THE HISTORY OF INDIA AD1750 – 1950

By Soumya Srijan Dasgupta

B.A. (Hons.) History, III Year
St. Stephen’s College

Q. What led Mahatma Gandhi to launch the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920?

Why did he ‘unconditionally’ suspend the movement and with what consequences?

Historians of Modern India look at the early decades of the twentieth century
as a phase where vigorous oscillations in the nature of the Indian National
Movement occurred, most significantly with the return of a particular Gujarati
barrister who had created quite a stir in South Africa. Mohandas Karamchand
Gandhi returned to India in 1915 after a long stay in South Africa, earlier as a
lawyer in an Indian trading firm, and eventually as a stalwart of the rights of Indians
in the colony. Having made a name for himself as a man who could defy authorities
and institute change in the lives of a colonized people, he was received in India with
much excitement, as this was the time that the National Movement began to gain
momentum.

This essay seeks to give a better understanding of the factors that led
Mahatma Gandhi to launch the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920. It does so by
looking into the antecedents of the movement, Gandhi’s philosophy, the role played
by the British as well as the Congress, as well as more immediate causes. In doing
so, the question of the suspension of the movement also arises. What events caused
such a popular movement to be unconditionally suspended? Why did Gandhi
disagree with the course the movement began to take? How did this affect the
momentum of the national movement at this time? All these will form the crux of
the argument to be presented.

D.A. Low spoke of the nature of the Congress at the time of Gandhi’s return,
stating that there were leaders who were only concerned with creating a new elite
society and culture for themselves, and were influenced by the ideas and ideals of the
British aristocracy, being only marginally interested in bringing about significant
socio-economic change in Indian society. Hence, Judith Brown considered the
Congress of this period as indulging in ‘politics of studied limitations’. Congress
leaders associated themselves with members of their own class, i.e. the western
educated elite, and saw the masses as socially backward and politically backward,
coming from the ‘backward’ provinces of Bihar, Orissa, Central Provinces etc., rather
than the three Presidencies which dominated the majority of Congress policies and
programmes.

Gandhi’s activities prior to 1920 are incredibly important when considering

the origins of the ideas implemented in the Non-Cooperation movement. On the eve
of the movement, Gandhi had already made a name for himself, leading movements
in Champaran and Kheda. Here, he utilized his unique brand of protest, ‘satyagraha’,
or ‘truth force’, which combined the tenets of civil disobedience and non-violence.
However, their success in Bihar and Gujarat can be considered localized victories.
What was required now was the commencement of a large-scale movement, which
would change the very nature of the national movement from an organized
discussion of elites to a mass-based protest against colonial rule. Gandhi’s role,
therefore, became clear in light of these revelations.

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 The outbreak of the First World War brought out the Home Rule League
and other such groups all guns blazing, Indian support in the war effort was
promised in return for the British granting India concessions. Gandhi, too, saw the
war as a great opportunity for the National Movement to take significant strides
forward. However, at this point his tenets of ahimsa had not caught on, and there
were numerous cases of violent acts orchestrated by revolutionaries from Bengal,
Maharashtra etc. The frequent occurrence of these acts did not go unnoticed by the
British Indian Government, who ordered a committee to be formed under Mr.
Justice S.A.T. Rowlatt in 1917. The committee’s findings came to form the two
Rowlatt Bills, which sought to incarcerate any Indians suspected of indulging in
anti-British activities without trial.

Naturally, the Rowlatt Act became synonymous with the tyranny and
oppressive measures of the colonial government, and Ravinder Kumar opines that
this was precisely the stage that Gandhi required to strike a foothold at the national
level. Gandhi’s calls for satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act were well received, and
for the first time since perhaps the 1857 Uprising, areas beyond the three
Presidencies joined the cause. David Baker wrote of how the calls for satyagraha
were loud and clear in the Central Provinces, an area which had hitherto been
considered backward by the Congress leaders and never really included in their
constructive programmes. The Rowlatt Satyagraha, therefore, was seen as a
precursor to the impending mass-movement that Gandhi was planning.

The outcome of the First World War also made an impact on the road to
Non-Cooperation. With the defeat of the Kaiser, questions arose regarding the
treatment given to the Sultan of Turkey, who was also the Khalifa, the spiritual
leader of the Sunni Muslim community. The Muslim community of India took up
the issue of the treatment given to the Khalifa by the British after the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire, culminating in the Khilafat Movement. Judith Brown notes that at
this point of time, Gandhi looked to bridge the gap between the major religious
communities of the country, and saw this as an opportunity to undertake this very
programme. He spoke up against the recent internment of the Ali Brothers, and
hoped that by his alliance with the Muslims he could achieve a threefold end: to
obtain justice in the face of odds with the method of satyagraha and show its efficacy
over all other methods; to secure Muslim friendship for the Hindus and thereby
internal peace as well; and to transform ill-will into affection for the British and their
constitution which, in spite of its imperfections, had weathered many a storm.

The Khilafat demonstration reflected the prevailing view of Gandhi at the

time. His fight was against injustice and social inequality, but he still saw the British
Raj as something that was inherently good for the country. Gandhi’s transformation
into an enemy of the British would only come to the fore in 1920 after a now
infamous incident taking place in Amritsar, which would set the stage for the first
major mass movement that the country would ever see.

Following the arrest of Satya Pal and Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew, two popular
Congress leaders in Punjab who were protesting against Martial Law being imposed
in the region, agitations broke out, though relatively peaceful. The Rowlatt
Satyagraha was in full force at this point, and crowds gathered to protest against the
law as well as the arrest of these two leaders. The British feared conspiracy, and all
officials including the Lieutenant-Governor Sir Michael O’Dwyer were on alert. On
the 13th of April, the day of the Hindu festival of Baisakhi, a large number of Indians

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gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh. It is still not clear whether they were peacefully
protesting or collecting as a celebration, but was is certain is that every member of
the crowd was unarmed. Brigadier Reginald Dyer marched in a group of soldiers
who he ordered to open fire on the civilians. With few exits and a well in the centre
of the enclosure, the garden was a death-trap. British estimates put the number of
deaths at 379, but the Congress gave a far more realistic figure of about a thousand.
The massacre shook the foundations of the nation, and as news spread, tensions
began to mount.

The government instated the Hunter Commission to investigate the matter.

The conclusions presented to the government acknowledged that Dyer’s actions
were an ‘error’, and that the whole incident could have been avoided. However,
Dyer’s actions, while condemned by the Commission’s findings, were condoned by
the Army, and as a result no penal or disciplinary action was taken against him. This
proved to be almost a breaking point for the people of Punjab, the Congress and
especially Gandhi.

The Amritsar Session of the Indian National Congress in 1919 was

important in the wake of conditions in the country. Many Indian Muslims were
becoming extremely angry at the terms of the peace treaty, which were being
imposed by Britain and her allies on the Sultan of Turkey. At the same time, Indians
had become increasingly disturbed by the seeming hesitation with which General
Dyer and other officials responsible for the barbarous suppression of the meeting at
Jallianwala Bagh in 1919 were being treated both in India and in England. A strong
Khilafat movement had gathered, and Congressmen were deeply agitated by the
Punjab "wrongs."

At a special meeting in Calcutta in September 1920 the Indian National

Congress under Gandhi's leadership decided to adopt his program of progressive
non-violent non-co-operation with the Government until these "wrongs" had been
righted. By the time of the Nagpur session, lines were definitely drawn within the
Congress. Gandhi proposed a programme that provided for surrender of
government titles, boycott of schools, court and councils, boycott of foreign goods,
encouragement of national schools, arbitration courts and khadi (homespun cloth).
Though old guard elements such as Chittaranjan Das showed opposition to the plan
at first, ultimately a compromise was reached, as Das turned over to Gandhi’s side.

Judith Brown thinks that the Nagpur resolution was a victory for Gandhi, as
he made “no concessions of principle”, while Richard Gordon and Rajat Ray think
that it was Gandhi who capitulated to Das and accepted many of his proposals.
Putting aside these extreme views, we may perhaps argue that in a context of the
changing balance of power within the Congress, both needed each other. Gandhi’s
potential as a political organizer had been established and he had access to new areas
of political support, which were beyond the reach of older Congress leaders.

Gandhi’s entry into the fray would seem unnecessary to some. The Khilafat
Movement was already achieving extraordinary support, the Jallianwala Bagh
massacre had both Moderates and Extremists of the Congress jumping at the gates,
and the time seemed ripe for the Indian political force to finally topple their colonial
masters. However, this is where Judith Brown feels Gandhi was the true catalyst in
the process of change. She proposes the thought that Gandhi, over and above his
role as a shrewd politician, was adept most of all in bridging gaps – and here was a

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situation with crevices all across the fence. There was indeed a need for someone to
come and bring together various groups in this endeavor.

The Khilafat Movement appealed greatly to Indian Muslims, but the Hindus
could not be left out in this cause. The Moderates and the Extremists appeared to be
putting on a united front to combat the British at this point, but few could
conjecture as to how long this alliance would last. More importantly, and pushed
forward intensely by Brown, Parel, Low and Spear, was the need to bring together
the entities of the classes and the masses. For this movement to be more effective
than anything Gandhi had organized before, and more Pan-Indian than anything the
Congress had yet thought of, there was a need to chart out the next major political
step as a mass-movement.

The formal launch of the movement took place on the 1st of August 1920,
coinciding with the death of Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Gandhi’s impetus, as stated in his
letter to the Viceroy in June, was the assertion of a right recognized from time
immemorial of the subject to refuse to assist a ruler who misrules. The movement
began with the launch of hartals and fasts all over the country. In the next few
months, many important steps were taken by both the masses as well as the
Congress leadership which would shape the later years of the freedom struggle.

The effectiveness of the movement could be seen in the mass participation. In

terms of boycott of educational institutions, Bengal took the lead, followed closely
by Punjab. It is estimated that within the first month itself, thousands of students
left schools and colleges run by the Government and joined national schools which
were growing in number. The leadership of Chittaranjan Das in Bengal and Lala
Lajpat Rai in Punjab ensured that this phase of the movement was successful, while
great enthusiasm was also seen in Bombay, the United Provinces, Orissa and Assam.
According to Mridula Mukherjee, the boycott of law courts was more symbolic than
effective, but the fact that eminent lawyers such as Motilal Nehru, M. Jaykar and
Saifuddin Kitchlew gave up their lucrative practices meant that the British
understood the seriousness of the move.

Most historians agree to the fact that the most successful part of the
campaign was the boycott of foreign cloth in favour of Indian cloth. All over the
country, bonfires were made using British-made cloth as fuel. Khadi became the
preferred cloth, and Congress workers to encourage spinning distributed charkhas.
For those who complained that khadi was much too expensive for them, Gandhi’s
solution was to wear less clothing, leading him to give up the kurta and dhoti for a
langot. Liquor shops were also picketed, and sales of toddy went for a dive, causing
the Government revenue services to take notice and distribute pamphlets
encouraging people to consume alcohol, even resorting to compiling a list of great
men in history who enjoyed their drink.

The organizational structure of the Congress also drastically changed as a

result of the Non-Cooperation movement. It was now to have a fifteen member
Working Committee, which would handle the day-to-day running of the body.
Provincial Congress Committees would be set up in order to reach the grassroots,
and would be along linguistic lines. The membership fee was reduced, enabling the
poorer sections of society to join the ranks, thereby assuring mass participation in
the sessions of the Congress. English was to be used sparingly, and Hindi would be
the preferred language in sessions.

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 It would seem, judging by the momentum and effectiveness of Gandhi’s
experiment, that Non-Cooperation was well on its way to fulfilling his promise of
gaining swaraj for India. However, this was not to be the case. One of history’s many
rhetorical questions still remains what would have happened if the movement were
not suspended. The abrupt end of the movement by Gandhi was seen by some to be
unnecessary. But the events at Chauri Chaura will forever be remembered as the
incident in which Gandhi showed his full support to the cause of ahimsa and
Satyagraha.

As a part of the tenets of Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement, the people

of Chauri Chaura, a town in the United Provinces, put forward a peaceful
demonstration against the rise of meat prices. The police, however, used brute force
to disperse the protestors, leading to the call for a protest against the police at the
thana (station). On 5th February 1922, the demonstrators picketed the Police Station
at Chauri Chaura, demanding answers for the brutal behaviour displayed by those
who were supposed to protect them. The crowd was fired upon, killing 23 of the
protestors. The turning of this protest from peaceful to violent may have begun with
the police, but the role of those who were protesting became far more violent. After
the Police retreated to the thana and refused to emerge, the protestors set fire to it,
killing all who were inside. Upon hearing this news, Gandhi felt he had no other
choice but to call-off the movement.

The immediate consequences of the suspension of the movement were varied.

Gandhi was arrested immediately after the decision and sentenced to six years in
prison on charges of distribution of seditious materials. Meanwhile, his decision was
greatly discussed within and beyond Congress circles. Many leaders supported the
move, stating that once the movement turned violent its entire essence would be
altered. At the same time, Gandhi was criticized ferociously by many, particularly
radical sections of the Congress who felt that sporadic instances of violence should
not have been reason enough for the movement to be called off.

Rajni Palme Dutt, in his seminal work India Today, expressed a viewpoint
which was taken up by later commentators as well. Dutt and others have condemned
the actions of Gandhi in withdrawing the movement, seeing it as proof of the
Mahatma’s concern for the propertied classes. They believed that rather than a belief
in the necessity of non-violence, Gandhi suspended the movement because the action
at Chauri Chaura was a symbol and an indication of the growing militancy of the
Indian masses, of their growing radicalization, of their willingness to launch an
attack on the status quo of property relations. Their argument rested on the notion
that Gandhi was afraid that the movement was going out of his hands and into those
of the radical elements, and therefore he called-off the movement to regain control.

These claims, however, have been refuted by a number of historians

including Mridula Mukherjee who notes that all the arguments put forward by the
aforementioned school of historiography stand on shaky ground, and that rather
there is a definite indication that the movement was on the verge of slowing down.
Therefore, withdrawal or a shift to a phase of non-conformation is an inherent part
of a strategy of political action that is based on the masses. As she eloquently put it,
withdrawal is not tantamount to betrayal; it is an inevitable part of the strategy
itself.

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 The movement, despite being called-off, clearly demonstrated that the
support and sympathy of vast sections of the Indian people lay with Gandhi and his
followers. The Congress party now reached out to a larger portion of the Indian
population, and was no longer limiting itself to the upper-classes or restricting itself
to either constitutional reform or extremist means. Mukherjee asserts that the
capacity of the ‘poor dumb millions’ of India to take part in modern nationalist
politics was also demonstrated. The participation of Muslims, helped in no small
part by Gandhi’s alliance with the Ali Brothers (Mohammed Ali and Shaukat Ali),
was unprecedented. Although this communal harmony was not to last in later years,
Gandhi showed that Hindu-Muslim unity was indeed the key to an effective
movement against the British.

The Non-Cooperation movement was, therefore, a momentous part of the

history of India’s struggle for independence. It marked the first time in the history of
the freedom movement that a mass movement begun which threatened the hold of
Britain on the subcontinent. For a brief while, parties put aside their differences,
religious divisions faded and India seemed like a united force, which was demanding
freedom from colonial rule. Most importantly, the Non-Cooperation movement was
instrumental in bringing Mahatma Gandhi and his ideas of ahimsa and satyagraha to
the forefront. In the years before its suspension, the movement shook the very
foundations of British rule and despite the incident at Chauri Chaura, it was clear
that the struggle for India’s independence had just intensified.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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1966), pp. 241-259
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