• National movements of India
Ans:
The Nationalist Movements in India were early popular movements seeking independence
of India from Great Britain. The Indian nationalist movement was the political expression
of rational and religious uproar, and social and economic development. It was the
result of numerous factors and influences. The Indian nationalist movement was the
political expression of rational and religious uproar, and social and economic
development. It was the result of numerous factors and influences. The following are
some of the important factors in the rise of nationalism.
Indian National Congress
At its inception, the Congress had no well-defined ideology and commanded few of
the resources essential for a political organization. It functioned more as a debating
society that met annually to express its loyalty to the Raj and passed numerous
resolutions on less controversial issues such as civil rights or opportunities in the
government, especially the civil services. These resolutions were submitted to the
viceroy’s government and, occasionally, to the British Parliament, but the Congress’s
early gains were meagre. Before the inception of the Indian National Congress,
there existed other small political platforms for the Indians. These organizations
limited their focus to safeguard the interest of a particular class or group. Such as
British Indian Association, East India Association, Poona Sabha, Indian Association,
Madras Mahajan Sabha, Bombay Presidency.
Terrorist Movement In India
The terrorist movement in India started after many Indian leaders including Lala
Lajpat Rai and Sardar Ajit Singh were deported to Mandalay in 1907, without a trial.
This agitated young leaders such as Barindra Kumar Ghosh and Bhupendra Nath
Dutt in Kolkata and they plotted to blow up the train in which the Lt. Governor of
Bengal Presidency, Sir A. Frazer, was travelling. Later, the terrorist movement gained
popularity and the programme of political assassination and armed dacoity with a
view to secure money for their cause gathered momentum.
Revolutionary Movement In India
The revolutionaries believed in ousting the British from India by means of a mass
uprising. They were against the slow and steady approach of the Congress
extremists and they also disapproved of the assassinations and destruction of public
property by the terrorists. They tried to convince the Indian troops to rebel and
tried to get help from foreign countries hostile to Britain. he important revolutionary
movements were as follows:
1. The Ghadar Movement
In 1907, Lala Hardayal came under the influence of the revolutionaries working in
Oxford and started a weekly paper called Gadar. His subsequent associations with
more leaders culminated into the formation of the Gadar Party in 1913, in North
America. The Ghadar movement planned to (a) temper the loyalty of the Indian
troops, (b) assassinate the British officials, (c) court foreign enemies to Britain and
(d) form secret societies and propagate seditious literature.
2. Hindustan Republican Association(HSRA)Re-organised
On 9 and 10 September 1928, many of the major revolutionaries of northern
India gathered secretly at Feroz Shah Kotla, set-up a new collective leadership,
elected Chandrashekhar Azad as their creed, inserting the word ‘Socialist’ into
their name. The Hindustan Socialist Republican Association was rapidly moving
from the phase of individual actions to one of building a revolutionary
movement.
3. The All-India Mutiny that Failed
The revolutionaries took their ideas to the army and the peasants, small
mutinies in Ferozpur, Lahore and Rawalpindi garrisons cautioned the British
officers of a possible revolt of greater magnitude. The activists had planned the
All-India Revolt on 21 February 1915.
Other Revolutionary Events are Murder of [Link] and [Link] by Chapekar
brothers, Formation of the India House in London, Madan Lal Dhingra murdered
Curzon-Willie, an official in the British India Office at London, Formation
of Indian Independence Committee in 1915, Formation of the Berlin Committee
in Germany (1914), Issuing of an independence proclamation in the name
of Indian Republic Army under the leadership of Surya Senin 1930 etc.
The Early Phase of Freedom Struggle
On 30 December 1989, Lord Curzon took over as the new viceroy of India. Lord
Curzon ordered the partition of Bengal in 1905. He wanted to improve the
administrative efficiency in that huge and populous region, where the Bengali Hindu
intelligentsia exerted considerable influence on local and national politics. The
partition of Bengal came into effect on 16 October 1905, through a royal
proclamation. The swadeshi Movement had its genesis in the anti-partition
movement started to oppose the British decision to divide Bengal. With the start of
the Swadeshi Movement at the turn of the century, the Indian national movement
took a major leap forward.
Middle Phase Of The Freedom Struggle (1915 – 1930)
The important movements of the middle phases are:
• Home rule Movement (1915 – 1916)
• Lucknow Pact (1916)
• August Declaration Of 1917
• Beginning Of the Gandhain Era
• The Government Of India Act (1919)
• Rowlatt Act (1919)
• Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (13 April 1919)
• Non – Cooperation Movement (1920 – 1922)
• Chauri – Chaura Incident (1922)
• Trade Union Movement
• Communist Movement In India
• Swaraj Party (1922)
• Muddiman Committee (1924)
• Simon Commission (1927)
• Butler Committee (1927)
• Delhi Muslim Proposal (1927)
• Nehru Report (1928)
• All Parties Muslims Conference (1929)
• Jinnah’s Fourteen Points (1929)
• Lahore Session (1929)
• Allahabad Address (1930)
Closer to Freedom
After the conclusion of the First Round Table Conference, the British government
realised that the cooperation of the Indian National Congress was necessary to
make progress in framing the Indian constitution. Early in 1931, two demand for
freedom. The communal question dominated moderate statesmen. Sapru and
Jayakar, initiated eltorts to conference and Gandhi had to return empty-handed
bring about a rapprochement between Gandhi and the government.
Some important movements are
• Civil Disobedience Movement (1930)
• The First Round Table Conference (12 November 1930)
• Gandhi – Irwin Pact (5 March 1931)
• Second Round Table Conference (12 September 1931)
• Civil Disobedience Movement (Second Phase)
• Third Round Table Conference (17 November 1932)
• The Communal Award (1932)
• Poona Pact (1932)
• The Government of India Act (1935)
• World War II And The Indian Political Situation
• August Offer Of 1940
• The Individual Civil Disobedience
• Two – Nation Theory
• Demand For Pakistan (1941)
• Cripps Mission (March 1942)
• Quit India Movement (1942 – 1945)
• The Cr Formula (1944)
• Gandhi – Jinnah Talks (1944)
• Wavell Plan And Simla Conference (1945)
• Provincial And General Elections Of 1945
• Cabinet Mission Plan (1946)
• Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army)
• Direct Action Campaign (1946)
• Interim Government (1946)
• Mountbatten Plan (1947)
Indian Independence Act (1947)
The Bill containing the provisions of the Mountbatten Plan of 3 June 1947, was
introduced by British Prime Minister Clement Attlee in the House of Commons on 14
July 1947, and passed as the Indian Independence Act, 1947. The Act made India
and Pakistan independent dominions and the princely states were left to accede to
either of the two. The simple Act, containing 20 sections and 3 schedules,
constituted two independent dominions o India and Pakistan with effect from 15
August 1947.
• The Partition of India.
Ans:
The division of British India into the two separate states of India and Pakistan on
August 14-15, 1947 – was the “last-minute” mechanism by which the British were able to
secure agreement over how independence would take place. But the history of this
partition is described below.
1885
# Indian National Congress founded initially as a moderate body to press for greater
opportunities for all Indians irrespective of religion.
# Demands include end of discriminatory practices in employment, greater public
spending on education and lower taxes on the mass of poverty-stricken peasantry.
1905
#First attempted break up of a province of India by the British colonial government. This
is a response to the primarily Bengal-based rising nationalist movement that was
challenging colonial rule.
1906
#All-India Muslim League founded in Bengal by ‘men of property and influence’ from
north India, with the primary aim of securing adequate Muslim political representation
based on separate electorates for Muslims and Hindus.
#Separate electorates conceded by the colonial government in 1909.
1914-1918
#Congress and Muslim League, now radicalised by a new leadership drawn from the
intelligentsia, join forces and make a joint demand for a significant devolution of political
power to Indians after the war in exchange for supporting the Allies in the war against
Germany.
#As the contribution of Indian soldiers to the defence of the British Empire is recognised
by the British Cabinet in London, campaigns for Indian ‘home rule’ intensify and many
Muslim leaders, including Jinnah, become members of both political parties.
1919-1922
#Attempt at forging a permanent Hindu-Muslim nationalist political alliance, led by
Gandhi who is now the dominant force within Congress.
# In 1922, Gandhi calls off the campaign, viewed by the British as an existential threat
to colonial rule, following outbreaks of violence in defiance of his insistence on peaceful,
non-violent agitation.
#He is promptly arrested and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.
1923-1928
# Suspension of non-cooperation leads to renewed competition between Hindu and
Muslim political elites for seats in the new provincial councils.
#Muslim leaders begin to move away from Congress as it comes under mounting
pressure from Hindu-interest organisations not to make concessions to Muslim political
demands.
1930-1933
#Gandhi launches further all-India Civil Disobedience campaigns, now based on the
demand for purna swaraj (full independence from British rule).
#This time Muslim participation is very low compared to 1919-22, with the exception of
the North West Frontier Province where the radical Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of
God) movement of the local Pashtuns enthusiastically endorses civil disobedience.
# A day of peaceful protest in Peshawar is met with considerable violence from the
British military resulting in over 200, predominantly Muslim, civilian deaths.
1935-1939
# Under increasing pressure, the British government passes legislation (the
Government of India Act, 1935) conceding a significant measure of self-government to
the provinces of India while retaining full control at the centre.
# Congress secures a comfortable victory and forms ministries in six out of eleven
provinces (1937-39).
1940-1945
# Congress resigns its ministries in protest against the British unilateral declaration of
war on Germany on behalf of India and the lack of progress on its demand for a transfer
of power to a representative government at the centre.
# It moves to an anti-war stance and launches a mass ‘Quit India’ campaign which is
met with severe repression and the arrest and imprisonment of Congress leaders.
# At its Lahore session in 1940, the Muslim League puts forward the view that Muslims
and Hindus make up two distinct ‘nations of India’ (the ‘two-nation theory’) giving
Muslims an entitlement to political parity, i.e. much more than separate, minority
representation.
1945-1946
#The defeat of the die-hard Churchill and election of a Labour government in 1945
signals a change in colonial policy and the promise of an early achievement of ‘full self-
government’ for India.
# Congress again wins the vast majority of non-Muslim seats, but the Muslim League
achieves a spectacular result, reversing its poor showing of a decade earlier and
winning the bulk of Muslim seats at both central and provincial levels.
# The Labour government despatches a three-man Cabinet Mission with the objectives
of securing Indian agreement to a representative government to whom power would be
transferred and of arresting the apparent slide towards civil war.
1947
Partition is now seen as the only solution by both parties. At the same time, the British
decide to bring forward their departure from India by a year. In June 1947, Viceroy
Mountbatten broadcasts a rushed and incoherent partition plan to Indians, announcing
that British withdrawal and the division of the country was to take place in just 2 months.
The social ruptures and atrocities that accompany the unfolding of this time-compressed
partition plan, particularly along the partitioned borderlands of Punjab and Bengal,
ensure that the new nation-states of India and Pakistan are born with profound mutual
distrust and enmity.