SUBJECT: HISTORY GRADE: 10

Chapter: Nationalism in India (Notes)

1. What were the effects of the First World War in India?

• The war created a new economic and political situation. It led to a huge increase
in defense expenditure which was financed by war loans and increasing taxes.
• Customs duties were raised and Income tax was introduced.
• Through the war years prices increased –doubling between 1913 and 1918 –
leading to extreme hardship for the common people.
• Villages were called upon to supply soldiers and the forced recruitment in rural
areas caused widespread anger.
• 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. According to the census of 1921, 12 to 13 million
people perished as a result of famines and the epidemic.

2. When did Mahatma Gandhi return to India from South Africa?

• Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in January 1915. He had come from

South Africa where he had successfully fought the racist regime with a novel
method of mass agitation, which he called satyagraha.

3. Write a short note on Satyagraha.

• The idea of satyagraha emphasised the power of truth and the need to search for
truth. It suggested that if the cause was true and the struggle was against
injustice, physical force was not necessary to fight the oppressor.
• Without seeking vengeance or being oppressive, a satyagrahi could win the
battle through non-violence. 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 the truth through the use of violence. Mahatma
Gandhi believed that this dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

4. What are the various Satyagrahas organized by Gandhiji between 1917 &
1918?
• In 1917 Gandhiji travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to
struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
• 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.
• In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organise a Satyagraha
movement amongst cotton mill workers.
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5. What were the provisions of the Rowlatt Act?

• It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities and

allowed the detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
• Public meetings were banned.

6. What was the impact of the Rowlatt Act?

• Rallies were organised in various cities, workers went on strike in railway

workshops, and shops closed down.
• 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.
• Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred
from entering Delhi.
• 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.
• On 13 April the infamous Jallianwala Bagh incident took place.

7. Write a short note on the Jallianwala Bagh incident.

• On 13 April the infamous Jallianwala Bagh incident took place. On that day a
crowd of villagers who had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in the
enclosed ground of Jallianwala Bagh. Being from outside the city, they were
unaware of the martial law that had been imposed. Dyer entered the area,
blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. 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.

8. What were the effects of the Jallianwala Bagh incident?

• 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 were bombed.
• Seeing violence spread, Mahatma Gandhi called off the movement.

9. Describe the origin of the Khilafat movement. Or What was the

Khilafat movement.? Who were the leaders?

• The First World War ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey. And there

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 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).
• To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in
Bombay in March 1919.
• A young generation of Muslim leaders like the brothers Muhammad Ali and
Shaukat Ali started this movement.

10. Why did Gandhiji support the Khilafat movement.?

• Gandhiji saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a

unified national movement.
• 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.

11. How could non-cooperation become a movement?

Gandhiji proposed that the movement should unfold in stages.

• It should begin with the surrender of titles that the government awarded,
• A boycott of civil services, army, police, courts and legislative councils,
schools, and foreign goods.
• Then, in case 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.
• Finally, at the Congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, a compromise
was worked out and the Non-Cooperation programme was adopted.

12. How did the people respond to the call of Swaraj in the Non-Cooperation
movement?

A. The movement in Towns. (*Explain the NCM in the towns.)

• The movement started with middle-class participation in the cities.

Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and colleges,
headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal
practices.
• The council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras, where
the Justice Party, the party of the non-Brahmans, felt that entering the council
was one way of gaining some power.

• Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign

cloth burnt in huge bonfires. The import of foreign cloth halved
between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs 102 crore to
Rs 57 crore.

• In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign

goods or finance foreign trade.
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 • As the boycott movement spread, and people began discarding
imported clothes and wearing only Indian ones, production of
Indian textile mills and handlooms went up.

B. Rebellion in the Countryside

(*Explain the Non-cooperation movement in the countryside. OR
Who led the NCM in the Awadh region? Why? What were the
demands? What was its impact?)

• In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra. The movement here was
against talukdars and landlords who demanded from peasants exorbitantly high
rents and a variety of other cesses.
• Peasants had to do begar and work at landlords’ farms without any
payment. They had no right over the leased land.
• The peasant movement demanded a reduction of revenue, abolition of
begar, and social boycott of oppressive landlords.
• In many places nai – dhobi bandhs were organized by panchayats
to deprive landlords of the services of even barbers and
washermen.
• In June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru began going around the villages
in Awadh, talking to the villagers, and 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.
• The effort of the Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the
wider struggle. As the movement spread in 1921, the houses of talukdars and
merchants were attacked, bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over.
So the Congress leadership was unhappy with the peasant movement.

C. The Tribal Movement in the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh led

by Alluri Sitaram Raju.
(Explain the Tribal Movement in the Gudem Hills of Andhra
Pradesh led by Alluri Sitaram Raju.)

• In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, for instance, a militant guerrilla

• movement spread in the early 1920s.
• As in other forest regions, the colonial government had
• closed large forest areas, preventing people from entering the
forests to graze their cattle,
• to collect fuelwood and fruits.
• the government began forcing them to contribute begar for road
building.
This enraged the hill people. Not only were their livelihoods affected but
they felt that their traditional rights were being denied. So they revolted.
• The person who came to lead them was Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed that
he had a variety of special powers.
• Captivated by Raju, the rebels proclaimed that he was an incarnation of
God.
• Raju talked of the greatness of Mahatma Gandhi, said he was inspired by
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 the Non-Cooperation Movement and persuaded people to wear khadi and
give up drinking.
• But at the same time, he asserted that India could be liberated only by the
use of force, not non-violence.
• The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British
officials and carried on guerrilla warfare for achieving swaraj.
Raju was captured and executed in 1924, and over time became a folk hero.

D. Swaraj in the Plantations

(How did the workers in the plantation respond to the call for Swaraj?
OR
Workers too had their own understanding of Mahatma Gandhi
and the notion of Swaraj. Explain the statement with a suitable example)

• 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.
• 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.
• When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement thousands of workers
defied the authorities, left the plantations and headed home. They believed that
Gandhi Raj was coming and everyone would be given land in their villages.
• 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.

13. What were the economic effects of the Non-Cooperation Movement?

The effects of non-cooperation on the economic front were more dramatic.

• Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt
in huge bonfires.

• The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping
from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore.

• In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or

finance foreign trade.
• As the boycott movement spread, and people began discarding imported
clothes and wearing only Indian ones, production of Indian textile mills and
handlooms went up.

14. Why did some leaders within the Congress feel a necessity to participate
in the elections to the provincial councils? Or Who founded the Swaraj
party? What was its aim?

• 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

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 • 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.

• C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within the Congress to
argue for a return to council politics.

15. State the factors that shaped Indian politics towards the late 1920s.
• Effect of the worldwide economic depression: Agricultural prices began to
fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930. As the demand for agricultural
goods fell and exports declined, peasants found it difficult to sell their
harvests and pay their revenue. By 1930, the countryside was in turmoil.
• The new Tory government in Britain constituted a Statutory Commission
under Sir John Simon. 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.

16. Why was the Statutory Commission set up? Who led the Commission?

• The new Tory government in Britain constituted a Statutory Commission

under Sir John Simon. 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. The problem was that the commission did not have
a single Indian member. They were all British.

17. Why was the Simon Commission boycotted?

• The Commission did not have a single Indian member. They were all British

• There was no hope for Swaraj.

18. What were the offers announced by Lord Irwin in Oct. 1929?
• Lord Irwin, announced in October 1929, a vague offer of ‘dominion status’
for India in an unspecified future, and a Round Table Conference to discuss a
future constitution.

19. What was formalized by the Lahore Congress in December 1929?

• In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore

Congress formalized the demand for ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence
for India
• It was declared that 26 January 1930, would be celebrated as Independence
Day when people were to take a pledge to struggle for complete independence

• To launch a Civil Disobedience movement if the demands were not met.

20. Why did the Congress change its goal from Swaraj to Purna Swaraj?

• The worldwide economic depression. Agricultural prices began to fall from

1926 and collapsed after 1930. As the demand for agricultural goods fell and

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 exports declined, peasants found it difficult to sell their harvests and pay their
revenue.
• A Statutory Commission under Sir John Simon was set up in response to the
nationalist movement. The problem was that the commission did not have a
single Indian member. They were all British.
• To win them over, the viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced in October 1929, a vague
offer of ‘dominion status’ for India in an unspecified future, and a Round
Table Conference to discuss a future constitution. This did not satisfy the
Congress leaders.
• The radicals within the Congress, led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas
Chandra Bose, became more assertive. The liberals and moderates, who were
proposing a constitutional system within the framework of British dominion,
gradually lost their influence.
• In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore
Congress formalised the demand for ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence for
India. It was declared that 26 January 1930, would be celebrated as
Independence Day when people were to take a pledge to struggle for complete
independence.

21. Explain the factors which gave rise to the Civil Disobedience Movement of
1930.

• The worldwide economic depression. Agricultural prices began to fall from

1926 and collapsed after 1930. As the demand for agricultural goods fell and
exports declined, peasants found it difficult to sell their harvests and pay their
revenue.
• A Statutory Commission under Sir John Simon was set up in response to the
nationalist movement. The problem was that the commission did not have a
single Indian member. They were all British.
• To win them over, the viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced in October 1929, a vague
offer of ‘dominion status’ for India in an unspecified future, and a Round
Table Conference to discuss a future constitution. This did not satisfy the
Congress leaders.
• In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore
Congress formalised the demand of ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence for
India. It was declared that 26 January 1930, would be celebrated as
Independence Day when people were to take a pledge to struggle for complete
independence.
• Salt Tax- Mahatma Gandhi found salt, a powerful symbol that could unite the
nation. On 31 January 1930, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven
demands. The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax. The
British refused to accept any of the demands that were made by Mahatma
Gandhi and therefore, he decided to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement.

22. Why was salt a powerful symbol that would unite the nation?
• Salt was something consumed by the rich and the poor alike, and it was one of
the most essential items of food.
• The tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production, Mahatma
Gandhi declared, revealed the most oppressive face of British rule.

23. State the demands made by Gandhiji in his letter to Irwin.

On 31 January 1930, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands.

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 • 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.
• The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax.

24. What marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement?

DANDI MARCH
• Irwin was unwilling to negotiate the demands of Mahatma Gandhi in his
letter. So, Mahatma Gandhi started his famous salt march accompanied by 78
of his trusted volunteers.
• The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to the
Gujarati coastal town of Dandi. The volunteers walked for 24 days, about 10
miles a day.
• Thousands came to hear Mahatma Gandhi wherever he stopped, and he told
them what he meant by Swaraj and urged them to peacefully defy the British.
On 6 April he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing
salt by boiling seawater.

25. How was the Civil Disobedience Movement different from the Non-
Cooperation Movement?

NON-COOPERATION MOVEMENT
• Launched in January 1921.
• The Rowlatt Act and the injustice done to Turkey and Jallianwalabagh
massacre were the causes of the Non-cooperation Movement.
• During this movement people were asked not to cooperate with the British.
• Many leaders renounced their titles
• Students and teachers boycotted the schools and colleges & universities.
• Many people left their government jobs. The foreign cloth was boycotted,
and liquor shops were picketed.

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MOVEMENT

• Launched in1930 with the Dandi March
• Rejection of Gandhiji’s eleven demands was the immediate cause of the Civil
Disobedience Movement.
• People were now asked not only to refuse cooperation with the British but
also to break colonial laws.
• Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured
salt and demonstrated in front of government salt factories.
• As the movement spread, foreign cloth was boycotted, and liquor shops were
picketed.
• 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.

26. What was the result of the Civil Disobedience Movement? Or What were the
repressive measures taken by the Colonial Government?
• Worried by the developments, the colonial government began arresting the
Congress leaders one by one. This led to violent clashes in many palaces.
• When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, was
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 arrested in April 1930, angry crowds demonstrated in the streets of Peshawar,
facing armoured cars and police firing.
• Many were killed. A month later, when Mahatma Gandhi himself was
arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts, municipal
buildings, law courts and railway stations – all structures that symbolised
British rule.
• 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.
In such a situation, Mahatma Gandhi once again decided to call off the movement.

27. Describe the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. Or What were the decisions taken in the
Gandhi- Irwin pact?
• Mahatma Gandhi decided to call off the movement and entered into a pact
with Irwin on 5 March 1931, which was famously known as the ‘Gandhi-
Irwin Pact’.
• Gandhiji consented to participate in the Second Round Table
Conference (the Congress boycotted the First Round Table
Conference) in London.
• The British government agreed to release the political prisoners.
• In December 1931, Gandhiji went to London for the conference, but the
negotiations broke down and he returned disappointed.

28. What were the demands of the:-

A. Rich peasant communities
B. Poorer peasantry
C. Business classes.
D. Industrial workers
E. women
Or
Why did they join the CDM? What were their ideals? What did Swaraj mean to
them?
A. Rich peasant communities:
• In the countryside, rich peasant communities - the Patidars of Gujarat and the
Jats of Uttar Pradesh – were active in the movement.
• Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by the trade
depression and 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 of the Civil Disobedience
Movement, organizing their communities, and at times forcing reluctant members, to
participate in the boycott programmes.
• For them the fight for Swaraj was a struggle against high revenues.
B. Poorer peasantry:
• The poorer peasantry was not just interested in the lowering of the revenue
demand. 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.
• They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted. They joined
the radical movements, often led by the Socialists and Communists.
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 C. Business classes :
• Keen to expand their business, Indian merchants and industrialists now
reacted against colonial policies that restricted business activities.
• They wanted protection against imports of foreign goods, and a rupee-sterling
foreign exchange ratio that would discourage imports.
• Led by prominent industrialists like Purushottamdas Thakurdas and G.D. Birla,
the industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian economy and
supported the Civil Disobedience Movement when it was first launched. They
gave financial support and refused to buy imported goods.
• Most businessmen came to see swaraj as a time when colonial restrictions on
business would no longer exist and trade and industry would flourish without
any constraints.

D. Industrial workers
• 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 Congress, workers stayed aloof.
• But despite that, some workers did participate in the Civil Disobedience
Movement, selectively adopting some of the ideas of the Gandhian programme,
like the boycott of foreign goods.
• 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.
• Their movement was against low wages and poor working conditions.

A) Women.
(State the participation of women in the Civil Disobedience Movement.)
• During Gandhiji’s salt march, thousands of women came out of their homes to
listen to him. They participated in protest marches, manufactured salt and
picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops. Many went to jail.
• In urban areas these women were from high-caste families. In rural areas, they
came from rich peasant households.
• Moved by Gandhiji’s call, they began to see service to the nation as a sacred
duty of women.

29. Why was the Congress reluctant to support the poor peasants, Industrial
workers and Women in the Civil Disobedience Movement?
• The Congress was unwilling to support ‘no rent’ campaigns of the poor
peasants in most places as it might upset the rich peasants. So, the
relationship between the poor peasants and the Congress remained uncertain.
• 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.
• Gandhiji was convinced that it was the duty of women to look after the home and
hearth and be good mothers and good wives. For a long time, Congress was
reluctant to allow women to hold any position of authority within the
organisation. It was keen only on their symbolic presence.

30. What were the limitations of the Civil Disobedience Movement?

OR
Not all social groups were moved by the abstract concept of swaraj. Explain
the statement with suitable examples.
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Non-participation of the Dalits

• For long the Congress had ignored the Dalits, for fear of offending the sanatanis,
the conservative high-caste Hindus.
• Many Dalit leaders were keen on a different political solution to the problems of
the community. They began organising themselves, demanding reserved seats in
educational institutions, and a separate electorate that would choose Dalit
members for legislative councils.
• Political empowerment, they believed, would resolve the problems of their social
disabilities.
• Dalit participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement was therefore limited,
particularly in the Maharashtra and Nagpur region where their organisation was
quite strong.

Non-participation of the Muslim political organisations.

• After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, a large section of

Muslims felt alienated from the Congress.
• From the mid-1920s the Congress came to be more visibly associated with Hindu
religious nationalist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha.
• 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.
• The Congress and the Muslim League made efforts to renegotiate an alliance.
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 in the Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal and
Punjab).
• 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.
• Alienated from the Congress, large sections of Muslims could not respond to the
call for a united struggle. They feared that the culture and identity of minorities
would be submerged under the domination of a Hindu majority.

31. How did Gandhiji support the Dalits?

• Mahatma Gandhi declared that Swaraj would not come for a hundred years if
untouchability was not eliminated. He called the ‘untouchables’ harijan, or the
children of God.
• He organised satyagraha to secure their entry into temples, and access to public
wells, tanks, roads and schools.
• 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’.

32. How did nationalism become a reality in the minds of people? How did
people belonging to different communities, regions, or language groups develop a
sense of collective belonging?

The sense of collective belonging came partly through the experience of

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 united struggles. But there were also a variety of cultural processes through
which nationalism captured people’s imagination.

Devotion to the Image of Bharat Mata.

(*How did the Image of Bharat Mata help in the growth of Indian
nationalism?)
• It was in the 20th century, with the growth of nationalism, that the identity
of India came to be visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata.
• The image was first created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. In the 1870’s
he wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the motherland. Later it was included
in his novel Anandamath and widely sung during the Swadeshi movement in
Bengal.
• Moved by the Swadeshi movement, Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous
image of Bharat Mata. Devotion to this image was evidence of one’s
nationalism.

Revival of Indian folklore

(Why was it essential to revive the Indian folklore?)
• In the late 19th century India, nationalists began recording folk tales sung by
Bards and they toured villages to gather folk songs and legends.
• 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 to discover one’s national
identity and restore a sense of pride in one’s past.
• In Bengal Rabindranath Tagore himself began collecting ballads, nursery
rhymes and myths and led the movement for folk revival. In Madras, Natesa
Sastri published the folklore of southern India.

Icons and symbols.

(How did icons and symbols help in unifying the people?)

• 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.
• During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolor flag (Red, Green &
Yellow) was designed. It had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of
British India and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims
• By 1921 Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolor (Red,
Green & White) and had a spinning wheel in the center, representing the
Gandhian ideal of self-help.

Reinterpretation of history
• Another feeling of creating a feeling of nationalism was through re-
interpretation of history
• By the end of the 19th century many Indians began feeling that to instill a
sense of pride in the nation; Indian history had to be thought about differently.
• They wrote about the glorious development in ancient times when art and
architecture, science and Mathematics, religion and culture, law and
philosophy, crafts and trade had flourished.

33. How is Bharat Mata portrayed?

• In the painting Bharat Mata is portrayed as an Ascetic figure, she is calm,
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 composed, divine and spiritual. In the subsequent years, the image of Bharat
Mata acquired many different forms, as it circulated in popular prints, and
was painted by different artists. Devotion to this mother figure came to be
seen as evidence of one’s nationalism

34. What does the spinning wheel identify?

• By 1921 Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolor (Red,
Green & White) and had a spinning wheel in the center, representing the
Gandhian ideal of self-help
35. How did the flag unite Hindus and Muslims?
• During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolor flag (Red, Green &
Yellow) was designed. It had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of
British India and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims.

36. Why did the unity within the movement often break down?
• Diverse groups and classes participated in these movements with varied
aspirations and expectations.
• As their grievances were wide-ranging, freedom from colonial rule also
meant different things to different people.
• The Congress continually attempted to solve differences and ensure that the
demands of one group did not alienate the other.

REFER TO THE TEXTBOOK

Try to learn the answers from the Textbook.

Social Science Grade 10