Indias struggle for independence: BIPIN CHANDRA:

The First Major Challenge: The Revolt of 1857

It was the morning of 11 May 1857. The city of Delhi had not yet woken up when
a band of sepoys
from Meerut , who had defied and ki l led the European officers the previous day,
crossed the Jamuna,
set the tol l house on fi re and marched to the Red Fort .
Bahadur Shah vaci l lated as he was nei ther sure of the intent ions of the sepoys
nor of hi s own abi l i ty to play an effect ive role. He was however persuaded, i f not
coerced, to give in and was proclaimed the Shahenshah-e-Hindustan.
Simon Fraser, the Pol i t ical Agent , and several other Engl i shmen were ki l led;
the publ ic offices were ei ther occupied or dest royed.
The Revol t at Meerut and the capture of Delhi was the precursor to a widespread
mut iny by the
sepoys and rebel l ion almost al l over North India, as wel l as Cent ral and
Western India. South India
remained quiet and Punjab and Bengal were only marginal ly affected.
Almost hal f the Companys sepoy st rength of 2,32,224 opted out of thei r loyal ty
to thei r regimental colours and overcame the ideology of the army.
The 19th Nat ive Infant ry at Berhampur, which refused to use the newly int
roduced Enfield ri fle, was
di sbanded in March 1857. A young sepoy of the 34th Nat ive Infant ry, Mangal
Pande, went a step
further and fi red at the Sergeant Major of hi s regiment . He was overpowered and
executed and hi s
regiment too, was di sbanded. The 7th Oudh Regiment which defied i t s officers
met wi th a simi lar fate.
At Kanpur, the natural choice was Nana Saheb, the adopted son of the last
Peshwa, Baj i Rao II. He
had refused the fami ly t i t le and, bani shed from Poona, was l iving near Kanpur.
Begum Hazrat Mahal
took over the reigns at Lucknow, where popular sympathy was overwhelmingly in
favour of the
deposed Nawab. Her son, Bi rj i s Qadi r, was proclaimed the Nawab and a regular
admini st rat ion was
organized wi th important offices shared equal ly by Musl ims and Hindus.
At Bariel ly, Khan Bahadur, a descendant of the former ruler of Rohi lkhand,
was placed in
command.
In Bihar, the Revol t was led by Kunwar Singh, the zamindar of Jagdi shpur, a
70-year-old man on the
brink of bankruptcy. He nursed a grudge against the Bri t i sh. He had been
deprived of hi s estates by
them and hi s repeated appeal s to be ent rusted wi th thei r management again fel
l on deaf ears. Even
though he had not planned an upri sing, he unhesi tat ingly joined the sepoys when
they reached Arrah
from Dinapore.

The most out standing leader of the Revol t was Rani Lakshmibhai , who
assumed the leadership of
the sepoys at Jhansi . Lord Dalhousie, the Governor-General , had refused to al low
her adopted son to
succeed to the throne after her husband died and had annexed the state by the
appl icat ion of the
Doct rine of Lapse.
The Revol t was not confined to these major cent res. It had embraced almost
every cantonment in
the Bengal and a few in Bombay. Only the Madras army remained total ly
loyal .
Why did the sepoys revol t?
It was considered prest igious to be in the service of the Company; i t provided
economic
stabi l i ty.
A proclamat ion i ssued at Delhi indicates the immediate cause: It i s wel l
known that in these days al l the Engl i sh have entertained these evi l designs
fi rst , to dest roy the rel igion of the whole Hindustani Army, and then to make the
people by compul sion Chri st ians. Therefore, we, solely on account of our rel igion,
have combined wi th the people, and have not spared al ive one infidel , and have
re-establ i shed the Delhi dynasty on these terms.
It i s certainly t rue that the condi t ions of service in the Companys army and
cantonment s
increasingly came into confl ict wi th the rel igious bel iefs and prejudices of the
sepoys, who were
predominant ly drawn from the upper caste Hindus of the North Western
Provinces and Oudh.
Ini t ial ly, the admini st rat ion sought to accommodate the sepoys
demands: faci l i t ies were provided to them to l ive according to the
dictates of thei r caste and rel igion.
But , wi th the extension of the Armys operat ion not only to various part s of
India, but al so to count ries out side, i t was not possible to do so any
more.
Moreover, caste di st inct ions and segregat ion wi thin a regiment
were not conducive to the
cohesiveness of a fight ing uni t .
To begin wi th, the admini st rat ion thought of an easy way out : di
scourage the recrui tment of Brahmins; thi s apparent ly did not
succeed and, by the middle of the nineteenth century, the upper castes
predominated in the Bengal Army, for instance.
The unhappiness of the sepoys fi rst surfaced in 1824 when the 47th Regiment at
Barrackpur was
ordered to go to Burma.
To the rel igious Hindu, crossing the sea meant loss of caste.
The sepoys,therefore, refused to comply. The regiment was di sbanded and those
who led the opposi t ion were hanged.
The rel igious sensibi l i t ies of the sepoys who part icipated in the Afghan War
were more seriously affected. When they returned to India, those at home correct
ly sensed that they could not have observed caste st ipulat ions and, therefore,
were hesi tant to welcome them back into the bi radi ri (caste fraterni ty).

The prest ige of being in the pay of the Company was not enough to hold hi s posi t
ion in society; rel igion and caste proved to be more powerful .
The rumours about the Government s secret designs to promote conversions to
Chri st iani ty further
exasperated the sepoys. The official -mi ssionary nexus gave credence to the
rumour. In some
cantonment s, mi ssionaries were permi t ted to preach openly and thei r diat
ribe against other rel igions angered the sepoys.
The report s about the mixing of bone dust in at ta and the int roduct ion of the
Enfield ri fle enhanced the sepoys growing di saffect ion wi th the Government . The
cart ridges of the
new ri fle had to be bi t ten off before loading and the grease was reportedly made
of beef and pig fat .
The army admini st rat ion did nothing to al lay these fears, and the sepoys fel t
thei r rel igion was in real danger.
The sepoys di scontent was not l imi ted to rel igion alone. They were equal ly
unhappy wi th thei r
emolument s.
He was made to feel a subordinate at every step and was di scriminated against
racial ly and in mat ters of promot ion and privi leges.
The di scontent of the sepoys was not l imi ted to mat ters mi l i tary, they
reflected the general di senchantment wi th and opposi t ion to Bri t i sh rule. The
sepoy, in fact , was a peasant in uni form,
whose consciousness was not divorced from that of the rural populat ion.
The new land revenue system int roduced after the annexat ion and the confi scat
ion of lands at tached to chari table inst i tut ions affected hi s wel l -being.
A proclamat ion i ssued by the Delhi rebel s clearly reflected thesepoys awareness
of the mi sery brought about by Bri t i sh rule. The mut iny in i t sel f, therefore,
was a revol t against the Bri t i sh and, thus, a pol i t ical act . What imparted thi s
character to the mut iny was the
sepoys ident i ty of interest s wi th the general populat ion.
The Revol t of the sepoys was accompanied by a rebel l ion of the civi l populat ion,
part icularly in the
North Western Provinces and Oudh, the two areas from which the sepoys of the
Bengal army were
recrui ted. Except in Muzzafarnagar and Saharanpur, civi l rebel l ion fol lowed
the Revol t of the sepoys.
The act ion of the sepoys released the rural populat ion from fear of the state and
the cont rol exerci sed by the admini st rat ion.
The civi l rebel l ion had a broad social base, embracing al l sect ions of
society the terri torial magnates, peasant s, art i sans, rel igious
mendicant s and priest s, civi l servant s,
shopkeepers and boatmen. The Revol t of the sepoys, thus, resul ted in a
popular upri sing.
Reasons:
Under the burden of excessive taxes the peasant ry became progressively
indebted and impoveri shed.
The t radi t ional landed ari stocracy suffered no less. In Oudh, which
was a storm cent re of the Revol t ,the taluqdars lost al l thei r power and
privi leges.About 21,000 taluqdars who see states were confi scated

suddenly found themselves wi thout a source of income, unable to work,

ashamed to beg, condemned to penury.
These di spossessed taluqdars smart ing under the humi l iat ion heaped on
them,seized the opportuni ty presented by the Sepoy Revol t to oppose the
Bri t i sh and regain what they had lost .
Bri t i sh rule al so meant mi sery to the art i sans and handicraft smen. The
annexat ion of Indian states bythe Company cut off thei r major source of pat
ronage.
Added to thi s, Bri t i sh pol icy di scouraged Indian handicraft s and
promoted Bri t i sh goods. The highly ski l led Indian craft smen were deprived
of thei r source of income and were forced to look for al ternate sources of
employment that hardly exi sted, as
the dest ruct ion of Indian handicraft s was not accompanied by the
development of modern indust ries.
The reforming zeal of Bri t i sh official s under the influence of ut i l i tariani
sm had aroused considerable suspicion, resentment , and opposi t ion.
The orthodox Hindus and Musl ims feared that through social legi slat ion the
Bri t i sh were t rying to dest roy thei r rel igion and cul ture.
Moreover, they bel ieved that legi slat ion was undertaken to aid the mi
ssionaries in thei r quest for evangel izat ion. The orthodox and the rel
igious, therefore, arrayed against the Bri t i sh.
Whether Nana Saheb and Maulvi Ahmad Shah of Faizabad had establ i shed l inks
wi th various cantonment s and were inst rumental in inst igat ing Revol t i s yet to
be proved beyond doubt . Simi larly, the message conveyed by the ci rculat ion of
chappat i s and lotus flowers i s al so uncertain.
Immediately after the capture of Delhi a let ter was addressed to the rulers of al l
the
neighbouring states and of Rajasthan sol ici t ing thei r support and invi t ing them
to part icipate. In Delhi , a court of admini st rators was establ i shed which was
responsible for al l mat ters of state. The court consi sted of ten members, six
from the army and four from the civi l ian department s. Al l deci sions were
taken by a majori ty vote.
Bahadur Shah was recognized as the Emperor by al l rebel leaders. Coins were st
ruck and orders
were i ssued in hi s name. At Barei l ly, Khan Bahadur Khan conducted the admini st
rat ion in the name of the Mughal Emperor.
For more than a year, the rebel s carried on thei r st ruggle against heavy odds.
They had no source of arms and ammuni t ion.
They were often forced to fight wi th swords and pikes against an enemy
suppl ied wi th the most modern weapons.
They had no quick system of communicat ion at thei r command and, hence,
no coordinat ion was possible.
Consequent ly, they were unaware of the st rength and weaknesses of thei r
compat riot s and as a resul t could not come to each others rescue in t
imes of di st ress.
The merchant s, intel l igent sia and Indian rulers not only kept aloof, but
act ively supported the Bri t i sh. Meet ings were organized in Calcut ta and
Bombay by them to pray for the success of the Bri t i sh.

Despi te the Doct rine of Lapse, the Indian rulers who expected thei r future to be
safer wi th the Bri t i sh l iberal ly provided them wi th men and material s.
Almost hal f the Indian soldiers not only did not Revol t but fought
against thei r own count rymen.
Apart from some honourable except ions l ike the Rani of Jhansi , Kunwar Singh and
Maulvi
Ahmadul lah, the rebel s were poorly served by thei r leaders. Most of them fai led
to real ize the
signi ficance of the Revol t and simply did not do enough.
Bahadur Shah and Zeenat Mahal had no fai th in the sepoys and negot iated wi th
the Bri t i sh to secure thei r safety.
Most of the taluqdars t ried only to protect thei r own interest s. Some of them, l
ike Man Singh, changed sides several t imes depending on which side had the
upper hand.
Apart from a commonly shared hat red for al ien rule, the rebel s had no pol i t
ical perspect ive or a
defini te vi sion of the future. They were al l pri soners of thei r own past , fight ing
primari ly to regain
thei r lost privi leges.
The fi rst to fal l was Delhi on 20 September 1857 after a prolonged bat t le.
Bahadur Shah, who took refuge in Humayuns tomb, was captured, t ried and
deported to Burma.
Wi th that the back of the Revol t was broken, since Delhi was the only possible ral
lying point .
The Rani of Jhansi died fight ing on 17 June 1858.
General Hugh Rose, who defeated her, paid high t ribute to hi s enemy when he
said that here lay the woman who was the only man among the
rebel s.
Nana Saheb refused to give in and final ly escaped to Nepal in the beginning of
1859, hoping to
renew the st ruggle.
Kunwar Singh, despi te hi s old age, was too quick for the Bri t i sh t roops and
constant ly kept them guessing t i l l hi s death on 9 May 1858.
Tant ia Tope, who successful ly carried on guerri l la warfare against the Bri t i sh
unt i l Apri l 1859, was bet rayed by a zamindar, captured and put to death by the
Bri t i sh.
Civil Rebellions and Tribal Uprisings
pol igars (landed mi l i tary magnates in South India)
The scholarly and priest ly classes were al so act ive in inci t ing hat red and rebel l
ion against foreign
rule. The t radi t ional rulers and rul ing el i te had financial ly supported scholars,
rel igious preachers,
priest s, pandi t s and maulvi s and men of art s and l i terature. Wi th the coming of
the Bri t i sh and the ruin of the t radi t ional landed and bureaucrat ic el i te, thi s
pat ronage came to an end, and al l those who had depended on i t were impoveri
shed.
Di splaced peasant s and demobi l ized soldiers of Bengal led by rel igious monks
and di spossessed

zamindars were the fi rst to ri se up in the Sanyasi rebel l ion, made famous by
Bankim Chandra
Chat terjee in hi s novel Anand Math, that lasted from 1763 to 1800.
It was fol lowed by the Chuar upri sing which covered five di st rict s of Bengal
and Bihar from 1766 to 1772 and then, again, from 1795 to 1816.
Other major rebel l ions in Eastern India were those of Rangpur and Dinajpur, 1783;
Bi shnupur and Bi rbhum, 1799; Ori ssa zamindars, 1804-17; and Sambalpur,
1827-40.
In South India, the Raja of Vizianagram revol ted in 1794, the pol igars of Tami l
Nadu during the
1790s, of Malabar and coastal Andhra during the fi rst decade of the 19th century,
of Parlekamedi
during 1813-14. Dewan Velu Thampi of Travancore organized a heroic revol t in
1805. The Mysore
peasant s too revol ted in 1830-31. There were major upri sings in Vizagapatnam
from 1830-34, Ganjam
in 1835 and Kurnool in 1846-47.
In Western India, the chiefs of Saurasht ra rebel led repeatedly from 1816 to 1832.
The Kol i s of
Gujarat did the same during 1824-28, 1839 and 1849. Maharasht ra was in a
perpetual state of revol t
after the final defeat of the Peshwa. Prominent were the Bhi l upri sings, 1818-31;
the Ki t tur upri sing,led by Chinnava, 1824; the Satara upri sing, 1841; and the
revol t of the Gadkari s, 1844.
Northern India was no less turbulent . The present states of Western
U.P. and Haryana rose up in arms in 1824. Other major rebel l ions were those of Bi
laspur, 1805; the
taluqdars of Al igarh, 1814-17; the Bundelas of Jabalpur, 1842; and Khandesh,
1852. The second
Punjab War in 1848-49 was al so in the nature of a popular revol t by the
people and the army.
These almost cont inuous rebel l ions were massive in thei r total i ty, but
were whol ly local in thei r spread and i solated from each other.
They were the resul t of local causes and grievances, and were al so local
ized in thei r effect s. They often bore the same character not because they
represented nat ional or common effort s but because they represented
common condi t ions though separated in t ime and space.
The suppression of the civi l rebel l ions was a major reason why the
Revol t of 1857 did not spread to South India and most of Eastern and
Western India. The hi storical signi ficance of these civi l upri sings l ies in that
they establ i shed st rong and valuable local t radi t ions of resi stance to Bri t i sh
rule.
The t ribal s had cause to be upset for a variety of reasons.
The colonial admini st rat ion ended thei r relat ive i solat ion and brought
them ful ly wi thin the ambi t of colonial i sm.
It recognized the t ribal chiefs as zamindars and int roduced a new system
of land revenue and taxat ion of t ribal product s.
It encouraged the influx of Chri st ian mi ssionaries into the t ribal areas.

Above al l , i t int roduced a large number of moneylenders, t raders

and revenue farmers as middlemen among the t ribal s.
These middlemen were the chief inst rument s for bringing the t ribal people
wi thin the vortex of the colonial economy and exploi tat ion. The middlemen
were out siders who increasingly took possession of t ribal lands and
ensnared the t ribal s in a web of debt .
Colonial i sm al so t ransformed thei r relat ionship wi th the forest .
Oppression and extort ion by pol icemen and other pet ty official s further
aggravated di st ress amongthe t ribal s.
The revenue farmers and government agent s al so intensi fied and
expanded the system of
begar making the t ribal s perform unpaid labour.
In t ime, the t ribal people increasingly lost thei r lands and were reduced to the
posi t ion of agricul tural labourers, share-croppers and rack-rented tenant s on the
land they had earl ier brought under cul t ivat ion and held on a communal basi s.
Al l thi s di ffered in intensi ty from region to region, but the complete di
srupt ion of the old agrarian
order of the t ribal communi t ies provided the common factor for al l the
t ribal upri sings
The colonial int rusion and the t riumvi rate of t rader, moneylender and revenue
farmer in sum
di srupted the t ribal ident i ty to a lesser or greater degree. In fact , ethnic t ies
were a basic feature of the t ribal rebel l ions.
Fel low t ribal s were never at tacked unless they
had col laborated wi th the enemy.
At the same t ime, not al l out siders were at tacked as enemies. Often there was
no violence against
the non-t ribal poor, who worked in t ribal vi l lages in support ive economic roles,
or who had social
relat ions wi th the t ribal s, such as tel i s, gwalas, lohars, carpenters, pot ters,
weavers, washermen,
barbers, drummers, and bonded labourers and domest ic servant s of the out siders.
They were not only
spared, but were seen as al l ies. In many cases, the rural poor formed a part of
the rebel l ious t ribal
bands.
Among the numerous t ribal revol t s, the Santhal hool or upri sing was the most
massive. The Santhal s,who l ive in the area between Bhagalpur and Rajmahal ,
known as Daman-i -koh, rose in revol t ; made a determined at tempt to expel the
out siders the dikus and proclaimed the complete annihi lat ion of the al ien
regime.
Zamindars, the pol ice, the revenue and court alas have exerci sed a combined
system of extort ions, oppressive exact ions, forcible di spossession of property,
abuse and personal violence and a variety of pet ty tyrannies upon the t imid and
yielding Santhal s. Usurious interest on loans of money ranging from 50 to 500 per
cent ; fal se measures at the haut and the market ; wi l ful and unchari table t
respass by the rich by means of thei r untethered cat t le, tat toos, ponies and even

elephant s, on the growing crops of the poorer race; and such l ike i l legal i t ies
have been prevalent .
1
The Santhal s considered the dikus and government servant s moral ly
corrupt being given to beggary,steal ing, lying and drunkenness.
The t ribal leaders cal led an assembly of nearly 6000 Santhal s, represent ing 400
vi l lages, at Bhaganidihi on 30 June 1855. It was decided to rai se the banner of
revol t , get rid of the out siders and thei r colonial masters once and for al l , the
usher in Satyug, The Reign of Truth, and True Just ice.
The Santhal s bel ieved that thei r act ions had the blessings of God. Sido and
Kanhu, the principal
rebel leaders, claimed that Thakur (God) had communicated wi th them and told
them to take up arms
and fight for independence.
they at tacked the mahajans and zamindars and thei r houses, pol ice stat ions,
rai lway const ruct ion si tes, the dak (post ) carriers in fact al l the symbol s of
diku exploi tat ion and colonial power.
The Santhal insurrect ion was helped by a large number of non-t ribal and poor
dikus. Gwalas
(mi lkmen) and others helped the rebel s wi th provi sions and services; lohars
(blacksmi ths)
accompanied the rebel bands, keeping thei r weapons in good shape.
The rebel l ion was crushed ruthlessly. More than 15,000 Santhal s were ki l led whi
le tens of vi l lages
were dest royed. Sido was bet rayed and captured and ki l led in August 1855 whi
le Kanhu was arrested
by accident at the tai l -end of the rebel l ion in February 1866.
three other major t ribal rebel l ions.
The Kol s of Chhotanagpur rebel led from 1820 to 1837. Thousands of them
were massacred before Bri t i sh authori ty could be re-imposed.
The hi l l t ribesmen of Rampain coastal Andhra revol ted in March 1879
against the depredat ions of the government -supported mansabdar and the
new rest rict ive forest regulat ions. the rebel s, numbering several
thousands, could be defeated by the end of 1880.
The rebel l ion (ulgulan ) of the Munda t ribesmen, led by Bi rsa Munda,
occurred during 1899-1900.For over thi rty years the Munda sardars had
been st ruggl ing against the dest ruct ion of thei r system of common land
holdings by the int rusion of jagi rdars, thikadars(revenue farmers) and
merchant moneylenders.
OnChri stmas Eve, 1899, Bi rsa proclaimed a rebel l ion to establ i sh Munda rule in
the land and encouraged
the ki l l ing of thikadars and jagi rdars and Rajas and Hakims (rulers) and
Chri st ians. Satyug would beestabl i shed in place of the present -day Kalyug.
The non-t ribal poor were not to be at tacked
Peasant Movements and Uprisings after
1857
In Ryotwari areas, the Government i t sel f levied heavy land revenue.

The most mi l i tant and widespread of the peasant movement s was the Indigo
Revol t of 1859-60.
The indigo planters, nearly al l Europeans, compel led the tenant s to grow indigo
which they processed in factories set up in rural (mofussi l ) areas. From the
beginning, indigo was grown under an ext remely
oppressive system which involved great loss to the cul t ivators. The planters
forced the peasant s to
take a meager amount as advance and enter into fraudulent cont ract s. The price
paid for the indigo
plant s was far below the market price.
The peasant was forced to grow indigo on the best land he had whether
or not he wanted to devote hi s land and labour to more paying crops l ike rice. At
the t ime of del ivery, he was cheated even of the due low price. He al so had to pay
regular bribes to the planters official s.
He was forced to accept an advance. Often he was not in a posi t ion to repay i t ,
but even i f he could he was not al lowed to do so. The advance was used by the
planters to compel him to go on cul t ivat ing indigo.
Since the enforcement of forced and fraudulent cont ract s through the court s was
a di fficul t and
prolonged process, the planters resorted to a reign of terror to coerce the peasant s.
Kidnapping, i l legal
confinement in factory godowns, flogging, at tacks on women and chi ldren,
carrying off cat t le, loot ing, burning and demol i t ion of houses and dest ruct ion of
crops and frui t t rees were some of the methods used by the planters. They hi red
or maintained bands of lathiyal s (armed retainers) for the purpose.
The beginning was made by the ryot s of Govindpur vi l lage in Nadia di st rict
when, under the
leadership of Digambar Bi swas and Bi shnu Bi swas, ex-employees of a planter,
they gave up indigo
cul t ivat ion. And when, on 13 September, the planter sent a band of 100 lathiyal s
to at tack thei r
vi l lage, they organized a counter force armed wi th lathi s and spears and fought
back.
The indigo st rikes and di sturbances flared up again in the spring of 1860 and
encompassed al l the
indigo di st rict s of Bengal . Factory after factory was at tacked by hundreds of
peasant s and vi l lage after vi l lage bravely defended i t sel f.
Ul t imately, the planters could not wi thstand the uni ted resi stance of the ryot s,
and they gradual ly
began to close thei r factories. The cul t ivat ion of indigo was vi rtual ly wiped out
from the di st rict s of
Bengal by the end of 1860.
A major reason for the success of the Indigo Revol t was the t remendous ini t iat
ive, cooperat ion,
organizat ion and di scipl ine of the ryot s. Another was the complete uni ty
among Hindu and Musl im

peasant s. Leadership for the movement was provided by the more wel l -off ryot s
and in some cases by pet ty zamindars, moneylenders and ex-employees of the
planters.
A signi ficant feature of the Indigo Revol t was the role of the intel l igent sia of
Bengal which
organized a powerful campaign in support of the rebel l ious peasant ry. It carried
on newspaper
campaigns, organized mass meet ings, prepared memoranda on peasant s
grievances and supported
them in thei r legal bat t les. Out standing in thi s respect was the role of Hari sh
Chandra Mukherj i , edi tor of the Hindoo Pat riot .
Din Bandhu Mi t ras play, Neel Darpan, was to gain great fame for vividly
port raying the oppression
by the planters.
Mi ssionaries were another group which extended act ive support to the
indigo ryot s in thei r st ruggle.
The Government s response to the Revol t was rather rest rained and not as harsh
as in the case of
civi l rebel l ions and t ribal upri sings.
It was al so able to see, in t ime, the changed temper of the peasant ry
and was influenced by the support extended to the Revol t by the intel l igent sia
and the mi ssionaries. It appointed a commi ssion to inqui re into the problem of
indigo cul t ivat ion. Evidence brought before the Indigo Commi ssion and i t s final
report exposed the coercion and corrupt ion underlying the ent i re system of indigo
cul t ivat ion. The resul t was the mi t igat ion of the worst abuses of the system.
The Government i ssued a not i ficat ion in November 1860 that ryot s could not
be compel led to sow indigo and that i t would ensure that al l di sputes were set
t led by legal means.
Large part s of East Bengal were engul fed by agrarian unrest during the 1870s
and early 1880s. The
unrest was caused by the effort s of the zamindars to enhance rent beyond legal l
imi t s and to prevent the tenant s from acqui ring occupancy right s under Act X of
1859.
In May 1873, an agrarian league or combinat ion was formed in Yusufshahi
Parganah in Pabna di st rict to resi st the demands of the zamindars.
The st ruggle gradual ly spread throughout Pabna and then to the other di st rict s
of East Bengal . Everywhere agrarian leagues were organized, rent s were wi thheld
and zamindars fought in the court s. The main form of st ruggle was that of legal
resi stance. There was very l i t t le violence i t only occurred when the
zamindars t ried to compel the ryot s to submi t to thei r terms by force.
In the course of the movement , the ryot s
developed a st rong awareness of the law and thei r legal right s and the abi l i ty to
combine and form
associat ions for peaceful agi tat ion.
The Government rose to the defence of the zamindars wherever violence took
place. Peasant s were
then arrested on a large scale. But i t assumed a posi t ion of neut ral i ty as far as
legal bat t les or peaceful agi tat ions were concerned.

The Government al so promi sed to undertake legi slat ion to protect the
tenant s from the worst aspect s of zamindari oppression, a promi se i t
ful fi l led however imperfect ly in 1885 when the Bengal Tenancy Act was
passed
What persuaded the zamindars and the colonial regime to reconci le themselves to
the movement
was the fact that i t s aims were l imi ted to the redressal of the immediate
grievances of the peasant s and the enforcement of the exi st ing legal right s and
norms. It was not aimed at the zamindari system.
It al so did not have at any stage an ant i -colonial pol i t ical edge. The agrarian
leagues kept wi thin the bounds of law, used the legal machinery to fight the
zamindars, and rai sed no ant i -Bri t i sh demands.
The leaders often argued that they were against zamindars and not the Bri t i sh.
In fact , the leaders
rai sed the slogan that the peasant s want to be the ryot s of Her Majesty the
Queen and of Her only.
Once again the Bengal peasant s showed complete Hindu-Musl im sol idari ty, even
though the
majori ty of the ryot s were Musl im and the majori ty of zamindars Hindu. There
was al so no effort to
create peasant sol idari ty on the grounds of rel igion or caste.
In thi s case, too, a number of young Indian intel lectual s supported the peasant s
cause. These
included Bankim Chandra Chat terjea and R.C. Dut t . Later, in the early 1880s,
during the di scussion of
the Bengal Tenancy Bi l l , the Indian Associat ion, led by Surendranath
Banerjea, Anand Mohan Bose
and Dwarkanath Gangul i , campaigned for the right s of tenant s, helped form
ryot unions, and
organized huge meet ings of upto 20,000 peasant s in the di st rict s in support of
the Rent Bi l l . The
Indian Associat ion and many of the nat ional i st newspapers went further than
the Bi l l . They asked for permanent fixat ion of the tenant s rent . They
warned that since the Bi l l would confer occupancy right s even on non-cul t
ivators, i t would lead to the growth of middlemen the jotedars who would be
as oppressive as the zamindars so far as the actual cul t ivators were concerned.
They, therefore, demanded that the right of occupancy should go wi th
actual cul t ivat ion of the soi l , that i s, in most cases to the under- ryot
s and the tenant s-at -wi l l .
A major agrarian outbreak occurred in the Poona and Ahmednagar di st rict s of
Maharasht ra in 1875.
Here, as part of the Ryotwari system, land revenue was set t led di rect ly wi th the
peasant who was al so recognized as the owner of hi s land. Like the peasant s in
other Ryotwari areas, the Deccan peasant al so found i t di fficul t to pay land
revenue wi thout get t ing into the clutches of the moneylender and increasingly
losing hi s land.

Three other development s occurred at thi s t ime. During the early 1860s, the
American Civi l War
had led to a ri se in cot ton export s which had pushed up prices. The end of the Civi
l War in 1864
brought about an acute depression in cot ton export s and a crash in prices. The
ground sl ipped from
under the peasant s feet . Simul taneously, in 1867, the Government rai sed land
revenue by nearly 50
per cent . The si tuat ion was worsened by a succession of bad harvest s.
There was very l i t t le violence in thi s set t l ing of account s. Once the
moneylenders inst rument s of
oppression debt bonds were surrendered, no need for further violence was fel
t.
As in the case of the Pabna Revol t , the Deccan di sturbances had very l imi ted
object ives.There
was once again an absence of ant i -colonial consciousness. It was, therefore,
possible for the colonial
regime to extend them a certain protect ion against the moneylenders through the
Deccan
Agricul turi st s Rel ief Act of 1879.
Once again, the modern nat ional i st intel l igent sia of Maharasht ra supported the
peasant s cause.
Al ready, in 1873-74, the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, led by Just ice Ranade, had
organized a successful
campaign among the peasant s, as wel l as at Poona and Bombay, against the
land revenue set t lement of 1867.
The Sabha as wel l as many of the nat ional i st newspapers al so supported the
D.A.R. Bi l l .
The Kuka Revol t in Punjab was led by Baba Ram Singh and had element s of a
messianic movement . It was crushed when 49 of the rebel s were blown up by a
cannon in 1872.
There was a certain shi ft in the nature of peasant movement s after 1857. Princes,
chiefs and landlords
having been crushed or co-opted, peasant s emerged as the main force in agrarian
movement s. They
now fought di rect ly for thei r own demands, centered almost whol ly on economic
i ssues,and against
thei r immediate enemies, foreign planters and indigenous zamindars and
moneylenders. Thei r
st ruggles were di rected towards speci fic and l imi ted object ives and redressal of
part icular grievances.
They did not make colonial i sm thei r target . Nor was thei r object ive the ending
of the system of thei r
subordinat ion and exploi tat ion.
The terri torial reach of these movement s was al so l imi ted. They were confined
to part icular
local i t ies wi th no mutual communicat ion or l inkages. They al so lacked cont inui
ty of st ruggle or longterm organizat ion. Once the speci fic object ives of a
movement were achieved, i t s organizat ion, as al so

peasant sol idari ty bui l t around i t , di ssolved and di sappeared. Thus, the Indigo
st rike, the Pabna
agrarian leagues and the social -boycot t movement of the Deccan ryot s left
behind no successors.
He did not object to paying interest on the sums he had borrowed; he hi t back
against fraud and chicanery by the moneylender and when the lat ter went against
t radi t ion in depriving
him of hi s land. He did not deny the states right to col lect a tax on land but
objected when the level of
taxat ion overstepped al l t radi t ional bounds. He did not object to the foreign
planter becoming hi s
zamindar but resi sted the planter when he took away hi s freedom to decide what
crops to grow and
refused to pay him a proper price for hi s crop.
A major weakness of the 19th century peasant movement s was the lack of an
adequate
understanding of colonial i sm of colonial economic st ructure and the colonial
state and of the
social framework of the movement s themselves. Nor did the 19th century peasant
s possess a new
ideology and a new social , economic and pol i t ical programme based on an
analysi s of the newly
const i tuted colonial society. Thei r st ruggles, however mi l i tant , occurred wi thin
the framework of the
old societal order. They lacked a posi t ive concept ion of an al ternat ive society
a concept ion which
would uni te the people in a common st ruggle on a wide regional and al l -India
plane and help develop
long-term pol i t ical movement s.
Foundation of the Congress: The Myth
Indian Nat ional Congress was founded in December 1885 by seventy-two pol i t
ical workers. It was the fi rst organized expression of Indian nat ional i sm on an al
l -India scale. A.O. Hume, a ret i red Engl i sh ICS officer, played an important role in
i t s format ion.
The myth i s that the Indian Nat ional Congress was started by A.O. Hume and
others under the
official di rect ion, guidance and advice of no less a person than Lord Dufferin, the
Viceroy, to provide
a safe, mi ld, peaceful , and const i tut ional out let or safety valve for the ri sing di
scontent among the
masses, which was inevi tably leading towards a popular and violent revolut ion.
In hi s Young India publ i shed in 1916, the Ext remi st leader Lala Lajpat Rai used
the safety-valve
theory to at tack the Moderates in the Congress.
Blavat sky enabled Hume to get in touch wi th one of these mahatmas named Koot
Hoomi Lal Singh.
Foundation of The Indian National Congress:
The Reality

For example, the Bri t i sh Indian Associat ion of Bengal had increasingly ident i fied
i t sel f wi th the interest s of the zamindars and, thus, gradual ly lost i t s ant i -Bri t
i sh edge. The Bombay Associat ion and Madras Nat ive Associat ion had become
react ionary and moribund. And so the younger nat ional i st s of Bengal , led by
Surendranath Banerjea and Anand Mohan Bose, founded the Indian Associat ion in
1876. Younger men of Madras M. Vi raraghavachariar, G. Subramaniya Iyer, P.
Ananda Charlu and others formed the Madras Mahajan Sabha in 1884. In
Bombay, the more mi l i tant intel lectual s l ike K.T. Telang and Pherozeshah Mehta
broke away from older leaders l ike Dadabhai Framj i and Dinshaw Pet i t on pol i t
ical grounds and formed the Bombay Presidency Associat ion in 1885. Among the
older associat ions only the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha carried on as before. But , then,
i t was al ready in the hands of nat ional i st intel lectual s.
A sign of new pol i t ical l i fe in the count ry was the coming into exi stence during
these years of
nearly al l the major nat ional i st newspapers which were to dominate the Indian
scene t i l l 1918 The Hindu, Tribune, Bengalee, Mahrat ta and Kesari . The one
except ion was the Amri ta Bazar Pat rika which was al ready edi ted by new and
younger men. It became an Engl i sh language newspaper only in 1878.
By 1885, the format ion of an al l -India pol i t ical organizat ion had become an
object ive necessi ty, and
the necessi ty was being recognized by nat ional i st s al l over the count ry. Many
recent scholars have
furni shed detai led informat ion on the many moves that were made in that di rect
ion from 1877. These
moves acqui red a greater sense of urgency especial ly from 1883 and there was
intense pol i t ical
act ivi ty. The Indian Mi rror of Calcut ta was carrying on a cont inuous campaign on
the quest ion. The
Indian Associat ion had al ready in December 1883 organized an Al l -India Nat ional
Conference and
given a cal l for another one in December 1885. (Surendranath Banerjea, who was
involved in the Al l India Nat ional Conference, could not for that reason at tend
the founding session of the Nat ional
Congress in 1885).
Since 1875, there had been a cont inuous
campaign around cot ton import dut ies which Indians wanted to stay in the interest
s of the Indian
text i le indust ry. A massive campaign had been organized during 1877-88 around
the demand for the
Indianizat ion of Government services. The Indians had opposed the Afghan
adventure of Lord Lyt ton
and then compel led the Bri t i sh Government to cont ribute towards the cost of
the Second Afghan War.
For example, P. Ananda Charlu in hi s president ial address to the Congress in 1891
described i t as a mighty nat ional izer, and said that thi s was i t s most glorious
role.
Among the three basic aims and object ives of the Congress laid down by i t s fi rst
President , W.C. Bonnerj i , was that of the ful ler development and consol idat ion
of those sent iment s of nat ional uni ty.

In an effort to reach al l regions, i twas decided to rotate the Congress session

among di fferent part s of the count ry. The President was to belong to a region
other than where the Congress session was being held.
To reach out to the fol lowers of al l rel igions and to remove the fears of the minori
t ies, a rule was
made at the 1888 session that no resolut ion was to be passed to which an
overwhelming majori ty of
Hindu or Musl im delegates objected.
In 1889, a minori ty clause was adopted in the resolut ion demanding reform of legi
slat ive counci l s. According to the clause, wherever Parsi s, Chri st ians, Musl ims or
Hindus were a minori ty thei r number elected to the Counci l s would not be less
than thei r proport ion in the populat ion.
At i t s second session, the President of the Congress, Dadabhai Naoroj i , laid
down thi s rule and said that A Nat ional Congress must confine i t sel f to quest
ions in which the ent i re nat ion has a di rect part icipat ion. Congress was,
therefore, not the right place to di scuss social reforms. We are met together, he
said, as a pol i t ical body to represent to our rulers our pol i t ical aspi rat ions.
Dadabhai Naoroj i put i t , on the new lesson that Kings are made for the people,
not peoples for thei r Kings.
Simi larly, the early nat ional leaders made maintenance of civi l l ibert ies and thei
r extension an
integral part of the nat ional movement . They fought against every infringement
of the freedom of the Press and speech and opposed every at tempt to curtai l
them. They st ruggled for separat ion of the judicial and execut ive powers and
fought against racial di scriminat ion.
To sum up: The basic object ives of the early nat ional i st leaders were to lay the
foundat ions of a
secular and democrat ic nat ional movement , to pol i t icize and pol i t ical ly
educate the people, to form the headquarters of the movement , that i s, to form
an al l -India leadership group, and to develop and propagate an ant i -colonial nat
ional i st ideology.
Socio-Religious Reforms and the National
Awakening
Apart from the Brahmo Samaj , which has branches in several part s of the count
ry, the Paramahansa Mandal i and the Prarthana Samaj in Maharasht ra and the
Arya Samaj in Punjab and North India were some of the prominent movement s
among the Hindus. There were several other regional and caste movement s l ike
the Kayasth Sabha in Ut tar Pradesh and the Sarin Sabha in Punjab. The backward
castes al so started the work of reformat ion wi th the Satya Sodhak Samaj in
Maharasht ra and the Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sabha in Kerala. The
Ahmadiya and Al igarh movement s, the Singh Sabha and the Rehnumai
Mazdeyasan Sabha represented the spi ri t of reform among the Musl ims, the Sikhs
and the Parsees respect ively.
Reject ing supernatural explanat ions, Raja Rammohan Roy affi rmed the principle
of causal i ty l inking the whole phenomenal universe. To him demonst rabi l i ty
was the sole cri terion of t ruth.
In the Brahmo Samaj , i t led to the repudiat ion of the infal l ibi l i ty of the Vedas,
and in the

Al igarh Movement , to the reconci l iat ion of the teachings of Islam wi th the needs
of the modern age.
In advocat ing widow marriage and opposing polygamy and chi ld marriage, Akshay
Kumar was not
concerned about rel igious sanct ion or whether they exi sted in the past . Hi s
argument s were mainly
based on thei r effect s on society. Instead of depending on the scriptures, he ci ted
medical opinion
against chi ld marriage.
To Gopal Hari Deshmukh, popularly known as Lokahi tavadi , whether social
reforms had the
sanct ion of rel igion was immaterial . If rel igion did not sanct ion these, he
advocated that rel igion i t sel f should be changed as i t was made by man and
what was laid down in the scriptures need not
necessari ly be of contemporary relevance.
Raja Rammohan Roy considered di fferent rel igions as nat ional embodiment s of
universal thei sm. The
Brahmo Samaj was ini t ial ly conceived by him as a universal i st church. He was a
defender of the basic
and universal principles of al l rel igions the monothei sm of the Vedas and the
uni tariani sm of
Chri st iani ty and at the same t ime at tacked polythei sm of Hindui sm and the t
rini tariani sm of
Chri st iani ty. Syed Ahmed Khan echoed the same idea: al l prophet s had the
same din (fai th) and every count ry and nat ion had di fferent prophet s.
Ranade, Dayanand and Vivekananda denounced the exi st ing system of caste in no
uncertain terms. Whi le the reform movement s general ly stood for i t s abol i t ion,
Dayanand gave a utopian explanat ion for chaturvarna (four-fold varna divi sion of
Hindu society) and sought to maintain i t on the basi s of vi rtue. He deserves to
be a Brahman who has acqui red the best knowledge and character, and an
ignorant person i s fi t to be classed as a shudra, he argued.
Understandably the most vi rulent opposi t ion to caste came from lower caste
movement s.
Jyot iba Phule and Narayana Guru were two unrelent ing cri t ics of the caste system
and i t s
consequences. A conversat ion between Gandhi j i and Narayana Guru i s signi
ficant . Gandhi j i , in an
obvious reference to Chaturvarna and the inherent di fferences in qual i ty between
man and man,
observed that al l leaves of the same t ree are not ident ical in shape and texture.
To thi s Narayana Guru pointed out that the di fference i s only superficial , but not
in essence: the juice of al l leaves of a part icular t ree would be the same in
content .
It was he who gave the cal l one rel igion, one caste and one God for mankind
which one of hi s di sciples, Sahadaran Ayyapan, changed into no rel igion, no caste
and no God for mankind.
But the reformers were aiming at modernizat ion rather than westernizat ion.

the general resentment against the Lex Loci Act .

(the Act proposed in 1845 and passed in 1850 provided the right to inheri t ancest
ral property to Hindu convert s to Chri st iani ty).
An Economic Critique of Colonialism
It i s not that the early Indian nat ional i st s were unaware of the many pol i t ical ,
psychological and economic di sabi l i t ies of foreign dominat ion, but they st i l l
supported colonial rule as they expected i t to rebui ld India as a spi t image of the
Western met ropol i s.
Three names stand out among the large number of Indians who ini t iated and
carried out the
economic analysi s of Bri t i sh rule during the years 1870-1905. The tal lest of the
three was Dadabhai
Naoroj i , known in the pre-Gandhian era as the Grand Old Man of India.
. Hi s near contemporary, Just ice Mahadev Govind Ranade, taught an ent i re
generat ion of
Indians the value of modern indust rial development . Romesh Chandra Dut t , a ret
i red ICS officer,
publ i shed The Economic Hi story of India at the beginning of the 20th century in
which he examined in
minute detai l the ent i re economic record of colonial rule since 1757.
The early nat ional i st s accepted wi th remarkable unanimi ty that the complete
economic t ransformat ion of the count ry on the basi s of modern technology and
capi tal i st enterpri se was the primary goal of al l thei r economic pol icies.
or, in the words of Ranade, factories could far more
effect ively than School s and Col leges give a new bi rth to the act ivi t ies of the
Nat ion.
Surendranath Banerjeas newspaper the Bengalee made the point on 18 January
1902: The agi tat ion for pol i t ical right s may bind the various nat ional i t ies of
India together for a t ime. The communi ty of interest s may cease when these right
s are achieved. But the commercial union of the various Indian nat ional i t ies,
once establ i shed, wi l l never cease to exi st .
The early nat ional i st s di sagreed vehement ly wi th thi s view. They saw foreign
capi tal as an
unmi t igated evi l which did not develop a count ry but exploi ted and impoveri
shed i t . Or, as Dadabhai Naoroj i popularly put i t , foreign capi tal represented
the despol iat ion and exploi tat ion of Indian resources.
Simi larly, the edi tor of the Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar described
the use of
foreign capi tal as a system of internat ional depradat ion.
In essence, the early nat ional i st s asserted that genuine economic development
was possible only i f
Indian capi tal i t sel f ini t iated and developed the process of indust rial izat ion.
Foreign capi tal would
nei ther undertake nor could i t ful fi l l thi s task.
To vi t iate thi s, they demanded the reduct ion of land revenue and abol i t ion of
the sal t tax and supported the imposi t ion of income tax and import dut ies on
product s which the rich and the middle classes consumed.

On the expendi ture side, they pointed out that the emphasi s was on serving Bri
tains imperial needs
whi le the developmental and wel fare department s were starved. In part icular,
they condemned the
high expendi ture on the army which was used by the Bri t i sh to conquer and
maintain imperial i st
cont rol over large part s of Asia and Africa.
The focal point of the nat ional i st cri t ique of colonial i sm was the drain theory.
The nat ional i st leaders pointed out that a large part of Indias capi tal and weal
th was being t ransferred or drained to Bri tain in the form of salaries and pensions
of Bri t i sh civi l and mi l i tary official s working in India, interest on loans taken by
the Indian Government , profi t s of Bri t i sh capi tal i st s in India, and the Home
Charges or expenses of the Indian Government in Bri tain.
The drain took the form of an excess of export s over import s for which India got
no economic or
material return. According to the nat ional i st calculat ions, thi s drain amounted
to one-hal f of
government revenues, more than the ent i re land revenue col lect ion, and over
one-thi rd of Indias total savings. (In todays terms thi s would amount to eight per
cent of Indias nat ional income).
R.C. Dut t , for example, made the drain the major theme of hi s Economic Hi story
of India.
Dadabhai Naoroj i was the most advanced. Speaking on the drain at the Internat
ional Social i st Congress in 1904, he put forward the demand for sel fgovernment and t reatment of India l ike other Bri t i sh Colonies.
A year later in 1905, in a message to the Benares session of the Indian Nat ional
Congress, Dadabhai categorical ly asserted: Sel f-government i s the only remedy
for Indias woes and wrongs.
And, then, as the President of the 1906 session of the Congress at Calcut ta, he
laid down the goal of the nat ional movement as sel f-government or Swaraj , l
ike that of the Uni ted Kingdom or the Colonies.
The Fight to Secure Press Freedom
Interest ingly, nearly one-thi rd of the founding fathers of the Congress in 1885 were
journal i st s.
Powerful newspapers emerged during these years under di st ingui shed and
fearless journal i st s.
These were the Hindu and Swadesami t ran under the edi torship of G. Subramaniya
Iyer, Kesari and
Mahrat ta under B.G. Ti lak, Bengalee under Surendranath Banerjea, Amri ta Bazar
Pat rika under Si si r Kumar Ghosh and Mot i lal Ghosh, Sudharak under G.K.
Gokhale, Indian Mi rror under N.N. Sen, Voice of India under Dadabhai Naoroj i ,
Hindustani and Advocate under G.P. Varma and Tribune and Akhbar-i -Am in Punjab,
Indu Prakash, Dnyan Prakash, Kal and Gujarat i in Bombay, and Som
Prakash, Banganivasi and Sadharani in Bengal .
The Amri ta Bazar Pat rika was started in 1868.
The Vernacular Press Act of 1878, di rected

only against Indian language newspapers, was conceived in great secrecy and
passed at a single si t t ing of the Imperial Legi slat ive Counci l . The Act provided
for the confi scat ion of the print ing press, paper and other material s of a
newspaper i f the Government bel ieved that i t was publ i shing sedi t ious
material s and had flouted an official warning.
Indian nat ional i st opinion fi rmly opposed the Act . The fi rst great demonst rat
ion on an i ssue of
publ ic importance was organized in Calcut ta on thi s quest ion when a large meet
ing was held in the
Town Hal l . Various publ ic bodies and the Press al so campaigned against the Act .
Consequent ly, i t was repealed in 1881 by Lord Ripon.
The Act was in part icular aimed at the Amri ta Bazar Pat rika
which came out at the t ime in both Bengal i and Engl i sh. The object ive was to
take summary act ion
against i t . But when the official s woke up the morning after the Act was passed,
they di scovered to
thei r di smay that the Pat rika had foxed them; overnight , the edi tors had
converted i t into an Engl i sh newspaper!
Surendranath Banerjea, one of the founding fathers of the Indian nat ional
movement , was the fi rst
Indian to go to jai l in performance of hi s duty as a journal i st .
Born in 1856, Ti lak devoted hi s ent i re l i fe to the service of hi s count ry.
In 1881, along wi th G.G. Agarkar, he founded the newspaper Kesari (in Marathi )
and Mahrat ta (in
Engl i sh).
Popular resentment against the official plague measures resul ted in the assassinat
ion of Rand, the Chai rman of the Plague Commi t tee in Poona, and Lt . Ayerst by
the Chaphekar brothers on 27 June 1898.
Echoes of Ti laks t rial were to be heard in another not -so-di stant court when
Gandhi j i , hi s pol i t ical successor, was t ried in 1922 for the same offence of sedi
t ion under the same Sect ion 124A for hi s
art icles in Young India.
Propaganda in the Legislatures
Legi slat ive Counci l s in India had no real official power t i l l 1920.
The Indian Counci l s Act of 1861 enlarged the Governor-General s Execut ive
Counci l for the purpose
of making laws. The Governor-General could now add from six to twelve
members to the Execut ive
Counci l . At least hal f of these nominat ions had to be non-official s,
Indian or Bri t i sh. Thi s counci l
came to be known as the Imperial Legi slat ive Counci l . It possessed no
powers at al l . It could not
di scuss the budget or a financial measure or any other important bi l l
wi thout the previous approval of the Government . It could not di scuss
the act ions of the admini st rat ion.
The Government had decided to add them in order to represent Indian views, for
many Bri t i sh official s and statesmen had come to bel ieve that one reason for

the Revol t of 1857 was that Indian views were not known to the rulers. But in
pract ice, the Counci l did not serve even thi s purpose.
Moreover, the Government invariably chose rulers of princely states or thei r
employees, big zamindars, big merchant s or ret i red high government official s as
Indian members. Only a handful of pol i t ical figures and independent intel lectual
s such as Syed Ahmed Khan (1878-82), Kri stodas Pal (1883), V.N.
Mandl ik (1884-87), K.L. Nulkar (1890-91) and Rash Behari Ghosh (1892) were
nominated. The
overwhelming majori ty of Indian nominees did not represent the Indian people or
emerging
nat ional i st opinion. It was, therefore, not surpri sing that they completely toed
the official l ine.
Ti l l 1892, thei r demand was l imi ted to the expansion and reform of the Legi slat
ive
Counci l s. They demanded wider part icipat ion in them by a larger number of
elected Indian members
as al so wider powers for the Counci l s and an increase in the powers of the
members to di scuss and
deal wi th the budget and to quest ion and cri t icize the day-to-day admini st rat
ion.
The nat ional i st agi tat ion forced the Government to make some changes in legi
slat ive funct ioning by the Indian Counci l s Act of 1892. The number of addi t
ional members of the Imperial and Provincial
Legi slat ive Counci l s was increased from the previous six to ten to ten to
sixteen. A few of these
members could be elected indi rect ly through municipal commi t tees, di st
rict boards, etc., but the
official majori ty remained. The members were given the right to di scuss the
annual budget but they
could nei ther vote on i t nor move a mot ion to amend i t . They could al
so ask quest ions but were not al lowed to put supplementary quest ions
or to di scuss the answers. The reformed Imperial Legi slat ive Counci l met ,
during i t s tenure t i l l 1909
Many leaders for example, Dadabhai Naoroj i in 1904, G.K. Gokhale in 1905 and
Lokamanya Ti lak in 1906 began to put forward the demand for sel f government
on the model of the
sel f-governing colonies of Canada and Aust ral ia.
Lord Dufferin, who had prepared the out l ine of the Act of 1892
Born in 1845 in Bombay, Pherozeshah Mehta came under Dadabhai Naoroj i s
influence whi le
studying law in London during the 1860s. He was one of the founders of the
Bombay Presidency
Associat ion as al so the Indian Nat ional Congress.
Mehtas fi rst major intervent ion in the Imperial Legi slat ive Counci l came in
January 1895 on a Bi l l
for the amendment of the Pol ice Act of 1861 which enhanced the power of the
local authori t ies to

quarter a puni t ive pol ice force in an area and to recover i t s cost from selected
sect ions of the
inhabi tant s of the area.
And when the Government insi sted on using i t s official majori ty to push through
the Bi l l , Mehta along wi th Gokhale, G.K. Parekh, Balachandra Kri shna and D.A.
Khare took the unprecedented step of organizing the fi rst walk-out in Indias
legi slat ive hi story.
He got elected in hi s place thi rty-five-year-old Gokhale, who had al ready made hi s
mark as the Secretary of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha and the edi tor of the
Sudharak.
Gopal Kri shna Gokhale was an out standing intel lectual who had been careful ly t
rained in Indian
economics by Just ice Ranade and G.V. Joshi .
Gokhale was to be repaid in plenty by the love and recogni t ion of hi s own people.
Proud of hi s
legi slat ive achievement s, they were to confer on him the t i t le of the leader of
the opposi t ion.
Gandhi j i was to declare him hi s pol i t ical guru.
The Swadeshi Movement 1903-1908
Wi th the start of the Swadeshi Movement at the turn of the century, the Indian
nat ional movement
took a major leap forward. Women, student s and a large sect ion of the urban and
rural populat ion of
Bengal and other part s of India became act ively involved in pol i t ics for the fi rst
t ime.
The Swadeshi Movement had i t s genesi s in the ant i -part i t ion
movement which was started to oppose the Bri t i sh deci sion to part i t
ion Bengal .
The at tempt , in the words of
Lord Curzon, the Viceroy, (1899-1905) was to dethrone Calcut ta from i t s posi t
ion as the cent re
from which the Congress Party i s manipulated throughout Bengal , and indeed, the
whole of India . . .
The cent re of successful int rigue,and divide the Bengal i speaking populat ion.
The
part i t ion of the state intended to curb Bengal i influence by not only placing
Bengal i s under two
admini st rat ions but by reducing them to a minori ty in Bengal i t sel f as in the
new proposal Bengal
proper was to have seventeen mi l l ion Bengal i and thi rty-seven mi l l ion Oriya
and Hindi speaking
people! Al so, the part i t ion was meant to foster another kind of divi sion thi s t
ime on the basi s of
rel igion.
The Indian nat ional i st s clearly saw the design behind the part i t ion and
condemned i t unanimously. The ant i -part i t ion and Swadeshi
Movement had begun.
Even, the big zamindars who had hi therto

been loyal to the Raj , joined forces wi th the Congress leaders who were most ly
intel lectual s and
pol i t ical workers drawn from journal i sm, law and other l iberal professions.
Despi te the widespread protest voiced against
the part i t ion proposal s, the deci sion to part i t ion Bengal was announced on 19
July 1905.
It was in these meet ings that the pledge to boycot t foreign goods was fi rst
taken. In Calcut ta, student s organized a number of meet ings against part i t ion
and for Swadeshi .
The formal proclamat ion of the Swadeshi Movement was, made on the 7 August
1905, in a meet ing
held at the Calcut ta town hal l . The movement , hi therto sporadic and
spontaneous, now had a focus and
a leadership that was coming together. At the 7 August meet ing, the famous
Boycot t Resolut ion was
passed. Even Moderate leaders l ike Surendranath Banerjea toured the count ry
urging the boycot t of
Manchester cloth and Liverpool sal t .
In Calcut ta a hartal was declared.
People took out processions and band after band walked barefoot , bathed in the
Ganges in the morning
and then paraded the st reet s singing Bande Mataram which, almost
spontaneously, became the theme
song of the movement . People t ied rakhi s on each others hands as a symbol of
the uni ty of the two
halves of Bengal . Later in the day Anandamohan Bose and Surendranath Banerjea
addressed two huge
mass meet ings which drew crowds of 50,000 to 75,000 people. These were,
perhaps, the largest mass
meet ings ever to be held under the nat ional i st banner thi s far. Wi thin a few
hours of the meet ings, a sum of Rs. 50,000 was rai sed for the movement .
The message of Swadeshi and the boycot t of foreign goods soon spread to the
rest of the count ry:
Lokamanya Ti lak took the movement to di fferent part s of India, especial ly Poona
and Bombay; Aj i t
Singh and Lala Lajpat Rai spread the Swadeshi message in Punjab and other part s
of northern India;
Syed Haidar Raza led the movement in Delhi ; Rawalpindi , Kangra, Jammu, Mul
tan and Hardwar
wi tnessed act ive part icipat ion in the Swadeshi Movement ; Chidambaram Pi l lai
took the movement to
the Madras presidency, which was al so galvanized by Bipin Chandra Pal s
extensive lecture tour.
The Indian Nat ional Congress took up the Swadeshi cal l and the
Banaras Session, 1905, presided
over by G.K. Gokhale, supported the Swadeshi and Boycot t Movement
for Bengal . The mi l i tant
nat ional i st s led by Ti lak, Bipin Chandra Pal , Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo Ghosh
were, however, in

favour of extending the movement to the rest of India and carrying i t beyond
the programme of just
Swadeshi and boycot t to a ful l fledged pol i t ical mass st ruggle. The aim was
now Swaraj and the
abrogat ion of part i t ion had become the pet t iest and narrowest of al l pol i t
ical object s.
The
Moderates, by and large, were not as yet wi l l ing to go that far. In 1906,
however, the Indian Nat ional Congress at i t s Calcut ta Session, presided
over by Dadabhai Naoroj i , took a major step forward. Naoroj i in hi s
president ial address declared that the goal of the Indian Nat ional
Congress was sel f- government or Swaraj l ike that of the Uni ted
Kingdom or the Colonies.
The di fferences between the Moderates and the Ext remi st s, especial ly regarding
the pace of the movement and the techniques of st ruggle to be adopted, came to
a head in the 1907 Surat session of the Congress where the party spl i t wi th
serious consequences for the Swadeshi Movement .
The technique of extended boycot t was to include, apart from boycot t of foreign
goods,
boycot t of government school s and col leges, court s, t i t les and government
services and even the
organizat ion of st rikes. The aim was to make the admini st rat ion under present
condi t ions impossible
by an organized refusal to do anything which shal l help ei ther the Bri t i sh
Commerce in the
exploi tat ion of the count ry or Bri t i sh officialdom in the admini st rat ion of i t .
Corps of volunteers (or sami t i s as they were cal led) were another major form of
mass mobi l izat ion
widely used by the Swadeshi Movement . The Swadesh Bandhab Sami t i set up
by Ashwini Kumar
Dut t , a school teacher, in Bari sal was the most wel l -known volunteer organizat
ion of them al l .
The sami t i s took the Swadeshi message to the vi l lages through magic lantern
lectures and swadeshi songs, gave physical and moral t raining to thei r members,
did social work
during famines and epidemics, organized school s, t raining in swadeshi craft and
arbi t rat ion court s.
Another important aspect of the Swadeshi Movement was the great emphasi s
given to sel f-rel iance
or Atmasakt i as a necessary part of the st ruggle against the Government .
The Swadeshi period al so saw the creat ive use of t radi t ional popular fest ival s
and melas as a means
of reaching out to the masses. The Ganapat i and Shivaj i fest ival s, popularized
by Ti lak, became a
medium for Swadeshi propaganda not only in Western India but al so in Bengal .
Another important aspect of the Swadeshi Movement was the great emphasi s
given to sel f-rel iance
or Atmasakt i as a necessary part of the st ruggle against the Government .
Taking a cue from Tagores Shant iniketan, the Bengal Nat ional Col lege was
founded, wi th Aurobindo as the principal . Scores of nat ional school s sprang up al

l over the count ry wi thin a short period. In August 1906, the Nat ional Counci l
of Educat ion was establ i shed. The Counci l , consi st ing of vi rtual ly al l the di st
ingui shed persons of the count ry at the t ime, defined i t s object ives in thi s
way . . . to organize a system of Educat ion Li terary, Scient i fic and Technical
on Nat ional l ines and under Nat ional cont rol from the primary to the universi ty
level . The chiefmedium of inst ruct ion was to be the vernacular to enable the
widest possible reach. For technical
educat ion, the Bengal Technical Inst i tute was set up and funds were rai sed to
send student s to Japan for advanced learning.
some others such as Acharya P.C. Rays Bengal Chemical s Factory, became
successful and famous.
Nandalal Bose, who left a major
imprint on Indian art , was the fi rst recipient of a scholarship offered by the Indian
Society of Oriental
Art founded in 1907.
Rabindranaths Amar Sonar Bangla,
wri t ten at that t ime, was to later inspi re the l iberat ion st ruggle of Bangladesh
and was adopted as the nat ional anthem of the count ry in 1971.
The social base of the nat ional movement was now extended to include a certain
zamindari sect ion,
the lower middle class in the ci t ies and smal l towns and school and col lege
student s on a massive
scale. Women came out of thei r homes for the fi rst t ime and joined processions
and picket ing.
Thi s i s so because the peasant part icipat ion in the
Swadeshi Movement marked the very beginnings of modern mass pol i t ics in
India.
The main drawback of the Swadeshi Movement was that i t was not able to
garner the support of the
mass of Musl ims and especial ly of the Musl im peasant ry.
Thi s was the period when the Al l
India Musl im League was set up wi th the act ive guidance and support of the
Government . More
speci fical ly, in Bengal , people l ike Nawab Sal imul lah of Dacca were propped up
as cent res of
opposi t ion to the Swadeshi Movement . Mul lahs and maulvi s were pressed into
service and,
unsurpri singly, at the height of the Swadeshi Movement communal riot s broke
out in Bengal .
By mid-1908, the open movement wi th i t s popular mass character had al l but
spent i t sel f. Thi s was
due to several reasons. Fi rst , the government , seeing the revolut ionary potent ial
of the movement ,
came down wi th a heavy hand. Repression took the form of cont rol s and bans on
publ ic meet ings,
processions and the press.
Second, the internal squabbles, and especial ly, the spl i t , in 1907 in me Congress,
the apex al l -India

organizat ion, weakened the movement . Al so, though the Swadeshi Movement
had spread out side
Bengal , the rest of the count ry was not as yet ful ly prepared to adopt the new
style and stage of
pol i t ics. Both these factors st rengthened the hands of the Government . Between
1907 and 1908, nine
major leaders in Bengal including Ashwini Kumar Dut t and Kri shna Kumar Mi t ra
were deported,
Ti lak was given a sentence of six years impri sonment , Aj i t Singh and Lajpat Rai
of Punjab were
deported and Chidambaram Pi l lai and Hari sarvot tam Rao from Madras and
Andhra were arrested.
Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh ret i red from act ive pol i t ics, a deci sion
not unconnected wi th the repressive measures of the Government . Almost wi th
one st roke the ent i re movement was
rendered leaderless.
Thi rd, the Swadeshi Movement lacked an effect ive organizat ion and party st
ructure. The movement
had thrown up programmat ical ly almost the ent i re gamut of Gandhian
techniques such as passive
resi stance, non-violent non-cooperat ion, the cal l to fi l l the Bri t i sh jai l s, social
reform, const ruct ive work, etc. It was, however, unable to give these techniques a
cent ral ized, di scipl ined focus, carry the bulk of pol i t ical India, and convert
these techniques into actual , pract ical pol i t ical pract ice, as
Gandhi j i was able to do later.
However, the decl ine of the open movement by mid-1908 engendered yet another
t rend in the
Swadeshi phase i .e., the ri se of revolut ionary terrori sm.
The movement made a major cont ribut ion in taking the idea of nat ional i sm, in a
t ruely creat ive fashion, to many sect ions of the people, hi therto untouched by i t .
The Split in the Congress and the Rise of Revolutionary
Terrorism
The Indian Nat ional Congress spl i t in December 1907. Almost at the same t ime
revolut ionary
terrori sm made i t s appearance in Bengal . The two event s were not
unconnected.
The new pol icy, known as the pol icy of the carrot and the st ick, was to be a three
pronged one. It may be described as a pol icy of repression-conci l iat ionsuppression. The Ext remi st s, as we shal l refer to the mi l i tant nat ional i st s
from now on, were to be repressed, though mi ldly in the fi rst stage, the purpose
being to frighten the Moderates. The Moderates were then to be placated through
some concessions and promi ses and hint s were to be given that further
concessions would be forthcoming i f they di sassociated themselves from the Ext
remi st s. The ent i re object ive of the new pol icy was to i solate the Ext remi st s.
Once the Moderates fel l into the t rap, the Ext remi st s could be suppressed
through the use of the ful l might of the state. The Moderates, in turn, could then

he ignored. Unfortunately for the nat ional movement , nei ther the Moderates nor
the Ext remi st s were able to understand the official st rategy and consequent ly
suffered a number of reverses.

The Government of India, headed by Lord Minto as Viceroy and John Morley as the
Secretary of
State, offered a bai t of fresh reforms in the Legi slat ive Counci l s and in the
beginning of 1906 began
di scussing them wi th the Moderate leadership of the Congress. The Moderates
agreed to cooperate
wi th the Government and di scuss reforms even whi le a vigorous popular
movement , which the
Government was t rying to suppress, was going on in the count ry. The resul t was
a total spl i t in the
nat ional i st ranks.
Before we take up thi s spl i t at some length, i t i s of some interest to note that
the Bri t i sh were to
fol low thi s tact ic of dividing the Moderates from the mi l i tant s in later years al so
for example in
1924, vi s-a-vi s Swaraj i st s, in 1936, vi s-a-vi s Nehru and the left i st s, and so on.
The
Ext remi st s wanted to extend the Swadeshi and the Boycot t Movement
from Bengal to the rest of the count ry. They al so wanted to gradual ly
extend the boycot t from foreign goods to every form of
associat ion or cooperat ion wi th the colonial Government . The
Moderates wanted to confine the
boycot t part of the movement to Bengal and were total ly opposed to i
t s extension to the Government .
Mat ters nearly came to a head at the Calcut ta Congress in 1906 over the quest
ion of i t s
President ship. A spl i t was avoided by choosing Dadabhai Naoroj i , who was
respected by al l the
nat ional i st s as a great pat riot . Four compromi se resolut ions on the Swadeshi ,
Boycot t , Nat ional
Educat ion, and Sel f-Government demands were passed. Throughout 1907 the two
sides fought over
di ffering interpretat ions of the four resolut ions. By the end of 1907, they were
looking upon each other as the main pol i t ical enemy. The Ext remi st s were
convinced that the bat t le for freedom had begun as the people had been roused.
They fel t i t was t ime for the big push and in thei r view the Moderates were a big
drag on the movement .
The Congress session was held on 26 December, 1907 at Surat , on the
banks of the river Tapt i . The
Ext remi st s were exci ted by the rumours that the Moderates wanted to scut t le
the four Calcut ta
resolut ions.
The Ext remi st s wanted a guarantee that the four resolut ions would be passed. To
force the
Moderates to do so they decided to object to the duly elected President for the
year, Rash Behari

Ghose.
The Government immediately launched a
massive at tack on the Ext remi st s. Ext remi st newspapers were suppressed. Ti
lak, thei r main leader,
was sent to Mandalay jai l for six years. Aurobindo Ghose, thei r ideologue, was
involved in a
revolut ionary conspi racy case and immediately after being judged innocent gave
up pol i t ics and
escaped to Pondicherry to take up rel igion. B.C. Pal temporari ly ret i red from pol i
t ics and Lajpat Rai ,
who had been a helpless onlooker at Surat , left for Bri tain in 1908 to come back
in 1909 and then to gooff to the Uni ted States for an extended stay. The Ext remi st
s were not able to organize an effect ive al ternat ive party or to sustain the
movement .
In 1914, Ti lak was released and he picked up the threads of the movement .
The Moderates and the count ry as a whole were di sappointed by the const i tut
ional reforms of 1909.
The Indian Counci l s Act of 1909 increased the number of elected members in
the Imperial Legi slat ive
Counci l and the provincial legi slat ive counci l s. Most of the elected members
were st i l l elected
indi rect ly. An Indian was to be appointed a member of the Governor-General s
Execut ive Counci l . Of
the sixty-eight members of the Imperial Legi slat ive Counci l , thi rty-six were
official s and five were
nominated non-official s. Out of twenty-seven elected members, six were elected
by big landlords and
two by Bri t i sh capi tal i st s. The Act permi t ted members to int roduce resolut
ions; i t al so increased thei r power to ask quest ions. Vot ing on separate budget
i tems was al lowed. But the reformed counci l s st i l l enjoyed no real power and
remained mere advi sory bodies. They al so did not int roduce an element of
democracy or sel f-government . The undemocrat ic, foreign and exploi tat ive
character of Bri t i sh rule remained unchanged.
The real purpose of the Morley-Minto Reforms was to divide the nat ional i st ranks
and to check the
growing uni ty among Indians by encouraging the growth of Musl im communal i sm.
To achieve the
lat ter object ive, the Reforms int roduced the system of separate electorates under
which Musl ims could only vote for Musl im candidates in const i tuencies special ly
reserved for them. Thi s was done to
encourage the not ion that the pol i t ical , economic and cul tural interest s of
Hindus and Musl ims were separate and not common. The inst i tut ion of separate
electorates was one of the poi sonous t rees which was to yield a bi t ter harvest in
later years.
The Yugantar, a newspaper echoing thi s feel ing of di saffect ion, wrote in Apri l
1906,
after the pol ice assaul t on the peaceful Bari sal Conference: The thi rty crores of
people inhabi t ing
India must rai se thei r sixty crores of hands to stop thi s curse of oppression. Force
must be stopped by

force.
In 1904, V.D. Sarvarkar organized Abhinav Bharat as a secret society of
revolut ionaries. After 1905
several newspapers openly (and a few leaders secret ly) began to advocate revolut
ionary terrori sm. In
1907, an unsuccessful at tempt was made on the l i fe of the Lieutenant -Governor
of Bengal . In Apri l
1908, Praful la Chaki and Khudi ram Bose threw a bomb at a carriage which they
bel ieved was
occupied by Kingsford, the unpopular judge at Muzzafarpur.
Very soon secret societ ies of revolut ionaries came up
al l over the count ry, the most famous and long last ing being Anushi lan Sami ty,
and Jugantar. Thei r
act ivi t ies took two forms the assassinat ion of oppressive official s and
informers and t rai tors from
thei r own ranks and dacqi t ies to rai se funds for purchase of arms, etc. The lat ter
came to be popularly
known as Swadeshi dacoi t ies! Two of the most spectacular revolut ionary terrori
st act ions of the period were the unsuccessful at tempt under the leadership of
Rash Behari Bose and Sachin Sanyal to ki l l the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge who was
wounded by the bomb thrown at him whi le he was riding an elephant in a state
procession and the assassinat ion of Curzon-Wyl ie in London by Madan Lal
Dhingra.
The revolut ionary terrori st s al so establ i shed cent res abroad. The more famous
of them were Shyamj i Kri shnavarma, V.D. Savarkar and Har Dayal in London and
Madame Cama and Aj i t Singh in Europe.
12
World War I and Indian Nationalism: The Ghadar
The outbreak of the Fi rst World War in 1914 gave a new lease of l i fe to the nat
ional i st movement
which had been dormant since the heady days of the Swadeshi Movement . Bri
tains di fficul ty was
Indias opportuni ty. Thi s opportuni ty was seized, in di fferent ways and wi th
varying success, by theGhadar revolut ionaries based in North America and by
Lokamanya Ti lak, Annie Besant and thei r
Home Rule Leagues in India. The Ghadari tes at tempted a violent overthrow of Bri t
i sh rule, whi le the Home Rule Leaguers launched a nat ion-wide agi tat ion for
securing Home Rule or Swaraj .
The combined pressure resul ted in an effect ive rest rict ion on Indian immigrat ion
into Canada in 1908. Tarak Nath Das, an Indian student , and one of the fi rst
leaders of the Indian communi ty in North America to start a paper (cal
led Free Hindustan) real ized that whi le the Bri t i sh government was keen on
Indians going to Fi j i to work as labourers forBri t i sh planters, i t did not want
them to go to North America where they might be infected by ideas ofl iberty.
The di scriminatory pol icies of the host count ries soon resul ted in a flurry of pol i t
ical act ivi ty among
Indian nat ional i st s. As early as 1907, Ramnath Puri , a pol i t ical exi le on the
West Coast , i ssued a

Ci rcular-e-Azadi (Ci rcular of Liberty) in which he al so pledged support to the

Swadeshi Movement ;
Tarak Nath Das in Vancouver started the Free Hindustan and adopted a very
mi l i tant nat ional i st tone;
G.D. Kumar set up a Swadesh Sevak Home in Vancouver on the l ines of the
India House in London
and al so began to bring out a Gurmukhi paper cal led Swadesh Sevak which
advocated social reform
and al so asked Indian t roops to ri se in revol t against the Bri t i sh. In 1910, Tarak
Nath Das and G.D.
Kumar, by now forced out of Vancouver, set up the Uni ted India House in Seat
t le in the US, where
every Saturday they lectured to a group of twenty-five Indian labourers. Close l inks
al so developed
between the Uni ted India House group, consi st ing mainly of radical nat ional i st
student s, and the
Khal sa Diwan Society, and in 1913 they decided to send a deputat ion to meet
the Colonial Secretary in
London and the Viceroy and other official s in India. The Colonial Secretary in
London could not find
the t ime to see them even though they wai ted for a whole month, but in India
they succeeded in
meet ing the Viceroy and the Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab. But , more
important , thei r vi si t
became the occasion for a series of publ ic meet ings in Lahore, Ludhiana, Ambala,
Ferozepore,
Jul lundur, Amri t sar, Lyal lpur, Guj ranwala, Sialkot and Simla and they received
enthusiast ic support
from the Press and the general publ ic.
The fi rst fi l l ip to the revolut ionary movement was provided by the vi si t to
Vancouver, in early 1913, of Bhagwan Singh, a Sikh priest who had worked in Hong
Kong and the Malay States. He openly
preached the gospel of violent overthrow of Bri t i sh rule and urged the people to
adopt Bande Mataram as a revolut ionary salute. Bhagwan Singh was externed
from Canada after a stay of three months.
The cent re of revolut ionary act ivi ty soon shi fted to the US, which provided a relat
ively free
pol i t ical atmosphere. The crucial role was now played by Lala Har Dayal , a pol i t
ical exi le from India.
Har Dayal arrived in Cal i fornia in Apri l 1911, taught briefly at Stanford Universi
ty, and soon
immersed himsel f in pol i t ical act ivi ty.
Hi s fai th in the possibi l i ty of a revolut ionary overthrow of the Bri t i sh regime in
India was
renewed, and he i ssued a Yugantar Ci rcular prai sing the at tack on the Viceroy.
Soon the Hindi Associat ion was set up in Port land in May 1913.
Har Dayal set forth hi s
plan of act ion: Do not fight the Americans, but use the freedom that i s avai
lable in the US to fight the Bri t i sh; you wi l l never be t reated as equal s by the
Americans unt i l you are free in your own land; the root cause of Indian poverty

and degradat ion i s Bri t i sh rule and i t must be overthrown, not by pet i t ions
but by armed revol t ; carry thi s message to the masses and to the soldiers in the
Indian Army; go to India in large numbers and enl i st thei r support . Har Dayal s
ideas found immediate acceptance. A Working Commi t tee was set up and the deci
sion was taken to start a weekly paper, The Ghadar, for free ci rculat ion, and to set
up a headquarters cal led Yugantar Ashram in San Franci sco. A series of meet ings
held in di fferent towns and cent res and final ly a representat ives meet ing in
Astoria confi rmed and approved the deci sions of the fi rst meet ing at Port land.
The Ghadar Movement had begun.
On 1 November 1913, the fi rst i ssue of Ghadar, in Urdu, was publ i shed and on 9
December, the
Gurmukhi edi t ion. The name of the paper left no doubt s as to i t s aim. Ghadar
meant Revol t . And i f
any doubt remained, they were to be di spel led by the capt ions on the masthead.
Angrezi Raj ka
Dushman or An Enemy of Bri t i sh Rule. On the front page of each i ssue was a
feature t i t led Angrezi
Raj Ka Kacha Chi t tha or An Expose of Bri t i sh Rule. Thi s Chi t tha consi sted of
fourteen point s
enumerat ing the harmful effect s of Bri t i sh rule, including the drain of weal th,
the low per capi ta
income of Indians, the high land tax, the cont rast between the low expendi ture on
heal th and the high
expendi ture on the mi l i tary, the dest ruct ion of Indian art s and indust ries, the
recurrence of famines
and plague that ki l led mi l l ions of Indians, the use of Indian tax payers money
for wars in
Afghani stan, Burma, Egypt , Persia and China, the Bri t i sh pol icy of promot ing di
scord in the Indian
States to extend thei r own influence, the di scriminatory lenient t reatment given
to Engl i shmen who
were gui l ty of ki l l ing Indians or di shonouring Indian women, the pol icy of
helping Chri st ian
mi ssionaries wi th money rai sed from Hindus and Musl ims, the effort to foment di
scord between
Hindus and Musl ims: in sum, the ent i re cri t ique of Bri t i sh rule that had been
formulated by the Indian
nat ional movement was summarized and presented every week to Ghadar
readers. The last two point s
of the Chi t tha suggested the solut ion: (1) The Indian populat ion numbers seven
crores in the Indian
States and 24 crores in Bri t i sh India, whi le there are only 79,614 officers and
soldiers and 38,948
volunteers who are Engl i shmen. (2) Fi fty-six years have lapsed since the Revol t
of 1857; now there i s
urgent need for a second one.
Besides the powerful simpl ici ty of the Chi t tha, the message was al so conveyed
by serial izing
Savarkars The Indian War of Independence 1857. The Ghadar al so contained
references to the

cont ribut ions of Lokamanya Ti lak, Sri Aurobindo, V.D. Savarkar, Madame Cama,
Shyamj i Kri shna
Varma, Aj i t Singh and Sufi Amba Prasad, as wel l as highl ight s of the daring
deeds of the Anushi lan
Sami t i , the Yugantar group and the Russian secret societ ies.
But , perhaps, the most powerful impact was made by the poems that appeared
in The Ghadar, soon
col lected and publ i shed as Ghadar di Goonj and di st ributed free of cost .
These poems were marked as much by thei r secular tone as by thei r revolut ionary
zeal ,
Final ly, in 1914, three event s influenced the course of the Ghadar
movement : the arrest and escape of Har Dayal , the Komagata Mart i
incident , and the outbreak of the Fi rst World War
Har Dayal was arrested on 25 March 1914 on the stated ground of hi s anarchi st
act ivi t ies though
everybody suspected that the Bri t i sh Government had much to do wi th i t .
Released on bai l , he used the opportuni ty to sl ip out of the count ry. Wi th that ,
hi s act ive associat ion wi th the Ghadar Movement came to an abrupt end.
Meanwhi le, in March 1914, the ship, Komagatu Maru had begun i t s fateful voyage
to Canada.
Canada had for some years imposed very st rict rest rict ions on Indian immigrat
ion by means of a law
that forbade ent ry to al l , except those who made a cont inuous journey from
India. Thi s measure had
proved effect ive because there were no shipping l ines that offered such a route.
But in November
1913, the Canadian Supreme Court al lowed ent ry to thi rty-five Indians who had
not made a cont inuous
journey. Encouraged by thi s judgement , Gurdi t Singh, an Indian cont ractor l iving
in Singapore,
decided to charter a ship and carry to Vancouver, Indians who were l iving in various
places in East
and South-East Asia. Carrying a total of 376 Indian passengers, the ship began i t s
journey to
Vancouver. Ghadar act ivi st s vi si ted the ship at Yokohama in Japan, gave lectures
and di st ributed
l i terature. The Press in Punjab warned of serious consequences i f the Indians were
not al lowed ent ry
into Canada. The Press in Canada took a di fferent view and some newspapers in
Vancouver alerted the
people to the Mount ing Oriental Invasion. The Government of Canada had,
meanwhi le, plugged the
legal loopholes that had resul ted in the November Supreme Court judgement .
The bat t le l ines were
clearly drawn.
When the ship arrived in Vancouver, i t was not al lowed into the port and was
cordoned off by the

pol ice. To fight for the right s of the passengers, a Shore Commi t tee was set up
under the leadership
of Husain Rahim, Sohan Lal Pathak and Balwant Singh, funds were rai sed, and
protest meet ings
organized. Rebel l ion against the Bri t i sh in India was threatened. In the Uni ted
States, under the
leadership of Bhagwan Singh, Barkatul lah, Ram Chandra and Sohan Singh Bhakna,
a powerful
campaign was organized and the people were advi sed to prepare for rebel l ion.
Soon the Komagata Maru was forced out of Canadian waters. Before i t reached
Yokohama, World
War I broke out , and the Bri t i sh Government passed orders that no passenger be
al lowed to di sembark
anywhere on the way not even at the places from where they had joined the
ship but only at
Calcut ta. At every port that the ship touched, i t t riggered off a wave of
resentment and anger among
the Indian communi ty and became the occasion for ant i -Bri t i sh mobi l izat ion.
On landing at Budge
Budge near Calcut ta, the harassed and i rate passengers, provoked by the host i le
at t i tude of the
authori t ies, resi sted the pol ice and thi s led to a clash in which eighteen
passengers were ki l led, and
202 arrested. A few of them succeeded in escaping.
The thi rd and most important development that made the Ghadar revolut ion
imminent was the
outbreak of the World War I. The Ai lan-e-Jung or Proclamat ion of War
of the Ghadar Party was i ssued and ci rculated widely. Mohammed Barkatul lah,
Ram Chandra and
Bhagwan Singh organized and addressed a series of publ ic meet ings to exhort
Indians to go back to
India and organize an armed revol t .
But Punjab in 1914 was very di fferent from what the Ghadari tes had been led to
expect they
found the Punjabi s were in no mood to join the romant ic adventure of the Ghadar.
The mi l i tant s from abroad t ried thei r best , they toured the vi l lages, addressed
gatherings at melas and test ival s, al l to no avai l . The Chief Khal sa Diwan
proclaiming i t s loyal ty to the sovereign, declared them to be fal len Sikhs and
criminal s, and helped the Government to t rack them down.
Frust rated and di si l lusioned wi th the at t i tude of the civi l ian populat ion, the
Ghadari tes turned thei r
at tent ion to the army and made a number of naive at tempt s in November 1914
to get the army uni t s to mut iny. But the lack of an organized leadership and cent
ral command frust rated al l the Ghadars
effort s.
Frant ical ly, the Ghadar made an at tempt to find a leader; Bengal i revolut
ionaries were contacted
and through the effort s of Sachindranath Sanyal and Vi shnu Ganesh Pingley, Rash
Behari Bose, the

Bengal i revolut ionary who had become famous by hi s daring at tack on Hardinge,
the Viceroy, final ly
arrived in Punjab in mid-January 1915 to assume leadership of the revol t .
But the Criminal Invest igat ion Department (CID)
had succeeded in penet rat ing the organizat ion, from the very highest level
down, and the Government
succeeded in taking effect ive pre-empt ive measures. Most of the leaders were
arrested, though Bose
escaped. For al l pract ical purposes, the Ghadar Movement was crushed.
Some Indian revolut ionaries who were operat ing from Berl in, and who had l inks
wi th the Ghadar
leader Ram Chandra in America, cont inued, wi th German help, to make at tempt s
to organize a mut iny
among Indian t roops stat ioned abroad. Raja Mahendra Pratap and Barkatul lah t
ried to enl i st the help
of the Ami r of Afghani stan and even, hopeful ly, set up a Provi sional Government
in Kabul , but these
and other at tempt s fai led to record any signi ficant success. It appeared that
violent opposi t ion to
Bri t i sh rule was fated to fai l .
13
The Home Rule Movement and Its Fallout
On 16 June 1914, Bal Gangadhar Ti lak was released after serving a pri son
sentence of six years, most
of which he had spent in Mandalay in Burma. He further assured the Government
of hi s loyal ty to the Crown and urged al l
Indians to assi st the Bri t i sh Government in i t s hour of cri si s. Further, they
were under considerable pressure
from Mrs. Annie Besant , who had just joined the Indian Nat ional Congress and
was keen to arouse
nat ional i st pol i t ical act ivi ty, to admi t the Ext remi st s.
In
1914, she decided to enlarge the sphere of her act ivi t ies to include the bui lding of
a movement for
Home Rule on the l ines of the Iri sh Home Rule League. For thi s, she real ized i t
was necessary both to
get the sanct ion of the Congress, as wel l as the act ive cooperat ion of the Ext
remi st s. She devoted her
energies, therefore, to persuading the Moderate leaders to open the doors of the
Congress to Ti lak and
hi s fel low-Ext remi st s.
But the annual Congress session in December 1914 was to prove a di
sappointment Pherozeshah
Mehta and hi s Bombay Moderate group succeeded, by winning over Gokhale and
the Bengal
Moderates, in keeping out the Ext remi st s. Ti lak and Besant thereupon decided
to revive pol i t ical
act ivi ty on thei r own, whi le maintaining thei r pressure on the Congress to readmi t the Ext remi st

group.
In early 1915, Annie Besant launched a campaign through her two papers, New
India and
Commonweal , and organized publ ic meet ings and conferences to demand that
India be granted sel fgovernment on the l ines of the Whi te colonies after the War.
Hi s effort s and those of Annie Besant were soon to meet wi th success, and at
the annual session of
the Congress in December 1915 i t was decided that the Ext remi st s be al lowed
to rejoin the Congress
But Annie Besant did not succeed in get t ing the Congress and the Musl im
League to support
her deci sion to set up Home Rule Leagues. She did manage, however, to persuade
the Congress to
commi t i t sel f to a programme of educat ive propaganda and to a revival of the
local level Congress
commi t tees. Knowing that the Congress, as const i tuted at the t ime, was unl
ikely to implement thi s,
she had inserted a condi t ion by which, i f the Congress did not start thi s act ivi ty
by September 1916,
she would be free to set up her own League.
Ti lak, not bound by any such commi tment , and having gained the right of readmi
ssion, now took
the lead and set up the Home Rule League at the Bombay Provincial Conference
held at Belgaum in
Apri l 1916. Annie Besant s impat ient fol lowers, unhappy wi th her deci sion to
wai t t i l l September,
secured her permi ssion to start Home Rule groups. Jamnadas Dwarkadas,
Shankerlal Banker and
Indulal Yagnik set up a Bombay paper Young India and launched an Al l India
Propaganda Fund to
publ i sh pamphlet s in regional languages and in Engl i sh. In September 1916, as
there were no signs of
any Congress act ivi ty, Annie Besant announced the format ion of her Home Rule
League, wi th George
Arundale, her Theosophical fol lower, as the Organizing Secretary. The two Leagues
avoided any
frict ion by demarcat ing thei r area of act ivi ty: Ti laks League was to work in
Maharasht ra, (excluding
Bombay ci ty), Karnataka, the Cent ral Provinces and Berar, and Annie Besant s
League was given
charge of the rest of India.
Ti lak declared: If a God were to tolerate untouchabi l i ty, I would not
recognize him as God at al l
Ti laks League was organized into six branches, one each in Cent ral Maharasht ra,
Bombay ci ty,
Karnataka, and Cent ral Provinces, and two in Berar.
Ti lak was defended by a team of lawyers led by Mohammed Al i Jinnah. He lost the
case in the

Magi st rates Court but was exonerated by the High Court in November. The
victory was hai led al l
over the count ry. Gandhi j i s Young India summed up the popular feel ing: Thus, a
great victory has
been won for the cause of Home Rule which has, thus, been freed from the chains
that were sought to
be put upon i t .
Meanwhi le, Annie Besant had gone ahead wi th the formal founding of her League
in September 1916.
The organizat ion of her League was much looser than that of Ti laks, and three
members could form a
branch whi le in the case of Ti laks League each of the six branches had a clearly
defined area and
act ivi t ies. Two hundred branches of Besant s League were establ i shed, some
consi st ing of a town and
others of groups of vi l lages. And though a formal Execut ive Counci l of seven
members was elected
for three years by thi rty-four founding branches, most of the work was carried on
by Annie Besant
and her l ieutenant s Arundale, C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar, and B.P. Wadia from her
headquarters at
Adyar. Nor was there any organized method for passing on inst ruct ions these
were conveyed
through individual members and through Arundales column on Home Rule in New
India. The
membership of Annie Besant s League increased at a rate slower than that of Ti
laks. By March 1917,
her League had 7,000 members. Besides her exi st ing Theosophical fol lowers,
many others including
Jawaharlal Nehru in Al lahabad and B. Chakravart i and J. Banerjee in
Calcut ta joined the Home Rule
League.
Many Moderate Congressmen, who were di ssat i sfied wi th the inact ivi ty into
which the Congress
had lapsed, joined the Home Rule agi tat ion. Members of Gokhales Servant s of
India Society, though
not permi t ted to become members of the League, were encouraged to add thei r
weight to the demand
for Home Rule by undertaking lecture tours and publ i shing pamphlet s.
Ti laks Home Rule League establ i shed a t radi t ion that was to become
an essent ial part of later Congress annual sessions a special t rain,
known variously as the Congress Special and the Home Rule Special ,
was organized to carrydelegates from Western India to Lucknow.
Ti lak and hi s men were welcomed back into the Congress by the
Moderate president , Ambika
Charan Mazumdar
The Lucknow Congress was signi ficant al so for the famous Congress
League Pact , popularly know

as the Lucknow Pact . Both Ti lak and Annie Besant had played a leading
role in bringing about thi s
agreement between the Congress and the League, much against the wi
shes of many important leaders, including Madan Mohan Malaviya.
The Lucknow Congress al so demanded a further dose of const i tut ional reforms
as a step towards
sel f-government . Though thi s did not go as far as the Home Rule Leaguers wi
shed, they accepted i t in the interest s of Congress uni ty. Another very signi ficant
proposal made by Ti lak that the Congress should appoint a smal l and
cohesive Working Commi t tee that would carry on the day to day affai rs of the
Congress and be responsible for implement ing the resolut ions passed at the
annual sessions, a proposal by which he hoped to t ransform the Congress from a
del iberat ive body into one capable of leading a sustained movement was
unfortunately quashed by Moderate opposi t ion. Four years later, in 1920, when
Mahatma Gandhi prepared a reformed const i tut ion for the Congress, thi s was
one of the major changes considered necessary i f the Congress was to lead a
sustained movement .
The turning point in the movement came wi th the deci sion of the Government of
Madras in June 1917
to place Mrs. Besant and her associates, B.P. Wadia and George Arundale, under
arrest . Thei r
internment became the occasion for nat ion-wide protest . In a dramat ic gesture, Si
r S. Subramania
Aiyar renounced hi s knighthood.
Those who had stayed away, including many Moderate leaders l ike
Madan Mohan Malaviya, Surendranath Banerjea and M.A. Jinnah now enl i sted as
members of the
Home Rule Leagues to record thei r sol idari ty wi th the internees and thei r
condemnat ion of the
Government s act ion. At a meet ing of the AICC on 28 July, 1917, Ti lak advocated
the use of the
weapon of passive resi stance or civi l di sobedience i f the Government refused to
release the internees.
At Gandhi j i s instance, Shankerlal
Banker and Jamnadas Dwarkadas col lected signatures of one thousand men wi l l
ing to defy the
internment orders and march to Besant s place of detent ion. They al so began to
col lect signatures of a mi l l ion peasant s and workers on a pet i t ion for Home
Rule.
The new Secretary of State, Montagu, made a hi storic declarat ion in the House of
Commons, on 20
August , 1917 in which he stated: The pol icy of Hi s Majestys Government . . . i s
that of the
increasing associat ion of Indians in every branch of the admini st rat ion, and the
gradual development
of sel f-governing inst i tut ions, wi th a view to the progressive real izat ion of
responsible government in India as an integral part of the Bri t i sh Empi re.
Thi s statement was in marked cont rast to that of

Lord Morley who, whi le int roducing the Const i tut ional Reforms in 1909, had
stated categorical ly that these reforms were in no way intended to lead to sel fgovernment . The importance of Montagus
Declarat ion was that after thi s the demand for Home Rule or sel f-government
could no longer be
t reated as sedi t ious.
Annie Besant was at the height of her populari ty and, at Ti laks suggest ion, was
elected President at the annual session of the Congress in December 1917.
or one, the Moderates who had joined the movement after Besant s arrest were
paci fied by the promi se of reforms and by Besant s release. They were al so put
off by the talk of civi l
di sobedience and did not at tend the Congress from September 1918 onwards. The
publ icat ion of the
scheme of Government reforms in July 1918 further divided the nat ional i st ranks.
Some wanted to
accept i t out right and others to reject i t out right , whi le many fel t that ,
though inadequate, they should be given a t rial . Annie Besant hersel f indulged in
a lot of vaci l lat ion on thi s quest ion as wel l as on the quest ion of passive resi
stance. At t imes she would di savow passive resi stance, and at other t imes,
under pressure from her younger fol lowers, would advocate i t . Simi larly, she ini t
ial ly, along wi th Ti lak, considered the reforms unworthy of Bri tain to offer and
India to accept , but later argued in
favour of acceptance. Ti lak was more consi stent in hi s approach, but given
Besant s vaci l lat ions, and the change in the Moderate stance, there was l i t t le
that he could do to sustain the movement on hi s own. Al so, towards the end of
the year, he decided to go to England to pursue the l ibel case that he had fi led
against Valent ine Chi rol , the author of Indian Unrest , and was away for many cri t
ical months.
Wi th Annie Besant unable to give a fi rm lead, and Ti lak away in England, the
movement was left
leaderless.
The t remendous achievement of the Home Rule Movement and i t s legacy was
that i t created a
generat ion of ardent nat ional i st s who formed the backbone of the nat ional
movement in the coming years when, under the leadership of the Mahatma, i t
entered i t s t ruly mass phase.
he stage was thus set for the ent ry of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , a man who
had al ready made a name for himsel f wi th hi s leadership of the st ruggle of
Indians in South Africa and by leading the st ruggles of Indian peasant s and
workers in Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda. And in March 1919, when he gave a
cal l for a Satyagraha to protest against the obnoxious Rowlat t Act , he was the
ral lying point for almost al l those who had been awakened to pol i t ics by the
Home Rule Movement .
14
Gandhijis Early Career and Activism
When Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi cal led for a nat ion-wide Satyagraha against
the Rowlat t Act in
March 1919, hi s fi rst at tempt at leading an al l -India st ruggle, he was al ready
in hi s fi ft ieth year.

The young barri ster who landed at Durban in 1893 on a one-year cont ract to sort
out the legal
problems of Dada Abdul lah, a Gujarat i merchant , was to al l appearances an
ordinary young man t rying
to make a l iving. But he was the fi rst Indian barri ster, the fi rst highly-educated
Indian, to have come
to South Africa. But young Mohandas Gandhi was not used to swal lowing racial
insul t s in order to carry on wi th the
business of making a l iving. He was theson ofa Dewan (Mini ster) of an Indian state
whose fami ly,
though in st rai tened economic ci rcumstances, was widely respected in hi s nat ive
Kathiawad.
Gandhi j i prepared to leave for India. But on the eve of hi s departure from
Durban, he rai sed the i ssue of the bi l l to di senfranchi se Indians which was in
the process of being passed by the Natal legi slature. The Indians in South Africa
begged Gandhi j i to stay on for a month and organize thei r protest as they could
not do so on thei r own, not knowing even enough Engl i sh to draft pet i t ions,
and so on. Gandhi j i agreed to stay on for a month and stayed for twenty years. He
was then only twenty-five; when he left , he was forty-five.
Gandhi j i s experience, the fi rst of a westernized Indian in South Africa, demonst
rated
clearly, to him and to them, that the real cause lay el sewhere, in the assumpt ion
of racial superiori ty
by the Whi te rulers.
He bel ieved that i f al l the fact s of the case were presented to the Imperial
Government , the
Bri t i sh sense of just ice and fai r play would be aroused and the Imperial
Government would intervene
on behal f of Indians who were, after al l , Bri t i sh subject s. Hi s at tempt was to
uni te the di fferent
sect ions of Indians, and to give thei r demands wide publ ici ty. Thi s he t ried to do
through the set t ing
up of the Natal Indian Congress and by start ing a paper cal led Indian
Opinion. Gandhi j i s abi l i t ies as an organizer, as a fund-rai ser, as a journal i st
and as a propagandi st , al l came to the fore during thi s period. But , by 1906,
Gandhi j i , having ful ly t ried the Moderate methods of st ruggle, was becoming
convinced that these would not lead anywhere.
The second phase of the st ruggle in South Africa, which began in 1906, was
characterized by the use
of the method of passive resi stance or civi l di sobedience, which Gandhi j i named
Satyagraha. It was
fi rst used when the Government enacted legi slat ion making i t compul sory for
Indians to take out
cert i ficates of regi st rat ion which held thei r finger print s. It was essent ial to
carry these on person at al l
t imes. The fear of jai l had di sappeared, and i t was popularly cal led King
Edwards Hotel .
General Smut s cal led Gandhi j i for talks, and promi sed to wi thdraw the legi slat
ion i f Indians

voluntari ly agreed to regi ster themselves. Gandhi j i accepted and was the fi rst
to regi ster. But Smut s
had played a t rick; he ordered that the voluntary regi st rat ions be rat i fied under
the law. The Indians
under the leadership of Gandhi j i retal iated by publ icly burning thei r regi st rat
ion cert i ficates.
The funds for support ing the fami l ies of the
Satyagrahi s and for running Indian Opinion were fast running out . Gandhi j i s
own legal pract ice had
vi rtual ly ceased since 1906, the year he had started devot ing al l hi s at tent ion
to the st ruggle. At thi s
point , Gandhi j i set up Tol stoy Farm, made possible through the generosi ty of
hi s German archi tect
friend, Kal lenbach, to house the fami l ies of the Satyagrahi s and give them a
way to sustain
themselves. Tol stoy Farm was the precursor of the later Gandhian ashrams that
were to play so
important a role in the Indian nat ional movement . Funds al so came from India
Si r Ratan Tata sent
Rs. 25,000 and the Congress and the Musl im League, as wel l as the Nizam of
Hyderabad, made thei r
cont ribut ions.
In 1911, to coincide wi th the coronat ion of King George V, an agreement was
reached between the
Government and the Indians which, however, lasted only t i l l the end of 1912.
Meanwhi le, Gokhale
paid a vi si t to South Africa, was t reated as a guest of the Government and was
made a promi se that al l
di scriminatory laws against Indians would be removed. The promi se was never
kept , and Satyagraha
was resumed in 1913.
Thi s t ime the movement was widened further to include resi stance to the pol l
tax of three pounds
that was imposed on al l ex-indentured Indians. The inclusion of the demand for
the abol i t ion of thi s
tax, a part icularly heavy charge on poor labourers whose wages hardly averaged
ten shi l l ings a month,
immediately drew the indentured and ex-indentured labourers into the st ruggle,
and Satyagraha could
now take on a t ruly mass character. Further fuel was added to the al ready raging
fi re by a judgement
of the Supreme Court which inval idated al l marriages not conducted according to
Chri st ian ri tes and
regi stered by the Regi st rar of Marriages. By impl icat ion, Hindu, Musl im and Parsi
marriages were
i l legal and the chi ldren born through these marriages i l legi t imate. The Indians t
reated thi s judgement
as an insul t to the honour of thei r women and many women were drawn into the
movement because of

thi s indigni ty. Gandhi j i decided that the t ime had now come for the final st
ruggle into which al l the resi sters
resources should be channel led. The campaign was launched by the i l legal
crossing of the border by a
group of sixteen Satyagrahi s, including Kasturba, Gandhi j i s wi fe, who marched
from Phoenix
Set t lement in Natal to Transvaal , and were immediately arrested.
Eventual ly, through a series of negot iat ions involving Gandhi j i , the Viceroy, Lord
Hardinge, C.F.
Andrews and General Smut s, an agreement was reached by which the
Government of South Africa
conceded the major Indian demands relat ing to the pol l tax, the regi st rat ion cert
i ficates and marriages
solemnized according to Indian ri tes, and promi sed to t reat the quest ion of
Indian immigrat ion in a
sympathet ic manner.
Gandhi j i returned to India, in January 1915, and was warmly welcomed. Hi s work
in South Africa was
wel l -known, not only to educated Indians, but , as he di scovered on hi s vi si t to
the Kumbh Mela at
Hardwar, even to the masses who flocked to him for hi s darshan. Gokhale had al
ready hai led him as
being wi thout doubt made of the stuff of which heroes and martyrs are made.
The veteran Indian
leader not iced in Gandhi j i an even more important qual i ty: He has in him the
marvel lous spi ri tual
power to turn ordinary men around him into heroes and martyrs.
On Gokhales advice, and in keeping wi th hi s own style of never intervening in a si
tuat ion wi thout
fi rst studying i t wi th great care, Gandhi j i decided that for the fi rst year he
would not take a publ ic stand on any pol i t ical i ssue. He spent the year t ravel l
ing around the count ry, seeing things for himsel f, and in organizing hi s ashram in
Ahmedabad where he, and hi s devoted band of fol lowers who had come wi th him
from South Africa, would lead a communi ty l i fe. The next year as wel l , he cont
inued to maintain hi s di stance from pol i t ical affai rs, including the Home Rule
Movement that was gathering momentum at thi s t ime. Hi s own pol i t ical
understanding did not coincide wi th any of the pol i t ical current s that were act
ive in India then. Hi s fai th in Moderate methods was long eroded, nor did he
agree wi th the Home Rulers that the best t ime to agi tate for Home Rule was
when the Bri t i sh were in di fficul ty because of the Fi rst World War.
During the course of
1917 and early 1918, he was involved in three signi ficant st ruggles in
Champaran in Bihar, in
Ahmedabad and in Kheda in Gujarat . The common feature of these st ruggles
was that they related to
speci fic local i ssues and that they were fought for the economic demands of the
masses. Two of these st ruggles, Champaran and Kheda, involved the
peasant s and the one in Ahmedabad involved indust rial workers.
CHAMAPARAN

The story of Champaran begins in the early nineteenth century when European
planters had involved
the cul t ivators in agreement s that forced them to cul t ivate indigo on 3/20th of
thei r holdings (known as the t inkathia system). Towards the end of the
nineteenth century, German synthet ic dyes forced
indigo out of the market and the European planters of Champaran, keen to release
the cul t ivators from
the obl igat ion of cul t ivat ing indigo, t ried to turn thei r necessi ty to thei r
advantage by securing
enhancement s in rent and other i l legal dues as a price for the release. Resi
stance had surfaced in 1908
as wel l , but the exact ions of the planters cont inued t i l l Raj Kumar Shukla, a
local man, decided to
fol low Gandhi j i al l over the count ry to persuade him to come to Champaran to
invest igate the
problem. Raj Kumar Shuklas deci sion to get Gandhi j i to Champaran i s indicat
ive of the image he had
acqui red as one who fought for the right s of the exploi ted and the poor.
The Government of
India, not wi l l ing to make an i ssue of i t and not yet used to t reat ing Gandhi j i
as a rebel , ordered the
local Government to ret reat and al low Gandhi j i to proceed wi th hi s enqui ry.
He and hi s col leagues, who now included Bri j Ki shore, Rajendra Prasad and
other members of the Bihar intel l igent sia, Mahadev Desai and Narhari Parikh,
two young men from
Gujarat who had thrown in thei r lot wi th Gandhi j i , and J.B. Kripalani , toured the
vi l lages and from
dawn to dusk recorded the statement s of peasant s, interrogat ing them to make
sure that they were
giving correct informat ion.
Meanwhi le, the Government appointed a Commi ssion of Inqui ry to go into the
whole i ssue, and
nominated Gandhi j i as one of i t s members. Armed wi th evidence col lected from
8,000 peasant s, he
had l i t t le di fficul ty in convincing the Commi ssion that the t inkathia system
needed to be abol i shed
and that the peasant s should be compensated for the i l legal enhancement of
thei r dues. As a
compromi se wi th the planters, he agreed that they refund only twenty-five per
cent of the money they had taken i l legal ly from the peasant s. Answering cri t ics
who asked why he did not ask for a ful l
refund, Gandhi j i explained that even thi s refund had done enough damage to the
planters prest ige and posi t ion. As was often the case, Gandhi j i s assessment
was correct and, wi thin a decade, the planters left the di st rict al together.
AHMEDABAD MILL
A di spute was brewing between them and the mi l l owners over the quest ion of a
plague bonus the employers wanted to wi thdraw once the epidemic had passed
but the workers insi sted i t stay, since the enhancement hardly compensated for
the ri se in the cost of l iving during the War. The Bri t i sh Col lector, who feared a

showdown, asked Gandhi j i to bring pressure on the mi l l owners and work out a
compromi se. Ambalal Sarabhai , one of the leading mi l l owners of the town, was
a friend of Gandhi j i , and had just saved the Sabarmat I Ashram from ext inct ion
by a generous donat ion. Gandhi j i persuaded the mi l l owners and the workers to
agree to arbi t rat ion by a t ribunal , but the mi l l owners, taking advantage of a st
ray st rike, wi thdrew from the agreement . They offered a twenty per cent
bonus and threatened to di smi ss those who did not accept i t .
The breach of agreement was t reated by Gandhi j i as a very serious affai r, and
he advi sed the
workers to go on st rike. He further suggested, on the basi s of a thorough study of
the product ion cost s
and profi t s of the indust ry as wel l as the cost of l iving, that they would be just i
fied in demanding a
thi rty-five per cent increase in wages.
He brought out a dai ly news bul let in, and insi sted that no violence be used
against employers or
blacklegs. Ambalal Sarabhai s si ster, Anasuya Behn, was one of the main l
ieutenant s of Gandhi j i in
thi s st ruggle in which her brother, and Gandhi j i s friend, was one of the main
adversaries.
After some days, the workers began to exhibi t signs of weariness. The at tendance
at the dai ly
meet ings began to decl ine and the at t i tude towards blacklegs began to harden.
In thi s si tuat ion,
Gandhi j i decided to go on a fast to ral ly the workers and st rengthen thei r
resolve to cont inue. Al so, he had promi sed that i f the st rike led to starvat ion he
would be the fi rst to starve, and the fast was a ful fi lment of that promi se. The
fast , however, al so had the effect of put t ing pressure on the mi l l
owners and they agreed to submi t the whole i ssue to a t ribunal . The st rike was
wi thdrawn and the
t ribunal later awarded the thi rty-five per cent increase the workers had
demanded.
KHEDA
The di spute in Ahmedabad had not yet ended when Gandhi j i learnt that the
peasant s of Kheda di st rict were in ext reme di st ress due to a fai lure of crops,
and that thei r appeal s for the remi ssion of land revenue were being ignored by
the Government . Enqui ries by members of the Servant s of India
Society, Vi thalbhai Patel and Gandhi j i confi rmed the val idi ty of the peasant s
case. Thi s was that as the crops were less than one-fourth of the normal yield,
they were ent i t led under the revenue code to a total remi ssion of the land
revenue.
The Gujarat Sabha, of which Gandhi j i was the President , played a leading role in
the agi tat ion.
Appeal s and pet i t ions having fai led, Gandhi j i advi sed the wi thholding of
revenue, and asked the
peasant s to fight unto death against such a spi ri t of vindict iveness and
tyranny.
The cul t ivators were asked to take a solemn pledge that they would not pay;
those who could afford to pay were to take a vow that they would not pay in the
interest s of the poorer ryot s who would otherwi se panic and sel l off thei r

belongings or incur debt s in order to pay the revenue. However, i f the Government
agreed to suspend col lect ion of land revenue, the ones who could afford to do so
could pay the whole amount .
The peasant s of Kheda, al ready hard pressed because of plague, high prices and
drought , were
beginning to show signs of weakness when Gandhi j i came to know that the
Government had i ssued
secret inst ruct ions di rect ing that revenue should be recovered only from those
peasant s who could pay.
A publ ic declarat ion of thi s deci sion would have meant a blow to Government
prest ige, since thi s was exact ly what Gandhi j i had been demanding. In these ci
rcumstances, the movement was wi thdrawn.
ROWLATT SATYAGRAH
It was thi s reservoi r of goodwi l l , and of experience, that encouraged Gandhi j i ,
in February 1919, to
cal l for a nat ion-wide protest against the unpopular legi slat ion that the Bri t i
sh were threatening to
int roduce. Two bi l l s, popularly known as the Rowlat t Bi l l s after the man who
chai red the Commi t tee that suggested thei r int roduct ion, aimed at severely
curtai l ing the civi l l ibert ies of Indians in the name
of curbing terrori st violence, were int roduced in the Legi slat ive Counci l . One of
them was actual ly
pushed through in indecent haste in the face of opposi t ion from al l the elected
Indian members. Thi s
act of the Government was t reated by the whole of pol i t ical India as a grievous
insul t , especial ly as i t came at the end of the War when substant ial const i tut
ional concessions were expected.
Const i tut ional protest having fai led, Gandhi j i stepped in and suggested that a
Satyagraha be
launched. A Satyagraha Sabha was formed, and the younger members of the Home
Rule Leagues who
were more than keen to express thei r di senchantment wi th the Government
flocked to join i t . The old l i st s of the addresses of Home Rule Leagues and thei r
members were taken out , contact s establ i shed and propaganda begun. The form
of protest final ly decided upon was the observance of a nat ion-wide hartal (st
rike) accompanied by fast ing and prayer. In addi t ion, i t was decided that civi l
di sobedience would be offered against speci fic laws. The sixth of Apri l
was fixed as the date on which the Satyagraha would be launched. The
movement that emerged was very di fferent from the one that had been ant
icipated or planned.
On 13 Apri l , Bai sakhi day, a large crowd of people, many of whom were vi si tors
from neighbouring vi l lages who had come to the town to at tend the Bai sakhi
celebrat ions, col lected in the Jal l ianwala Bagh to at tend a publ ic meet ing.
General Dyer, incensed that hi s orders were di sobeyed, ordered hi s t roops to fi
re upon the unarmed crowd. The shoot ing cont inued for ten minutes. General
Dyer had not thought i t necessary to i ssue any warning to the people nor was he
deterred by the fact that the ground was total ly hemmed in from al l sides by
high wal l s which left l i t t le chance for escape.
For the moment , repression was intensi fied, Punjab placed under

mart ial law and the people of Amri t sar forced into indigni t ies such as crawl ing
on thei r bel l ies before
Europeans. Gandhi j i , overwhelmed by the total atmosphere of violence, wi thdrew
the movement on 18 Apri l .
That did not mean, however, that Gandhi j i had lost fai th ei ther in hi s nonviolent Satyagraha or in
the capaci ty of the Indian people to adopt i t as a method of st ruggle. A year
later, he launched another nat ion-wide st ruggle, on a scale bigger than that of the
Rowlat t Satyagraha. The wrong infl icted on Punjab was one of the major reasons
for launching i t . The Mahatmas Indian Experiment had begun.
15
The Non-Cooperation Movement 1920-22
The Rowlat t Act , the Jal l ianwala Bagh massacre and mart ial law in Punjab had
bel ied al l
the generous wart ime promi ses of the Bri t i sh. The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms,
announced towards
the end of 1919, wi th thei r i l l -considered scheme of dyarchy sat i sfied few. The
Indian Musl ims were
incensed when they di scovered that thei r loyal ty had been purchased during the
War by assurances of
generous t reatment of Turkey after the War a promi se Bri t i sh statesman had
no intent ion of
ful fi l l ing. The Musl ims regarded the Cal iph of Turkey as thei r spi ri tual head
and were natural ly upset
when they found that he would retain no cont rol over the holy places i t was hi s
duty as Cal iph to
protect . Even those who were wi l l ing to t reat the happenings at Jal l ianwala
Bagh and other places in
Punjab as aberrat ions, that would soon be corrected, were di si l lusioned when
they di scovered that
the Hunter Commi t tee appointed by the Government to enqui re into the Punjab di
sturbances was an
eye wash and that the House of Lords had voted in favour of General Dyers act
ion, and that the
Bri t i sh publ ic had demonst rated i t s support by helping the Morning Post col
lect 30,000 pounds for
General Dyer.
By the end of the fi rst quarter of 1920, al l the excuses in favour of the Bri t i sh
Government were fast
running out . The Khi lafat leaders were told qui te clearly that they should not
expect anything more
and the Treaty of Sevres signed wi th Turkey in May 1920 made i t amply clear that
the
di smemberment of the Turki sh Empi re was complete. Gandhi j i , who had been in
close touch wi th the
Khi lafat leaders for qui te some t ime, and was a special invi tee to the Khi lafat
Conference in
November 1919, had al l along been very sympathet ic to thei r cause, especial ly
because he fel t the

Bri t i sh had commi t ted a breach of fai th by making promi ses that they had no
intent ion of keeping. In
February 1920, he suggested to the Khi lafat Commi t tee that i t adopt a
programme of non-violent
noncooperat ion to protest
the Government s
behaviour. On 9 June 1920, the Khi lafat Commi t tee at
Al lahabad unanimously accepted the suggest ion of non-cooperat ion and asked
Gandhi j i to lead the
movement . Meanwhi le, the Congress was becoming scept ical of any possibi l i ty
of pol i t ical advance throughconst i tut ional means. It was di sgusted wi th the
Hunter Commi t tee Report especial ly since i t was apprai sed of brutal i t ies in
Punjab by i t s own enqui ry commi t tee. In the ci rcumstances, i t agreed to
consider non-cooperat ion.
The movement was launched formal ly on 1 August 1920, after the expi ry of the
not ice that Gandhi j i
had given to the Viceroy in hi s let ter of 22 June, in which he had asserted the right
recognized from
t ime immemorial of the subject to refuse to assi st a ruler who mi srules.
Lokamanya Ti lak passed
away in the early hours of 1 August , and the day of mourning and of launching of
the movement
merged as people al l over the count ry observed hartal and took out processions.
Many kept a fast and offered prayers.
The Congress met in September at Calcut ta and accepted non-cooperat ion as i t s
own. The main
opposi t ion, led by C.R. Das, was to the boycot t of legi slat ive counci l s, elect ions
to which were to be
held very soon. But even those who di sagreed wi th the idea of boycot t accepted
the Congress
di scipl ine and wi thdrew from the elect ions. The voters, too, largely stayed away.
By December, when the Congress met for i t s annual session at Nagpur, the
opposi t ion had mel ted
away; the elect ions were over and, therefore, the boycot t of counci l s was a non-i
ssue, and i t was C.R.
Das who moved the main resolut ion on non-cooperat ion. The programme of noncooperat ion included
wi thin i t s ambi t the surrender of t i t les and honours, boycot t of government
affi l iated school s and
col leges, law court s, foreign cloth, and could be extended to include resignat ion
from government
service and mass civi l di sobedience including the non-payment of taxes. Nat ional
school s and col leges
were to be set up, panchayat s were to be establ i shed for set t l ing di sputes,
hand-spinning and weaving
was to be encouraged and people were asked to maintain Hindu-Musl im uni ty, give
up untouchabi l i ty
and observe st rict non-violence. Gandhi j i promi sed that i f the programme was
ful ly implemented,
Swaraj would be ushered in wi thin a year. The Nagpur session, thus, commi t ted
the Congress to a

programme of ext ra-const i tut ional mass act ion. Many groups of revolut ionary
terrori st s, especial ly in
Bengal , al so pledged support to the movement .
To enable the Congress to ful fi l l i t s new commi tment , signi ficant changes
were int roduced in i t s
creed as wel l as in i t s organizat ional st ructure. The goal of the Congress was
changed from the
at tainment of sel f-government by const i tut ional and legal means to the at
tainment of Swaraj by
peaceful and legi t imate means. The new const i tut ion of the Congress, the
handiwork of Gandhi j i ,
int roduced other important changes.
The Congress was now to have a Working Commi t tee of fi fteen members to look
after i t s day-today affai rs. Thi s proposal , when fi rst made by Ti lak in 1916, had
been shot down by the Moderate
opposi t ion. Gandhi j i , too, knew that the Congress could not guide a sustained
movement unless i t had
a compact body that worked round the year. Provincial Congress Commi t tees
were now to be
organized on a l ingui st ic basi s, so that they could keep in touch wi th the people
by using the local
language. The Congress organizat ion was to reach down to the vi l lage and the
mohal la level by the
format ion of vi l lage and mohal la or ward commi t tees. The membership fee was
reduced to four annas
per year to enable the poor to become members. Mass involvement would al so
enable the Congress to
have a regular source of income. In other ways, too, the organizat ion st ructure was
both st reaml ined
and democrat ized. The Congress was to use Hindi as far as possible.
The adopt ion of the Non-Cooperat ion Movement (ini t iated earl ier by the Khi lafat
Conference) by the Congress gave i t a new energy and, from January 1921, i t
began to regi ster considerable success al l over the count ry.
The educat ional boycot t was part icularly successful in Bengal , where the
student s in
Calcut ta t riggered off a province-wide st rike to force the management s of thei r
inst i tut ions to
di saffi l iate themselves from the Government . C.R. Das played a major role in
promot ing the
movement and Subhas Bose became the principal of the Nat ional Congress in
Calcut ta. The Swadeshi
spi ri t was revived wi th new vigour, thi s t ime as part of a nat ion-wide st ruggle.
Punjab, too, responded
to the educat ional boycot t and was second only to Bengal , Lala Lajpat Rai
playing a leading part here despi te hi s ini t ial reservat ions about thi s i tem of
the programme. Others areas that were act ive were Bombay, U.P., Bihar, Ori ssa
and Assam, Madras remained lukewarm.
The boycot t of law court s by lawyers was not as successful as the educat ional
boycot t , but i t was

very dramat ic and spectacular. Many leading lawyers of the count ry, l ike C.R. Das,
Mot i lal Nehru,
M.R. Jayakar, Sai fuddin Ki tchlew, Val labhbhai Patel , C. Rajagopalachari , T.
Prakasam and Asaf Al i
gave up lucrat ive pract ices, and thei r sacri fice became a source of inspi rat ion
for many.
But , perhaps, the most successful i tem of the programme was the boycot t of
foreign cloth.
The value of
import s of foreign cloth fel l from Rs. 102 crore in 1920-21 to Rs. 57 crore in 192122. Another feature
of the movement which acqui red great populari ty in many part s of the count ry,
even though i t was not part of the original plan, was the picket ing of toddy
shops. Government revenues showed considerable decl ine on thi s count and the
Government was forced to actual ly carry on propaganda to bring home to the
people the heal thy effect s of a good drink.
The AICC, at i t s session at Vi jayawada in March 1921, di rected that for the next
three months
Congressmen should concent rate on col lect ion of funds, enrolment of members
and di st ribut ion of
charkhas. As a resul t , a vigorous membership drive was launched and though the
target of one crore
members was not achieved, Congress membership reached a figure roughly of 50
lakhs. The Ti lak
Swaraj Fund was oversubscribed, exceeding the target of rupees one crore.
Charkhas were popularized
on a wide scale and khadi became the uni form of the nat ional movement . There
was a complaint at a student s meet ing Gandhi j i addressed in Madurai that
khadi was too cost ly. Gandhi j i retorted that the answer lay in wearing less
clothes and, from that day, di scarded hi s dhot i and kurta in favour of a langot .
For the rest of hi s l i fe, he remained a hal f-naked faki r.
In July 1921, a new chal lenge was thrown to the Government . Mohammed Al i , at
the Al l India
Khi lafat Conference held at Karachi on 8 July, declared that i t was rel igiously
unlawful for the
Musl ims to cont inue in the Bri t i sh Army and asked that thi s be conveyed to
every Musl im in the
Army.
As a resul t , Mohammed Al i , along wi th other leaders, was immediately arrested.
In protest ,
the speech was repeated at innumerable meet ings al l over the count ry. On 4
October, forty-seven
leading Congressmen, including Gandhi j i , i ssued a mani festo repeat ing
whatever Mohammed Al i had said and added that every civi l ian and member of
the armed forces should sever connect ions wi th the repressive Government . The
next day, the Congress Working Commi t tee passed a simi lar resolut ion, and on
16 October, Congress commi t tees al l over the count ry held meet ings at which
the same resolut ion was adopted. The Government was forced to ignore the whole
incident , and accept the blow to i t s prest ige.

The next dramat ic event was the vi si t of the Prince of Wales which began on 17
November, 1921.
The day the Prince landed in Bombay was observed as a day of hartal al l over the
count ry.
Riot s fol lowed, in which Parsi s, Chri st ians, Anglo-Indians became special
target s of at tack as ident i fiable loyal i st s. There was pol ice fi ring, and the
three-day turmoi l resul ted in fi fty-nine dead. Peace returned only after Gandhi j i
had been on fast for three days. The whole
sequence of event s left Gandhi j i profoundly di sturbed and worried about the l
ikel ihood of recurrence of violence once mass civi l di sobedience was sanct ioned.
The Congress Volunteer Corps emerged as a powerful paral lel pol ice, and the
sight of i t s
members marching in format ion and dressed in uni form was hardly one that
warmed the Government s heart . The Congress had al ready granted permi ssion
to the PCCs to sanct ion mass civi l di sobedience wherever they thought the
people were ready and in some areas, such as Midnapur di st rict in Bengal , which
had started a movement against Union Board Taxes and Chi rala-Pi rala and
Pedanandipadu taluqa in Guntur di st rict of Andhra, no-tax movement s were al
ready in the offing.
The Non-Cooperat ion Movement had other indi rect effect s as wel l . In the Avadh
area of U.P., where
ki san sabhas and a ki san movement had been gathering st rength since 1918,
Non-cooperat ion
propaganda, carried on among others by Jawaharlal Nehru, helped to fan the al
ready exi st ing ferment ,
and soon i t became di fficul t to di st ingui sh between a Non-cooperat ion meet
ing and a ki san meet ing.
In Assam, labourers on tea plantat ions went on st rike. When the fleeing workers
were fi red upon,
there were st rikes on the steamer service, and on the Assam-Bengal Rai lway as
wel l . J.M. Sengupta,
the Bengal i nat ional i st leader, played a leading role in these development s. In
Midnapur, a cul t ivators st rike against a Whi te zamindari company was led by a
Calcut ta medical student . Defiance of forest laws became popular in Andhra.
Peasant s and t ribal s in some of the Rajasthan states began
movement s for securing bet ter condi t ions of l i fe. In Punjab, the Akal i
Movement for wrest ing cont rol of the gurdwaras from the corrupt mahant s
(priest s) was a part of the general movement of Noncooperat ion, and the Akal i s
observed st rict non-violence in the face of t remendous repression.
In September 1920, at the
beginning of the movement , the Government had thought i t best to leave i t
alone as repression wouldonly make martyrs of the nat ional i st s and fan the spi ri
t of revol t . In May 1921, i t had t ried, through
the Gandhi -Reading talks, to persuade Gandhi j i to ask the Al i brothers to wi
thdraw from thei r
speeches those passages that contained suggest ions of violence; thi s was an at
tempt to drive a wedgebetween the Khi lafat leaders and Gandhi j i , but i t fai
led. By December, the Government fel t that thingswere real ly going too far and
announced a change of pol icy by declaring the Volunteer Corps i l legal and arrest
ing al l those who claimed to be i t s members.

C.R. Das was among the fi rst to be arrested, fol lowed by hi s wi fe Basant idebi ,
whose arrest so
incensed the youth of Bengal that thousands came forward to court arrest .
In mid-December, there was an abort ive at tempt at negot iat ions, ini t iated by
Malaviya, but the condi t ions offered were such that i t meant sacri ficing the
Khi lafat leaders, a course that Gandhi j i would not accept . In any case, the
Home Government had al ready decided against a set t lement and ordered the
Viceroy, Lord Reading, to wi thdraw from the negot iat ions. Repression cont inued,
publ ic meet ings and assembl ies were banned, newspapers gagged, and midnight
raids on Congress and Khi lafat offices became common.
Gandhi j i had been under considerable pressure from the Congress rank and fi le
as wel l as the
leadership to start the phase of mass civi l di sobedience. The Ahmedabad session
of the Congress in
December 1921 had appointed him the sole authori ty on the i ssue. The
Government showed no signs
of relent ing and had ignored both the appeal of the Al l -Part ies Conference held in
mid-January 1922
as wel l as Gandhi j i s let ter to the Viceroy announcing that , unless the
Government l i fted the ban on
civi l l ibert ies and released pol i t ical pri soners, he would be forced to go ahead
wi th mass civi l
di sobedience. The Viceroy was unmoved and, left wi th no choice, Gandhi j i
announced that mass civi l
di sobedience would begin in Bardol i taluqa of Surat di st rict , and that al l other
part s of the count ry
should cooperate by maintaining total di scipl ine and quiet so that the ent i re at
tent ion of the movement
could be concent rated on Bardol i . But Bardol i was dest ined to wai t for another
six years before i t
could launch a no-tax movement . It s fate was decided by the act ion of members
of a Congress and
Khi lafat procession in Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur di st rict of U.P. on 5 February
1922. Irri tated by the
behaviour of some pol icemen, a sect ion of the crowd at tacked them. The pol ice
opened fi re. At thi s,
the ent i re procession at tacked the pol ice and when the lat ter hid inside the pol
ice stat ion, set fi re to the bui lding. Pol icemen who t ried to escape were hacked
to pieces and thrown into the fi re. In al l twentytwo pol icemen were done to death.
On hearing of the incident , Gandhi j i decided to wi thdraw the
movement . He al so persuaded the Congress Working Commi t tee to rat i fy hi s
deci sion and thus, on 12 February 1922, the Non-Cooperat ion Movement
came to an end.
12 February 1922 popularly known as the Bardol i resolut ion which whi le
announcing the
wi thdrawal , asked the peasant s to pay taxes and tenant s to pay rent s.
The other argument that the real mot ive for wi thdrawal was the fear of the
growth of radical forces
and that Chauri Chaura was proof of the emergence of preci sely such a radical
sent iment i s on even

thinner ground.In fact , one of the i tems of the oath that was taken by peasant s
who joined the Eka movement was that they would pay rent regularly at Khari f
and Rabi
The Congress had at no stage during the movement sanct ioned non-payment of
rent or quest ioned the right s of zamindars; the resolut ion was merely a rei terat
ion of i t s posi t ion on thi s i ssue. Non-payment of taxes was obviously to cease i f
the movement as a whole was being wi thdrawn.
The Non-Cooperat ion Movement had in fact succeeded
on many count s. It certainly demonst rated that i t commanded the support and
sympathy of vast
sect ions of the Indian people. After Non-cooperat ion, the charge of represent ing a
microscopic
minori ty, made by the Viceroy, Dufferin, in 1888, could never again be hurled at
the Indian
Nat ional Congress. It s reach among many sect ions of Indian peasant s, workers,
art i sans, shopkeepers, t raders, professional s, whi te-col lar employees, had been
demonst rated. The spat ial spread of the movement was al so nat ion-wide. Some
areas were more act ive than others, but there were few that showed no signs of
act ivi ty at al l .
The t remendous part icipat ion of Musl ims in the movement , and the maintenance
of communal
uni ty, despi te the Malabar development s, was in i t sel f no mean achievement .
The fraternizat ion that was wi tnessed between Hindus and Musl ims, wi th Gandhi
j i and
other Congress leaders speaking from mosques, Gandhi j i being al lowed to
address meet ings of
Musl im women in which he was the only male who was not bl ind-folded, al l these
began to look l ike
romant ic dreams in later years.
Gandhi j i , in an art icle wri t ten in Young India on 23 February 1922 af ter the wi
thdrawal of the movement , repl ied: It i s high t ime that the Bri t i sh people
were made to real ize that the fight that was commenced in 1920 i s a fight to the
fini sh, whether i t last s one month or one year or many months or many years and
whether the representat ives of Bri tain re-enact al l the indescribable orgies of the
Mut iny days wi th redoubled force or whether they do not .
16
Peasant Movements and Nationalism in the 1920s
But in the twent ieth century, the movement s that emerged out of thi s di
scontent were marked by a new
feature: they were deeply influenced by and in thei r turn had a marked impact on
the ongoing st ruggle for nat ional freedom. To i l lust rate the complex nature of thi
s relat ionship, we wi l l recount the story of three important peasant st ruggles
that emerged in the second and thi rd decade of the count ry: The Ki san Sabha
and Eka movement s in Avadh in U.P., the Mappi la rebel l ion in Malabar and the
Bardol I Satyagraha in Gujarat .
Fol lowing the annexat ion of Avadh in 1856, the second hal f of the nineteenth
century had seen the
st rengthening of the hold of the taluqdars or big landlords over the agrarian society
of the province.

Thi s had led to a si tuat ion in which exorbi tant rent s, i l legal levies, renewal
fees or nazrana, and
arbi t rary ejectment s or bedakhl i had made l i fe mi serable for the majori ty of
the cul t ivators. The high price of food and other necessi t ies that accompanied
and fol lowed World War I made the oppression al l the more di fficul t to bear, and
the tenant s of Avadh were ripe for a message of resi stance.
It was the more act ive members of the Home Rule League in U.P. who ini
t iated the process of the
organizat ion of the peasant s of the province on modern l ines into ki san
sabhas. The U.P. Ki san Sabha
was set up in February 1918 through the effort s of Gauri Shankar Mi sra and Indra
Narain Dwivedi ,
and wi th the support of Madan Mohan Malaviya. The U.P. Ki san Sabha demonst
rated considerable
act ivi ty, and by June 1919 had establ i shed at least 450 branches in 173 tehsi l s
of the province. A
consequence of thi s act ivi ty was that a large number of ki san delegates from U.P.
at tended the Delhi
and Amri t sar sessions of the Indian Nat ional Congress in December 1918 and
1919.
Towards the end of 1919, the fi rst signs of grass-root s peasant act ivi ty were
evident in the report s of a nai -dhobi band (a form of social boycot t ) on an
estate in Pratapgarh di st rict . By the summer of 1920, in the vi l lages of taluqdari
Avadh, ki san meet ings cal led by vi l lage panchayat s became frequent . The
names of Jhinguri
Singh and Durgapal
Singh were associated wi th thi s
development . But soon another leader, who became famous by the name of Baba
Ramchandra, emerged as the ral lying point .
In June 1920, Baba Ramchandra led a few hundred tenant s from the Jaunpur and
Pratapgarh
di st rict s to Al lahabad. There he met Gauri Shankar Mi sra and Jawaharlal Nehru
and asked them to
vi si t the vi l lages to see for themselves the l iving condi t ions of the tenant s. The
resul t was that ,
between June and August , Jawaharlal Nehru made several vi si t s to the rural
areas and developed close contact s wi th the Ki san Sabha movement .
Meanwhi le, the Congress at Calcut ta had chosen the path of non-cooperat ion and
many nat ional i st s
of U.P. had commi t ted themselves to the new pol i t ical path. But there were
others, including Madan
Mohan Malaviya, who preferred to st ick to const i tut ional agi tat ion. These di
fferences were reflected
in the U.P. Ki san Sabha as wel l , and soon the Non-cooperators set up an
al ternat ive Oudh Ki san Sabha at Pratapgarh on 17 October 1920. Thi s
new body succeeded in integrat ing under i t s banner al l the grassroot s ki san
sabhas that had emerged in the di st rict s of Avadh in the past few months;
through the effort s of Mi sra, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mata Badal Pande, Baba
Ramchandra, Deo Narayan Pande and Kedar Nath, the new organizat ion brought
under i t s wing, by the end of October, over 330 ki san sabhas.
The Oudh Ki san Sabha asked the ki sans to refuse to t i l l bedakhl i land, not to
offer hari and

begar (forms of unpaid labour), to boycot t those who did not accept these condi t
ions and to solve thei r di sputes through panchayat s. A marked feature of the Ki
san Sabha movement was that ki sans belonging to the high as wel l as the low
castes were to be found in i t s ranks.
A series of incident s, smal l and big, but simi lar in character, occurred. Some,
such as the ones
at Munshiganj and Karhaiya Bazaar in Rae Barel i , were sparked off by the arrest s
or rumours of arrest
of leaders. The lead was often taken not by recognized Ki san Sabha act ivi st s, but
by local figures
sadhus, holy men, and di sinheri ted ex-proprietors.
The Government , however, had l i t t le di fficul ty in suppressing these outbreaks
of violence. Crowds
were fi red upon and di spersed, leaders and act ivi st s arrested, cases launched
and, except for a couple
of incident s in February and March, the movement was over by the end of January i
t sel f. In March, the Sedi t ious Meet ings Act was brought in to cover the affected
di st rict s and al l pol i t ical act ivi ty came to a standst i l l . Nat ional i st s cont
inued to defend the cases of the tenant s in the court s, but could do l i t t le el se.
The Government , meanwhi le, pushed through the Oudh Rent (Amendment ) Act ,
and though i t brought l i t t le rel ief to the tenant s, i t helped to rouse hopes and
in i t s own way assi sted in the decl ine of the movement .
EKA
Towards the end of the year, peasant di scontent surfaced again in Avadh, but thi
s t ime the cent res
were the di st rict s of Hardoi , Bahraich, and Si tapur in the northern part of the
province. The ini t ial
thrust here was provided by Congress and Khi lafat leaders and the movement
grew under the name of
the Eka or uni ty movement .
The main grievances here related to
the ext ract ion of a rent that was general ly fi fty per cent higher
than the recorded rent
the oppression of thekedars to whom the work of
rent -col lect ion was farmed out
the pract ice of share-rent s
The Eka meet ings were marked by a rel igious ri tual in which a hole that
represented the river
Ganges was dug in the ground and fi l led wi th water, a priest was brought in to
preside and the
assembled peasant s vowed that they would pay only the recorded rent but
pay i t on t ime, would not leave when ejected, would refuse to do forced
labour, would give no help to criminal s and abide by the panchayat deci
sions.
The Eka Movement , however, soon developed i t s own grass-root s leadership in
the form of Madari
Pasi and other low-caste leaders who were not part icularly incl ined to
accept the di scipl ine of nonviolence that the Congress and Khi lafat
leaders urged. As a resul t , the movement s contact wi th the nat ional i st s

dimini shed and i t went i t s own way. However, unl ike the earl ier Ki san Sabha
movement that was based almost solely on tenant s, the Eka Movement included
in i t s ranks many smal l zamindars who found themselves di senchanted wi th
the Government because of i t s heavy land revenue demand.
By March 1922, however, severe repression on the part of the authori t
ies succeeded
in bringing the Eka Movement to i t s end.
MOPILLA
In August 1921, peasant di scontent erupted in the Malabar di st rict of Kerala.
Here Mappi la (Musl im) tenant s rebel led.
Thei r grievances related to lack of any securi ty of tenure, renewal fees, high
rent s,
and other oppressive landlord exact ions. In the nineteenth century as wel l ,
there had been cases of
Mappi la resi stance to landlord oppression but what erupted in 1921 was on a di
fferent scale together.
The change was signi ficant because earl ier the landlords had
successful ly prevented the Congress from commi t t ing i t sel f to the tenant s
cause.
Simul taneously, the Khi lafat Movement was al so extending i t s sweep. In fact ,
there was hardly any
way one could di st ingui sh between Khi lafat and tenant s meet ings, the leaders
and the audience were the same, and the two movement s were inext ricably
merged into one. The social base of the
movement was primari ly among the Mappi la tenant s, and Hindus were qui te
conspicuous by thei r
absence, though the movement could count on a number of Hindu leaders.
Angered by repression and encouraged by rumours that the Bri t i sh, weakened as
a resul t of the
World War, were no longer in a posi t ion to take st rong mi l i tary act ion, the Mappi
las began to exhibi t
increasing signs of turbulence and defiance of authori ty. But the final break came
only when the
Di st rict Magi st rate of Eranad taluq, E.F. Thomas, on 20 August 1921,
accompanied by a cont ingent of
pol ice and t roops, raided the mosque at Ti rurangadi to arrest Al i Musal iar, a
Khi lafat leader and a
highly respected priest . They found only three fai rly insigni ficant Khi lafat
volunteers and arrested
them. However the news that spread was that the famous Mambrath mosque, of
which Al i Musal iar
was the priest , had been raided and dest royed by the Bri t i sh army. Soon Mappi
las from Kot takkal ,
Tanur and Parappanagadi converged at Ti rurangadi and thei r leaders met the Bri
t i sh officers to secure the release of the arrested volunteers. The people were quiet
and peaceful , but the pol ice opened fi re on the unarmed crowd and many were ki
l led. A clash ensued, and Government offices were dest royed, records burnt and

the t reasury looted. The rebel l ion soon spread into the Eranad, Wal luvanad and
Ponnani taluqs, al l Mappi la st rongholds.
In the fi rst stage of the rebel l ion, the target s of at tack were the unpopular
jenmies (landlords),
most ly Hindu, the symbol s of Government authori ty such as kutcheri s (court s),
pol ice stat ions,
t reasuries and offices, and Bri t i sh planters. Lenient landlords and poor
Hindus were rarely touched.
Rebel s would t ravel many mi les through terri tory populated by Hindus and at
tack only the landlords
and burn thei r records. Some of the rebel leaders, l ike Kunhammed Haj i , took
special care to see that Hindus were not molested or looted and even
puni shed those among the rebel s who at tacked the Hindus. Kunhammed
Haj i al so did not di scriminate in favour of Musl ims: he ordered the
execut ion and puni shment of a number of pro-government Mappi las as
wel l.
But once the Bri t i sh declared mart ial law and repression began in earnest , the
character of the
rebel l ion underwent a defini te change. Many Hindus were ei ther pressurized into
helping the
authori t ies or voluntari ly gave assi stance and thi s helped to st rengthen the al
ready exi st ing ant i Hindu sent iment among the poor i l l i terate Mappi las who
in any case were mot ivated by a st rong rel igious ideology. Forced conversions, at
tacks on and murders of Hindus increased as the sense of desperat ion mounted.
What had been largely an ant i -government and ant i -landlord affai r acqui red st
rong communal overtones.
The Mappi las recourse to violence had in any case driven a wedge between them
and the NonCooperat ion Movement which was based on the principle of nonviolence. The communal izat ion of
the rebel l ion completed the i solat ion of the Mappi las. Bri t i sh repression did the
rest and by December 1921 al l resi stance had come to a stop.
But the tol l was in fact even heavier, though in a very di fferent way. From then
onwards,
the mi l i tant Mappi las were so completely crushed and demoral ized that t i l l
independence thei r
part icipat ion in any form of pol i t ics was almost ni l . They nei ther joined the nat
ional movement nor the peasant movement that was to grow in Kerala in later
years under the Left leadership.
The peasant movement s in U.P. and Malabar were thus closely l inked wi th the pol
i t ics at the nat ional
level . In U.P., the impetus had come from the Home Rule Leagues and, later, from
the NonCooperat ion and Khi lafat movement . In Avadh, in the early months of
1921 when peasant act ivi ty was
at i t s peak, i t was di fficul t to di st ingui sh between a Non-cooperat ion meet
ing and a peasant ral ly. A
simi lar si tuat ion arose in Malabar, where Khi lafat and tenant s meet ings
merged into one. But in both
places, the recourse to violence by the peasant s created a di stance between them
and the nat ional

movement and led to appeal s by the nat ional i st leaders to the peasant s that
they should not indulge in
violence. Often, the nat ional leaders, especial ly Gandhi j i , al so asked the
peasant s to desi st from taking
ext reme act ion l ike stopping the payment of rent to landlords.
BARDOLI SATYAGRAH
The no tax movement that was launched in Bardol i taluq of Surat di st rict in
Gujarat in 1928 was al so in many ways a chi ld of the Non-cooperat ion days.
Stung by Gandhi j i s rebuke in 1922 that they had done nothing for
the upl i ftment of the low-caste untouchable and t ribal inhabi tant s who were
known by the name of Kal iparaj (dark people) to di st ingui sh them from the high
caste or Ujal iparaj (fai r people) and who
formed sixty per cent of the populat ion of the taluq these men, who belonged to
high castes started
work among the Kal iparaj through a network of six ashrams that were spread out
over the taluq. These ashrams, many of which survive to thi s day as l iving inst i tut
ions working for the educat ion of the t ribal s, did much to l i ft the taluq out of the
demoral izat ion that had fol lowed the wi thdrawal of 1922.
Kunverj i Mehta and Keshavj i Ganeshj i learnt the t ribal dialect , and developed
a Kal iparaj l i terature wi th the assi stance of the educated members of the Kal
iparaj communi ty, which contained poems and prose that aroused the Kal iparaj
against the Hal i system under which they laboured as heredi tary labourers for
upper-caste landowners, and exhorted them to abjure intoxicat ing drinks and high
marriage expenses which led to financial ruin. Bhajan mandal i s consi st ing of Kal
iparaj and
Ujal iparaj members were used to spread the message. Night school s were started
to educate the
Kal iparaj and in 1927 a school for the educat ion of Kal iparaj chi ldren was set
up in Bardol i town.
Annual Kal iparaj conferences were held in 1922 and, in 1927, Gandhi j i ,
who presided over the annual conference, ini t iated an enqui ry into the condi t
ions of the Kal iparaj ,
who he al so now renamed as Raniparaj or the inhabi tant s of the forest in
preference to the derogatory term Kal iparaj or dark people. Many leading figures of
Gujarat including Narhari Parikh and Jugat ram Dave conducted the inqui ry which
turned into a severe indictment of the Hal i system,
exploi tat ion by money lenders and sexual exploi tat ion of women by uppercastes. As a resul t of thi s,
the Congress had bui l t up a considerable base among the Kal iparaj , and could
count on thei r support
in the future.
Therefore, when in January 1926 i t became known that Jayakar, the officer
charged wi th the duty of reassessment of the land revenue demand of the taluq,
had recommended a thi rty percent increase over the exi st ing assessment , the
Congress leaders were quick to protest against the increase and set up the Bardol
i Inqui ry Commi t tee to go into the i ssue. It s report , publ i shed in July 1926,
came to the conclusion that the increase was unjust i fied. Thi s was fol lowed by a
campaign in the Press, the lead being taken by Young India and Navj ivan edi ted by
Gandhi j i .

The const i tut ional i st leaders of the area, including the members of the Legi slat
ive Counci l , al so took up the i ssue. In July 1927, the Government reduced the
enhancement to 21.97 per cent .
But the concessions were too meagre and came too late to sat i sfy anybody. The
const i tut ional i st
leaders now began to advi se the peasant s to resi st by paying only the current
amount and wi thholding the enhanced amount . The Ashram group, on the other
hand, argued that the ent i re amount must be wi thheld i f i t was to have any
effect on the Government . However, at thi s stage, the peasant s seemed more
incl ined to heed the advice of the moderate leaders.
Ashram group of Congress leaderson thei r part , had in the meanwhi le contacted
Val labhbhai Patel and were persuading him to take on the leadership of the
movement .
On 12 February, Patel returned to Bardol i and explained the si tuat ion, including
the Government s
curt reply, to the peasant s representat ives. Fol lowing thi s, a meet ing of the
occupant s of Bardol i taluq passed a resolut ion advi sing al l occupant s of land to
refuse payment of the revi sed assessment unt i l the Government appointed an
independent t ribunal or accepted the current amount as ful l payment . Peasant
s were asked to, take oaths in the name of Prabhu (the Hindu name for god) and
Khuda (the Musl im name for god) that they would not pay the land revenue. The
resolut ion was fol lowed by the reci tat ion of sacred text s from the Gi ta and the
Koran and songs from Kabi r, who symbol ized HinduMusl im uni ty. The Satyagraha
had begun.
Val labhbhai Patel was ideal ly sui ted for leading the campaign. A veteran of the
Kheda Satyagraha,
the Nagpur Flag Satyagraha, and the Borsad Puni t ive Tax Satyagraha, he had
emerged as a leader of
Gujarat who was second only to Gandhi j i . Hi s capaci t ies as an organizer,
speaker, indefat igable
campaigner, inspi rer of ordinary men and women were al ready known, but i t was
the women of
Bardol i who gave him the t i t le of Sardar.
The Sardar divided the taluq into thi rteen workerscamps or Chhavani s each under
the charge of an
experienced leader. One hundred pol i t ical workers drawn from al l over the
province, assi sted by 1,500 volunteers, many of whom were student s, formed the
army of the movement . A publ icat ions bureau that brought out the dai ly Bardol
i Satyagraha Pat rika was set up. Thi s Pat rika contained report s about the
movement , speeches of the leaders, pictures of the jabt i or confi scat ion
proceedings and other news.
The members of the intel l igence wing would shadow them night and day to see
that they did not pay thei r dues, secure informat ion about Government moves,
especial ly of the l ikel ihood of jabt i (confi scat ion) and then warn the vi l lagers to
lock up thei r houses or flee to neighbouring Baroda.
Special emphasi s was placed on the mobi l izat ion of women and many
women act ivi st s l ike Mi thuben Pet i t , a Parsi lady from Bombay, Bhakt iba, the
wi fe of Darbar
Gopaldas, Maniben Patel , the Sardars daughter, Shardaben Shah and Sharda
Mehta were recrui ted for

the purpose. As a resul t , women often outnumbered men at the meet ings and
stood fi rm in thei r
resolve not to submi t to Government threat s.
Those who showed signs of weakness were brought into l ine by means of social
pressure and threat s
of social boycot t . Caste and vi l lage panchayat s were used effect ively for thi s
purpose and those who
opposed the movement had to face the prospect of being refused essent ial
services from sweepers,
barbers, washermen, agricul tural labourers, and of being social ly boycot ted by
thei r kinsmen and
neighbours. These threat s were usual ly sufficient to prevent any weakening.
Government official s
faced the worst of thi s form of pressure. They were refused suppl ies, services, t
ransport and found i t
almost impossible to carry out thei r official dut ies. The work that the Congress
leaders had done
among the Kal iparaj people al so paid dividends during thi s movement and the
Government was
total ly unsuccessful in i t s at tempt s to use them against the upper caste
peasant s.
By July 1928, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, himsel f began to doubt the correctness of the
Bombay Government s stand and put pressure on Governor Wi l son to find a way
out .
The face-saving device was provided by the Legi slat ive Counci l members from
Surat who wrote a
let ter to the Governor assuring him that hi s pre-condi t ion for an enqui ry would
be sat i sfied. The let ter
contained no reference to what the pre-condi t ion was (though everyone knew that
i t was ful l payment of the enhanced rent ) because an understanding had al
ready been reached that the ful l enhanced rentwould not be paid. Nobody
took the Governor seriously when he declared that he had secured an uncondi t
ional surrender. It was the Bardol i peasant s who had won.
The enqui ry, conducted by a judicial officer, Broomfield, and a revenue officer,
Maxwel l , came to
the conclusion that
the increase had been unjust i fied, and reduced the
enhancement to 6.03 per cent .
The New Statesman of London summed up the whole affai r on 5 May 1929: The
report of the
Commi t tee const i tutes the worst rebuff which any local government in India has
received for many
years and may have far-reaching resul t s . . . It would be di fficul t to find an
incident qui te comparable wi th thi s in the long and cont roversial annal s of
Indian Land Revenue.
17
The Indian Working Class and the National Movement
Towards the end of the 19th century, there were several agi tat ions, including st
rikes by workers in the
text i le mi l l s of Bombay, Calcut ta, Ahmedabad, Surat , Madras, Coimbatore,
Wardha, and so on, in the

rai lways and in the plantat ions. However, they were most ly sporadic, spontaneous
and unorganized
revol t s based on immediate economic grievances, and had hardly any wider pol i t
ical impl icat ions.
There were al so some early at tempt s at organized effort to improve the condi t
ion of the workers.
These effort s were made as early as the 1870s by phi lanthropi st s. In 1878,
Sorabjee Shapoorj i
Bengalee t ried unsuccessful ly to int roduce a Bi l l in the Bombay Legi slat ive
Counci l to l imi t the
working hours for labour. In Bengal , Sasipada Banerjee, a Brahmo Social reformer,
set up a
Workingmens Club in 1870 and brought out a monthly journal cal led Bharat
Sramjeebi (Indian
Labour), wi th the primary idea of educat ing the workers. In Bombay, Narayan
Meghajee Lokhanday
brought out an Anglo-Marathi weekly cal led Dina-Bandhu (Friend of the Poor) in
1880, and started
the Bombay Mi l l and Mi l lhandsAssociat ion in 1890. Al l these effort s were admi
t tedly of a phi lanthropic natureand did not represent the beginnings of an
organized working class movement . Moreover, these phi lanthropi st s did not
belong to the mainst ream of the contemporary nat ional movement .
The mainst ream nat ional i st movement in fact was as yet , by and large, indi
fferent to the quest ion of labour. The early nat ional i st s in the beginning paid
relat ively l i t t le at tent ion to the quest ion of workers despi te the t ruly wretched
condi t ions under which they exi sted at that t ime. Al so, they had a st rikingly,
though perhaps understandably, di fferent ial at t i tude towards the workers
employed in
Europeans enterpri ses and those employed in Indian enterpri ses.
At thi s stage, however, the nat ional i st s were unwi l l ing to take up the quest ion
of labour versus the
indigenous employer. Most of the nat ional i st newspapers, in fact , denied the
need for any Government legi slat ion to regulate working condi t ions and act ively
opposed the Factories Act of 1881 and 1891.
Simi larly, st rikes in Indian text i les mi l l s were general ly not supported. Apart
from the desi re not to create any divi sions in the fledgl ing ant i -imperial i st
movement , there were other reasons for the
nat ional i st stance. The nat ional i st s correct ly saw the Government ini t iat ive
on labour legi slat ion as dictated by Bri t i sh manufacturing interest s which, when
faced wi th growing Indian compet i t ion and a shrinking market in India, lobbied
for factor legi slat ion in India which would, for example, by
reducing the working hours for labour, reduce the compet i t ive edge enjoyed by
Indian indust ry.
Further, the early nat ional i st s saw rapid indust rial i sat ion as the panacea for the
problems of Indian
poverty and degradat ion and were unwi l l ing to countenance any measure which
would impede thi s
process. Labour legi slat ion which would adversely affect the infant indust ry in
India, they said, was

l ike ki l l ing the goose that laid the golden eggs. But there was al so the nat ional
i st newspaper,
Mahrat ta, then under the influence of the radical thinker, G.S. Agarkar, which even
at thi s stage
supported the workers cause and asked the mi l lowners to make concessions to
them. Thi s t rend was,
however, st i l l a very minor one.
The scenario completely al tered when the quest ion was of Indian labour employed
in Bri t i sh-owned
enterpri ses. Here the nat ional i st s had no hesi tat ion in giving ful l support to
the workers.
The Indian Nat ional Congress and the nat ional i st newspapers began a campaign
against the manner
in which the tea plantat ion workers in Assam were reduced to vi rtual slavery, wi th
European planters
being given powers, through legi slat ion to arrest , puni sh and prevent the running
away of labour. An
appeal was made to nat ional honour and digni ty to protest against thi s
unbridled exploi tat ion by
foreign capi tal i st s aided by the colonial state.
It was not fortui tous, then, that perhaps the fi rst organized st rike by any sect
ion of the working class should occur in a Bri t i sh-owned and managed rai lway. Thi
s was the signal lers st rike in May 1899 in the Great Indian Peninsular (GIP) Rai
lway and the demands related to wages, hours of work and other condi t ions of
service. Almost al l nat ional i st newspapers came out ful ly in support of the st
rike, wi th Ti laks newspapers Mahrat ta and Kesari campaigning for i t for months.
The Swadeshi upsurge of 1903-8 was a di st inct landmark in the hi story of the
labour movement .
Four prominent names among the Swadeshi leaders who dedicated themselves to
labour st ruggles were Aswinicoomar Bannerj i , Prabhat Kumar Roy
Chowdhuri , Premtosh Bose and Apurba Kumar Ghose.
They were act ive in a large number of st rikes but thei r greatest success, both in
set t ing up workers
organizat ions and in terms of popular support , was among workers in the
Government Press, Rai lways
and the jute indust ry . The fi rst tentat ive at tempt s to form al l India unions were
al so made at thi s t ime, but these were unsuccessful . The di fferent ial at t i tude
towards workers employed in European enterpri ses and those in Indian ones,
however, persi sted throughout thi s period.
Beginning wi th the Home Rule Leagues in 1915 and cont inuing through the Rowlat
t Satyagraha in
1919, the nat ional movement once again reached a crescendo in the NonCooperat ion and Khi lafat
Movement in 1920-22. It was in thi s context that there occurred a resurgence of
working class act ivi ty in the years from 1919 to 1922. The working class now
created i t s own nat ional -level organizat ion to defend i t s class right s.
The most important development was the format ion of the Al l India
Trade Union Congress
(AITUC) in 1920. Lokamanya Ti lak, who had developed a close associat ion
wi th Bombay workers,

was one of the moving spi ri t s in the format ion of the AITUC, which had
Lala Lajpat Rai , the famous
Ext remi st leader from Punjab, as i t s fi rst president and Dewan
Chaman Lal , who was to become a
major name in the Indian labour movement , as i t s general secretary.
Lajpat Rai was among the fi rst in India to l ink capi tal i sm wi th
imperial i sm and emphasize the
crucial role of the working class in fight ing thi s combinat ion.
Simi larly at the second session of the AITUC, Dewan Chaman Lal whi le moving a
resolut ion in
favour of Swaraj pointed out that i t was to be a Swaraj , not for the capi tal i st s
but for the workers.
In November 1921, at the t ime of the vi si t of the Prince of Wales, the workers
responded to the
Congress cal l of a boycot t by a count rywide general st rike.
Any di scussion of these years would remain incomplete wi thout ment
ioning the founding in 1918
by Gandhi j i of the Ahmedabad Text i le Labour Associat ion (TLA) which,
wi th 14,000 workers on i t s
rol l s, was perhaps the largest single t rade union of the t ime.
Communi st influence in the t rade union
movement , marginal t i l l early 1927, had become very st rong indeed, by the
end of 1928. In Bombay,
fol lowing the hi storic six-month-long general st rike by the text i le workers (Apri l
-September 1928),
the Communi st -led Gi rni Kamgar Union (GKU) acqui red a pre-eminent posi t ion.
The AITUC in November
1927 took a deci sion to boycot t the Simon Commi ssion and many workers part
icipated in the massive
Simon boycot t demonst rat ions.
The Government , nervous at the growing mi l i tancy and pol i t ical involvement
of the working class,
and especial ly at the coming together of the nat ional i st and the Left t rends,
launched a two-pronged at tack on the labour movement . On the one hand, i t
enacted repressive laws l ike the Publ ic Safety Act and Trade Di sputes Act s and
arrested in one swoop vi rtual ly the ent i re radical leadership of the labour
movement and launched the famous Meerut Conspi racy Case against them. On
the other hand, i t at tempted, not wi thout some success, to wean away through
concessions (for example the appointment of the Royal Commi ssion on Labour in
1929) a substant ial sect ion of the labour movement and commi t i t to the const
i tut ional i st and corporat i st mould
about the end of 1928, the Communi st s
reversed thei r pol icy of al igning themselves wi th and working wi thin the mainst
ream of the nat ional
movement . Thi s led to the i solat ion of the Communi st s from the nat ional
movement and great ly
reduced thei r hold over even the working class. The membership of the GKU fel l
from 54,000 in
December 1928 to about 800 by the end of 1929. Simi larly, the Communi st s got
i solated wi thin the

AITUC and were thrown out in the spl i t of 1931. On 6 July, Gandhi Day was
declared by
the Congress Working Commi t tee to protest against large scale arrest s, and
about 50,000 people took part in the hartal that day wi th workers from forty-nine
factories downing thei r tool s. The day Gandhi j i breached the sal t law, 6 Apri l , a
novel form of Satyagraha was launched by the workers of GIP Rai lwaymens Union.
Nei ther did the workers take an act ive part in the Civi l Di sobedience Movement
of 1932-34. The next wave of working class act ivi ty came wi th provincial
autonomy and the format ion of popular mini st ries during 1937-1939. The
Communi st s had, in the meant ime, abandoned thei r suicidal sectarian pol icies
and since 1934re-enacted the mainst ream of nat ional i st pol i t ics. They al so
rejoined the AITUC in 1935.
World War II began on 3 September 1939 and the working class of Bombay was
amongst the fi rst
in the world to hold an ant i -war st rike on 2 October, 1939.
However, wi th the Nazi at tack on the Soviet Union in 1941, the Communi st s
argued that the
character of the War had changed from an imperial i st war to a peoples war. It
was now the duty of the working class to support the Al l ied powers to defeat
Fasci sm which threatened the social i st fatherland.
Because of thi s shi ft in pol icy, the Communi st party di ssociated i t sel f from the
Qui t India Movement launched by Gandhi j i in August 1942. They al so successful
ly fol lowed a pol icy of indust rial peace wi th employers so that product ion and
war-effort would not be hampered.
The Qui t India Movement , however, did not leave the working class untouched,
despi te the
Communi st indi fference or opposi t ion to i tTowards the end of 1945, the Bombay
and Calcut ta dock workers refused to load ships going to
Indonesia wi th suppl ies for t roops meant to suppress the nat ional l iberat ion st
ruggles of South-East
Asia. Perhaps the most spectacular act ion by the workers in thi s period was the st
rike and hartal by the Bombay workers in sol idari ty wi th the mut iny of the naval
rat ings in 1946.
18
The Struggles for Gurdwara Reform and Temple Entry
The Akal i Movement developed on a purely rel igious i ssue but ended up as a
powerful epi sode of
Indias freedom st ruggle. The movement arose wi th the object ive of freeing the
Gurdwaras (Sikh temples) from the cont rol of
ignorant and corrupt mahant s (priest s). The Gurdwaras had been heavi ly
endowed wi th revenue-free
land and money by Maharaja Ranj i t Singh, Sikh chieftains and other devout Sikhs
during the 18th and
19th centuries. These shrines came to be managed during the 18th century by
Udasi Sikh mahant s who
escaped the wrath of Mughal authori t ies because they did not wear thei r hai r
long. (Many ignorant
people therefore bel ieve that these mahant s were Hindus. Thi s i s, of course, not
t rue at al l ). In t ime corrupt ion spread among these mahant s and they began to

t reat the offerings and other income of the Gurdwaras as thei r personal income.
Many of them began to l ive a l i fe of luxury and di ssipat ion.
Apart from the mahant s, after the Bri t i sh annexat ion of Punjab in 1849, some
cont rol over the
Gurdwaras was exerci sed by Government -nominated managers and custodians,
who often col laborated wi th mahant s.
The Government gave ful l support to the mahant s. It used them and the
managers to preach
loyal i sm to the Sikhs and to keep them away from the ri sing nat ional i st
movement . The Sikh
reformers and nat ional i st s, on the other hand, wanted a thorough reformat ion of
the Gurdwaras by
taking them out of the cont rol of the mahant s and agent s of the colonial regime.
The nat ional i st s were especial ly horri fied by two incident s when the priest s
of the Golden Temple at Amri t sar i ssued a Hukamnama (di rect ive from the
Gurus or the holy seat s of the Sikh authori ty) against the Ghadari tes,
declaring them renegades, and then honoured General Dyer, the butcher of Jal l
ianwala massacre, wi th a saropa (robe of honour) and declared him to be a Sikh.
A popular agi tat ion for the reform of Gurdwaras developed rapidly during 1920
when the reformers
organized groups of volunteers known as jathas to compel the mahant s and the
Government appointed managers to hand over cont rol of the Gurdwaras to the
local devotees. The reformers won easy victories in the beginning wi th tens of
Gurdwaras being l iberated in the course of the year. Symbol ic of thi s early success
was the case of the Golden Temple and the Akal Takht . The reformers demanded
that thi s foremost seat of Sikh fai th should be placed in the hands of a
representat ive body of the Sikhs, and organized a series of publ ic meet ings in
support of thei r demand. The Government did not want to antagonize the
reformers at thi s stage and decided to stem the ri sing t ide of di scontent on such
an emot ional rel igious i ssue by appeasing the popular sent iment . It , therefore,
permi t ted the Government -appointed manager to resign and, thus, let the cont
rol of the Temple pass effect ively into the reformers hands.
To cont rol and manage the Golden Temple, the Akal Takht and other Gurdwaras, a
representat ive
assembly of nearly 10,000 reformers met in November 1920 and elected a commi t
tee of 175 to be
known as the Shi romani Gurdwara Prabhandak Commi t tee (SGPC). At the same t
ime, the need was
fel t for a cent ral body which would organize the st ruggle on a more systemat ic
basi s. The Shi romani
Akal i Dal was establ i shed in December for thi s purpose. It was to be the chief
organizer of the Akal i
jathas whose backbone was provided by Jat peasant ry whi le thei r leadership was
in the hands of the
nat ional i st intel lectual s. Under the influence of the contemporary Non-Cooperat
ion Movement and many of the leaders were common to both the movement s
the Akal i Dal and the SGPC accepted complete non-violence as thei r creed.
The Akal i movement faced i t s fi rst bapt i sm by blood at Nankana, the bi rth
place of Guru Nanak, in

February 1921. The Government now changed i t s pol icy. Seeing the emerging
integrat ion of the Akal i movement
wi th the nat ional movement , i t decided to fol low a two-pronged pol icy. To win
over or neut ral ize the
Moderates and those concerned purely wi th rel igious reforms, i t promi sed and
started working for
legi slat ion which would sat i sfy them. It decided to suppress the ext remi st or
the ant i -imperial i st
sect ion of the Akal i s in the name of maintaining law and order.
he Akal i s, too, changed thei r pol icy. Heartened by the support of nat ional i st
forces in the count ry,
they extended the scope of thei r movement to completely root out Government
interference in thei r
rel igious places. They began to see thei r movement as an integral part of the nat
ional st ruggle.
Consequent ly, wi thin the SGPC, too, the non-cooperator nat ional i st sect ion took
cont rol . In May 1921,
the SGPC passed a resolut ion in favour of non-cooperat ion, for the boycot t of
foreign goods and
l iquor, and for the subst i tut ion of panchayat s for the Bri t i sh court s of law. A
major victory was won by the Akal i s in the Keys Affai r in October 1921. The
Government made
an effort to keep possession of the keys of the Toshakhana of the Golden Temple.
The Akal i s
immediately reacted, and organized massive protest meet ings; tens of Akal i
jathas reached Amri t sar
immediately. The SGPC advi sed Sikhs to join the hartal on the day of the arrival of
the Prince of
Wales in India. The Government once again decided not to confront Sikhs on a
rel igious i ssue. It released al l those arrested in the Keys Affai r and surrendered
the keys of the
Toshakhana to Baba Kharak Singh, head of the SGPC. Mahatma Gandhi
immediately sent a telegram
to the Baba: Fi rst bat t le for Indias freedom won. Congratulat ions. The culminat
ion of the movement to l iberate the Gurdwaras came wi th the heroic non-violent
st ruggle
around Guru-Ka-Bagh Gurdwara which shook the whole of India. In September 1923,
the SGPC took up the cause of the Maharaja of Nabha who
had been forced by the Government to abdicate. Thi s led to the famous morcha at
Jai to in Nabha. But
the Akal i s could not achieve much success on the i ssue since i t nei ther involved
rel igion nor was there much support in the rest of the count ry. In the meanwhi le,
the Government had succeeded in winning over the moderate Akal i s wi th the
promi se of legi slat ion which was passed in July 1925 and which handed over cont
rol over al l the Punjab Gurdwaras to an elected body of Sikhs which al so came to
be cal led the SGPC. Apart from i t s own achievement , the Akal i Movement
made a massive cont ribut ion to the pol i t ical development of Punjab. It
awakened the Punjab peasant ry. Thi s movement was al so a model of a
movement on a rel igious i ssue which was ut terly non-communal .

It was thi s idea of l iberat ion of the count ry from a foreign Government that uni
ted
al l sect ions of the Sikh communi ty and brought the Hindus, the Musl ims and the
Sikhs of the province into the fold of the Akal i movement .The Akal i Movement
al so awakened the people of the princely states of Punjab to pol i t ical
consciousness and pol i t ical act ivi ty. The Akal i Movement soon divided into
three st reams because i t represented three di st inct pol i t ical
st reams, which had no reasons to remain uni ted as a di st inct Akal i party once
Gurdwara reform had
taken place. One of the movement s st reams consi sted of moderate, proGovernment men who were
pul led into the movement because of i t s rel igious appeal and popular pressure.
These men went back
to loyal i st pol i t ics and became a part of the Unioni st Party. Another st ream
consi sted of nat ional i st
persons who joined the mainst ream nat ional i st movement , becoming a part of
the Gandhian or left i st
Ki rt i -Ki san and Communi st wings. The thi rd st ream, which kept the t i t le of
Akal i , al though i t was not
the sole hei r of the Akal i Movement , used to the ful l the prest ige of the
movement among the rural
masses, and became the pol i t ical organ of Sikh communal i sm, mixing rel igion
and pol i t ics and
inculcat ing the ideology of pol i t ical separat ion from Hindus and Musl ims. In pre1947 pol i t ics the
Akal i Dal constant ly vaci l lated between nat ional i st and loyal i st pol i t ics. Ti l
l 1917, the Nat ional Congress had refused to take up social reform i ssues lest
the growing pol i t ical
uni ty of the Indian people got di srupted. It reversed thi s posi t ion in 1917 when i
t passed a resolut ion urging upon the people the necessi ty, just ice and
righteousness of removing al l di sabi l i t ies imposed by custom upon the
depressed classes.At thi s stage, Lokamanya Ti lak al so denounced
untouchabi l i ty and asked for i t s removal . But they did not take any
concrete steps in the di rect ion. Among the nat ional leaders, i t was Gandhi who
gave top priori ty to the removal of untouchabi l i ty and declared that thi s was no
less important than the pol i t ical st ruggle for freedom.
In 1923, the Congress decided to take act ive steps towards the eradicat ion of
untouchabi l i ty. The
basic st rategy i t adopted was to educate and mobi l ize opinion among caste
Hindus on the quest ion.
The problem was part icularly acute in Kerala where the depressed classes or
avarnas (those wi thout
caste, later known as Hari jans) were subjected to degrading and de-humani sing
social di sabi l i t ies. For
example, they suffered not only from untouchabi l i ty but al so theendal or di
stance pol lut ion the
Ezhavas and Pulayas could not approach the higher castes nearer than 16 feet and
72 feet respect ively.
St ruggle against these di sabi l i t ies was being waged since the end of 19th
century by several reformers

and intel lectual s such as Sri Narayan Guru, N. Kumaran Asan and T.K. Madhavan
Immediately after the Kakinada session, the Kerala Provincial Congress Commi t tee
(KPCC) took
up the eradicat ion of untouchabi l i ty as an urgent i ssue. i t was
decided to launch an immediate movement to open Hindu temples and al l publ ic
roads to the avarnas
or Hari jans. A beginning was made in Vaikom, a vi l lage in Travancore. There was a
major temple there whose
four wal l s were surrounded by temple roads which could not be used by avarnas l
ike Ezhavas and
PulayasThe KPCC decided to use the recent ly acqui red weapon of Satyagraha to
fight untouchabi l i ty
and to make a beginning at Vaikom by defying the unapproachabi l i ty rule by
leading a procession of
savarnas (caste Hindus) and avarnas on the temple roads on 30 March 1924. Many
savarna organizat ions such as the Nai r Service Society, Nai r Samajam and Kerala
Hindu Sabha
supported the Satyagraha. Yogakshema Sabha, the leading organizat ion of the
Namboodi ri s (highest
Brahmins by caste), passed a resolut ion favouring the opening of temples to
avarnas. E.V. Ramaswami Naicker
(popularly known as Periyar later) led a jatha from Madurai and underwent impri
sonment . In hi s Kerala tour, Gandhi did not vi si t a single temple because
avarnas were kept out of them.
The KPCC decided to make a beginning by organizing a temple ent ry
Satyagraha at Guruvayur on 1st November 1931.
A jatha of sixteen volunteers, led by the poet Subramanian Ti rumambu, who
became famous as the
Singing Sword of Kerala, began a march from Cannanore in the north to
Guruvayur on 21 October.
The Satyagraha entered a new phase on 21 September 1932 when K. Kelappan
went on a fast unto
death before the temple unt i l i t was opened to the depressed classes. The main
weakness of the temple ent ry movement and the Gandhian or nat ional i st
approach in
fight ing caste oppression was that even whi le arousing the people against
untouchabi l i ty they lacked a
st rategy for ending the caste system i t sel f. The st rength of the nat ional
movement in thi s respect was
to find expression in the Const i tut ion of independent India which abol i shed caste
inequal i ty, out lawed
untouchabi l i ty and guaranteed social equal i ty to al l ci t izens i rrespect ive of
thei r caste.
19
The Years of Stagnation Swarajists, No-changers and
Gandhiji
The wi thdrawal of the Non-Cooperat ion Movement in February 1922 was fol lowed
by the arrest of

Gandhi j i in March and hi s convict ion and impri sonment for six years for the
crime of spreading
di saffect ion against the Government . C.R. Das and Mot i lal Nehru. They
suggested that the nat ional i st s should end the
boycot t of the legi slat ive counci l s, enter them, expose them as sham parl
iament s and as a mask
which the bureaucracy has put on, and obst ruct every work of the counci l . Thi
s, they argued, would
not be giving up non-cooperat ion but cont inuing i t in a more effect ive form by
extending i t to the
counci l s themselves.
C.R. Das as the President of the Congress and Mot i lal as i t s Secretary put
forward thi s programme
of ei ther mending or ending the counci l s at the Gaya session of the Congress in
December 1922.
Another sect ion of the Congress, headed by Val labhbhai Patel , Rajendra Prasad
and C.
Rajagopalachari , opposed the new proposal which was consequent ly defeated by
1748 to 890 votes.
Das and Mot i lal resigned from thei r respect ive offices in the Congress and on 1
January 1923
announced the format ion of the Congress-Khi lafat Swaraj Party bet ter known
later as the Swaraj
Party. Das was the President and Mot i lal one of the Secretaries of the new party.
The adherent s of the
counci l -ent ry programme came to be popularly known as pro-changers and
those st i l l advocat ing
boycot t of the counci l s as no-changers.
The Swaraj Party accepted the Congress programme in i t s ent i rety except in one
respect i t would
take part in elect ions due later in the year. It declared that i t would present the
nat ional demand for
sel f-government in the counci l s and in case of i t s reject ion i t s elected
members would adopt a pol icy
of uni form, cont inuous and consi stent obst ruct ion wi thin the counci l s, wi th a
view to make the
Government through the counci l s impossible. The Swaraj i st s said that work in
the counci l s was necessary to fi l l in the temporary pol i t ical void. Even wi thout
Congressmen, said the Swaraj i st s, the counci l s would cont inue to funct ion and,
perhaps, a large number of people would part icipate in vot ing. Thi s would lead to
the weakening of the
hold of the Congress. Moreover, non-Congressmen would capture posi t ions of
vantage and use them
to weaken the Congress. Why should such vantage point s in a revolut ionary fight
be left in the hands
of the enemy? By joining the counci l s and obst ruct ing thei r work, Congressmen
would prevent
undesi rable element s from doing mi schief or the Government from get t ing some
form of legi t imacy
for thei r laws.

The no-changers opposed counci l -ent ry mainly on the ground that parl iamentary
work would lead to
the neglect of const ruct ive and other work among the masses, the loss of revolut
ionary zeal and
pol i t ical corrupt ion. The legi slators who would go into the counci l s wi th the
aim of wrecking them
would gradual ly give up the pol i t ics of obst ruct ion, get sucked into the imperial
const i tut ional
framework, and start cooperat ing wi th the Government on pet ty reforms and
piecemeal legi slat ion.
Const ruct ive work among the masses, on the other hand, would prepare them for
the next round of
civi l di sobedience.
Both groups of leaders began to pul l back from the brink and move towards mutual
accommodat ion.
Thi s t rend was helped by several factors. Fi rst , the need for uni ty was fel t very
st rongly by al l the
Congressmen. Secondly, not only the no-changers but al so the Swaraj i st s real
ized that however useful
parl iamentary work might be, the real sanct ions which would compel the
Government to accept
nat ional demands would be forged only by a mass movement out side the legi
slatures and thi s
would need uni ty. Last ly, both groups of leaders ful ly accepted the essent ial i ty
of Gandhi j i s
leadership.
Consequent ly, in a special session of the Congress held at Delhi in
September 1923, the Congress
suspended al l propaganda against counci l -ent ry and permi t ted
Congressmen to stand as candidates and exerci se thei r franchi se in
forthcoming elect ions.
Gandhi j i was released from jai l on 5 February 1924 on heal th grounds. He was
completely opposed tocounci l -ent ry as al so to the obst ruct ion of work
in the counci l s which he bel ieved was inconsi stent wi th non-violent
non-cooperat ion.
Perceiving a di rect threat to the nat ional movement , Gandhi j i s fi rst react ion
was anger. He wrote in
Young India on 31 October: The Rowlat t Act i s dead but the spi ri t that
prompted i t i s l ike an
evergreen. So long as the interest of Engl i shmen i s antagoni st ic to that of
Indians, so long must there
be anarchic crime or the dread of i t and an edi t ion of the Rowlat t Act in answer.
As an answer to the Government s offensive against the Swaraj i st s, he decided
to show hi s
sol idari ty wi th the Swaraj i st s by surrendering before them. As he wrote in
Young India: I would
have been fal se to the count ry i f I had not stood by the Swaraj Party in the hour
of i t s need . . . I must stand by i t even though I do not bel ieve in the efficacy of
Counci l -ent ry or even some of the methods of conduct ing Counci l -Warfare.

On 6 November 1924, Gandhi j i brought the st ri fe between the Swaraj i

st s and no-changers to an end, by signing a joint statement wi th Das
and Mot i lal that the Swaraj i st Party would carry on work in the legi
slatures on behal f of the Congress and as an integral part of the
Congress. Thi s deci sion was endorsed in December at the Belgaum
session of the Congress over which Gandhi j i presided. He al so gave the
Swaraj i st s a majori ty of seat s on hi s Working Commi t tee.
In the Cent ral Legi slat ive Assembly, the Swaraj i st s succeeded in bui lding a
common pol i t ical front
wi th the Independent s led by M.A. Jinnah, the Liberal s, and individual s such as
Madan Mohan
Malaviya. They bui l t simi lar coal i t ions in most of the provinces. And they set
out to infl ict defeat
after defeat on the Government .
The legi slatures, reformed in 1919, had a semblance of power wi thout any real
authori ty. Though
they had a majori ty of elected members, the execut ive at the cent re or in the
provinces was out side
thei r cont rol , being responsible only to the Bri t i sh Government at home.
Moreover, the Viceroy or the
Governor could cert i fy any legi slat ion, including a budgetary grant , i f i t was
rejected in the
legi slature. The Swaraj i st s forced the Government to cert i fy legi slat ion
repeatedly at the cent re as
wel l as in many of the provinces, thus exposing the t rue character of the reformed
counci l s. In March
1925, they succeeded in elect ing Vi thalbhai Patel , a leading Swaraj i st , as the
President of the Cent ral
Legi slat ive Assembly.
Though intervening on every i ssue and often outvot ing the Government , the
Swaraj i st s took up at
the cent re three major set s of problems on which they del ivered powerful
speeches which were ful ly
reported in the Press and fol lowed avidly every morning by the readers. One was
the problem of
const i tut ional advance leading to sel f-Government ; second of civi l l ibert ies,
release of pol i t ical
pri soners, and repeal of repressive laws; and thi rd of the development of
indigenous indust ries.
In the very fi rst session, Mot i lal Nehru put forward the nat ional demand for the
framing of a new
const i tut ion, which would t ransfer real power to India. Thi s demand was passed
by 64 votes to 48. It
was rei terated and passed in September 1925 by 72 votes to 45. The Government
had al so to face
humi l iat ion when i t s demands for budgetary grant s under di fferent heads were
repeatedly voted out .
On one such occasion, Vi thalbhai Patel told the Government : We want you to
carry on the

admini st rat ion of thi s count ry by veto and by cert i ficat ion. We want you to t
reat the Government of
India Act as a scrap of paper which I am sure i t has proved to be. The Swaraj i st s
suffered a major loss when C.R. Das died on 16 June 1925.
In Bengal , the majori ty in the Swaraj Party fai led to support the
tenant s cause against the zamindars and, thereby, lost the support of i t s protenant , most ly Musl im,
members. Nor could the Swaraj Party avoid the int rusion of communal di scord in i
t s own ranks.
Very soon, a group of Responsivi st s arose in the party who wanted to work the
reforms and to hold
office wherever possible. The Responsivi st s joined the Government in the Cent ral
Provinces. Thei r
ranks were soon swel led by N.C. Kelkar, M.R. Jayakar and other leaders. Lajpat Rai
and Madan
Mohan Malaviya too separated themselves from the Swaraj Party on Responsivi st
as wel l as
communal grounds.
To prevent further di ssolut ion and di sintegrat ion of the party, the
spread of parl iamentary
corrupt ion, and further weakening of the moral fibre of i t s members,
the main leadership of the party rei terated i t s fai th in mass civi l di
sobedience and decided to wi thdraw from the legi slatures in March 1926.
Gandhi j i , too, had resumed hi s cri t ique of counci l -ent ry. He wrote to Srinivasa
Iyengar in Apri l
1926: The more I study the Counci l s work, the effect of the ent ry into the
Counci l s upon publ ic l i fe, i t s repercussions upon the Hindu-Musl im quest ion,
the more convinced I become not only of the
fut i l i ty but the inadvi sabi l i ty of Counci l -ent ry.
The Swaraj Party went into the elect ions held in November 1926 as a party in di
sarray a much
weaker and demoral ized force. Once again the Swaraj i st s passed a series of
adjournament mot ions and defeated the Government on
a number of bi l l s. Noteworthy was the defeat of the Government on the Publ ic
Safety Bi l l in 1928.
Frightened by the spread of social i st and communi st ideas and influence and bel
ieving that the crucial
role in thi s respect was being played by Bri t i sh and other foreign agi tators sent
to India by the
Communi st Internat ional , the Government proposed to acqui re the power to
deport undesi rable and
subversive foreigners. Nat ional i st s of al l colours, from the moderates to the mi
l i tant s, uni ted in
opposing the Bi l l . Even the two spokesmen of the capi tal i st class, Purshot
tamdas Thakurdas and G.D. Bi rla, fi rmly opposed the Bi l l.
The Swaraj i st s final ly walked out of the legi slatures in 1930 as a resul
t of the Lahore Congress resolut ion and the beginning of civi l di
sobedience.
Thei r great achievement lay in thei r fi l l ing the pol i t ical void at a t ime when
the nat ional movement

was recouping i t s st rength. And thi s they did wi thout get t ing co-opted by the
colonial regime. As
Mot i lal Nehru wrote to hi s son: We have stood fi rm. Whi le some in thei r ranks
fel l by the wayside
as was inevi table in the parl iamentary framework, the overwhelming majori ty
proved thei r met t le and
stood thei r ground. They worked in the legi slatures in an orderly di scipl ined
manner and wi thdrew
from them whenever the cal l came. Above al l , they showed that i t was possible
to use the legi slatures
in a creat ive manner even as they promoted the pol i t ics of sel f-rel iant ant i
-imperial i sm. They al so
successful ly exposed the hol lowness of the Reform Act of 1919 and showed the
people that India was
being ruled by lawless laws.
20
Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen and the Revolutionary Terrorists
Gradual ly two separate st rands of revolut ionary terrori sm developed one in
Punjab, U.P. and
Bihar and the other in Bengal . Both the st rands came under the influence of
several new social forces.
One was the upsurge of working class t rade unioni sm after the War. They could see
the revolut ionary
potent ial of the new class and desi red to harness i t to the nat ional i st revolut
ion. The second major
influence was that of the Russian Revolut ion and the success of the young Social i
st State in
consol idat ing i t sel f. The youthful revolut ionaries were keen to learn from and
take the help of the
young Soviet State and i t s rul ing Bol shevik Party. The thi rd influence was that of
the newly sprout ing Communi st groups wi th thei r emphasi s on Marxi sm, Social i
sm and the proletariat .
The revolut ionaries in northern India were the fi rst to emerge out of the mood of
frust rat ion and
reorganize under the leadership of the old veterans, Ramprasad Bi smi l , Jogesh
Chat terjea and
Sachindranath Sanyal whose Bandi Jiwan served as a textbook to the revolut
ionary movement . They
met in Kanpur in October 1924 and founded the Hindustan Republ ican
Associat ion (or Army) to
organize armed revolut ion to overthrow colonial rule and establ i sh in i t
s place a Federal Republ ic of the Uni ted States of India whose basic
principle would be adul t franchi se.
The most important
act ion of the HRA was the Kakori Robbery. On 9 August 1925, ten men held up
the 8-Down t rain at
Kakori , an obscure vi l lage near Lucknow, and looted i t s official rai lway cash. The
Government

react ion was quick and hard. It arrested a large number of young men and t ried
them in the Kakori
Conspi racy Case. Ashfaqul la Khan, Ramprasad Bi smi l , Roshan Singh and
Rajendra Lahi ri were
hanged, four others were sent to the Andamans for l i fe and seventeen others
were sentenced to long
terms of impri sonment . Chandrashekhar Azad remained at large.
The Kakori case was a major setback to the revolut ionaries of northern India; but i
t was not a fatal
blow. Younger men such as Bejoy Kumar Sinha, Shiv Varma and Jaidev Kapur in U.P.,
Bhagat Singh,
Bhagwat i Charan Vohra and Sukhdev in Punjab set out to reorganize the
HRAunder the overal l
leadership of ChandrashekharAzad. Simul taneously, they were being influenced by
social i st ideas.
Final ly, nearly al l the major young revolut ionaries of northern India met at
Ferozeshah Kot la Ground
at Delhi on 9 and 10 September 1928, created a new col lect ive
leadership, adopted social i sm as thei r official goal and changed the
name of the party to the Hindustan Social i st Republ ican Associat ion
(Army).
Even though, as we shal l see, the HSRA and i t s leadership was rapidly moving
away from individual
heroic act ion and assassinat ion and towards mass pol i t ics, Lala Lajpat Rai s
death, as the resul t of a
brutal lathi -charge when he was leading an ant i -Simon Commi ssion demonst rat
ion at Lahore on 30
October 1928, led them once again to take to individual assassinat ion. The death
of thi s great Punjabi
leader, popularly known as Sher-e-Punjab, was seen by the romant ic youthful
leadership of the HSRA
as a di rect chal lenge. And so, on 17 December 1928, Bhagat Singh, Azad and
Rajguru assassinated, at
Lahore, Saunders, a pol ice official involved in the lathi -charge of Lala Lajpat Rai .
Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dut t were asked to throw a bomb in the Cent ral
Legi slat ive Assembly on 8 Apri l 1929 against the passage of the Publ ic Safety Bi
l l and the Trade
Di sputes Bi l l which would reduce the civi l l ibert ies of ci t izens in general and
workers in part icular.
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were sentenced to be hanged. The sentence
was carried out on 23 March 1931.
They cooperated wi th C.R.
Das in hi s Swaraj i st work. After hi s death, as the Congress leadership in Bengal
got divided into two
wings, one led by Subhas Chandra Bose and the other by J.M. Sengupta, the
Yugantar group joined
forces wi th the fi rst and Anushi lan wi th the second. Among the several act ions
of the reorganized groups was the at tempt to assassinate Charles Tegart , the
hated Pol ice Commi ssioner of Calcut ta, by Gopinath Saha in January 1924. By an
error, another Engl i shman named Day was ki l led.

Another reason for stagnat ion in revolut ionary terrori st act ivi ty lay in the
incessant fact ional and
personal quarrel s wi thin the terrori st groups, especial ly where Yugantar and
Anushi lan rival ry was
concerned. But very soon younger revolut ionaries began to organize themselves in
new groups,
developing fraternal relat ions wi th the act ive element s of both theAnushi lan and
Yugantar part ies.
Among the new Revol t Groups, the most act ive and famous was the Chi t
tagong group led by Surya
Sen.
Surya Sen had act ively part icipated in the Non-Cooperat ion Movement and had
become a teacher in
a nat ional school in Chi t tagong, which led to hi s being popularly known as
Masterda. He
was fond of saying: Humani sm i s a special vi rtue of a revolut ionary. He was al
so very fond of
poet ry, being a great admi rer of Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam.
Thei r
act ion plan was to include occupat ion of the two main armouries in Chi t tagong
and the seizing of thei r arms wi th which a large band of revolut ionaries could be
formed into an armed detachment ; the
dest ruct ion of the telephone and telegraph systems of the ci ty; and the di slocat
ion of the rai lway
communicat ion system between Chi t tagong and the rest of Bengal . The act ion
was careful ly planned
and was put into execut ion at 10 oclock on the night of 18 Apri l 1930.
In al l , sixty-five were involved in the raid, which
was undertaken in the name of the Indian Republ ican Army, Chi t tagong Branch.
Al l the revolut ionary groups gathered out side the Pol ice Armoury where Surya
Sen, dressed in
immaculate whi te khadi dhot i and a long coat and st i ffly i roned Gandhi cap,
took a mi l i tary salute,
hoi sted the Nat ional Flag among shout s of Bande Mataram and Inqui lab
Zindabad, and proclaimed a
Provi sional Revolut ionary Government .
A remarkable aspect of thi s new phase of the terrori st movement in Bengal was
the large-scale
part icipat ion of young women. Under Surya Sens leadership, they provided shel
ter, acted as
messengers and custodians of arms, and fought , guns in hand. Pri t i lata Waddedar
died whi le
conduct ing a raid, whi le Kalpana Dut t (now Joshi ) was arrested and t ried along
wi th Surya Sen and
given a l i fe sentence. In December 1931, two school gi rl s of Comi l la, Sant i
Ghosh and Suni t i
Chowdhury, shot dead the Di st rict Magi st rate. In February 1932, Bina Das fi red
point blank at the
Governor whi le receiving her degree at the Convocat ion.

A real breakthrough in terms of revolut ionary ideology and the goal s of revolut ion
and the forms of
revolut ionary st ruggle was made by Bhagat Singh and hi s comrades. Rethinking
had, of course, started
on both count s in the HRA i t sel f. It s mani festo had declared in 1925 that i t
stood for abol i t ion of al l
systems which make the exploi tat ion of man by man possible. It s founding counci
l , in i t s meet ing in
October 1924, had decided to preach social revolut ionary and communi st ic
principles.
It s main organ, The Revolut ionary, had proposed the nat ional izat ion of the rai
lways and other means of t ransport and large-scale indust ries such as steel and
ship bui lding. The HRA had al so decided to start labour and peasant organizat
ionsand to work for an organized and armed revolut ion.
The Phi losophy of the Bomb, was wri t ten by Bhagwat I Charan Vohra at the
instance of Azad and after a ful l di scussion wi th him. That i s why Bhagat Singh
helped establ i sh the Punjab Naujawan Bharat Sabha in 1926 (becoming i t s
founding Secretary), as the open wing of the revolut ionaries.
Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev al so organized the Lahore Student s Union for open,
legal work among the student s. Bhagat Singh and hi s comrades al so made a
major advance in broadening the scope and defini t ion of revolut ion. Revolut ion
was no longer equated wi th mere mi l i tancy or violence. It s fi rst object ive was
nat ional l iberat ion the overthrow of imperial i sm. But i t must go beyond and
work for a new social i st social order, i t must end exploi tat ion of man by man.
The Phi losophy of the Bomb, wri t ten by Bhagwat i Charan Vohra,
Chandrashekhar Azad and Yashpal , defined revolut ion as Independence, social ,
pol i t ical and economic aimed at establ i shing a new order of society in which
pol i t ical and economic exploi tat ion wi l l be an impossibi l i ty.
In Apri l 1928, at the conference of youth where Naujawan Bharat Sabha was
reorganized, Bhagat
Singh and hi s comrades openly opposed the suggest ion that youth belonging to
rel igious-communal
organizat ions should be permi t ted to become members of the Sabha. Rel igion
was ones private
concern and communal i sm was an enemy to be fought , argued Bhagat Singh.
Signi ficant ly, two of the six rules of the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, drafted by
Bhagat Singh, were:
To have nothing to do wi th communal bodies or other part ies which di sseminate
communal ideas
and to create the spi ri t of general tolerat ion among the publ ic considering rel
igion as a mat ter of
personal bel ief of man and to act upon the same ful ly.
21
The Gathering Storm 1927-1929
In the years fol lowing the end of the Non-Cooperat ion Movement in 1922, the
torch of nat ional i sm
had been kept al ive by the Gandhian const ruct ive workers who dug thei r root s
deep into vi l lage soi l , by the Swaraj i st s who kept the Government on i t s toes
in the legi slatures, by the Koya t ribal s in

Andhra who heroical ly fought the armed might of the colonial state under the
leadership of
Ramachandra Raju from 1922-24, by the Akal i s in Punjab, by the Satyagrahi s who
flocked to defend
the honour of the nat ional flag in Nagpur in 1923, and count less others who
engaged themselves in
organizat ional , ideological and agi tat ional act ivi t ies at a variety of level s. As
wi th the Rowlat t Bi l l s in 1919, i t was the Bri t i sh Government that provided a
catalyst and a ral lying ground by an announcement on 8 November 1927 of an al l
-Whi te commi ssion to recommend whether India was ready for further const i tut
ional progress and on which l ines.
The cal l for a boycot t of the
Commi ssion was endorsed by the Liberal Federat ion led by Tej Bahadur Sapru, by
the Indian
Indust rial and Commercial Congress, and by the Hindu Mahasabha; the Musl im
League even spl i t on
the i ssue, Mohammed Al i Jinnah carrying the majori ty wi th him in favour of
boycot t .
It was the Indian Nat ional Congress, however, that turned the boycot t into a
popular movement . The
Congress had resolved on the boycot t at i t s annual session in December 1927 at
Madras, and in the
prevai l ing exci table atmosphere, Jawaharlal Nehru had even succeeded in get t
ing passed a snap
resolut ion declaring complete independence as the goal of the Congress. But
protest could not be
confined to the passing of resolut ions, as Gandhi j i made clear in the i ssue of
Young India of 12
January 1928: It i s said that the Independence Resolut ion i s a fi t t ing answer . .
. The act of
appointment (of the Simon Commi ssion) needs for an answer, not speeches,
however heroic they may
be, not declarat ions, however brave they may be, but corresponding act ion . . .
Jawaharlal Nehru had returned
from Europe in 1927 after represent ing the Indian Nat ional Congress at the
Brussel s Congress of the
League Against Imperial i sm. He al so vi si ted the Soviet Union and was deeply
impressed by social i st
ideas. It was wi th the youth that he fi rst shared hi s evolving perspect ive. Al
though Jawaharlal Nehrus
was undoubtedly the most important role, other groups and individual s too played
a crucial part in the
popularizat ion of the social i st vi sion. Subhas Bose was one such individual ,
though hi s not ion of
social i sm was nowhere as scient i fic and clear as Jawaharlal s. Among groups, the
more important
ones were the Naujawan Bharat Sabha in Lahore, and the smal l group of Communi
st s who had formed
the Workers and Peasant s Part ies wi th the speci fic aim of organizing workers
and peasant s and

radical izing the Congress from wi thin.

Lord Bi rkenhead, the Conservat ive Secretary of State responsible for the
appointment of the Simon
Commi ssion, had constant ly harped on the inabi l i ty of Indians to formulate a
concrete scheme of
const i tut ional reforms which had the support of wide sect ions of Indian pol i t
ical opinion. Thi s
chal lenge, too, was taken up and meet ings of the Al l -Part ies Conference were
held in February, May
and August 1928 to final ize a scheme which popularly came to be known
as the Nehru Report after
Mot i lal Nehru, i t s principal author. Thi s report defined Dominion Status as
the form of government
desi red by India. It al so rejected the principle of separate communal electorates
on which previous
const i tut ional reforms had been based. Seat s would be reserved for Musl ims at
the Cent re and in
provinces in which they were in a minori ty, but not in those where they had a
numerical majori ty. The
Report al so recommended universal adul t suffrage, equal right s for women,
freedom to form unions,
and di ssociat ion of the state from rel igion in any form. A sect ion of the Musl im
League had in any
case di ssociated i t sel f from these del iberat ions, but by the end of the year i t
became clear that even the
sect ion led by Jinnah would not give up the demand for reservat ion of seat s for
Musl ims especial ly in
Musl im majori ty provinces. The di lemma in which Mot i lal Nehru and other
secular leaders found
themselves was not one that was easy to resolve: i f they conceded more to Musl
im communal opinion,
then Hindu communal i st s would wi thdraw support and i f they sat i sfied the lat
ter, then Musl im leaders
would be est ranged. In the event , no further concessions were forthcoming and
Jinnah wi thdrew hi s
support to the report and went ahead to propose hi s famous Fourteen Point s
which were basical ly a
rei terat ion of hi s object ions to the Nehru Report .
Young and radical nat ional i st s led by Jawaharlal Nehru had thei r own, very di
fferent , object ions to the
Nehru Report . They were di ssat i sfied wi th i t s declarat ion of Dominion Status on
the l ines of the sel fgoverning dominions as the basi s of the future const i tut ion of
India. Thei r slogan was Complete
Independence. And i t was in December 1928, at the annual session of the
Congress at Calcut ta, that
the bat t le was joined. Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose and Satyamurthi , backed by
a large number of
delegates, pressed for the acceptance of Purna Swaraj or complete independence
as the goal of the

Congress. Gandhi j i , Mot i lal Nehru and many other older leaders fel t that the
nat ional consensus
achieved wi th such great di fficul ty on Dominion Status should not be abandoned
in such haste and a
period of two years be given to the Government for accept ing thi s. Under
pressure, the grace of period
for the Government was reduced to a year and, more important , the Congress
decided that i f the
Government did not accept a const i tut ion based on Dominion Status by the end
of the year, the
Congress would not only adopt complete independence as i t s goal , but i t would
al so launch a civi l
di sobedience movement to at tain that goal . A resolut ion embodying thi s
proposal won over the
majori ty of the delegates, and further amendment s seeking immediate adopt ion
of complete
independence were defeated.
On 8 Apri l , 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeswar Dut t of the Hindustan Social i st
Republ ican Army (HSRA) threw harmless bombs in the Cent ral Legi slat ive
Assembly and were
arrested. In jai l , the members of the HSRA went on a prolonged hunger st rike
demanding bet ter
t reatment for pol i t ical pri soners, and in September the death of one of them, Jat
in Das, on the 64th day
of the hunger st rike led to some of the biggest demonst rat ions the count ry had
ever wi tnessed.
Meanwhi le, in May 1929, a Labour Government headed by Ramsay MacDonald
took power in
Bri tain and Lord Irwin, the Viceroy, was cal led to London for consul tat ions. The
sequel was an
announcement on 31 October: I am authorized on behal f of Hi s Majestys
Government to state
clearly that in thei r judgement i t i s impl ici t in the Declarat ion of 1917 that
the natural i ssue of Indias progress as there contemplated, i s the at tainment of
dominion status.
He al so promi sed a Round Table Conference as soon as the Simon Commi ssion
submi t ted i t s report . Two days later, a conference of major nat ional leaders met
and i ssued what came to be known as the Delhi mani festo, in which they
demanded that i t should be made clear that the purpose of the Round Table
Conference was not to di scuss when Dominion Status should be granted, but to
formulate a scheme for i t s implementat ion. A debate in the House of Lords on 5
November, 1929 on thi s quest ion had al ready rai sed serious doubt s about Bri t i
sh intent ions; and, final ly, on 23 December Irwin himsel f told Gandhi j i and the
others thathe was in no posi t ion to give the assurance they demanded. The stage
of negot iat ions was over and the stage of confrontat ion was about to begin.
The honour of host ing what was, perhaps, the most memorable of the Congress
annual sessions went
to Lahore, the capi tal ci ty of Punjab, and the honour of declaring Purna Swaraj
as the only

honourable goal Indians could st rive for went to the man who had done more than
any other to
popularize the idea Jawaharlal Nehru. It was Gandhi j i again who was the deci
sive voice in
invest ing Jawaharlal Nehru wi th the office of President in what was to be a cri t
ical year of mass
st ruggle. On the banks of the river Ravi , at midnight on 31 December
1929, the t ricolour flag of Indian independence was unfurled amidst
cheers and jubi l iat ion. Amidst the exci tement , there was al so a grim
resolve, for the year to fol low was to be one of hard st ruggle.
The fi rst task that the Congress set i t sel f and the Indian people in the new year
was that of organizing al l over the count ry, on 26 January, publ ic meet ings at
which the Independence Pledge would be read out and col lect ively affi rmed. Thi s
programme was a huge success, and in vi l lages and towns, at smal l meet ings
and large ones, the pledge was read out in the local language and the nat ional
flag was hoi sted.
22
Civil Disobedience 1930-1932
The Lahore Congress of 1929 had authorized the Working Commi t tee to launch a
programme of civi l
di sobedience including non-payment of taxes. It had al so cal led upon al l
members of legi slatures to
resign thei r seat s. In mid-February, 1930, the Working Commi t tee, meet ing at
Sabarmat i Ashram,
invested Gandhi j i wi th ful l powers to launch the Civi l Di sobedience Movement
at a t ime and place of hi s choice. The acknowledged expert on mass st ruggle
was al ready desperately in search of an
effect ive formula.
Hi s ul t imatum of 31 January to Lord Irwin, stat ing the minimum demands in
the form of 11 point s, had been ignored, and there was now only one way out :
civi l di sobedience.
The plan was bri l l iant ly conceived though few real ized i t s signi ficance when i t
was fi rst announced.
Gandhi j i , along wi th a band of seventy-eight members of the Sabarmat i
Ashram, among whom were
men belonging to almost every region and rel igion of India, was to march from hi s
headquarters in
Ahmedabad through the vi l lages of Gujarat for 240 mi les.
On 6 Apri l 1930, by picking up a handful of sal t , Gandhi j i inaugurated the Civi l
Di sobedience
Movement , a movement that was to remain unsurpassed in the hi story of the
Indian nat ional
movement for the count ry-wide mass part icipat ion i t unleashed.
In Tami l Nadu, C. Rajagopalachari , led a sal t march from Trichinopoly to
Vedaranniyam on the Tanjore coast . By the t ime he was arrested on 30 Apri l he
had col lected enough
volunteers to keep the campaign going for qui te some t ime. In Malabar, K.
Kelappan, the hero of the

Vaikom Satyagraha, walked from Cal icut to Payannur to break the sal t law. A band
of Satyagrahi s
walked al l the way from Sylhet in Assam to Noakhal i on the Bengal Coast to
make sal t . In Andhra, a
number of sibi rams (mi l i tary-style camps) were set up in di fferent di st rict s to
serve as the
headquarters of the sal t Satyagraha, and bands of Satyagrahi s marched through
vi l lages on thei r way
to the coastal cent res to defy the law.
On 23 Apri l , the arrest of Congress leaders in the North West Front ier Province
led to a mass
demonst rat ion of unprecedented magni tude in Peshawar. Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan
had been act ive for several years in the area, and i t was hi s mass work which lay
behind the format ion of the band of nonviolent revolut ionaries, the Khudai
Khidmatgars, popularly known as the Red Shi rt s who were to play an ext remely
act ive role in the Civi l Di sobedience Movement . The atmosphere created by thei
r pol i t ical work cont ributed to the mass upsurge in Peshawar during which the ci
ty was vi rtual ly in the hands of the crowd for more than a week. The Peshawar
demonst rat ions are signi ficant because i t was here that the soldiers of the
Garhwal i regiment s refused to fi re on the unarmed crowd.
But i t was non-violent heroi sm that stole the show as the sal t Satyagraha
assumed yet another, even
more potent form. On May 21, wi th Saroj ini Naidu, the fi rst Indian woman to
become President of the
Congress, and Imam Saheb, Gandhi j i s comrade of the South African st ruggle, at
the helm, and
Gandhi j i s son, Mani lal , in front ranks, a band of 2000 marched towards the pol
ice cordon that had
sealed off the Dharasana sal t works.
Eastern India became the scene of a new kind of no-tax campaign refusal to pay
the chowkidara
tax.
In Assam, a powerful agi tat ion led by student s was launched against the
infamous Cunningham
ci rcular which forced student s and thei r guardians to furni sh assurances of good
behaviour.
U.P. was the set t ing of another kind of movement a no-revenue, no-rent
campaign. The norevenue part was a cal l to the zamindars to refuse to pay
revenue to the Government , the no-rent a cal l
to the tenant s not to pay rent to the zamindars. In effect , since the zamindars
were largely loyal to the Government , thi s became a no-rent st ruggle.
Meanwhi le, the publ icat ion of the report of the
Simon Commi ssion, which contained no ment ion of Dominion Status and was in
other ways al so a
regressive document , combined wi th the repressive pol icy, further upset even
moderate pol i t ical
opinion. Madan Mohan Malaviya and M.S. Aney courted arrest . In a conci l iatory
gesture, the Viceroy
on 9 July suggested a Round Table Conference and rei terated the goal of Dominion
Status. He al so

accepted the suggest ion, made by forty members of the Cent ral Legi slature, that
Tej Bahadur Sapru
and M.R. Jayakar be al lowed to explore the possibi l i t ies of peace between the
Congress and the
Government . In pursuance of thi s, the Nehrus, father and son, were taken in
August to Yeravada jai l to
meet Gandhi j i and di scuss the possibi l i t ies of a set t lement . Nothing came of
the talks, but the gesture did ensure that some sect ions of pol i t ical opinion
would at tend the Round Table Conference in London in November. The
proceedings in London, the fi rst ever conducted between the Bri t i sh
and Indians as equal s, at which vi rtual ly every delegate rei terated that
a const i tut ional di scussion to which the Congress was not a party was
a meaningless exerci se, made i t clear that i f the Government s st
rategy of survival was to be based on const i tut ional advance, then an
ol ive branch to the Congress was imperat ive. The Bri t i sh Prime Mini ster
hinted thi s possibi l i ty in hi s statement at the conclusion of the Round Table
Conference. He al so expressed the hope that the Congress would part icipate in
the next round of del iberat ions to be held later in the year. On 25 January, the
Viceroy announced the uncondi t ional release of Gandhi j i and al l the other
members of the Congress Working Commi t tee, so that might be to respond to the
Prime Mini sters statement freely and fearlessly.
the Congress Working Commi t tee authorized Gandhi j i to ini t iate di scussions wi
th the
Viceroy. The fortnight -long di scussions culminated on 5 March 1931 in the Gandhi
-Irwin Pact , which
was variously described as a t ruce and a provi sional set t lement .
he terms of the agreement included the immediate release of al l
pol i t ical pri soners not convicted for violence, the remi ssion of al l fines not yet
col lected, the return of confi scated lands not yet sold to thi rd part ies, and
lenient t reatment for those government employees who had resigned. The
Government al so conceded the right to make sal t for consumpt ion to vi l lages
along the coast , as al so the right to peaceful and non-aggressive picket ing. The
Congress demand for a publ ic inqui ry into pol ice excesses was not accepted, but
Gandhi j i s insi stent request for an inqui ry was recorded in the agreement . The
Congress, on i t s part , agreed to di scont inue the Civi l Di sobedience Movement .
It was al so understood that the Congress would part icipate in the next Round
Table Conference.
Import s of cloth from Bri tain had fal len by hal f; other import s l ike cigaret tes
had suffered a simi lar fate. Government income from l iquor exci se and land
revenue had been affected. Elect ions to the
Legi slat ive Assembly had been effect ively boycot ted.
The part icipat ion of Musl ims in the Civi l Di sobedience Movement was certainly
nowhere near that
in 1920-22. The appeal s of communal leaders to stay away, combined wi th act ive
Government
encouragement of communal di ssension to counter the forces of nat ional i sm,
had thei r effect .
For Indian women, the movement was the most l iberat ing experience to date and
can t ruly be said
to have marked thei r ent ry into the publ ic space.

23
From Karachi to Wardha: The Years from 1932-1934
The Congress met at Karachi on 29 March 1931 to endorse the Gandhi -Irwin or
Delhi Pact . Bhagat
Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru had been executed six days earl ier. The Congress
endorsed the Delhi Pact and rei terated the goal of Purna Swaraj .
The Karachi session became memorable for i t s resolut ion on
Fundamental Right s and the Nat ional
Economic Programme.
The resolut ion guaranteed the basic civi l right s of free speech, free
press, free assembly, and freedom ofassociat ion; equal i ty before the
law i rrespect ive of caste, creed or sex; neut ral i ty of the state in
regardto al l rel igions; elect ions on the basi s of universal adul t
franchi se; and free and compul sory primary educat ion. It promi sed
substant ial reduct ion in rent and revenue, exempt ion from rent in case
of uneconomic holdings, and rel ief of agricul tural -indebtedness and cont
rol of usury; bet ter condi t ions for workers including a l iving wage, l imi
ted hours of work and protect ion of women workers; the right to organize
and form unions to workers and peasant s; and state ownership or cont
rol of key indust ries, mines and means of t ransport . It al so maintained
that the cul ture, language and script of the minori t ies and of the di
fferent l ingui st ic areas shal l be protected.
Gandhi j i sai led for London on 29 August 1931 to at tend the Second Round Table
Conference. In India, Irwin was replaced by Wi l l ingdon as the Viceroy. In Bri tain,
after December 1931, the Labori te Ramsay MacDonald headed a Conservat ivedominated Cabinet wi th the weak and react ionary Samuel Hoare as the Secretary
of State for India. Apart from a few able individual s, the overwhelming majori ty of
Indian delegates to the Round Table Conference (RTC), hand-picked by the
Government , were
loyal i st s, communal i st s, careeri st s, and place-hunters, big landlords and
representat ives of the princes.
They were used by the Government to claim that the Congress did not represent
the interest s of al l
Indians vi s-a-vi s imperial i sm, and to neut ral ize Gandhi j i and al l hi s effort s to
confront the imperial i st rulers wi th the basic quest ion of freedom. The Bri t i sh
Government refused
to concede the basic Indian demand for freedom. Gandhi j i came back at the end
of December 1931 to
a changed pol i t ical si tuat ion.
The Bri t i sh pol icy was now dominated by three major considerat ions: (a) Gandhi
j i must not be
permi t ted to bui ld up the tempo for a massive and prot racted mass movement ,
as he had done in 1919, 1920-1 and 1930. (b) The Government funct ionaries vi l
lage official s, pol ice and higher bureaucrat s and the loyal i st s our friends
must not feel di sheartened that Gandhi j i was being resurrected as a rival
authori ty to the Government of India, and that the Government was losing the wi
l l to rule. As the Home Member, H.G. Haig, put i t : We can, in my view, do wi
thout the goodwi l l of the Congress, and in fact I do not bel ieve for a moment

that we shal l ever have i t , but we cannot afford to do wi thout the confidence
of those who have supported us in the long st ruggle against the Congress.
(c) In part icular, the nat ional i st movement must not be permi t ted to gather
force and
consol idate i t sel f in rural areas, as i t was doing al l over India, especial ly in
U.P., Gujarat , Andhra,
Bihar, Bengal and NWFP.
The people fought back. But Gandhi j i and other leaders had no t ime to bui ld up
the tempo of the
movement and i t could not be sustained for long. The movement was effect ively
crushed wi thin a few months. In August 1932, the number of those convicted came
down to 3,047 and by August 1933 only 4,500 Satyagrahi s were in jai l . However,
the movement cont inued to l inger t i l l early Apri l 1934 when the inevi table
deci sion to wi thdraw i t was taken by Gandhi j i .
The Bri t i sh pol icy of Divide and Rule found another expression in the
announcement of the
Communal Award in August 1932. The Award al lot ted to each minori ty a
number of seat s in the
legi slatures to be elected on the basi s of a separate electorate, that i s Musl ims
would be elected only
by Musl ims and Sikhs only by Sikhs, and so on. Musl ims, Sikhs and Chri st ians had
al ready been
t reated as minori t ies. The Award declared the Depressed Classes
(Scheduled Castes of today) al so to
be a minori ty communi ty ent i t led to separate electorate and thus
separated them from the rest of the Hindus.
But the idea of a separate electorate for Musl ims had been accepted by
the Congress as far back as 1916 as a part of the compromi se wi th the
Musl im League. Hence, the Congress took the posi t ion that though i t was
opposed to separate electorates, i t was not in favour of changing the Award wi
thout the consent of the minori t ies.
Consequent ly, though st rongly di sagreeing wi th the Communal Award, i
t decided nei ther to accept i t nor to reject i t .
Gandhi j i , in Yeravada jai l at the t ime, in part icular, reacted very st rongly.
He saw the Award as an at tack on Indian uni ty and nat ional i sm, harmful to both
Hindui sm and the Depressed Classes, for i t provided no answers to the social ly
degraded posi t ion of the lat ter. Once the Depressed Classes were t reated as a
separate communi ty, the quest ion of abol i shing untouchabi l i ty would not ari
se, and the work of Hindu social reform in thi s respect would come to a hal t .
He went on a
fast unto death on 20 September 1932 to enforce hi s demand. In a statement to
the Press, he said: My
l i fe, I count of no consequence. One hundred l ives given for thi s noble cause
would, in my opinion, be
poor penance done by Hindus for the at rocious wrongs they have heaped upon
helpless men and
women of thei r own fai th.
Whi le many pol i t ical Indians saw the fast as a diversion from the ongoing pol i t
ical movement , al l

were deeply concerned and emot ional ly shaken. Mass meet ings took place almost
everywhere. The
20th of September was observed as a day of fast ing and prayer. Temples, wel l s,
etc., were thrown open
to the Depressed Classes al l over the count ry. Rabindranath Tagore sent a
telegraphic message to
Gandhi j i : It i s worth sacri ficing precious l i fe for the sake of Indias uni ty and
her social integri ty . . .
Our sorrowing heart s wi l l fol low your subl ime penance wi th reverence and love.
Pol i t ical leaders of
di fferent pol i t ical persuasions, including Madan Mohan Malaviya, M.C. Rajah and
B.R. Ambedkar,
now became act ive. In the end they succeeded in hammering out an agreement ,
known as the Poona
Pact , according to which the idea of separate electorates for the Depressed Classes
was abandoned but
the seat s reserved for them in the provincial legi slatures were increased from
seventy-one in the
Award to 147 and in the Cent ral Legi slature to eighteen per cent of the total .
After hi s release from
pri son, he had shi fted to Satyagraha Ashram at Wardha after abandoning
Sabarmat i Ashram at
Ahmedabad for he had vowed in 1930 not to return to Sabarmat i t i l l Swaraj
was won.
The protesters offered the
Government ful l support against the Congress and the Civi l Di sobedience
Movement i f i t would not support the ant i -untouchabi l i ty campaign. The
Government obl iged by defeat ing the Temple Ent ry Bi l l in the Legi slat ive
Assembly in August 1934.
Gandhi j i s ent i re campaign was based on the grounds of humani sm and reason.
But he al so argued
that untouchabi l i ty, as pract i sed at present , had no sanct ion in the Hindu
Shast ras. But even i f thi s was
not so, the Hari jan worker should not feel daunted. Truth could not be confined
wi thin the covers of a
book. The Shast ras should be ignored i f they went against human digni ty.
Gandhi j i was not in favour of mixing up the i ssue of the removal of untouchabi l i
ty wi th the i ssues
of inter-dining and inter-marriage. Rest rict ion on the lat ter should certainly go, for
dining and
marriage rest rict ions stunt Hindu society. But they were al so pract i sed by caste
Hindus among
themselves as al so the Hari jans among themselves. The present al l -India
campaign, he said, had to be
di rected against the di sabi l i t ies which were speci fic to the Hari jans. Simi larly,
he di st ingui shed
between the abol i t ion of caste system and the abol i t ion of untouchabi l i ty. He
di sagreed wi th Dr.
Ambedkar when the lat ter asserted that the outcaste i s a by-product of the caste
system. There wi l l be

outcastes as long as there are castes. And nothing can emancipate the outcaste
except the dest ruct ion
of the caste system. On the cont rary, Gandhi j i said that whatever the l imi tat
ions and defect s of the
Varnashram, there i s nothing sinful about i t , as there i s about untouchabi l i ty.
He bel ieved that
purged of untouchabi l i ty, i t sel f a product of the di st inct ion of high and low
and not of the caste
system, thi s system could funct ion in a manner that would make each caste
complementary of the
other and none inferior or superior to any other. In any case, he said, both the bel
ievers and the cri t ics
of the Varna system should join hands in fight ing untouchabi l i ty, for opposi t ion
to the lat ter was
common to both.
Gandhi j i s Hari jan campaign included a programme of internal reform by Hari
jans: promot ion of
educat ion, cleanl iness and hygiene, giving up the eat ing of carrion and beef,
giving up l iquor and the
abol i t ion of untouchabi l i ty among themselves. But i t did not include a mi l i
tant st ruggle by the
Hari jans themselves through Satyagraha, breaking of caste taboos, mass demonst
rat ions, picket ing,
and other forms of protest s. At the same t ime, he was aware that hi s Hari jan
movement must cause dai ly increasing awakening among the Hari jans and that
in t ime whether the savarna Hindus l ike i t or not , the Hari jans would make good
thei r posi t ion.
Gandhi j i repeatedly st ressed that the Hari jan movement was not a pol i t ical
movement but a
movement to puri fy Hindui sm and Hindu society. But he was al so aware that the
movement wi l l
produce great pol i t ical consequences; just as untouchabi l i ty poi soned our
ent i re social and pol i t ical fabric. In fact , not only did Hari jan work, along wi th
other i tems of const ruct ive work, enable the Congress cadre to keep busy in i t s
non-mass movement phases, i t al so gradual ly carried the message of nat ional i
sm to the Hari jans, who al so happened to be agricul tural labourers in most part s
of the count ry, leading to thei r increasing part icipat ion in the nat ional as wel l
as peasant movement s.
24
The Rise of the Left-Wing
A powerful left -wing group developed in India in the late 1920s and 1930s cont
ribut ing to the
radical izat ion of the nat ional movement . Social i st ideas acqui red root s in the
Indian soi l ; and social i sm became the accepted
creed of Indian youth whose urges came to be symbol ized by Jawaharlal Nehru and
Subhas Chandra
Bose. Gradual ly there emerged two powerful part ies of the Left , the Communi st
Party of India (CPI)
and the Congress Social i st Party (CSP). Seminal in thi s respect was the impact
of the Russian Revolut ion. On 7 November 1917, the Bol shevik

(Communi st ) party, led by V.I. Lenin, overthrew the despot ic Czari st regime and
declared the
format ion of the fi rst social i st state. The new Soviet regime elect ri fied the
colonial world by
uni lateral ly renouncing i t s imperial i st right s in China and other part s of Asia.
In Bombay, S.A. Dange publ i shed a pamphlet Gandhi and Lenin and
started the fi rst social i st weekly, The Social i st ; in Bengal , Muzaffar Ahmed
brought out Navayug and later founded the Langal in cooperat ion wi th the poet
Nazrul Islam; in Punjab, Ghulam Hussain and others publ i shed Inqui lab; and in
Madras, M. Singaravelu founded the Labour-Ki san Gazet te.
Social i st ideas became even more popular during the
1930s as the world was engul fed by the great economic depression.
Unemployment soared al l over the
capi tal i st world. The world depression brought the capi tal i st system into di
srepute and drew at tent ion
towards Marxi sm and social i sm. Wi thin the Congress the left -wing tendency
found reflect ion in the
elect ion of Jawaharlal Nehru as president for 1936 and 1937 and of Subhas Bose
for 1938 and 1939
and in the format ion of the Congress Social i st Party.
It was above al l Jawaharlal Nehru who imparted a social i st vi sion to the nat
ional movement and who
became the symbol of social i sm and social i st ideas in India after 1929. The not
ion that freedom could
not be defined only in pol i t ical terms but must have a socio-economic content
began increasingly to
be associated wi th hi s name.
In hi s books (Autobiography and Gl impses of
World Hi story), art icles and speeches, Nehru propagated the ideas of social i sm
and declared that
pol i t ical freedom would become meaningful only i f i t led to the economic
emancipat ion of the
masses.
In 1927, he at tended the Internat ional Congress against Colonial Oppression and
Imperial i sm, held at Brussel s, and came into contact wi th communi st s and ant i
-colonial fighters from al l over the world.
In 1928, Jawaharlal joined hands wi th Subhas to organize the
Independence for India League to
fight for complete independence and a social i st revi sion of the economic st
ructure of society. At the Lahore session of the Congress in 1929, Nehru
proclaimed: I am a social i st and a republ ican, and am no bel iever in kings and
princes, or in the order which produces the modern kings of indust ry, who
have a greater power over the l ives and fortunes of men than even the kings of old,
and whose methods are as predatory as those of the old feudal ari stocracy.
Nehru developed a complex relat ionship wi th Gandhi j i during thi s period. He cri t
icized Gandhi j i for
refusing to recognize the confl ict of classes, for preaching harmony among the
exploi ters and the
exploi ted, and for put t ing forward the theories of t rusteeship by, and conversion
of, the capi tal i st s and landlords.

At t racted by the Soviet Union and i t s revolut ionary commi tment , a large
number of Indian
revolut ionaries and exi les abroad made thei r way there. The most wel l -known
and the tal lest of them was M.N. Roy, who along wi th Lenin, helped evolve the
Communi st Internat ional s pol icy towards the colonies. Seven such Indians,
headed by Roy, met at Tashkent in October 1920 and set up a Communi
st Party of India. Independent ly of thi s effort , as we have seen, a number of left
-wing and communi st groups and organizat ions had begun to come into exi stence
in India after 1920. Most of these groups came together at Kanpur in December
1925 and founded an al l -India organizat ion under the name the Communi st Party
of India (CPI).
The main form of pol i t ical work by the early Communi st s was to organize
peasant s and workers
part ies and work through them. The fi rst such organizat ion was the Labour-Swaraj
Party of the Indian
Nat ional Congress organized by Muzaffar Ahmed, Qazi Nazrul Islam, Hemanta
Kumar Sarkar, and
others in Bengal in November 1925. In late 1926, a Congress Labour Party was
formed in Bombay and
a Ki rt i -Ki san Party in Punjab. A Labour Ki san Party of Hindustan had been funct
ioning in Madras
since 1923. By 1928 al l of these provincial organizat ions had been renamed the
Workers and
Peasant s Party (WPP) and kni t into an al l -India party, whose uni t s were al so set
up in Rajasthan, UP
and Delhi . Al l Communi st s were members of thi s party. The basic object ive of
the WPPs was to work
wi thin the Congress to give i t a more radical orientat ion and make i t the party
of the people and
independent ly organize workers and peasant s in class organizat ions, to enable fi
rst the achievement of
complete independence and ul t imately of social i sm. The WPPs grew rapidly and
wi thin a short period
the communi st influence in the Congress began to grow rapidly, especial ly in
Bombay. Moreover,
Jawaharlal Nehru and other radical Congressmen welcomed the WPPs effort s to
radical ize the
Congress. Along wi th Jawaharlal and Subhas Bose, the youth leagues and other
Left forces, the WPPs
played an important role in creat ing a st rong left -wing wi thin the Congress and in
giving the Indian
nat ional movement a leftward di rect ion. The WPPs al so made rapid progress on
the t rade union front
and played a deci sive role in the resurgence of working class st ruggles during
1927-29 as al so in
enabl ing in Communi st s to gain a st rong posi t ion in the working class.
The rapid growth of communi st and WPP influence over the nat ional movement
was, however,
checked and vi rtual ly wiped out during 1929 and after by two development s. One
was the severe

repression to which Communi st s were subjected by the Government . Al ready in

1922-24, Communi st s
t rying to enter India from the Soviet Union had been t ried in a series of conspi
racy cases at Peshawar
and sentenced to long periods of impri sonment .
In 1924, the Government had t ried to cripple the
nascent communi st movement by t rying S.A. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmed, Nal ini
Gupta and Shaukat
Usmani in the Kanpur Bol shevik Conspi racy Case. Al l four were sentenced to four
years of
impri sonment. In a sudden swoop, in March 1929, i t
arrested thi rty-two radical pol i t ical and t rade union act ivi st s, including three
Bri t i sh Communi st s
Phi l ip Sprat t , Ben Bradley and Lester Hutchinson who had come to India to help
organize the t rade
union movement . The basic aim of the Government was to behead the t rade
union movement and to
i solate the Communi st s from the nat ional movement . The thi rty-two accused
were put up for t rial at
Meerut . The Meerut Conspi racy Case was soon to become a cause celebre. The
defence of the
pri soners was to be taken up by many nat ional i st s including Jawaharlal Nehru,
M.A. Ansari and M.C.
Chagla.
As i f the Government blow was not enough, the Communi st s infl icted a more
deadly blow on
themselves by taking a sudden lurch towards what i s described in left i st
terminology as sectarian
pol i t ics or left i st deviat ion.
Guided by the resolut ions of the Sixth Congress of the Communi st Internat ional ,
the Communi st s
broke thei r connect ion wi th the Nat ional Congress and declared i t to be a class
party of the
bourgeoi sie. Moreover, the Congress and the bourgeoi sie i t supposedly
represented were declared to
have become supporters of imperial i sm. Congress plans to organize a mass
movement around the
slogan of Purna Swaraj were seen as sham effort s to gain influence over the
masses by bourgeoi s
leaders who were working for a compromi se wi th Bri t i sh imperial i sm. In 1931,
the Gandhi -Irwin Pact was described as a proof of the Congress bet rayal of nat
ional i sm.
The Government took further
advantage of thi s si tuat ion and, in 1934, declared the CPI i l legal .
The Communi st movement was, however, saved from di saster because, on the
one hand, many of
the Communi st s refused to stand apart from the Civi l Di sobedience Movement
(CDM) and
part icipated act ively in i t , and, on the other hand, social i st and communi st
ideas cont inued to spread in the count ry. Consequent ly, many young persons who

part icipated in the CDM or in Revolut ionary Terrori st organizat ions were at t
racted by social i sm, Marxi sm and the Soviet Union, and joined the CPI after 1934.
The si tuat ion underwent a radical change in 1935 when the Communi st Party
was reorganized under
the leadership of P.C. Joshi . Faced wi th the threat of fasci sm the Seventh
Congress of the Communi st
Internat ional , meet ing at Moscow in August 1935, radical ly changed i t s earl ier
posi t ion and advocated
the format ion of a uni ted front wi th social i st s and other ant i -fasci st s in the
capi tal i st count ries and
wi th bourgeoi s-led nat ional i st movement s in colonial count ries. The Indian
Communi st s were to once
again part icipate in the act ivi t ies of the mainst ream of the nat ional movement
led by the Nat ional
Congress. The theoret ical and pol i t ical basi s for the change in communi st pol i
t ics in India was laid in
early 1936 by a document popularly known as the Dut t -Bradley Thesi s. According
to thi s thesi s, the
Nat ional Congress could play a great part and a foremost part in the work of
real izing the ant i imperial i st peoples front .
The Communi st Party now began to cal l upon i t s members to join the Congress
and enrol l the
masses under thei r influence to the Congress. In 1938, i t went further and
accepted that the Congress
was the cent ral mass pol i t ical organizat ion of the Indian people ranged against
imperial i sm.
And,in 1939, P.C. Joshi wrote in the party weekly, Nat ional Front , that the
greatest class st ruggle today i sour nat ional st ruggle of which Congress was the
main organ.
The move towards the format ion of a social i st party was made in the jai l s during
1930-31 and 1932-34
by a group of young Congressmen who were di senchanted wi th Gandhian st rategy
and leadership and
at t racted by social i st ideology.
At t racted by Marxi sm,
communi sm and Soviet Union, they did not find themselves in agreement wi th
the prevalent pol i t ical
l ine of the CPI. Many of them were groping towards an al ternat ive. Ul t imately
they came together and
formed the Congress Social i st Party (CSP) at Bombay in October 1934 under the
leadership of
Jayaprakash Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Minoo Masani . From the
beginning, al l the
Congress social i st s were agreed upon four basic proposi t ions: that the primary
st ruggle in India was
the nat ional st ruggle for freedom and that nat ional i sm was a necessary stage
on the way to social i sm;
that social i st s must work inside the Nat ional Congress because i t was the
primary body leading the

nat ional st ruggle and, as Acharya Narendra Dev put i t in 1934, i t would be a
suicidal pol icy for us to
cut ourselves off from the nat ional movement that the Congress undoubtedly
represent s; that they
must give the Congress and the nat ional movement a social i st di rect ion; and
that to achieve thi s
object ive they must organize the workers and peasant s in thei r class organizat
ions, wage st ruggles for
thei r economic demands and make them the social base of the nat ional st
ruggle.
As the Meerut Thesi s of the CSP put i t in 1935, the task was to wean the ant i
-imperial i st
element s in the Congress away from i t s present bourgeoi s leadership and to
bring them under the
leadership of revolut ionary social i sm.
From the beginning the CSP leaders were divided into three broad ideological
current s: the
Marxian, the Fabian and the current influenced by Gandhi j i . Despi te the
ideological diversi ty among the leaders, the CSP as a whole accepted a basic ident
i ficat ion
of social i sm wi th Marxi sm.
Subhas Bose and hi s left -wing fol lowers founded the Forward Bloc in 1939 after
Bose was compel led to resign from the President ship of the Congress. The
Hindustan Social i st Republ ican Associat ion, the Revolut ionary Social i st Party,
and various Trot skyi st groups al so funct ioned during the 1930s. There were al so
certain prest igious left -wing individual s, such as Swami Sahajanand Saraswat i ,
Professor N.G. Ranga, and Indulal Yagnik, who worked out side the framework of
any organized left -wing party.
Despi te the fact that the Left cadres were among the most courageous, mi l i
tant and sacri ficing of
freedom fighters, the Left fai led in the basic task i t had taken upon i t sel f to
establ i sh the hegemony of social i st ideas and part ies over the nat ional
movement . It al so fai led to make good the promi se i t held out in the 1930s. Thi
s i s, in fact , a major enigma for the hi storian.
Unl ike the Congress right wing, the Left fai led to show ideological and tact ical
flexibi l i ty
It chose to fight not on quest ions of ideology but on methods of st ruggle and on
tact ics.
Organizat ional ly, the Left was able to command influence over nearly
one-thi rd of the votes in the Al l -India Congress Commi t tee on important i ssues.
Nehru and Bose were elected Congress president s from 1936 to 1939. Nehru was
able to nominate three prominent
Social i st s, Acharya Narendra Dev, Jayaprakash Narayan and Achyut Patwardhan,
to hi s Working
Commi t tee. In 1939, Subhas Bose, as a candidate of the Left , was able to defeat
Pat tabhi Si taramayya in the president ial elect ion by a majori ty of 1580 to 1377.
The impact of the Left on the nat ional movement was
reflected in the resolut ion on Fundamental Right s and Economic Pol icy passed by
the Karachi session

of the Congress in 1931, the resolut ions on economic pol icy passed at the Faizpur
session in 1936, the
Elect ion Mani festo of the Congress in 1936, the set t ing up of a Nat ional Planning
Commi t tee in 1938,
and the increasing shi ft of Gandhi j i towards radical posi t ions on economic and
class i ssues.
The foundat ion of the Al l -India Student s Federat ion and the Progressive Wri ters
Associat ion and the convening of the fi rst Al l -India States Peoples Conference in
1936 were some of the other major
achievement s of the Left . The Left was al so very act ive in the Al l -India Womens
Conference. Above
al l , two major part ies of the Left , the Communi st Party and the Congress Social i
st Party, had been
formed, and were being bui l t up.
25
The Strategic Debate 1934-1937
Gandhi Hence, in October 1934, he announced hi s resignat ion from the Congress
only to
serve i t bet ter in thought , word and deed.
In August 1935, the Bri t i sh Parl iament passed the Government of India Act of
1935. The Act
provided for the establ i shment of an Al l -India Federat ion to be based on the
union of the Bri t i sh
Indian provinces and Princely States. The representat ives of the States to the
federal legi slature were
to be appointed di rect ly by the Princes who were to be used to check and counter
the nat ional i st s. The
franchi se was l imi ted to about one-sixth of the adul t s. Defence and foreign affai
rs would remain
out side the cont rol of the federal legi slature, whi le the Viceroy would retain
special cont rol over other
subject s.
The provinces were to be governed under a new system based on provincial
autonomy under which
elected mini sters cont rol led al l provincial department s. Once again, the
Governors, appointed by the
Bri t i sh Government , retained special powers. They could veto legi slat ive and
admini st rat ive
measures, especial ly those concerning minori t ies, the right s of civi l servant s,
law and order and
Bri t i sh business interest s. The Governor al so had the power to take over and
indefini tely run the
admini st rat ion of a province. Thus both pol i t ical and economic power remained
concent rated in
Bri t i sh hands; colonial i sm remained intact .
Provincial autonomy, i t was further hoped, would create powerful provincial
leaders in the
Congress who would wield admini st rat ive power in thei r own right , gradual ly
learn to safeguard thei r admini st rat ive prerogat ives, and would, therefore,

gradual ly become autonomous cent res of pol i t ical power. The Congress would,
thus, be provincial ized; the authori ty of the cent ral al l -India leadership would be
weakened i f not dest royed. As Linl i thgow wrote in 1936, our best hope of
avoiding a di rect clash i s in the potency of Provincial Autonomy to dest roy the
effect iveness of Congress as an Al l India inst rument of revolut ion.
The Act of 1935 was condemned by nearly al l sect ions of Indian opinion and was
unanimously
rejected by the Congress. The Congress demanded instead, the convening of a
Const i tuent Assembly
elected on the basi s of adul t franchi se to frame a const i tut ion for an
independent India.
The second stage of the debate over st rategy occurred among Congressmen over
the quest ion of office
acceptance. The Bri t i sh, after imposing the Act of 1935, decided to immediately
put into pract ice
provincial autonomy, and announced the holding of elect ions to provincial legi
slatures in early 1937.
Even i f the Congress rejected office, there were other groups and part ies who
would readi ly form mini st ries and use them to weaken nat ional i sm and
encourage react ionary and
communal pol icies and pol i t ics. Last ly, despi te thei r l imi ted powers, the
provincial mini st ries could
be used to promote const ruct ive work especial ly in respect of vi l lage and Hari
jan upl i ft , khadi ,
prohibi t ion, educat ion and reduct ion of burden of debt , taxes and rent on the
peasant s.
The Congress decided at Lucknow in early 1936 and at Faizpur in late 1936 to fight
the elect ions and
postpone the deci sion on office acceptance to the post -elect ion period.
The Congress went al l out to win the elect ions to the provincial assembl ies held
in February 1937.
It s elect ion mani festo reaffi rmed i t s total reject ion of the 1935 Act . It promi
sed the restorat ion of civi l l ibert ies, the release of pol i t ical pri soners, the
removal of di sabi l i t ies on grounds of sex and
untouchabi l i ty, the radical t ransformat ion of the agrarian system, substant ial
reduct ion in rent and
revenue, scal ing down of the rural debt s, provi sion of cheap credi t , the right to
form t rade unions and the right to st rike.
26
Twenty-eight Months of Congress Rule
After a few months tussle wi th the Government , the Congress Working Commi t
tee decided to accept
office under the Act of 1935. During July, i t formed Mini st ries in six provinces:
Madras, Bombay,
Cent ral Provinces, Ori ssa, Bihar and U.P.. Later, Congress Mini st ries were al so
formed in the NorthWest Front ier Province and Assam.
To guide and coordinate thei r act ivi t ies and to ensure that the
Bri t i sh hopes of the provincial izat ion of the Congress did not material ize, a cent
ral cont rol board

known as the Parl iamentary Sub-Commi t tee was formed, wi th Sardar Patel ,
Maulana Abul Kalam
Azad and Rajendra Prasad as members. Thus began a novel experiment a party
which was
commi t ted to l iquidate Bri t i sh rule took charge of admini st rat ion under a const
i tut ion which was
framed by the Bri t i sh and which yielded only part ial state power to the Indians;
thi s power could
moreover be taken away from the Indians whenever the imperial power so desi red.
As Gandhi j i wrote on the meaning of office acceptance in Hari jan on 7 August
1937: These offices
have to be held l ight ly, not t ight ly. The Congress Mini sters set an example in
plain l iving. They reduced thei r own salaries drast ical ly
from Rs. 2000 to Rs. 500 per month. They were easi ly accessible to the common
people. And in a very
short t ime, they did pass a very large amount of amel iorat ive legi slat ion, t rying
to ful fi l many of the promi ses made in the Congress elect ion mani festo.
Al l emergency powers acqui red by the provincial government s during
1932, through Publ ic Safety Act s and the l ike, were repealed; bans on i l legal pol
i t ical organizat ions
such as the Hindustan Seva Dal and Youth Leagues and on pol i t ical books and
journal s were l i fted.
Though the ban on the Communi st Party remained, since i t was imposed by the
Cent ral Government
and could only be l i fted on i t s orders, the Communi st s could in effect now funct
ion freely and openly
in the Congress provinces. Al l rest rict ions on the press were removed. Securi t ies
taken from
newspapers and presses were refunded and pending prosecut ions were wi thdrawn.
The blackl i st ing of
newspapers for purposes of government advert i sing was given up. Confi scated
arms were returned and
forfei ted arms l icenses were restored.
One of the fi rst act s of the Congress Government was to release thousands of pol
i t ical pri soners and
detenus and to cancel internment and deportat ion orders on pol i t ical workers.
Many of the
revolut ionaries involved in the Kakori and other conspi racy cases were released.
But problems
remained in U.P. and Bihar where several revolut ionaries convicted of crimes
involving violence
remained in jai l s. Most of these pri soners had earl ier been sent to kala pani (Cel
lular Jai l in
Andamans) from where they had been t ransferred to thei r respect ive provinces
after they had gone on
a prolonged hunger st rike during July 1937. In February 1938, there were fi fteen
such pri soners in
U.P. and twenty-three in Bihar. Thei r release requi red consent by the Governors
which was refused.

But the Congress Mini st ries were determined to release them. The Mini st ries of
U.P. and Bihar
resigned on thi s i ssue on 15 February. The problem was final ly resolved through
negot iat ions. Al l the
pri soners in both provinces were released by the end of March.
The di fference between the Congress provinces and the non-Congress provinces of
Bengal and
Punjab was most apparent in thi s realm. In the lat ter, especial ly in Bengal , civi l
l ibert ies cont inued to
be curbed and revolut ionary pri soners and detenus, kept for years in pri son wi
thout t rial , were not
released despi te repeated hunger st rikes by the pri soners and popular movement
s demanding thei r
release.
In Bombay, the Government al so took steps to restore to the original owners lands
which had been
confi scated by the Government as a resul t of the no-tax campaign during the Civi
l Di sobedience
Movement in 1930.
The Congress could not at tempt a complete overhaul of the agrarian st ructure by
completely
el iminat ing the zamindari system. Thi s, for two reasons. According to the const i
tut ional st ructure of
the 1935 Act , the provincial Mini st ries did not have enough powers to do so.
They al so suffered from
an ext reme lack of financial resources, for the l ions share of Indias revenues was
appropriated by the
Government of India. The Congress Mini st ries could al so not touch the exi st ing
admini st rat ive
st ructure, whose sanct i ty was guarded by the Viceroys and Governors powers.
What i s more
important , the st rategy of class adjustment al so forebade i t . A mul t i -class
movement could develop
only by balancing or adjust ing various, mutual ly clashing class interest s. To uni te
al l the Indian
people in thei r st ruggle against colonial i sm, the main enemy of the t ime, i t was
necessary to make
such an adjustment . The pol icy had to be that of winning over or at least neut ral
izing as large a part of
the landlord classes as possible so as to i solate the enemy and deprive him of al l
social support wi thin
India. Thi s was even more necessary because, in large part s of the count ry, the
smal ler landlords were
act ive part icipant s in the nat ional movement .
Further, nearly al l the Congress-run states (that i s, U.P., Bihar, Bombay, Madras
and Assam) had
react ionary second chambers in the form of legi slat ive counci l s, which were
elected on a very narrow
franchi se whi le the number of voters for the assembl ies in these states was
over 17.5 mi l l ion, i t was

less than 70 thousand for the second chambers. These were, therefore, dominated
by landlords,
capi tal i st s and moneylenders, wi th the Congress forming a smal l minori ty. As a
majori ty in the lower
house was not enough, in order to get any legi slat ion passed through the second
chamber, the Congress
had to simul taneously pressuri se thei r upper class element s and conci l iate
them.
In U.P. a tenancy act was
passed in October 1939 which gave al l statutory tenant s both in Agra and Oudh
ful l heredi tary right s
in thei r holdings whi le taking away the landlords right to prevent the growth of
occupancy.
Al l i l legal exact ions such as nazrana (forced gi ft s) and begar
(forced unpaid labour) were abol i shed. In Bihar, the new tenancy legi slat ion was
passed mainly in
1937 and 1938, that i s, more quickly than in U.P.. More radical than that of U.P. in
most respect s, i t s
main provi sions were: Al l increases in rent made since 1911 were abol i shed; thi
s was est imated to
mean a reduct ion of about twenty-five per cent in rent . The rent was al so
reduced i f the prices had
fal len, during the currency of the exi st ing rent , the deteriorat ion of soi l and the
neglect of i rrigat ion by
the landlord. Occupancy ryot s were given the absolute right to t ransfer thei r
holding on the payment of
a nominal amount of two per cent of rent to the landlord. A point of radical
departure was the grant to
under-ryot s of occupancy right s i f they had cul t ivated the land for twelve years.
Exi st ing arrears of
rent were substant ial ly reduced and the rate of interest on arrears was reduced
from 12.5 to 6.25 per
cent . The landlords share in case of share-cropping was not to exceed 9/20 of the
produce. Lands
which had been sold in the execut ion of decrees for the payment of arrears
between 1929 and 1937
(bakasht land) were to be restored to previous tenant s on payment of hal f the
amount of arrears. The
landlords power to real ize rent was great ly reduced the tenant could no longer
be arrested or
impri soned on thi s account , nor could hi s immovable property be sold wi thout hi
s consent . Landlords
were forbidden from charging i l legal dues; any violat ion would lead to six
monthsimpri sonment .
Occupancy tenant s could no longer be ejected from thei r holdings for non-payment
of rent . In fact , the
only right that the landlord retained was the right to get hi s rent which was
reduced signi ficant ly.
The agrarian legi slat ion of the Congress Mini st ries thus improved and secured the
status of

mi l l ions of tenant s in zamindari areas. The basic system of landlordi sm was, of

course, not affected.
Furthermore, i t was, in the main, statutory and occupancy tenant s who benefi ted.
The interest s of the
sub-tenant s of the occupancy tenant s were overlooked. Agricul tural labourers
were al so not affected.
Thi s was part ial ly because these two sect ions had not yet been mobi l ized by
the ki san sabhas, nor had
they become voters because of the rest ricted franchi se under the Act of 1935.
Consequent ly, they
could not exert pressure on the Mini st ries through ei ther elect ions or the
peasant movement .
Except for U.P. and Assam, the Congress Government passed a series of st ringent
debtors rel ief
act s which provided for the regulat ion of the moneylenders business provi sions
of the act s
included measures such as the cancel lat ion or drast ic reduct ion of accumulated
interest ranging from
6.25 per cent in Madras to 9 per cent in Bombay and Bihar.
The Congress Mini st ries adopted, in general , a pro-labour stance.
Immediately after assuming office, the Bombay Mini st ry appointed a Text i le Enqui
ry Commi t tee
which recommended, among other improvement s, the increase of wages amount
ing to a crore of
rupees. Despi te mi l lowners protest ing against the recommendat ions, they were
implemented. In
November 1938, the Government s passed the Indust rial Di sputes Act which was
based on the
phi losophy of class col laborat ion and not class confl ict , as the Premier B.G.
Kher put i t . The
emphasi s in the Act was on conci l iat ion, arbi t rat ion and negot iat ions in place
of di rect act ion. The Act
was al so designed to prevent l ightning st rikes and lock-out s. The Act
empowered the Government to
refer an indust rial di spute to the Court of Indust rial Arbi t rat ion. No st rike or
lock-out could occur for
an interim period of four months during which the Court would give i t s award. The
Act was st rongly
opposed by Left Congressmen, including Communi st s and Congress Social i st s,
for rest rict ing the
freedom to st rike and for laying down a new compl icated procedure for regi st rat
ion of t rade unions,
which, they said, would encourage unions promoted by employers. In Madras, too,
the Government
promoted the pol icy of internal set t lement of labour di sputes through
government sponsored
conci l iat ion and arbi t rat ion proceedings. In U.P., Kanpur was the seat of serious
labour unrest as the
workers expected act ive support from the popularly elected Government . A major
st rike occurred in

May 1938. The Government set up a Labour Enqui ry Commi t tee, headed by
Rajendra Prasad. The
Commi t tees recommendat ions included an increase in workers wages wi th a
minimum wage of Rs.
15 per month, format ion of an arbi t rat ion board, recrui tment of labour for al l
mi l l s by an independent
board, materni ty benefi t s to women workers, and recogni t ion of the Left
-dominated Mazdur Sabha by
the employers. But the employers, who had refused to cooperate wi th the Commi t
tee, rejected the
report . They did, however, in the end, because of a great deal of pressure from
the Government , adopt
i t s principal recommendat ions. A simi lar Bihar Labour Enqui ry Commi t tee
headed by Rajendra
Prasad was set up in 1938. It too recommended the st rengthening of t rade union
right s, an
improvement in labour condi t ions, and compul sory conci l iat ion and arbi t rat
ion to be t ried before a st rike was declared.
The Congress Government s al so joined the effort to develop planning
through the Nat ional Planning Commi t tee appointed in 1938 by the
Congress President Subhas Bose.
Even though i t was under a Cent ral Government ban, the Communi st Party was
able to bring out i t s weekly organ, The Nat ional Front , from Bombay. The
CSP brought out The Congress Social i st and
several other journal s in Indian languages. Of part icular interest i s the example
of Ki rt i Lehar which
the Ki rt i Communi st s of Punjab brought out from Meerut , U.P., because they
could not do so in
Unioni st -ruled Punjab.
Even though
peasant agi tat ions usual ly took the form of massive demonst rat ions and
spectacular peasant marches, in Bihar, the ki san movement often came into
frontal confrontat ion wi th the Mini st ry, especial ly when the Ki san Sabha asked
the peasant s not to pay rent or to forcibly occupy landlords lands. There were al
so cases of physical at tacks upon landlords, big and smal l , and the loot ing of
crops. Ki san sabha workers popularized Sahajanands mi l i tant slogans: Lagan
Lenge Kai se, Danda Hamara Zindabad.Consequent ly, there was a breach in relat
ions between the Bihar ki san sabha and the provincial Congress leadership.
The Congress Mini st ries resigned in October 1939 because of the pol i t ical cri si s
brought about by
World War II. But Gandhi j i welcomed the resignat ions for another reason they
would help cleanse
the Congress of the rampant corrupt ion.
27
Peasant Movements in the 1930s and 40s
The 1930s bore wi tness to a new and nat ion-wide awakening of Indian peasant s to
thei r own st rength
and capaci ty to organize for the bet terment of thei r l iving condi t ions. Thi s
awakening was largely a

resul t of the combinat ion of part icular economic and pol i t ical development s:
the great Depression that began to hi t India from 1929-30 and the new phase of
mass st ruggle launched by the Indian Nat ional Congress in 1930.
The Depression which brought agricul tural prices crashing down to hal f or less of
thei r normal
level s deal t a severe blow to the al ready impoveri shed peasant s burdened wi th
high taxes and rent s. The Government was obdurate in refusing to scale down i t s
own rates of taxat ion or in asking
zamindars to bring down thei r rent s. The prices of manufactured goods, too, didnt
regi ster
comparable decreases.
The Civi l Di sobedience Movement was launched in thi s atmosphere of di
scontent in 1930, and in
many part s of the count ry i t soon took on the form of a no-tax and no-rent
campaign.
Thi s
consol idat ion of the Left acted as a spur to the format ion of an al l -India body to
coordinate the ki san
movement , a process that was al ready under way through the effort s of N.G.
Ranga and other ki san
leaders. The culminat ion was the establ i shment of the Al l -India Ki san
Congress in Lucknow in Apri l
1936 which later changed i t s name to the Al l -India Ki san Sabha. Swami
Sahajanand, the mi l i tant
founder of the Bihar Provincial Ki san Sabha (1929), was elected the President , and
N.G. Ranga, the
pioneer of the ki san movement in Andhra and a renowned scholar of the agrarian
problem, the General
Secretary. The fi rst session was greeted in person by Jawaharlal Nehru. Other part
icipant s included
Ram Manohar Lohia, Sohan Singh Josh, Indulal Yagnik, Jayaprakash Narayan,
Mohanlal Gautam,
Kamal Sarkar, Sudhin Pramanik and Ahmed Din. The Conference resolved to bring
out a Ki san
Mani festo and a periodic bul let in edi ted by Indulal Yagnik.
A Ki san Mani festo was final ized at the Al l -India Ki san Commi t tee session in
Bombay and formal ly
presented to the Congress Working Commi t tee to be incorporated into i t s
forthcoming mani festo for
the 1937 elect ions. The Ki san Mani festo considerably influenced the agrarian
programme adopted by
the Congress at i t s Faizpur session, which included demands for fi fty per cent
reduct ion in land
revenue and rent , a moratorium on debt s, the abol i t ion of feudal levies, securi ty
of tenure for tenant s,
a l iving wage for agricul tural labourers, and the recogni t ion of peasant unions.
Bihar was another major area of peasant mobi l izat ion in thi s period. Swami
Sahajanand, the founder
of the Bihar Provincial Ki san Sabha and a major leader of the Al l India Ki san
Sabha, was joined by

many other left -wing leaders l ike Karyanand Sharma, Rahul Sankri tayan,
Panchanan Sharma, and
Yadunandan Sharma in spreading the ki san sabha organizat ion to the vi l lage of
Bihar.
The Congress Mini st ry had ini t iated legi slat ion for the reduct ion of rent and the
restorat ion of
bakasht lands. Bakasht lands were those which the occupancy tenant s had lost to
zamindars, most ly
during the Depression years, by vi rtue of non-payment of rent , and which they
often cont inued to
cul t ivate as share-croppers. The Bihar Provincial Ki san Sabha effect ively used
meet ings, conferences, ral l ies, and mass
demonst rat ions, including a demonst rat ion of one lakh peasant s at Patna in
1938, to popularize the
ki san sabha programme. The slogan of zamindari abol i t ion, adopted by the
Sabha in 1935, was
popularized among the peasant s through resolut ions passed at these gatherings
The movement on the bakasht i ssue reached i t s peak in late 1938 and 1939, but
by August 1939 a combinat ion of concessions, legi slat ion and the arrest of about
600 act ivi st s
succeeded in quietening the peasant s. The movement was resumed in certain
pocket s in 1945 and
cont inued in one form or another t i l l zamindari was abol i shed. Punjab was
another cent re of ki san act ivi ty. Here, too, the ki san sabhas that had emerged in
the
early 1930s, through the effort s of Naujawan Bharat Sabha, Ki rt i Ki san, Congress
and Akal i act ivi st s, were given a new sense of di rect ion and cohesion by the
Punjab Ki san Commi t tee formed in 1937.
But in Bri t i sh India, i t was the tebhaga st ruggle in Bengal that held the l
imel ight . In late 1946, the
share-croppers of Bengal began to assert that they would no longer pay a hal f
share of thei r crop to the jotedars but only one-thi rd and that before divi sion the
crop would be stored in thei r khamars
(godowns) and not that of the jotedars. They were no doubt encouraged by the
fact that the Bengal
Land Revenue Commi ssion, popularly known as the Floud Commi ssion, had al
ready made thi s
recommendat ion in i t s report to the government . The Hajong t ribal s were simul
taneously demanding
commutat ion of thei r kind rent s into cash rent s. The tebhaga movement , led by
the Bengal Provincial
Ki san Sabha, soon developed into a clash between jotedars and bargadars wi th the
bargadars
insi st ing on storing the crop in thei r own khamars.
The movement received a great boost in late January 1947 when the Musl im
League Mini st ry led by
Suhrawardy publ i shed the Bengal Bargadars Temporary Regulat ion Bi l l in the
Calcut ta Gazet te on 22 January 1947. Encouraged by the fact that the demand
for tebhaga could no longer be cal led i l legal , peasant s in hi therto untouched vi l

lages and areas joined the st ruggle. In many places, peasant s t ried to remove the
paddy al ready stored in the jotedars khamars to thei r own, and thi s resul ted in
innumerable clashes. The jotedars appealed to the Government , and th pol ice
came in to suppress the peasant s. Repression cont inued and by the end of
February the movement was vi rtual ly dead. A few
incident s occurred in March as wel l , but these were only the death pangs of a
dying st ruggle.
The Musl im League Mini st ry fai led to pursue the bi l l in the Assembly and i t
was only in 1950 that
the Congress Mini st ry passed a Bargadars Bi l l which incorporated, in substance,
the demands of the
movement .
Wi th the experience of the spl i t of 1942, the ki san movement found that i f i t
diverged too far and too clearly from the path of the nat ional movement , i t
tended to lose i t s mass base, as wel l as create a spl i t wi thin the ranks of i t s
leadership.
28
The Freedom Struggle in Princely India
.A much more powerful influence was exerci sed by the Non-Cooperat ion and Khi
lafat Movement launched in 1920; around thi s t ime and under i t s impact ,
numerous local organizat ions of the States people came into exi stence. Some of
the States in which praja mandal s or States Peoples Conferences were organized
were Mysore, Hyderabad, Baroda, the Kathiawad States, the Deccan States,
Jamnagar, Indore, and Nawanagar. Thi s process came to a head in December 1927
wi th the convening of the Al l India States Peoples Conference (AISPC) which was
at tended by 700 pol i t ical workers from the States. The men chiefly responsible
for thi s ini t iat ive were Balwant rai Mehta, Maniklal Kothari and G.R. Abhayankar.
The pol icy of the Indian Nat ional Congress towards the Indian states had been fi
rst enunciated in
1920 at Nagpur when a resolut ion cal l ing upon the Princes to grant ful l
responsible government in
thei r States had been passed.
Fi rst , the Government of India Act of 1935 projected a scheme of federat ion in
which the Indian States were to be brought into a di rect const i tut ional relat
ionship wi th Bri t i sh India
and the States were to send representat ives to the Federal Legi slature. The catch
was that these
representat ives would be nominees of the Princes and not democrat ical ly elected
representat ives of
the people. They would number one-thi rd of the total numbers of the Federal legi
slature and act as a
sol id conservat ive block that could be t rusted to thwart nat ional i st pressures.
The Indian Nat ional
Congress and the AISPC and other organizat ions of the States people clearly saw
through thi s
imperial i st manoeuvre and demanded that the States be represented not by the
Princes nominees but
by elected representat ives of the people. Thi s lent a great sense of urgency to
the demand for
responsible democrat ic government in the States.

Fol lowing upon thi s, the Congress at Tripuri in March 1939 passed a resolut ion
enunciat ing i t s new
pol icy: The great awakening that i s taking place among the people of the States
may lead to a
relaxat ion, or to a complete removal of the rest raint which the Congress imposed
upon i t sel f, thus
resul t ing in an ever increasing ident i ficat ion of the Congress wi th the States
peoples.
Al so in 1939,the AISPC elected Jawaharlal Nehru as i t s President for the
Ludhiana session, thus set t ing the seal onthe fusion of the movement s in
Princely India and Bri t i sh india.
The outbreak of the Second World War brought about a di st inct change in the pol
i t ical atmosphere.
Congress Mini st ries resigned, the Government armed i t sel f wi th the Defence of
India Rules, and in the States as wel l there was less tolerance of pol i t ical act ivi
ty. Things came to a head again in 1942 wi th the launching of the Qui t India
Movement . Thi s t ime the Congress made no di st inct ion between Bri t i sh India
and the Indian States and the cal l for st ruggle was extended to the people of the
States.
The people of the States thus formal ly joined the st ruggle for Indian independence,
and in addi t ion to
thei r demand for responsible government they asked the Bri t i sh to qui t India
and demanded that the States become integral part s of the Indian nat ion.
RAJKOT
In a meet ing wi th Dewan Vi rawala, Patel , on behal f of the Pari shad, demanded a
commi t tee to frame proposal s for responsible government , a new elect ion to the
Prat inidhi Sabha,
reduct ion of land revenue by fi fteen percent , cancel lat ion of al l monopol ies or i
jaras, and a l imi t on
the rulers claim on the State t reasury. The Durbar, instead of conceding the
demands, asked the
Resident to appoint a Bri t i sh officer as Dewan to deal effect ively wi th the si
tuat ion, and Cadel l took
over on 12 September. Meanwhi le, Vi rawala himsel f became Private Advi ser to
the Thakore, so that
he could cont inue to operate from behind the scenes.
The Satyagraha now assumed major proport ions and included wi thhold of land
revenue, defiance of
monopoly right s, boycot t of al l goods produced by the State, including elect rici
ty and cloth. There was
a run on the State Bank and st rikes in the state cot ton mi l l and by student s. Al l
sources of income of
the state, including exci se and custom dut ies, were sought to be blocked.
Sardar Patel , though most of the t ime not physical ly present in Rajkot , kept in
regular touch wi th
the Rajkot leaders by telephone every evening. Volunteers began to arrive from
other part s of
Kathiawad, from Bri t i sh Gujarat and Bombay. The movement demonst rated a
remarkable degree of

organizat ion: a secret chain of command ensured that on the arrest of one leader
another took charge
and code numbers publ i shed in newspapers informed each Satyagrahi of hi s
arrival date and
arrangement s in Rajkot .
By the end of November, the Bri t i sh were clearly worried about the impl icat ions
of a possible
Congress victory in Rajkot .
The Mahatma decided that he, too, must go
to Rajkot . He had al ready made i t clear that he considered the breach of a
solemn agreement by the
Thakore Sahib a serious affai r and one that was the duty of every Satyagrahi to
resi st . He al so fel t that he had st rong claims on Rajkot because of hi s fami lys
close associat ion wi th the State and the
Thakores fami ly, and that thi s just i fied and prompted hi s personal intervent
ion.
In accordance wi th hi s wi shes, mass Satyagraha was suspended to prepare the
way for negot iat ions.
But a number of di scussions wi th the Resident , the Thakore and Dewan Vi rawala
yielded no resul t s
and resul ted in an ul t imatum by Gandhi j i that i f, by 3 March, the Durbar did not
agree to honour i t s agreement wi th the Sardar, he would go on a fast unto death.
The Thakore, or rather Vi rawala, who
was the real power behind the throne, stuck to hi s original posi t ion and left
Gandhi j i wi th no choice but to begin hi s fast .
The fast was the signal for a nat ion-wide protest . Gandhi j i s heal th was al ready
poor and any
prolonged fast was l ikely to be dangerous. There were hartal s, an adjournment of
the legi slature and
final ly a threat that the Congress Mini st ries might resign. The Viceroy was
bombarded wi th telegrams
asking for hi s intervent ion. Gandhi j i himsel f urged the Paramount Power to ful fi
l i t s responsibi l i ty to
the people of the State by persuading the Thakore to honour hi s promi se. On 7
March, the Viceroy
suggested arbi t rat ion by the Chief Just ice of India, Si r Maurice Gwyer, to decide
whether in fact the
Thakore had violated the agreement . Thi s seemed a reasonable enough proposi t
ion, and Gandhi j i
broke hi s fast .
The Chief Just ices award, announced on 3 Apri l , 1939, vindicated the Sardars
posi t ion that the
Durbar had agreed to accept seven of hi s nominees. The bal l was now back in the
Thakores court . But there had been no change of heart in Rajkot . Vi rawala cont
inued wi th hi s pol icy of propping up
Rajput , Musl im and depressed classesclaims to representat ion and refused to
accept any of the
proposal s made by Gandhi j i to accommodate thei r representat ives whi le
maintaining a majori ty of the Sardars and the Pari shads nominees.

The si tuat ion soon began to take an ugly turn, wi th host i le demonst rat ions by
Rajput s and Musl ims
during Gandhi j i s prayer meet ings, and Mohammed Al i Jinnahs and Ambedkars
demand that the
Musl ims and depressed classes be given separate representat ion. The Durbar used
al l thi s to cont inue
to refuse to honour the agreement in ei ther i t s let ter or spi ri t . The Paramount
Power, too, would not
intervene because i t had nothing to gain and everything to lose from securing an
out right Congress
victory. Nor did i t see i t s role as one of promot ing responsible government in the
States.
At thi s point , Gandhi j i , analyzing the reasons for hi s fai lure to achieve a
change of heart in hi s
opponent s, came to the conclusion that the cause lay in hi s at tempt to use the
authori ty of the
Paramount Power to coerce the Thakore into an agreement . Thi s, for him,
smacked of violence; nonviolence should have meant that he should have di
rected hi s fast only at the Thakore and Vi rawala, and rel ied only on the st rength
of hi s suffering to effect a change of heart . Therefore, he released the Thakore
from the agreement , apologized to the Viceroy and the Chief Just ice for wast ing
thei r t ime, and to hi s opponent s, the Musl ims and the Rajput s, and left Rajkot
to return to Bri t i sh India.
The Rajkot Satyagraha brought into clear focus the paradoxical si tuat ion that exi
sted in the States
and which made the task of resi stance a very complex one. The rulers of the States
were protected by
the might of the Bri t i sh Government against any movement s that aimed at
reform and popular
pressure on the Bri t i sh Government to induce reform could always be resi sted by
pleading the legal
posi t ion of the autonomy of the States. Thi s legal independence, however, was
usual ly forgot ten by the Bri t i sh when the States desi red to fol low a course that
was unpalatable to the Paramount Power. It was, after al l , the Bri t i sh
Government that urged the Thakore to refuse to honour hi s agreement wi th the
Sardar. But the legal separat ion of power and responsibi l i ty between the States
and the Bri t i sh
Government did provide a convenient excuse for resi st ing pressure, an excuse
that did not exi st in
Bri t i sh India. Thi s meant that movement s of resi stance in the States operated
in condi t ions that were very di fferent from those that provided the context for
movement s in Bri t i sh India. Perhaps, then, the Congress had not been far wrong
when for years i t had urged that the movement s in Princely India and Bri t i sh
India could not be merged. It s hesi tat ion to take on the Indian States was based
on a comprehension of the genuine di fficul t ies in the si tuat ion, di fficul t ies
which were clearly shown up by the example of Rajkot .
Despi te the apparent fai lure of the Rajkot Satyagraha, i t exerci sed a powerful
pol i t icizing influence
on the people of the States, especial ly in Western India. It al so demonst rated to
the Princes that they

survived only because the Bri t i sh were there to prop them up, and thus, the st
ruggle of Rajkot , along
wi th others of i t s t ime, faci l i tated the process of the integrat ion of the States at
the t ime of
independence.
In 1937, the other two regions of the State al so set up thei r own organizat ions
the Maharasht ra
Pari shad and the Kannada Pari shad. And, in 1938, act ivi st s from al l three
regions came together and
decided to found the Hyderabad State Congress as a state-wide body of the people
of Hyderabad. Thi s
was not a branch of the Indian Nat ional Congress, despi te i t s name, and despi te
the fact that i t s
members had close contact s wi th the Congress. But even before the organizat ion
could be formal ly
founded, the Nizams government i ssued orders banning i t , the ostensible ground
being that i t was a
communal body of Hindus and that Musl ims were not sufficient ly represented in i
t . Negot iat ions wi th the Government bore no frui t , and the deci sion was taken
to launch a Satyagraha.
The leader of thi s Satyagraha was Swami Ramanand Ti rtha, a Marathi
-speaking nat ional i st who had
given up hi s studies during the Non-Cooperat ion Movement , The two cent res of
the Satyagraha were
Hyderabad ci ty and Aurangabad ci ty in the Marathwada area.
Gandhi j i himsel f took a keen personal interest in the development s, and
regularly wrote to Si r
Akbar Hydari , the Prime Mini ster, pressing him for bet ter t reatment of the
Satyagrahi s and for a
change in the States at t i tude. And i t was at hi s instance that , after two
months, in December 1938, the Satyagraha was wi thdrawn.
The reasons for thi s deci sion were to be primari ly found in an accompanying
development the
Satyagraha launched by the Arya Samaj and the Hindu Civi l Libert ies Union at
the same t ime as the
State Congress Satyagraha. The Arya Samaj Satyagraha, which was at t ract ing
Satyagrahi s from al l
over the count ry, was launched as a protest against the rel igious persecut ion of
the Arya Samaj , and i t
had clearly rel igious object ives. It al so tended to take on communal overtones.
The State Congress and Gandhi j i increasingly fel t that in the popular mind thei r
clearly secular Satyagraha wi th di st inct
pol i t ical object ives were being confused wi th the rel igious-communal
Satyagraha of the Arya Samaj
and that i t was, therefore, best to demarcate themselves from i t by wi thdrawing
thei r own Satyagraha.
The authori t ies were in any case lumping the two together and seeking to project
the State Congress as a Hindu communal organizat ion.
Simul taneously, there was the emergence of what came to be known as the
Vande Mataram

Movement . Student s of col leges in Hyderabad ci ty organized a protest st rike

against the authori t ies refusal to let them sing Vande Mataram in thei r hostel
prayer rooms.
The State Congress, however, cont inued to be banned, and the regional cul tural
organizat ions
remained the main forums of act ivi ty.
A symbol ic protest against the cont inuing ban was again
regi stered by Swami Ramanand Ti rtha and six others personal ly selected by
Gandhi j i . They were
arrested in September 1940 and kept in detent ion t i l l December 1941. A
resumpt ion of the st ruggle
was ruled out by Gandhi j i since an al l -India st ruggle was in the offing and now
al l st ruggles would be part of that .
The Qui t India Movement was launched in August 1942 and i t was made clear
that now there was
no di st inct ion to be made between the people of Bri t i sh India and the States:
every Indian was to
part icipate. The meet ing of the AISPC was convened along wi th the AICC session
at Bombay that
announced the commencement of st ruggle. Gandhi j i and Jawaharlal Nehru both
addressed the AISPC
Standing Commi t tee, and Gandhi j i himsel f explained the impl icat ions of the
Qui t India Movement
and told the Commi t tee that henceforth there would be one movement . The
movement in the States
was now to be not only for responsible government but for the independence of
India and the
integrat ion of the States wi th Bri t i sh India.
But the Qui t India Movement al so sealed the ri ft that had developed between
the Communi st and
non-Communi st radical nat ional i st s after the Communi st Party had adopted
the slogan of Peoples
War in December 1941. Communi st s were opposed to the Qui t India Movement
as i t mi l i tated against thei r understanding that Bri tain must be supported in i t
s ant i -Fasci st War.
The case of Hyderabad, and that of Rajkot , are good examples of how methods of
st ruggle evolved to
sui t the condi t ions in Bri t i sh India, such as non-violent mass civi l di
sobedience or Satyagraha, did not have the same viabi l i ty or effect iveness in the
India States. The lack of civi l l ibert ies, and of
representat ive inst i tut ions, meant that the pol i t ical space for hegemonic pol i
t ics was very smal l , even when compared to the condi t ions prevai l ing under the
semi -hegemonic and semi -repressive colonial state in Bri t i sh India. The ul t imate
protect ion provided by the Bri t i sh enabled the rulers of the States to wi thstand
popular pressure to a considerable degree, as happened in Rajkot . As a resul t ,
there was a much greater tendency in these States for the movement s to resort to
violent methods of agi tat ion thi s happened not only in Hyderabad, but al so in
Travancore, Pat iala, and the Ori ssa States among others. In Hyderabad, for
example, even the State Congress ul t imately resorted to violent methods of at

tack, and, in the final count , the Nizam could only be brought into l ine by the
Indian Army.
Thi s al so meant that those such as the Communi st s and other Left groups, who
had less hesi tat ion
than the Congress in resort ing to violent forms of st ruggle, were placed in a more
favourable si tuat ion
in these States and were able to grow as a pol i t ical force in these areas. Here,
too, the examples of
Hyderabad, Travancore, Pat iala and the Ori ssa States were qui te st riking.
29
Indian Capitalists and
the National Movement
Fi rst , the Indian capi tal i st class grew from about the mid 19th century wi th
largely an independent capi tal base and not as junior partners of foreign capi tal
or as compradors. Second, the capi tal i st class on the whole was not t ied up in a
subservient posi t ion wi th pro-imperial i st feudal interest s ei ther economical ly
or pol i t ical ly. In fact , a wide cross sect ion of the leaders of the capi tal i st class
actual ly argued, in 1944-45, in thei r famous Bombay plan (the signatories to
which were Purshot tamdas Thakurdas, J.R.D. Tata, G.D. Bi rla, Ardeshi r Dalal , Sri
Ram, Kasturbhai Lalbhai , A.D. Shroff and John Mathai ) for comprehensive land
reform, including cooperat ivizat ion of product ion, finance and market ing.
Thi rd, in the period 1914-1947, the capi tal i st class grew rapidly, increasing i t s
st rength and sel fconfidence. Thi s was achieved primari ly through import subst i
tut ion; by edging out or encroaching
upon areas of European dominat ion, and by establ i shing almost exclusive cont rol
over new areas thus account ing for the bulk of the new investment s made since
the 1920s. Close to independence,
indigenous enterpri se had al ready cornered seventy two to seventy three per cent
of the domest ic
market and over eighty per cent of the deposi t s in the organized banking sector.
Since the early 1920s, effort s were being made by various capi tal i st s l ike G.D. Bi
rla and
Purshot tamdas Thakurdas to establ i sh a nat ional level organizat ion of Indian
commercial , indust rial
and financial interest s (as opposed to the al ready relat ively more organized
European interest s in
India) to be able to effect ively lobby wi th the colonial government . Thi s effort
culminated in the
format ion of the Federat ion of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Indust ry (FICCI)
in 1927, wi th a
large and rapidly increasing representat ion from al l part s of India. The FICCI was
soon recognized by
the Bri t i sh government as wel l as the Indian publ ic in general , as represent ing
the dominant opinion as
wel l as the overal l consensus wi thin the Indian capi tal i st class.
The leaders of the capi tal i st class al so clearly saw the role of the FICCI as being
that of nat ional

guardians of t rade, commerce and indust ry, performing in the economic sphere in
colonial India the
funct ions of a nat ional government . G.D. Bi rla and S.P. Jain were talking of
unequal exchange as early as the 1930s.
However, as ment ioned earl ier, the Indian capi tal i st class had i t s own not ions
of how the ant i imperial i st st ruggle ought to be waged. It was always in favour
of not completely abandoning the
const i tut ional path and the negot iat ing table and general ly preferred to put i t
s weight behind
const i tut ional forms of st ruggle as opposed to mass civi l di sobedience. Thi s
was due to several
reasons.
Fi rst , there was the fear that mass civi l di sobedience, especial ly i f i t was
prolonged, would unleash
forces which could turn the movement revolut ionary in a social sense (i .e.,
threaten capi tal i sm i t sel f).
As Lal j i Naranj i wrote to Purshot tamdas in March 1930, private property, i t sel
f could be threatened
and the di sregard for authori ty created could have di sast rous after effect s
even for the future
government of Swaraj .
9
Whenever the movement was seen to be get t ing too dangerous in thi s sense,
the capi tal i st s t ried thei r best to bring the movement back to a phase of const i
tut ional opposi t ion.
Second, the capi tal i st s were unwi l l ing to support a prolonged al l -out host i l i
ty to the government of
the day as i t prevented the cont inuing of day-to-day business and threatened the
very exi stence of the class.
Further, the Indian capi tal i st s support to const i tut ional part icipat ion, whether
i t be in assembl ies, conferences or even joining the Viceroys Execut ive Counci l ,
i s not to be understood simply as thei r get t ing co-opted into the imperial system
or surrendering to i t . They saw al l thi s as a forum for
maintaining an effect ive opposi t ion fearing that boycot t ing these forums
completely would help
black legs and element s who did not represent the nat ion to, wi thout any
opposi t ion, easi ly pass
measures which could severely affect the Indian economy and the capi tal i st
class. However, there was no quest ion of uncondi t ional ly accept ing reforms or
part icipat ing in conferences or assembl ies. The capi tal i st s were to part icipate
on (thei r) own terms, wi th no compromi se on fundamental s, fi rmly reject ing
offers of cooperat ion which fel l below thei r own and the minimum nat ional
demands.
It was on thi s ground that the FICCI in 1934 rejected the Report of the Joint Parl
iamentary Commi t tee on Const i tut ional Reforms for India as even more react
ionary than the proposal s contained in the Whi te paper.
The Indian capi tal i st s at t i tude had undergone signi ficant changes on thi s i
ssue over t ime. During
the Swadeshi Movement (1905-08), the capi tal i st s remained opposed to the
boycot t agi tat ion. Even

during the Non-Cooperat ion Movement of the early 20s, a smal l sect ion of the
capi tal i st s, including
Purshot tamdas, openly declared themselves enemies of the Non-Cooperat ion
Movement . However,
during the 1930s Civi l Di sobedience Movement , the capi tal i st s largely
supported the movement and
refused to respond to the Viceroys exhortat ions (in September 1930) to publ icly
repudiate the
Congress stand and hi s offer of ful l guarantee of government protect ion against
any harrassment for
doing so. urther, whi le the capi tal i st class on the whole stayed
wi thin the nat ional i st camp (as opposed to l ining up wi th the loyal i st s), i t did
so on the most
conservat ive end of the nat ional i st spect rum, which certainly did not cal l the
shot s of the nat ional
movement at any stage. Simi larly,
in 1928, the capi tal i st s refused to support the Government in int roducing the
Publ ic Safety Bi l l , which was intended to contain the Communi st s, on the ground
that such a provi sion would be used to at tack the nat ional movement .
It
was wi th thi s reform perspect ive that the Post War Economic Development
Commi t tee, set up by the capi tal i st s in 1942, which eventual ly drafted the
Bombay Plan, was to funct ion. It s at tempt was to incorporate whatever i s
sound and feasible in the social i st movement ana see how far social i st
demands could be accommodated wi thout capi tal i sm surrendering any of i t s
essent ial features.
Bombay Plan, therefore, seriously took up the quest ion of rapid economic growth
and equi table
di st ribut ion, even arguing for the necessi ty of part ial nat ional izat ion, the publ
ic sector, land reform
and a series of workers wel fare schemes. One may add that the basic assumpt ion
made by the
Bombay planners was that the plan could be implemented only by an independent
nat ional
Government .
Clearly the Indian capi tal i st class was ant i -social i st and bourgeoi s but i t was
not pro-imperial i st .
30
The Development of a Nationalist Foreign Policy
After the War, the nat ional i st s further developed thei r foreign pol icy in the di
rect ion of opposi t ion
to pol i t ical and economic imperial i sm and cooperat ion of al l nat ions in the
cause of world peace. As part of thi s pol icy, at i t s Delhi session in 1919, the
Congress demanded Indias representat ion at the Peace Conference through i t s
elected representat ives.
Indians al so cont inued to voice thei r sympathy for the freedom fighters of other
count ries. The Iri sh
and Egypt ian people and the Government of Turkey were extended act ive
support . At i t s Calcut ta

session in 1920, the Congress asked the people not to join the army to fight in
West Asia. In May
1921, Gandhi j i declared that the Indian people would oppose any at tack on
Afghani stan. The Congress branded the Mandate system of the League of Nat ions
as a cover for imperial i st greed. In 1921, the Congress congratulated the Burmese
people on thei r st ruggle for freedom. Burma was at that t ime a part of India, but
the Congress announced that free India favoured Burmas independence from
India.
Gandhi j i wrote in thi s context in 1922: I have never been able to take pride in
the fact that Burma has been made part of Bri t i sh India. It never was and never
should be. The Burmese have a civi l izat ion of thei r own. In 1924, the Congress
asked the Indian set t lers in Burma to demand no separate right s at the cost of
the Burmese people.
In January 1927, S. Srinavasa Iyengar moved an adjournment mot ion in the Cent
ral Legi slat ive
Assembly to protest against Indian t roops being used to suppress the Chinese
people. The st rong
Indian feel ings on the quest ion were repeatedly expressed by the Congress during
1927 (including at
i t s Madras session). The Madras Congress advi sed Indians not to go to China to
fight or work against
the Chinese people who were fel low fighters in the st ruggle against imperial i sm.
It al so asked for the
wi thdrawal of Indian t roops from Mesopotamia and Iran and al l other foreign
count ries. In 1928, the
Congress assured the people of Egypt , Syria, Palest ine, Iraq, and Afghani stan of i t
s ful l support in
thei r nat ional l iberat ion st ruggles.
In 1926-27, Jawaharlal Nehru t ravel led to Europe and came into contact wi th left
-wing European
pol i t ical workers and thinkers. Thi s had an abiding impact on hi s pol i t ical
development , including in the field of foreign affai rs. Thi s was, of course, not the
fi rst t ime that major Indian pol i t ical leaders had made an effort to establ i sh l
inks wi th, and get the support of, the ant i -imperial i st sect ions of
Bri t i sh and European publ ic opinion. Dadabhai Naoroj i was a close friend of
the social i st H.M.
Hyndman. He at tended the Hague session of the Internat ional Social i st
Congress in August 1904 and after describing imperial i sm as a species of
barbari sm declared that the Indian people had lost al l fai th in Bri t i sh pol i t ical
part ies and parl iament and looked for cooperat ion only to the Bri t i sh working
class. Lajpat Rai al so establ i shed close relat ions wi th American social i st s
during hi s stay in the US from
1914-18. In 1917, he opposed US part icipat ion in the World War because of the
Wars imperial i st ic
character. Gandhi j i al so developed close relat ions wi th out standing European
figures such as Tol stoy and Romain Rol land.
The highl ight of Jawaharlal s European vi si t was hi s part icipat ion as a
representat ive of the

Congress in the Internat ional Congress against Colonial Oppression and

Imperial i sm held in Brussel s in February 1927. The basic object ive of the
Conference was to bring together the colonial people of
Africa, Asia and Lat in America st ruggl ing against imperial i sm and the working
people of the
capi tal i st count ries fight ing against capi tal i sm. Nehru was elected one of the
honorary president s of the Conference along wi th Albert Einstein, Romain Rol land,
Madame Sun Yat -Sen and George
Lansbury. In hi s speeches and statement s at the Conferences, Nehru emphasized
the close connect ion
between colonial i sm and capi tal i sm and the deep commi tment of Indian nat
ional i sm to
internat ional i sm and to ant i -colonial st ruggles the world over.
The Brussel s Conference decided to found the League Against Imperial i
sm and for Nat ional
Independence. Nehru was elected to the Execut ive Counci l of the
League. The Congress al so affi l iated to the League as an associated member. At i
t s Calcut ta session, the Congress declared that the Indian st ruggle was a part of
the worldwide st ruggle against imperial i sm. It al so decided to open a Foreign
Department to develop contact s wi th other peoples and movement s fight ing
against imperial i sm.
The Congress declared 9
May to be Ethiopia Day on which demonst rat ions and meet ings were held al l
over India expressing
sympathy and sol idari ty wi th the Ethiopians. On hi s way back from Europe,
Jawaharlal refused to
meet Mussol ini , despi te hi s repeated invi tat ions, lest the meet ing was used for
fasci st propaganda.
At Tripuri , in early 1939, the
Congress passed a resolut ion di ssociat ing i t sel f ent i rely from the Bri t i sh
foreign pol icy, which has
consi stent ly aided the fasci st Powers and helped the dest ruct ion of the
democrat ic count ries.
In 1937, Japan launched an at tack on China. The Congress passed a resolut ion
condemning Japan
and cal l ing upon the Indian people to boycot t Japanese goods as a mark of thei r
sympathy wi th the
Chinese people.
As an expression of i t s sol idari ty wi th the Chinese people, 12 June was
celebrated throughout India as China Day. The Congress al so sent a medical mi
ssion, headed by Dr. M. Atal , to work wi th the Chinese armed forces. One of i t s
members, Dr. Kotni s, was to lay down hi s l i fe working wi th the Eighth Route Army
under Mao Ze-Dongs command.
31
The Rise and Growth of Communalism
Above al l , communal i sm was one of the by-product s of the colonial character of
Indian economy, of
colonial underdevelopment , of the incapaci ty of colonial i sm to develop the Indian
economy. The

resul t ing economic stagnat ion and i t s impact on the l ives of the Indian people,
especial ly the middle
classes, produced condi t ions which were conducive to divi sion and antagoni sm wi
thin Indian society
as al so to i t s radical t ransformat ion.
Throughout the 20th century, in the absence of modern indust rial development
and the development
of educat ion, heal th and other social and cul tural services, unemployment was
an acute problem in
India, especial ly for the educated middle and lower middle classes who could not
fal l back on land and
whose socio-economic condi t ions suffered constant deteriorat ion. These
economic opportuni t ies
decl ined further during the Great Depression after 1928 when large scale
unemployment prevai led.
In thi s social si tuat ion, the nat ional i st and other popular movement s worked
for the long-term
solut ion to the peoples problems by fight ing for the overthrow of colonial i sm and
radical social
t ransformat ion. In fact , the middle classes formed the backbone both of the mi l i
tant nat ional
movement from 1905 to 1947 and the left -wing part ies and groups since the
1920s. Unfortunately
there were some who lacked a wider social vi sion and pol i t ical understanding
and looked to thei r
narrow immediate interest s and short -term solut ions to thei r personal or sect
ional problems such as
communal , caste, or provincial reservat ion in jobs or in municipal commi t tees,
legi slatures, and so on.
Gradual ly, the spread of educat ion to wel l -off peasant s and smal l landlords
extended the boundaries
of the job-seeking middle class to the rural areas. The newly educated rural youth
could not be
sustained by land whether as landlords or peasant s, especial ly as agricul ture was
total ly stagnant
because of the colonial impact . They flocked on the towns and ci t ies for opening
in government jobs
and professions and t ried to save themselves by fight ing for jobs through the
system of communal
reservat ions and nominat ions. Thi s development gradual ly widened the social
base of communal i sm
to cover the rural upper st rata of peasant s and landlords.
Thus, the cri si s of the colonial economy constant ly generated two opposing set s
of ideologies and
pol i t ical tendencies among the middle classes. When ant i -imperial i st revolut
ion and social change
appeared on the agenda, the middle classes enthusiast ical ly joined the nat ional
and other popular
movement s. They then readi ly advocated the cause and demands of the ent i re
society from the

capi tal i st s to the peasant s and workers. Individual ambi t ions were then sunk in
the wider social vi sion.
But when prospect s of revolut ionary change receded, when the ant i -imperial i st
st ruggle entered a
more passive phase, many belonging to the middle classes shi fted to short -term
solut ions of thei r
personal problems, to pol i t ics based on communal i sm and other simi lar
ideologies. Thus wi th the
same social causat ion, large sect ions of the middle classes in several part s of the
count ry constant ly
osci l lated between ant i -imperial i sm and communal i sm or communal -type pol i
t ics. But there was a
crucial di fferent in the two cases. In the fi rst case, thei r own social interest s
merged wi th the interest s
of general social development and thei r pol i t ics formed a part of the broader
ant i -imperial i st st ruggle.
In the second case, they funct ioned as a narrow and sel fi sh interest group,
accepted the socio-pol i t ical
status quo and object ively served colonial i sm.
To sum up thi s aspect : communal i sm was deeply rooted in and was an
expression of the interest s
and aspi rat ions of the middle classes in a social si tuat ion in which opportuni t ies
for them were grossly
inadequate. The communal quest ion was, therefore a middle class quest ion par
excel lence. The main
appeal of communal i sm and i t s main social base al so lay among the middle
classes. It i s, however,
important to remember that a large number of middle class individual s remained,
on the whole free of
communal i sm even in the 1930s and 1940s. Thi s was, in part icular, t rue of most
of the intel lectual s,
whether Hindu, Musl im or Sikh. In fact , the typical Indian intel lectual of the
1930s tended to be both
secular and broadly left -wing.
There was another aspect of the colonial economy that favoured communal pol i t
ics. In the absence of openings in indust ry, commerce, educat ion and other social
services, and the cul tural and
entertainment fields, the Government service was the main avenue of
employment for the middle
classes. Much of the employment for teachers, doctors and engineers was al so
under government
cont rol . As late as 1951, whi le 1.2 mi l l ion persons were covered by the Factory
Act s, 3.3 mi l l ions got employment in government service. And communal pol i t
ics could be used to put pressure on the
Government to reserve and al locate i t s jobs as al so seat s in professional col
leges on communal and
caste l ines. Consequent ly, communal pol i t ics t i l l 1937 was organized around
government jobs,
educat ional concessions, and the l ike as al so pol i t ical posi t ions seat s in
legi slat ive counci l s,

municipal bodies, etc. which enabled cont rol over these and other economic
opportuni t ies. It may
al so be noted that though the communal i st s spoke in the name of thei r
communi t ies, the
reservat ions, guarantees and other right s they demanded were vi rtual ly
confined to these two
aspect s. They did not take up any i ssues which were of interest to the masses.
At another plane, communal i sm often di storted or mi sinterpreted social tension
and class confl ict
between the exploi ters and the exploi ted belonging to di fferent rel igions as
communal confl ict .
Both the communal i st s and the colonial admini st rators st ressed the communal
as
against the class aspect s of agrarian exploi tat ion and oppression.
In the Pabna agrarian riot s
of 1873, both Hindu and Musl im tenant s fought zamindars together. Simi larly, as
brought out in
earl ier chapters, most of the agrarian st ruggles after 1919 stayed clear of
communal channel s.
Fi rst , by consi stent ly t reat ing Hindus, Musl ims and
Sikhs as separate communi t ies and socio-pol i t ical ent i t ies which had l i t t le in
common. India, i t was
said, was nei ther a nat ion or a nat ion-in-the-making, nor did i t consi st of nat
ional i t ies or local
societ ies, but consi sted of st ructured, mutual ly exclusive and antagoni st ic rel
igion-based
communi t ies. Second, official favour and pat ronage were extended to the
communal i st s. Thi rd, the
communal Press and persons and agi tat ions were shown ext raordinary tolerance.
Fourth, communal
demands were readi ly accepted, thus pol i t ical ly st rengthening communal
organizat ions and thei r hold over the people. For example, whi le the Congress
could get none of i t s demands accepted from 1885-1905, the Musl im communal
demands were accepted in 1906 as soon as they were presented to the Viceroy.
Simi larly, in 1932, the Communal Award accepted al l the major communal
demands of the t ime. During World War II, the Musl im communal i st s were given
a complete veto on any pol i t ical advance. Fi fth, the Bri t i sh readi ly accepted
communal organizat ions and leaders as the real
spokesperson for thei r communi t ies, whi le the nat ional i st leaders were t
reated as represent ing a
microscopic minori ty the el i te. Sixth, separate electorates served as an
important inst rument for the development of communal pol i t ics. Last ly, the
colonial government encouraged communal i sm
through a pol icy of non-act ion against i t . Certain posi t ive measures which the
state alone could
undertake were needed to check the growth of communal i sm. The fai lure to
undertake them served as an indi rect encouragement to communal i sm.
The Government refused to take act ion against the
propagat ion of vi rulent communal ideas and communal hat red through the
Press, pamphlet s, leaflet s, l i terature, publ ic plat form and rumours. Thi s was in

sharp cont rast wi th the frequent suppression of the nat ional i st Press, l i
terature, civi l servant s, propaganda, and so on. On the cont rary, the
Government freely rewarded communal leaders, intel lectual s and government
servant s wi th t i t les,
posi t ions of profi t , high salaries, and so on. The Bri t i sh admini st rators al so fol
lowed a pol icy of
relat ive inact ivi ty and i rresponsibi l i ty in deal ing wi th communal riot s. When
they occurred, they were not crushed energet ical ly. The admini st rat ion al so
seldom made proper preparat ions or took
prevent ive measures to meet si tuat ions of communal tension, as they did in case
of nat ional i st and
other popular protest movement s.
To sum up: So long as the colonial state supported communal i sm, a solut ion to
the communal
problem was not easi ly possible whi le the colonial state remained; though, of
course, the overthrow of the colonial state was only the necessary but not a suf f
icient condi t ion for a successful st ruggle against
communal i sm. and the ant i -part i t ion of Bengal agi tat ion was ini t iated wi th
dips in
the Ganges. What was much worse, Bankim Chandra Chat terjea and many other
wri ters in Bengal i ,
Hindi , Urdu and other languages often referred to Musl ims as foreigners in thei r
novel s, plays, poems,
and stories, and tended to ident i fy nat ional i sm wi th Hindus.
A communal and di storted unscient i fic view of Indian hi story, especial ly of i t s
ancient and medieval
periods, was a major inst rument for the spread of communal consciousness as al
so a basic const i tuent
of communal ideology. The teaching of Indian hi story in school s and col leges from
a basical ly
communal point of view made a major cont ribut ion to the ri se and growth of
communal i sm.
A beginning was made in the early 19th century by the Bri t i sh hi storian, James Mi
l l , who described
the ancient period of Indian hi story as the Hindu period and the medieval period
as the Musl im
period.
32
Communalism The Liberal Phase
At the end of 1907, the Al l India Musl im League was founded by a group of big
zamindars, ex-bureaucrat s and other upper class Musl ims l ike the Aga Khan, the
Nawab of Dacca and
Nawab Mohsin-ul -Mulk, Founded as a loyal i st , communal and conservat ive pol i t
ical organizat ion, the League supported the part i t ion of Bengal , rai sed the
slogan of separate Musl im interest s, demanded
separate electorates and safeguards for Musl ims in government services, and rei
terated al l the major
themes of communal pol i t ics and ideology enunciated earl ier by Syed Ahmed
and hi s fol lowers.

Viqar-ul -Mulk, for example, said: God forbid, i f the Bri t i sh rule di sappears from
India, Hindus wi l l
lord over i t ; and we wi l l be in constant danger of our l i fe, property and honour.
The only way for the Musl ims to escape thi s danger i s to help in the cont inuance
of the Bri t i sh rule.
He al so expressed the fear of the minori ty losing i t s ident i ty. One of the major
object ives of the Musl im League was to keep the emerging intel l igent sia among
Musl ims from joining the Congress. It s act ivi t ies were di rected against the Nat
ional Congress and Hindus and not against the colonial regime.
The Punjab Hindu Sabha was founded in 1909. It s leaders, U.N. Mukerj i and Lal
Chand, were to lay
down the foundat ions of Hindu communal ideology and pol i t ics. They di rected
thei r anger primari ly
against the Nat ional Congress for t rying to uni te Indians into a single nat ion and
for sacri ficing Hindu interest s to appease Musl ims.
The fi rst session of the Al l -India Hindu Mahasabha was held in Apri l 1915 under
the president ship
of the Maharaja of Kasim Bazar.
The younger Musl im intel lectual s were soon di ssat i sfied wi th the loyal i st , ant i
-Hindu and slavi sh
mental i ty of the upper class leadership of the Musl im League. They were
increasingly drawn to
modern and radical nat ional i st ideas. The mi l i tant ly nat ional i st Ahrar
movement was founded at thi s t ime under the leadership of Maulana
Mohammed Al i , Hakim Ajmal Khan, Hasan Imam, Maulana Zafar Al i
Khan, and Mazhar-ul -Haq. In thei r effort s, they got support from a sect ion of
orthodox ulama (scholars), especial ly those belonging to the Deoband school .
Another orthodox scholar to be at t racted to the nat ional movement was the
young Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who was educated at the famous Al Azhar
Universi ty at Cai ro and who propagated hi s rat ional i st and nat ional i st ideas
in hi s newspaper Al Hi lal which he brought out in 1912 at the age of
twenty-four. After an intense st ruggle, the nat ional i st young Musl ims came to
the fore in the Musl im League. They al so became act ive in the Congress. In 1912,
the bri l l iant Congress leader, M.A. Jinnah, was invi ted to join the League which
adopted sel f-government as one of i t s object ives. In the same year, the Aga
Khan resigned as the President of the League. From 1912 to 1924, the young nat
ional i st s began to overshadow the loyal i st s in the League which began to move
nearer to the pol icies of the Congress. Unfortunately, thei r nat ional i sm was
flawed in so far as i t was not ful ly secular (except wi th rare except ions l ike
Jinnah). It had a st rong rel igious and pan-Islamic t inge. Instead of understanding
and opposing the economic and pol i t ical consequences of modern imperial i sm,
they fought i t on the ground that i t threatened the Cal iph (khal i fa) and the
holy places. Qui te often thei r appeal was to rel igious sent iment s.
The posi t ive development wi thin the Congress di scussed in an earl ier chapter
and wi thin the
Musl im League soon led to broad pol i t ical uni ty among the two, an important
role in thi s being played by Lokamanya Ti lak and M.A. Jinnah. The two organizat
ions held thei r sessions at the end of 1916 at Lucknow, signed a pact known as
the Lucknow Pact , and put forward common pol i t ical demands before the
Government including the demand for sel f-government for India after the war. The

Pact accepted separate electorates and the system of weightage and reservat ion of
seat s for the minori t ies in the legi slatures. Whi le a step forward in many respect
s and i t enthused the pol i t ical Indian the Pact was al so a step back. The
Congress had accepted separate electorates and formal ly recognized communal
pol i t ics. Above al l , the Pact was taci t ly based on the assumpt ion that India
consi sted of di fferent communi t ies wi th separate interest s of thei r own. It ,
therefore, left the way open to the future resurgence of communal i sm in Indian
pol i t ics.
The Swaraj i st s were spl i t by communal i sm. A group known
as responsivi st s offered cooperat ion to the Government so that the so-cal led
Hindu interest s might
be safeguarded. Lajpat Rai , Madan Mohan Malaviya and N.C. Kelkar joined the
Hindu Mahasabha and
argued for Hindu communal sol idari ty. The less responsible responsivi st s and
Hindu Mahasabhai tes
carried on a vi rulent campaign against secular Congressmen. They accused Mot i
lal Nehru of let t ing
down Hindus, of being ant i -Hindu and an Islam-lover, of favouring cow-slaughter,
and of eat ing beef.
Many old Khi lafat i st s al so now turned communal . The most dramat ic shi ft was
that of Maulanas
Mohammed Al i and Shaukat Al i who now accused the Congress of t rying to
establ i sh a Hindu
Government and Hindus of want ing to dominate and suppress Musl ims. The most
vicious expression
of communal i sm were communal riot s which broke out in major North Indian ci t
ies during 1923-24.
The most wel l -known of such effort s was made during 1928. As an answer to the
chal lenge of the
Simon Commi ssion, Indian pol i t ical leaders organized several al l -India
conferences to set t le
communal i ssues and draw up an agreed const i tut ion for India. A large number
of Musl im communal
leaders met at Delhi in December 1927 and evolved four basic demands known as
the Delhi Proposal s. These proposal s were:
(1) Sind should be made a separate province;
(2) the North-West Front ier
Province should be t reated const i tut ional ly on the same foot ing as
other provinces;
(3) Musl ims should have 33 1/3 per cent representat ion in the cent ral
legi slature;
(4) in Punjab and Bengal , the proport ion of representat ion should be in
accordance wi th the populat ion, thus guaranteeing a Musl im majori ty,
and in other provinces, where Musl ims were a minori ty, the exi st ing
reservat ion of seat s for Musl ims should cont inue.
The Congress proposal s came in the form of the Nehru Report drafted by an al l
-part ies commi t tee.
The Report was put up for approval before an Al l -Party Convent ion at Calcut ta
at the end of December

1928. Apart from other aspect s, the Nehru Report recommended that India
should be a federat ion on the basi s of l ingui st ic provinces and provincial
autonomy, that elect ions be held on the basi s of joint electorates and that
seat s in cent ral and provincial legi slatures be reserved for rel igious
minori t ies in proport ion to thei r populat ion. The Report recommended the
separat ion of Sind from Bombay and const i tut ional reform in the NorthWest Front ier Province.
The Report could not be approved unanimously at the Calcut ta Convent ion. Whi
le there were wide
di fferences among Musl ims communal i st s, a sect ion of the League and the Khi
lafat i st s were wi l l ing
to accept joint electorates and other proposal s in the Report provided three
amendment s, moved by
M.A. Jinnah, were accepted. Two of these were the same as the thi rd and fourth
demands in the Delhi
Proposal s, the fi rst and the second of these demands having been conceded by
the Nehru Report . The
thi rd was a fresh demand that residuary powers should vest in the provinces. A
large sect ion of the
League led by Mohammed Shafi and the Aga Khan and many other Musl im
communal groups refused
to agree to these amendment s; they were not wi l l ing to give up separate
electorates. The Hindu
Mahasabha and the Sikh League rai sed vehement object ions to the part s of the
Report deal ing wi th
Sind, North-West Front ier Province, Bengal and Punjab. They al so refused to
accept the Jinnah
amendment s. The Congress leaders were not wi l l ing to accept the weak
cent re that the Jinnah
proposal s envi sioned.
Jinnahs Fourteen Point s. The Fourteen Point s basical ly consi sted of the
four
Delhi Proposal s, the three Calcut ta amendement s and demands for the
cont inuat ion of separate
electorates and reservat ion of seat s for Musl ims in government services
and sel f-governing bodies.
The Fourteen Point s were to form the basi s of al l future communal
propaganda in the subsequent
years.
The communal leaders got a chance to come into the l imel ight during the Round
Table Conferences
of the early 1930s. At these conferences, the communal i st s joined hands wi th
the most react ionary
sect ions of the Bri t i sh rul ing classes. Both the Musl im and Hindu communal i st s
made effort s to win
the support of Bri t i sh authori t ies to defend thei r so-cal led communal interest
s. In 1932, at a meet ing in the House of Commons, the Aga Khan, the poet
Mohammed Iqbal and the hi storian Shafaat Ahmad Khan st ressed the inherent
impossibi l i ty of securing any merger of Hindu and Musl im, pol i t ical , or indeed

social interest s and the impract icabi l i ty of ever governing India through
anything but a Bri t i sh agency.
Moreover, in 1932, in an effort to bol ster the sagging Musl im communal i sm, the
Bri t i sh
Government announced the Communal Award which accepted vi rtual ly al l
the Musl im communal
demands embodied in the Delhi Proposal s of 1927 and Jinnahs Fourteen
Point s of 1929.
33
Jinnah, Golwalkar and Extreme Communalism
Liberal communal i sm was t ransformed into ext remi st communal i sm for
several reasons. As a
consequence of the growth of nat ional i sm and in part icular, of the Civi l Di
sobedience Movement of
1930-34, the Congress emerged as the dominant pol i t ical force in the elect ions
of 1937. Various
pol i t ical part ies of landlords and other vested interest s suffered a drast ic decl
ine. Moreover, as we
have seen, the youth as al so the workers and peasant s were increasingly turning
to the Left , and the
nat ional movement as a whole was get t ing increasingly radical ized in i t s
economic and pol i t ical
programme and pol icies. The zamindars and landlords the jagi rdari element s
finding that open
defence of landlords interest s was no longer feasible, now, by and large, swi tched
over to
communal i sm for thei r class defence. Thi s was not only t rue in U.P. and Bihar
but al so in Punjab and
Bengal . In Punjab, for example, the big landlords of West Punjab and the Musl im
bureaucrat ic el i te
had supported the semi -communal , semi -castei st and loyal i st Unioni st Party.
But they increasingly
fel t that the Unioni st Party, being a provincial party, could no longer protect
them from Congress
radical i sm, and so, during the years 1937-45, they gradual ly shi fted thei r support
to the Musl im
League which eagerly promi sed to protect thei r interest s. Very simi lar was the
case of Musl im
zamindars and jotedars in Bengal .
He said that our principle of separate electorates was dividing the nat ion
against i t sel f.
From 1906 onwards, Jinnah propagated the theme of nat ional uni ty in
the meet ings that he addressed, earning from Saroj ini Naidu the t i t le
Ambassador of Hindu-Musl im Uni ty.
But he al so started assuming the role of a spokesperson of the Musl im communi
ty as a whole. These dual roles reached the height of thei r effect iveness in the
Lucknow Congress-League Pact of which he and Ti lak were the joint authors. Act
ing as the spokesperson of Musl im communal i sm, he got the Congress to

acceptseparate electorates and the system of communal reservat ions. But he st i l

l remained ful ly commi t ted to nat ional i sm and secular pol i t ics.
He resigned from the Legi slat ive Counci l as a protest against the passing of the
Rowlat t Bi l l .
34
The Crisis at Tripuri to the Cripps Mission
Subhas Bose had been a unanimous choice as the President of the Congress in
1938. In 1939, he
decided to stand again thi s t ime as the spokesperson of mi l i tant pol i t ics and
radical groups. Put t ing forward hi s candidature on 21 January 1939,
On 24 January, Sardar Patel , Rajendra Prasad, J.B.
Kripalani and four other members of the Congress Working Commi t tee i ssued a
counter statement ,
declaring that the talk of ideologies, programmes and pol icies was i rrelevant in
the elect ions of a
Congress president since these were evolved by the various Congress bodies such
as the AICC and the
Working Commi t tee, and that the posi t ion of the Congress President was l ike
that of a const i tut ional head who represented and symbol ized the uni ty and sol
idari ty of the nat ion.
Wi th the blessings of Gandhi j i , these and other leaders put up Pat tabhi Si
taramayya as a candidate for the post . Subhas Bose was elected on 29 January by
1580 votes against 1377. Gandhi j i declared that Si taramayyas defeat was
more mine than hi s.
But the elect ion of Bose resolved nothing, i t only brought the brewing cri si s to a
head at the Tripuri
session of the Congress. There were two major reasons for the cri si s. One was the l
ine of propaganda
adopted by Bose against Sardar Patel and the majori ty of the top Congress
leadership whom he
branded as right i st s. He openly accused them of working for a compromi se wi th
the Government on
the quest ion of federat ion, of having even drawn up a l i st of prospect ive cent ral
mini sters and
therefore of not want ing a left i st as the president of the Congress who may be a
thorn in the way of a compromi se and may put obstacles in the path of negot iat
ions. He had, therefore, appealed to
Congressmen to vote for a left i st and a genuine ant i -federat ioni st .
Subhas Bose bel ieved that the Congress was st rong enough to launch an
immediate st ruggle and that
the masses were ready for such st ruggle. He was convinced, as he wrote later, that
the count ry was
internal ly more ripe for a revolut ion than ever before and that the coming internat
ional cri si s would
give India an opportuni ty for achieving her emancipat ion, which i s rare in human
hi story.
He,therefore, argued in hi s president ial address at Tripuri for a programme of
immediately giving the

Bri t i sh Government a six-months ul t imatum to grant the nat ional demand for
independence and of
launching a mass civi l di sobedience movement i f i t fai led to do so.
The internal st ri fe reached i t s cl imax at the Tripuri session of the Congress,
held from 8 to 12 March
1939. Bose had completely mi sjudged hi s support and the meaning of hi s majori
ty in the president ial
elect ion. Congressmen had voted for him for diverse reasons, and above al l
because he stood for
mi l i tant pol i t ics, and not because they wanted to have him as the supreme
leader of the nat ional
movement . They were not wi l l ing to reject Gandhi j i s leadership or that of
other older leaders who
decided to bring thi s home to Subhas. Govind Bal labh Pant moved a resolut ion at
Tripuri expressing
ful l confidence in the old Working Commi t tee, rei terat ing ful l fai th in Gandhi j i
s leadership of the
movement and the Congress pol icies of the previous twenty years, and asking
Subhas to nominate hi s
Working Commi t tee in accordance wi th the wi shes of Gandhi j i . The resolut ion
was passed by a big
majori ty, but Gandhi j i did not approve of the resolut ion and refused to impose a
Working Commi t tee on Subhas. He asked him to nominate a Commi t tee of hi s
own choice.
Subhas Bose refused to take up the chal lenge. He had placed himsel f in an
impossible si tuat ion.
But Bose would not resi le from hi s posi t ion. On the one hand, he insi sted
that the Working Commi t tee should be representat ive of the new radical t rends
and groups which had
elected him, on the other, he would not nominate hi s own Working Commi t tee.
He preferred to press
hi s resignat ion. Thi s led to the elect ion of Rajendra Prasad in hi s place. The
Congress had weathered
another storm. Bose could al so not get the support of the Congress Social i st s
and the Communi st s at Tripuri or
after for they were not wi l l ing to divide the nat ional movement and fel t that i
t s uni ty must be
preserved at al l cost s. Subsequent ly, in May, Subhas Bose and hi s fol lowers
formed the Forward Bloc as a new party
wi thin the Congress. And when he gave a cal l for an al l -India protest on 9 July
against an AICC
resolut ion, the Working Commi t tee took di scipl inary act ion against him,
removing him from the
president ship of the Bengal Provincial Congress Commi t tee and debarring him
from holding any
Congress office for three years.
The react ion of the Indian people and the nat ional leadership was sharp. The
angriest react ion came
from Gandhi j i who had been advocat ing more or less uncondi t ional support to
Bri tain. Point ing out

that the Bri t i sh Government was cont inuing to pursue the old pol icy of divide
and rule, he said: The
Indian declarat ion (of the Viceroy) shows clearly that there i s to be no democracy
for India i f Bri tain
can prevent i t . . . The Congress asked for bread and i t has got a stone.
Referring to the quest ion of
minori t ies and special interest s such as those of the princes, foreign capi tal i st s,
zamindars, etc.,
Gandhi j i remarked: The Congress wi l l safeguard the right s of every minori ty
so long as they do not
advance claims inconsi stent wi th Indias independence. But , he added,
independent India wi l l not
tolerate any interest s in confl ict wi th the t rue interest s of the masses.
The Working Commi t tee, meet ing on 23 October, rejected the Viceregal
statement as a rei terat ion
of the old imperial i st pol icy, decided not to support the War, and cal led upon
the Congress mini st ries
to resign as a protest . Thi s they did as di scipl ined soldiers of the nat ional
movement . But the Congress
leadership st i l l stayed i t s hand and was reluctant to give a cal l for an
immediate and a massive ant i imperial i st st ruggle. In fact , the Working Commi t
tee resolut ion of 23 October warned Congressmen
against any hasty act ion.
Near the end of 1940, the Congress once again asked Gandhi j i to take
command. Gandhi j i now began to take steps which would lead to a mass st ruggle
wi thin hi s broad
st rategic perspect ive. He decided to ini t iate a l imi ted satyagraha on an
individual basi s by a few
selected individual s in every local i ty. The demand of a satyagrahi would be for
the freedom of speech
to preach against part icipat ion in the War. The satyagrahi would publ icly declare:
It i s wrong to help
the Bri t i sh war-effort wi th men or money. The only worthy effort i s to resi st al l
war wi th non-violent
resi stance. The satyagrahi would beforehand inform the di st rict magi st rate of
the t ime and place
where he or she was going to make the ant i -war speech. The careful ly chosen
satyagrahi s Vinoba
Bhave was to be the fi rst satyagrahi on 17 October 1940 and Jawaharlal Nehru
the second were
surrounded by huge crowds when they appeared on the plat form, and the authori t
ies could often arrest them only after they had made thei r speeches. And i f the
Government did not arrest a satyagrahi , he or she would not only repeat the
performance but move into the vi l lages and start a t rek towards Delhi ,
thus part icipat ing in a movement that came to be known as the Delhi Chalo
(onwards to Delhi )
movement .
Thus, the Individual Satyagraha had a dual purpose whi le giving expression to
the Indian

peoples st rong pol i t ical feel ing, i t gave the Bri t i sh Government further
opportuni ty to peaceful ly
accept the Indian demands. Gandhi j i and the Congress were, because of thei r
ant i -Nazi feel ings, st i l l reluctant to take advantage of the Bri t i sh predicament
and embarrass her war effort by a mass
upheaval in India. More important ly, Gandhi j i was beginning to prepare the
people for the coming
st ruggle.
As the war si tuat ion worsened, President Roosevel t of the USA and President
Chiang Kai -Shek of
China as al so the Labour Party leaders of Bri tain put pressure on Churchi l l to
seek the act ive
cooperat ion of Indians in the War. To secure thi s cooperat ion the Bri t i sh
Government sent to India in
March 1942 a mi ssion headed by a Cabinet mini ster Stafford Cripps, a left -wing
Labouri te who had
earl ier act ively supported the Indian nat ional movement . Even though Cripps
announced that the aim
of Bri t i sh pol icy in India was the earl iest possible real izat ion of sel fgovernment in India, the Draft
Declarat ion he brought wi th him was di sappoint ing. The Declarat ion promi sed
India Dominion Status
and a const i tut ion-making body after the War whose members would be elected
by the provincial
assembl ies and nominated by the rulers in case of the princely states. The Paki
stan demand was
accommodated by the provi sion that any province which was not prepared to
accept the new
const i tut ion would have the right to sign a separate agreement wi th Bri tain
regarding i t s future status. For the present the Bri t i sh would cont inue to exerci
se sole cont rol over the defence of the count ry.
Negot iat ions between Cripps and the Congress leaders broke down. The Congress
objected to the
provi sion for Dominion Status rather than ful l independence, the representat ion
of the princely states
in the const i tuent assembly not by the people of the states but by the nominees
of the rulers, and above
al l by the provi sion for the part i t ion of India. The Bri t i sh Government al so
refused to accept the
demand for the immediate t ransfer of effect ive power to the Indians and for a real
share in the
responsibi l i ty for the defence of India.
35
The Quit India Movement and the INA
Qui t India, Bharat Choro. Thi s simple but powerful slogan launched the
legendary st ruggle which
al so became famous by the name of the August Revolut ion. In thi s st ruggle, the
common people of

the count ry demonst rated an unparal leled heroi sm and mi l i tancy. Moreover, the
repression that they
faced was the most brutal that had ever been used against the nat ional
movement .
For one, the fai lure of the Cripps Mi ssion in Apri l 1942 made i t clear that Bri tain
was unwi l l ing to
offer an honourable set t lement and a real const i tut ional advance during the
War, and that she was
determined to cont inue Indias unwi l l ing partnership in the War effort .
A fortnight after Cripps departure,
Gandhi j i drafted a resolut ion for the Congress Working Commi t tee cal l ing for
Bri tains wi thdrawal
and the adopt ion of non-violent non-cooperat ion against any Japanese invasion.
Apart from Bri t i sh obduracy, there were other factors that made a st ruggle both
inevi table and
necessary. Popular di scontent , a product of ri sing prices and war-t ime shortages,
was gradual ly
mount ing. High-handed government act ions such as the commandeering of boat s
in Bengal and Ori ssa
to prevent thei r being used by the Japanese had led to considerable anger among
the people.
The popular wi l l ingness to give expression to thi s di scontent was enhanced by
the growing feel ing
of an imminent Bri t i sh col lapse. The news of Al l ied reverses and Bri t i sh wi
thdrawal s from South-East
Asia and Burma and the t rains bringing wounded soldiers from the Assam-Burma
border confi rmed
thi s feel ing.
Combined wi th thi s was the impact of the manner of the Bri t i sh evacuat ion
from Malaya and
Burma. It was common knowledge that the Bri t i sh had evacuated the whi te
resident s and general ly left the subject people to thei r fate. Let ters from Indians
in South-East Asia to thei r relat ives in India were ful l of graphic account s of Bri t
i sh bet rayal and thei r being left at the mercy of the dreaded Japanese.
Was i t not only to be expected that they would repeat the performance in India,
in the event of a
Japanese occupat ion? In fact , one major reason for the leadership of the nat ional
movement thinking i t necessary to launch a st ruggle was thei r feel ing that the
people were becoming demoral ized and, that in the event of a Japanese occupat
ion, might not resi st at al l . In order to bui ld up thei r capaci ty to resi st
Japanese aggression, i t was necessary to draw them out of thi s demoral ized
state of mind and convince them of thei r own power. Gandhi j i , as always, was
part icularly clear on thi s aspect .
Though Gandhi j i himsel f had begun to talk of the coming st ruggle for some t ime
now, i t was at the
Working Commi t tee meet ing at Wardha on 14 July, 1942 that the Congress fi rst
accepted the idea of a st ruggle. The Al l -India Congress Commi t tee was then to
meet in Bombay in August to rat i fy thi s
deci sion.

The hi storic August meet ing at Gowal ia Tank in Bombay was unprecedented in
the popular
enthusiasm i t generated.
Gandhi j i s speech al so contained speci fic inst ruct ions for di fferent sect ions of
the people.
Government servant s would not yet be asked to resign, but they should openly
declare thei r al legiance
to the Congress, soldiers were al so not to leave thei r post s, but they were to
refuse to fi re on our own
people. The Princes were asked to accept the sovereignty of your own people,
instead of paying
homage to a foreign power.And the people of the Princely States were asked to
declare that they
(were) part of the Indian nat ion and that they (would) accept the leadership of
the Princes, i f the lat ter
cast thei r lot wi th the People, but not otherwi se. Student s were to give up
studies i f they were sure
they could cont inue to remain fi rm t i l l independence was achieved. On 7
August , Gandhi j i had placed
the inst ruct ions he had drafted before the Working Commi t tee, and in these he
had proposed that
peasant s who have the courage, and are prepared to ri sk thei r al l should refuse
to pay the land
revenue. Tenant s were told that the Congress holds that the land belongs to
those who work on i t and
to no one el se. Where the zamindari system prevai l s . . . i f the zamindar makes
common cause wi th
the ryot , hi s port ion of the revenue, which may be set t led by mutual
agreement , should be given to
him. But i f a zamindar want s to side wi th the Government , no tax should be paid
to him.
The Government had been
preparing for the st rike since the outbreak of the War i t sel f, and since 1940 had
been ready wi th an
elaborate Revolut ionary Movement Ordinance.
The Government responded by gagging the
press. The Nat ional Herald and Hari jan ceased publ icat ion for the ent i re durat
ion of the st ruggle,
others for shorter periods.
Di sseminat ion of
news was a very important part of the act ivi ty, and considerable success was
achieved on thi s score,
the most dramat ic being the Congress Radio operated clandest inely from di
fferent locat ions in
Bombay ci ty, whose broadcast could be heard as far as Madras. Ram Manohar
Lohia regularly
broadcast on thi s radio, and the radio cont inued t i l l November 1942 when i t
was di scovered and
confi scated by the pol ice.

In February 1943, a st riking new development provided a new burst of pol i t ical
act ivi ty. Gandhi j i
commenced a fast on 10 February in jai l . He declared the fast would last for
twenty-one days. Thi s
was hi s answer to the Government which had been constant ly exhort ing him to
condemn the violence
of the people in the Qui t India Movement . Gandhi j i not only refused to condemn
the peoples resort to
violence but unequivocal ly held the Government responsible for i t .
The
severest blow to the prest ige of the Government was the resignat ion of the three
Indian members of
the Viceroys Execut ive Counci l , M.S. Aney, N.R. Sarkar and H.P. Mody, who had
supported the
Government in i t s suppression of the 1942 movement , but were in no mood to
be a party to Gandhi j i s
death.
A signi ficant feature of the Qui t India Movement was the emergence of what
came to be known as
paral lel government s in some part s of the count ry. The fi rst one was proclaimed
in Bal l ia, in East
U.P., in August 1942 under the leadership of Chi t tu Pande, who cal led himsel f a
Gandhian. Though i t
succeeded in get t ing the Col lector to hand over power and release al l the
arrested Congress leaders, i t
could not survive for long and when the soldiers marched in, a week after the paral
lel government was
formed, they found that the leaders had fled.
In Tamluk in the Midnapur di st rict of Bengal , the Jat iya Sarkar came into exi
stence on 17
December, 1942 and lasted t i l l September 1944. Tamluk was an area where
Gandhian const ruct ive
work had made considerable headway and i t was al so the scene of earl ier mass
st ruggles. The Jat iya
Sarkar undertook cyclone rel ief work, gave grant s to school s and organized an
armed Vidyut Vahini . It
al so set up arbi t rat ion court s and di st ributed the surplus paddy of the wel l -todo to the poor. Being
located in a relat ively remote area, i t could cont inue i t s act ivi t ies wi th
comparat ive ease.
14
Satara, in Maharasht ra, emerged as the base of the longest -last ing and effect ive
paral lel
government . From the very beginning of the Qui t India Movement , the region
played an act ive role. In the fi rst phase from August 1942, there were marches on
local government headquarters, the ones on Karad, Tasgaon and Islampur
involving thousands. Thi s was fol lowed by sabotage, at tacks on post
offices, the loot ing of banks and the cut t ing of telegraph wi res. Y.B. Chavan, who
had contact s wi th

Achyut Patwardhan and other underground leaders, was the most important
leader. But by the end of
1942, thi s phase came to an end wi th the arrest of about two thousand people.
From the very beginning of 1943, the underground act ivi st s began to regroup, and
by the middle of the year, succeeded in consol idat ing the organizat ion. A paral lel
government or Prat i Sarkar was set up and Nani Pat i l was i t s most important
leader. Thi s phase was marked by at tacks on Government col laborators,
informers and talat i s or lower-level official s and Robin Hood-style robberies.
Nyayadan Mandal s or peoples court s were set up and just ice di spensed. Prohibi
t ion was enforced, and Gandhi marriages celebrated to which untouchables were
invi ted and at which no ostentat ion was al lowed. Vi l lage l ibraries were set up
and educat ion encouraged. The nat ive state of Aundh, whose ruler was pro-nat
ional i st and had got the const i tut ion of hi s state drafted by Gandhi j i , provided
invaluable support by offering refuge and shel ter to the Prat i Sarkar act ivi st s.
The Prat i Sarkar cont inued to funct ion t i l l 1945.
Women, especial ly col lege and school gi rl s, played a
very important role. Aruna Asaf Al i and Sucheta Kripalani were two major women
organizers of the
underground, and Usha Mehta an important member of the smal l group that ran
the Congress Radio.
In fact ,
the erosion of loyal ty to the Bri t i sh Government of i t s own officers was one of
the most st riking
aspect s of the Qui t India st ruggle. Al so, there was a total absence of any
communal clashes, a sure sign that though the movement may not have aroused
much support from among the majori ty of the Musl im masses, i t did not arouse
thei r host i l i ty ei ther.
A st rict watch was kept on these development s, but no repressive act ion was
contemplated
and the Viceroys energies were di rected towards formulat ing an offer (known as
the Wavel l Offer or
the Simla Conference) which would pre-empt a st ruggle by effect ing an
agreement wi th the Congress
before the War wi th Japan ended. The Congress leaders were released to part
icipate in the Simla
Conference in June 1945. That marked the end of the phase of confrontat ion that
had exi sted since
August 1942.
INA
The idea of the INA
was fi rst conceived in Malaya by Mohan Singh, an Indian officer of the Bri t i sh
Indian Army, when he
decided not to join the ret reat ing Bri t i sh army and instead went to the Japanese
for help.
Indian pri soners of war were handed over by the Japanese to Mohan Singh who
then t ried to recrui t
them into an Indian Nat ional Army. The fal l of Singapore was crucial , for thi s
brought 45,000 Indian
POWs into Mohan Singhs sphere of influence. By the end of 1942, forty thousand
men expressed

thei r wi l l ingness to join the INA. It was repeatedly made clear at various
meet ings of leaders of the
Indian communi ty and of Indian Army officers that the INA would go into
act ion only on the
invi tat ion of the Indian Nat ional Congress and the people of India. The
INA was al so seen by many as a means of checking the mi sconduct of the
Japanese against Indians in South-East Asia and a bulwark against a future
Japanese occupat ion of India.
The outbreak of the Qui t India Movement gave a fi l l ip to the INA as wel l . Ant i
-Bri t i sh
demonst rat ions were organized in Malaya. On 1 September 1942, the fi rst divi
sion of the INA was
formed wi th 16,300 men. The Japanese were by now more amenable to the idea of
an armed Indian
wing because they were contemplat ing an Indian invasion. But , by December
1942, serious di fferences
emerged between the Indian army officers led by Mohan Singh and the Japanese
over the role that the
INA was to play. Mohan Singh and Ni ranjan Singh Gi l l , the senior-most Indian
officer to join the
INA, were arrested. The Japanese, i t turned out , wanted only a token force of
2,000 men, whi le Mohan Singh wanted to rai se an Indian Nat ional Army of
20,000.
The second phase of the INA began when Subhas Chandra Bose was brought to
Singapore on 2 July
1943, by means of German and Japanese submarines. He went to Tokyo and Prime
Mini ster Tojo
declared that Japan had no terri torial designs on India. Bose returned to Singapore
and set up the
Provi sional Government of Free India on 21 October 1943. The Provi
sional Government then declared war on Bri tain and the Uni ted States,
and was recogni sed by the Axi s powers and thei r satel l i tes.
Subhas Bose set up two INA headquarters, in Rangoon and in Singapore, and
began to reorganize the
INA. Recrui t s were sought from civi l ians, funds were gathered, and even a
womens regiment cal led
the Rani Jhansi regiment was formed. On 6 July 1944, Subhas Bose, in a
broadcast on Azad Hind
Radio addressed to Gandhi j i , said: Indias last war of independence has begun . .
. Father of our
Nat ion! In thi s holy war of Indias l iberat ion, we ask for your blessing and good wi
shes.
One INA bat tal ion commanded by Shah Nawaz was al lowed to accompany the
Japanese Army to
the Indo-Burma front and part icipate in the Imphal campaign. But the di
scriminatory t reatment which
included being denied rat ions, arms and being made to do menial work for the
Japanese uni t s,
completely demoral ized the INA men. The fai lure of the Imphal campaign, and the
steady Japanese

ret reat thereafter, quashed any hopes of the INA l iberat ing the nat ion.
36
Post-War National Upsurge
the Tebhaga Movement , the Warl i s Revol t , the Punjab ki san morchas, the
Travancore peoples st ruggle (especial ly the Punnapra-Vayalar epi sode) and the
Telengana
Movement . These movement s had an ant i -imperial i st edge as the di rect
oppressors they chal lenged were al so the vested interest s that const i tuted the
social support of the Raj but they did not come into di rect confl ict wi th the
colonial regime.
The defence of the INA pri soners was taken up by the Congress and Bhulabhai
Desai , Tej Bahadur Sapru, K.N. Kat ju, Nehru and Asaf Al i appeared in court at
the hi storic Red Fort
t rial s. The Congress organi sed an INA Rel ief and Enqui ry Commi t tee, which
provided smal l sums of
money and food to the men on thei r release, and at tempted, though wi th
marginal success, to secure
employment for these men. The Congress authorized the Cent ral INA Fund Commi
t tee, the Mayors
Fund in Bombay, the AICC and the PCC offices and Sarat Bose to col lect funds.
The growing nat ional i st sent iment , that reached a crescendo around the INA t
rial s, developed into
violent confrontat ions wi th authori ty in the winter of 1945-46. There were three
upsurges one on 21 November 1945 in Calcut ta over the INA t rial s; the second
on 11 February 1946 in Calcut ta to protest against the seven year sentence given
to an INA officer, Rashid Al i ; and the thi rd in Bombay of 18 February 1946 when
the rat ings of the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) went on st rike.
The RIN revol t started on 18 February when 1100 naval rat ings of HMIS Talwar st
ruck work at
Bombay to protest against the t reatment meted out to them flagrant racial di
scriminat ion,
unpalatable food and abuses to boot . The arrest of B.C. Dut t , a rat ing, for scrawl
ing Qui t India on the
HMIS Talwar, was sorely resented. The next day, rat ings from Cast le and Fort
Barracks joined the
st rike and on hearing that the HMIS Talwar rat ings had been fi red upon (which
was incorrect ) left
thei r post s and went around Bombay in lorries, holding aloft Congress flags,
threatening Europeans
and pol icemen and occasional ly breaking a shop window or two
In the RIN revol t , Karachi was a major cent re,
second only to Bombay. The news reached Karachi on 19 February, upon which the
HMIS Hindustan
alongwi th one more ship and three shore establ i shment s, went on a l ightning st
rike.
The RIN revol t remains a
legend to thi s day. When i t took place, i t had a dramat ic impact on popular
consciousness. A revol t in

the armed forces, even i f soon suppressed, had a great l iberat ing effect on the
minds of people. The
RIN revol t was seen as an event which marked the end of Bri t i sh rule almost as
final ly as
Independence Day, 1947. When we examine these upsurges closely we find that
the form they took, that of an ext reme, di rect
and violent confl ict wi th authori ty, had certain l imi tat ions. Only the most mi l i
tant sect ions of society
could part icipate. There was no place for the l iberal and conservat ive groups
which had ral l ied to the
INA cause earl ier or for the men and women of smal l towns and vi l lages who had
formed the
backbone of the mass movement s in earl ier decades. Besides, these upsurges
were short -l ived, as the
t ide of popular fury surged forth, only to subside al l too quickly.
The communal uni ty wi tnessed was more organizat ional uni ty than uni ty of the
people. Moreover,
the organizat ions came together only for a speci fic agi tat ion that lasted a few
days, as was the case in
Calcut ta on the i ssue of Rashid Al i s t rial . Calcut ta, the scene of the almost
revolut ion in February
1946, according to Gautam Chat topadhaya
, became the bat t le ground of communal frenzy only six
months later, on 16 August 1946. The communal uni ty evident in the RIN revol t
was l imi ted, despi te the Congress, League and Communi st flags being joint ly hoi
sted on the ships mast s. Musl im rat ings went to the League to seek advice on
future act ion, whi le the rest went to the Congress and the
Social i st s; Jinnahs advice to surrender was addressed to Musl im rat ings alone,
who duly heeded i t .
The view that communal uni ty forged in the st ruggles of 1945-46 could, i f taken
further, have averted
part i t ion, seems to be based on wi shful thinking rather than concrete hi storical
possibi l i ty. The uni ty at the barricades did not show thi s promi se.
Event s in November 1945 in Calcut ta had the t roops standing by, but the
Governor of Bengal
preferred to and was able to cont rol the si tuat ion wi th the pol ice. Troops were
cal led in on 12 February
1946 in Calcut ta and thi rty-six civi l ians were ki l led in the fi ring. Simi larly,
during the RIN revol t ,
rat ings were forced to surrender in Karachi and six of them were ki l led in the
process. Cont rary to the
popular bel ief that Indian t roops in Bombay had refused to fi re on thei r count
rymen, i t was a Maratha
bat tal ion in Bombay that rounded up the rat ings and restored them to thei r
barracks.
The Amri t Bazaar Pat rika referred to the vi rtual steel ring around
Bombay. Two hundred and twenty eight civi l ians died in Bombay whi le 1046 were
injured.
The Secretary

of States New Year statement and the Bri t i sh Prime Mini sters announcement of
the deci sion to send
a Cabinet Mi ssion on 19 February 1946 spoke of Indian independence coming
soon.
37
Freedom and Partition
But after the Cripps Offer of 1942, there was l i t t le left to be offered as a
concession except
t ransfer of power ful l freedom i t sel f.
Bri t i sh pol icy in 1946 clearly reflected thi s preference for a uni ted India, in sharp
cont rast to earl ier
declarat ions. At t lees 15 March 1946 statement that a minori ty wi l l not be al
lowed to place a veto on
the progress of the majori ty was a far cry from Wavel l s al lowing Jinnah to wreck
the Simla
Conference in June-July 1945 by hi s insi stence on nominat ing al l Musl ims. The
Cabinet Mi ssion was
convinced that Paki stan was not viable and that the minori t ies autonomy must
somehow be
safeguarded wi thin the framework of a uni ted India. The Mi ssion Plan conceived
three sect ions, A
compri sing Madras, Bombay, Ut tar Pradesh, Bihar, C.P. and Ori ssa; B consi st
ing of Punjab, NWFP
and Sind; and C of Bengal and Assam which would meet separately to decide
on group
const i tut ions. There would be a common cent re cont rol l ing defence, foreign
affai rs and
communicat ions. After the fi rst general elect ions a province could come out of a
group. After ten
years a province could cal l for a reconsiderat ion of the group or union const i tut
ion. Congress wanted
that a province need not wai t t i l l the fi rst elect ions to leave a group, i t
should have the opt ion not to
join i t in the fi rst place. It had Congress-ruled provinces of Assam and NWFP
(which were in Sect ions
C and B respect ively) in mind when i t rai sed thi s quest ion. The League wanted
provinces to have the
right to quest ion the union const i tut ion now, not wai t for ten years. There was
obviously a problem in
that the Mi ssion Plan was ambivalent on whether grouping was compul sory or opt
ional . It declared
that grouping was opt ional but sect ions were compul sory. Thi s was a cont radict
ion, which rather than
removing, the Mi ssion del iberately quibbled about in the hope of somehow reconci
l ing the
i rreconci leable.
The Congress and League interpreted the Mi ssion Plan in thei r own way, both
seeing i t as a

confi rmat ion of thei r stand. Thus, Patel maintained that the Mi ssions Plan was
against Paki stan, that
the Leagues veto was gone and that one Const i tuent Assembly was envi saged.
The League announced
i t s acceptance of the Plan on 6 June in so far as the basi s of Paki stan was impl ied
in the Mi ssions plan
by vi rtue of the compul sory grouping. Nehru asserted the Congress Working
Commi t tees part icular
interpretat ion of the plan in hi s speech to the AICC on 7 July 1946: We are not
bound by a single
thing except that we have decided to go into the Const i tuent Assembly.
The impl icat ion was that the
Assembly was sovereign and would decide rules of procedure. Jinnah seized the
opportuni ty provided
by Nehrus speech to wi thdraw the Leagues acceptance of the Mi ssion Plan on
29th July, 1946.
The di lemma before the Government was whether to go ahead and form the
Interim Government
wi th the Congress or awai t League agreement to the plan. Wavel l , who had
opted for the second
course at the Simla Conference an year earl ier, preferred to do the same again.
But Hi s Majestys
Government , especial ly the Secretary of State, argued that i t was vi tal to get
Congress cooperat ion.
Thus, the Interim Government was formed on 2nd September 1946 wi th Congress
members alone wi th Nehru as de facto head. Thi s was against the Leagues insi
stence that al l set t lement s be acceptable to
i t . The Bri t i sh in 1946, in keeping wi th thei r st rategic interest s in the post
-independence Indian
subcont inent , took up a stance very di fferent from thei r earl ier posture of
encouraging communal
forces and denying the legi t imacy of nat ional i sm and the representat ive nature
of the Congress.
They were frightened into appeasing the League by Jinnahs
abi l i ty to unleash civi l war. Wavel l quiet ly brought the League into the Interim
Government on 26
October 1946 though i t had not accepted ei ther the short or long term provi
sions of the Cabinet
Mi ssion Plan and had not given up i t s pol icy of Di rect Act ion. The Secretary of
State argued that
wi thout the Leagues presence in the Government civi l war would have been
inevi table. Jinnah had
succeeded in keeping the Bri t i sh in hi s grip.
The Leagues demand for the di ssolut ion of the Const i tuent Assembly that had
met
for the fi rst t ime on 9th December 1946 had proved to be the last st raw. Earl ier i
t had refused to join
the Const i tuent Assembly despi te assurances from Hi s Majestys Government in
thei r 6th December

1946 statement that the Leagues interpretat ion of grouping was the correct one.
A di rect bid for
Paki stan, rather than through the Mi ssion Plan, seemed to be the card Jinnah now
sought to play.
Thi s developing cri si s was temporari ly defused by the statement made by At t
lee in Parl iament on
20 February, 1947. The date for Bri t i sh wi thdrawal from India was fixed as 30
June 1948 and the
appointment of a new Viceroy, Lord Mountbat ten, was announced. The hope was
that the date would
shock the part ies into agreement on the main quest ion and avert the const i tut
ional cri si s that
threatened. Besides, Indians would be final ly convinced that the Bri t i sh were
sincere about conceding
independence, however, both these hopes were int roduced into the terminal date
not ion after i t had
been accepted. The basic reason why the At t lee Government accepted the need
for a final date was
because they could not deny the t ruth of Wavel l s assessment that an i
rreversible decl ine of
Government authori ty had taken place. They could di smi ss the Viceroy, on the
ground that he was
pessimi st ic, which they did in the most di scourteous manner possible.
Jenkins prophecy took immediate shape wi th the League launching civi l di
sobedience in
Punjab and bringing down the Unioni st Akal i - Congress coal i t ion mini st ry led
by Khizr Hayat Khan.
Wavel l wrote in hi s diary on 13th March 1947 Khizrs resignat ion was
prompted largely by the
statement of February 20.
The idea of a fixed date was original ly Wavel l s, 31 March 1948 being the date by
which he
expected a stage of responsibi l i ty wi thout power to set in. At t lee thought mid1948 should be the date
aimed at . Mountbat ten insi sted i t be a calendar date and got 30th June 1948.
The Mountbat ten Plan, as the 3rd June, 1947 Plan came to be known, sought to
effect an early
t ransfer of power on the basi s of Dominion Status to two successor states, India
and Paki stan.
Congress was wi l l ing to accept Dominion Status for a whi le because i t fel t i t
must assume ful l power
immediately and meet boldly the explosive si tuat ion in the count ry.
The early date, 15th August 1947, and
the delay in announcing the Boundary Commi ssion Award, both Mountbat tens
deci sions,
compounded the t ragedy that took place. The Boundary
Commi ssion Award was ready by 12th August , 1947 but Mountbat ten decided to
make i t publ ic after
Independence Day, so that the responsibi l i ty would not fal l on the Bri t i sh.

The acceptance of Part i t ion in 1947 was, thus, only the final act of a process of
step by step
concession to the Leagues int ransigent champioining of a sovereign Musl im state.
Autonomy of
Musl im majori ty provinces was accepted in 1942 at the t ime of the Cripps Mi
ssion. Gandhi j i went a
step further and accepted the right of sel f-determinat ion of Musl im majori ty
provinces in hi s talks
wi th Jinnah in 1944. In June 1946, Congress conceded the possibi l i ty of Musl im
majori ty provinces
(which formed Group B and C of the Cabinet Mi ssion Plan) set t ing up a separate
Const i tuent
Assembly, but opposed compul sory grouping and upheld the right of NWFP and
Assam not to join
thei r groups i f they so wi shed. But by the end of the year, Nehru said he would
accept the rul ing of the
Federal Court on whether grouping was compul sory or opt ional . The Congress
accepted wi thout
demur the clari ficat ion by the Bri t i sh Cabinet in December, 1946 that grouping
was compul sory.
Congress official ly referred to Part i t ion in early March 1947 when a resolut ion
was passed in the
Congress Working Commi t tee that Punjab (and by impl icat ion Bengal ) must be
part i t ioned i f the
count ry was divided. The final act of surrender to the Leagues demands was in
June 1947 when
Congress ended up accept ing Part i t ion under the 3rd June Plan.
39
The Indian National Movement The Ideological
Dimension
At the Lahore Congress in 1929, a resolut ion sponsored by Gandhi j i condemning
the Revolut ionary Terrori st s bomb at tack on the Viceroys t rain was passed by a
narrow majori ty of 942 to 794. In 1942, thi rteen Communi st members of the AICC
voted against the famous Qui t India resolut ion.
The resolut ion on fundamental right s, passed by the Karachi Congress in 1931 and
drafted by him, guaranteed the right s of free expression of opinion through speech
and the Press and the freedom of associat ion. In August 1936, as a resul t of hi s
effort s, the Indian Civi l Libert ies Union was formed on non-party, non-sectarian l
ines to mobi l ize publ ic opinion against al l encroachment s on civi l l ibert ies.
From 1921, the Congress organized i t s provincial or area commi t tees along l
ingui st ic l ines and not according to the Bri t i sh-created mul t i -l ingual
provinces.
Gandhi j i was to some extent an except ion to thi s
unanimous opinion, but not whol ly so. Nor did he counterpose hi s opinion to that
of the rest of the
nat ional leadership. Moreover, hi s stand on the use of machines and large-scale
indust ry has been
grossly di storted. He was opposed to machines only when they di splaced the
labour of the many or

enriched the few at the expense of the many. On the other hand, he repeatedly
said that he would
prize every invent ion of science made for the benefi t of al l . He repeatedly said
that he was not
opposed to modern large-scale indust ry so long as i t augmented, and l ightened
the burden of, human
labour and not di splaced i t . Moreover, he laid down another condi t ion: Al l
large-scale indust ry should be owned and cont rol led by the state and not by
private capi tal i st s.
The nat ional i st s were ful ly commi t ted to the larger goal of independent , sel frel iant economic
development to be based on independence from foreign capi tal , the creat ion of
an indigenous capi tal
goods or machine-making sector and the foundat ion and development of
independent science and
technology. Ever since the 1840s, Bri t i sh economi st s and admini st rators had
argued for the investment of foreign capi tal as the major inst rument for the
development of India.
The Indian nat ional i st s, from Dadabhai Naoroj i and Ti lak to Gandhi j i and
Nehru, di sagreed vehement ly. Foreign capi tal , they argued, did not develop a
count ry but underdeveloped i t . It suppressed indigenous capi tal and made i t s
future growth di fficul t . It was al so, the nat ional i st s said, pol i t ical ly harmful
because, sooner or later i t began to wield an increasing and dominat ing influence
over the admini st rat ion.
Start ing wi th Dadabhai Naoroj i and Ranade, the nat ional i st s vi sual ized a
crucial role for the publ ic
sector in the bui lding of an independent and modern economy. In the 1930s,
Jawaharlal Nehru,
Gandhi j i , and the left -wing al so argued for the publ ic sector, especial ly in largescale and key
indust ries, as a means of prevent ing the concent rat ion of weal th in a few hands.
In the late 1930s, the
object ive of economic planning was al so widely accepted. In 1938, the Congress,
then under the
president ship of Subhas Chandra Bose, set up the Nat ional Planning Commi t tee
under the
chai rmanship of Nehru, to draw up a development plan for free India. During World
War II, several
other plans were devi sed, the most important being the Bombay Plan drawn up by
the big three of the
Indian capi tal i st world J.R.D. Tata, G.D. Bi rla and Sri Ram. Thi s plan too vi sual
ized far-reaching
land reforms, a large publ ic sector and massive publ ic and private investment .
Final ly, in 1945, the Congress Working Commi t tee accepted the pol icy of the abol
i t ion of landlordi sm
and of land belonging to the t i l ler when i t declared: The reform of the land
system involves the
removal of intermediaries between the peasant and the state.
Gandhi j i did not accept a class analysi s of society and the role of class st ruggle.

He was al so opposed to the use of violence even in defence of the interest s of the
poor. But hi s basic
out look was that of social t ransformat ion. He was commi t ted to basic changes
in the exi st ing system
of economic and pol i t ical power. Moreover, he was constant ly moving in a radical
di rect ion during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1933, he agreed wi th Nehru that wi
thout a material revi sion of vested interest s the condi t ion of the masses can
never be improved.
He was beginning to oppose private property
and thus radical ize hi s theory of t rusteeship. He repeatedly argued for the nat
ional izat ion of largescale indust ry. He condemned the exploi tat ion of the masses
inherent in capi tal i sm and landlordi sm.
He was highly cri t ical of the socio-economic role played by the middle classes.
Hi s emphasi s on the removal of di st inct ion and di scriminat ion between
physical and mental labour, hi s overal l emphasi s on social and economic equal i
ty and on the sel f-act ivi ty of the masses, hi s opposi t ion to caste inequal i ty and
oppression, hi s act ive support to womens social l iberat ion, and the general
orientat ion of hi s thought and wri t ing towards the exploi ted, the oppressed and
the downt rodden tended in general to impart a radical ideological di rect ion to
the nat ional movement .
The most remarkable development was Gandhi j i s shi ft towards agrarian radical
i sm.
Note: Ch.38 is missing; IGNORE IT