The Rowlatt bills caused outrage amongst the Indian people as they proposed to empower the British to suspend the usual civil liberties and to detain Indians without trial for two years if suspected nationalist terrorists. In opposition to the bills Gandhi instructed a hartal, or closure of business and although this did take place in many towns and cities, the movement was largely middle-class whereas the response in the country-side and amongst industrial workers was not as strong. The main flaw of the campaign was the violence which escalated in the Punjab province where on April 13th 1919, 10,000 Indians gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar and without warning Brigadier-General Dyer ordered his troops to open fire on the unarmed crowd killing 379 troops and prompting Gandhi to call off the movement. It cannot be denied that the Rowlatt satyagraha was effective in that it united people all over British India to make a stand and a moral advantage had also been won due to the reckless actions of the British. Moreover it led to a British withdrawal of one of the Rowlatt bills whilst the other was never used and repealed soon after. However, Gandhi’s nationalism was criticised by historians such as Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal who argued that the excessive violence between demonstrators and the police, together with the massacre at Amritsar and the calling off of the campaign demonstrated that Gandhi was not fully in control and had not yet perfected his agitation techniques. Gandhi acknowledged that he had made Himalayan miscalculation, stating in the aftermath of the movement, ‘a rapier run through my body could hardly have pained me more’.
Gandhi renewed his anti-British campaign with the Non-Cooperation movement of 1920-1922. This was based on three objectives which were to express anger at the atrocities in Amritsar, to support the Khalifat movement and ultimately to achieve swaraj or self-rule. Non-cooperation took the form of boycotting and this included elections to Indian parliaments, British courts and government funded schools. Gandhi also encouraged hand-spinning as he called for a boycott of imported foreign cloth. David Arnold argues that although non-cooperation did take place in several different forms with thousands imprisoned, enthusiasm waned from region to region, and the movement failed its main objective which was to gain popular support and to prevent the provincial governments from operating. By supporting the Khilafat movement Gandhi had cleverly broadened the nationalist movement and strengthened opposition to the British. Indian Muslims were concerned about the fate of the spiritual head of Islam, the Sultan of Turkey, and Muslim sovereignty of the holy places, Jazirat-ul-Arab, following Turkey’s defeat in the First World War. The Khilafat movement provided Gandhi with the perfect opportunity to launch his own Non-Cooperation movement and enabled him to make allies with a number of influential Indian Muslim nationalists such as Mohamed and Shaukat Ali, improving Hindu-Muslim relations. Gandhi did achieve a degree of success in his Non-Cooperation campaign. The atrocities at Amritsar were denounced by high profile British figures such as Winston Churchill and General Dyer was dismissed from his position. Moreover widespread educational, political and economic boycotts throughout India and active involvement from the Muslims showed that Gandhi had awoken and united a large number of Indians. However despite this, the Treaty of Sevres following the war did see a dissolving of the Turkish Empire and although there was a rise in Muslim involvement in Indian nationalism, this was only temporary and quickly diminished afterwards. Furthermore the suspension of the movement following violence in Chauri Chaura with the killing of twenty-two policemen once again showed Gandhi’s inability to sustain non-violent resistance amongst his followers. Gandhi failed to meet the chief aim of his campaign which was to achieve independence within one year. Nonetheless he did succeed in carrying out a nation-wide mass protest and which undermined British authority in India.
In Bardoli in 1928 Gandhi returned his attention to local peasant agitations and carried out his first fully successful Civil Disobedience campaign. Peasant solidarity was secured in the region and considerable concessions were made with the release of all prisoners, a commission of enquiry appointed which accepted that the revenue demands were excessive and peasants compensated for seized goods. The success at Bardoli showed that satyagraha was an effective technique and increased the pressure for purna swaraj, complete independence. In 1930 Gandhi sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin listing eleven demands and when this was ignored, a decision was made to launch another nationwide civil disobedience campaign, beginning with the Salt satyagraha of 1930. The abolition of the salt tax was an issue which appealed to all Indians as it was seen as an immoral tax on a basic human necessity and thus did assist in creating mass nationalism. Gandhi’s Salt March to Dandi was a dramatic event which captured the imagination of millions of Indians. His imprisonment for breaking the law and the police brutality towards the peaceful demonstrators at the Dharasana salt works led to the civil disobedience movement erupting with greater radicalism than during 1920-1922. There was large scale protests and open defiance of the law across India and the active participation of women was further evidence of the genuinely mass-based nature of the campaign although there was a low level of Muslim participation. Gandhi called off the movement to open negotiations with Viceroy Irwin, and the Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed in September 1931. Irwin agreed to permit local inhabitants to gather salt for their own needs and all political prisoners in connection with the movement were released. However, Congress was refrained from prosecuting prison officers accused of brutality and the salt tax was not abolished. This was seen as an anti-climax and a disappointment for many Indian nationalists such as Jawaharlal Nehru. After the Round Table Conference in London Gandhi was imprisoned and although the civil disobedience movement was resumed it did not carry the same impetus and was called off in April 1934. Civil disobedience between 1930-34 did engage the masses and make the British aware that they had a major problem on their hands. However Gandhi had frustrated many with his climb down from purna swaraj in the Irwin Pact and historian D.A Low argues that the immediate effect of the movement on India’s advance towards independence was limited.
The largest civilian uprising since the rebellion of 1857 and the most inspiring movement of mass nationalism was the 1942 ‘Quit India’ campaign. This was launched after the outbreak of the Second World War at a time when Japan was advancing towards India and Britain seemed to be at her most vulnerable. Gandhi acquired a more militant mood with less emphasis on non-violence, and called for a mass struggle against British exploitation and oppression. The protests were nation-wide with worker strikes in urban areas and students and peasants destroying public property with government buildings burned down and over 330 railway stations wrecked. The movement lasted six weeks with over one thousand dead including 63 policemen and 92,000 arrests made. In the short-term the movement was not successful as Britain did not leave India in 1943. Nonetheless ‘Quit India’ did speed up Britain’s decision to decolonise India and there an acceptance that her time in India was coming to an end. Although in jail for much of the movement, Gandhi had sanctioned a successful mass nationalist movement with the mobilisation of Indians across boundaries of region, class, gender and caste. Although the Muslims were again alienated from the movement, Gandhi was able to rouse huge numbers to the nationalist cause in his ‘Do or Die’ speech by stating that Indians should either become free or die trying.
Gandhi was important in creating mass nationalism in India and must be credited for uniting large numbers and mounting the demand for home rule. He was able to use sectarian symbols such as salt and khadi, hand-spinning to engage the masses and expand nationalism. Furthermore he was successful in mobilising minority groups. He encouraged female emancipation and participation in his campaigns and his Harijan campaign worked towards the equality of the low-caste Untouchables. The signing of the Poona Pact in 1932 with the leader of the Untouchables B.R Ambedkar secured Hindu unity as the lower castes abandoned the idea of separate electorates in return for a large number of reserved seats. The Pact established Gandhi as a leader and defender of Hindu society and the Harijan campaign spread the message of nationalism down to the lowest and most oppressed sections of rural society. However although mass nationalism had been produced under Gandhi’s leadership, it is true that his campaigns focused around the peasantry who he saw as the heart of the Indian nation. The industrial classes were not as enthused and Gandhi’s biggest failure was to embrace India’s Muslims fully in his nationalism. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, felt that the Indian Congress under Gandhi represented Hindu interests and alienated Muslims. Although Gandhi did achieve independence from British rule in 1947, this came as a day of great sadness for him due to the partition of Pakistan which involved huge communal violence and mass migration. The creation of Pakistan showed that Gandhi’s nationalism was not truly mass based as India had to be divided to appease the Muslim demand, even though one third of the Muslim population did remain in India after partition. Despite his failure to incorporate the whole of the population, Gandhi was undoubtedly a pioneer in Indian nationalism who publicised and expanded the movement enormously.
Bibliography
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David Arnold, Gandhi, 2001
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S. Bose & A. Jalal, Modern South Asia, 1997
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Ranajit Guha, Subaltern Studies I, 1982
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Ranajit Guha, Subaltern Studies III, 1984
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D.A Low, Soundings in Modern South Asian History, 1968
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B. Metcalf & T. Metcalf, A Concise History of India, 2002
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Hugh Owen, Gandhi, 1984
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Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885-1947, 1983
Hugh Owen, Gandhi, 1984, 11
Ranajit Guha, Subaltern Studies III, 1984, 181
David Arnold, Gandhi, 2001, 123
Sumit Sarkar, Modern India 1885-1947, 1983, 184
S. Bose & A.Jalal, Modern South Asia, 1997, 110
Ahmedabad Speech March 14th 1919 cited in Guha, 182
D.A Low, Soundings in Modern South Asian History, 1968, 322