Indian National Movement
regiments were mixed. Promotion of Indians to commis-
sioned posts varied in the two types of regiments; in class
regiments, promotion was based on a general seniority
list encompassing all companies, but in class company
regiments, promotion was made from the rolls of the
particular class in which a vacancy occurred. No Indian
officer of one class was allowed to command troops of
another; this guaranteed that the link between a sepoy
and his British commander would be an Indian commis-
sioned officer of the same class as the sepoy was.
The second feature was the growing presence in the
army of recruits from the Punjab. From 1892 to 1914,
Punjabi troops increased rapidly in number, edging out
other groups like Mahars, Brahmins, Gujars, and Ahirs.
The emphasis was on homogeneity; particular units not
only recruited, for example, solely Punjabi Muslims or
Rajputs, but also recruited them only from a particular
clan. This shift in recruitment is generally explained in
terms of the resurgent martial race ideology—the belief
that Indians from certain regions were more inherently
militaristic—that held sway over certain sections of the
policy-making class.
The British Indian Army, while possessing a highly
competent officer corps, was adequate only for brief
probing expeditions and as a line of defense for internal
security. Its vulnerability was tied up with British recruit-
ing procedures and with the fact that the high command
was exclusively British, which meant that troops under
their command were often more loyal to regional elites
than to them. Further, the system was not receptive to
technological innovations.
The Indian Army’s combat strength at the com-
mencement of World War I was 155,423, and swelled
to 573,484 by the time the war neared its completion.
During World War I the weakness of the Indian army
came to the surface. The war effort exposed the obsolete
state of technology and equipment as well as the narrow-
ness of the recruitment base, and forced the authorities to
try new classes as recruits. This new policy entered the
debates that followed in nationalist circles about the need
to Indianize the army. In 1919 to 1920, ten vacancies
were reserved for ‘‘suitable’’ Indians at the Royal Military
Academy, Sandhurst. Indian political demands also
impelled the British to set up the Indian Military
Academy at Dehra Dun on October 1, 1932. World
War II exposed the weakness of the army even more
acutely; not a single unit of the Indian Army was
mechanized to respectable standards. Motorization was
selective, and the availability of standard and updated
weapons was far from satisfactory. The Indian Army’s
contribution to the war effort came in the form of
personnel, and the number of men that India gave to
the Allied cause was impressive. The Army had 189,000
614 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WESTERN COLONIALISM SINCE 1450
soldiers in its ranks in 1939, a number that rose to
2,644,323 in 1945, when the army was at peak strength.
SEE ALSO Empire, British; India, Imperial; Indian Revolt
of 1857.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barat, Amiya. The Bengal Native Infantry: Its Organisation and
Discipline, 1796–1852. Calcutta: K. L. Mukhopadhyay,
1962.
Omissi, David. The Sepoy and the Raj: The Indian Army, 1860–
1940. Houndsmills, U.K.: Macmillan, 1994.
Ray, Kaushik. ‘‘Recruitment Doctrines of the Colonial Indian
Army: 1859–1913.’’ Indian Economic and Social History
Review 34, no. 3 (1997): 321–354.
Wickremesekera, Channa. ‘‘Best Black Troops in the World’’:
British Perceptions and the Making of the Sepoy, 1746–1805.
New Delhi: Manohar, 2002.
Lakshmi Subramanian
INDIAN NATIONAL MOVEMENT
India’s movement toward independence occurred in
stages prompted by the inflexibility of the British and,
in many instances, their violent responses to peaceful
protests. Many attribute the Indian Revolt of 1857
(known by the British as the Sepoy Mutiny) as the first
battle in the struggle for Indian independence.
The 1857 Indian Revolt revealed the miscalculations
of the British in understanding the social and cultural
issues important to Indians. Indian soldiers called sepoys
(from the Hindi sipahi) grew increasingly uncomfortable
with the British encroachment on India’s states and
provinces as the English East India Company expanded
its influence in the region. In addition, poor wages and
harsh policies made nationals increasingly tired of the
British presence in India.
Moreover, many of army’s regulations were per-
ceived by Indians as attempts to Christianize the
Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim sepoys. Tensions came to a
head when the British began using animal fat (from pigs
and cows) to coat cartridge shells. Although steps were
taken to correct the situation, distrust grew between the
sepoys, who were vegetarians by religion, and the British,
culminating in 1857 in the sepoy revolt.
In 1885, the Indian National Union was formed,
which became the Indian National Congress and had as
its goal the moderate position of seeing more locals in
political representation. The Indian National Congress
(INC) was created to help ease the tensions in the British
relationship with Indians after the Sepoy Mutiny. In the
beginning, the INC did not contradict British rule, but

Indian National Congress Meeting, 1922. Mohandas Gandhi (center, with white hat) meets with members of the Indian
National Congress in 1922, shortly before Gandhi was taken into custody by the British. ª BETTMANN/CORBIS. REPRODUCED BY
PERMISSION.
in the face of increasingly egregious acts by the govern-
ment, the INC came to identify with the independence
movement. The INC would dominate Indian politics
and house many of the early leaders of the independence
movement including Gopal Krishna Gokhale, leading
those in favor of dominion status and Bal Gangadhar
Tilak, leading those who saw self rule as the only option.
Throughout the impendence movement leaders emerged
from among the Congress’ membership including
Mahatma Ghandi, the leader of the non-violence move-
ment, as well as Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime min-
ister of the new nation.
The INC is the oldest political party in India.
Originally the organization was made up of upper mid-
dle-class, often Western-educated men, who represented
a political class of Indian civil servants invested in the
interests of India. Although the first female prime min-
ister of India, Indira Ghandi (1917–1984), came from
the Congress party, women’s participation in the inde-
pendence movement was not in formal party member-
ship but rather by support of campaigns led by the party
such as the move to make and wear homespun cloth
rather than buying imported fabric. The Indian National
Congress began to clamor against British economic
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WESTERN COLONIALISM SINCE 1450
Indian National Movement
policies and demand independence in exchange for sup-
port of the British during both World Wars. Prior to
entering World War II (1939–1945), the Congress
attempted to negotiate postwar independence as precursor
to Indian involvement. They were denied, the party out-
lawed, and its members jailed. After World War II the
demand for self rule became especially strong because the
prospect of dominion status no longer appealed to those
who thought India had earned the right to self rule by
troop support in both international wars.
Two factions developed within the INC that were
defined by their stance on British rule in India: a mod-
erate one that hoped to attain rights through negotiation
and talks, and a revolutionary one in favor of agitating
for rights through physical, and if necessary, armed resis-
tance. The split deepened over time as the revolutionary
faction led by Subhash Chandra Bose (1897–1945), one
of the leaders of the leftist wing of the Congress party and
president of the Congress from 1938–1939, argued that
military action was the only way to ensure freedom. The
other faction, led by future Indian Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), felt that socialism was a
necessary element in the forward movement of a national
identity. Bose wanted the INC to push for immediate
615
Indian National Movement

Women’s Protest in Bombay, 1930. Independence-minded Indian women argue with police during a protest over the right to hold a
meeting of the Indian National Congress on the Esplanade Maidan in Bombay. ª HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS.
REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.

British withdrawal from India, an idea opposed by mod-
erates within the organization. His insistence on extreme
measures resulted in his stepping down from office and a
ban on his further election. Bose later organized a coun-
termovement in the Indian army when, without consult-
ing Indian leaders, the British declared India to be a
warring state during World War II.
The INC served as a clearinghouse for all who
supported independence from Britain before various
splinter groups and factions formed. Although the INC
was founded to include all Indians, the organization
came to be seen as representative of Hindu rights, and
Muslim Indians broke away to establish a new political
organization, the All India Muslim League, in 1906.
In later independence discussions, the fears of under-
representation by Muslims led to pleas to protect Muslim
rights, and eventually to create the nation of Pakistan.
The split in the INC was eased under the influence
of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948) in 1920
when he became party leader. Gandhi, a lawyer by train-
ing, had been educated in London and had worked in
South Africa, where he used nonviolence and noncoo-
peration strategies to resist British rule. The British refu-
sal to acknowledge him as a full citizen in South Africa
contributed to the development of an anticolonial iden-
tity in Gandhi before his return to India in 1914. In a
climate steeped in tradition, spirituality, and symbolism,
Gandhi was an ideal figure around whom the political
drive toward independence could congeal.
In the Indian National Congress, Gandhi turned to
his previous experience in South Africa to establish the
ground rules for the movement toward Indian indepen-
dence. Other important INC figures included Jawaharlal
Nehru, who became India’s first prime minister in 1947
and served in that office for eighteen years. Nehru’s
father, Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), also became a leader
in the INC and the independence movement after he
was educated in England and returned to India to prac-
tice law.
The push for independence occurred in three inter-
connected stages: the noncooperative movement, the civil
disobedience movement, and finally the ‘‘Quit India’’

616 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WESTERN COLONIALISM SINCE 1450


movement. None of these stages were rigidly defined;
they naturally flowed into one another as a result of
contemporary events. The foundational principles of
the noncooperative movement included resisting the
British by not buying imported goods, refusing to pay
taxes, and not working for the British, rather than
violence as a means of gaining independence.
A major turning point occurred in March 1930 with
the Dandi March, which sparked the civil disobedience
movement. In what many consider a stroke of political
savvy, Gandhi chose the British taxes and regulations on
salt as the issue around which to stage a protest. Every
Indian, whether aristocrat or peasant, knew the value of
salt, which was used as a preservative. Gandhi’s high-
lighting of the British monopoly on salt production
helped showcase the issue of native choice in daily life.
In a strategic move, Gandhi and seventy-eight supporters
undertook a twenty-three-day journey by foot to Dandi,
a coastal region where salt was abundant. Upon their
arrival, Gandhi made natural salt, thus violating the
British law that only imported salt could be used or
purchased. Illegal salt was being made all over the coun-
try, and many Indians, including Gandhi, were being
imprisoned for doing so. Salt thus became a symbol for
the injustice and oppression of the British Empire. After
the Dandi March, the entire nation became more aware
of the fight for sovereignty from British rule.
In 1942 Gandhi announced the ‘‘Quit India’’ cam-
paign. Backed by the INC, all thoughts turned toward
eliminating the British presence in India and establishing
self-governance. The issuance of the declaration resulted
in the British government outlawing the Indian National
Congress and in the subsequent arrests of INC leaders,
including Gandhi. The public fray between the INC and
the British brought the Quit India campaign into pro-
minence across the country, and resistance grew.
When the British conceded independence to India,
it came with such swiftness that many of the unresolved
tensions were swept aside, only to come bursting forth
later. Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900–1979), the last
viceroy of British India, who was in good standing
with Nehru, granted the demands of the Muslim League
to create a separate state, Pakistan, for Muslims.
Increasingly uncomfortable in Hindu-dominated India,
many in the Muslim League had agitated for the forma-
tion of a separate Muslim state. At the time of his
assassination in 1948, Gandhi opposed the partitioning
of India, but the speed of independence overshadowed
such concerns. Violence ensued as Hindus attempted to
cross newly created borders into India, while Muslims
fled to Pakistan, resulting in many deaths and clouding
India’s long-awaited freedom from the British Raj.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WESTERN COLONIALISM SINCE 1450
Indian Ocean Trade
SEE ALSO Empire, British; India, Imperial; Indian Army;
Indian Revolt of 1857; Sepoy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chandra, Bipan. India’s Struggle for Independence, 1857–1947.
New Delhi: Viking, 1988.
Coward, Harold, ed. Indian Critiques of Gandhi. Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2003.
Low, D. A., ed. Congress and the Raj: Facets of the Indian Struggle,
1917–47. London: Heinemann, 1977; 2nd ed., New Delhi
and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Moore, Robin James. The Crisis of Indian Unity, 1917–1940.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.
Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar
INDIAN OCEAN TRADE
Trade in the Indian Ocean dates back to the time of
classical antiquity, if not earlier. Though there are archae-
ological records attesting to the fact that Indian Ocean
societies had merchants shuttling between them before
the time of Christ, one of the first reliable written records
is the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, a geographic primer
written by a Greek in Egypt in the first century C.E. Arab
geographers wrote copiously about trade movements in the
precolonial age, and Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan jurist, left a
detailed record of his own Indian Ocean wanderings on the
wings of regional commerce in the early fourteenth century.
By the early fifteenth century, a Chinese traveler, Zheng
He, was also traversing this ocean, only at the head of a
huge treasure fleet sent by a curious Ming emperor, Zheng.
He brought a giraffe from East Africa back to China on one
of his ships; this augured the more concerted and rigorous
economic exchanges that would commence with the dawn
of the colonial age in the following century.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
The Southeast Asian littoral of the Indian Ocean under-
went a wide variety of transitions during and after the
sixteenth century that were directly caused by the colli-
sion of European and indigenous worlds. The ongoing
results of this interface, however, were gradual in nature:
hegemony did not arrive with the first Portuguese ships
at Melaka in 1511, nor did European political and com-
mercial power begin to truly build in much of the region
until nearly 350 years later. Set against this mosaic of
intrusion were local patterns of action, agency, and
response. Heightened royal absolutism in the early years
of contact, marked by indigenous territorial expansion,
administrative centralization, and the commercial mono-
polies of ruling classes, gradually gave way to subsuma-
tion and finally incorporation as the European presence
617