Imperial entities of India
| |
| Dutch India | 1605–1825 |
|---|---|
| Danish India | 1620–1869 |
| French India | 1668–1954 |
Portuguese India
(1505–1961) | |
| Casa da Índia | 1434–1833 |
| Portuguese East India Company | 1628–1633 |
British India
(1612–1947) | |
| East India Company | 1612–1757 |
| Company rule in India | 1757–1858 |
| British Raj | 1858–1947 |
| British rule in Burma | 1824–1948 |
| Princely states | 1721–1949 |
| Partition of India |
1947
|
The Indian independence movement was a series of activities whose ultimate aim was to end the British Raj and encompassed activities and ideas aiming to end the East India Company rule (1757–1857) and the British Raj (1857–1947) in the Indian subcontinent. The movement spanned a total of 90 years (1857–1947) considering movement against the British Indian Empire. The Indian Independence movement includes both protest (peaceful and non-violent) and militant (violent) mechanisms to root out British Administration from India.
The first organised militant movements were in Bengal, but they later took root in the newly formed Indian National Congress with prominent moderate leaders seeking only their basic right to appear for Indian Civil Service (British India) examinations, as well as more rights, economic in nature, for the people of the soil. The early part of the 20th century saw a more radical approach towards political self-rule proposed by leaders such as the Lal, Bal, Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai. The last stages of the self-rule struggle from the 1920s onwards saw Congress adopt Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's policy of non-violence and civil disobedience, and several other campaigns. Nationalists like Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Bagha Jatin, preached armed revolution to achieve self-rule. Poets and writers such as Subramania Bharati, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Iqbal, Josh Malihabadi, Mohammad Ali Jouhar, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Kazi Nazrul Islam used literature, poetry and speech as a tool for political awareness. Feminists such as Sarojini Naidu and Begum Rokeya promoted the emancipation of Indian women and their participation in national politics. B. R. Ambedkar championed the cause of the disadvantaged sections of Indian society within the larger self-rule movement. The period of the Second World War saw the peak of the campaigns by the Quit India Movement led by Congress, and the Indian National Army movement led by Subhas Chandra Bose.
The Indian self-rule movement was a mass-based movement that encompassed various sections of society. It also underwent a process of constant ideological evolution. Although the basic ideology of the movement was anti-colonial, it was supported by a vision of independent capitalist economic development coupled with a secular, democratic, republican, and civil-libertarian political structure. After the 1930s, the movement took on a strong socialist orientation, owing to the influence of Bhagat Singh's demand for Purna Swaraj (Complete Self-Rule). The work of these various movements led ultimately to the Indian Independence Act 1947, which ended the suzerainty in India and the creation of Pakistan. India remained a Dominion of the Crown until 26 January 1950, when the Constitution of India came into force, establishing the Republic of India; Pakistan was a dominion until 1956, when it adopted its first republican constitution. In 1971, East Pakistan declared independence as the People's Republic of Bangladesh.
Background (1757–1883)
Early British colonialism in India
Robert Clive with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey
After the defeat of Tipu Sultan, most of South India was now either under the company's direct rule, or under its indirect political control
European traders first reached Indian shores with the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama in 1498 at the port of Calicut, in search of the lucrative spice trade.
Just over a century later, the Dutch and English established trading
outposts on the subcontinent, with the first English trading post set up
at Surat in 1613. Over the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the British
defeated the Portuguese and Dutch militarily, but remained in conflict
with the French, who had by then sought to establish themselves in the
subcontinent. The decline of the Mughal Empire
in the first half of the eighteenth century provided the British with
the opportunity to establish a firm foothold in Indian politics. After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, during which the East India Company's Indian Army under Robert Clive defeated Siraj ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal,
the Company established itself as a major player in Indian affairs, and
soon afterwards gained administrative rights over the regions of Bengal, Bihar and Midnapur part of Odisha, following the Battle of Buxar in 1764. After the defeat of Tipu Sultan, most of South India came either under the Company's direct rule, or under its indirect political control as part a princely state in a subsidiary alliance. The Company subsequently gained control of regions ruled by the Maratha Empire, after defeating them in a series of wars. The Punjab was annexed in 1849, after the defeat of the Sikh armies in the First (1845–1846) and Second (1848–49) Anglo-Sikh Wars.
English was made the medium of instruction in India's schools in
1835, and many Indians increasingly disliked British rule. The English
tried to impose the Western standards of education and culture on Indian
masses, believing in the 18th century superiority of Western culture
and enlightenment.
Early rebellion
Puli Thevar was one of the opponents of the British rule in India. He was in conflict with the Nawab of Arcot who was supported by the British. His prominent exploits were his confrontations with Marudhanayagam,
who later rebelled against the British in the late 1750s and early
1760s. Nelkatumseval the present Tirunelveli Dist of Tamil Nadu state of
India was the headquarters of Puli Thevan.
Syed Mir Nisar Ali Titumir;
27 January 1782 – 19 November 1831) was an Islamic preacher who led a
peasant uprising against the Hindu zamindars, British India during the
19th century. Along with his followers, he built a bamboo fort (Bansher
Kella in Bengali) in Narkelberia Village, which passed into Bengali folk
legend. After the storming of the fort by British soldiers, Titumir
died of his wounds on 19 November 1831.
The toughest resistance the Company experienced was offered by Mysore. The Anglo–Mysore Wars were a series of wars fought in over the last three decades of the 18th century between the Kingdom of Mysore on the one hand, and the British East India Company (represented chiefly by the Madras Presidency), and Maratha Confederacyand the Nizam of Hyderabad on the other. Hyder Ali and his successor Tipu Sultan
fought a war on four fronts with the British attacking from the west,
south and east, while the Marathas and the Nizam's forces attacked from
the north. The fourth war resulted in the overthrow of the house of
Hyder Ali and Tipu (who was killed in the final war, in 1799), and the
dismantlement of Mysore to the benefit of the East India Company, which
won and took control of much of India.
In 1766 the Nizam of Hyderabad transferred the Northern Circars to the British authority. The independent king Jagannatha Gajapati Narayan Deo II of Paralakhemundi estate situated in today's Odisha and in the northernmost region of the then political division was continuously revolting against the French
occupants since 1753 as per the Nizam's earlier handover of his estate
to them on similar grounds. Narayan Deo II fought the British at Jelmur
fort on Fourth of April, 1768 and was defeated due to superior firepower
of the British. He fled to the tribal hinterlands of his estate and
continued his efforts against the British authority until his natural
death on the Fifth of December, 1771.
Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja
was one of the earliest freedom fighters in India. He was the prince
regent of the princely state of Kottiyur or Cotiote in North Malabar,
near Kannur, India between 1774 and 1805. He fought a guerrilla war with
tribal people from Wynad supporting him. He was caught by the British
and his fort was razed to the ground.
Rani Velu Nachiyar
(1730–1796), was a queen of Indian Sivaganga from 1760 to 1790. She was
the first queen to fight against the British in India. Rani Nachiyar
was trained in war match weapons usage, martial arts like Valari,
Silambam (fighting using stick), horse riding and archery. She was a
scholar in many languages and she had proficiency with languages like
French, English, and Urdu. When her husband, Muthuvaduganathaperiya
Udaiyathevar, was killed by British soldiers and the son of the Nawab of
Arcot, she was drawn into battle. She formed an army and sought an
alliance with Gopala Nayaker and Hyder Ali with the aim of attacking the
British, whom she did successfully fight in 1780. When Rani Velu
Nachiyar found the place where the British stored their ammunition, she
arranged a suicide attack: a faithful follower, Kuyili,
doused herself in oil, set herself alight and walked into the
storehouse. Rani Velu Nachiyar formed a woman's army named "udaiyaal" in
honour of her adopted daughter, Udaiyaal, who died detonating a British
arsenal. Rani Nachiyar was one of the few rulers who regained her
kingdom, and ruled it for ten more years.
Veerapandiya Kattabomman was an eighteenth-century Polygar and chieftain from Panchalankurichi in Tamil Nadu, India who waged a war against the East India Company. He was captured by the British and hanged in 1799 CE. Kattabomman refused to accept the sovereignty of East India Company, and fought against them. Dheeran Chinnamalai was a Kongu chieftain and Palayakkarar from Tamil Nadu who fought against the East India Company. After Kattabomman and Tipu Sultan's deaths, Chinnamalai sought the help of Marathas and Maruthu Pandiyar to attack the British at Coimbatore
in 1800. British forces managed to stop the armies of the allies and
hence Chinnamalai was forced to attack Coimbatore on his own. His army
was defeated and he escaped from the British forces. Chinnamalai engaged
in guerrilla warfare and defeated the British in battles at Cauvery in 1801, Odanilai in 1802 and Arachalur in 1804.
Paika Bidroha
In September 1804, the King of Khordha, Kalinga was deprived of the traditional rights of Jagannath Temple which was a serious shock to the King and the people of Odisha. Consequently, in October 1804 a group of armed Paiks attacked the British at Pipili. This event alarmed the British force. Jayee Rajguru, the chief of Army of Kalinga requested all the kings of the state to join hands for a common cause against the British. Rajguru was killed on 6 December 1806. After Rajguru's death, Bakshi Jagabandhu commanded an armed rebellion against the East India Company's rule in Odisha which is known as Paik Rebellion, the first Rebellion of India against the British East India Company.
Rebellion of 1857
States during the rebellion
The Indian rebellion of 1857 was a large-scale rebellion in the
northern and central India against the British East India Company's
rule. It was suppressed and the British government took control of the
company. The conditions of service in the company's army and cantonments increasingly came into conflict with the religious beliefs and prejudices of the sepoys.
The predominance of members from the upper castes in the army,
perceived loss of caste due to overseas travel, and rumours of secret
designs of the government to convert them to Christianity led to deep
discontent among the sepoys.
The sepoys were also disillusioned by their low salaries and the racial
discrimination practised by British officers in matters of promotion
and privileges. The indifference of the British towards leading native Indian rulers such as the Mughals and ex-Peshwas and the annexation of Oudh were political factors triggering dissent amongst Indians. The Marquess of Dalhousie's policy of annexation, the doctrine of lapse
(or escheat) applied by the British, and the projected removal of the
descendants of the Great Mughal from their ancestral palace at Red Fort to the Qutb Minar (near Delhi) also angered some people.
The final spark was provided by the rumoured use of tallow (from cows) and lard (pig fat) in the newly introduced Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle cartridges. Soldiers had to bite the cartridges
with their teeth before loading them into their rifles, and the
reported presence of cow and pig fat was religiously offensive to both
Hindu and Muslim soldiers.
Mangal Pandey,
a 29-year-old sepoy, was believed to be responsible for inspiring the
Indian sepoys to rise against the British. Pandey revolted against his
army regiment for protection of the cow, considered sacred by Hindus. In
the first week of May 1857, he killed a higher officer in his regiment
at Barrackpore
for the introduction of the rule. He was captured and was sentenced to
death when the British took back control of the regiment. On 10 May 1857, the sepoys at Meerut broke rank and turned on their commanding officers, killing some of them. They reached Delhi on 11 May, set the company's toll house on fire, and marched into the Red Fort, where they asked the Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II, to become their leader and reclaim his throne. The emperor was reluctant at first, but eventually agreed and was proclaimed Shehenshah-e-Hindustan by the rebels. The rebels also murdered much of the European, Eurasian, and Christian population of the city.
Revolts broke out in other parts of Oudh and the North-Western Provinces as well, where civil rebellion followed the mutinies, leading to popular uprisings.
The British were initially caught off-guard and were thus slow to
react, but eventually responded with force. The lack of effective
organisation among the rebels, coupled with the military superiority of
the British, brought a rapid end to the rebellion.
The British fought the main army of the rebels near Delhi, and after
prolonged fighting and a siege, defeated them and retook the city on 20
September 1857. Subsequently, revolts in other centres were also crushed. The last significant battle was fought in Gwalior on 17 June 1858, during which Rani Lakshmibai was killed. Sporadic fighting and guerrilla warfare, led by Tatya Tope, continued until spring 1859, but most of the rebels were eventually subdued.
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major turning point in the
history of modern India. While affirming the military and political
power of the British, it led to significant change in how India was to be controlled by them. Under the Government of India Act 1858,
the Company was deprived of its involvement in ruling India, with its
territory being transferred to the direct authority of the British
government. At the apex of the new system was a Cabinet minister, the Secretary of State for India, who was to be formally advised by a statutory council; the Governor-General of India (Viceroy) was made responsible to him, while he in turn was responsible to the government. In a royal proclamation made to the people of India, Queen Victoria promised equal opportunity of public service under British law, and also pledged to respect the rights of the native princes.
The British stopped the policy of seizing land from the princes,
decreed religious tolerance and began to admit Indians into the civil
service (albeit mainly as subordinates). However, they also increased
the number of British soldiers in relation to native Indian ones, and
only allowed British soldiers to handle artillery. Bahadur Shah was exiled to Rangoon, Burma, where he died in 1862.
In 1876, in a controversial move Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli acceded to the Queen's request and passed legislation to give Queen Victoria the additional title of Empress of India. Liberals in Britain objected that the title was foreign to British traditions.
Rise of organised movements
Image of the delegates to the first meeting of the Indian National Congress in Bombay, 1885.
The decades following the Rebellion were a period of growing
political awareness, manifestation of Indian public opinion and
emergence of Indian leadership at both national and provincial levels. Dadabhai Naoroji formed the East India Association in 1867 and Surendranath Banerjee founded the Indian National Association in 1876. Inspired by a suggestion made by A.O. Hume, a retired British civil servant, seventy-two Indian delegates met in Bombay
in 1885 and founded the Indian National Congress. They were mostly
members of the upwardly mobile and successful western-educated
provincial elites, engaged in professions such as law, teaching
and journalism. At its inception, the Congress had no well-defined
ideology and commanded few of the resources essential to a political
organisation. Instead, it functioned more as a debating society that met
annually to express its loyalty to the British Raj and passed numerous
resolutions on less controversial issues such as civil rights or
opportunities in government (especially in the civil service). These
resolutions were submitted to the Viceroy's government and occasionally
to the British Parliament, but the Congress's early gains were slight.
"Despite its claim to represent all India, the Congress voiced the
interests of urban elites; the number of participants from other social and economic backgrounds remained negligible."
However, this period of history is still crucial because it represented
the first political mobilisation of Indians, coming from all parts of
the subcontinent and the first articulation of the idea of India as one
nation, rather than a collection of independent princely states.
The influence of socio-religious groups such as Arya Samaj (started by Swami Dayanand Saraswati) and Brahmo Samaj (founded by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and others) became evident in pioneering reforms of Indian society. The work of men like Swami Vivekananda, Ramakrishna, Sri Aurobindo, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Subramanya Bharathy, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Rabindranath Tagore and Dadabhai Naoroji, as well as women such as the Scots–Irish Sister Nivedita,
spread the passion for rejuvenation and freedom. The rediscovery of
India's indigenous history by several European and Indian scholars also
fed into the rise of nationalism among Indians.
Rise of Indian nationalism (1885–1905)
Lala Lajpat Rai of Punjab, Bal Gangadhar Tilak of Maharashtra, and Bipin Chandra Pal of Bengal, the triumvirate were popularly known as Lal Bal Pal, changed the political discourse of the Indian independence movement.
By 1900, although the Congress had emerged as an all-India political
organisation, it did not have the support of most Indian Muslims. Attacks by Hindu reformers against religious conversion, cow slaughter, and the preservation of Urdu in Arabic
script deepened their concerns of minority status and denial of rights
if the Congress alone were to represent the people of India. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
launched a movement for Muslim regeneration that culminated in the
founding in 1875 of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh (renamed Aligarh Muslim University
in 1920). Its objective was to educate wealthy students by emphasising
the compatibility of Islam with modern western knowledge. The
diversity among India's Muslims, however, made it impossible to bring
about uniform cultural and intellectual regeneration.
The nationalistic sentiments among Congress members led to the
movement to be represented in the bodies of government, to have a say in
the legislation and administration of India. Congressmen saw themselves
as loyalists, but wanted an active role in governing their own country,
albeit as part of the Empire. This trend was personified by Dadabhai Naoroji, who went as far as contesting, successfully, an election to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, becoming its first Indian member.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak was the first Indian nationalist to embrace Swaraj as the destiny of the nation.
Tilak deeply opposed the then British education system that ignored and
defamed India's culture, history and values. He resented the denial of
freedom of expression for nationalists, and the lack of any voice or
role for ordinary Indians in the affairs of their nation. For these
reasons, he considered Swaraj as the natural and only solution. His
popular sentence "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it" became
the source of inspiration for Indians.
In 1907, the Congress was split into two factions: The radicals,
led by Tilak, advocated civil agitation and direct revolution to
overthrow the British Empire and the abandonment of all things British.
The moderates, led by leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji and Gopal Krishna Gokhale, on the other hand, wanted reform within the framework of British rule. Tilak was backed by rising public leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, who held the same point of view. Under them, India's three great states – Maharashtra, Bengal and Punjab
shaped the demand of the people and India's nationalism. Gokhale
criticised Tilak for encouraging acts of violence and disorder. But the
Congress of 1906 did not have public membership, and thus Tilak and his
supporters were forced to leave the party.
But with Tilak's arrest, all hopes for an Indian offensive were
stalled. The Indian National Congress lost credibility with the people. A
Muslim deputation met with the Viceroy, Minto
(1905–10), seeking concessions from the impending constitutional
reforms, including special considerations in government service and
electorates. The British recognised some of the Muslim League's petitions by increasing the number of elective offices reserved for Muslims in the Indian Councils Act 1909. The Muslim League insisted on its separateness from the Hindu-dominated Congress, as the voice of a "nation within a nation".
The Ghadar Party
was formed overseas in 1913 to fight for the Independence of India with
members coming from the United States and Canada, as well as Shanghai,
Hong Kong, and Singapore. Members of the party aimed for Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim unity against the British.
The temperance movement in India became aligned with Indian nationalism under the direction of Mahatma Gandhi, who saw alcohol as a foreign importation to the culture of the subcontinent.
Partition of Bengal, 1905
Khudiram Bose was one of the youngest Indian revolutionaries tried and executed by the British.
In July 1905, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy and Governor-General (1899–1905), ordered the partition of the province of Bengal supposedly for improvements in administrative efficiency in the huge and populous region.
However, the Indians viewed the partition as an attempt by the British
to disrupt the growing national movement in Bengal and divide the Hindus
and Muslims of the region. The Bengali Hindu intelligentsia exerted
considerable influence on local and national politics. The partition
outraged Bengalis. Not only had the government failed to consult Indian
public opinion, but the action appeared to reflect the British resolve
to divide and rule.
Widespread agitation ensued in the streets and in the press, and the
Congress advocated boycotting British products under the banner of swadeshi,
or indigenous industries. A growing movement emerged, focussing on
indigenous Indian industries, finance, and education, which saw the
founding of National Council of Education,
the birth of Indian financial institutions and banks, as well as an
interest in Indian culture and achievements in science and literature.
Hindus showed unity by tying Rakhi on each other's wrists and observing Arandhan (not cooking any food). During this time, Bengali Hindu nationalists like Sri Aurobindo, Bhupendranath Datta, and Bipin Chandra Pal began writing virulent newspaper articles challenging legitimacy of British rule in India in publications such as Jugantar and Sandhya,
and were charged with sedition. Brahmabhandav Upadhyay, a Hindu
newspaper editor who helped Tagore establish his school at
Shantiniketan, was imprisoned and the first to die in British custody in
the twentieth-century struggle for self-rule. The movement also witnessed violent revolutionary movement for Indian independence, notable revolutionary being Khudiram Bose. Due to his activities against the British, he was arrested and hanged.
The British newspaper, The Empire, wrote:
Khudiram Bose was executed this morning;...It is alleged that he mounted the scaffold with his body erect. He was cheerful and smiling.
All India Muslim League
The All-India Muslim League was founded by the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference at Dhaka (now Bangladesh), in 1906, in the context of the circumstances that were generated over the partition of Bengal in 1905. Being a political party to secure the interests of the Muslim diaspora in British India, the Muslim League played a decisive role behind the creation of Pakistan in the Indian subcontinent.
In 1916, Muhammad Ali Jinnah
joined the Indian National Congress, which was the largest Indian
political organisation. Like most of the Congress at the time, Jinnah
did not favour outright self-rule, considering British influences on
education, law, culture, and industry as beneficial to India. Jinnah
became a member of the sixty-member Imperial Legislative Council.
The council had no real power or authority, and included a large number
of unelected pro-Raj loyalists and Europeans. Nevertheless, Jinnah was
instrumental in the passing of the Child Marriages Restraint Act, the legitimisation of the Muslim waqf (religious endowments) and was appointed to the Sandhurst committee, which helped establish the Indian Military Academy at Dehradun. During the First World War, Jinnah joined other Indian moderates in supporting the British war effort.
First World War
This photograph shows an emaciated Indian Army soldier who survived the Siege of Kut, part of the campaign in Mesopotamia
The First World War began with an unprecedented outpouring of support
towards Britain from within the mainstream political leadership.
Contrary to initial British fears of an Indian revolt, Indians
contributed considerably to the British war effort by providing men and
resources. About 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in
Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, while both the Indian government
and the princes sent large supplies of food, money, and ammunition.
Nonetheless, Bengal and Punjab remained hotbeds of anti colonial activities. Nationalism in Bengal, increasingly associated with the unrest in Punjab, of significant ferocity to almost complete the paralysis of regional administration. Meanwhile, failed conspiracies were triggered by revolutionaries lack of preparedness to organise a nationalist revolt.
None of the revolutionary conspiracies made a significant impact
inside India. The prospect that subversive violence would have an
effect on a popular war effort drew support from the Indian population
for special measures against anti-colonial activities in the form of Defence of India Act 1915.
There were no major mutinies occurring during wartime, yet
conspiracies exacerbated profound fears of insurrection among British
officials, preparing them to use extreme force to frighten Indians into
submission.
Nationalist response to war
In the aftermath of the First World War, high casualty rates, soaring inflation compounded by heavy taxation, a widespread influenza epidemic and the disruption of trade during the war escalated human suffering in India.
The pre-war nationalist movement revived moderate and extremist
groups within the Congress submerged their differences in order to stand
together as a unified front. They argued that their enormous services
to the British Empire during the war demanded a reward to demonstrate
Indian capacity for self-rule. In 1916, Congress succeeded in forging
the Lucknow Pact, a temporary alliance with the Muslim League over the issues of devolution and the future of Islam in the region.
British reforms
The
British themselves adopted a "carrot and stick" approach in recognition
of India's support during the war and in response to renewed
nationalist demands. In August 1917, Edwin Montagu,
Secretary of state for India, made an historic announcement in
Parliament that the British policy was for "increasing association of
Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual
development of self-governing institutions with a view to the
progressive realization of responsible government in India as an
integral part of the British Empire." The means of achieving the
proposed measures were later enshrined in the Government of India Act, 1919,
which introduced the principle of a dual mode of administration, or
diarchy, in which both elected Indian legislators and, appointed British
officials shared power. The act also expanded the central and
provincial legislatures and widened the franchise considerably. The
diarchy set in motion certain real changes at the provincial level: a
number of non-controversial or "transferred" portfolios, such as
agriculture, local government, health, education, and public works, were
handed over to Indians, while more sensitive matters such as finance,
taxation, and maintaining law and order were retained by the provincial
British administrators.
Gandhi arrives in India
Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the Kheda and Champaran satyagrahas
(Sitting L to R) Rajendra Prasad and Anugrah Narayan Sinha during Mahatma Gandhi's 1917 Champaran Satyagraha.
Gandhi had been a leader of the Indian nationalist movement in South Africa.
He had also been a vocal opponent of basic discrimination and abusive
labour treatment as well as suppressive police control such as the Rowlatt Acts. During these protests, Gandhi had perfected the concept of satyagraha.
In January 1914 (well before the First World War began) Gandhi was
successful. The legislation against Indians was repealed and all Indian
political prisoners were released by General Jan Smuts.
Gandhi accomplished this through extensive use of non-violent protests,
such as boycotting, protest marching, and fasting by him and his
followers.
Gandhi returned to India on 9 January 1915, and initially entered
the political fray not with calls for a nation-state, but in support of
the unified commerce-oriented territory that the Congress Party had
been asking for. Gandhi believed that the industrial development and
educational development that the Europeans had brought were long
required to alleviate many of India's chronic problems. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a veteran Congressman and Indian leader, became Gandhi's mentor. Gandhi's ideas and strategies of non-violent civil disobedience
initially appeared impractical to some Indians and their Congress
leaders. In the Mahatma's own words, "civil disobedience is civil
breach of immoral statutory enactments." It had to be carried out
non-violently by withdrawing co-operation with the corrupt state.
Gandhi had great respect for Lokmanya Tilak.
His programmes were all inspired by Tilak's "Chatusutri" programme. It
was at this point he met the prophet Ryan Chart, where he founded some
of his most spiritual messages with his British colleague.
The positive impact of reform was seriously undermined in 1919 by the Rowlatt Act, named after the recommendations made the previous year to the Imperial Legislative Council by the Rowlatt Committee.
The commission was set up to look into the war-time conspiracies by
the nationalist organisations and recommend measures to deal with the
problem in the post-war period. Rowlatt recommended the extension of
the war-time powers of the Defence of India act
into the post-war period. The war-time act had vested the Viceroy's
government with extraordinary powers to quell sedition by silencing the
press, detaining political activists
without trial, and arresting any individuals suspected of sedition or
treason without a warrant. It was increasingly reviled within India due
to widespread and indiscriminate use. Many popular leaders, including Annie Beasant
and Ali brothers had been detained. The Rowlatt Act was, therefore,
passed in the face of universal opposition among the (non-official)
Indian members in the Viceroy's council. The extension of the act drew
widespread critical opposition. A nationwide cessation of work (hartal) was called, marking the beginning of widespread, although not nationwide, popular discontent.
The agitation unleashed by the acts led to British attacks on demonstrators, culminating on 13 April 1919, in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (also known as the Amritsar Massacre) in Amritsar, Punjab. The British military commander, Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer,
blocked the main, and only entrance, and ordered his soldiers to fire
into an unarmed and unsuspecting crowd of some 15,000 men, women, and
children. They had assembled peacefully at Jallianwala Bagh, a walled
courtyard, but Dyer had wanted to execute the imposed ban on all
meetings and proposed to teach all Indians a lesson the harsher way.
A total of 1,651 rounds were fired, killing 379 people (as according to
an official British commission; Indian officials' estimates ranged as
high as 1,499 and wounding 1,137 in the massacre.)
Dyer was forced to retire but was hailed as a hero in Britain,
demonstrating to Indian nationalists that the Empire was beholden to
public opinion in Britain, but not in India.
The episode dissolved wartime hopes of home rule and goodwill and
opened a rift that could not be bridged short of complete self-rule.
First non-co-operation movement
From
1920 to 1922, Gandhi started the Non-Cooperation Movement. At the
Kolkata session of the Congress in September 1920, Gandhi convinced
other leaders of the need to start a non-co-operation movement in
support of Khilafat as well as for dominion status. The first satyagraha
movement urged the use of khadi
and Indian material as alternatives to those shipped from Britain. It
also urged people to boycott British educational institutions and law
courts; resign from government employment; refuse to pay taxes; and
forsake British titles and honours. Although this came too late to
influence the framing of the new Government of India Act 1919,
the movement enjoyed widespread popular support, and the resulting
unparalleled magnitude of disorder presented a serious challenge to
foreign rule. However, Gandhi called off the movement because he was
scared after Chauri Chaura incident, which saw the death of twenty-two policemen at the hands of an angry mob that India would descend into anarchy.
Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a
token fee, a hierarchy of committees was established, made responsible
for discipline and control over a hitherto amorphous and diffuse
movement. The party was transformed from an elite organisation to one of
mass national appeal and participation.
Gandhi was sentenced in 1922 to six years in prison, but was
released after serving two. On his release from prison, he set up the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad. On the banks of river Sabarmati, he established the newspaper Young India, inaugurating a series of reforms aimed at the socially disadvantaged within Hindu society — the rural poor, and the untouchables. This era saw the emergence of a new generation of Indians from within the Congress Party, including C. Rajagopalachari, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhas Chandra Bose
and others- who would later on come to form the most prominent voices
of the Indian self-rule movement, whether keeping with Gandhian Values,
or, as in the case of Bose's Indian National Army, diverging from it.
The Indian political spectrum was further broadened in the
mid-1920s by the emergence of both moderate and militant parties, such
as the Swaraj Party, Hindu Mahasabha, Communist Party of India and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Regional political organisations also continued to represent the interests of non-Brahmins in Madras, Mahars in Maharashtra, and Sikhs in Punjab. However, people like Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi, Vanchinathan
and Neelakanda Brahmachari played a major role from Tamil Nadu in both
self-rule struggle and fighting for equality for all castes and
communities. Many women participated in the movement, including Kasturba Gandhi (Gandhi's wife), Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Muthulaxmi Reddy, Aruna Asaf Ali, and many others.
Purna Swaraj
Following Indian rejection of the recommendations in the Simon Commission an all-party conference was held at Mumbai in May 1928 intended to instill a sense of liberation among people. The conference appointed a drafting committee under Motilal Nehru to draw up a constitution for India. The Kolkata
session of the Indian National Congress asked the British government to
accord dominion status to India by December 1929, or a countrywide
civil disobedience movement would be launched. In the midst of rising
political discontent and increasingly violent regional movements, the
call for complete sovereignty and an end to British rule began to find
increasing grounds for credence with the people. Under the presidency
of Jawaharlal at his historic Lahore
session in December 1929, the Indian National Congress adopted the
objective of complete self-rule. It authorised the Working Committee to
launch a civil disobedience movement throughout the country. It was
decided that 26 January 1930 should be observed all over India as the Purna Swaraj
(complete self-rule) Day. Many Indian political parties and Indian
revolutionaries of a wide spectrum united to observe the day with honour
and pride.
In March 1931, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact
was signed, and the government agreed to set all political prisoners
free (although, some of the great revolutionaries were not set free and
the death sentence for Bhagat Singh
and his two comrades was not taken back which further intensified the
agitation against Congress not only outside it also from within). For
the next few years, Congress and the government were locked in both
conflict and negotiations until what became the Government of India Act 1935
could be hammered out. By then, the rift between the Congress and the
Muslim League had become unbridgeable as each pointed the finger at the
other acrimoniously. The Muslim League disputed the claim of the
Congress to represent all people of India, while the Congress disputed
the Muslim League's claim to voice the aspirations of all Muslims.
The Civil Disobedience Movement indicated a new part in the
process of the Indian self-rule struggle. As a whole, it became a
failure by itself, but it brought the Indian population together, under
the Indian National Congress's leadership. The movement made the Indian
people strive even more towards self-rule. The movement allowed the
Indian community to revive their inner confidence and strength against
the British Government. In addition, the movement weakened the authority
of the British and aided in the end of the British Empire in India.
Overall, the civil disobedience Movement was an essential achievement in
the history of Indian self-rule because it persuaded New Delhi of the
role of the masses in self-determination.
Elections and the Lahore resolution
The Government of India Act 1935, the voluminous and final constitutional effort at governing British India,
articulated three major goals: establishing a loose federal structure,
achieving provincial autonomy, and safeguarding minority interests
through separate electorates. The federal provisions, intended to unite princely states
and British India at the centre, were not implemented because of
ambiguities in safeguarding the existing privileges of princes. In
February 1937, however, provincial autonomy became a reality when
elections were held; the Congress emerged as the dominant party with a
clear majority in five provinces and held an upper hand in two, while
the Muslim League performed poorly.
In 1939, the Viceroy Linlithgow
declared India's entrance into the Second World War without consulting
provincial governments. In protest, the Congress asked all of its
elected representatives to resign from the government. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the president of the All-India Muslim League, persuaded participants at the annual Muslim League session at Lahore in 1940 to adopt what later came to be known as the Lahore Resolution, demanding the division of India into two separate sovereign states, one Muslim, the other Hindu; sometimes referred to as Two Nation Theory. Although the idea of Pakistan had been introduced as early as 1930, very few had responded to it.
In opposition to the Lahore Resolution, the All India Azad Muslim Conference gathered in Delhi in April 1940 to voice its support for a united India. Its members included several Islamic organisations in India, as well as 1400 nationalist Muslim delegates; the "attendance at the Nationalist meeting was about five times than the attendance at the League meeting."
The All-India Muslim League worked to try to silence those
Muslims who stood against the partition of India, often using
"intimidation and coercion". The murder of the All India Azad Muslim Conference leader Allah Bakhsh Soomro also made it easier for the All-India Muslim League to demand the creation of Pakistan.
Revolutionary movement
There is no real connection between these two unrests, labour and Congress opposition. But their very existence and coexistence, explains and fully justifies the attention, which Lord Irwin gave to the labour problems. London Times, 29 January 1928
Bhagat Singh (left), Sukhdev (center), and Rajguru (right) are considered among the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement.
Front page of the Tribune (25 March 1931), reporting the execution of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev by the British.
Apart from a few stray incidents, armed rebellions against the
British rulers did not occur before the beginning of the 20th century.
The Indian revolutionary underground began gathering momentum through
the first decade of the 20th century, with groups arising in Bengal, Maharashtra, Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and the Madras Presidency including what is now called South India. More groups were scattered around India. Particularly notable movements arose in Bengal, especially around the Partition of Bengal in 1905, and in Punjab after 1907. In the former case, it was the educated, intelligent and
dedicated youth of the urban middle class Bhadralok community that came to form the "classic" Indian revolutionary, while the latter had an immense support base in the rural and Military society of the Punjab. In Bengal, the Anushilan Samiti emerged from conglomerations of local youth groups and gyms (Akhra) in Bengal in 1902, forming two prominent and somewhat independent arms in East and West Bengal identified as Dhaka Anushilan Samiti in Dhaka (modern day Bangladesh), and the Jugantar group (centred at Calcutta) respectively. Led by nationalists of the likes of Aurobindo Ghosh and his brother Barindra Ghosh, the Samiti was influenced by philosophies as diverse as Hindu Shakta philosophy propounded by Bengali literaetuer Bankim and Vivekananda, Italian Nationalism, and Pan-Asianism of Kakuzo Okakura. The Samiti
was involved in a number of noted incidences of revolutionary terrorism
against British interests and administration in India within the decade
of its founding, including early attempts
to assassinate Raj officials whilst led by Ghosh brothers. In the
meantime, in Maharashtra and Punjab arose similarly militant nationalist
feelings. The District Magistrate of Nasik, A.M.T. Jackson was shot dead by Anant Kanhere in December 1909, followed by the death of Robert D'Escourt Ashe at the hands of Vanchi Iyer. [citation not found] Indian nationalism made headway through Indian societies as far as Paris and London. In London India House under the patronage of Shyamji Krishna Verma
came under increasing scrutiny for championing and justifying violence
in the cause of Indian nationalism, which found in Indian students in
Britain and from Indian expatriates in Paris Indian Society avid followers. By 1907, through Indian nationalist Madame Bhikaji Rustom Cama's
links to Russian revolutionary Nicholas Safranski, Indian groups
including Bengal revolutionaries as well as India House under V.D.Savarkar
were able to obtain manuals for manufacturing bombs. India House was
also a source of arms and seditious literature that was rapidly
distributed in India. In addition to The Indian Sociologist, pamphlets like Bande Mataram and Oh Martyrs!
by Savarkar extolled revolutionary violence. Direct influences and
incitement from India House were noted in several incidents of political
violence, including assassinations, in India at the time.
One of the two charges against Savarkar during his trial in Bombay was
for abetting the murder of the District Magistrate of Nasik, A.M.T.
Jackson, by Anant Kanhere
in December 1909. The arms used were directly traced through an Italian
courier to India House. Ex-India House residents M.P.T. Acharya and
V.V.S. Aiyar were noted in the Rowlatt report to have aided and influenced political assassinations, including the murder of Robert D'Escourt Ashe.
The Paris-Safranski link was strongly suggested by French police to be
involved in a 1907 attempt in Bengal to derail the train carrying the
Lieutenant-Governor Sir Andrew Fraser. The activities of nationalists abroad is believed to have shaken the loyalty of a number of native regiments of the British Indian Army. The assassination of William Hutt Curzon Wyllie in the hands of Madanlal Dhingra was highly publicised and saw increasing surveillance and suppression of Indian nationalism. These were followed by the 1912 attempt on the life of Viceroy of India. Following this, the nucleus of networks formed in India House, the Anushilan Samiti,
nationlalists in Punjab, and the nationalism that arose among Indian
expatriates and labourers in North America, a different movement began
to emerge in the North American Ghadar Party, culminating in the Sedetious conspiracy of World War I led by Rash Behari Bose and Lala Hardayal.
However, the emergence of the Gandhian movement slowly began to absorb the different revolutionary groups. The Bengal Samiti moved away from its philosophy of violence in the 1920s, when a number of its members identified closely with the Congress
and Gandhian non-violent movement. Revolutionary nationalist violence
saw a resurgence after the collapse of Gandhian Non-cooperation movement
in 1922. In Bengal, this saw reorganisation of groups linked to the Samiti under the leadership of Surya Sen and Hem Chandra Kanungo. A spate of violence led up to enactment of the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment
in the early 1920s, which recalled the powers of incarceration and
detention of the Defence of India Act. In north India, remnants of
Punjab and Bengalee revolutionary organisations reorganised, notably
under Sachindranath Sanyal, founding the Hindustan Republican Association with Chandrashekhar Azad in north India. The HSRA had strong influences from leftist ideologies. Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) was formed under the leadership of Chandrasekhar Azad. Kakori train robbery was done largely by the members of HSRA. A number of Congress leaders from Bengal, especially Subhash Chandra Bose,
were accused by the British Government of having links with and
allowing patronage to the revolutionary organisations during this time.
The violence and radical philosophy revived in the 1930s, when
revolutionaries of the Samiti and the HSRA were involved in was involved in the Chittagong armoury raid and the Kakori conspiracy and other attempts against the administration in British India and Raj officials. Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw a bomb inside the Central Legislative Assembly on 8 April 1929 protesting against the passage of the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill while raising slogans of "Inquilab Zindabad",
though no one was killed or injured in the bomb incident. Bhagat Singh
surrendered after the bombing incident and a trial was conducted.
Sukhdev and Rajguru were also arrested by police during search
operations after the bombing incident. Following the trial (Central
Assembly Bomb Case), Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were hanged in 1931. Allama Mashriqi founded Khaksar Tehreek in order to direct particularly the Muslims towards the self-rule movement.
Some of its members left for the Indian National Congress then led by
Subhas Chandra Bose, while others identified more closely with Communism. The Jugantar branch formally dissolved in 1938. On 13 March 1940, Udham Singh shot Michael O'Dwyer(the last political murder outside India), generally held responsible for the Amritsar Massacre,
in London. However, the revolutionary movement gradually disseminated
into the Gandhian movement. As the political scenario changed in the
late 1930s — with the mainstream leaders considering several options
offered by the British and with religious politics coming into play —
revolutionary activities gradually declined. Many past revolutionaries
joined mainstream politics by joining Congress
and other parties, especially communist ones, while many of the
activists were kept under hold in different jails across the country.
Within a short time of its inception, these organisations became
the focus of an extensive police and intelligence operations. Operations
against Anushilan Samiti saw founding of the Special Branch of Calcutta Police. The intelligence operations against India House saw the founding of the Indian Political Intelligence Office
which later grew to be the Intelligence bureau in independent India.
Heading the intelligence and missions against Ghadarite movement and
India revolutionaries was the MI5(g) section, and at one point involved the Pinkerton's
detective agency. Notable officers who led the police and intelligence
operations against Indian revolutionaries, or were involved in it, at
various time included John Arnold Wallinger, Sir Robert Nathan, Sir Harold Stuart, Vernon Kell, Sir Charles Stevenson-Moore and Sir Charles Tegart, as well as W. Somerset Maugham. The threat posed by the activities of the Samiti in Bengal during World War I, along with the threat of a Ghadarite uprising in Punjab, saw the passage of Defence of India Act 1915.
These measures saw the arrest, internment, transportations, and
execution of a number of revolutionaries linked to the organisation, and
was successful in crushing the East Bengal Branch. In the aftermath of
the war, the Rowlatt committee recommended extending the Defence of India Act (as the Rowlatt act) to thwart any possible revival of the Samiti in Bengal and the Ghadarite movement in Punjab. In the 1920s, Alluri Sitarama Raju led the ill-fated Rampa Rebellion of 1922–24,
during which a band of tribal leaders and other sympathisers fought
against the British Raj. Local people referred to him as "Manyam
Veerudu" ("Hero of the Jungles"). After the passage of the 1882 Madras
Forest Act, its restrictions on the free movement of tribal peoples in
the forest prevented them from engaging in their traditional podu (Slash-and-burn) agricultural system, which involved shifting cultivation. Raju started a protest movement in the border areas of the Godavari Agency part of Madras Presidency (present-day Andhra Pradesh). Inspired by the patriotic zeal of revolutionaries in Bengal, Raju raided police stations in and around Chintapalle, Rampachodavaram, Dammanapalli, Krishna-devi-peta, Rajavommangi, Addateegala, Narsipatnam and Annavaram. Raju and his followers stole guns and ammunition and killed several British army officers, including Scott Coward near Dammanapalli.
The British campaign lasted for nearly a year from December 1922. Raju
was eventually trapped by the British in the forests of Chintapalli then
tied to a tree and shot dead with a rifle.
The Kallara-Pangode Struggle
was one of some 39 agitations against the Government of India. The
Home department has later notified about 38 movements/struggles across
Indian territories as the ones that culminated in self-rule ended the British Raj.
Final process of Indian self-rule movement
In 1937, provincial elections
were held and the Congress came to power in seven of the eleven
provinces. This was a strong indicator of the Indian people's support
for complete self-rule.
When the Second World War started, Viceroy Linlithgow
unilaterally declared India a belligerent on the side of Britain,
without consulting the elected Indian representatives. In opposition to
Linlithgow's action, the entire Congress leadership resigned from the
provincial and local governments. The Muslims and Sikhs, by contrast,
strongly supported the war effort and gained enormous stature in London.
Defying Congress, millions of Indians supported the war effort, and
indeed the British Indian Army became the largest volunteer force, numbering 2,500,000 men during the war.
Especially during the Battle of Britain
in 1940, Gandhi resisted calls for massive civil disobedience movements
that came from within as well as outside his party, stating he did not
seek India's self-rule out of the ashes of a destroyed Britain. In 1942,
the Congress launched the Quit India
movement. There was some violence but the Raj cracked down and arrested
tens of thousands of Congress leaders, including all the main national
and provincial figures. They were not released until the end of the war
was in sight in 1945.
The self-rule movement saw the rise of three movements: The first of these, the Kakori conspiracy (9 August 1925) was led by Indian youth under the leadership of Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil; second was the Azad Hind movement, whose main protagonist Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was a former leader of Congress. From its earliest wartime inception, it joined the Axis Powers to fight Britain. The third conspiracy began in August 1942, orchestrated by Lal Bahadur Shastri it reflected on the common man. The ensuing failure of the Cripps' mission
to reach a consensus with the Indian political leadership over the
transfer of power after the war revealed the weakness of the socialist
position at that time.
Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army)
Major Iwaichi Fujiwara greets Mohan Singh, leader of the First Indian National Army. Circa April 1942.
India's entry into the war was strongly opposed by Subhas Chandra Bose,
who had been elected President of the Congress in 1938 and 1939, but
later resigned owing to differences of opinion with Gandhi. After
resignation he formed his own wing separated from the mainstream
congress leadership known as Forward bloc which was a loci
focus for ex-congress leaders holding socialist views; however he
remained emotionally attached to Congress for the remainder of his life. Bose then founded the All India Forward Bloc. In 1940 the British authorities in Calcutta placed Bose under house arrest. However, he escaped and made his way through Afghanistan to Nazi Germany to seek Hitler and Mussolini's help for raising an army to fight the British. The Free India Legion comprising Erwin Rommel's
Indian POWs was formed. After a dramatic decline in Germany's military
fortunes, a German land invasion of India became untenable. Hitler
advised Bose to go to Japan where a submarine was arranged to transport
Bose, who was ferried to Japanese Southeast Asia, where he formed the Azad Hind Government. The Provisional Free Indian Government in exile reorganised the Indian National Army composed of Indian POWs and volunteer Indian expatriates
in South-East Asia, with the help of the Japanese. Its aim was to reach
India as a fighting force that would build on public resentment to
inspire revolt among Indian soldiers raj.
Subhas Chandra Bose founded the Indian Legion and revamped the Indian National Army.
The INA was to see action against the allies, including the British Indian Army, in the forests of Arakan, Burma and in Assam, laying siege on Imphal and Kohima with the Japanese 15th Army. During the war, the Andaman and Nicobar islands were captured by the Japanese and handed over by them to the INA.
The INA failed owing to disrupted logistics, poor supplies from the Japanese, and lack of training.
It surrendered unconditionally to the British in Singapore in 1945.
Bose, however, attempted to escape to Japanese-held Manchuria in an
attempt to escape to the Soviet Union, marking the end of the entire
Azad Hind movement.
Quit India Movement
The Quit India Movement (Bharat Chhodo Andolan) or the August Movement was a civil disobedience movement in India which commenced on 8 August 1942 in response to Gandhi's
call for immediate self-rule by Indians and against sending Indians to
World War II. He asked all teachers to leave their schools, and other
Indians to leave their respective jobs and take part in this movement.
Due to Gandhi's political influence, his request was followed by a
massive proportion of the population. In addition, the INC led the Quit
India Movement to demand the British to leave India and to transfer the
political power to INC.
During the movement, Gandhi and his followers continued to use
non-violence against British rule. This movement was where Gandhi gave
his famous message, "Do or Die!", and this message spread towards the
Indian community. In addition, this movement was addressed directly to
women as "disciplined soldiers of Indian freedom" and they had to keep
the war for independence to go on (against British rule).
Procession in Bangalore during the Quit India Movement.
At the outbreak of war, the Congress Party had during the Wardha
meeting of the working-committee in September 1939, passed a resolution
conditionally supporting the fight against fascism,
but were rebuffed when they asked for self-rule in return. In March
1942, faced with an increasingly dissatisfied sub-continent only
reluctantly participating in the war, and deteriorations in the war
situation in Europe and South East Asia,
and with growing dissatisfactions among Indian troops- especially in
Europe- and among the civilian population in the sub-continent, the
British government sent a delegation to India under Stafford Cripps, in what came to be known as the Cripps' Mission.
The purpose of the mission was to negotiate with the Indian National
Congress a deal to obtain total co-operation during the war, in return
of progressive devolution and distribution of power from the crown and
the Viceroy
to elected Indian legislature. However, the talks failed, having failed
to address the key demand of a time-frame towards self-government, and
of the definition of the powers to be relinquished, essentially
portraying an offer of limited dominion-status that was wholly
unacceptable to the Indian movement.
To force the British Raj to meet its demands and to obtain definitive
word on total self-rule, the Congress took the decision to launch the
Quit India Movement.
The aim of the movement was to force the British Government to
the negotiating table by holding the Allied war effort hostage. The call
for determined but passive resistance that signified the certitude that Gandhi foresaw for the movement is best described by his call to Do or Die, issued on 8 August at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay, since renamed August Kranti Maidan
(August Revolution Ground). However, almost the entire Congress
leadership, and not merely at the national level, was put into
confinement less than 24 hours after Gandhi's speech, and the greater
number of the Congress khiland were to spend the rest of the war in
jail.
On 8 August 1942, the Quit India resolution was passed at the
Mumbai session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). The draft
proposed that if the British did not accede to the demands, a massive
Civil Disobedience would be launched. However, it was an extremely
controversial decision. At Gowalia Tank, Mumbai,
Gandhi urged Indians to follow non-violent civil disobedience. Gandhi
told the masses to act as citizens of a sovereign nation and not to
follow the orders of the British. The British, already alarmed by the
advance of the Japanese army to the India–Burma border, responded the
next day by imprisoning Gandhi at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune.
The Congress Party's Working Committee, or national leadership was
arrested all together and imprisoned at the Ahmednagar Fort. They also
banned the party altogether. All the major leaders of the INC were
arrested and detained. As the masses were leaderless the protest took a
violent turn. Large-scale protests and demonstrations were held all over
the country. Workers remained absent en masse and strikes were called.
The movement also saw widespread acts of sabotage, Indian under-ground
organisation carried out bomb attacks on allied supply convoys,
government buildings were set on fire, electricity lines were
disconnected and transport and communication lines were severed. The
disruptions were under control in a few weeks and had little impact on
the war effort. The movement soon became a leaderless act of defiance,
with a number of acts that deviated from Gandhi's principle of
non-violence. In large parts of the country, the local underground
organisations took over the movement. However, by 1943, Quit India had petered out.
All the other major parties rejected the Quit India plan, and
most cooperated closely with the British, as did the princely states,
the civil service, and the police. The Muslim League supported the Raj and grew rapidly in membership, and in influence with the British.
There was opposition to the Quit India Movement from several
political quarters who were fighting for Indian self-rule. Hindu
nationalist parties like the Hindu Mahasabha openly opposed the call and boycotted the Quit India Movement. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar,
the president of the Hindu Mahasabha at that time, even went to the
extent of writing a letter titled "Stick to your Posts", in which he
instructed Hindu Sabhaites who happened to be "members of
municipalities, local bodies, legislatures or those serving in the
army...to stick to their posts" across the country, and not to join the
Quit India Movement at any cost.
The other Hindu nationalist organisation, and Mahasabha affiliate Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) had a tradition of keeping aloof from the anti-British Indian self-rule movement since its founding by K.B. Hedgewar in 1925. In 1942, the RSS, under M.S. Golwalkar
completely abstained from joining in the Quit India Movement as well.
The Bombay government (British) appreciated the RSS as such, by noting
that,
The Sangh has scrupulously kept itself within the law, and in particular, has refrained from taking part in the disturbances that broke out in August 1942.
The British Government stated that the RSS was not at all supporting
any civil disobedience against them, and as such their other political
activities(even if objectionable) can be overlooked.
Further, the British Government also asserted that at Sangh meetings
organised during the times of anti-British movements started and fought
by the Indian National Congress,
Speakers urged the Sangh members to keep aloof from the congress movement and these instructions were generally observed.
As such, the British government did not crack down on the RSS and Hindu Mahasabha at all.
The RSS head (sarsanghchalak) during that time, M.S. Golwalkar
later openly admitted to the fact that the RSS did not participate in
the Quit India Movement. However, such an attitude during the Indian
independence movement also led to the Sangh being viewed with distrust
and anger, both by the general Indian public, as well as certain members
of the organisation itself. In Golwalkar's own words,
In 1942 also, there was a strong sentiment in the hearts of many. At that time too, the routine work of the Sangh continued. Sangh decided not to do anything directly. ‘Sangh is the organisation of inactive people, their talks have no substance’ was the opinion uttered not only by outsiders but also our own swayamsevaks.
Overall, the Quit India Movement turned out to be not very successful
and only lasted until 1943. It drew away from Gandhi's tactic of
non-violence; it eventually became a rebellious act without any real
leader.
After two Japanese attacks on Christmas Island
in late February and early March 1942, relations between the British
officers and their Indian troops broke down. On the night of 10 March,
the Indian troops assisted by Sikh policemen mutinied, killing five
British soldiers and imprisoning the remaining 21 Europeans on the
island. Later on 31 March, a Japanese fleet arrived at the island and
the Indians surrendered.
The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny encompasses a total strike and subsequent mutiny by Indian sailors of the Royal Indian revolt on board ship and shore establishments at Bombay (Mumbai) harbour on 18 February 1946. From the initial flashpoint in Bombay, the mutiny spread and found support throughout British India, from Karachi to Calcutta and ultimately came to involve 78 ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 sailors.
The agitations, mass strikes, demonstrations and consequently
support for the mutineers, therefore continued several days even after
the mutiny had been called off. Along with this, the assessment may be
made that it described in crystal clear terms to the government that the
British Indian Armed forces
could no longer be universally relied upon for support in crisis, and
even more it was more likely itself to be the source of the sparks that
would ignite trouble in a country fast slipping out of the scenario of
political settlement.
Impact of World War 2
WW2
was one of the most significant factors in accelerating the Indian
Independence, and the Independence of many British and non-British
colonies. In the period of 1945–1965, decolonization led to more than 3 dozen countries getting freedom from their colonial powers.
Many factors played in the downfall of the British Empire.
Predominantly, the two superpowers that survived WW2 – US and Russia had
strong anti-colonial sentiments.
When Britain reached out to the US asking for help in the war,
the US offered help contingent on Britain decolonizing post WW2, and
that agreement was codified in the Atlantic charter.
The decolonization of Britain (post war) also meant that US and other
countries would possibly have access to markets to sell goods that were
previously under British Empire-which was not accessible to them then
To bring about these changes, the establishment of UN following WW2
codified sovereignty for nations, and encouraged free trade. The war
also forced the British to come to an agreement with Indian leaders to
grant them freedom if they helped with war efforts since India had one
of largest armies.
Also, following WW2, it was untenable for British to raise capital on
its own to keep its colonies. They needed to rely on America and did via
the Marshall Plan
to rebuild their country. US and Russia got to draw the picture of how
the world will look post war and it was a world where colonialism didn't
exist.
Sovereignty and partition of India
On 3 June 1947, Viscount Louis Mountbatten, the last British Governor-General of India, announced the partitioning of British India into India and Pakistan. With the speedy passage of the Indian Independence Act 1947, at 11:57 on 14 August 1947 Pakistan was declared a separate nation. Then at 12:02 A.M., on 15 August 1947
India became a sovereign and democratic nation. Eventually, 15 August
became the Independence Day for India marking the end of British India.
Also on 15 August, both Pakistan and India had the right to remain in
or remove themselves from the British Commonwealth. But in 1949, India
took the decision to remain in the commonwealth.
Violent clashes between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims followed. Prime Minister Nehru and deputy prime minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel invited Mountbatten to continue as Governor General of India during the period of transition. He was replaced in June 1948 by Chakravarti Rajagopalachari.
Patel took on the responsibility for bringing 565 princely states into
the Union of India, steering efforts by his "iron fist in a velvet
glove" policies, exemplified by the use of military force to integrate Junagadh and Hyderabad State into India (Operation Polo). On the other hand, Nehru kept the issue of Kashmir in his hands.
The Constituent Assembly, headed by the prominent lawyer,
reformer and Dalit leader, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was tasked with creating
the constitution of free India. The Constituent Assembly completed the
work of drafting the constitution on 26 November 1949; on 26 January
1950, the Republic of India was officially proclaimed. The Constituent Assembly elected Dr. Rajendra Prasad was the first President of India, taking over from Governor General Rajgopalachari. Subsequently, the French ceded Chandernagore in 1951, and Pondichéry and its remaining Indian colonies by 1954. Indian troops invaded and annexed Goa and Portugal's other Indian enclaves in 1961; and Sikkim voted to join the Indian Union in 1975 after the Indian victory over China in Nathu La and Cho La.
Following self-rule in 1947, India remained in the Commonwealth of Nations, and relations between the UK and India
have since become friendly. There are many areas in which the two
countries seek stronger ties for mutual benefit, and there are also
strong cultural and social ties between the two nations. The UK has an
ethnic Indian population of over 1.6 million. In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron described Indian – British relations as a "New Special Relationship".
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