NATIONALISM IN INDIA

NATIONALISM IN INDIA – CLASS 10

Notes Issued by hspedia

The First World War, Khilafat and
Non-Cooperation.

The 1st worldwar in 1914 created a new economics and political situations
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Impact of 1st world war and Khilafat Movment.

1. The First World War (1914-1918) created a new political and
economic situationin the years after 1919.

2. India faced various problems during war period:
3. Income tax introduced and the prices of custom duties were

doubled between 1913 and 1918
4. which led to a very difficult life for common people.
5. Increase in defence expenditure.
6. Prices increased through the war years.
7. Forced recruitment in rural areas.
8. During 1918-19 and 1920-21, crops failure in many parts of India,

resulting in shortage of food accompanied by an influenza
epidemic.
9. Hardships did not end after the war was over.

THE IDEA OF SATYAGRAHA

Satyagraha is a novel way of fighting the colonial rule in India.

The Idea of Satyagraha & its applications.

1. In January 1915, Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South
Africa and started the movement Satyagraha.

2. Satyagraha is a novel way of fighting the colonial rule in India.
3. It is a non-aggressive, peaceful mass agitation against oppression

and injustice.
4. Satyagraha means insistence on truth.
5. Satyagraha emphasised the power of truth and the need to

search for truth.
6. According to Mahatma Gandhi, people can win a battle with non-

violence which will unite all Indians.
7. It is a moral force, not passive resistance.
8. Gandhiji organised Satyagraha Movements in Champaran, In

1917,
9. He travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to

struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
10.Kheda district of Gujarat (1917): In the same year, he organised

satyagraha to support the peasants of the Kheda district of
Gujarat
11.In Ahmedabad (1918): In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to
Ahmedabad to organise a satyagraha movement amongst cotton
mill worker.

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THE ROWLATT ACT (1919)

The Rowlatt act in 1919, was passed through the Imperial legislative council inspite the opposition of
the Indian members

• In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi launched a nationwide satyagraha
against the proposed Rowlatt Act.

• This act gave the government enormous powers to repress
political activities and allowed detention of political prisoners
without trial for two years.

• The British government decided to clamp down on nationalists by
witnessing the outrage of the people.

• On April 10th, police in Amritsar fired on a peaceful procession,
which provoked widespread attacks on banks, post offices and
railway stations.

• Martial law was imposed and General Dyer took command.

JALLIANWALA BAGH MASSACRE

1. On 13th April 1919, the Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place.
2. A huge crowd gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh where a few

people came to protest against the government’s new repressive
measures, while some came to attend the annual Baisakhi fair.
3. Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on
the crowd, killing hundreds.
4. After the Jallianwala Bagh massacre news spread, strikes, clashes
with the police and attacks on government buildings started.
5. The government responded with brutal repression.
6. Mahatma Gandhi called off the satyagraha movement as the
violence spread.

KHILAFAT MOVEMENT

1. Mahatma Gandhi then took up the Khilafat issue by bringing
Hindus and Muslims together

2. Khilafat Movement was led by two brothers Shaukat Ali and
Muhammad Ali.

3. The First World War ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey.
4. Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919 to

defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers.
5. Mahatma Gandhiji convinced the Congress leaders to support the

Khilafat Movement and start a Non-Cooperation Campaign for
Swaraj.

WHY NON-COOPERATION?

1. According to Mahatma Gandhi, British rule was established in
India with the cooperation of Indians.

2. If india refused to cooperate, british rule in india would collapse
within a year, and swaraj would come.

3. Non-cooperation movement is proposed in stages.
4. It should begin with the surrender of titles that the government

awarded and a boycott of civil services, army, police, courts and
legislative councils, schools and foreign goods.
5. After many hurdles and campaigning between the supporters and
opponents of the movement. finally, At the Congress session at
Nagpur in December 1920, the Non-Cooperation programme was
adopted.

DIFFERING STRANDS WITHIN THE
MOVEMENT

• The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in January 1921.
• In this movement, various social groups participated, but the term

meant different things to different people.
The Movement in the Towns

1. It started with middle class participation in cities.
2. Thousands of Students, teachers, headmasters left government-

controlled schools and colleges, lawyers gave up studies, jobs,
legal practices and joined movements.
3. council elections were boycotted.
4. In the economic front, the effects of non-cooperation were more
dramatic
5. The production of Indian textile mills and handlooms went up
6. people started boycotting Foreign.
7. Liquor shops were picketed.

REASONS FOR SLOW DOWN OF
MOVEMENT:

1. This movement slowed down due to a variety of reasons such as
Khadi clothes are expensive.

2. less Indian institutions for students and teachers to choose from,
so they went back to government schools and lawyers joined
back government courts.

MOVEMENT IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

• The Non-Cooperation Movement spread to the countryside
where peasants and tribals were developing in different parts of
India.

• Peasants and tribals took over the struggle which turned violent
gradually.

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PEASANT MOVEMENT IN AWADH

1. The peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra in Awadh against
landlords and talukdars.

2. The peasant movement started against talukdars and landlords
who demanded high rents and a variety of other cesses.

3. It demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar and social
boycott of oppressive landlords.

4. Jawaharlal Nehru in June 1920, started going around the villages
in Awadh to understand their grievances.

5. In October, he along with few others set up the Oudh Kisan Sabha
and within a month 300 branches had been set up.

6. In 1921, the peasant movement spread and the houses of
talukdars and merchants were attacked, bazaars were looted and
grain boards were taken over.

MOVEMENT OF TRIBALS IN
ANDHRA PRADESH

1. In the early 1920s, Alluri Sitaram Raju led the guerrilla warfare in
the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh.

2. The government started closing down forest areas due to which
their livelihood was affected.

3. Finally, the hill people revolted, which was led by Alluri Sitaram
Raju who claimed that he had a variety of special powers.

4. The rebels attacked police stations.
5. Raju was captured and executed in 1924.

SWARAJ IN THE PLANTATIONS

1. For the plantation workers in Assam, freedom means moving
freely in and out and retaining a link with the village from which
they had come

2. They protested against the Inland Emigration Act (1859):
3. Under the Inland Emigration Act plantation workers were not

permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission.
4. After they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands

of workers left the plantations and headed home.
5. But, unfortunately, they never reached their destination and were

caught by the police and brutally beaten up.
6. Each group interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways.

TOWARDS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

• In February 1922, Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the Non-
Cooperation Movement, because Mahatma Gandhi felt that it was turning
violent.

• Many leaders such as C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party
within the Congress to argue for a return to council politics.

• Younger leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose pressed for
more radical mass agitation and for full independence.

FACTORS THAT SHAPED INDIAN
POLITICS TOWARDS THE LATE
1920S

The first effect was the worldwide economic depression and the second effect
was the falling agricultural prices

• The Worldwide Economic Depression

→ Agricultural prices collapsed after 1930 as the demand for agricultural
goods fell and exports declined.

→ Peasants found it difficult to sell their harvests and pay their revenue.

• Simon Commission

• The Statutory Commission was set up by the Tory government of
Britain to look into the demands of the nationalists and suggest
changes in the constitutional structure of India.

• The Commission arrived in India in 1928.
• The Congress protested against this commission, and it was

greeted by the slogan ‘Go back Simon’.
• In December, 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the

Lahore session of Congress formalized the demand of “Purna
Swaraj”or full independence for India.
• It was declared that 26 January 1930 would be celebrated as
Independence Day.

THE SALT MARCH AND THE CIVIL

DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT

1. Mahatma Gandhiji chose salt as the powerful symbol or medium
that could unite the nation as it is consumed by all the sections of
the society.

2. On 31 January 1930, Mahatma Gandhi sent a letter to Viceroy
Irwin stating eleven demands.

3. Among the demands, the most stirring of all was the demand to
abolish the salt tax which is consumed by the rich and the poor.

4. The demands needed to be fulfilled by 11 March or else Congress
would start a civil disobedience campaign.

SALT MARCH

1. The famous Salt or Dandi March began by Mahatma Gandhi
accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers on March 12, 1930.

2. The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in
Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi.

3. The volunteers walked for 24 days, about 10 miles a day.
4. On 6th April 1930, Gandhiji reached Dandi, a village in Gujarat

and broke the Salt Law by boiling water and manufacturing salt.
5. Thus, it began the Civil Disobedience Movement.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT

1. It was different from Non-Cooperation Movement as people were
now asked not only to refuse cooperation with the british as they
had done in 1921-22, but also to break colonial laws.

2. Boycott of foreign goods, non-payment of taxes, breaking forest
laws were its main features.

3. The movement spread across the world and salt law was broken
in different parts of the country

4. As the movement spread Foreign cloth was boycotted, peasants
refused to pay revenue and in many places, forest law was
violated.

5. In April 1930, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Mahatma
Gandhi was arrested.

6. Mahatma Gandhi was arrested a month later which led to attacks
to all structures that symbolised British rule.

7. The British Government followed a policy of brutal repression.
8. By witnessing the horrific situation, Mahatma Gandhi decided to

call off the movement.

GANDHI-IRWIN PACT

1. On 5 March, 1931, Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, signed a pact with
Gandhi.

2. Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhiji consented to participate in a Round
Table Conference in London.

3. In December, 1931, Gandhiji went to London for the Second
Round Table Conference but returned disappointed.

4. Gandhi relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement but by 1934
it lost its momentum.

HOW PARTICIPANTS SAW THE

MOVEMENT

RICH PEASANTS

1. The Patidars of Reve Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh – were
active in the movement.

2. The producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by to
the trade depression and falling prices.

3. Cash income disappeared, they found it impossible to pay the
government’s revenue demand.

4. The refusal of the government to reduce the revenue demand led
to widespread resentment.

5. These rich peasants became enthusiastic supporters of the Civil
Disobedience Movement, organizing their communities, and at
times forcing reluctant members, to participate in the boycott
programs.

6. For them the fight for swaraj was a struggle against high
revenues.

7. But they were deeply disappointed when the movement was
called off in 1931 without the revenue rates being revised.

8. when the movement was restarted in 1932, many of them refused
to participatel

POOR PEASANTS

1. The poorer peasantry were not just interested in the lowering of
the revenue demand.

2. Many of them were small tenants cultivating land they had rented
from landlords.

3. As the Depression continued and cash incomes dwindled, the
small tenants found it difficult to pay their rent.

4. They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted, they
joined a variety of radical movements, often led by Socialists and
Communists.

5. Apprehensive of raising issues that might upset the rich peasants
and landlords, the Congress was unwilling to support ‘ no rent ‘
campaigns in most places.

6. The relationship between the poor peasant and the Congress
remained uncertain.

BUSINESS CLASSES

1. After the war, their huge profits were reduced, wanted protection
against import of foreign goods.

2. To organise business interests, the Indian Industrial and
Commercial Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian
Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927 was formed.

3. The industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian
economy and supported the Civil Disobedience Movement when
it was first launched.

4. Some of the industrial workers did participate in the Civil
Disobedience Movement. In 1930 and 1932 railway workers and
dock workers were on strike.

5. The spread of militant activities, worries of prolonged business
disruptions, growing influences of socialism amongst the young
Congress forced them not to join the movement.

WOMEN

1. Another important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement
was the large-scale participation of women.

2. Women participated and protest marches, manufactured salt, and
picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops.

3. Congress was reluctant to allow women to hold any position of
authority within the organisation.

LIMITS OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

• One such group was the nation’s ‘ untouchables ‘, who from
around the 1930s had begun to call themselves dalit or
oppressed.

• For long the Congress had ignored the dalits, for fear of offending
the sanatanis, the conservative high caste Hindus.

• Mahatma Gandhi declared that swaraj would not come for a
hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated.

• He called the untouchables’ harijan or the children of God.
• He organised satyagraha for the untouchables but they were keen

on a different political solution to the problems of the
community. They demanded reserved seats in educational
institutions and a separate electorate
• Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the leader of the Dalits, formed an association
in 1930, called the Depressed Classes Association.
• He clashed with Gandhiji at the second Round Table Conference
by demanding separate electorates for Dalits.
• Poona Pact of September 1932, between the Gandhiji and B.R.
Ambedkar (1932) gave the Depressed Classes (later to be known
as the Scheduled Castes) reserved seats in Provincial and Central
Councils but were voted by general electorate.
• After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement,
Muslims felt alienated from the Congress due to which the
relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened.
• The leader of the Muslim League M.A. Jinnah wanted reserved
seats for Muslims in Central Assembly and representation in
proportion to population in the Muslim-dominated provinces.
• Large sections of Muslims did not participate in the Civil
disobedience movement.

THE SENSE OF COLLECTIVE

BELONGING

• The sense of collective belonging came partly through the
experience of united struggles.

• History and fiction, folklore and songs, popular prints and
symbols, all played a part in the making of nationalism.

• In the twentieth century, the identity of India came to be visually
associated with the image of Bharat Mata.

• Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay created the image and in the
1870s he wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the motherland.

• Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata
portrayed as an ascetic figure; she is calm, composed, divine and
spiritual.

• In late-nineteenth-century India, nationalists began recording folk
tales sung by bards and they toured villages to gather folk songs
and legends.

• During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red,
green and yellow) was designed which had eight lotuses
representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent moon,
representing Hindus and Muslims.

• By 1921, Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a
tricolour (red, green and white) and had a spinning wheel in the
centre.

CONCLUSION

• In the first half of the twentieth century, various groups and
classes of Indians came together for the struggle of
independence.

• The Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi
attempted to resolve differences and ensure that the demands of
one group did not alienate another.

• In other words, what was emerging was a nation with many voices
wanting freedom from colonial rule.

Important
dates

1919 Gandhiji launched satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act
13 April 1919
March 1919 Jallianwala Bagh incident
September 1920
Khilafat Committee formed
December 1920
January 1921 Gandhiji convinced Congress for a non-cooperation
October 1920 movement
6 January 1921
1920 Non-Cooperation program was adopted by Congress in
1922 Nagpur
11 February 1922
1928 Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began
Nov 1930 – Jan
1931 Oudh Kisan Sabha

Police firing at peasants in Rae Bareli

The militant guerrilla movement spread in Gudem Hills,
Andhra Pradesh

Chauri Chaura violence

Gandhiji decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation
Movement

“Go Back Simon” movement

First Round Table Conference

Sept-Dec 1931 Second Round Table Conference
Nov – Dec 1932 Third Round Table Conference
December 1929 The “Purna Swaraj” was formalized
26 January 1930
Declared to be celebrated as the Independence Day, but
31 January 1930 got very little attention

12 March 1930 Gandhiji sent a letter of Viceroy Irwin stating 11
6 April 1930 demands
April 1930 Salt March or Dandi March or Dandi Satyagraha or Civil
May 1930 Disobedience Movement started
5 March 1931 Salt March ended
23 March 1931
Abdul Ghaffar Khan got arrested
December 1931 Mahatma Gandhi got arrested
26 September Gandhi-Irwin Pact
1932 Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to
Jan 1932 death
1920 Gandhiji went to London for a conference but returned
disappointed

Poona Pact

Civil Disobedience Movement started again
Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress

1927 Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and
Industries (FICCI)
1906 Muslim League established
1928 Death of Lala Lajpat Rai
1935 The government of India Act
8 August 1942 Quit India movement launched
August 1925 Kakori Train Conspiracy Case

HSPEDIA ORIGNAL NOTES NCERT BASED