Contribution of early nationalists

• Early nationalists believed that a direct struggle for the political emancipation of the country was not yet on the agenda of history. On agenda was:
  • Creation of public interest in political questions and the organization of public opinion
  • Popular demands had to be formulated on a country-wide basis
  • National unity had to be created. Indian nationhood had to be carefully promoted.
• Early national leaders did not organize mass movement against the British. But they did carry out an ideological struggle against them. (Important from a Gramscian perspective)
• Economic critique of imperialism
  • Economic critique of imperialism was the most important contribution of the early nationalists
  • They recognized that the essence of British economic imperialism lay in the subordination of the Indian economy to the British economy
  • They complained of India’s growing poverty and economic backwardness and the failure of modern industry and agriculture to grow
  • They wanted the government to promote modern industries through tariff protection and direct government aid
  • Popularized the idea of swadeshi and the boycott of British goods
  • They propounded the ‘drain of wealth’ theory and demanded that this drain be stopped
  • Demanded reduction of taxes and land revenue
  • Condemned the high military expenditure
• Constitutional reforms
  • They were extremely cautious. From 1885 to 1892 they demanded the expansion and reform of the Legislative Councils
  • Due to their demands, the British passed the Indian Councils Act of 1892
  • They failed to broaden the base of their democratic demands. Did not demand the right to vote for the masses or for women
• Administrative and other reforms
  • They demanded Indianisation of the higher grades of the administrative services.
  • They had economic political reasons for this. Economically, appointment of British only to ICS made Indian administration costly because they were paid very high. Politically, appointment of Indians would make the administration more responsive to Indian needs
  • Demanded separation of the judicial from executive powers so that the people might get some protection from the arbitrary acts of the police and the bureaucracy.
  • Urged the government to undertake and develop welfare activities and education
• Defense of Civil Rights

Methods of work of early nationalists

• Dominated by moderates till 1905
• Method of moderates: Constitutional agitation within the four walls of the law, and slow, orderly political progress. Their work had two pronged direction:
  • To build a strong public opinion in India to arouse the political consciousness and national spirit of the people, and to educate and unite them on political questions
  • They wanted to persuade the British government and British public opinion to introduce reforms along directions laid down by the nationalists.
• In 1889, a British Committee of the INC was founded. In 1890 this committee started a journal called India.

What about the role of the masses?

• The basic weakness of the early national movement lay in its narrow social base.
• The leaders lacked political faith in the masses.
• Hence, masses were assigned a passive role in the early phase of the national movement.

Evaluation

• The basic objectives of the early nationalist leaders were to lay the foundations of a secular and democratic national movement, to politicize and politically educate the people, to form the headquarters of the movement, that is, to form an all-India leadership group, and to develop and propagate an anti-colonial nationalist ideology.
• Very few of the reforms for which the nationalists agitated were introduced by the government
• It succeeded in creating a wide national awakening and arousing the feeling of nationhood. It made the people conscious of the bonds of common political, economic and social interests and the existence of a common enemy in imperialism
• They exposed the true character of the British rule through their economic critique.
• All this was to become a base for the national movement in the later period.

 

WHY HUME?

• The leaders assumed that the rulers would be less suspicious and less likely to attack a potentially subversive organization if its chief organizer was a retired British civil servant.
• Gokhale himself stated explicitly in 1913 that if any Indian had started such a movement the officials wouldn’t have let it happen.

 

• First, the Indian intellectuals co-operated with the British in the hope that British would help modernize India.
• However, the reality of social development in India failed to conform to their hopes.
• Three people who carried out the economic analysis of British India:
  • Dadabhai Naoroji: the grand old man of India. Born in 1825, he became a successful businessman but devoted his entire life and wealth to the creation of national movement in India
  • Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade: He taught an entire generation of Indians the value of modern industrial development.
  • Romesh Chandra Dutt: a retired ICS officer, published The Economic History of India at the beginning of the 20^th century in which he examined in minute detail the entire economic record of colonial rule since 1757.
• They concluded that colonialism was the main obstacle to India’s economic development.
• Three aspects of domination of British: trade, industry, finance
• The problem of poverty was seen as a problem of national development. This approach made poverty a broad national issue and helped to unite, instead of divide, different regions and sections of Indian society.
• The early nationalists accepted that the complete economic transformation of the country on the basis of modern technology and capitalist enterprise was the primary goal of their economic policies.
• Because their whole-ted devotion to the cause of industrialization, the early nationalists looked upon all other issues such as foreign trade, railways, tariffs, finance and labour legislations in relation to this paramount aspect. (and hence the obsession of Nehru with industrialization)
• However great the need of India for industrialization, it had to be based on Indian capital and not foreign capital.
• The early nationalists saw foreign capital as an unmitigated evil which did not develop a country but exploited and impoverished it.
• Expenditure on railways could be seen as Indian subsidy to British industries.
• A major obstacle in the process of industrial development was the policy of free trade
• High expenditure on the army
• Drain theory was the focal point of nationalist critique of colonialism.
  • A large part of India’a capital and wealth was being transferred or drained to Britain in the form of salaries and pensions of British civil and military officials working in India, interest on loans taken by the Indian government, profits of British capitalists in India, and the Home Charges or expenses of the Indian Government in Britain.
  • This drain amounted to one-half of government revenues, more than the entire land revenue collection, and over one-third of India’s total savings.
  • The Drain theory was put forward by Dadabhai Naoroji. He declared that the drain was the basic cause of India’s poverty.
  • Through the drain theory, the exploitative character of the British rule was made visible.
  • The drain theory possessed the merit of being easily grasped and understood by a nation of peasants. No idea could arouse people more than the thought that they were being taxed so that others in far off lands might live in comfort.
  • This agitation on economic issues contributed to the undermining of the ideological hegemony of the alien rulers over Indian minds.
  • The nationalist economic agitation undermined the moral foundations inculcated by the British that foreign rule is beneficial for India.

 Freedom of Press

• On 29^th January 1780, the Hickey’s Bengal Gazette or the Calcutta General Advertizer was published. It was the first English newspaper to be printed in the Indian sub-continent.
• The press was the chief instrument of forming a nationalist ideology

 

• The resolutions and proceedings of the Congress were propagated through press. Trivia: nearly one third of the founding fathers of congress in 1885 were journalists.

 

• Main news papers and editors

 

• The Hindu and Swadesamitran: G Subramaniya Iyer
• Kesari and Mahratta: BG Tilak
• Bengalee: S N Banerjea
• Amrita Bazar Patrika: Sisir Kumar Ghosh and Motilal Ghosh
• Sudharak: GK Gokhale
• Indian Mirror: N N Sen
• Voice of India: Dadabhai Naoroji
• Hindustani and Advocate: GP Varma
• Tribune and Akhbar-i-Am in Punjab
• Indu Prakash, Dnyan Prakahs, Kal and Gujarati in Bombay
• Som Prakash, Banganivasi and Sadharani in Bengal

 

• Newspaper was not confined to the literates. It would reach the villages and would be read by a reader to tens of others.
• Reading and discussing newspaper became a form of political participation.
• Nearly all the major political controversies of the day were conducted through the Press.
• ‘Oppose, oppose, oppose’ was the motto of the Indian press.
• The section 124A of the IPC was such as to punish a person who evoked feelings of disaffection to the government.
• The Indian journalists remained outside 124A by adopting methods such as quoting the socialist and anti-imperialist newspapers of England or letters from radical British citizens
• The increasing influence of the newspapers led the government to pass the Vernacular Press Act of 1978, directed only against Indian language newspapers.
  • It was passed very secretively
  • The act provided for the confiscation of the printing press, paper and other materials of a newspaper if the government believed that it was publishing seditious materials and had flouted an official warning.
  • Due to the agitations, it was repealed in 1881 by Lord Ripon.
• SN Banerjee was the first Indian to go to jail in performance of his duty as a journalist.

 

B G Tilak

 

• The man who is most frequently associated with the struggle for the freedom of Press during the nationalist movement is Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
• In 1881, along with G G Agarkar, he founded the newspapers Kesari and Mahratta.
• In 1893, he started the practice of using the traditional religious Ganapati festival to propagate nationalist ideas through patriotic songs and speeches.
• In 1896, he started the Shivaji festival to stimulate nationalism among young Maharashtrians.
• He brought peasants and farmers into the national movement.
• He organized a no-tax campaign in Maharashtra in 1896-97
• Plague in Poona in 1897.
• Popular resentment against the official plague measures resulted in the assassination of Rand, the Chairman of the Plague Committee in Poona, and Lt. Ayerst by the Chaphekar brothers on 27 June 1898.
• Since 1894, anger had been rising against the government due to the tariff, currency and famine policy.
• Tilak was arrested and sentenced to 18 month rigorous imprisonment in 1897. This led to country wide protests and Tilak was given the title of Lokmanya.
• Tilak was again arrested and tried on 24 June 1908 on the charge of sedition under article 124A. He was sentenced to 6 years of transportation. This led to nationwide protests and closing down of markets for a week. Later, in 1922 Gandhi was tried on the same act and he said that he is proud to be associated with Tilak’s name.

 

 

 

• The Indian Councils Act of 1861 enlarged the Governor-General’s Executive Council for the purpose of making laws.
• The GG could add 6-12 members to the Executive Council. This came to be known as the Imperial Legislative Council. It didn’t have any powers.
• ‘Despotism controlled from home’ was the fundamental feature of British rule in India.
• The Indians nominated to the council were not representative of the nationalist movement.
• Despite the early nationalists believing that India should eventually become self-governing, they moved very cautiously in putting forward political demands regarding the structure of the state, for they were afraid of the Government declaring their activities seditious and disloyal and suppressing them.
• Till 1892, they only demanded reforms in the council.

 

Non Co-operation Movement

• Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms 1919: Dyarchy
• In a system called “dyarchy,” the nation-building departments of government — agriculture, education, public works, and the like — were placed under ministers who were individually responsible to the legislature. The departments that made up the “steel frame” of British rule — finance, revenue, and home affairs — were retained by executive councillors who were nominated by the Governor.
• The Hunter Committee report praised the actions of general Dyer.
• Khilafat Movement
  • For support of Turkey
  • Khilafat Committee formed under the leadership of Ali Brothers, Maulana Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Hasrat Mohani
  • The promises made to the Khilafat Committee were not kept after the World War.
  • The All-India Khilafat Conference held at Delhi in November 1919 decided to withdraw all cooperation from the government if their demands were not met.
  • On June 9 1920, the Khilafat Committee at Allahabad unanimously accepted the suggestion of non-cooperation and asked Gandhiji to lead the movement.
• Khilafat movement cemented Hindu-Muslim unity
  • Gandhiji looked upon the Khilafat agitation as “an opportunity of uniting Hindus and Mohammedans as would not arise in a hundred years”
• The non-cooperation movement was launched on August 1, 1920. Lokmanya Tilak passed away on the same day.
• People countrywide observed hartal and took out processions.
• The congress met in September at Calcutta and accepted non-co-operation as its own.
• The programme of non-cooperation included:
  • Surrender of titles and honors
  • Boycott of government affiliated schools and colleges, law courts, foreign cloth and could be extended to resignation from government services.
  • Mass civil disobedience including the non-payment of taxes.
  • National schools and colleges were to be set up
  • Panchayats were to be established to settle disputes
  • Hand-spinning and weaving was encouraged
  • People were asked to maintain Hindu-Muslim unity, give up untouchability and observe strict non-violence.
• Changes in Congress to attain the new objective:
  • At the Nagpur session in 1920 changes in the Constitution of Congress were made.
  • The goal of congress was changed from the attainment of self-government by constitutional and legal means to the attainment of Swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means.
  • The Congress now had a Working Committee of fifteen members to look after its day to day affairs.
  • Provincial congress committees were now organized on a linguistic basis.
  • Mahalla and ward committees were formed.
  • The membership fee was reduced to 4 annas a years to enable poor to become members.
  • This was not without opposition however. Some members still believed in the traditional methods. Leaders like Jinnah, GS Khaparde, Bipin Chandra Pal and Annie Besant left congress during this time.
• Gandhiji, along with the Ali brother, undertook a nationwide tour to address people.
• Thousands of students left government schools and joined national schools.
• The most successful item of the programme was the boycott of foreign cloth.
• Picketing of toddy shops was also very popular.
• Students let government schools and colleges. IT was during this time that Jamia Milia Islamia of Aligarh, the Bihar Vidyapith, the Kashi Vidyapith and the Gujarat Vidyapith came into existence.
• Lawyers such as Deshbandhu CR Das, Motilal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Saifudiin Kitchlew, C Rajagopalachari, Sardar Patel, T Prakasam and Asaf Ali gave up their legal practice.
• Tilak Swarajya Fund was started to finance the NCM.
• In 1921, Khilafat Committee issued a resolution that no muslim should serve in the British Indian army.
• The visit of the Prince of Wales on 17^th November 1921 was observed as a day of hartal all over the country.
• The Congress Volunteer Corps emerged as a powerful parallel police.
• By December 1921, the government felt that things were going too far and announced a change of policy by declaring the volunteer corps illegal and arresting all those who claimed to be its members.
• Thousands of peasants and tenants participated in the movement.
• In Punjab, the Akali movement to remove corrupt mahants from the Gurudwaras was started.
• Assam: Tea plantation workers went on strike. Midnapore: peasants refused to pay Union Board taxes.             Guntur (Chirala): Agitation led by Duggirala Gopalakrishayya                        Malabar: Mohlahs (muslim peasants) created a powerful anti-zamindari movement.
• As the government refused to yield, Gandhiji announced that mass civil disobedience would begin in Bardoli taluqa of Surat.
• However, in Chauri Chaura, Gorakhpur on 5 February 1922 crowd set fire on a police station and killed some policemen. On hearing this, Gandhiji decided to withdraw the movement.
• The congress working committee ratified his decision. Thus, on February 12, 1922, the non-cooperation movement came to an end.
• Assessing the Withdrawal:
  • Some scholars say that Gandhiji withdrew the movement because he wanted to protect the interests of the propertied class.
  • Some argue that there was no logic why a small incident should lead to withdrawal of the movement itself.
  • However, government could use Chauri Chaura to justify its repression of the movement.
  • If movement was started at that time, it would have been defeated due to the repression of the government.
  • Gandhiji was protecting the movement from likely repression, and the people from demoralization.
  • Mass movements tend to ebb in some time. Hence, withdrawal is a part of the strategy of mass movements.
• Gandhiji was tried in 1922 and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.
  • He invited the court to award him “the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime, and what appears to be the highest duty of a citizen”.
• Positives out of the non-cooperation movement:
  • Congress started commanding the support and sympathy of vast sections of the Indian people.
  • Millions of Indians became politically involved. Women were drawn into the movement.
  • Muslims participated heavily and communal unity was maintained.
  • Strengthened the national movement. Nationalist sentiments and the national movement had reached the remotest corners of the land.
  • People gained tremendous self-confidence and self-esteem.