The First World War, Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement

The First World War (1914) created a new economic

and political situation worldwide. India faced various
problems during the war period.
 NEW ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SITUATION

● Defence expenditure increased.

● Custom duties increased.
● Introduction of Income Tax.
● Forced recruitment in the army.
● Prices of food grains doubled b/w 1913-1918.
● 1918-19 and 1920-21: Crops failed in many
parts of India.
● Acute shortage of food.
● Famine & epidemic- 12-13 million people
perished
● In such a critical situation, new leader
appear and suggested a new mode of
struggle.
MAHATMA
GANDHI
Returned to India in January 1915
form South Africa.

Advocated noble method of mass

agitation called Satyagrah.
 The idea of
Satyagraha
Satyagraha- emphasised the power of
truth and the need to search for truth.
Suggested that physical force was not
necessary to fight the oppressor.
Believed dharma of non-violence could
unite all Indians.
 Satyagraha movements

CHAMPARAN, BIHAR
KHEDA, Gujarat Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Launched for indigo
Launched for peasants Launched for cotton mill
farmers (1916)
affected by crop failure and workers (1918)
Gandhiji inspired
plague epidemic (1917) Workers wanted raise in the
peasants to struggle
Due to this they were wages to meet their
against oppressive expenses after prices of
unable to pay revenue &
plantation system. essential commodities
were demanding relaxation
(Movement of indigo rose.
in revenue collection.
planters)
The Rowlatt Act passed through the Imperial Legislative
Council in 1919. It was opposed by Indian

Act members because:

● This Act gave the government

enormous powers to repress
political activities.
● Allowed detention of political
prisoners without trial for 2
years.
 Gandhi decided to oppose this act with Satyagraha

● This Act gave the

government enormous
powers to repress
political activities.
● Allowed detention of
political prisoners
without trial for 2 years.

● Clamped down on nationalists.

● Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and
Response of Britishers Mahatma Gandhi was barred from entering Delhi.
to this Hartal : ● On 10 April, the police in Amritsar fired upon a
peaceful procession, provoking widespread attacks
on banks, post offices and railway stations. Martial
law was imposed and General Dyer took command.
 JALLIANWALA BAGH MASSACRE - 13TH APRIL, 1919

Dyer said his object was to

Some came to protest ‘produce a moral effect’,
Large crowd gathered against the govt’s new to create in the minds of
in the enclosed repressive measures,
satyagrahis a feeling of
ground of Jallianwala while some came to
Bagh in Amritsar attend the annual
terror and awe.
Baisakhi fair

Dyer entered the area,

blocked the exit Many of them were
points, and opened unaware of the martial
fire on the crowd, law that was imposed.
killing 100s.
 JALLIANWALA BAGH MASSACRE - 13TH APRIL, 1919

As the news of Jallianwala Bagh spread, crowds

took to the streets in many north Indian towns.
There were strikes, clashes with the police and
attacks on government buildings.
The government responded with brutal repression,
seeking to humiliate and terrorise people.
Satyagrahis were forced to rub their noses on the
ground, crawl on the streets, and do salaam
(salute) to all sahibs; people were flogged and
villages (around Gujranwala in Punjab, now in
Pakistan) were bombed. Seeing violence spread,
Mahatma Gandhi called off the movement.
 Khilafat Committee

Sept 1920- Calcutta Session of Muhammad Ali and

Formed in Bombay in March
Congress resolution passed to Shaukat Ali, began
1919 to defend Khalifa’s discussing with Gandhi ji for
start NCM in support of Khilafat as
temporal power. well as for Swaraj. a united mass action.

A harsh peace treaty was going to be

imposed on the Ottoman Turkey . To
defend the Khalifa, Khilafat Committee
was made
 Need for Non-Cooperation Movement

● Mahatma Gandhi in his book Hind

Swaraj (1909) stated it was the
cooperation of the Indians that
provided the base for British rule in
India.

● If Indians refused to cooperate,

British rule in India would collapse
within a year, and swaraj would
come.
 Need for Non-Cooperation Movement

Gandhiji proposed that it should begin with the :

● Surrender of titles that the government
awarded
● Boycott of civil services, army, police, courts
and legislative councils, schools, and
foreign goods.
If the government used repression, a full civil
disobedience campaign would be launched.
Through the summer of 1920 Mahatma Gandhi
and Shaukat Ali toured extensively, mobilising
popular support for the movement
Congress was reluctant to boycott the council
elections scheduled for November 1920.

It feared- movement might lead to popular

violence.

Finally, at the Congress session at Nagpur in

December 1920, a compromise was worked out.

Non-Cooperation programme was adopted.

 Different Strands in Movement
● The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in
January 1921.
● Various social groups participated in this movement,
each with its own specific aspiration.
● All of them responded to the call of Swaraj, but the
term meant different things to different people
 The Movement in Towns

● Movement started with middle-class participation.

● Students & teachers left
● Government-controlled school & lawyers left courts.
● Council elections were boycotted in most provinces
except Madras, where the Justice Party, felt that entering
the council was one way of gaining some power.
 Effect of Non Cooperation Movement on Economic Front

Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor

shops picketed, and foreign cloth
burnt in huge bonfire.

The import of foreign cloth halved

between 1921 and 1922.

Result- production of Indian textile

mills and handlooms increased.

Merchants and traders refused to trade in

foreign goods or finance foreign trade.
 Why Non Cooperation Movement Slowed down?

Lawyers joined
Students and back work in
Expensive teachers began
government
Khadi trickling back to
Clothes government
courts, due to lack
schools of alternative
institution.
 Rebellion in the Countryside

1. In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba

Ramchandra – a sanyasi who had earlier
been to Fiji as an indentured labourer

2. The movement here was against

oppressive talukdars and landlords.

3. The peasant movement demanded

reduction of revenue, abolition of begar &
social boycott of oppressive landlords.

4. Nai – Dhobi bandhs were organised by

panchayats to deprive landlords of the
services of even barbers and washermen.

Baba Ramchandra
 Rebellion in the Countryside

In June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru began going around the

villages in Awadh talking to the villagers & trying to
understand their grievances

By October, the Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed by

Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others.

Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the

villages around the region

However, the peasant movement developed in forms that the

Congress leadership was unhappy with.
 Bazaars were
Houses of
looted, and
talukdars and
grain hoards
merchants
were taken
were attacked
over.
Reasons
behind
The name of the
Local leaders told
Mahatma was peasants that
being invoked to Gandhiji had
sanction all declared that land
action & was to be
aspirations redistributed
among the poor
Rebellion in countryside
(By tribals)
 Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh

A militant guerrilla movement spread in

the early 1920s

The colonial government had closed large

forest areas, preventing people from
entering the forests.

Their livelihood as well as their traditional

rights were affected.

People were tired of working as forced

begar for road construction.
 Alluri Sitaram Raju

Claimed he had a Rebels proclaimed Persuaded people

variety of special him as incarnation to wear khadi and
powers of God give up drinking

But at the same time he asserted that India could be

liberated only by the use of force, not non-violence

Attempted to kill Raju was

The Gudem British officials and captured &
rebels attacked carried on guerrilla executed in 1924,
police stations warfare for overtime became a
achieving swaraj folk hero.
 Swaraj in the plantations

For plantation workers, Swaraj meant ‘right

to move freely’.

It also meant it meant retaining a link with

the village from which they had come.

Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859,

plantation workers were not permitted to
leave the tea gardens without permission.
 Swaraj in the plantations

➔ When they heard of the Non-Cooperation

Movement, thousands of workers:

- Defied the authorities;

- Left the plantations & headed home.

➔ They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming &

everyone would be given land in their own villages.

➔ However, they never reached their destination.

➔ Stranded on the way by a railway and steamer

strike, they were caught by the police and brutally
beaten
 SUMMARY

➔ Visions of these movements- not defined by the

Congress programme.

➔ Term Swaraj was interpreted in their own ways,

imagining it to be a time when all suffering & all
troubles would be over.

➔ Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji’s name &

raised slogans demanding ‘Swatantra Bharat’, they
were also emotionally relating to an all-India
agitation

➔ When they acted in the name of Mahatma Gandhi,

or linked their movement to that of the Congress,
they were identifying with a movement which went
beyond the limits of their immediate locality.
 Chauri Chaura Incident

At Chauri Chaura (1922) in Gorakhpur, a peaceful

demonstration in a bazaar turned into a violent
clash with the police.
In February 1922, Mahatma Gandhi withdrew the
Non-Cooperation Movement as it turned violent
in many places
 TOWARDS CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT
 Towards Civil Disobedience Movement

Tired of mass struggles, some Congress leaders wanted to participate in elections to the
provincial councils that had been set up by the Government of India Act of 1919.
They felt that it was important to oppose British policies within the councils.

● C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the

Swaraj Party within the Congress to argue
for a return to council politics.

● Younger leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru &

Subhas Chandra Bose pressed for more
radical mass agitation and for full
independence.
 World Wide Economic Depression

Agricultural Demand for

prices began to agricultural
fall from 1926 and goods fell and
collapsed after exports
1930. declined.

Peasants found it
difficult to sell their
harvests and pay their
revenue.
By 1930, the
countryside was in
turmoil.
 SIMON
COMMISSION
Tory govt set up the
Commission, to suggest Commission had
some changes into no Indian
Constitutional system in member.
India

Commission arrived in Congress and the

India in 1928, greeted Muslim League,
with the slogan ‘Simon protested against
Go Back’. the Commission
 Demand For Purna Swaraj

Lord Irwin announced in October 1929, a vague

offer of ‘dominion status’ for India.

Congress leaders were unsatisfied, specially the

radicals.

Lahore Session, Dec 1929- Jawaharlal Nehru

formalised the demand of ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full
independence.

Declared that 26 January, 1930, would be

celebrated as the Independence Day.
THE SALT MARCH AND THE CIVIL
DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT
 Mahatma
Gandhi found in Consumed by
salt a powerful
symbol that
the rich and
could unite the the poor alike
nation.

SALT
One of the of The tax on salt & the
government
the most monopoly over its
essential items production,
revealed the most
of food. oppressive face of
British rule
● On 31 January 1930,
Mahatma Gandhi sent a
letter to Viceroy Irwin
starting 11 demands.
● Some of these were of
general interest; others
were specific demands of
different classes, from
industrialists to peasants.
● The most stirring of all
was the demand to
abolish the salt tax.
● Gandhi’s letter was a
ultimatum.

● If the demands were not

fulfilled by 11 March, the
letter stated, the Congress
would launch a civil
disobedience campaign

● Irwin was unwilling to

negotiate.

● So Mahatma Gandhi started

his famous salt march (12
March, 1930) accompanied
by 78 of his trusted
volunteers.
Starting Place Sabarmati Ashram

Destination Dandi, Gujarat

240 miles. 10
Distance
miles/day

Duration 24 days

Gandhiji + 78
No. of People
Volunteers

Start of Civil
Disobedience 6th April, 1930
Movement
Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured
salt & demonstrated in front of government salt factories.
As the movement spread:

Peasants
Foreign
refused to
cloth was
pay
boycotted
revenue

Liquor
shops were
picketed

Village People
officials violated
resigned forest laws
 Government arrested congress
leaders.

Violent clashes happened in many

places; Government responded with
brutal repression

Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple

of Mahatma Gandhi, was arrested in
April 1930

A month later when Mahatma Gandhi

was arrested, violence broke out in
Solapur

Peaceful satyagrahis were attacked,

women and children were beaten, and
about 100,000 people were arrested.
 Gandhi irwin Pact

● Gandhi ji called off CDM because of all this

violence.
● Lord-Irwin convinced him to get into a pact
with him.
● This pact of known as Gandhi-Irwin Pact on
5th Mar 1931
By this pact, Gandhiji
consented to
participate in a Round
Table Conference &
called off the civil
disobedience
movement
 Second Round Table COnference, London, Dec 1931

● Negotiations broke down & Gandhiji

returned returned disappointed.
● Back in India, he discovered that the
government had begun a new cycle of
repression:
● Ghaffar Khan & Jawaharlal Nehru were
both in jail.
● The Congress had been declared illegal.
● A series of measures had been imposed to
prevent meetings, demonstrations &
boycotts.
● Mahatma Gandhi relaunched the Civil
Disobedience Movement
 How Participants saw the Movement?

Rich peasant communities – like the Patidars of Gujarat & the Jats of Uttar
Pradesh – were active in the movement.
● Hard hit by the trade depression & falling prices.
● As their cash income disappeared, they found it impossible to pay the
government’s revenue demand. And the refusal of the government to
reduce the revenue demand led to widespread resentment.
● These rich peasants became enthusiastic supporters
● For them the fight for swaraj was a struggle against high revenue
 How Participants saw the Movement?

Poor peasant communities

● The relationship between the poor peasants and the Congress
remained uncertain.
● Small tenants cultivating land they had rented from landlords
● In Depression they struggled to pay rent.
● Scared of upsetting the rich peasants & landlords, congress didn’t
support their ‘no rent’ campaign.
 How Participants saw the Movement?

Involvement of Industrialists

● Industrialists who made profit during first world were upset with the
restriction policies on business.
● Wanted protection against imports of foreign goods, & rupee-sterling
foreign exchange ratio.
● Formed Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress in 1920 & Federation of
the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927.
● Prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G. D. Birla
supported the Civil Disobedience Movement when it was first launched.
● But after the failure of the Round Table Conference, business groups were no
longer uniformly enthusiastic.
 How Participants saw the Movement?

Involvement of Industrialists

● They were worried about:

1. Spread of militant activities;

2. Prolonged disruption of business;

3. Growing influence of socialism amongst the younger members of the

Congress.

● The industrial working classes did not participate in the Civil Disobedience
Movement in large numbers, except in the Nagpur region.

● As the industrialists came closer to the Congress, workers stayed aloof.

● But in spite of that, some workers did participate in the Civil Disobedience
Movement, following boycott of foreign goods, against low wages and poor
working conditions.
 How Participants saw the Movement?

● There were strikes by railway workers

in 1930 and dockworkers in 1932.

● In 1930 thousands of workers in

Chotanagpur tin mines wore Gandhi
caps and participated in protest rallies
and boycott campaigns.

● But the Congress was reluctant to

include workers’ demands as part of its
programme of struggle.

● It felt that this would alienate

industrialists and divide the anti
imperial forces.
 How Participants saw the Movement?

Moved by
Participated in Gandhiji’s call,
protest marches, WOMEN PARTICIPATION they began to see
manufactured service to the
salt, etc., & even nation as a
went to jail. sacred duty of
women.

Congress was
reluctant to allow Gandhiji was
women to hold any convinced that it
position of was the duty of
authority. women to look
after home.
LIMITS OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
MOVEMENT
 DALITS Their Demands
● No active participation in the ● Reserved seats in educational
movement. institutions;
● For long time, Congress ignored them ● Separate electorate that would
because of fear of offending Sanatanis. choose dalit members for
● Gandhiji supported Dalits, called them legislative councils;
Harijans (Children of God).
● Believed- Political
● He believed Swaraj would not come for a empowerment would resolve
100 years if untouchability was not the problems of their social
eliminated disabilities.
Dr. B.R Ambedkar

Organised Dalits into Depressed

Classes Association in 1930.

Clash with Gandhiji- Demanding

Separate electorate for Dalits.
 Poona Pact, 1932

When the British government conceded

Ambedkar’s demand, Gandhiji began a
fast unto death.

Gandhi believed this would

disintegrate India.

Ambedkar ultimately accepted

Gandhiji’s position and the result was the
Poona Pact of September 1932
 Lukewarm Response - Muslim

● Muslims felt alienated from Congress after

Non-Cooperation movement.

● From the mid-1920s the Congress came to

be more visibly associated with openly
Hindu religious nationalist groups.

● Relations between Hindus and Muslims

worsened, leading to Hindu-Muslim
communal clashes and riots in various
cities.

● At the time of Civil Disobedience

Movement- there was atmosphere of
suspicion and distrust between
communities.
 Lukewarm Response - Muslim

● The Congress and the Muslim League

made efforts to re-negotiate an alliance.

● Leader of Muslim League: Muhammad Ali

Jinnah, asked for separate electorate for
Muslim dominated regions.

● But was outrightly turned down by M.R.

Jayakar of Hindu Mahasabha, provoking
Hindu-Muslim communal riotS.
The Sense of Collective
Belonging
 How does sense of collective belonging develops?

Experience Folklore Variety of Popular

History &
of united & songs cultural prints &
fiction
struggle processes symbols
Identity of India came to be visually associated with
the image of Bharat Mata

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay- created the first

image of Bharat Mata & also wrote ‘Vande Matram’.

‘Vande Matram’- later included in his novel

Anandamath.

Widely sung the Swadeshi

movement in Bengal.
 Abanindranath Tagore painted his
famous image of Bharat Mata

An ascetic figure, She is calm & composed,

Divine & spiritual

In later year, image acquired- different forms.

 In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore
began collecting ballads, nursery
rhymes and myths.

Led the movement for folk revival

In Madras, Natesa Sastri published- massive
four-volume collection of Tamil folk tales,
The Folklore of Southern India.

Believed that folklore was national literature.

He believed that it is “the most trustworthy

manifestation of people’s real thoughts and
characteristics”
 Swadeshi movement in Bengal
● A Tricolour flag (red, green and yellow)
was designed with 8 lotuses
representing eight provinces of British
India,
● A crescent moon, representing Hindus
and Muslims.
 Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag- 1921.

Tricolour (red, green and white) and had a spinning wheel in the centre.
 Reinterpretation of History

By the end of 19th century, many Indian thought in

order to instill a feeling of pride in the nation -
Indian history had to be thought about differently.

Began discovering great achievements in past.

Wrote about the glorious developments in ancient

times.
 Conclusion

● Growing anger against colonial government

brought together various groups & classes
into common struggle for freedom.

● The Congress under Gandhiji’s leadership

tried to channel people’s grievances into
organised movements for independence.

● The ultimate objective of everyone was to get

freedom from the colonial rule.
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