· The Emergence of
Nationalism:
(i) India was the people
of India- all the people irrespective of class, colour, caste, creed, language
or gender are Indians.
(ii) The awareness of
being Indian and that its resources and systems were meant for all of them led
to see the trace nature and role of British in India.
(iii) The political
associations came into being in the 1870s and 1880s.
(iv) Poona Sarvajanik
Sabha and many such associations functioned in specific parts of country their
goals were stated as the goals of all the people of India, not those of any one
region.
(v) They worked with the
idea that the people should be sovereign – a modern consciousness and a key
feature of nationalism.
(vi) The Arms Act was
passed in 1878, disallowing Indians from possessing arms.
(vii) The Vernacular
Act, 1878 which allowed the government to confiscate the assets of newspapers
including their printing presses if the newpapers published anything that was
found ‘objectionable’.
(viii) In 1883 Lord
Ripon’s Law Member, Sir Courtenay llbert introduced a bill called llbert Bill.
(ix) The bill provided
for the trail of British or European persons by Indians, and sought equality
between British and Indian judges in the country.
(x) The bill caused
widespread agitation among the Whites who strongly opposed the bill and forced
the government to withdraw it.
(xi) The Indian National
Congress which was established in 1885 by a british servant Allan Octavian
Hume. It includes 72 delegates from different parts of the country. The main
leaders of the organization were- DadaBhai Naoroji, W.C. Bannerji, Surendranath
Bannerji, Romesh Chandra Dutt, S. Subramania Iyer, Pherozeshah Mehta and
Badruddin Tyabji.
· A Nation in the Making:
(i) Indian National
Congress has 2 groups, namely- Moderates and Radicals.
- Moderates were those who believed in pleading with the
british government to bring about reforms.
- Radicals were those who wanted to oppose the British
strongly; they were in favour of strikes & boycott.
(ii) A greater voice for
Indians in the government and in administration was their demand.
(iii) It demanded the
separation of judiciary from the executive, the repeal (abolition) of Arms Act and freedom of speech and
expression.
(iv) It also demanded
the separation of judiciary from the executive, the repeal of Arms Act and
freedom of speech and expression.
(v) The early Congress
raised a number of economic issues. It declared that British rule had led to
poverty and famines, increase in land revenue had impoverished peasants and
Zamindars and there was food shortage because of exports and grains to Europe.
· Freedom is Our Birth
Right:
(i) In Bengal,
Maharashtra and Punjab, leaders such as Bipin Chandra Pal, Bal Gangadhar Tilak
and Lala Lajpat Rai popularly known as ‘Lal, Bal, Pal’, strongly criticized the
policies of the colonial government.
(ii) They demanded
‘Swaraj’. Tilak declared, ‘Freedom is my birth right and I shall have it’.
(iii) In 1905, Viceroy
Curzon announced the partition of the biggest province British of India, Bengal
which included Bihar and parts of Odisha.
(iv) The partition of
Bengal infuriated people all over India. Both, the moderates and the radicals
protested the partition.
(v) Large public
meetings and demonstrations were organized; People in order to show that they
are united tied 'rakhi' on each other's wrist and celebrated 'raksha bandhan'
and this led to the birth of Swadeshi Movement.
· The Growth of Mass
Nationalism:
(i) After 1919, the
struggle against Britain rule gradually became a mass movement, involving
peasants, tribals, students and women in large numbers and factory workers.
(ii) The first World War
broke out in 1914 and altered the economic and political situation in India
(iii) India was dragged
into the war and this led to a huge rise in defence expenditure of the
government of India.
(iv) Increased military
expenditure and the demands for war supplies led to a sharp rise in prices
which create great difficulties for the common people.
(v) The war lead the
British to expand their army. The government forced the villages in India to
send their soldiers for an alien cause.
· The Advent of Mahatma
Gandhi:
(i) Mahatma Gandhi was
born on 2nd October 1869 at Porbandar in Gujarat.
(ii) He studied law in
England and went to South Africa to practice law and stayed there for 20 years.
(iii) He emerged as a
mass leader of India.
(iv) In South Africa,
Gandhiji struggle for the Indians in non-violent marches against racist (skin colour)
discrimination and had earned
great respect and popularity both at national and international level.
(v) Mahatma Gandhi spent
his initial years in India travelling throughout the country, understanding the
people, their needs and the overall situation.
(vi) Gandhiji launched
local movements in Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad in which he received success.
(vii) Gandhiji's method
of fighting was known as "Satyagraha" which was based on the principles of- 'Truth' and
'Non-Violence'.
· The Rowlatt Satyagraha:
(i) In 1919, the
government passes the Rowlatt Act and empowered the provincial government to
search any place and arrest any person whom it suspected without a warrant.
(ii) Gandhiji launched a
Satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act which curbed the fundamental rights such as
the freedom of expression and strengthened police powers.
(iii) Mahatma Gandhi and
Mohammad Ali Jinnah criticized the act as ‘devilish’ and tyrannical.
(iv) In April 1919, a
nation-wide hartal was launched and government used brutal measures to suppress
them. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre inflicted by General Dyer in Amritsar on
Baisakhi day was a part of this repression.
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
i) On April 13th 1919,
on the day of Baisakhi, people gathered at Jallianwala Bagh for celebration and
for public meeting.
ii) General Dyer, a
british officer entered Jallianwala Bagh locked all the entries and ordered his
troops to start firing at the crowd.
iii) Thousands of people
were killed.
iv) The country was
shocked by this incident.
v) All national leaders
protested strongly against this cruel act.
· Khilafat Agitation and
the Non-Cooperation Movement:
(i) In 1920, the British
imposed a harsh treaty on the Turkish Sultan or Khalifa and he was deprived of
his political powers and authority.
(ii) The Khilafat
Movement was launched by Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali who wished to initated a
full-fledged Non-Cooperation Movement against the British under the leadership
of Gandhiji and demanded Swaraj.
(iii) In 1921-22, the
Non-Cooperation Movement gained momentum. Thousands of students left government
controlled schools and colleges. Many lawyers such as Moti Lal Nehru, C.R. Das,
C. Rajagopalachari and Asaf Ali gave up their practices.
(iv) British titles were
surrendered and legislatures boycotted. People lit public bonfires of foreign
cloth.
· People’s Initiatives:
(i) In Kheda, Gujarat,
Patidar peasants organized non-violent campaigns against the high revenue demand
of the British.
(ii) In coastal Andhra
and interior Tamil Nadu, liquor shops were picketed.
(iii) In Bengal, the
Khilafat-Non-Cooperation alliance gave enormous communal unity and strength to
the national movement.
(iv) In Punjab, the
Akali agitation of the Sikhs sought to remove corrupt mahants-supported by the British from their gurudwaras.
· The People’s Mahatma:
(i) People thought of
Gandhiji as a kind of messiah, as someone who could help them to overcome their
misery and poverty.
(ii) Gandhiji wished to
build class unity, not class conflict, still peasants could imagine that he
could help them in their fight against zamindars and agricultural labourers
believed he would provide them land.
· The Happenings of
1922-29:
(i) In February 1922 a
crowd of peasants set fire to a police station in Chauri Chaura, Gandhiji was
against violence and thus called off the Non-Cooperation Movement immediately.
(ii) Chittranjan Dass
and Motilal Nehru argued that the party should fight elections to the councils
and enter them in order to influence government policies.
(iii) Civil disobedience
Movement was launched in 1930 under the leadership of Gandhiji.
(iv) The formation of
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Communist Party of India were the
two important development of the mid-1920s.
(v) The Congress
resolved to fight for ‘Purna Swaraj’ (Complete Independence) in 1929 under the
presidentship of Jawaharlal Nehru and 26 January 1930 was consequently observed
as ‘Independence Day’ all over the country.
The March to Dandi:
(i) In 1930, Gandhiji
started the march to break the Salt Law. According to this law,the state had a
monopoly on the manufacture and sale of salt.
(ii) Gandhiji and his
followers marched from Sabarmati Ashram(in Ahemdabad) to the coastal town of
Dandi (in Surat) where they broke the Salt law by gathering natural salt found
on the sea-shore are boiling sea water to produce salt.
(iii) The combined
struggles of the Indian people bore fruit when the Government of India Act of
1935 prescribed provincial autonomy and the government announced election to
the provincial legislature in 1937.
(iv) The Second World
War broke out in September 1939. The Congress leaders were ready to support the
British war effort. But in return they wanted that India be granted
Independence after the war. The British refused to concede the demand and the
Congress ministers resigned in protest.
· Quit India Movement and
Later:
(i) Mahatma Gandhi
decided to initiate a new phase of movement against the British in the middle
of the Second World War which was Quit India Movement.
(ii) The first response
of the British was severe repression and the end of 1943 over 90,000 people
were arrested, and around 1,000 killed in police firing.
· Towards Independence and
Partition:
(i) In 1940, the Muslim
League had moved a resolution demanding ‘Independent States’ for Muslims in the
north-western and eastern areas of the country.
(ii) The provincial
elections of 1937 seemed to have convinced the League that Muslims were a
minority, and they would always have to play second fiddle in any democratic
structure.
(iii) The Congress’s
rejection of the League’s desire to form a joint Congress-League government in
the United Provinces in 1937 also annoyed the League.
(iv) In 1945, after the
end of the war, the British opened negotiations between the Congress, the
League and themselves for the Independence of India. The talks failed because
the league accelerated the demand for Pakistan.
(v) In March 1946,the
British cabinet sent a three-member mission to Delhi to examine this demand. 16
August 1946 was declared as the ‘Direct Action Day’ by the league.
(vi) On 3 June 1947, the
Partition Plan was announced and Pakistan came into existence. The joy of our
country’s Independence from British rule came mixed with the pain and violence
of Partition.
No comments:
Post a Comment