Nationalism In India

Q. How was nationalism perceived in India? What were the problems?

a) In India, the growth of modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anti-colonial

movement.
b) People began discovering their unity in the process of their struggle with colonialism.
c) The sense of being oppressed under colonialism provided a shared bond that tied many
different
groups together.

Problems

a) But each class and group felt the effects of colonialism differently, their experiences were
varied, and
their notions of freedom were not always the same.
b) The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one
movement. But
the unity did not emerge without conflict.

Q. How did the 1s World War create a new economic situation?

a) The war created a new economic and political situation.

b) It led to a huge increase in defence expenditure which was financed by war loans and
increasing
taxes: customs duties were raised and income tax introduced.
c) Through the war years prices increased - doubling between 1913 and 1918 - leading to
extreme
hardship for the common people.
d) Villages were called upon to supply soldiers, and the forced recruitment in rural areas
caused
widespread anger.
e) Then in 1918-19 and 1920-21, crops failed in many parts of India, resulting in acute
shortages of food.
This was accompanied by an influenza epidemic.
f) People hoped that their hardships would end after the war was over. But that did not
happen.

Q. What do you understand by Satyagraha?

a) The idea of Satyagraha emphasized the power of truth and the need to search for truth.
b) It suggested that if the cause was true, if the struggle was against injustice, then physical
force was
not necessary to fight the oppressor. Without seeking vengeance or being aggressive, a
Satyagrahi could
win the battle through nonviolence.
c) This could be done by appealing to the conscience of the oppressor. People - including
the oppressors
- had to be persuaded to see the truth, instead of being forced to accept truth through the
use of
violence.
d) By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this
dharma
of non-violence could unite all Indians.

Q. Mention the Satyagraha's organised by Mahatma Gandhi.

After arriving in India, Mahatma Gandhi successfully organised Satyagraha movements in

various
places.
a) In 1916 he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to struggle against the
oppressive
plantation system.
b) Then in 1917, he organised a Satyagraha to support the peasants of the Kheda district of
Gujarat.
Affected by crop failure and a plague epidemic, the peasants of Kheda could not pay the
revenue, and
were demanding that revenue collection be relaxed.
c) In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organise a Satyagraha movement
amongst cotton
mill workers.

Q.What was the Rowlatt Act? How did Mahatma Gandhi oppose it? What was the
reaction of the British to this opposition?

a) Rowlatt Act (1919) had been passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the
united opposition of the Indian members.
b) It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed
detention of political prisoners without trial for two years with a hartal on 6 April.
c) Mahatma Gandhi wanted non-violent civil disobedience against such unjust laws, which
would start closed down.
d) Rallies were organised in various cities, workers went on strike in railway workshops, and
shops
e) Alarmed by the popular upsurge, and scared that lines of communication such as the
railways and telegraph would be disrupted, the British administration decided to clamp down
on nationalists.
f) Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from
entering Delhi.
g) 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.
h) As the news of Jallianwalla Bagh spread, crowds took to the streets in many north Indian
towns.
i) There were strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on government buildings. The
government
responded with brutal repression.
Q. Why did Jallianwalla Bagh incident take place?

On 13 April the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place.

a) On that day a crowd of villagers who had come to Amritsar to attend a faie gathered in the
enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.
b) Being from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that had been imposed.
c) Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing
hundreds.
d) His object, as he declared later, was to 'produce a moral effect', to create in the minds of
Satyagrahis a feeling of terror and awe.

Q. Why did Mahatma Gandhi call off the Rowlatt Satyagraha?

a) While the Rowlatt Satyagraha had been a widespread movement, it was still limited
mostly to
cities and towns.
b) Mahatma Gandhi now felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India.
c) But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing the
Hindus and
Muslims closer together.

Q. What was the Khilafat Movement? Why did Mahatma Gandhi support it?

a) The First World War had ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey and there were
rumours that a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman emperor - the
spiritual head of the
Islamic world (the Khalifa).
b) To defend the Khalifa's temporal powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in
March 1919. c) A young generation of Muslim leaders like the brothers Muhammad Ali and
Shaukat Ali began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi about the possibility of a united mass
action on the issue.
d) Gandhiji saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a unified
national movement.
e) At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, he convinced other leaders
of the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for swaraj.

Q. What was suggested by Mahatma Gandhi in his book "Hind Swaraj."

In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was
established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this
cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year,
and swaraj would
come.

Q. How did Mahatma Gandhi propose to launch the Non Cooperation Movement?

Gandhiji proposed that the movement should unfold in stages.

a) It should begin with the surrender of titles that the government awarded, and a boycott of
civil services, army, police, courts and legislative councils, schools, and foreign goods.
b) Then, in case the government used repression, a full civil disobedience campaign would
be launched.
c) Through the summer of 1920 Mahatma Gandhi and Shaukat Ali toured extensively,
mobilizing popular
support for the movement.

Q. Why were some among the Congress reluctant to support the Non Cooperation
Movement? How was it finally adopted?

Many within the Congress were, however, concerned about the proposals.
a) They were reluctant to boycott the council elections scheduled for November 1920, and
they feared
that the movement might lead to popular violence.
b) In the months between September and December there was an intense tussle within the
Congress.
c) For a while there seemed no meeting point between the supporters and the opponents of
the
movement.
d) Finally, at the Congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, a compromise was worked
out and the
Non-Cooperation programme was adopted.

Q. How did the middle class participate in the Non Cooperation Movement? Why did it
slow down?

The NCM started with middle-class participation in the cities.

a) Thousands of students left government controlled schools and colleges, headmasters and
teachers
resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal practices.
b) The council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras.
c) Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in huge
bonfires.
d) The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs
102 crore to
Rs 57 crore.
e) In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance foreign
trade.
f) People began discarding imported clothes and wearing only Indian ones, production of
Indian textile
mills and handlooms went up.

Reasons for slowing down

But this movement in the cities gradually slowed down for a variety of reasons.
a) Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people
could not afford to buy it.
b) Similarly the boycott of British institutions posed a problem. For the movement to be
successful
alternative Indian institutions had to be set up but these were slow to come.
c) So students and teachers began joining government schools and colleges and lawyers
joined back work in government courts.

Q. Describe the peasant's movement in Awadh? What was its outcome?

In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra - a sanyasi who had earlier been to Fiji
as an indentured labourer.
a) The movement here was against talukdars and landlords who demanded from peasants
exorbitantly high rents and a variety of other cesses.
b) Peasants had to do beggar and work at landlords' farms without any payment.
c) As tenants they had no security of tenure, being regularly evicted so that they could
acquire no right over the leased land.
d) The peasant movement demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and social
boycott of oppressive landlords.
e) In many places nai - dhobi bandhs were organised by panchayats to deprive landlords of
the services
of even barbers and washermen.
f) in June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru began going around the villages in Awadh, talking to the
wagers, and trying to understand their grievances.
g) By October, the Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba
Ramchandra and a
few others.
h) Within a month, over 300 branches had been set up in the villages around the region.
i) So when the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the
Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider struggle.

Outcome

a) The peasant movement, however, developed in forms that the Congress leadership was
unhappy with.
b) As the movement spread in 1921, the houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked,
bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over.
c) In many places local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared that no taxes were
to be paid and land was to be redistributed among the poor. This the Congress did not like.

Q. Describe the tribal movement of Andhra Pradesh.

Ans. In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early
1920s not a form of struggle that the Congress could approve.
a) Here, as in other forest regions, the colonial government had closed large forest areas,
preventing people from entering the forests to graze their cattle, or to collect fuel wood and
fruits. This enraged the hill people.
b) Not only were their livelihoods affected but they felt that their traditional rights were being
denied.
c) When the government began forcing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill
people revolted.
d) The person who came to lead them was an interesting figure. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed
that he had a variety of special powers: he could make correct astrological predictions and
heal people, and he could survive even bullet shots.
e) Captivated by Raju, the rebels proclaimed that he was an incarnation of God.
f) Raju talked of the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi, said he was inspired by the
Non-Cooperation Movement, and persuaded people to wear khadi and give up drinking.
g) But at the same time he asserted that India could be liberated only by the use of force, not
non violence. warfare for achieving swaraj.
h) The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British officials and carried on
guerrilla warfare.
i) Raju was captured and executed in 1924, and over time became a folk hero.

Q. How did the plantation workers of Assam take part in Non Cooperation Movement?
What happened to them?

a) For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the
confined space in which they were enclosed, and it meant retaining a link with the village
from which they had come.
b) Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave
the tea gardens without permission, and in fact they were rarely given such permission.
c) When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the
authorities,
left the plantations and headed home.
d) They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming and everyone would be given land in their own
villages.

Result

They, however, never reached their destination. Stranded on the way by a railway and
steamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally beaten up.

Q. How did the Non Cooperation Movement help to unify the various groups that
participated in it?

a) The visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress programme.
b) The different social groups interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways, imagining it to
be a time when all suffering and all troubles would be over.
c) Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji's name and raised slogans demanding 'Swatantra
Bharat', they
were also emotionally relating to an all-India agitation.
d) 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.

Q. Why did Mahatma Gandhi withdraw the Non Cooperation Movement?

Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement. He felt the
movement was turning violent in many places like at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur, a peaceful
demonstration in a bazaar turned into a violent clash with the police. Therefore he believed
that the Satyagrahis needed to be properly trained before they would be ready for mass
struggles.

Q. Who founded the Swaraj party? What were its aims?

Within the Congress, some leaders were by now tired of mass struggles and wanted to
participate in elections to the provincial councils that had been set up by the Government of
India Act of
1919.
a) They felt that it was important to oppose British policies within the councils, argue for
reform and
also demonstrate that these councils were not truly democratic.
b) C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within the Congress to argue for a
return to council politics.

Q. Describe the 2 important factors that shaped Indian Politics from late 1920's.

Great Economic Depression

a) Due to the effect of the worldwide economic depression, agricultural prices began to fall
from 1926 and collapsed after 1930.
b) As the demand for agricultural goods fell and exports declined, peasants found it difficult
to sell their harvests and pay their revenue.
c) By 1930, the countryside was in turmoil.

Simon Commission

a) Against this background the new Tory government in Britain constituted a Statutory
Commission under Sir John Simon.
b) Set up in response to the nationalist movement, the commission was to look into the
functioning of the constitutional system in India and suggest changes.
c) The problem was that the commission did not have a single Indian member. They were all
British.
d)They were treated with with simon go Back!' slogans.

Q. Discuss briefly the significance of 26th January 1930.

a) In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress
formalized the demand of 'Purna Swaraj' or full independence for India.
b) It was declared that 26 January 1930, would be celebrated as the Independence Day
when people were to take a pledge to struggle for complete independence. But the
celebrations attracted very little attention.

Q. What were the circumstances that led to the Civil Disobedience Movement/Salt
Satyagraha? Discuss.
a) Independence Day celebration of 26* January 1930 attracted very little attention.
Therefore Mahatma Gandhi found in Salt a powerful symbol that could unite the nation.
b) On 31 January 1930, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands.
c) Some of these were of general interest; others were specific demands of different classes,
from industrialists to peasants. The idea was to make the demands wide-ranging, so that all
classes within Indian society could identify with them and everyone could be brought
together in a united campaign.
d) The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax. Salt was something
consumed by the
rich and the poor alike, and it was one of the most essential items of food.
e) The tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production, Mahatma Gandhi
declared, revealed the most oppressive face of British rule.
f) Mahatma Gandhi's letter was, in a way, an ultimatum. If the demands were not fulfilled by
11 March, the letter stated, the Congress would launch a civil disobedience campaign.
g) Irwin was unwilling to negotiate. So Mahatma Gandhi started his famous salt march
accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers.
h) Wherever he stopped, and he told them what he meant by swaraj and urged them to
peacefully defy the British.
i) On 6 April he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by
boiling sea
water. This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Q. Give an account of the success of Civil Disobedience Movement in India? How did
the British react to it?

a) Gandhiji started from the Sabarmati Ashram with 78 volunteers and was joined by
hundred's till he reached Dandi.
b) People were asked not only to refuse cooperation with the British, as they had done in
1921-22, but also to break colonial laws.
c) Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured salt and
demonstrated in front of government salt factories.
d) As the movement spread, foreign cloth was boycotted, and liquor shops were picketed.
e) Peasants refused to pay revenue and chaukidari taxes, village officials resigned, and in
many places
forest people violated forest laws - going into Reserved Forests to collect wood and graze
cattle.

Reactions

a) Worried by the developments, the colonial government began arresting the Congress
leaders one by
b) This led to violent clashes in many places
c) When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, was arrested in April
1930, crowds demonstrated in the streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars and police
firing.
d) Many were killed. A month later, Mahatma Gandhi himself was arrested. industrial
workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal buildings, law courts and railway
stations - all structures that symbolized British rule.
e) A frightened government responded with a policy of brutal repression. Peaceful
satyagrahis were
attacked, women and children were beaten, and about 100,000 people were arrested.

Q. What was Gandhi-Irwin pact? Why did it fail? What was the result?

a) By this Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhiji consented to participate in a Round Table Conference

(the Congress had boycotted the first Round Table Conference) in London and the
government agreed to release the political prisoners.
b) In December 1931, Gandhiji went to London for the conference, but the negotiations
broke down and he returned disappointed.
c) Back in India, he discovered that the government had begun a new cycle of repression.
Ghaffar Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru were both in jail, the Congress had been declared
illegal, and a series of measures had been imposed to prevent meetings, demonstrations
and boycotts.

Result

d) With great apprehension, Mahatma Gandhi relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement.
For over a
year, the movement continued, but by 1934 it lost its momentum.

Q. Who founded the HSRA? What were its aims?

In 1928, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army (HSRA) was founded at a meeting in
Ferozshah Kotla ground in Delhi. Amongst its leaders were Bhagat Singh, Jatin Das and
Ajoy Ghosh.
AIM
a) Their aim was to target British symbols.
b) Encouraging the Indian youth to sacrifice for their motherland.

Q. Why and how did the various religious and social groups take part and relate to the
Civil Disobedience Movement?

1. RICH PEASANTS
a) In the countryside, rich peasant communities - like the Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of
Uttar Pradesh - were active in the movement.
b) Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by the trade depression and
falling prices.
c) As their cash income disappeared, they found it impossible to pay the government's
revenue demand.
d) And the refusal of the government to reduce the revenue demand led to widespread
resentment.
e) These rich peasants became enthusiastic supporters of the Civil Disobedience
Movement, organising
their communities, and at times forcing reluctant members, to participate in the boycott
programmes.
f) For them the fight for swaraj was a struggle against high revenues.
g) But they were deeply disappointed when the movement was called off in 1931 without the
revenue rates being revised.
h) So when the movement was restarted in 1932, many of them refused to participate.

POOR PEASANTS
a) The poorer peasantry was not just interested in the lowering of the revenue demand.
b) Many of them were small tenants cultivating land they had rented from landlords. As the
Depression
continued and cash incomes dwindled, the small tenants found it difficult to pay their rent.
c) They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted.
d) They joined a variety of radical movements, often led by Socialists and Communists.
e) Apprehensive of raising issues that might upset the rich peasants and landlords, the
Congress was
unwilling to support 'no rent' campaigns in most places. So the relationship between the poor
peasants
and the Congress remained uncertain.

BUSINESS CLASS
a) During the First World War, Indian merchants and industrialists had made huge profits and
become
powerful.
b) Keen on expanding their business, they now reacted against colonial policies that
restricted business
activities.
c) They wanted protection against imports of foreign goods, and a rupee-sterling foreign
exchange ratio
that would discourage imports.
d) To organise business interests, they formed the Indian Industrial and Commercial
Congress in 1920
and the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927.
When it was first launched it attacked colonial control over the indian economy, and
supported the Civil Disobedience Movement.
e) Led by prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G.D. Birla, the
industrialists would flourish without constraints.
They saw swaraj as a time when colonial restrictions on business would no longer exist and
trade and industry of business will grow.
f) They gave financial assistance and refused to buy or sell imported goods. Most
businessmen came to
enthusiastic.
g) But after the failure of the Round Table Conference, business groups were no longer
uniformly.
h) They were apprehensive of the spread of militant activities, and worried about prolonged
disruption

INDUSTRIAL WORKING CLASS

a) The industrial working classes did not participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement in
large numbers, except in the Nagpur region.
b) 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, selectively adopting
some of the ideas of the Gandhian programme, like boycott of foreign goods, as part of their
own movements against low
wages and poor working conditions.
c) 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.
d) It felt that this would alienate industrialists and divide the anti-imperial forces.

WOMEN
a) Another important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement was the large-scale
participation of women.
b) During Gandhiji's salt march, thousands of women came out of their homes to listen to
him.
c) They participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, and nationalist processions.
d) During the national movement, many women, for the first time in their lives, moved out of
their homes on to a public arena including many old women and mothers with children in
their arms.
g) In urban areas these women were from high-caste families; in rural areas they came from
rich peasant households.
h) Moved by Gandhiji's call, they began to see service to the nation as a sacred duty of
women. Yet, this increased public role did not necessarily mean any radical change in the
way the position of women was viewed.
i) Gandhiji was convinced that it was the duty of women to look after home and hearth, be
good mothers and good wives. And for a long time the Congress was reluctant to allow
women to hold any
position of authority within the organisation. It was keen only on their symbolic presence.

Q. Who were the Depressed Classes? What steps were taken for their upliftment?

Not all social groups were moved by the abstract concept of swaraj.
a) One such group was the nation's 'untouchables', who from around the 1930s had begun
to call themselves dalit or oppressed.
b) For long the Congress had ignored the dalits, for fear of offending the sanatanis, the
conservative high-caste Hindus. But Mahatma Gandhi declared that swaraj would not come
for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated.
c) He called the 'untouchables' harijan, or the children of God, organised satyagraha to
secure them entry into temples, and access to public wells, tanks, roads and schools.
d) He himself cleaned toilets to dignify the work of the bhangi (the sweepers), and
persuaded upper castes to change their heart and give up 'the sin of untouchability'.

Q. Why was dalit participation in Civil Disobedience Movement limited?

a) Many dalit leaders were keen on a different political solution to the problems of the
community.
b) They began organising themselves, demanding reserved seats in educational institutions,
and a separate electorate that would choose dalit members for legislative councils.
c) Political empowerment, they believed, would resolve the problems of their social
disabilities.
d) Dalit participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement was therefore limited, particularly in
the Maharashtra and Nagpur region where their organisation was quite strong.

Q. Under what circumstances was the Poona Pact signed?

a) Dr B.R. Ambedkar, who organised the dalits into the Depressed Classes Association in
1930, clashed with Mahatma Gandhi at the second Round Table Conference by demanding
separate electorates for dalits.
b) When the British government conceded Ambedkar's demand, Gandhiji began a fast unto
death. He believed that separate electorates for dalits would slow down the process of their
integration into
society.
c) Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhiji's position and the result was the Poona Pact of
September 1932.
d) It gave the Depressed Classes (later to be known as the Schedule Castes) reserved seats
in provincial and central legislative councils, but they were to be voted in by the general
electorate.
e) The dalit movement, however, continued to be apprehensive of the Congress-led national
movement.

Q. Analyse the reason for limited participation of Muslims in the Civil Disobedience
Movement.

Some of the Muslim political organizations in India were also lukewarm in their response to
the Civil Disobedience Movement.
a) After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, a large section of Muslims
felt alienated
from the Congress.
b) From the mid-1920s the Congress came to be more visibly associated with openly Hindu
religious nationalist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha.
c) As relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened, each community organised religious
processions with militant fervour, provoking Hindu-Muslim communal clashes and riots in
various cities.
d) The Congress and the Muslim League made efforts to renegotiate an alliance, and in
1927 it appeared that such a unity could be forged.
e) The important differences were over the question of representation in the future
assemblies that were to be elected.
f) Muhammad Ali Jinnah, one of the leaders of the Muslim League, was willing to give up the
demand for
separate electorates, if Muslims were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and
representation in proportion to population in the Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal and
Punjab).
g) Negotiations over the question of representation continued but all hope of resolving the
issue at the All Parties Conference in 1928 disappeared when M.R. Jayakar of the Hindu
Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise.

Q. Mention the factors that led to the growth of Nationalism in India. / Discuss the
factors that led to the creation of collective identity in India.

The sense of collective belonging came partly through the experience of united struggles.
But there were also a variety of cultural processes through which nationalism captured
people's
imagination.

USE OF ALLEGORIES AND SYMBOLS

a) The identity of the nation is most often symbolized in a figure or image.
b) This helps create an image with which people can identify the nation.
c) It was in the twentieth century, with the growth of nationalism, that the identity of India
came to be visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata.
d) Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata. In this painting Bharat
Mata is
portrayed as an ascetic figure; she is calm, composed, divine and spiritual.
e) In subsequent years, the image of Bharat Mata acquired many different forms, as it
circulated in popular prints, and was painted by different artists.

REVIVAL OF FOLKLORE
a) Ideas of nationalism also developed through a movement to revive Indian folklore.
b) In late-nineteenth-century India, nationalists began recording folk tales sung by bards and
they
toured villages to gather folk songs and legends.
c) These tales, they believed, gave a true picture of traditional culture that had been
corrupted and damaged by outside forces. It was essential to preserve this folk tradition in
order to discover one's
national identity and restore a sense of pride in one's past.
d) In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore himself began collecting ballads, nursery rhymes and
myths, and led the movement for folk revival.
e) In Madras, Natesa Sastri published a massive four-volume collection of Tamil folk tales,
The Folklore of Southern India.

USE OF SYMBOLS AND ICONS

a) As the national movement developed, nationalist leaders became more and more aware
of such icons
and symbols in unifying people and inspiring in them a feeling of nationalism.
b) During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green and yellow) was
designed. It
had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent moon,
representing Hindus and Muslims.
c) By 1921, Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolour (red, green and
white) and had a spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help.
REINTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
a) Another means of creating a feeling of nationalism was through reinterpretation of history.
By the end of the nineteenth century many Indians began feeling that to instill a sense of
pride in the nation,
Indian history had to be thought about differently.
b) The British saw Indians as backward and primitive, incapable of governing themselves. In
response, Indians began looking into the past to discover India's great achievements.
c) They wrote about the glorious developments in ancient times when art and architecture,
science and mathematics, religion and culture, law and philosophy, crafts and trade had
flourished.
d) This glorious time, in their view, was followed by a history of decline, when India was
colonized.
e) These nationalist histories urged the readers to take pride in India's great achievements in
the past
and struggle to change the miserable conditions of life under British rule.