19.Civil disobedience movement Flashcards
PYQ Themes
-Chronology of imp events ->2 questions
- Basic tenets of particular party
ex. Congress Socialist Party - march organizers
ex. salt law break@Tanjaure - reason of agitations/boycotts/fasts
ex. against simon commission
ex. Gandhi’s fast unto death
ex. boycott of simon - reason of formation of conference & basic details
ex. National Social Conference
ex. 1st roundtable
ex. 3rd roundtable - recommendations
ex. nehru report
ex. simon commission - imp acts
ex. poona act
Chronology of major events
//
- The Run-up to Civil Disobedience Movement
(a) Calcutta Session of Congress
-Calcutta session ->motilal Nehru report was approved ->had demand of dominion status -> young elements wanted purna swaraj -> if the government did not accept a constitution based on dominion status by the end of the year -> ask for purna swaraj & launch civil disobedience
(b)Political Activity during 1929
-Gandhi travelled preparing people
for direct political action
- organised a Foreign Cloth Boycott Committee
- the Meerut Conspiracy Case (March), bomb explosion in Central Legislative Assembly by Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt
- Labour government to power in england -> more empathetic to india
(c)Irwin’s Declaration (October 31, 1929)
-discussed about the attainment of Dominion status -> was no time scale.
(d)Delhi Manifesto
1.what?
-conference of prominent national
leaders
- put conditions for attending the Round Table
a) Purpose should not be to determine whether or when dominion status was to be reached but to formulate a constitution for implementation of the dominion status
b) congress majority representation
c) amnesty for political prisoners
3.Irwin says ‘‘to draft a constitutional scheme isn’t conference purpose’’
(e)Lahore Congress and Purna Swaraj
- Jawahar made president
- Congress’ acceptance of complete independence as goal
- Decisions taken
a) boycott round table
b) Complete independence as aim
c) programme of civil disobedience including non-payment of taxes ; legislatures asked to resign
d) January 26, 1930 -> first independence day
(f)January 26, 1930: the Independence Pledge
1.Created by gandhi
- Consists of
a) Indians have right to freedom
b) british deprived us of freedom ; ruined us in socio-economic,politico-culturally
c) it’s crime against man and God to submit to british
- Civil Disobedience Movement—the Salt Satyagraha & Other Upsurges
a) Gandhi’s Eleven Demands
Demands
a) General demands
- Reduce expenditure on Army and civil services by 50%
- reforms in CID
- change Arms act & accept postal bill
- release political prisoners
b) Bourgeois Demands
- rupee to sterling ratio
- textile protection
- coastal shipping
c) peasants
- Reduce land revenue by 50%
- salt tax
b)Why Salt was Chosen as the Important Theme
- not socially divisive -> everyone needs salt
- Salt provided small but psychologically important income.
c)Dandi March (March 12-April 6, 1930)
- Details
- From ahamadabad to dandi (240 miles) ; 78 members(12 march-6 april)
2.directions for future action
-break salt law
-foreign liquor,cloth
-no taxes
-no lawyer practise ; no courts ; no government servants
-truth and non-violence as condition
-
d)Spread of Salt Law Disobedience
1.Nehru arrested ; gandhi arrested (b4 dharasana march)
2.After Gandhi’s arrest, the CWC sanctioned: ● no ryotwari revenue ● no-chowkidara-tax ● violate forest laws
- Satyagraha at Different Places
a) Tamilnad : Rajagopalachari from tiruchirapalli ; anti-liquor campaign -> coimbatore,madura ; violent eruptions,attacks,riots happened
b) Malabar: K. Kelappan(vaikom satyagrah fame) ; Krishna pillai ->defended flag on Calicut beach.
c) Andhra : godavari,krishna,guntur -> military style sibirams ; merchants gave money
d) Orissa : Gopalbandhu Chaudhuri -> salt satyagraha -> Balasore, Cuttack and Puri
e) Assam : failed as compared to 1921 due to conflicts ->Assamese v/s Bengalis, Hindus v/s Muslims
- students protest
- Chandraprabha Saikiani -> forest laws
f) Bengal : bose & sengupta
- dacca communal riots
- less muslims
- largest arrests & highest violence here
- raids by Surya Sen’s Chittagong revolt group
g)Bihar
-salt law broke In Patna, Nakhas Pond -> under
Ambika Kant Sinha.
-no chowkidari tax ; cloth & liquor
h)belt of Chhotanagpur
-Haaribagh movement -> Bonga Majhi and Somra
Majhi -> also had socio-religious reform along ‘sanskritising’ -> gave up meat.liquor -> used khadi
-big zamindar -> company loyal ; petty zamindar & well off peasant by gandhi
I)Peshawar : By khan abdul gaffar khan(sarhad gandhi / Badshah khan) -> pathan population ; monthly :
Pukhtoon ; volunteers ‘Khudai Khidmatgars’ AKA Red shirts
- mass demonstrations due to leader arrest -> controlled peshawar few weeks ->later martial law -> congress support in muslim majority province made british nervous
- Army refused to fire on unarmed crowd
J)Sholapur
- Textile workers strike
- burnt liquor shops & symbols of government
- set parallel government or prati sarkar
K)Dharasana : Sarojini Naidu, Imam Sahib and Manilal (Gandhi’s son) -> brutal lathicharge
L)Gujrat
- kheda,bardoli,anand ,borsad
- villagers went to other princely states to avoid polic repression
M)Maharashtra, Karnataka, Central Provinces : defied forest laws
N)United Provinces : tenants against zamindars ;
-Agra ,rai bareilly
O) Manipur and Nagaland : - Rani Gaidinliu, a Naga spiritual leader & Haipou
Jadonang
4.Forms of mobilisation
through prabhat pheries, vanar senas, manjari senas, secret patrikas and magic lantern shows.
e)Impact of Agitation
-foreign import reduced
-loss of income from liquor,
excise and land revenue
-elections boycott
f)Extent of Mass Participation
- women
- gandhi asked them to lead
- picketting outside shops
- this marked their entry into the public sphere. - Muslims
- muslim leaders told them to stay away from it
- NWFP saw large participation
- middle class in few areas
- Dacca
- weaving community mobilized - Merchants and Petty Traders
- very enthusiastic
- tamilnad,punjab
4.Tribals
in Central Provinces, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
5.Workers
in Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Sholapur.
6.Peasants
United Provinces, Bihar
and Gujarat.
g)Government Response—Efforts for Truce
- Government confused
- if repression -> congress said repression ; action on demands taken -> congress said victory - repression included
- Ordinances banning civil liberties
- banned press,civil disobedience organisations
- lathi charges and firing on unarmed crowds
- leaders imprisoned
3.Simon commission report
-said to be a regressive
document
- Irwin, suggested a round table
- August,1930 -> Gandhi & nehrus together put forward demands for round table -> talks failed.
h)Gandhi-Irwin Pact or Delhi pact
- Demands accepted
- immediate release of prisoners not convicted of violence
- remission of fines not collected
- return of lands not sold
- lenient towards resigned government servants
- right to make salt (personal use)
- peaceful/non-aggressive picketing
- Withdrawal of emergency ordinance - Demands denied
- inquire police excesses
- convert death sentence to life sentence for bhagat & his comrades - Gandhi accepted to
- suspend civil disobedience
- participate in round table
i)Evaluation of Civil Disobedience Movement
1.Was Gandhi-Irwin Pact a Retreat?
not a retreat because
-mass movements short lived
-signs of exhaustion
2.Comparison to Non-Cooperation Movement
-Objective
CDM : complete independence
NCM : vaguely-worded swaraj
- CDM involved violation of law,Not just non-cooperation
- declined participation of intelligentsia in CDM like stopping school,court etc
- CDM : No major labour upsurge coincided
-CDM : participation of peasants and business
groups
-CDM : those imprisoned was about three
times compared to NCM
- Karachi Congress Session—1931
a) Congress Resolutions at Karachi
- General resolutions
- bravery of bhagat singh,rajguru ,sukhdev admired
- Gandhi-Irwin Pact was endorsed
- purna swaraj demand - Resolution on Fundamental Rights guaranteed
- free speech,press
- can form association
- can assemble
- universal adult franchise
- equal legal rights irrespective of caste,creed
- primary education - Resolution on National Economic Programme
- rent reduction for peasants
- relief from agricultural indebtedness
- a living wage, limited hours of work and protection of women -> in industry
- The Round Table Conferences
a) First Round Table Conference
- @ London
- november 1930 - january 1931
- first time ->British and the Indians as equals
- Congress absent
- groups present : princely states ; muslim league ; hindu mahasabha ; sikhs ; parsis ; women ; liberals ; depressed ; Labour ; Christians ; anglo-indians ; europeans ; landlords ; universities
-Outcome
a)not much
b)generally agreed that India was to develop into a
federation
c)CDM continued in india
b)Second Round Table Conference
- in London (read in joey’s voice :-))
- September - December 1931
- congress sent gandhi as representative
- by this time -> Irwin was replaced by willingdon as viceroy
- Labour government replaced by coalition government ; british angry due to attacks on european ; Right wing led by churchill giving equal status to congress
- many of the delegates were conservative, government loyalists, and communalists -> were used to neutralise the efforts of Gandhi.
- Gandhi said
a) immediately establish responsible government
b) untouchable not minority but hindus - no separate electorates for muslim or other minorities
-session deadlock -> Separate electorates were being demanded by
the Muslims, depressed etc.
-Outcome
a)created an Indian Consultative Committee
b)created expert committees—finance,
franchise and states
c)proposed a unilateral British Communal Award if Indians failed to agree.
d)refused freedom
c)Third Round Table Conference
- Not attended by congress
- November - december 1932
- little was achieved
- white paper was published in british parliament -> which later got converted in GoI Act,1935
- Civil Disobedience Resumed
a) During Truce Period (March-December 1931)
- Background
- second round table failed -> CDM restarted
- rent reduction movement in united province
- repression in NWFP against khudai khidmatgars
- bengal -> draconian ordinances and mass detentions
b)Changed Government Attitude After Second RTC
- Post delhi pact
- pact raised people’s morale & undermind british prestige -> british policy to reverse trend
a) don’t allow gandhi to build mass movement tempo
b) congress goodwill not imp ; confidence of company loyalists needed
c) don’t let national movement reach villages
c)Government Action
-‘Civil Martial Law’, Congress organisations at all levels were
banned; arrests
- congress ashrams occupied
- Press gagged and nationalist literature, banned.
d)Popular Response
- people responded with anger -> similar like last time
- upsurges in two princely states—Kashmir and Alwar.
- installation of a secret radio transmitter near Bombay
- movement could not be sustained for long because
(i) leaders had no time to build up the tempo;
(ii) the masses were not prepared
-April 1934 -> withdrew movement
- Communal Award and Poona Pact
a) Main Provisions of the Communal Award
1.Background
-Communal Award by
Franchise Committee (AKA Lothian Committee) -> Separate electorates & reserved seats for minorities including depressed class (got 78 reserved seats)
2.Main provisions
-separate electorates for for Muslims, Europeans, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, depressed classes, and even to the
Marathas for some seats in Bombay. -> seen as divide & rule policy by congress.
- depressed class got it for 20 yrs
- provincial government seats on communal basis
- provincial seats doubled
- 3% women reservation
- depressed -> ‘‘double vote’’ -> one for separate electorate ,other for general electorate
- separate seats for labourers, landlords , traders and industrialists.
- bombay -> 7 maratha seats
b) Congress Stand
-strongly disagreeing
with the Communal Award -> neither accepted,neither rejected
c) Gandhi’s Response
- said ‘‘it’s attack on indian unity’’
- if depressed treated as separate political entity -> abolishing untouchability will be ignored -> untouchability will continue forever
- went on indefinite fast -> poona pact
d) Poona Pact
-abandoned separate electorates
-provincial reservation incresed 71 to 147 seats
; central -> 18%
e) Impact of Poona Pact on Dalits
- depressed class used as tool by hindu majority
- true depressed class representative lost against depressed candidates supported by caste hindu organisations
- submitted to status quo -> unable to develop independent and genuine leadership
- made them part of hindu social order -> no distinct existence
- pre-empted their rights in constitution post freedom
7.Gandhi’s Harijan Campaign and thoughts on Caste
- set up the All India Anti-Untouchability League,1932
- weekely named Harijan
- Harijan tour : November 1933 to July 1934 -> to collect money for harijan sevak sangh
- orthodox element accussed him of attacking hinduism -> also became anti-congress -> played role in defeating ‘‘Temple entry bill’’ - Gandhian themes
- total eradication -> open temples
- Hinduism dies if untouchability lives
- focused on humanism & reason
- Shastras do not sanction untouchability, and if they did, they should be ignored - Thoughts on untouchability ,caste , & varna system
- Untouchability has relation of high & low -> hence should must go
- did not think that annihilation of caste is precursor to annihilation of untouchability
-the varnashram
could function in such manner that each caste would be complementary & not high and low.
4.Gandhi’s reforms included education, cleanliness,
hygiene, giving up eating of beef and carrion,liquor
- Impact of campaign
- this was movement aimed to purify hinduism
- carried the message of nationalism to Harijans -> increased participation in national movement
8.Ideological Differences and Similarities between Gandhi and Ambedkar
1.believed in symbolism
G : burn foreign cloth ; salt from ocean
A : burn manusmriti ; water from mahad tank
2.Freedom
G : We need to earn it
A : britisheres will give it
3.On democracy
G : little respect for the parliamentary system
A : Mass democracy -> act as pressure on government for advancement of oppressed people
4.Firmness of principles
G : Flexible except on non-violence
A : very rigid principles
5.Highlighted on
G : Indian unity
A : Indian disunity
6.On India being nation
G : Nation prior to british rule
A : by-product
of Imperial legal system
7.About villages
G : Gramraj is Ramraj
A : villages denied equality and fraternity
8.Solution
both believed in proper education to make the individual desire for change, reform and integration
9.Centre of religion
g : it’s b/w man & god ; caste and varna are different, and caste is perversive degeneration
a : it’s b/w man & man also -> later left hinduism saying it couldn’t be reformed ; denounced the Vedas and other Hindu
scriptures
10.Politics/state & religion
G : Shouldn’t be separate
A : Should be separate
11.Religion & social change
both believed in religion as an agent of social change.
12.who should have power
G :Least governance is best governance
A : limited sovereign power of the State -> people should be ultimate sovereign
13.non-violence
G : Not at all ; purity of means
A : absolute non-violence as an end and relative violence as a mean ; in purity of ends and justified means as just when the ends were just
14.Industrialization / machinery
G : No ; it helps in creation as well as sustaining of exploitative socioeconomic
orders in the world
A : Yes , will benefit all.
15.Action plans
G : noncooperation,
hartal, satyagraha and civil disobedience
A : the observance of law
and constitutionality
16.Untouchables
G : a)part of hindu society
b) gandhi took it as one of the problems
c)more concerned
with the problem in its contemporary situation
d)saw it as moral stigma & wanted to solve it through atonement = प्रायश्चित
A : a)separate from hinduism b)focused his all attention on this c)studied problem from historical perspective d)wanted to solve it through laws
and constitutional methods
summary
399 spectrum
