBAL AND WORKERS
. . . . .AmareshGanguli
l.akir Hussain College
University of Delhi
Objectives

After reading this article you will be familiar with:

► Women and the National Struggle
► The Movements of the Depressed Castes
, The Contribution of Peasant Movements
► The Movement otTribals
► Worker's and Labour Movement

In the national struggle apart from the mainstream of the national movement carried on by the
Congress and others there were various movements by or for population sub-groups all of which
contributed to the national struggle. Their contribution apart from adding to the nationalist
fervour and helping in putting up a more widespread opposition to foreign rule also helped create
the national identity that we today take for granted.
Women and the National Struggle
One of the �mportant facets of India's freedom movement was the growing participation of
women. Women played an especially crucial role in the economic boycott campaigns and often
participated in the non-cooperation movement with as much or even greater enthusiasm than
their husbands or male relatives. In rallies organized by the Congress, women attended in large
numbers often with little children in tow. Particularly notable was the participation of women in
the armed struggle of Bengal. In the group led by Surya Sen, they provided shelter, acted as
messengers and custodians of arms, and fought, guns in hand. PritilataWaddedar died while
conducting a raid, while KalpanaDutt was arrested and tried along with Surya Sen and given a
life sentence. In December 193 l , two school girls of Comilla, Shanti Ghosh and
SunitiChowdhury, shot dead the District Magistrate. In February 1932, Bina Das fired point
blank at the Governor while receiving her degree at the Convocation. When the entire Congress
leadership was put in jail in 1942, women leaders like ArunaAsaf Ali and Sucheta Kripalani
emerged with Achyut Patwardban and Ram Manohar Lohia and others to lead the underground
resistance. Usha Mehta ran the Congress radio. Congress socialists, Forward Bloc members, and
other armed resistance factions were active in this period, working through underground cells in
Mumbai, Pune. Satara, Baroda, and other parts of Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh,
UP, Bihar and Delhi.

The journey for women's liberation though can be said to have started with Raja Ram Mohan
Roy (1774), who in Bengal demanded that women be not regarded as weak in intellect and virtue
or as deficient in resolution, trustworthiness and in terms of control over passion. He opposed
sari and polygamy and started a campaign for widow-remarriage among his followers. He and
· his ardent supporters founded the Brahmn Samaj in 1828 and started imparting English
education to both men and women to help change anti-woman attitudes. Devedra Nath Tagore
(1817) and Iswar Chandra VidyaSagar (1820) supported the views of Ram Mohan. Keshab
Chanda Sen was another reformer who tried to have kulinism and public dancing by women
abolished. He also brought out a monthly magazine exclusively for women called 'Bamabcxlhini'

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and attacked polygamy and purdah while encouraging inter-caste marriages. He was the prime
mover behind the movement that led to the passing of the Civil Marriage Act of 1872 by the
British. Swami Vivekanada (1863) who came along later was also clear about the wrongful
oppression of women on the basis of wrong and distorted interpretations of religious mores and
customs. RabindrnNath Tagore, the hugely influential poet and author also was supportive of the
cause of advancement of women and recruited women for his institution Shantiniketan actively
all his life.

In Uttar Pradesh, Huzur Maharaj Raj Salig Ram, born in 1829 in Agra was a social reformer who
worked for the emancipation of women and could be said to be the pioneer of the women's
movement in ms part of the country. He opposed the custom of purdah and the traditional notion
of servility of the wife towards the husband and worked for the removal of illiteracy among
women. He also brought out a magazine called Prem.Patra towards this end

In the South, in Madras, the social reformer Viresalingam worked for advancement of women
through education and marriage reforms. Another reformer VenkataRatnam too encouraged
female education.

A major development was the passing of the Married Women·s Property Act in 1874 which
widened the meaning of Streedhana in Hindu law enabling women to begin to inherit property
and to retain the money which a woman might earn by dint of her artistic and literary skills.

A major role in the journey of Indian women historically has been played by Swami Dayananda
Saraswati who came into the scene in the later half of the nineteenth century. The AryaSamaj
advocated fema1e education . widow remarriage, marriage by consent (]ike in Svyamavara) and
started a movement for re-admission into Hindu society of those who had once been converted to
other religions through the ritual they called 'Suddhl'. The Arya Samaj continues to be an active
organisation to this day.

In Maharashtra reformer Mahadev Govind Ranade, who was born in 1842 founded the Indian
Social Conference and supported the cause of women's advancement and emancipation. Another
reformer Behramji Malabari (1835 ) worked hard Lo infant marriages and enforced widowhoods
abolished. It was his efforts which led to the passing by the British of the Age of Consent Act of
188 1 which raised the age of consent for marriages to 12 years. Gopal Krishna Gokhale () 866)
also was a social reformer and nationalist who opposed the seclusion of women and was deeply
interested in the propagation of female education.

Apart from the reformers mentioned above who were initially all men, there were also some
women who played a role in the forward march of women as a result of which, as Anjani Kant
puts it women "themselves came to assume the responsibilities of their own cause and began to
raise the demand for their proper place in society.. .(Source: Anjani Kant, Women and the Law,
A.P.H. Publishing Corporation, New Delhi, 2003, p.64)PanditaRamabai (1858-1922) for
instance, in Maharashtra, exhorted women to abandon participation in child marriages, to
educate themselves and to do away with the wrongs meted out to them.
She broadened her fight and took into purview the authority of the scriptures also. Again in
Maharashtra, Ramabai Ranade (1862-1922) worked for the education of women and brought
women out of the confines of homes or zenanas in the case of Muslim homes. She wanted to be
united across all barriers of religion and caste and fight their common battles together against
tradition and patriarchy. Anandibai Joshi( 1865) who was a physician by profession, worked for

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the abolishing of child marriages and for the provision of proper medical care, free from all
superstitions. Francina Sorabjee worked for female education and established many schools for
the purpose. Annie Jagannadban and Rukmabai, both physicians by profession, challenged
Indian traditionalism and devoted to the service of women. Madam Cama (1861-1936), Toro
Datt (1856-1877) and Swapna Kumari Devi (1855-1932) were some other important
personalities among others..

During the national freedom movement against the British, women's advancement got a huge
boost not just due to the work of reformers and the legislative changes introduced by the British
but also due to the express support of our major leaders. Gandhi for instance once said:
"To call women lhe weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to women. If by strength is meant
moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Has she not-greater intuition, is she
not more self-sacrificing, bas she not greater powers of endurance, has she not greater courage?
Without her man could not be. If non-violence is the law of our Being, the future is with
women". Gandhi's clear opposition to child marriage and the treatment that widows received
until then, particularly in Hindu society, hugely helped to make these issues mainstream and
helped in putting it out to the masses with a moral authority and force which made its wide
acceptance possible. He asked for widows to be given the right to remarry if they want and while
condemning the system of purdah appealed to the parents of girls to be broadminded. He called
the system of dowry a drag on society and ultimately held men responsible for the degradation of
women. llis role can't be underestimated. Anjali Kant rightly points out:
"It was Gandhi above all who was responsible for the creation of a new myth of Indian
womanhood. He was well aware of the unrest and revolutionary potential among the masses of
oppressed Indian women. Gandhi identified with the enslaved women and canalised their
rebellion into his non-violent, anti-colonial struggle. The Gandhian ideology of "Indian
womanhood'' combined the female virtues which orthodox Hinduism preached for several
thousand years with certain qualities of the modem women. Gandhi revived the figures of the
Indian epics, the Mahabharata and above all, the Ramayana. Gandhi chose Sita - the
monogamous, chaste, self-sacrificing spouse of Rama - as his ideal woman and not Draupadi the
strong willed, passionate revengeful, poly-androus wife of the five Pandavas of the
Mahabharata . . .. Gandhi admired Sita's chastity and purity, which she preserved even when in the
clutches of Ravana - the demon king. Gandhi utilised Sita's qualities to advise women that she
could find sufficient strength in her own purity to resist even the physical violence of men.
Gandhi adopted the technique of passive resistance or Satyagraha. In the silent suffering and
self-sacrifice of women, Gandhi saw one of the strongest features of Indian women and it is that
women are by nature more suited to fight with the new weapons of non-violence and truth. He
thought that women are more non-violent than men. In 1938, he wrote, "I do believe that it is
women's mjssion to exhibit abimsa (non-violence) at its highest and its best. ... for women is
more fined than man to make abirnsa. For the courage of self-sacrificing woman is in any way
superior to man, as I believe man is to woman for the courage of the brute" .. .. Besides, or so to
speak, above ahimsa and self-sacrifice, Gandhi allotted woman the role of spiritualization of the
so-called animal instincts, including sexual desires. The highest aim of marriage for Gandhi was
spiritual maturation, followed by service to the society, duties towards the farruly and ancestors,
and mutual attraction between husband and wife. Following Sita-Ram model, the wife's
relationship to her husband ought to be one of worship, a spiritual one. Having envisioned these
qualities of women, Gandhi thought women's entry into the fields of politics, educations and
economics will have a civiUsing effect: ''Women is the embodiment of sacrifices and suffering,
and her advent to public life should, therefore, result in purifying it, in restraining unbridled
ambition and accumulation of property." Thus, Gandhi pleaded for equality and economic

96
Independence for women but advised them not to practice these rights, for they were fitted to the
"brute nature" of man" .... The national movement brought women from their homes to face
lathis and bullets and gave them not only a consciousness of their own strength but a new vision
of their true place in society. This had several implications for women. First. in the wake of the
national movement, it became easier for women to leave their homes to get involved in the
national cause as the movement was supported by their husbands and guardians. Secondly,
women themselves became aware of their capacity for work. suffering, and leadership and
organised themselves to fight for their due place both in the home and in the society. Thirdly, the
nationalist movement further provided a suitable forum for women to assess their own work
which began in the early pan of the century with the creation of several women's
organisations."(Source: Ibid. pp.64-67)

The significance of the national movement and women's participation in it has been held up by
commentators again and again as a very significant shift. Take the following view for instance:
"The national movement by treating women as political beings capable of nationalist feelings
and as, if not more, capable of struggle and sacrifice than men resolved many doctrinal debates
about the desirability of women's role in the public sphere. If women could march in
processions, defy the laws, go to jail - all unescorted by male family members - then they could
also aspire to take up jobs, have the right to vote, and maybe even inherit parental property.
Political participation by women in the massive popular struggles from the twenties onwards
opened up new vistas of possibilities that a century of social reform could not. The image of the
woman changed from a recipient of justice in the nineteenth century. to an ardent supporter of
nationalist men in the early twentieth, to a comrade by the thirties and forties. Women had
participated in all streams of national movement - from Gandhian to Socialist to Communist to
revolutionary terrorist. They had been in peasant movements and in trade union struggles. They
had founded separate women's organisations as well; the All India Women's Conference,
founded in 1926, being the most important of tbese."(Source: Bipan Chandra, Mridula
Mukherjee andAditya Mukherjee's 'India after Independence, 1947-2000', Penguin Books, New
Delhi, 2000Penguin Books, New Delhi, 2000, p.451)

The Movements of the Dep� Castes

Another major population sub-group that saw major movements were the depressed classes also
known as the backward castes or Dalits.

Phule, Periyar and Ambedkar emerged as amongst the most prominent of the Dalit leaders. The
Congress, while open to some reforms, often did not go far enough - leading to well-deserved
criticism from the more radical of the Dalit and Adivasi leaders. Nevertheless, virtually all the
advanced sections of the freedom struggle came to the conclusion that for India to succeed as a
modem nation, the issue of equality for Dalits and Adivasis could not be dismissed.

Gandhi realised that for the cause of forging a national identity and a national spirit the
leadership will have to eliminate or dilute social divisions. And one of the worst divisions unique
to India was the caste divide with untouchability as its ugliest manifestation. Thus as a matter of
political strategy for the cause of the freedom struggle it was an urgency to fight the caste divide
and eliminate untouchability. Also as a social reformer who believed the key to national
regeneration was a rebuilding of the national character, particularly the Hindu character. he saw
it as a vital imperative to eliminate the evils of caste and untouchability. Also as somebody who
had it as one of his goals the spiritual revival of the Hindu religion, he came to see it vital and
most urgent that untouchability be eliminated and the caste rigidities diluted.
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Gandhl rather than leading a political movement of the backward castes instead chose the
refonnist approach as bis main motive was not to right social wrongs but to unite India,
particularly Hindus, for the struggle against the British. He commented in 1926 for instance: 'I
do not believe in caste as it is at present constituted. but I do believe in the four fundamental
divisions regulated according to the four principal occupations. The existing innumerable
divisions. with the attendant artificial restrictions and elaborate ceremonial, are harmful to the
growth of a religious spirit, as also to the social we11-being of the Hindus and, therefore, also
their neighbours.' (Soune: Young India. Feb 25, 1926Jlt was Gandhi's case that the caste system had
to be purified and corrected from the abusive and the distorted form it had taken. This was his
position both because be wished to refom1 and save Hinduism from its degraded state and raise
the character of the Hindu for the sake of both Hindus and the Indian national cause. Thus he
was not suggesting abolishing of the caste system and was only pleadfog for a mitigation of its
worst aspects.

He was careful not to give a political tinge to his appeals for correcting the wrongs against Dalits
as that would have weakened the nationalist agenda. He commented: 'According to my
conception of Varna, all inequality is ruled out of life. Inequality of intellect or in material
possessions ought not to mean inequality of social status. I do most emphatically maintain that
man is not made to choose his occupation for 'rising in the social scale'. He is made to serve his
fellow-man and earn his daily bread by the sweat of his brow. And since the primary wants of all
are the same, all labour should carry the same value.' (Source: Harijan, March 11. 1933) Then
again: 'The divisions define duties, they confer no privileges. It is, I hold, against the genius of
Hinduism to arrogate to oneself a higher status or assign to another a lower.'(Source: Young India,
October 6, 1921)

While arguing for a reform of the caste system Gandhi was careful to explain he was not asking
that they start eating together and inter-marrying. Perhaps he knew it would be realistically in a
social and political sense too much to expect or perhaps he only wished to remove the really ugly
edges of the system and bad no real repulsion for a substantial portion of it, if it was suitably
reformed. That is the reason the great leaders like Ambedkar came into conflict with him.

The case of the new leaders who emerged was that a 'class analysis' of India (focusing attention
on the rich, the new middle-class and the poor), was not enough and it was only a 'caste
analysis' of India that can fully deal with the reality of India with its unique history of social
injustice. One cannot understand India without understanding the complete nature and scope of
the caste system in Indian life. Caste considerations dominate people's lives from birth to death.
This understanding of the caste system and how it controls and regulates social, economic,
political and religious life i� absolutely essential to interpreting the Indian reality.

Dalit and Backward Caste ideologues launched a full-fledged attack against the caste system and
Brabminism maintaining and pushing forward the movement first launched by Mahatma Phule,
fine-tuned by Periyar in the South, and finally polished by Ambedkar.

Jotirao Govindrao Phule was born in Satara district of Maharastra in a family belonging to mali
caste. He was regarded as very intelligent as a child and got the opportunity to attend the Scottish
Mission's High School. He was influenced by western thinkers and in particular by Thomas
Paine's book Rights of Man (1791). He developed an inspiration for fighting for justice and
became a severe critic of the Indian caste system which was quite radical for his times as the

98
public acceptability of the caste system at that time was total. He argued that education of
women and the lower castes was a vital priority in addressing social inequalities.
On 24 September 1874, Jotirao formed 'Satya Shodhak Samaj' (Society of Seekers of Truth) and
became its first president and treasurer. The main objectives of the organisation was to liberate
the Sbudras and AtiShudras and to prevent their 'exploitation' by the upper caste like Brahmans.
TheSatya Shodhak Samaj refused to regard the Vedas as sacrosanct and opposed idolatry.He
called the Vedas idle fantasies containing absurd legends and creating a 'form of false
consciousness'.Satya Shodhak Samaj instead argued and promoted what they called rational
thinking. Their argument was there was no need for a Brahman caste for religious rituals or for
imparting education. Phule's wife, Savitribaihad become the bead of the women's section which
included ninety female members - again quite revolutionary for those times and without parallel
anywhere in the country. The samaj had a journal Deenbandhu which played a very important
role in spreading Satya Shodhak Samaj' s message.

The Satya Shodhak Samaj under Phuleled campaigns to remove the economic and social
discriminations arguing the rules of religious texts were outwardly religious but in essence
motivated by desire to exploit and maintain superior positions of the upper castes. He accused
the Brahmins of upholding the teachings of religion but refusing to rationally analyse the
principles. He rejected the blind faith out of fear of God that was the basis of the belief systems
and social rules. He asked rif there is only one God, who created the whole of mankind. why did
be write the Vedas only in Sanskrit language despite his anxiety for the welfare of the whole
mankind? What about the welfare of those who do not understand this language?" Phulethus
argued it is wrong that religious texts were given by God and to believe so is only ignorance and
prejudice. All religions and their religious texts are man-made and they represent the selfish
interest of the classes, which are trying to pursue and protect their selfish ends is what he
forcefully propagated and be was the only social reformer in his time to hold such ideas. Phule
believed in overthrowing the social system in which man has been deliberately made dependent
on others, illiterate, ignorant and poor, with a view to exploiting him. He initiated widow­
remarriage and started a home for upper caste widows in 1854, as well as a home for new-born
infants to prevent female infanticide. Phule tried to eliminate lhe scigma of untouchability
surrounding the lower castes by opening his house and the use of his water-well to the members
of the lower castes. Thus he was clearly a pioneer of the lacer social reform movements against
caste discrimination including those by Gandhi during the national movement.

Most interestingly Pbule had a favourable opinion about the effects of the British Rule in India as
be felt they were introducing modem notions of justice and equality in Indian society and he
became a member of Pune municipality from 1876 to 1882.
Even after Jotiba's death in 1890 his followers continued spreading the movement to the remotest
parts of Maharashtra. Shahu Maharaj, the ruler of the Kolhapur princely state, interestingly had
supported the Samaj and bad given a lot of financial and moral support to SatyaShodhakSamaj,
presumably in the face of opposition from his own caste fellows and the other upper castes. In its
new incarnation party carried on the work of superstition removal vigorously.

Periyarwas the pioneer of Dalit political movements in South India. At first Periyar
Ramaswamyhad joined the Indian National Congress in 1919 after quitting his business and
resigning from all public posts under the British. He got elected to the Chairmanship of Erode
Municipality in Tamil Nadu and led programs spreading the use of Khadi, for picketing alcoholic
drink (toddy) shops, shops selling foreign cloth, and for eradicating untouchability. In 1921,
Periyarwas imprisoned for picketing toddy shops in Erode. He was again arrested during the
99
Non-Cooperation movement. In J 922Periyar was elected the President of the Madras Presidency
Congress Committee during the Tirupur session where he advocated strongly for reservation in
government jobs and education for lower castes. His attempts were defeated by the other leaders
in the Congress party and that was the reason Periyarquit the party on those grounds in 1925 as
he felt the party was onJy serving the interests of the Brahmins.ln 1924, Periyarhad led a very
successful non-violent agitation (satyagraha) in Vaikom, Kerala for promoting the rights of
lower castes and had some disagreements with Gandhi as well. From 1929 to 1932 he toured
Malaysia, Europe, and Russia, which bad a deep influence on him and strengthened his resolve
to fight for social justice for the depressed castes. In 1939, Periyar became the head of the Justice
Party, and in 1944, he changed its name to Dravidar Kazhagam. The party later split and one
group led by C. N. Annadurai formed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 1949. While
continuing the Self-Respect Movement, be advocated for an independent Dravida Nadu
(Dravidistan).

Ideologically Periyar advanced on the principles of rationalism and self-respect rights for women
and eradication of the casteststem. He said the non-Brahmin indigenous Dravidian peoples of
South India had been exploited by the imposition of, what he called, lndo-Aryan India from the
north.

The other major movement in which Periyar played a major role was the Self-Respect
Movement. Whereas Periyar and his followers focussed on asking the government to take
measures for removing social injustice against lower castes, other nationalist leaders focused on
the general political struggle for independence and tis what distinguished Periyar' s movements.
The Self-Respect Movement was described from the beginning, as "dedicated to the goal of
giving non-Brahm ins a sense of pride based on their Dravidian past" .Periyar argued for doing
away with needless customs, meaningless ceremonies, and blind superstitious beliefs. He wanted
to put an end to a social system in which caste, religion, community and traditional occupations
based on the accident of birth was the deciding factor. He argued for eradicatinguntouchability
and establishing a cohesive united society. He also propagated the rights of women and
campaigned against child marriages. Quite revolutionary for bis times he encouraged love
marriages and widow marriages and also inter-caste and inter-religious marriages and to have the
marriages registered under Civil Laws rather than religious ritualistic marriages. He established
and maintained homes for orphans and widows and started many educational institutions.

Propagation of the philosophy of self respect became the full-time activity of Periyar since 1925.
A Tamil weekly KudiArasu started in 1925, while the English journal Revolt started in 1928
carried on the propaganda among the English educated people.Periyar was the President of the
Justice Party between 1938 and 1944 and the principal activity of the party was to oppose the
economic and political power of the Brahmins. Brahmin priesthood and the Sanskritised culture
were held by the Justice Party as responsible for existence of inequalities.
Another major cause of the movement was against Hindi.
Periyar spent over fifty years working towards educating the people through bis speeches. He
propagated the realization that everyone is an equal citizen and the differences on basis of caste
and creeds were man-made to keep the i_pnocent and ignorant as underdogs in the society.
Although Periyar's speeches were targeted towards illiterate and more mundane mass, scores of
educated people followed them. These educated elites earlier knew nothing about how a few
were propagating blind beliefs and caste disti.--:tion for their own selfish ends.

100
Periyar's message to the subjugated non-brahmincastets of South India was that majority were
trying to keep them in a subordinate position forever and he asked they should think about their
position and rebel. Unless they exercised their reason. there wouldn't be a realization that they
were being exploited by a handful of people. To the Brahmin community, Periyarhad said "in the
name of god, religion, and sastras you have duped us. We were the ruling people. Stop this life of
cheating us from this year. Give room for rationalism and humanism". He had also said "any
opposition not based on rationaJism, science, or experience will one day or another, reveal the
fraud, selfishness, lies and conspiracies".

The other great political influence was that of Ambedkar. Ambedkar wanted the abolishment of
caste itself, which then would result in abolishing untouchability and the inhuman discrimination
against the Dalits. So he disagreed with Gandhi who was working against untouchability while
keeping the caste system intact. Gandhi's proposal to simply deal with the symptom of
untouchability and not touch the root issue of the caste system was unacceptable to Ambedkar.
Ambedkarhad also concluded that conversion was the ultimate solution if Hinduism was not able
to reform itself and annihilate caste. Ambedkarcould become a powerful voice against the caste
system because of the brilliance of his legal training and his access to the political negotiating
tables in London and New Delhi in the days preceding the transfer of power from Britain to
Independent India. He had argued (with the British) and won for the Dalits a separate seat at that
table. Ambedkar born as a Dalit in Maharashtra had experienced caste's depravity first-hand.
After he had many arguments with the Congress leadership and bitterly criticised Gandhi's
approach of only dealing with untouchability while not advocating the abolishing of the caste
system itself, he decided the Hindu faith must be abandoned by the Dalits and led thousands of
Dalits into Buddhism.

Many analysis have argued substantially caste and class mean the same thing in India as it is
basically the lower castes who were also the poorer classes. Hence perhaps it is not surprising
many of the caste movements also contributed to the strengthening of the left trends as
SumitSarkar points out. He writes: ·it is interesting that in all these .. .militant lower caste
movements contributed to the emergence of the Leftist trends. Sahajananda joined the Congress
Socialists and then the Communists, while Nana Patil, who had participated in the SatyaShodhak
movement in Satara in 1919-21, headed the 1942 parallel government there and later became
Maharashtra's best known Communist peasant leader. Early Tamil Communists like Singaravelu
and P. Jeevanaodan cooperated with Periyar for a time in the early 1930s, and Aiyappan and
Kesavan set many Ezhavas in Kerala on the road leading to the Communist Party even though
they never joined it themselves.' (Source: SumitSarkar, Modem India, p. 244)

The Contribution of Peasant Movements

The Indian peasantry it may be argued really rose for the first time in protest during the 1857
revolt, tired and exhausted with the high land revenue taJces imposed by the British which was
breaking their back. That revolt is not seen as a peasant revolt as farmers were not the only
people who revolted nor land revenue the only reason but that was one of the major issues
underlying the upsurge.

The farmers in India rose against two kinds of exploitation - one from the zamindars and
jagirdars and the other from the British. The Kisan Sabha movement started in Bihar under the
leadership of Swami Sahajanand Saraswati who had formed in 1929 the Bihar Provincial Kisan
Sabha (BPKS) in order to mobilise peasants against the exploitation of zamindars who on flimsy
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pretexts usurped the land occupancy rights of farmers. Gradually the peasant movement
intensified and spread across the rest of India There were also farmer movements in 1907 under
the leadershjp of Sardar Ajit Singh.

The final phase of the lndjan freedom struggle also saw peasant struggles rising to new heights
of militancy. Throughout the country. KisanSabhas had been active in the 1930s. After the Quit­
India call. peasants of all classes joined in the freedom struggle in Eastern UP, Bihar, Midnapur
in Bengal, Satara in Mabrashtra, and also in Andhra, Gujarat and Kerala. Even some of the
Zamindars (landlords) joined in. The Raja of Darbbanga was one of the most supportive of the
resisting peasants. Adivasis and landless peasants were particularly heroic in their struggles.
Crushed by the inhumane demanrls of the Zamindari system, they bad to fight a dual war - one
against the British and the other against the Indian landlords who collaborated with British rule.
Amongst the most significant of these struggles were those of Tebhaga, Punnapra Vayalar, the
Worliadivasis and above all the historic Telanganapeasants armed struggle which was directed
against the Nizam of Hyderabad who had collaborated with the British.
The Kisan Sabhas was initially the main articulating vehicle for peasant demands. As the
:amindari influence over Congress was quite strong and the peasants were not seeing the
Congress take up their particular and specific concerns, they drifted away later. SumitSarkar
points out: 'Disillusioned by the repeated Congress failure to unequivocally take up their
demands, some peasant activists by mid 20s had started groping towards new ideologies. In 1922
Swami Vidyanand raised the demand for abolition of zamindari, and Baba Ramchandra in
November 1925 referred to Lenin as 'the dear leader of the kisans ....the peasants are still slaves
except in Russia' ...The strong links of the Congressmen - whether Swarajists or No-Changers -
with the zamindari or intermediate tenure-holding made it generally unresponsive to peasant
demands for rent-reduction and share cropper efforts at a fairer division of the harvest in Bengal,
Bihar and U.P. This was clearest and ultimately most disastrous in Bengal, a province where
share-cropping (Barga) was rapidly spreading in the 1920s. The Swarajists here bitterly opposed
any proposal to give tenancy status to bargadars, and showed no sympathy at all for a number of
Namasudra and Muslim bargadari movements in the mid 20s in districtslike Mymensingh,
Dacca, Pabna, Khulna and Nadia. The U.P. Congress did take up a slightly more pro-peasant
stance, and in 1924 started a U.P. KisanSangh to pressurise the government into modifying some
pro-zamindar clauses in a tenancy amendment bill then being discussed for Agra province. It
was made clear, however, that 'the policy of the Sangha has been not to antagonise the
zamindars by saying even one word against them, but to attack the government in whose bands
the zamindars are blindly playing'. (AICC, F.N. 23/1924) ...The one peasantgrievance about
which the Congress was generally unequivocal was revenue enhancement in ryotwari areas.
Enhancement was resisted with some success in Tanjore in 1923-24, with its prosperous
mirasdars. In coastal Andhra N.G. Ranga started work among the upper stratum of the peasantry
in 1923, founding the first Ryot's Association in Guntur in that year. The British bid in 1927 to
enhance revenue by 18 per cent in the Krishna Godavari delta led to a powerful kisanmovement
in coastal Andhra ... ' .(Source: Suimitsarkar, Modem India, pp. 241-242)

Mahatma Gandhi had led two very successful revolts - one against the taxation and allied
landlords in Champaran, Bihar, and another in Kheda, Gujarat. Success in both struggles had
shown the farmers that economic and civil rights could be won if movements were laucbed and
carried with determination. In I 920, the Indian National Congress under Gandhi's leadership
launched the Non-Cooperation Movement and there was peasant participation. The Bardoli
Satyagraha of 1925 in the state of Gujarat was almost entirely a peasant uprising In 1925, the
taluka of Bardoli in Gujarat suffered from floods and famine, which hurt the crop produce,
102
leaving farmers facing great financial troubles. Still the government raised the tax rate by 30%
that year, and despite many petitions from civic groups, refused to cancel the increase. The
situation was very such that the farmers barely had enough property and crops to pay-off the tax
and would most certainly have faced starvation. Leaders like activists Narhari Parikh, Ravi
Shankar Vyas and MohanlalPandya talked to village chieftains and farmers, and solicited the
help of Vallabhbhai Patel. Patel bad previously led Gujarat's farmers during the Kbeda struggle.
Patel and Gandhi decided that the struggle should be left entirely to the people of Bardolitaluka.
The Governor of Bombay ignored the requests made by Patel to reduce the taxes and instead
announced the date of collection. Patel instructed all the farmers of Bardoli to refuse payment.
Patel had instructed the farmers to remain completely non-violent, and not respond physically to
any incitements or aggressive actions from officials. He reassured them that the struggle would
not end until not only the cancellation of all taxes for the year. but also when all the seized
property and lands were returned to rightful owners.The Government declared its intention to
crush the revolt and along with tax inspectorsforcibly took all property, including cattle.The
government then began auctioning the houses and the lands but not a single man from Gujarat or
anywhere else in India came forward to buy them. Patel had appointed volunteers in every
village to keep watch andas soon as officials weresighted who were coming to auction the
property, the volunteers would sound bugles and the farmers would leave the village and hide in
the jungles. The officials would then find the entire village empty and could not determine who
owned a particular house. The movement was successful and in 1928, an agreement was finally
brokered by a Parsi member of the Bombay government and the Government agreed to return the
confiscated lands and properties, as well as cancel revenue payment not only for that year, but
also cancelled the 30% increase.

Later the various peasant revolts under different umbrellas culminated in the formation of the All
India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) at the Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress in April 1936
with Swami SahajanandSaraswatielected as its first President.

The closing years of the British rule there were two spectacular peasant sturggles - The Tebhaga
movement in Bengal and the Telangana movement in Andhra.

The Tebhaga started as a campaign initiated in Bengal by the KisanSabha (peasants front of
Communist Party of India) in 1946: At that time share-cropping peasants (essentially, tenants)
had to give half of their harvest to the owners of the land. The demand of the Tebhaga (sharing
by thirds) movement was to reduce the share given to landlords to one third.In many areas the
agitations turned violent, and landlords fled vil1ages leaving parts of the countryside in the hands
of the Kisan Sabha. Thus it has become almost like an overthrow of the zamindari class by the
exploited peasant classes. As a response to the agitations, the then Muslim League ministry in
the province launched the Bargadar Act, which provided that the share of the harvest given to the
landlords would be limited to one third of the total. But the law was not fully implemented. The
former Chief Minister of West Bengal comments thus on the Tebhaga movement: "The farmers
waited for years. When it was realised that the Bill was only a pipedream. it was then decided
that the Tebhaga demand would have to take an agitational route. After the Second World War,
the farmers took to active struggle. The movement was already taking place in bits and starts in
many districts. However in the beginning of 1947, it took the form of an organised movement
throughout the State particularly in North Bengal. There was a general awakening in places like
Mymensingh, Jalpaiguri, Jessore, Khulna. Rangpur, Dinajpur and 24-parganas. The catchword
that went around was; "We want Tebhaga. We will give our lives but not our crop" ....With law
and order being the easiest excuse, the Police went on torturing the farmers: firing and lathi

103
charges on peaceful gatherings were the order of the day ....In the early part of 1947, I moved
extensively in Mymensingh, Khulna and Jalpaiguri. My report was as an eyewitness .... At least
70 farmers had died because of unjustified police firing, ...There was arson by the Police. Even
women were not spared ....But this sort of atrocities could not stop the progress of the movement
The movement went ahead even though the police torture grew." (Source: JyotiBasu, Memoirs)

The Telangana Rebellion was a Communist led peasant revolt that took place in the former
princely state of Hyderabad between 1946 and 1951 and was led by the Communist Party of
India.Peasants revolted against the Nizam and local feudal landlords Gagirdars and deshmukhs)
who owed allegiance to him and exploitedthe famers by turning them into bonded labour. The
peasants also demanded writing c� of all the debts of the peasants that were not genuine real but
manipulated and shown falsely by the feudal lords. The movement was an armed struggle and
the peasants declared independence after major successes. Theywere ultimately defeated only
after the central government sent in the army.

The Movement of Tribals

Another population sub group that revolted and carried on movements during the British era
contributing to the national struggle were tribals. SumitSarkar has rightly commented: 'As in
earlier or later periods, the most militant outbreaks tended to be of tribal communities, which, in
the words of a recent scholar, 'revolted more often and far more violently than any other
community including peasants in India'. (K. Suresh Singh) The term 'tribe' is used to distinguish
people so socially organised from 'caste' and should not convey a sense of complete isolation
from the mainstream of Indian life. Actually, apart from some isolated and really primitive food­
gatberers, the tribals were and are very much a part of Indian society as the lowest strata of
peasantry subsisting through shifting cultivation, agricultural labourers, and increasingly, coolies
recruited for work in distant plantations, mines and factories. British rule and its accompanying
commercialisation strengthened already present tendencies towards penetration of tribal areas by
outsiders from the plains - money lenders, traders, land-grabbers, and contractors, the dikus so
hated by the Santhals. British legal conceptions of absolute private property eroded traditions of
joint ownership (like the khuntkatti tenure in Chota Nagpur) and sharpened tensions within tribal
society .. A new but increasingly important factor from the 1870s and 80s was the tightening of
control by the colonial state over forest zones for revenue purposes. Shifting cultivation - which
required no plough animals and therefore was often essential for the survival of the poorest in
rural society - was banned or restricted in the 'reserved' forests from 1867 onwards, and
attempts were made to monopolise forest wealth through curbs on use of timber and grazing
facilities ...The tribal response included, as before, occasional violent outbursts, but also
movements of internal religious and socio-cultural reform. Such movements of 'revitalisation',
borrowing elements from Christianity or Hinduism and promising a sudden miraculous entry into
a golden age, became increasingly typical in the period 1860-1920, generally following in the
wake of defeated uprisings under traditional chiefs. Thus the Santhal Rebellion (1855) was
followed by the Kberwar or SaphaHar movement of the 1870s, which preached monotheism and
internal social refonn at first but had begun to turn into a campaign against revenue settlement
operations just before it was supressed.' (Source; SumitSarkar, M<Xkm India, pp. 44-45)

There were various scattered revolts under different inspirations from time to time. In 1868 the
Naikda forest tribe attacked police stations in a bid to establish a dharm-raj. In 1882 the Kacha
Nagas of Cachar attacked the whites inspired by a miracle worker called Sambhudan who
claimed magical powers which would make his followers immune to bullets. Similarly in 1900

104
there was a revolt by Konda Doras when a tribesman KorraMalJaya claimed he was a re­
incarnation of the pndavas and could drive out the British and gathered round him an inspired
crowd of four to five thousand people. They were supressed by the British with eleven of them
shot dead and sixty put on trial and two hanged. There was a massive rebellion in 1879-80 by the
Konda Dora and Koyatribals when their chiefs rose against their overlord (a mansabdar family)
when he tried to raise truces.

One of the most dramatic rebellions was by the Ulgulan (Great Tumult) under the leadership of
BirsaMunda in 1899-1900 in the Ranchi region. The Munda tribes had seen over some time in
the nineteenth century their traditional khuntkatti land system (joint holdings by khunts or tribal
lineages) being replaced by the rule of jagirdars and thinkadars coming from the northern plains
as money lenders and merchants.

Birsa's own experience as a young boy, driven fonn place to place in search of employment,
given him an insight into the fate of his people and forest matters. He was very intelligent and
always an active participant in the movements going on in the neighbourhood.Later in life he
claimed to be a messenger of God and founded a kind of new sect and within his sect converts
fonn Christianity, mostly Sardars. His simple message was against the church which levied a tax.
He laid down new rules which saved some expense of sacrifices and a strict code of conduct was
laid down: theft, lying and murder were declared bad and begging was prohibited.The stories of
Birsa as a healer, a miracle man, and a preacher spread. The Mundas, Oraons, and Kharias
flocked to Chalk.ad to her him and to be healed of their diseases. The British colonial system as
mentioned above had started causing a transfonnation of the tribal agrarian system into a feudal
one dominated by jagirdars. As the tribals with their primitive technology could not generate a
surplus, non-tribal peasantry were invited by the chiefs in Chhotanagpur to settle on and cultivate
the land. This led to the tribals losing their lands and that builtup resentment. In 1856 the number
of the Jagirdars stood at about 600 and by 1874, the authority of the old Munda or Oraon chiefs
had been almost entirely ended by the new landlords. In some villages the tribalshad lost all their
land rights, and had been reduced to being labourers. So naturally because of the agrarian
breakdown and the forced cultural changes the tribals had responded with a series of revolts and
uprisings under bis Birsa'sleadership.The movement sought to gain back the land of the Mundas
and throw out the middlemen and the British. Ultimately however even though the struggle was
brave and achieved some initial successes against the authorities Birsawas treacherously
caughton 3 February 1900 and he died under mysterious conditions on 9 June 1900 in a'Ranchi
Jail.Though he lived a very short life of only 25 yearshe mobilised the tribalslike never before
and taught them to think about their conditjons and for a short time became a terror to the
British rulers.

Workers and Labour Movement

The workers and labourers who worked in the urban industrial centres came from villages as a
result of the collapse of the agrarian economy and the end of the handicrafts. The low wages and
unimaginable living conditions of the workers enabled the capitalists whether British or foreign
to pile up huge profits which were often many times the invested capital often even. It was
inevitable that people living in such conditions would rise and revolt. As R.P. Dutt puts it:
'This is the background of the Indian Labour Movement. It is to the millions living in the e
conditions that Socialism and Trade Union have brought for the power of combination, and the
first vision of a goal which can end their misery.'(Sourct: R.P. Durt, 'Indio Today·. Manishi Publishers,
Calcutta, 1970, p. 402)

105
It is not dear when exactly strikes began as a fonn of protest but there is record of strikes in
1877 at the Empress Mills at Nagpur over wage rates. In the period 1882 and 1890 there were
twenty-five strikes in the Bombay and Madras presidencies.

There was a meeting of Bombay mill workers in 1&84 called by a local journalist and editor,
N.M. Lokhande, who drew up a list of demands for limitation of hours of work, a weekly rest
day, a noontime recess and compensation for injuries, to present to the Factories Commission as
the demands of the Bombay workers. Lok.hande started calling his organisation of workers the
'Bombay Millhands Association' and called himself the President. He also started a journal
Dinabandhu or Friend of the Poor. Lokhande was an educated intellectual of sorts and was a
great philanthropic promoter of the causes of labourers but bis organisation was not really a trade
union. It had no membership, no funds and no rules. He basically acted as a well meaning
advisor to workers who came to him with their problems. He had also once served in the
government's Factories Commission.

Even though there was no organised trade union as such, there continued throughout workers
spontaneous agitations every now and then. There was a strike in the famous Budge Budge Jute
Mills in 1895 and also a strike by workers in Ahmedabad textile industry. The level of gradual
worker consolidation can be judged from the following account of the situation:
'Despite almost universal testimony before Commissions between 1880 and 1908 to the effect
that thee were no actual unions, many stated that the labourers in an individual mill were often
able to act in unison and that, as a group, they were very independent. The inspector of boilers
spoke in 1892 of 'an unnamed and unwritten bond of union among the workers peculiar to the
people': and the Collector of Bombay wrote that although this was little more than in the air' it it
was 'powerful'. 'I believe' he wrote to the Government, 'it has had much to do with the
prolonged maintenance of what seems to be a monopoly or almost a monopoly wage.' Sir David
Sasoon said in 1908 that if labour 'had no proper organisation, they had an understanding among
themselves'. Mr.Barucha, lately Director of Industries in Bombay Presidency, stated that 'the
mill bands were all powerful against the owners, and could combine, though they had not got a
trade union' ...... .'(Source: R.P. Dutt, 'India Today·, Manishi Publishers, Calcutta, 1970, p. 402)

So R.P. Dutt concludes although 'there was not yet any organisation, it would be a mistake to
under estimate the growth of solidarity in action and elementary class-consciousness of the
Indian industrial workers during the decades preceding 1914' .(Source: Ibid. p.403)

From I 905 onwards an interesting thing began to happen by way of a huge advance of worker
mobilisation. The national movement, which was coming under the influence of the extremists
and as a consequence becoming a lot more militant, found in the working class a huge usable
pool of willing and courageous agitators. The Swadeshi leaders realfaed the power of organising
labour into a movement, which could then advance the cause of the freedom struggle. So they
showed great enthusiasm in organising stable trade unions or ttade union like groups, strikes,
legal aid to workers and fund collection drives. Public meetings were organised in support of
striking workers and were addressed by leaders of the stature of B.C. Pal, C.R. Das and
LiaqatHussain. The most energetic of the Swadeshi leaders working for the rights of workers and
involved in supporting them were AshwinicoomarBanerji, Prabhat Kumar Roy Chowdhuri,
Premtosh Bose and Apurba Kumar Ghose. They were very successful in organising workers in
the Government Press, Railways and the jute industry - all areas were either foreign capitalists or
the government rather than Indian capitalists were the controlling/owning authorities.

106
How much the labour movement and the national movement had converged can be gauged from
for instance the hugely successful six-day political strike populated mainly by the industrial
working class in 1908 against Tilak's imprisonment. Yet workers were too uneducated and mired
in poverty and illiteracy to be able to organise themselves into trade unions but fortunately every
now and then and here and there throughout the length and breadth of the country philanthropic
individuals kept coming forward to lend a helping hand to the workers. In 1910 for instance, a
'KamgarHitavardhakSabha' was formed by some well meaning social workers and
philanthropists in Bombay to aid workers.

The years of the first world war and the immediate post war years including the years following
the communist revolution in Russia were to prove the most eventful in the advance of the trade
union movement. The reasons were both economic and political for this spurt in activity.
Economically, in conditions of a constant increase (even doubling) in the prices of essentials
without a corresponding increase in the wages on the one hand there was fantastic profiteering
by the capitalists, both foreign· and Indian on the other. Politically, extremists were already
popular and there was even the early beginnings of revolutionary terrorism along with Congress­
Muslim League unity and the first demands of immediate self-government. All of this enabled a
wave of revolutionary militant fervour which useful for the development of the labour
movement.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 and its implications as it dawned on the intelligentsia leading
the labour class and the workers themselves created a surge of enthusiasm and hope. The hope
was that if common people in Russia - workers, peasants and the intelligentsia - could unite and
overthrow the mighty Czarist empire and establish a social order where there was no exploitation
of one human being buy another, then perhaps the Indian people could also do so. Socialist
doctrines, particularly Marxism, the guiding theory of the Bolshevik Party, acquired a sudden
attraction. B.C. Pal, the extremist leader wrote in 1919 that ' ...after the downfall of the Czar,
there bas grown up all over the world a new power, the power of the people determined to rescue
their legitimate rights - the right to live freely and happily without being exploited and
victimised by the wealthier and the so called higher classes' .(Source: Bipan Chandra and others,
'India's struggle/or Independence', Penguin Books, 1989, p.297)

A huge strike wave started in 1918, which swept the country throughout 1919 and 1920. There
were massive and repeated strikes by workers in all the industrial centres - Bombay, Calcutta,
Ahmedabad, Madras etc and both workers of government facilities and industries owned by
capitalists saw strike action. A strike that started in the Bombay cotton mills towards the end of
1918 saw by the January 19 I 9, 125000 workers participating in it and gradually all the workers
of the industry joined the strike. It was in the response of the working class to the agitation
against the Rowlatt Act which demonstrated the political role of the workers in the national
struggle very prominently. In the first six months of 1920, there were 200 strikes involving 15
lakh workers.

In 1918, the first organised Indian trade union with membership lists and subscriptions, the
Madras Labour Union, was started by two young men, G. Ramanajulu Naidu and G.
ChelvapathiCbetti, connected with Annie Besant's movement in Madras and was presided over
by B.P. Wadia, Besant's collegue. There were 125 unions with a membership 250000 by 1920.
Even though the emergence of a trade union movement was the best thing that could have

107
happened to the cause of the Indian working class for the times, there were nevertheless some
deficiencies in terms of ideology and character. R. P. Dutt comments on it as follows:
'Unions were formed by the score during this period. Many were essentially strike committees,
springing up in the conditions of an immediate struggle, but without staying power. While the
workers were ready for struggle the facilities for office organisation were inevitably in other
hands. Hence arose the contradictions of the early Indian labour movement. There was not yet
any political movement on the basis of socialism. of the conceptions of the working class and the
class struggle. In consequence, the so-called "outsiders" or helpers from other class elements
who came forward, for varying reasons, to give their assistance in the work of organisation, and
whose assistance was in fact indispensable in this initial period, came without understanding of
the aims and needs of the labour movement, and brought with them the conceptions of middle
class politics. Whether their aims were philanthropic, as in some cases, careerist, as in others, or
actuated by devotion to the national political struggle, as in others, they brought with them an
alien outlook. and were incapable of guiding the young working class movement on the basis of
the class struggle which the workers were in fact waging. This misfortune long dogged the
Indian labour movement, seriously hampering the splendid militancy and heroism of the
workers: and its influence still remains.' (Source: R.P. Dun, 'India Today', Manishi Publishers, Calcuna.
1970. p. 406)

But R.P. Oun also says this was the period amidst the strike waves of this period and the militant
approach which created the conditions for the birth of the modern Indian labour
movement.(Source. ibid.)

In 1920 the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was founded as a sort of federation of
Indian trade unions. The inaugural session was held in Bombay in 1920 and the extremist leader
LajpatRai became the President and Joseph Baptista the Vice President. The immediate impetus
for starting the congress may have been to nominate a representative for the International Labour
Congress at Geneva. The founders of the Congress were motivated by the Washington Labour
Conference and had felt that it would be helpful to develop a unified voice of the labour
movement not only in India but also worldwide. The other aims were undertaking welfare
measures, lobbying for legislation for workers with the imperial British government, moral and
social improvement of workers and in the whole working without provoking class conflict which
many of the leade� felt would at that juncture weaken the national movement. Gandhi, possibly
anxious that a class conflict would break out between the exploited working class and the
capitalist class, whether Indian or British, had gone so far as to start bis own trade union
movement, the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association in 1918 with a separatist slant from the
movements in the rest of the country. He propounded his 'Trusteeship' principle and declared
that owners and capjtalists should behave like trustees or philanthropic managers of the
industries they control. That the interests of the capitalists and the workers were directly against
each others was something he wished to be brushed aside and instead wanted everybody to
perform and function at high moral level of character and generosity to which he himself could
have and did confirm. The Marxist view of Gandhis · s position is that it was essentially de facto
class collaborationist and against the interests of the workers as the capitalist with bis axiomatic
focus on profits could never be a trustee of worker's interests. He was being asked to perform a
contradictory set of roles thereby. To be fair to Gandhi, he did ask the workers to perform
Satyagraha and assert their rights if the owners did not take care of them but on the whole his
approach had a 'restraining role' against the pressure for militancy which was coming 'from
below' as SumitSarar puts it. (Source: SumitSarkar, 'Modem India', Macmillan, New D elhi, 1983, p.J76)He
comments thus: 'In general, however, as in Bombay in January 1919, the pre ssure for
militancy

108
came from below rather than from these early unions which played a restraining role. The early
rmddle-class union leaders were at best inspired by nationalism, but often were quite loyalist in
their politics. like N.M. Jostu in Bombay or K.C. Roycbaudhuri in Calcutta. The restraining role
was most unequivocal in the Gandhian Textile Labour Association (Majoor Mahajan) of
Ahmedabad, but Wadia, too, opposed a strike in Binny's in July 1918 on the ground that soldiers
(fighting for the British) needed uniforms' .(Source: ibid.)He further points out as follows how
strikes were not the only form of protest of the rising exploited militant industrial working class:
'Strikes were only one form of expression of acute popular distress and discontent caused by
factors like prices, a poor harvest and scarcity conditions over much of itbe country in 1918-1919,
the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, and artisan unemployment (handloom cotton
production ......touched an all time low in 1919-20). A more elemental form was that of food
riots; the looting of small-town markets and city grain shops. And the seizure of debt-bonds. 115
grain shops were looted in the Bombay mill area in the food riots of early 1918, while the
account books of Marwaris were seized by railwaymen. There were food riots in the Krishna­
Godavari delta region in May 1918, followed by three days of intensive riots in Madras city in
September in which textile and railway workers played an important part. In Bengal 38 hat
looting cases with 859 convictions were reported from Noakbali, Chittagong, Rangpur, Dinajpur,
,
Khulna, 24 Parganas and Jessore districts in 1919-20 .

Upto 1927, says R.P. Dutt, the AITUC had a very limited practical connection with the working
class struggle, but a new dawn started to break from this time onwards for the workers
movement. (Source: R.P. Dutt, 'India Today', Manishi Publishers, Calcima, 1970, p. 409)This happened with
the rise of the left in Indian politics and the communist movement and the new left turn that a
new generation of leaders began to give to the national movement particularly within the
Congress.

There were other developments that were significant. In November 1, 1925 the Workers' and
Peasants Party was founded in Bengal. Soon many branches of this organization started
spreading in other parts of India. Finally in December 1928, through an India-wide convention in
Kolkata, the All India Workers and Peasant Party was born.

The historic all-India Post and Telegraph workers· strike started from July 11, J 946 and in
support to these strikes the common people had come forward. The city of Calcutta had become
absolutely paralysed when a virtual general strike was called to extend support to the striking
workers.

1947 was a very successful year in the workers movement and witnessed about J 811.

QUESTIONS
l. Discuss the role of the women in the national struggle?
2. What were the major peasant revolts?
3. Why and how the tribal populations revolted against the British?
4. Discuss caste based social justice movements during the national struggle?
5. Explain the rise and growth of labour and worker movements during the freedom
struggle?

SUGGESTED READING

1. RP. Dutt, lndia Today

109
 Unit V
LESSON 8

110
antagonistic and hostile' and the communalist 'asserts at this stage that the Hindu and Muslim
cannot have common secular interests. that their secular interests are bound to be opposed to
each other'. (Source: Bipan Chandra and others. India's Srmgg/e for Independence, pp.398-99) Thus
communalism inevitably takes the form of communal politics or politics based on a communal
ideology eventually and all the different communal political groups are fundamentally similar in
that they make their claim to represent their re pective constituencies politically on the basis that
there are special interests of people belonging to the particular community that they represent
and that has not been properly represented. Professor Chandra has further named the second
stage as mentioned above as the phase of liberal or moderate communalism and the third stage as
the phase of 'extreme communalism'. He says in the second stage the 'liberal communalist 'is
'basically a believer in and practitioner of communal politics; but he still upheld certain liberal,
democratic, humanist and nationalist values ...while holding that Indian consisted of distinct
religion based communities. with their own separate and special interests which sometimes came
into conflict with each other, he continued to believe and profess publicly that these different
communal interests could be gradually accommodated and brought into harmony with the
overall, developing national interests, and Indian built as a nation.' It is the opinion of Professor
Bipan Chandra that most of the communalist before 1937 - the Hindu Mahasabha. the Muslim
League, the Ali Brothers after 1925, MA Jinnah, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Lajpat Rai, and N.C.
Kelkar after 1922 - functioned within a liberal communal framework. In the third stage or the
stage of extreme communalism fear and hatred prevailed with a tendency to use abuses and
violence on each other and a state of war and enmity against communal political opponents. It is
in this stage, in the context of India, where the respective communal leaders declared that
Muslim or Hindu religion. culture and people were in danger or being finished off and hence
could not co-exist with each other. That led to the conclusion that the two communities can not
live as one nation and must part. Professor Bipan Chandra says the 'Muslim League and the
Hindu Mahasabha after 1937 and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) increasingly veered
towards extreme communalism'. He firther observes: 'Though the three stages of communalism
were different from one another, they also interacted and provided a certain continuum. Its first
element or stage fed liberal and extreme communalism and made it difficult to carry on a
struggle against them. Similarly the liberal communalist found it difficult to prevent the
ideological transition to extreme communalism.' (Soura: Bipan Chandra and others, India's Struggle for
Independence, pp.399-400)

The politics of communal divide obscured the divisions of economic class, caste, regional
peculiarities etc and focussed only on the communal interest flowing from religious
denominations. It has been argued people belonging to a particular geographical region from
different religious denomination have more in common in terms of ways of life, food habits etc
and even social and economic concerns than people from the same religious community in some
far off other region. Thus to some extent the divide may be unreal but at the same time the
communalistic political leader would have no interest to represent if no such interest whatever
existed.

In India it has been noted communal politics really was born in the British period. Jawaharlal
Nehru once noted in 1936: 'One must never forget that communalism in India is a latter day
phenomenon which has grown up before our eyes'. (Source. Nehm, Selected Works, Volume 7, p. 69). In
this origin and growth of communalism there were many reasons. One of the most important
were the economic. The British colonial rule changed the economy drastically to the ruin of
many people and the enrichment of many thus disrupting the centurie old systems and patters.
The permanent settlement and the creation of the zamindari system and the growth of agriculture

111
oriented towards cash crops and profits leading to the growth of a merchant class all were factors
that played a role. aJso of course there was the crippling land revenue regime which caused
destitution and poverty in rural India. The new jobs in adminjstration and the government were
d
also a factor particualry since they came to be available only to the better eucated.

Hindus were ahead particularly in some areas like Bengal in educating themselves particularly in
western sciences and became dominant in government services and the professions like the law.
Government jobs were a major source of tensjon between the communities eventually as the
competition for them increased. Muslim leaders like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan were at the fore front
of persuading the British to give up their previous suspicions of the Muslims and he started the
AJigarb Muslim University to edt1cate Muslims in the liberal western education (and in the
English language) so that Muslims may be able to compete for government jobs and maintain the
position of power in governance that they had lost. At first he was all for Hindu-Muslim unity
and many Hindus actually contributed financially for the setting up of the university. But later he
became extremely suspicious of any joint Hindu Muslim political position as be felt the Hindus
would dominate in any representative system as was advocated by the Indian National Congress
as they were more numerous and would have more votes and were also better educated and
ahead. Thus he also did not agree with the Congress that entry to jobs in administrative services
should be by open competitive examinations and should not be restricted to men of higher birth.
Sir Syed therefore firmly planted a suspicion in the Muslim mind (particularly of the elite
landlords and the middle class) that they would be swamped and outnumbered and rendered
weaker in any democratic representative system. He demanded from the British safeguards (what
would be referred to as 'reservations' in moden r India) for Muslims in government jobs,
legislative councils, district boards and demanded the British should give recognition to the
historic role of the Muslims in ruling India. He urged the member of the Muslim community to
cooperate with the British and appealed to the British to stay on in India 'for many years - in fact
for ever'. As Coupland bas observed the 'The Moslem recoil from Congress nationalism was
mainly Ahmed's doing'. (Source: Quoted in N.S. Bose, Indian NationaJ Movement -An Outline,
p.109)

After Sir Syed's demise the communal argument was only further developed in Aligarh and
came to be known as the Aligarh Movement In this a British, Theodore Beck, who became the
principal of the Aligarh College from 1883-99 played a major role. He argued and persuaded the
Muslims that Hindus and Muslims were two nations and a parliamentary system was
inappropriate for a united India as it would only lead to the oppression of the numerically weaker
Muslims by the Hindus. He had opposed open competitive examinations for government jobs
and had said they would 'just advantage the Bengalies'. It is to be remembered Bengali Hindus
(particularly the higher castes) were far ahead at that time educationally and in thus dominated
government jobs and professions like law and western allopatbic medicine of all native Indian
communities.

Professor Bipan Chandra bas suggested as a consequence of the stagnation in industry and in the
rural areas, government service was a major avenue for employment for the middle classes and
most of the employment for teachers, doctors and engineers was also under government control
which fuelled communal divides. He puts it thus: ' .. .communal politics could be used to put
pressure on the Government to reserve and allocate its jobs as also seats in professional colleges.
on communal and caste lines. Consequently communal politics till 1937 was organised around
government jobs, educational concessions, and the like as also political positions - seats in
legislative councils, municipal bodies, etc - which enabled control over these and other

112
economic opportunities. It may also be noted that though the communatists spoke in the name of
their 'communities', the reservations, guarantees and other 'rights' that they demanded were
virtually confined to these two aspects. They did not take up any issues which were of interest to
the masses'. (Souru: Bipan Chandra and others, India's Struggle for Independence. pp.-405}

Also in many situations ordinary class exploitation and conflict and ociaJ tensions of other
natures got converted into communal tensions. In some parts of the country there were powerful
exploiting economic classes - landlords, money lenders, merchants and agricultural commodity
commission agents (artiyas) who were Hindus whereas the exploited sections were Muslims or
lower caste Hindus. This provided fertile ground for solidification of the communal divide in
such areas. In East Bengal and in the Malabar, the struggle between tenant and landlord and the
relationship of usurious exploitation between the peasant-debtor and the merchant-moneylender
in Punjab could be said to be instances where what was essentially class exploitation and socio­
economic tension caused polarisation along communal policicaJ lines. Particularly in Punjab,
according to Professor Bipan Chandra was 'the effort by big Muslim landlords to protect their
economic and social position by using comrnunalism to tum the anger of their Muslim tenants
Hindu traders and money-lenders, and the use of communalism by the latter to protect their
threatened class interests by raising the cry of Hindu interests in danger'. He further comments as
follows: 'lo reality, the struggle of the peasants for their emancipation was inevitable. The
question was what type of ideological-political content it would acquire. Both the communalists
as well as the colonial administrators stressed the communal as against the class aspects of
agrarian exploitation and oppression. Thus, they held that the Muslim peasants and debtors were
being exploited not as peasants and debtors but because they were Muslims ...Communalism
represented, at another level, a struggle between two upper classes or strata for power, privileges
and economic gains. Belonging to different religions ( or castes) these classes or strata used
communalism to mobilise the popular suppon of their co-religionists in their mutual struggles.
This was, for example, the case in Western Punjab where the Muslim landlords opposed the
Hindu money lenders and in East Bengal where the Muslim jotedars (small landlords) opposed
the Hindu zamindars.' (Source: Bipan Chandra and others, India's Struggle for Independence, pp.406-07) It is
to be noted the both the Hindu and Muslim large land holders were replaced by powerful men of
commerce like commission agents and moneylenders who were Hindus by the new economic
system put in place by the British. A.R. Desai has concluded among the Hindus a modem
intelligentsia, a modem educated middle class and a bourgeoisie for many different historical
reasons occurred much before among Muslims and this class had established a kind of Hindu
domination in government service and in key positions in trade, industry and finance which
naturally was noted by the Muslim elite who were the losers and they therefore attempted to
muster the support of the ordinary poorer mass of their community in their competitive struggle
with their corresponding Hindu elite. R.P Dutt had written in that very era: 'Behind the
communal antagonism lies social and economic questions. This is obvious in the case of middle
class comrnunalists competing for positions and jobs•.(Source: R. P. Dutt, India Today and Tomorrow, p.
89-90)

The communal parties and leaders who emerged later were supported by these elite forces and
were their creation in many cases. Thus as Bipan Chandra has summarised: 'Above all,
communalism developed as a weapon of economically and politically reactionary social classes
and political forces - and semi-feudal landlords and ex-bureaucrats (whom Dr. K.M. Ashraf bas
called the jagirdariclasses), merchants and money lenders and the colonial state. Communal
leaders and forces were in general allied with these classes and forces. The social, economic and
political vested interests deliberately encouraged or unconsciously adopted communalism

113
because of its capacity to destroy and divert popular struggles, to prevent the masses from
understanding the socio-economic and political forces responsible for their social condition, to
prevent unity on national and class lines, and to tum them away from their real national and
socio-economic interests and issues and mass movements around them. Communalism also
enabled the upper classes and the colonial rulers to unite with sections of the middle classes and
to utilise the latter's politics to serve their own ends'. (Source: Bipan Chandra and others, India's
Struggle for independence. pp.406-07)

While this is mainly true subaltern historians like Sumit Sarkar have pointed out 'lower- class
discontent often took on rnuchless clear cut, 'sectional' form of different types of communal,
caste or regional consciousness'. He point out one instance where in 'Kamariarchar in the
Jamalpur sub-division of Mymensu1gh (in Bengal) ...a praja conference in 1914 formulated a
charter of raiyat demands: rent-deduction, an end to cesses, relief for indebtedness, the right to
plant trees and dig tanks without paying n�ar to zamindars, as well as honourable treatment of
Muslim tenants at the Hindu zamindar's court. The conference was organised by an affluent
Muslim raiyat, Chaudhuri Khos Mohammed Sarkar; it remained significantly silent about
possible grievances of share croppers, and was attended by a number of Bengal political leaders,
all of them Muslim - Fazlulhuq, Akram Khan, Abdul Kasem and others. Here was the beginning
of a Praja movement which was to play n important part in the Bengal politics of the 1920s and
30s, reflecting agrarian discontent (more precisely perhaps. rich peasant or jotedar demands), but
also contributing in the end to Muslim separatism.' (Source: SumitSarkar, Modem India, pp. I 56-57)
As has been mentioned above. the British from the very beginning, particularly after the 1857
revolt, had a definite policy of 'divide and rule'. It did not need the divisive tendencies among
Indians or the Indian elite for them to take the available opportunities for dividing the people not
just along religious lines but also caste versus caste, region versus region, province versus
province etc. But what were the main policies and tools adopted by them. Firstly, by officially
regarding Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs as separate communities in official policy and for the
purposes of government functioning and also by adopting separate laws particularly personal
laws in the law coum. Secondly, whenever communal organisations or groups or leaders
approached the British they were always entertained and treated as speaking for their respective
communities even though there had never been any test like in elections to so treat them. Also
thirdly, the communal provocations and agitations and press propagandas were usually shown a
lot of tolerance without the worry for law and order and the prompt ruthless put down that was
the case with nationalist freedom fighters and movements. Every now and then communal
demands of communal parties and leaders were accepted which only helped the communal
parties increase their following among their respective communities. The Congress could get
none of their demands accepted between 1885 and 1905 but the demands of the newly organised
Muslim communalists were accepted as soon as they were presented to the Viceroy. Lastly, the
British seemed to encourage the propagation of virulent communal ideas because the propagation
of such ideas were never clamped down and supressed the same way that nationalist press and
media outlets were supressed. Additionally the government frequently rewarded the communal
leaders by giving them and appointing them to important positions of power and profit in the
government. Indeed, when communal riots broke out the government was seldom as energetic in
crushing them as they were with nationalist upsurges.

Another strong factor in the growth of communalism was the alienation which Muslims felt at
the strong Hindu tinge to the nationalist appeal. Starting with Bankim Chandra Cbattopadhaya's
Vande Mataram (an appeal to the mother Godess) to the extremist leaders like Aurobindo and
Tilak (who used Ganesh Puja and Shivaji Festivals to make nationalist sentiments stronger) there

114
had always been an appeal to the glorious Hindu traditions and past. Sometimes Muslim officials
and rulers were even potrayed as tyrants who came from outside India. Even some leaders like
Gandhi had made the mistake of sometimes taking the position that Muslims were Hindus
originally and hence as Indian as Hindus. He did this to remove communal barriers in the hearts
and minds of the two communities but it did not necessarily work out as he had hoped for.
Bhikhu Parekh has commented on this aptly: ' ...India was not (Gandhi argued) a nation but a
civilisation which had over the centuries benefited from the contributions of different races and
religions and was distinguished by its plurality, diversity and tolerance. It was a community of
communities, each enjoying considerable autonomy within a larger and shared framework. As
for Hindus and Muslims, they had Jived side by side in the villages and cities for centuries
without ever feeling that they were enemies or oppressed one by the other. India was a united
country long before the Muslims came, and it was absurd to argue it bad ceased to be so
afterwards. What was more, most Muslims were converted Hindus and their claim to nationhood
was no more valid than would be that of a section of English citizens converted to Islam to a
separate state in England. As Gandhi wrote to Jinnah, ·r find no parallel in history for a body of
converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock. H India was
one nation before the advent of Islam, it must remain one in spite of a change of the faith of a
very large body of her children'.

Gandhi's and other Congress leaders' description of Muslims as 'ex-Hindus', 'converts' and
'basically Hindus' caused much misunderstanding and resentment. The Muslims construed it as
an implicit denial of their separate cultural identity and a sign of Hindu imperialism. They were
both right and wrong, for Gandhi and the Congress used this term in two very different senses
which they did not clearly distinguish. First, they used it in a religious sense implying that
Muslims had once been Hindus who had later converted to Islam out of fear or hope of reward.
In this sense the terms implied that they had betrayed their ancestral religion and were
inauthentic Muslims, and carried derogatory overtones. The second sense of the term was
cultural or civilisation-al and had quite different associations. It grew out of a search for the
deeper bonds binding the two communities. Since the vast majority of Muslims had once been
Hindus, they shared in common with them their beliefs, customs, social practices. values, and
ways of life, and thought, in a word a civilisation. Their conversion to Islam changed their
religious identity but could not and did not affect the deeper cultural continuity between the two
communities. Indeed, they carried their old culture with them to their new religion and
profoundly Indiansied it. They were therefore not just Muslims but Indian Muslims, Indians not
merely in a territorial but cultural sense, and co-heirs with the Hindus to [ndian civilisation. It is
this that Gandhi intended to emphasise in describing them rather clumsily as 'ex-Hindus· or
'basically Hindus'. Since be did not clearly distinguish the two senses, and since many of his
followers generally used the terms in their accusatory sense, their use was a source of irritation to
Muslims.' (Source: Bhikltu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy. p. 177.D)lndeed it was one of Gandhi's
main strategi� moves in countering communalism that he took up the issue of Khilafat which
excepting a very small rather fundamentalist fringe, the vast majority of Muslims were not really
very enthusiastic about as it involved the questions of far away Turkey and did not really touch
the lives of the average Indian Muslim. Gandhi hoped that Khilafat will endear Hindus to
Muslims and remove the deep distrust and chasm in terms of identity. The move to adopt the
Khilafat cause surprised Hindus and even many in the Congress but Gandhi was adamant that it
should be taken up with full energy. He even linked it to the Hindu's desire to see cow-slaughter
end and told them the way forward was through Khilafat. For instance in a speech in Kanpur in
1921 he said: · ...Cow protection also depends on Khilafat. Hindus must be prepared lo make
sacrifices for Khilafat without desiring anything in return. Every morning I pray for the cows.

115
Cow slaughter is the result of the sins committed by Hindus; it is owing to these sins that we are
deprived of the sympathy of our brethren. We must repent for those sins. For a satisfactory
solution of the Khilafat question it is of utmost importance that there should be Hindu-Muslim
unity. Khilafat alone will unite the two communities'. (Source: Collected Works of MK Gandhi, Vol 20,
p. 482)But many Hindus could not understand Gandhiji's move and hence easily fell prey to the
propaganda of the communalist Hindu organisations that Gandhiji was against Hindus.
Politically even when gradually the Congress under Gandhi's leadership was losing its authority
to speak for India's MusHms. Gandhi was fairly uncompromising for a very long time in his
basic stance that the Congress and he had the right to represent India's Muslims as much as the
Muslim League or other Muslim parties and political outfits. As late as 1946 when as per the
negotiations of the Cabinet Mission Plan, an Executive Council was to be fonned, the Congress
nominated a Muslim to represent the Congress to which Jinnah objected and refused to go along
with it, his argument being only the Muslim League had a right to represent Muslim and
nominate a Muslim. When the Viceroy Wavell requested Gandhi to ask the Congress to waive
the right to nominate a Muslim as Jinnah was obstinately objecting (and it may lead to violence)
even though he himself had no problems with the basic position of the Congress, Gandhi refused
and wrote to Wavell:
'You recognised fully the reasonableness of the Congress position, but you held that it would be
an act of high statesmanship if the Congress waive the right for the sake of peace. I urge that if it
was a question of waiving a right it would be a simple thing. It was a question of non­
perfomrance of a duty which the Congress owed to non-League Muslims.' (Source: Wave/l's Journal,
Oxford University Press)

Another problem was the obstinate identification of the past with the rulers who ruled. As
BipanChnadra has put it: 'The Hindu communalist readily adopted the imperialist view that
medieval rulers in India were anti-Hindu, tyrannised Hindus and conerted them forcibly. AU
communalist, as also imperialist, historians saw medieval history as one long story of Hindu­
Muslim conflict and believed that throughout the medieval period there existed distinct and
separate Hindu and Muslim cultures. The Hindu communalists described the rule of medieval
Muslim rulers as foreign rule because of their religion. The talk of 'a thousand years of slavery•
and 'foreign rule' was common rhetoric, sometimes even used by nationalists ..... In turn the
Muslim communalists harked back to the 'Golden Age of Islamic achievement' in West Asiaand
appealed to its heroes, myths and cultural traditions. They propagated the notion that all Muslims
were the rulers in medieval India or at least the beneficiaries of the so called Muslim rule. They
tended to defend and glorify all Muslim rulers including religious bigots like Aurungzeb. They
also evolved their own version of the 'fall' theory. While Hindus were allegedly in the ascendant
in the 19th century, Muslims, it was said 'fell' or declined as a 'community' throughout the
nineteenth century after 'they' lost political power.' (Source· Bipa11 Chandra and others, India's Struggle
for /11dependenu, pp.412)

It has been mentioned above how Syed Ahmed Khan helped in giving birth to divisive thinking
among Muslims asking them to be loyal to the British. After his death the Muslim communalists
continued to follow the politics of loyalty to the British and were rewarded for that from time to
time. They openly supported the British during the Swadesbi Movement in Bengal in 1905-06
and called Muslims who supported the movement 'vile traitors' of Islam.But some muslims were
drifting away from the communalists. Badruddin Tyabji presided over the Congress session in
1887, and the number of Muslim delegtes to the Congress increased in the succeeding years.

116
The Muslim jagirdari class of Jarge landlords and former jagirdars and taluqdars were not
happy with the representation that they had in the Viceroy's Council and so in 1906 hearing that
there was an expansion of the council contemplated went to the Viceroy in a delegation led by
the Aga Khan and placed their demands which was basically that Muslims must be granted the
status of a special community and given representation that not only was commensurate with
their numerical strength but also gave due regard to the 'position they occupied in India a little
more than a hundred years ago, and of which the traditions have naturally not faded from their
minds'. They demanded separate communal electorates and right to decide and send their own
representatives separately. At the end of 1907 the All India Muslim League was founded by
these big zamindars, ex-bureaucrats and other upper class Muslims like agha Khan. the Nawab
of Dhaka and NawabMohsin-ul-Mulk. The league decided to be Joyal to the Muslims and pursue
Muslim communal interests. They supported the partition of Bengal, asked for separate Muslim
electorates and reserved seats for Muslims in legislative councils and in government jobs and
openly warned the Muslims and the British that if the British left Indian the Muslims would be in
'constant danger of their life, property and honour'.

In parallel to the rise of the Muslim communalists there was also the rise of the Hinda
communalist political formations. They constantly harped on the fact that India had been
liberated from Muslim tyrannical rule by the British and a section of the Hindu money lenders,
merchants and zamindars and middle class professionals began to actively support such voices.
The other pet programs of these groups were anti cow slaughter and the propagation of Hindu in
UP and Bihar by replacing Urdu. The Punjab Hindu sabha was founded in 1909 and they
attacked the Congress for what they called sacrificing Hindu interests and the appeasement of
Muslims. One of their prominent leaders Lal Chand described the Congress as 'the self-inflicted
misfortune' of the Hindus who made impossible demands on the British government instead of
neutrlasisng them in the fight against Muslim domination. They also said every Hindu should
unders�d that he is a Hindu first and an Indian later. The first session of the All India Hindu
Mahasabha was held in 1915 but Professor Bipan Chandra says it remained a sickly child
compared to the Muslim League. According to him the reasons were as follows: 'The broader
social reason was the greater and even dominant role of the zamindars, aristocrats and ex­
bureaucrats among Muslims in general and even among the Muslim middle classes.While among
Parsis and Hindus, increasingly, it was the modem intelligentsia, with its emphasis on science,
democracy and nationalism, and the bourgeois elements in general, which rapidly acquired
intellectual, social, economic and political influence and hegemony. among Muslims the
reactionary landlords and mullahs continued to exercise dominant influence or hegemony'.
(Source: Bipan Chandra and others, India's Struggle for l11dependerice, pp.418)

In the factors for the growth of Hindu communalism many have argued the weakness of the
Congress in opposing the communal demands of the League which the British kept on accepting
was also a problem. But the British government never patronised the Hindu groups the same way
since they probably realised the majority of Hindus were with the Congress. The Hindu
Mahasabha nevertheless kept to its indeology steadfastly never making any strategic adjustments
in search of political popularity. Savarkar, its somewhat charismatic leader openly said that India
must be a Hindu nation and Muslims should be contented with the status of a minority. The
Sabha declared its aim as tine 'maintenance, protection and promotion of the Hindu race, Hindu
culture and Hindu civilisation, and the advancement of the glory of the Hindu Rashtra'. The
Rasbtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) bad formally no links with the Hindu Mahasabha but was
really their arm. It was designed and propagated a social organisation as distinct from tbe Hindu
Mahasabha which declared itself as a poLitical organisation.

117
The British helped the spread of com.munalism when they accepting the demands of the
communalist Muslim leaders of the League under the Morley-Minto reforms introduced separate
constituencies from which only a Muslim could stand as a candidate and for which only Muslims
could vote. This system was injtially introduced for Muslims and later extended to Sikhs. This
system allowed blatant communal appeals for only co-religionists voted for a candidate under the
new system. How pleased the British were with these developments can be gauged from what
one official said when be wrote to Lady Minto: 'I must send Your Excellency a line to say that a
very big event has happened today: a work of statesmanship that will affect India and Indian
history for many a long year. It is nothing less than the pu1ling back of sixty-tow million people
from joining the ranks of the seditious opposition'.

Gandhiji had embraced the Khilafat cause to build hindu Muslim unity. But the Khilafat cause
was propagated by the more conservatives fringe among Muslims. Later in 1916 there was a
compromise pact between the Congress and the League under which the Congress accepted tlie
systems of separate electorates and the reservation of seats for minorities in the legislatures in
exchange for the league supporting complete home rule or independence from the British. This
pact granted a legitimacy to communal politics it never had. Thus the way was paved for future
further hardening of communal stands.

Even though Gandhi had been firm in his publicly argued principled positions he had begun to
sense that the communal problem was going out of the hands of the national leaders and the
Congress even in the 1920s. Bbikhu Parekh has researched this well and explains:
'Around 1926, Gandhi's views began to undergo a decisive change. In that year be wrote to
Nehru that the two communities were going 'more and more away from each other'. He told a
meeting in Bengal a year later that the 'Hindu-Muslim problem had passed out of human hands
into God's hands'. He told Jinnah a few months later that he wished he could do something, but
was 'utterly hopeless'. He kept striving for unity, but increasingly felt that the British policy of
'divide and rule' stood in the way and that nothing could be done until after independence. He
told Ansari in 1930 that 'the third party, the evil British power' was creating the difficulties.
Over a year later he wrote that 'the moment the alien wedge is removed, the divided
communities are bound to unite'. He repeated the view as late as 194 2 and thought that 'unity
will not precede but succeed freedom'. This was why he kept urging Jinnah to delay partition
until after independence and assured him that if things did not work out, be would have bis
Pakistan. Gandhi remained convinced until the end of his life that since the two communities
shared common civilisational, ethnic and other bonds, nothing substantial divided them save the
British policy of 'divide and mle' and 'smaJJ' misunderstandings.' (So,"ce: Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's
Political Philosophy. p. 187)

Later the communalism that had been fonnaJly accepting of the national project of a unified
India was to break down in the phase of 'extreme communalism' in the late thirties and forties.
Professor Bipan Chandra outlines many reasons for this. He comments: 'As a consequence of the
growth of nationalism and in particular, of the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930- 3 4, the
Congress emerged as the dominant political force in the elections of 1937. Various political
leaders of landlords and other interests suffered a drastic decline. Moreover ... the youth as also
the workers were increasingly turning Lo the Left. and the national movement as a whole was
getting increasingly radkalised in its economic and political programme and policies. The
:,amindars and landlords - the jagirdari elements - finding that open defiance of landlord's
interests was no longer feasible, now, by and large, switched over to communalism for their class

118
defence. This was not onJy true in UP and Bihar but also in Punjab and Bengal...Communalism
also became, after 1937, the only political recourse of colonial authorities and their policy of
divide and rule. This was because, by this time, nearly all the other divisions, antagonisms and
divisive devices promoted and fostered earlier by the colonial authorities had been overcome by
the national movement, and had become politically non-viable from the colonial point of view ...
The outbreak of the World War II, on 1 September, 1939 further strengthened thee reliance on
the communal card. The Congress withdrew its ministries and demanded that the British make a
declaration that India would get complete freedom after the War ...Both the Muslim League and
the Hindu Mahasabha has run the election campaign of 1937 on liberal communal lines - they
had incorporated much of the nationalist programme and many of the Congress policies, excpt
those relating to agrarian issues, in their election manifestoes. But they had faired poorly in the
elections. The Muslim League, for example, won only 109 out of the 482 seats allotted to
Muslims ...securing onJy 4.8% of the total Muslim votes. The Hindu Mahasabba fared even
worse ...The communalists now realised that they would gradually wither away if they did not
take to militant, mass based politics.' (Sourct: Bipan Chandra and others, India's Struggle for
Independence, pp.430-31)

QUESTIONS
1. What were the main reasons for the growth of the communal divide between 1857 and
1947?
2. What were the various phases of this growth?

SUGGESTED READING

Bipan Chandra, India's Struggle for Independence

119
 LESSON 9
PARTITION AND INDEPENDENCE
....Amaresh Ganguli
Zak1r Hussain Collegt'
University of Delhi

Objectives

After reading this article you will be familiar with:

• ► The Two Nation Theory
► The Partition and Independence of India

By the end of the Second World War, the British had weakened much militarily and financially.
They had lost the strength to hold on to India. The Quit Indian Movement and the unprecedented
fervour it created for independence, the brave war waged by Subhasb Chandra Bose's Indian
National Anny (INA) and the terrifying revolt for the British in the navy called the RIN (Royal
Indian Navy) Revolt had all contributed to convince the British that they would have to pull out
of India. Marxist have suggested that the upsurge of the organised peasant and workers
movements through the 1940s had alarmed the British and the right wing dominated high
command of the Congress party equally and they mutually were in a great hurry to settle on
independence as that was urgently needed to contain this new challenge from the exploited
classes to the bourgeoisie interests.

Viceroy WaveU, the last but one viceroy, the last being Mountbatten had in his final draft of the
'break down p]an' in September I 946 had already suggested total withdrawal by 3 J March,
1948. (Source: Wavell, The Viceroy's Journal, p.344)

The independence of India is celebrated but it is often not adequately remembered what were the
tragic circumstances in which the independence finally came about. The British during their finaJ
parting decided to 'divide and quit' or were forced to (depending on which view one accepts)
accept the formation of Indian and Pakistan by dividing united India. There are many
controversies and debates that have not ended even after for more than a haJf century as to
exactly what had transpired and why. Why were the rivers of blood that flowed in the communal
riots that happened not averted? There are many questions and almost very few final answers.

As Professor Bipan Chandra has rightly said: 'Two questions arise. Why did the British finally
quit? Why was partition accepted by the Congress? ...The imperialist answer is that
independence was simply the fulfilment of Britain's self-appointed mission to assist the Indian
people to self-government. Partition was the unfortunate consequence of the age old Hindu­
Muslim rift, of the two communities'failure to agree on how and to whom power was to be
transferred. The radicaJ view is that independence was finaJly wrested by the same mass actions
of 1946-47 in which many Communists participated, often as leaders. But the Bourgeoisie
leaders of the Congress, frightened by the revolutionary upsurge struck a deal with the
imperialist power by which power was transferred to them and the nation paid the price of
partition.' Then Professor Bipan Chandra proceeds to lay out his own interpretation of what
happened: 'These visions of noble design or revolutionary intent, frustrated by traditional
120
religious conflict or worldly profit, attractive as they may seem, blur rather than illumine, the
sombre reality. In fact independence-partition duality reflects the success-failure dichotomy of
the anti-imperialist movement led by the Congress. The Congress had a two fold task
structuring diverse classes, communities, groups and regions into a nation and securing
independence from the British rulers for this emerging nation. While the Congress succeeded in
building up nationalist consciousness sufficient to exert pressure on the British to quit India, it
could not complete the task of welding the nation and particularly failed to integrate the Muslims
into this nation. It is this contradiction - the success and failure of the national movement -
which is reflected in the other contradiction - Independence, but with it Partition.' (Source: Bipan
Chandra, India's Struggle/or lndepencknce, p. 487-88)

It should be remembered the Brifuh always had relied on 'divide and rule' as a policy and at the
time of parting and leaving India this was a policy that was no more :needed but making strategic
foreign policy calculations on what would leave them with the maximum influence in South Asia
in the new cold war (with the communist bloc led by Russia) environment that was just
beginning then, they decided that it would be in their interest to leave Indian 'balkanised' or
broken into as many parts as possible along regional, religious and ethnic lines. That is one of the
principal reasons why the British had agreed to the partition of India.
As SumitSarkar has pointed out: 'After a rapid series of 133 interviews with political
leader...Mountbatten decided that the Cabinet Mission Plan framework had become untenable,
and formulated an alternative with the appropriate code-name Plan Balkan. This envisaged
transfer of power to separate provinces (or, to confederations, if formed before the transfer), with
the Bengal and Punjab Assemblies being given the options to vote for partition of their
provinces; the various units thus formed, along with princely states rendered independent by the
lapse of paramount-cy, would then have the choice of joining Indian, Pakistan or remaining
separate'. (Source: SumitSarkar, Modem India, p. 448)

The British establishment throughout had openly encouraged the fanatic elements for weakening
the agitation by nationalists against unendurable economic, social and race oppression that was
the result of colonial rule. Indeed the British imperialists bad throughout refused to see Indian as
a nation preferring to see it as a conglomeration of many nations - a Muslim nation, a Hindu
nation, a Dalit nation etc. The British commentators made when speaking of Indians referred to
Indians as the people of India and avoided speaking of an Indian nation. This justified the British
claim that they need to control Indian for peace and prosperity of Indian as otherwise India
would become a chaos breaking up into a thousand pieces and so ungovernable. Also because
Indians were not united or homogenous and hence not a nation, they were not capable of national
self-government. Indeed many nationalist leaders also agreed India was a nation in the making
but that does not mean Indian should not have independence and complete self-rule. But
throughout while the Congress argued that Indian Muslims along with Hindus were one nation
and many Muslim leaders supported this, others argued they were not. Some, such as Jinnah and
Liaquat Ali Khan (later prime minister of Pakistan) argued that Indian Muslims even were not
yet a nation, but would have to be forged into one as otherwise Hindus would using their
numerical strength dominate them.

The movement for Muslim self-awakening and identity was started by the Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
(1817-1898) and the Aligarh school. Poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) became a
major voice providing philosophical explanations but it was the lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah
(1871-1948) who executed the political plan by making Pakistan a political reality, an
independent nation state for the Muslim nation of South Asia.
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At the heart of the case for demanding a separate Pakistan was what is referred to as the 'two­
nation theory'. Many believe it was Allamalqbal's presidential address to the Muslim League on
December 29, 1930 in which formally the first introduction of the two-nation theory was made
which was later used in support of the demand for Pakistan. The other famous address where the
two nation theory was publicly articulated was the speech of Jinnah on March 22, 1940. in
Lahore where he stated Hindus and Muslims belonged to two different religious philosophies,
with different social customs and literature, with no inter-marriage and based on conflicting ideas
and concepts. Their outlook on life and of life was different and despite 1,000 years of history,
the relations between the Hindus and Muslims could not attain the level of cordiality. He stated
his position thus in that speech:
"It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of
Islam and Hinduism. They are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are, in fact,
different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream that the Hindus and Muslims can ever
evolve a common nationality, and this misconception of one Indian nation has troubles and will
lead India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The Hindus and Muslims belong
to two different religious philosophies, social customs, and litterateurs. They neither intermarry
nor inter-dine together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilizations which are based
mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their aspect on life and of life is different. It is
quite clear that Hindus and Mussalmans derive their inspiration from different sources of history.
They have different epics, different heroes, and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is
a foe of the other and, likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such
nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to
growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so bui!t for the government of
such a state. "

The Two-Nation Theory thus asserted that India was not a nation because of the great variations
in the ways of life of people belonging to these two faiths. It was conceded by the proponents of
this theory that within each of the religious groups there was a great variation of language,
culture and ethnicity and a Punjabi Muslim for instance is closer to a Punjabi Hindu in tastes and
ways of life than to a Bengali Muslim. To counter the criticism that a community of vastly
varying ethnicities and languages (like the Hindu or the Muslim communities in India) owing to
the fact that they came from different geographic regional communities who were territorially
intertwined with other communities could not be a nation, the proponents of the two-nation
argued the very concept of a nation in the East (Asia) was different from that in the West. In the
East they argued religion constituted a complete social order which affects all the activities in
life. They said where the allegiance of the people is divided on the basis of religion. the idea of a
territorial nationalism has never succeeded. They Muslim communalists argued a Muslim of one
country has far more sympathies with a Muslim living in another country than with a non­
Muslim living in the same country. Hence while the conception of Indian Muslims ac; a nation
may not be ethnically correct, but socially it was correct.Iqbal had also championed the notion of
a pan-Islamic nationhood or Ummah.

The Hindu communalists basically agreed with the two nation theory but the Hindu Mahasabha
under the leadership of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar opposed the partition of Indian and the
creation of Pakistan for that reason. In 1937 at the 19th session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at
Ahmedabad, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address had said: "India cannot be assumed today
to be Unjtarian and homogeneous nation. but on the contrary there are two nations in the main -

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the Hindus and the Muslims." Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar summaries Savarkar's position, in his
book 'Palcistan or The Partition of India' as follows:
"Mr. Savarkar... insists that, although there are two nations in India, India shall not be divided
into two parts, one for Muslims and the other for the Hindus; thal the two nations shall dwell in
one country and shall live under the mantle of one single constitution; ... In the struggle for
political power between the two nations the rule of the game which Mr.Savarkar prescribes is to
be one man one vote, be the man Hindu or Muslim. In his scheme a Muslim is to have no
advantage which a Hindu does not have. Minority is to be no justification for privilege and
majority is to be no ground for penalty. The State will guarantee the Muslims any defined
measure of r litical power in the form of Muslim religion and Muslim culture. But the State will
not guarantee secured seats in the Legislature or in the Administration and, if such guarantee is
insisted upon by the Muslims, such guaranteed quota is not to exceed their proportion to the
general population."

Indeed this question was at the root of the progression of the descent into a separate republic of
Pakistan. At first the All-India Muslim League (under Jinnah's leadership) while representing
Indian Muslims, felt the Muslims of the subcontinent were a distinct and separate nation from the
Hindus but were content to demand only separate electorates, but later decided Muslims would
not be safe in a Hindu-dominated India andmust have a separate state. The League had
demanded self-determination for Muslim-majority areas in the form of a sovereign state
promising minorities equal rights and safeguards in these Muslim majority areas. How their
leadership was thinking can be gauged from the following statement of Allamalqbal's explaining
the attitude of Muslim delegates to the Round-Table Conference issued in December, 1933
which was a rejoinder to Nehru who had said the attitude of the Muslim delegation was based on
"reactionarism". Iqbalhad retorted:"! must put a straight question to PanditJawaharLal, how is
India's problem to be solved if the majority community will neither concede the minimum
safeguards necessary for the protection of a minority of 80 million people, nor accept the award
of a third party: but continue to talk of a kind of nationalism which works out only to its own
benefit? This position can admit of only two alternatives. Either the Indian majority community
will have to accept for itself the permanent position of an agent of British imperialism in the
East, or the country will have to be redistributed on a basis of religious, historical and cultural
affinities so as to do away with the question of electorates and the communal problem in its
present form. "

But Sumit Sarkar has found that for all the advocacy of the two nation theory by the Muslim
communalist leaders none of them were seriously thinking of pursuing the breakup of India and
the creation of an independent state for Muslims until much later. He explains: 'British
instigation was not entirely absent in the final stages of the evolution of the Pakistan slogan
which was adopted by the Labore session of the Muslim League in March 1940. The genesis of
this demand has sometimes been traced to Iqbal's reference to the need for a 'North West Indian
Muslim state' in his presidential address to the Muslim League in 1930, but the context of his
speech makes it clear that the great Urdu poet and patriot was really visualising not partition but
a re-organisation of Muslim majority areas in N.W. India into an autonomous unit within a single
weak Indian federation. Choudhary Rehmat Ali's group of Punjabi Muslim students in
Cambridge have a much better claim to be regarded as the original proponents of the idea. In two
pamphlets, written in 1933 and 1935, Rehmat Ali demanded a separate national status for a new
entity for which he coined the name Pakstan (From Punjab, Afghan province, Kashmir, Sind and
Baluchistan). No one took this very seriously at the time, least of the League and other Muslim

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delegates to the Round Table Conference who dismissed the idea as a student's pipe dream.'
(Source: SumitSarkar, Modem India, p. 378)

Gandhiji had always resolutely opposed the two nation theory. He had said "My whole soul
rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines.
To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God." As Bhikhu Parekh has
explained:' ....... India was not (Gandhi argued) a nation but a civilisation which had over the
centuries benefited from the contributions of different races and religions and was distinguished
by its plurality, diversity and tolerance. It was a community of communities, each enjoying
considerable autonomy within a larger and shared framework. As for Hindus and Muslims, they
had lived side by side in the villages and cities for centuries without ever feeling that they were
enemies or oppressed one by the other. India was a united country long before the Muslims
came, and it was absurd to argue it had ceased to be so afterwards. What was more, most
Muslims were converted Hindus and their claim to nationhood was no more valid than would be
that of a section of English citizens converted to Islam to a separate state in England. As Gandhi
wrote to Jinnah, 'I find no parallel in history for a hody of converts and their descendants
claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock. If India was one nation before the advent of
Islam, it must remain one in spite of a change of the faith of a very large body of her children'.
(Source: Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi's Political Philosophy, p. l77jJ)

Broadly the most significant tum of events leading up to demanding complete partition are as
follows. The All India Muslim League (AIML) was formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims
complained that Muslim members did not have the same rights as Hindu members in the
assemblies and started demanding separate electorates and reservations of seats. A number of
different scenarios were proposed at various times. As mentioned above among the first to make
the demand for a separate state was the poet Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930
convention of the Muslim League said that a separate nation for Muslims was essential as
otherwise Hindus would definitely eventually dominate.The Sindh Assembly had passed a
resolution making a demand for partition in 1935.

The Congress under the leadership of Gandhi and his adherents had struggled to build and
maintain the influence of the Congress on Muslims and keep Muslim leaders in the Congress
Party but a trend of Muslims leaving the party and joining Muslim communalist parties began in
the 1930s. Indeed it was only after Jinnahs entry in the League who had until then supported
Hindu-Muslim unity in a real sense led to the movement for this new nation later called Pakistan.
By 1930, Jinnah had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress, of which he
was once a member, were insensitive to Muslim interests.The 1932 communal award which
seemed to threaten the position of Muslims in Hindu-majority provinces helped the resurgence of
the Muslim League, with Jinnah as its leader. However, the Muslim League fared badly in the
1937 provincial elections, demonstrating the weak hold of the conservative and local forces at
the time as opposed to national parties like the Congress. It was in 1940 that Jinnah made the
famous speech at the Lahore conference calling for a separate Muslim 'nation'. However, the idea
was left ambiguous and opaque, and did not talk: of territorial divisions. Later this is what
happened when Muslims and Hindus both in the next seven years agreed to a tragic territorial
meaning to the idea of partition. Initially all Muslim political parties including the Khaksar
Tehrik of Allama Mashriqi opposed the partition of India. Allama Mashriqi believed that Hindus
and Muslims could and should live in amity and Mashriqi was arrested on 19 March 1940. Most
of the Congress leaders were resolutely opposed the division of India as well. As mentioned
above Hindu organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha. though against the division of the

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country, never gave up their support for the notion that Hindus and Muslims were separate
nations.

Until 1946, the definition of Pakistan as demanded by the League was so flexible that it could
have been interpreted as a sovereign nation Pakistan, or as a member of a confederated India.
Some like Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalal have argued Jinnah intended to use the threat of
partition as a bargaining chip in order to gain more independence for the Muslim dominated
provinces in the west from the Hindu dominated centre. She bas laid much store by the fact that
the Lahore Resolution of 1940 did not contain the word •Pakistan'. That may be so, but it seems
the evidence of the spirit of the political stance that prevailed at the conference and the drift of
Jinnah's speech all point to the fact that the idea of Pakistan was already under implementation
for there was even in the draft of the resolution a constant harping on the right to self­
determination and that Muslims were a separate nation.

Doubts are expressed on Jinnah's real intentions and beliefs perhaps rightly as he himself said
the following in his statement in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly on 11 August, 1947: "We
should begin to work ...and in the course of time, all these angularities of the majority and
minority will vanish ...you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or
to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste
or creed - that bas nothing to do with the business of the State."

After the poor showing of the league in the 1937 elections Jinnah bad become desperate and he
started hardening his position for an independent Pakistan. In the 1945-46 elections the Muslim
League bad spectacular success. They won all the 30 reserved constituencies in the centre with
86.6% of Muslim votes, and 442 out of 509 Muslim seats in the provinces. SumitSarkar
comments: 'The most significant feature of the elections, however, was the prevalence of
communal voting. in sharp contrast to the sporadic but very striking anti-British unity forged in
these months in the streets of Calcutta, Bombay, or even Karachi. Apart from the logic of
separate electorates, it is possible that the extremely limited franchise (about 10% of the
population, less than 1% for the Central Assembly) may have had something to do with this
disparity. The N.W.F.P. Governor, for instance, reported to Wavell in February 1946 that while
Muslim officials and the •bigger Khans' or landlords were all for the League, the Congress was
still getting the support of the 'less well-to-do' Muslims due to its promise of economic reforms
(pro poor) - promises, however, which were not implemented eitherafter 1937 or in 1946-47'.
(Source: SumitSarkar, Modem India, p. 426-7)

The 1946 Cabinet Mission was sent to try and reach a compromise between Congress and the
Muslim League. A compromise proposing a decentralized state with much power given to local
governments 4\von initial acceptance, but Nehru was unwilling to accept such a decentralized
state and Jinnah soon returned to demanding an independent Pakistan. On the question of
whether the representatives who will engage in discussions and negotiations should be elected on
the basis of universal adult franchise only the communists were steadfast As SumitSarkar has
pointed out: 'P. C. Joshi repeated the same demand for universal adult franchise in is meeting
with the Cabinet Mission on 17 April 1946 (Mansergh,Vol, VU, pp. 291-3). Congress leaders, in
sharp contrast, quietly accepted the election of the Constituent Assembly by the existing
provincial legislatures based on limited voting rights. Much more was involved here than a
question of abstract democratic principle. The League won its demand for Pakistan without its
claim to represent the majority of Muslims being really tested, either in fully democratic
elections or (as Congress claims had been) in sustained mass movements in the face of official

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representation (as distinct from occasional communal riots not unaccompanied by official
complicity).' (Source: SumitSarkar, Modem India, p. 426-7)

The situation rapidly deteriorated in August 1946 when the League carried out Direct Action
day. The communal holocaust was unprecedented and one of the worst in human history as a
forcible exchange of population commenced on its own motion as it were. The worst rioting took
place in Punjab and Bengal. the two provinces which would be split between India and Pakistan
as a consequence of the partition. The flow of blood, loss. of property and rapes was horrendous
and massive in scale. Nehru and the nationalist leaders have said they accepted partition to stop
this carnage as that seemed the most urgent necessity if law and order was to be restored.

There is no doubt morally Indian on the whole never accepted the logic of partition. Maulana
Azad in his memoir India Wins Freedom has written: 'The people of India did not accept
partition. In fact, their heart and soul rebelled against the very idea. I have said that the Muslim
League enjoyed the support of many Indians, but there was a large section of the community
which has always opposed the League. They were naturally cut by the decision to divide the
country. As for the Hindus and the Sikhs, they were to a man opposed to partition.'
(Source: A:.ad, India Wins Freedom, p. 224)

Then why did be and the Congress accept partition. Nehru has observed: 'I know that we have
been to blame in many matters ...Partition came and we accepted it because we thought that
perhaps that way, however painful it was, we might have some peace ...Perhaps we acted
wrongly. It is difficult to judge now. And yet, the consequences of that partition have been so
terrible that one in inclined to think that anything else would have been preferable. ...ffitimately,
I have no doubt that India and Pakistan will come close together ...some kind of federal
link ...There is no other way to peace. The alternative is ... war.'(Source: Wolpert: Shameful Flight, p.
192)

Finally, the actual division or partition of India and the creation of the two new nation state states
was done according to what bas come to be known as the 3 June 1947 Plan or Mountbatten
Plan.The border between India and Pakistan was determined by a British Government­
commissioned report usually referred to as the Radcliffe Line after the London lawyer. Sir Cyril
Radcliffe, who wrote it. Pakistan was created came with two non-contiguous enclaves, East
Pakistan (today Bangladesh) and West Pakistan, separated geographically by India. India was
fonned out of the majority Hindu regions and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.

It was on 18 July 1947 that the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act that
granted freedom to India and Pakistan and put the legal seal on the partition arrangement. The
Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the two new states.

Massive population exchanges occurred in the months immediately following Partition

accompanied by relentless bloodshed and once the border lines were established. about 14.5
million people crossed the borders - Muslims to Pakistan and Hindus to India.According to the
1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while
7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition. Of the
two fronts, the western in Punjab and the eastern in Bengal, 78% of the population transfer took
place in the west, with Punjab accounting for most of it; 5.3 million Muslims moved from India
to West Punjab in Pakistan, 3.4 million Hindus and Sikhs moved from Pakistan to East Punjab in
India; elsewhere in the west 1.2 million moved in each direction to and from Sind.The newly
formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such scale. Massive

126
violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border and the number of deaths may have
been as high as onemillion or ten la.kb making the partition carnage the biggest communal
holocaust in history.

It has been alleged British haste in leaving and in withdrawing from the control of the executive
control of the administration led to the cruelties of the Partition and because independence was
declared prior to the actual partition, it was up to the new governments of India and Pakistan to
maintain Jaw and order. There was no planning and preparation for the exchange of population
and to deal with the refugees who cross the border. There was no planning done for dealing with
any communal riots (that should have been anticipated). There was a complete breakdown of Jaw
and order; many died in riots, massacre, or just from the hardships of their flight to safety. Apart
from the killed twelve million became homeless. However, some argue that the British were
forced to expedite the Partition by events on the ground and because both sides (the Congress
and the League) were asking for it.After World War II, Britain had limited resources and could
not have rushed in troops from elsewhere. Historian Lawrence James has said in 1947
Mountbatten was left with no option but to cut and run for otherwise the British would have got
involved in a civil war from which it would have been difficult and taken many years to get out.

There is one school of historians who are of the opinion that the British expedited the partition
and independence of India because they and the Congress top leadership from the right wing
high command equally were very worried and alarmed by the growth of the left movement and
saw that as a threat to their respective interests. Sumit Sarkar writes: 'The socially radical
movements of which Telengana was the climax never coalesced into an organised and effective
country-wide political alternative. The fear they undoubtedly inspired, however, helped to bring
about the final compromise by which a 'peaceful' transfer of power was purchased at the cost of
Partition and a communal holocaust. V.P. Menon, the senior bureaucrat who was to play a key
role in 1947-48 as confidante of Patel and trusted advisor of Wavell and later of Mountbatten,
reported to the Viceroy in the wake of the early-1947 strike wave 'that Congress leaders were
losing popularity ...there were serious internal troubles in Congress and great fear of the Left
Wing; and that the danger of labour difficulties was acute'. A week later, Wavell's Journal
recorded a conversation with Patel 'about the danger of the Communists. I got the impression he
would like to declare the Party illegal.'(Source: SumitSarkar, MO<hm India, p. 446)

Others like Professor Bipan Chandra would not agree but even he would agree it is a difficult
question to answer why the Congress leadership accepted partition. As be puts it: 'Why did
Nehru and Patel advocate acceptance of the 3rc1June Plan and the Congress Working Committee
and AICC pass a resolution in favour of it? Most surprising of all. why did Gandhi
acquiesce?Nehru and Patel's acceptance of Partition has been popularly interpreted as stemming
from their lust for quick and easy power, which made them betray the people. Gandhiji's
counsels are believed to have been ignored and it is argued that he felt betrayed by his disciples
and even wished to end his life, but heroically fought communal frenzy single handedly - a 'one
man boundary force', as Mountbanen called him... .It is forgotten that Nehru, Patel and Gandhiji
in 1947 were only accepting what had become inevitable because of the long-term failure of the
Congress to draw in the Muslim masses into the national movement and stemthe surging waves
of Muslim communalism, which, especially since 1937, had been beating with increasing fury.
This failure was revealed with stark clarity by the 1946 elections in which the League woo 90
per cent Muslim votes. Though the war against Jinnah was lost by early 1946, defeat was
cohceded only after the final battle was mercilessly waged in the streets of Calcutta and
Rawalpindi and the village lanes of Noakhali and Bihar. The Congress leaders felt by June 1947
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that only an immediate transfer of power could forestall the spread of Direct Action and
communal disturbances. The virtual collapse of the interim government also made Pakistan
appear to be an unavoidable reality . . Jn the face of the Governor's abetting the League and the
Bengal Ministry's inaction and even complicity in riots, Nehru wondered whether there was any
point in continuing in the Interim Government while people were being were being butchered.
Immediate transfer of power would at least mean the setting up of a government which could
exercise the control it was now expected to wield, but was powerless lo exercise. ...The
acceptance of Partition in 1947 was, thus, only the final act of a process of step by step
concession to the League's intransigent championing of a sovereign Muslim state. Autonomy of
Muslim majority provinces was accepted in 1942 at the time of the Cripps Mission. Gandhiji
went a step further and accepted the right of self determination of Muslim majority provinces in
his talks with Jinnah in 1944 ....The final act of surrender to the League's demands was in June
1947 when congress ended up accepting partition under the 3 rd June Plan ....The brave words of
the leaders contrasted sharply with the tragic retreat of the Congress. ...the Congress leaders
finally accepted partition most of all because they could not stop communal riots.' Another point
made by Professor Bipan Chandra is that Gandhiji accepted partition because he felt the Indian
people wanted it. He writes; 'What about Gandhiji? Gandhiji's unhappiness and helplessness
have often been pointed out. His inaction has been explained in terms of his forced isolation
from the Congress decision making councils . . .In our view the root of Gandhiji's helplessness
was neither Jinnah's intransigence nor his disciple's alleged lust forpower, but the
communalisation of his people. At his prayer meeting on 4th of June 1947 he explained that
Congress accepted Partition because the people wanted it: 'The demand has been granted
because you asked for it. The Congress never asked for it .. .But the Congress can feel the pulse
of the people. It realised that the Khalsa as also the Hindus desired it'. It was the Hindu's and
Sikh's desire for partition that rendered him ineffective, blind, impotent. The Muslims already
considered him their enemy . What was a mass leader without masses who would follow his call?
How could he base a movement to fight communalism on a communal people? . ..He walked
bravely into the A ICC meeting on 14 June, 1947 and asked congressmen to accept Partition as an
unavoidable necessity in the given circumstances, but to fight it in the long run by not accepting
it in their hearts.' (Source: Bipan Chandra 011d others, India's Struggle for Independence, pp. 500-4)

Gandhi had once made the suggestion that Jinnah should be offered the Prime minister-ship of an
undivided united India believing that would make him and the Muslim League give up his
demand for Pakistan. But one cannot be so sure. He once said in a speech: "Muslim India cannot
accept any Constitution which must necessarily result in a Hindu majority government. Hindus
and Muslims brought together under a democratic system forced upon the minority can only
mean Hindu Raj. Democracy of this kind ...would mean the complete destruction of what is most
precious in Islam."

QUESTIONS
1. What is the two-nation theory? Explain and trace its origins.
2. Discuss the various factors underlying the tragedy of the panition of India.

SUGGESTED READING

1. SumitSarkar, Modem India

2. Maulana Azad, India Wins Freedom

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