Indian independence movement
The
Indian independence movement consisted of efforts by
Indians to obtain political independence from
British,
French and
Portuguese rule; it involved a wide spectrum of Indian political organizations, philosophies, and rebellions between 1857 and India's independence on
August 15,
1947.
The initial
Indian rebellion of 1857 was sparked when soldiers serving in the
British East India Company's British Indian Army and Indian kingdoms rebelled against British hegemony. After the revolt was crushed, India developed a class of educated elites whose political organising sought Indian political rights and representation while largely remaining loyal to the British Empire. However, increasing public disenchantment with British rule — owing to the suppression of civil liberties, political rights, and culture as well as alienation from issues facing common Indians — led to an upsurge in
revolutionary activities aimed at overthrowing British authority.
The movement came to a head between 1918 and 1922 when the first series of non-violent campaigns of
civil disobedience were launched by the
Indian National Congress under the leadership of
Mohandas Gandhi. The movement comprised large numbers of peoples from across India. Gandhi and the Congress took charge of the movement and obtained cultural, religious, and political unity. Committing itself to
Purna Swaraj in 1930, the Congress led mass struggles between 1930 and 1932, followed by an all-out revolt in 1942 demanding that the British leave India (a movement called the
Quit India Movement). The raising of the
Indian National Army in 1942 by
Subhash Chandra Bose would see a unique — though ultimately futile — military campaign to end British rule. Following the trial of Indian National Army officers at the Red Fort, a
Naval Mutiny in Bombay, and widespread communal rioting in Calcutta, on 15th August, 1947, India gained independence from British rule, but only at the expense of the
Partition of the country into India and
Pakistan.
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Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive |
European traders came to Indian shores with the arrival of Portuguese explorer
Vasco da Gama in 1498 at the port of
Calicut in search of the lucrative
spice trade. After the 1757
Battle of Plassey, during which the British army under
Robert Clive defeated the
Nawab of
Bengal, the
British East India Company established itself. This is widely seen as the beginning of the
British Raj in India. The Company gained administrative rights over Bengal,
Bihar, and
Orissa in 1765 after the
Battle of Buxar.
The British parliament enacted a series of laws to handle the administration of the newly-conquered provinces, including the
Regulating Act of 1773, the India Act of 1784, and the Charter Act of 1813; all enhanced the British government's rule. In 1835
English was made the
medium of instruction. Western-educated Hindu elites sought to rid
Hinduism of controversial social practices, including the
varna (caste) system, child marriage, and
sati. Literary and debating societies initiated in
Bombay and
Madras became fora for open political discourse. The Educational attainment and skilful use of the press by these early reformers meant that the possibility grew for effecting broad reforms, all without compromising larger Indian social values and religious practices.
Even while these modernising trends influenced Indian society, Indians increasingly despised British rule. The memoirs of Henry Ouvry of the
9th Lancers record many "a good thrashing" to careless servants. A spice merchant, Frank Brown, wrote to his nephew that stories of maltreatment of servants had not been exaggerated and that he knew people who kept orderlies "purposely to thrash them". As the British increasingly dominated the continent, they grew increasingly abusive of local customs by, for example, staging parties in
mosques, dancing to the music of regimental bands on the terrace of the
Taj Mahal, using whips to force their way through crowded
bazaars (as recounted by General
Henry Blake), and mistreating
sepoys. In the years after the annexation of
Punjab in 1849, several mutinies among
sepoys broke out; these were put down by force.
Several regional movements against foreign rule were staged in various parts of pre-1857 India. However, they were not united and were easily controlled by the foreign rulers. Examples include an 1787 ethnic revolt against Portuguese control of
Goa known as the
Conspiracy of the Pintos and uprisings by
South Indian local chieftains against British rule. Notable among the latter is
Veerapandiya Kattabomman, who ruled the present-day
Tuticorin district of
Tamil Nadu. He questioned the need for native Indians to pay taxes on agricultural produce to foreign rulers and battled the British until the latter, victorious, hanged him.
[ An Advanced History of India. By Majumder, Raychoudhary, Datta.] Other movements included the
Santal Rebellion and the resistance offered to the British by
Titumir in
Bengal.
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The Indian Rebellion of 1857 |
'''The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a period of
uprising in northern and central
India against British rule in 1857-1858.
The rebellion was the result of decades of ethnic and cultural differences between Indian soldiers and their British officers. The indifference of the British towards Indian rulers like the Mughals and ex-
Peshwas and the annexation of
Oudh were political factors triggering dissent amongst Indians. Dalhousie's policy of annexation, the
Doctrine of lapse or escheat, and the projected removal of the descendants of the Great Mughal from their ancestral palace to the Qutb, near Delhi also angered some people. The specific reason that triggered the rebellion was the rumoured use of cow and pig fat in .557 calibre
Pattern 1853 Enfield (P/53) rifle cartridges. Soldiers had to break the cartridges with their teeth before loading them into their rifles, so if there was cow and pig fat, it would be offensive to Hindu and Muslim soldiers. In February 1857, sepoys (Indian soldiers in the British army) refused to use their new cartridges. The British claimed to have replaced the cartridges with new ones and tried to make sepoys make their own grease from
beeswax and
vegetable oils, but the rumour persisted.
In March
1857,
Mangal Pandey, a soldier of the 34th Native Infantry, attacked his British sergeant and wounded an adjutant. General Hearsay, who said Pandey was in some kind of "religious frenzy," ordered a jemadar to arrest him but the jemadar refused. Mangal Pandey was hanged on
7 April along with the jemadar. The whole regiment was dismissed as a collective punishment. On May 10th, when the 11th and 20th cavalry assembled, they broke rank and turned on their commanding officers. They then liberated the 3rd Regiment, and on
11 May, the sepoys reached Delhi and were joined by other Indians. Soon, the revolt spread throughout the northern India. Some notable leaders were Ahmed Ullah, an advisor of the ex-King of Oudh;
Nana Saheb; his nephew Rao Saheb and his retainers,
Tantia Topi and Azimullah Khan; the
Rani of Jhansi;
Kunwar Singh; the Rajput chief of Jagadishpur in Bihar; and Firuz Saha, a relative of the Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah.
The
Red Fort, the residence of the last
Mughal emperor
Bahadur, was attacked and captured by the sepoys. They demanded that he reclaim his throne. He was reluctant at first, but eventually agreed to the demands and became the leader of the rebellion.
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Secundra Bagh after the 93rd Highlanders and 4th Punjab regiment fought the rebels, Nov 1857 |
About the same time in
Jhansi, the army rebelled and killed the British army officers. Revolts also broke out in places like
Meerut,
Kanpur,
Lucknow etc. The British were slow to respond, but eventually responded with brute force. British moved regiments from the
Crimean War and diverted European regiments headed for
China to India. The British fought the main army of the rebels near Delhi in Badl-ke-Serai and drove them back to Delhi before laying a siege on the city. The siege of Delhi lasted roughly from
1 July to
31 August. After a week of street fighting, the British retook the city. The last significant battle was fought in
Gwalior on
20 June 1858. It was during this battle that
Rani Lakshmi Bai was killed. Sporadic fighting continued until 1859 but most of the rebels were subdued.
Aftermath
The war of 1857 was a major turning point in the history of modern India. The British abolished the British East India Company and replaced it with direct rule under the
British crown. A
Viceroy was appointed to represent the Crown. In proclaiming the new direct-rule policy to "the Princes, Chiefs, and Peoples of India,"
Queen Victoria promised equal treatment under British law, but Indian mistrust of British rule had become a legacy of the 1857 rebellion.
The British embarked on a program of reform, trying to integrate Indian higher castes and rulers into the government. They stopped land grabs, decreed religious tolerance and admitted Indians into civil service, albeit mainly as subordinates. They also increased the number of British soldiers in relation to native ones and allowed only British soldiers to handle artillery.
Bahadur Shah was exiled to
Rangoon,
Burma where he died in 1862, finally bringing the
Mughal dynasty to an end. In 1877,
Queen Victoria took the title of
Empress of India.
The decades following the Sepoy Rebellion were a period of growing political awareness, manifestation of Indian public opinion and emergence of Indian leadership at national and provincial levels.
The influences of socio-religious groups, especially in a nation where religion plays a vital role cannot be undermined. The
Arya Samaj was an important Hindu organization which sought to reform Hindu society of social evils, counter-act Christian missionary propaganda.
Swami Dayanand Saraswati's work was important in increasing an attitude of self-awareness, pride and community service in common Indian peoples.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy's
Brahmo Samaj was also a pioneer in the reform of Indian society, fighting evils like
sati, dowry, ignorance and illiteracy.
The inculcation of religious reform and social pride was fundamental to the rise of a public movement for complete independence. The work of men like
Swami Vivekananda,
Ramakrishna Paramhansa,
Sri Aurobindo,
Subramanya Bharathy,
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sir
Syed Ahmed Khan,
Rabindranath Tagore and
Dadabhai Naoroji spread the passion for rejuvenation and freedom.
Lokmanya Tilak, though with non-moderate views, was very popular amongst the masses. He gave the concept of "Swaraj" to the Indian peoples while standing trial. His popular sentence "Swaraj is my Birthright, and I shall have it" became the source of inspiration for Indians. The flames of the spirit of freedom were ignited by learned men like them, who gave reason for common Indians to feel proud of themselves, demand political and social freedom and seek happiness. They were the teachers who sparked the passion of learning and achievement for thousands of Indians, and the poets expressing the inner fires of the freedom-fighter's soul.
Inspired by a suggestion made by
A.O. Hume, a retired British civil servant, seventy-three Indian delegates met in Bombay in 1885 and founded the
Indian National Congress. They were mostly members of the upwardly mobile and successful western-educated provincial elites, engaged in professions such as
law,
teaching, and
journalism. They had acquired political experience from regional competition in the professions and by securing nomination to various positions in legislative councils, universities, and special commissions.
It should be noted that
Dadabhai Naoroji had already formed the
Indian National Association a few years before the Congress. The INA merged into the Congress Party to form a bigger national front.
At its inception, the Congress had no well-defined ideology and commanded few of the resources essential to a political organization. It functioned more as a debating society that met annually to express its loyalty to the British Raj and passed numerous resolutions on less controversial issues such as civil rights or opportunities in government, especially the civil service. These resolutions were submitted to the Viceroy's government and occasionally to the British Parliament, but the Congress's early gains were meagre. Despite its claim to represent all India, the Congress voiced the interests of urban elites; the number of participants from other economic backgrounds remained negligible.
By 1900, although the Congress had emerged as an all-India political organization, its achievement was undermined by its singular failure to attract
Muslims, who felt that their representation in government service was inadequate. Attacks by Hindu reformers against religious conversion, cow slaughter, and the preservation of
Urdu in
Arabic script deepened their concerns of minority status and denial of rights if the Congress alone were to represent the people of India. Sir
Syed Ahmed Khan launched a movement for Muslim regeneration that culminated in the founding in 1875 of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at
Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh (renamed
Aligarh Muslim University in 1921). Its objective was to educate wealthy students by emphasizing the compatibility of
Islam with modern western knowledge. The diversity among India's Muslims, however, made it impossible to bring about uniform cultural and intellectual regeneration.
Partition of Bengal
In 1905,
Lord Curzon, the Viceroy and Governor-General (1899-1905), ordered the
partition of the province of Bengal for improvements in administrative efficiency in that huge and populous region, where the Bengali Hindu intelligentsia exerted considerable influence on local and national politics. The partition created two provinces: Eastern Bengal &
Assam, with its capital at
Dhaka, and
West Bengal, with its capital at
Calcutta (which also served as the capital of British India). An ill-conceived and hastily implemented action, the partition outraged Bengalis. Not only had the government failed to consult Indian public opinion, but the action appeared to reflect the British resolve to
divide and rule. Widespread agitation ensued in the streets and in the press, and the Congress advocated boycotting British products under the banner of
swadeshi. During this period nationalist poet
Rabindranath Tagore penned and composed a song (roughly translated into English as
"The soil of Bengal, the water of Bengal be hallowed ... ") and himself led people to the streets singing the song and tying
Rakhi on each other's wrists. The people did not cook any food (
Arandhan) on that day.
The Congress-led boycott of British goods was so successful that it unleashed anti-British forces to an extent unknown since the Sepoy Rebellion. A cycle of violence and repression ensued in some parts of the country (see
Alipore bomb case). The British tried to mitigate the situation by announcing a series of constitutional reforms in 1909 and by appointing a few moderates to the imperial and provincial councils. A Muslim deputation met with the Viceroy,
Lord Minto (1905-10), seeking concessions from the impending constitutional reforms, including special considerations in government service and electorates. The
All-India Muslim League was founded the same year to promote loyalty to the British and to advance Muslim political rights, which the British recognized by increasing the number of elective offices reserved for Muslims in the India Councils Act of 1909. The Muslim League insisted on its separateness from the Hindu-dominated Congress, as the voice of a "nation within a nation."
In what the British saw as an additional goodwill gesture, in 1911 King-Emperor
George V visited India for a
durbar (a traditional court held for subjects to express fealty to their ruler), during which he announced the reversal of the partition of Bengal and the transfer of the capital from Calcutta to a newly planned city to be built immediately south of Delhi, which later became
New Delhi.
World War I began with an unprecedented outpouring of loyalty and goodwill towards the United Kingdom, contrary to initial British fears of an Indian revolt. India contributed generously to the British war effort by providing men and resources. About 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in
Europe,
Africa, and the
Middle East, while both the Indian government and the princes sent large supplies of food, money, and ammunition. But high casualty rates, soaring inflation compounded by heavy taxation, a widespread
influenza epidemic, and the disruption of trade during the war escalated human suffering in India. The prewar nationalist movement revived, as moderate and extremist groups within the Congress submerged their differences in order to stand as a unified front. In 1916, the Congress succeeded in forging the
Lucknow Pact, a temporary alliance with the Muslim League over the issues of devolution of political power and the future of Islam in the region.
The British themselves adopted a "carrot and stick" approach in recognition of India's support during the war and in response to renewed nationalist demands. In August 1917,
Edwin Montagu, the secretary of state for India, made the historic announcement in Parliament that the British policy for India was "increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire." The means of achieving the proposed measure were later enshrined in the Government of India Act of 1919, which introduced the principle of a dual mode of administration, or diarchy, in which both elected Indian legislators and appointed British officials shared power. The act also expanded the central and provincial legislatures and widened the franchise considerably. Diarchy set in motion certain real changes at the provincial level: a number of non-controversial or "transferred" portfolios, such as
agriculture, local government,
health,
education, and public works, were handed over to Indians, while more sensitive matters such as
finance,
taxation, and maintaining law and order were retained by the provincial British administrators.
The positive impact of reform was seriously undermined in 1919 by the
Rowlatt Act, named after the recommendations made the previous year to the Imperial Legislative Council by the Rowlatt Commission, which had been appointed to investigate "seditious conspiracy." The Rowlatt Act, also known as the Black Act, vested the Viceroy's government with extraordinary powers to quell sedition by silencing the press, detaining political activists without trial, and arresting any individuals suspected of sedition or treason without a warrant. In protest, a nationwide cessation of work (
hartal) was called, marking the beginning of widespread, although not nationwide, popular discontent.
The agitation unleashed by the acts culminated on
13 April 1919, in the
Amritsar Massacre (also known as the
Jallianwala Bagh massacre) in
Amritsar, Punjab. The British military commander, Brigadier-General
Reginald Dyer, ordered his soldiers to fire into an unarmed and unsuspecting crowd of some 10,000 people. They had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh, a walled garden, to celebrate
Baisakhi, a
Sikh festival, without prior knowledge of the imposition of martial law. A total of 1,650 rounds were fired, killing 379 people and wounding 1,137 in the episode, which dispelled wartime hopes of home rule and goodwill in a frenzy of post-war reaction.
India's option for an entirely original path to obtaining
swaraj (self-rule, sometimes translated as Home Rule or Independence) was due largely to
Mahatma Gandhi, (Mahatma meaning
Great Soul). A native of
Gujarat who had been educated in the United Kingdom, he had been a timid lawyer with a modest practice. His legal career lasted a short time, since he immediately took to fighting for just causes on behalf of the Indian community in
South Africa. Gandhi had accepted an invitation in 1893 to represent indentured Indian labourers in South Africa, where he stayed on for more than twenty years, lobbying against
racial discrimination. Gandhi's battle was not only against basic discrimination and abusive labour treatment; it was in protest of suppressive police control akin to the
Rowlatt Acts. After several months of non-violent protests and arrests of thousands of indentured labourers, the ruler of South Africa, Gen.
Jan Smuts released all prisoners and repealed the oppressive legislation. A young, timid Indian was now blooded in the art of revolution, and well on course to Mahatma-hood. His victory in South Africa excited many Indians at home.
He returned to India in 1915, virtually a stranger to public life but fired with a patriotic vision of a new India. It should be noted, however, that Gandhi did not yet believe that political independence from the Empire was the solution to India's problems. Upon his return, he had candidly stated that if as a citizen of the Empire, he wanted freedom and protection, it would be wrong of him not to aid in the defence of the Empire during
World War I.
A veteran Congressman and Indian leader
Gopal Krishna Gokhale became Gandhi's mentor, and Gandhi travelled widely across the country for years, through different provinces, villages and cities, learning about India's cultures, the life of the vast majority of Indians, their difficulties and tribulations.
Gandhi's ideas and strategies of non-violent
civil disobedience initially appeared impractical to some Indians and veteran Congressmen. In Gandhi's own words, "civil disobedience is civil breach of unmoral statutory enactments," but as he viewed it, it had to be carried out non-violently by withdrawing cooperation with the corrupt state. Gandhi's ability to inspire millions of common people was initiated when he used
satyagraha during the anti-Rowlatt Act protests in Punjab.
In
Champaran,
Bihar, Gandhi took up the cause of desperately poor sharecroppers, landless farmers who were being forced to grow cash crops at the expense of crops which formed their food supply, and pay horrendously oppressive taxes. Neither were they sufficiently paid to buy food. By now, Gandhi had shed his European dress for self-woven
khadi dhotis and shawls, as is seen in the picture at the head of the article and his most famous pictures.
This simple Gandhi instantly electrified millions of poor, common Indians. He was
one of them, not a fancy, educated elitist Indian. His arrest by police caused major protests throughout the province and the British government was forced to release him, and grant the demands of Gandhi and the farmers of Bihar, which were the freedom to grow the crops of their choosing, exemption from taxation when hurt by famine or drought, and proper compensation for cash crops.
It was with his victory in Champaran, that Gandhi was lovingly accorded the title of
Mahatma. It was given not by journalists or observers, but the very millions of people for whom he had come to fight.
In 1920, under Gandhi's leadership, the Congress was reorganized and given a new constitution, whose goal was
Swaraj (independence). Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee, and a hierarchy of committees was established and made responsible for discipline and control over a hitherto amorphous and diffuse movement. The party was transformed from an elite organization to one of mass national appeal and participation.
Gandhi always stressed that the movement should not be directed against the British people, but the unjust system of foreign administration. British officers and leaders are human beings, emphasized Gandhi, and capable of the same mistakes of intolerance, racism and cruelty as the common Indian or any other human being. Punishment for these sins was God's task, and not the mission of the freedom movement. But the liberation of 350 million people from colonial and social tyranny definitely was.
During his first nationwide satyagraha, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions, law courts, and products; to resign from government employment; to refuse to pay taxes; and to forsake British titles and honours. Although this came too late to influence the framing of the new Government of India Act of 1919, the magnitude of disorder resulting from the movement was unparalleled and presented a new challenge to foreign rule. Over 10 million people protested according to Gandhi's guidelines in all cities and thousands of towns and villages in every part of the country. But Gandhi made a tough decision and called off the campaign in 1922 because of an atrocious murder of policemen in
Chauri Chaura by a mob of agitators. He was deeply distressed with the act, and the possibility that crowds of protestors would lose control like this in different parts of the country, causing the fight for national freedom to degenerate into a chaotic orgy of bloodshed, where Englishmen would be murdered by mobs, and the British forces would retaliate against innocent civilians. He felt Indians needed more discipline and had to understand that they were not out to punish the British, but to expose the cruelty and evil behind their discrimination and tyranny. As much as liberating India, he hoped to reform the British, see them as friends and break the back of racism and colonialism across the world.
He was imprisoned in 1922 for six years, but served only two. On his release from prison, he set up the
Sabarmati Ashram in
Ahmedabad, on the banks of river
Sabarmati, established the newspaper
Young India, and inaugurated a series of reforms aimed at the socially disadvantaged within Hindu society - the rural poor, and the
untouchables.
Emerging leaders within the Congress championed Gandhi's leadership in articulating nationalist aspirations. The Indian political spectrum was further broadened in the mid-1920s by the emergence of both moderate and militant parties, such as the
Swaraj Party,
Hindu Mahasabha,
Communist Party of India and the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Regional political organizations also continued to represent the interests of non-
Brahmins in
Madras,
Mahars in
Maharashtra, and
Sikhs in Punjab.
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Scenes on the eve of the Salt Satyagraha, Gandhi's famous 240 mile march on foot to the sea at Dandi. |
Following the rejection of the recommendations of the
Simon Commission by Indians, an all-party conference was held at
Bombay in May 1928. The conference appointed a drafting committee under
Motilal Nehru to draw up a constitution for India. The
Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress asked the British government to accord dominion status to India by December 1929, or a countrywide civil disobedience movement would be launched. The Indian National Congress, at its historic
Lahore session in December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, adopted a resolution to gain complete independence from the British. It authorised the Working Committee to launch a civil disobedience movement throughout the country. It was decided that
26 January 1930 should be observed all over India as the
Purna Swaraj (complete independence) Day. Many Indian political parties and Indian revolutionaries of a wide spectrum united to observe the day with honour and pride.
Gandhi emerged from his long seclusion by undertaking his most famous campaign, a march of about 400 kilometres from his commune in
Ahmedabad to
Dandi, on the coast of
Gujarat between
12 March and
6 April,
1930. The march is usually known as the
Dandi March or the
Salt Satyagraha. At Dandi, in protest against British taxes on salt, he and thousands of followers broke the law by making their own salt from seawater.
In April 1930 there were violent police-crowd clashes in
Calcutta. Approximately over 100,000 people were imprisoned in the course of the Civil disobedience movement (1930-31), while in
Peshawar unarmed demonstrators were fired upon in the
Qissa Khwani bazaar massacre. While Gandhi was in jail, the first
Round Table Conference was held in London in November 1930, without representation from the Indian National Congress. The ban upon the Congress was removed because of economic hardships caused by the satyagraha. Gandhi, along with other members of the Congress Working Committee, was released from prison in January 1931.
In March of 1931, the
Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed, and the government agreed to set all political prisoners free. In return, Gandhi agreed to discontinue the civil disobedience movement and participate as the sole representative of the Congress in the second Round Table Conference, which was held in London in September 1931. However, the conference ended in failure in December 1931. Gandhi returned to India and decided to resume the civil disobedience movement in January 1932.
For the next few years, the Congress and the government were locked in conflict and negotiations until what became the
Government of India Act of 1935 could be hammered out. By then, the rift between the Congress and the Muslim League had become unbridgeable as each pointed the finger at the other acrimoniously. The Muslim League disputed the claim of the Congress to represent all people of India, while the Congress disputed the Muslim League's claim to voice the aspirations of all Muslims.
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Smiling Udham leaving the Caxton Hall after his arrest |
Apart from a few stray incidents, the armed rebellion against the British rulers were not organized before the beginning of the 20th century. The revolutionary philosophies and movement made its presence felt during the 1905
Partition of Bengal. Arguably, the initial steps to organize the revolutionaries were taken by
Aurobindo Ghosh, his brother
Barin Ghosh,
Bhupendranath Datta etc. when they formed the
Jugantar party in April 1906
[Banglapedia article by Mohammad Shah].
Jugantar was created as an inner circle of the
Anushilan Samiti which was already present in
Bengal mainly as a revolutionary society in the guise of a fitness club.
The
Jugantar party leaders like
Barin Ghosh and
Bagha Jatin initiated making of explosives. The
Alipore bomb case, following the
Muzaffarpur killing tried several activists and many were sentenced deportation for life, while
Khudiram Bose was hanged.
Madan Lal Dhingra, a student in London, murdered Sir Curzon Wylie, a British M.P. on
1 July 1909 in
London.
The Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar opened several branches throughout
Bengal and other parts of
India and recruited young men and women to participate in the revolutionary activities. Several murders and looting were done, with many revolutionaries being captured and imprisoned. During the
First World War, the revolutionaries planned to import arms and ammunitions from
Germany and stage an armed revolution against the British.
[ Rowlatt Report (§109-110}; First Spark of Revolution by A.C. Guha, pp424-434 .]The
Ghadar Party operated from abroad and cooperated with the revolutionaries in India. This party was instrumental in helping revolutionaries inside India catch hold of foreign arms.
After the First World War, the revolutionary activities suffered major setbacks due to the arrest of prominent leaders. In 1920s, the revolutionary activists started to reorganize.
Hindustan Socialist Republican Association was formed under the leadership of
Chandrasekhar Azad.
Bhagat Singh and
Batukeshwar Dutt threw a bomb inside the Central Legislative Assembly on
8 April 1929 protesting against the passage of the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill. Following the trial (Central Assembly Bomb Case),
Bhagat Singh,
Sukhdev and
Rajguru were hanged in 1931.
Surya Sen, along with other activists, raided the
Chittagong armoury on
18 April 1930 to capture arms and ammunition and to destroy government communication system to establish a local governance.
Pritilata Waddedar led an attack on European club in
Chittagong in 1932, while
Bina Das attempted to assassinate
Stanley Jackson, the Governor of
Bengal inside the convocation hall of
Calcutta University. Following the
Chittagong armoury raid case,
Surya Sen was hanged and several other were deported for life to the
Cellular Jail in
Andaman.
The
Bengal Volunteers started operating in 1928. On
8 December 1930, the
Benoy-
Badal-
Dinesh trio of the party entered the secretariat
Writers' Building in
Kolkata and murdered Col NS Simpson, the Inspector General of Prisons.
On
13 March 1940,
Udham Singh shot Sir
Michael O'Dwyer, generally held responsible for the
Amritsar Massacre, in London. However, as the political scenario changed in the late 1930s - with the mainstream leaders considering several options offered by the British and the religious politics coming into play - the revolutionary activities gradually declined. Many past revolutionaries joined mainstream politics by joining
Congress and other parties, especially communist parties, while many of the activists were kept under hold in different jails across the country.
The
Government of India Act 1935, the voluminous and final constitutional effort at governing
British India, articulated three major goals: establishing a loose federal structure, achieving provincial autonomy, and safeguarding minority interests through separate electorates. The federal provisions, intended to unite
princely states and British India at the centre, were not implemented because of ambiguities in safeguarding the existing privileges of princes. In February 1937, however, provincial autonomy became a reality when elections were held; the Congress emerged as the dominant party with a clear majority in five provinces and held an upper hand in two, while the Muslim League performed poorly.
In 1939, the Viceroy
Lord Linlithgow declared India's entrance into
World War II without consulting provincial governments. In protest, the Congress asked all of its elected representatives to resign from the government.
Jinnah, the president of the
Muslim League, persuaded participants at the annual Muslim League session at
Lahore in 1940 to adopt what later came to be known as the
Lahore Resolution, demanding the division of India into two separate sovereign states, one
Muslim, the other
Hindu; sometimes referred as
Two Nation Theory. Although the idea of
Pakistan had been introduced as early as 1930, very few had responded to it. However, the volatile political climate and hostilities between the Hindus and Muslims transformed the idea of Pakistan into a stronger demand.
Indians throughout the country were divided over
World War II, as the British had unilaterally and without consulting the elected representatives of Indians, entered India into the war. Some wanted to support the British, especially through the
Battle of Britain, hoping for independence eventually through this backing during the UK's most critical life-death struggle. Others were enraged by the British disregard for Indian intelligence and civil rights. Many found the allied cause self contradictory and self serving. The British wanted the Indians to fight and die in the name of the very freedom that they were denying the Indians.
In a climate of frustration, anger and other tumultuous emotions, arose two movements that formed the climax of the 100-year struggle for independence.
The Indian National Army
The arbitrary entry of India into the war was strongly opposed by
Subhash Chandra Bose, who had been elected President of the Congress twice, in 1937 and 1939. After lobbying against participation in the war, he resigned from Congress in 1939 and started a new party, the
All India Forward Bloc. He was placed under house arrest, but escaped in 1941. He surfaced in
Germany, and enlisted German and
Japanese help to fight the British in India.
In 1943, he travelled to Japan from Germany on board German and Japanese submarines. In Japan, he helped organize the
Indian National Army (INA) and set up a
government-in-exile. During the war, the
Andaman and Nicobar islands
were captured by the Japanese and were nominally handed over by them to the INA; Bose renamed them
Shahid (Martyr) and
Swaraj (Independence). The INA fought against British and Indian troops in northeastern India, hoping to liberate Indian territories under colonial rule. But the poorly equipped soldiers fighting in dense jungle and with little real support from the Japanese died by the thousands. Their courage and patriotism were insufficient to overcome these heavy odds, and in addition many had doubts both about Japan's commitment to Indian Independence in the event of victory, and about fighting their erstwhile colleagues in the
Indian Army. The INA's efforts ended with the surrender of Japan in 1945. It is agreed by many that Subhash Chandra Bose was killed in an air crash in August 1945, but the circumstances of his death are still
disputed.
Three Indian National Army officers were put on trial for treason at the Red Fort in Delhi, which sparked widespread protests and a Naval Mutiny in Bombay. As the British had chosen to prosecute one Hindu, one Sikh and one Muslim, they could hardly have given the Independence movement a better rallying-point, and for the last time Congress and the Muslim League joined forces to demand their release. Although they were found guilty, they were immediately set free when the trial ended. Subsequently the Congress Party, which had not supported Bose's use of violence, embraced those who died fighting for the INA and its surviving soldiers as heroes. The Congress set up a special fund to take care of the survivors and the families of the soldiers who lost their lives or were seriously wounded. The veterans of the INA were not permitted to enrol in the Indian Army after independence, but they were granted generous pensions and are still accorded considerable respect in India.
Subhas Chandra Bose's political legacy remains controversial, owing to his alliance with the
Axis Powers, but in India he is widely revered as a patriotic hero.
Quit India
The
Quit India Movement (Bharat Chhodo Andolan) or the
(August Movement) was a
civil disobedience movement in
India launched in
August 1942 in response to
Gandhi's call for immediate independence of India. The aim was to bring the
British Govt. to the negotiating table by holding the Allied War Effort hostage. The call for determined, but
passive resistance that signified the certitude that Gandhi foresaw for the movement is best described by his call to
Do or Die , issued on
8 August at the
Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay, since re-named
August Kranti Maidan (August Revolution Ground). However, almost the entire Congress leadership, and not merely at the national level, was put into confinement less than twenty-four hours after Gandhi's speech, and the greater number of the Congress leaders were to spend the rest of the war in jail.
At the outbreak of war, the Congress Party had during the Wardha meeteing of the working-committee in September
1939, passed a resolution conditionally supporting the fight against fascism
[Official Website of the Indian National Congress, sub-link to article titled The Second World War and the Congress. http://www.aicc.org.in/the_congress_and_the_freedom_movement.htm#the. URL accessed on 20-Jul-2006], but were rebuffed when they asked for independence in return. The draft proposed that if the British did not accede to the demands, a massive Civil Disobedience would be launched. However, it was an extremely controversial decision. The Congress had lesser success in rallying other political forces under a single flag and mast.
On
August 8 1942 the Quit India resolution was passed at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). At Gowalia Tank,
Mumbai Gandhi urged Indians to follow a non-violent civil disobedience. Gandhi told the masses to act as an independent nation and not to follow the orders of the British. The British, already alarmed by the advance of the Japanese army to the India/Burma border, responded the next day by imprisoning Gandhi at the
Aga Khan Palace in
Pune. The Congress Party's Working Committee, or national leadership was arrested all together and imprisoned at the Ahmednagar Fort. They also banned the party altogether. Large-scale protests and demonstrations were held all over the country. Workers remained absent en masse and strikes were called. The movement also saw widespread acts of
sabotage, Indian under-ground organisation carried out bomb attcks on allied supply convoys, government buildings were set on fire, electricity lines were disconnected and transport and communication lines were severed.
The British swiftly responded by mass detentions. A total over 100,000 arrests were made nationwide, mass fines were levied, bombs were airdropped and demonstrators were subjected to public flogging.
The movement soon became a leaderless act of defiance, with a number of acts that deviated from Gandhi's principle of non-violence. In large parts of the country, the local underground organisations took over the movement. However, by 1943,
Quit India had petered out.
RIN Mutiny
|
RIN Mutineer's Memorial in Mumbai. |
The
RIN Mutiny (Also called the
Bombay Mutiny) encompasses a total strike and subsequent
mutiny by the Indian sailors of the
Royal Indian Navy on board ship and shore establishments at
Bombay (Mumbai) harbour on
18 February 1946. From the initial flashpoint in
Bombay, the
mutiny spread and found support through
India, from
Karachi to
Calcutta and ultimately came to involve 78 ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 sailors. The
RIN Mutiny started as a strike by ratings of the Royal Indian Navy on the
18th February in protest against general conditions.The immediate issue of the mutiny was conditions and food, but there were more fundamental matters such as
racist behaviour by British officers of the
Royal Navy personnel towards Indian sailors, and disciplinary measures being taken against anyone demonstrating pro-nationalist sympathies. The strike found immense support among the Indian population already in grips with the stories of the
Indian National Army. The actions of the mutineers was supported by demonstrations which included a one-day general strike in
Bombay. The strike spread to other cities, and was joined by the
Air Force and
local police forces. Naval officers and men began calling themselves the Indian National Navy and offered left handed salutes to British officers. At some places, NCOs in the
British Indian Army ignored and defied orders from British superiors. In
Madras and
Pune, the British garrisons had to face revolts within the ranks of the
British Indian Army. Widespread riotings took place from
Karachi to
Calcutta. Famously the ships hoisted three flags tied together - those of the
Congress,
Muslim League, and the Red Flag of the
Communist Party of India (CPI), singnifying the unity and demarginalisation of
communal issues among the mutineers.
The true judgment of contributions of each of these individual events and revolts to India's eventual independece, and the relative success or failure of each, remains open to historians. Some historians claim that the
Quit India Movement was ultimately a failure [
1] and ascribe more ground to the destabillisation of the pillar of British Power in India- the British Indian Armed forces. Certainly, the
British Prime Minister at the time of Indepence,
Clement Atlee deemed the contribution of
Quit India as minimal, ascribing stupendous importance to the revolts and growing dissatisfaction among Royal Indian Armed Forces as the driving force behind Raj's the decision to leave India
[Dhanjaya Bhat, Writing in The Tribune,Sunday, February 12, 2006. Spectrum Suppl. Which phase of our freedom struggle won for us Independence? Mahatma Gandhi's 1942 Quit India movement or The INA army launched by Netaji Bose to free India or the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946? According to the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, during whose regime India became free, it was the INA and the RIN Mutiny of February 18-23 1946 that made the British realise that their time was up in India.]
An extract from a letter written by P.V. Chuckraborty, former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court, on March 30 1976, reads thus: "When I was acting as Governor of West Bengal in 1956, Lord Clement Attlee, who as the British Prime Minister in post war years was responsible for India's freedom, visited India and stayed in Raj Bhavan Calcutta for two days`85 I put it straight to him like this: ‘The Quit India Movement of Gandhi practically died out long before 1947 and there was nothing in the Indian situation at that time, which made it necessary for the British to leave India in a hurry. Why then did they do so?' In reply Attlee cited several reasons, the most important of which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the very foundation of the British Empire in India, and the RIN Mutiny which made the British realise that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the British. When asked about the extent to which the British decision to quit India was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's 1942 movement, Attlee's lips widened in smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly, ‘Minimal'." http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060212/spectrum/main2.htm.URL accessed on 17-Jul-2006 [Majumdar, R.C., Three Phases of India's Struggle for Freedom, Bombay, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1967, pp. 58-59.There is, however, no basis for the claim that the Civil Disobedience Movement directly led to independence. The campaigns of Gandhi ... came to an ignoble end about fourteen years before India achieved independence ... During the First World War the Indian revolutionaries sought to take advantage of German help in the shape of war materials to free the country by armed revolt. But the attempt did not succeed. During the Second World War Subhas Bose followed the same method and created the INA. In spite of brilliant planning and initial success, the violent campaigns of Subhas Bose failed ... The Battles for India's freedom were also being fought against Britain, though indirectly, by Hitler in Europe and Japan in Asia. None of these scored direct success, but few would deny that it was the cumulative effect of all the three that brought freedom to India. In particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the sepoys for maintaining their authority in India. This had probably the greatest influence upon their final decision to quit India.] Some Indian historians however argue that,in fact, the it was
Quit India that succeeded . In support of the latter view, without doubt,the war had sapped a lot of the economic, political and military life-blood of the Empire. The war had sapped a lot of the economic, political and military life-blood of the Empire, and the powerful Indian resistance had shattered the spirit and will of the British government. However, such historians effectively ignore the contributions of the
radical movements to transfer of power in
1947 However, regardless of whether it was the powerful common call for resistance among Indians that shattered the spirit and will of the
British Raj to continue ruling India,or whether it was the forment of rebellion and resentment among the British Indian Armed Forces[
2],[
3], what is beyond doubt, is that a population of millions had been motivated as it never had been before to say ultimately that independence was a non-negotiable goal, and every act of defiance and rebel only stoked this fire.In addition, the British people and the British Army seemed unwilling to back a policy of repression in India and other parts of the Empire even as their own country lay shattered by the war's ravages.
The
INA trials in 1945
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurbaksh_Singh_Dhillon#The_Red_Fort_trialhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_independence_movement#The_Indian_National_Army and the
Bombay mutiny had already shaken the pillar of the Raj in India
[Majumdar, R.C., Three Phases of India's Struggle for Freedom, Bombay, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1967, pp. 58-59.There is, however, no basis for the claim that the Civil Disobedience Movement directly led to independence. The campaigns of Gandhi ... came to an ignoble end about fourteen years before India achieved independence ... During the First World War the Indian revolutionaries sought to take advantage of German help in the shape of war materials to free the country by armed revolt. But the attempt did not succeed. During the Second World War Subhas Bose followed the same method and created the INA. In spite of brilliant planning and initial success, the violent campaigns of Subhas Bose failed ... The Battles for India's freedom were also being fought against Britain, though indirectly, by Hitler in Europe and Japan in Asia. None of these scored direct success, but few would deny that it was the cumulative effect of all the three that brought freedom to India. In particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the sepoys for maintaining their authority in India. This had probably the greatest influence upon their final decision to quit India.].By early
1946, all political prisoners had been released. British openly adopted a political dialogue with the Indian National Congress for the eventual independence of India. On
August 15,
1947, the transfer of Power took place.
A young, new generation responded to Gandhi's call. Indians who lived through
Quit India came to form the first generation of independent
Indians-whose trials and tribulations may be accepted to have sown the seeds of establishment of the strongest enduring tradition of democracy and freedom in post-colonial
Africa and
Asia- which, when seen in the light of the torrid times of
Partition of India, can be termed one of the greatest examples of prudence of humanity.
These revolts, faced by weakened
Raj in a post-war situation, coupled with the fact that the faith on the pillar of strength for the Raj, the British Indian Armed forces had been lost, ultimately shaped the decision to end the Raj
[ibid.] By early
1946, all political prisoners had been released. British openly adopted a political dialogue with the Indian National Congress for the eventual independence of India. On
August 15,
1947, the transfer of Power took place.
|
Transfer of power, August 15, 1947. |
On
3 June 1947, Viscount Lord
Louis Mountbatten, the last British
Governor-General of India, announced the partitioning of the British Indian Empire into a secular India and a Muslim
Pakistan. At midnight, on
15 August 1947, India became an independent nation. Violent clashes between
Hindus,
Muslims, and
Sikhs followed this partition. Prime Minister Nehru and Deputy Prime Minister
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel invited Lord Mountbatten to continue as
Governor General of India. He was replaced in June 1948 by
Chakravarti Rajagopalachari. Patel took on the responsibility of unifying 565 princely states, steering efforts by his "iron fist in a velvet glove" policies, exemplified by the use of military force to integrate
Junagadh,
Jammu and Kashmir, and
Hyderabad state into India.
The Constituent Assembly completed the work of drafting the constitution on
26 November 1949; on
26 January 1950 the
Republic of India was officially proclaimed. The Constituent Assembly elected Dr. Rajendra Prasad as the first
President of India, taking over from Governor General Rajgopalachari. Subsequently, a free and sovereign India absorbed two other territories:
Goa (liberated from Portuguese control in 1961) and
Pondicherry (which the French ceded in 1953-1954). In 1952, India held its first general elections, with a voter turnout exceeding 62%; in practice, this made India the world's largest democracy.
* [
4]
*
*
*
*
*
Majumdar, R. C. History of the Freedom movement in India ISBN 0836423763
*
Allama Mashriqi*
Independence movement*
Mahatma Gandhi*
Indian Government* [
5]
*
Timeline of Indian Independence MovementSimple:Indian independence movement
