ERA OF MILITANT NATIONALISM

Question 1

Why Militant Nationalism grew?

Answer 1

1. 1892– The Councils Act was criticised by nationalists as it failed to satisfy them.
2. 1897– The Natu Brothers were deported without trial and Tilak and others, imprisoned on charges of sedition.
3. 1898– Repressive laws under IPC Section 124 A were further amplified with new provisions under IPC Section 156 A.
4. 1899– Number of Indian members in Calcutta Corporation were reduced.
5. 1904– Official Secrets Act curbed freedom of press.
6. 1904– Indian Universities Act ensured greater government control over universities, which it described as factories producing political revolutionaries.

Question 2

What was ‘political mendicancy’?

Answer 2

The younger elements within the Congress were dissatisfied with the achievements of the Moderates during the first 15-20 years. They were strongly critical of the methods of peaceful and constitutional agitation, popularly known as the “Three ‘P’s”— prayer, petition and protest— and described these methods as ‘political mendicancy’.

Question 3

Who refused to recognize India as a nation, and insulted Indian nationalists and the intelligentsia by describing their activities as “letting off of gas.”?

Answer 3

Lord Curzon.

Question 4

Militant School of Thought included leaders like?

Answer 4

• These included
  1. Raj Narain Bose, Ashwini Kumar Datta, Aurobindo Ghosh and Bipin Chandra Pal in Bengal.
  2. Vishnu Shastri Chiplunkar and Bal Gangadhar Tilak in Maharashtra.
  3. Lala Lajpat Rai in Punjab.

Question 5

Basic tenets of Militant School of Thought?

Answer 5

1. Hatred for foreign rule; since no hope could be derived from it, Indians should work out their own salvation.
2. Swaraj to be the goal of national movement.
3. Direct political action required.
4. Belief in capacity of the masses to challenge the authority.
5. Personal sacrifices required and a true nationalist to be always ready for it.

Question 6

Newspaper Hitabadi was founded by?

Answer 6

The Hitabadi was a Bengali newspaper founded by Surendranath Banerjee in 1883.

Question 7

Newspaper Sanjibani was founded by?

Answer 7

Krishna Kumar Mitra in 1883.

Question 8

The Boycott Resolution was passed on which date?

Answer 8

Government announced partition of Bengal in July 1905.
On August 7, 1905, with the passage of the Boycott Resolution in a massive meeting held in the Calcutta Townhall, the formal proclamation of Swadeshi Movement was made.

Question 9

Bengal partition formally came into force on?

Answer 9

October 16, 1905.

Question 10

Amar Sonar Bangla was composed by?

Answer 10

National Anthem of Bangladesh, was composed by Rabindranath Tagore.

Question 11

Who was the President of Indian National Congress during the partition of Bengal and what steps did they take?

Answer 11

• The Indian National Congress, meeting in 1905 under the Gopal Krishna Gokhale, resolved to
  1. Condemn the partition of Bengal and the reactionary policies of Curzon.
  2. Support the anti partition and Swadeshi Movement of Bengal.
• The militant nationalists led by Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh wanted the movement to be taken outside Bengal to other parts of the country and go beyond boycott of foreign goods to become a full fledged political mass struggle with the goal of attaining swaraj. But the moderates dominating the Congress at that time, were not willing to go that far.

Question 12

When was the goal of self government or swaraj declared?

Answer 12

• Congress session held at Calcutta (1906) under the presidentship of Dadabhai Naoroji, where it was declared that the goal of the Indian National Congress was self government or swaraj like the United Kingdom or the colonies of Australia or Canada.
• Emboldened by Dadabhai Naoroji’s declaration at the Calcutta session (1906) that self government or swaraj was to be the goal of the Congress, the Extremists gave a call for passive resistance in addition to swadeshi and boycott which would include a boycott of government schools and colleges, government services, courts, legislative councils, municipalities, government titles, etc.

Question 13

“Political freedom is the lifebreath of a nation,” was said by?

Answer 13

Aurobindo Ghosh.

Question 14

Swadesh Bandhab Samiti was founded by?

Answer 14

Ashwini Kumar Dutta. It aimed to promote the consumption of indigenous products and the boycott of foreign goods.

Question 15

Swadeshi Sangam, or ‘National Volunteers’ was founded by?

Answer 15

In Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, V.O. Chidambaram Pillai, Subramaniya Siva and some lawyers founded the Swadeshi Sangam which inspired the local masses.

Question 16

Tilak’s ____&____ festivals became a medium of swadeshi propaganda not only in western India, but also in Bengal.

Answer 16

Ganapati and Shivaji festivals.

Question 17

Bengal National College, inspired by Tagore’s Shantiniketan, was set up with _________ as its principal.

Answer 17

Aurobindo Ghosh.

Question 18

National Council of Education was set up on?

Answer 18

• On 15 August, 1906, the National Council of Education was set up to organize a system of education— literary, scientific and technical— on national lines and under national control.
• Education was to be imparted through the Vernacular medium. A Bengal Institute of Technology was set up for technical education and funds were raised to send students to Japan for advanced learning.

Question 19

Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company was set up by?

Answer 19

Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (in Tuticorin) was started in 1906 by V. O. Chidambaram Pillai to compete against the monopoly of the British India Steam Navigation Company (BISNC).

Question 20

Sudesha Geetham is written by?

Answer 20

In Tamil Nadu, Subramania Bharati wrote Sudesha Geetham.

Question 21

Who was the first recipient of a scholarship offered by the Indian Society of Oriental Art, founded in 1907?

Answer 21

Nandalal Bose. In 1954, he became the first artist to be elected Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi, India’s National Academy of Art.

Question 22

Students participation in Swadeshi Movement after Bengal’s Partition?

Answer 22

1. Organised picketing of shops selling foreign goods.
2. Schools and colleges whose students participated in the agitation were to be penalized by disaffiliating them or stopping of grants and privileges to them.
3. Students who participated were to be disqualified for government jobs.
4. Women also participated.

Question 23

Stand of Muslims during Swadeshi Movement after Bengal’s Partition?

Answer 23

• Some of the Muslims participated Barrister Abdul Rasul, Liaqat Hussain, Guznavi, Maulana Azad (who joined one of the revolutionary terrorist groups); but most of the upper and middle class Muslims stayed away or, led by Nawab Salimullah of Dacca, supported the partition on the plea that it would give them a Muslim-majority East Bengal.
• To further government interests, the All India Muslim League was propped up on December 30, 1905 as an anti-Congress front, and reactionary elements like Nawab Salimullah of Dacca were encouraged.
• Also, the nature of the Swadeshi Movement, with leaders evoking Hindu festivals and goddesses for inspiration, tended to exclude the Muslims.

Question 24

Labour Unrest and Trade Unions during Swadeshi Movement (Bengal’s Partition)?

Answer 24

• In September 1905, more than 250 Bengali clerks of the Burn Company, Howrah, walked out in protest against a derogatory work regulation. - In July 1906, a strike of workers in the East Indian Railway, resulted in the formation of a Railwaymen’s Union.
• Between 1906 and 1908, strikes in the jute mills were very frequent, at times affecting 18 out of 18 mills.
• Subramania Siva and Chidambaram Pillai led strikes in Tuticorin and Tirunelveli in a foreign-owned cotton mill.
• In Rawalpindi (Punjab), the arsenal and railway workers went on strike led by Lala Laipat Rai and Aiit Singh.

Question 25

Annulment of Partition?

Answer 25

In 1911, the annulment came as a rude shock to the Muslim political elite. It was aslo decided to shift the capital to Delhi as a sop to the Muslims, as it was associated with Muslim glory, but the Muslims were not pleased. Bihar and Orissa were taken out of Bengal and Assam was made a separate province.

Question 26

Why the Swadeshi and Boycott movement fizzled out?

Answer 26

• By 1908, the Swadeshi and Boycott Movement was almost over due to many reasons:-
  1. There was severe government repression.
  2. The Movement failed to create an effective organisation or a party structure. It threw up an entire gamut of techniques that later came to be associated with Gandhian politics non-cooperation, passive resistance, filling of British jails, social reform and constructive work- but failed to give these techniques a disciplined focus.
  3. The movement was rendered leaderless with most of the leaders either arrested or deported” by 1908 and with Aurobindo Ghosh and Bipin Chandra Pal retiring from active politics.
  4. Internal squabbles among leaders, magnified by the Surat split (1907), did much harm to the movement.
  5. The movement aroused the people but did not know how to tap the newly released energy or how to find new forms to give expression to popular resentment.
  6. The movement largely remained confined to the upper and middle classes and zamindars, and failed to reach the masses-especially the peasantry.
  7. Non-cooperation and passive resistance remained mere ideas.
  8. It is difficult to sustain a mass-based movement at a high pitch for too long.

Question 27

Despite its gradual decline why Swadeshi Movement was a turning point in modern Indian history?

Answer 27

1. It proved to be a “leap forward” in more ways than one. Hitherto untouched sections- students, women, workers some sections of urban and rural population participated. All the major trends of the national moyement, from conservative moderation to political extremism, from revolutionary activities to incipient socialism, from petitions and prayers to passive resistance and non-cooperation, emerged during the Swadeshi Movement.
2. The richness of the movement was not confined to the political sphere, but encompassed art, literature, science and industry also.
3. People were aroused from slumber and now they learned to take bold political positions and participate in new forms of political work.
4. The swadeshi campaign undermined the hegemony of colonial ideas and institutions.
5. The future struggle was to draw heavily from the experience gained.

Question 28

Difference between Moderates and Extremists?

Answer 28

Moderates — Extremists
1. M– Social base– zamindars and upper middle classes in towns.
- E– Social base– educated middle and lower middle classes in towns.
2. M– Ideological inspiration– western liberal thought and European history.
- E– Ideological inspiration– Indian history, cultural heritage and Hindu traditional symbols.
3. M– Believed in England’s providential mission in India.
- E– Rejected ‘providential mission theory’ as an illusion.
4. M– Believed political connections with Britain to be in India’s social, political and cultural interests.
- E– Believed that political connections with Britain would perpetuate British exploitation of India.
5. M– Professed loyalty to the British Crown.
- E– Believed that the British Crown was unworthy of claiming Indian loyalty.
6. M– Believed that the movement should be limited to middle class intelligentsia; masses not yet ready for participation in political work.
- E– Had immense faith in the capacity of masses to participate and to make sacrifices.
7. M– Demanded constitutional reforms and share for Indians in services.
- E– Demanded swaraj as the panacea for Indian ills.
8. M– Insisted on the use of constitutional methods only.
- E– Did not hesitate to use extra-constitutional methods like boycott and passive resistance to achieve their objectives.
9. M– They were patriots and did not play the role of a comprador class.
- E– They were patriots who made sacrifices for the sake of the country.

Question 29

1. The Extremists ideology and its functioning also lacked consistency.
2. Its leaders– Aurobindo, Tilak, B.C. Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai– had different perceptions of their goal. For Tilak, swaraj meant some sort of self government, while for Aurobindo it meant complete independence, from foreign rule.
3. Tilak’s opposition to the Age of Consent Bill (which would have raised the marriageable age for girls from 10 years to 12 years, even though his objection was mainly that such reforms must come from people governing themselves and not under an alien rule), his organizing of Ganapati and Shivaji festivals as national festivals, his support to anti-Cow killing campaigns, etc., portrayed him as a Hindu nationalist.
4. Similarly B.C. Pal and Aurobindo spoke of a Hindu nation and Hindu interests.
   True/false?

Answer 29

1. True
2. True
3. True
4. True.

Question 30

Resolution supporting the programme of Swadeshi, boycott and national education was passed in which session of Indian National Congress?

Answer 30

Calcutta Session of 1906 under presidentship of Dadabhai Naoroji.

Question 31

Word Swaraj was mentioned for the first time in?

Answer 31

• At Calcutta session of the Congress in December 1906 under presidentship of Dadabhai Naoroji.
• The word swaraj was mentioned for the first time, but its connotation was not spelt out.

Question 32

Why the surat split took place?

Answer 32

• The Extremists wanted the 1907 session to be held in Nagpur (Central Provinces) with Tilak or Lajpat Rai as the president along with a reiteration of the swadeshi, boycott and national education resolutions.
• The Moderates wanted the session at Surat in order to exclude Tilak from the Presidency, since a leader from the host province could not be session president (Surat being in Tilak’s home province of Bombay). Instead, they wanted Rashbehari Ghosh as the president and sought to drop the resolutions on swadeshi, boycott and national education.

Question 33

1. Criminal Law Amendment Act
2. The Seditious Meetings Act
3. The Indian Press Act
4. Indian Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act
5. Explosives Substances Act
   Arrange in chronological order?

Answer 33

1. Seditious Meetings Act, 1907
2. Indian Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act, 1908 (Tilak was charged with sedition under this act on 23rd July)
3. Explosives Substance Act, 8 June 1908
4. Criminal Law Amendment Act, 11 December 1908
5. The Indian Press Act, 1910.

Question 34

Why and when was Tialk tried for sedition?

Answer 34

Tilak, the main Extremist leader, was tried in 1909 for sedition for what he had written in 1908 in his kesari about a bomb thrown by Bengal revolutionaries in Muzaffarpur, resulting in the death of two innocent European women.

Question 35

Why the National Movement declined after 1907?

Answer 35

• Tilak was judged guilty and sentenced to six years’ transportation and a fine of Rs 1,000.
• He was sent to Mandalay (Burma) jail for six years.
• Aurobindo and B.C. Pal retired from active politics.
• Lajpat Rai left for abroad.
• The Extremists were not able to organize an effective alternative party to sustain the movement.
• The Moderates were left with no popular base or support, especially as the youth rallied behind the Extremists.
• After 1908, the national movement as a whole declined for a time. In 1914, Tilak was released and he picked up the threads of the movement.

Question 36

What was the policy of ‘carrot and stick’?

Answer 36

• Policy of rallying them (John Morley– the secretary of state) or the policy of ‘carot and stick’.
• It may described as a three pronged approach of repression conciliation suppression.
• In the first stage, the Extremists were to be repressed mildly, mainly to frighten the Moderates.
• In the second stage, the Moderates were to be placated through some concessions, and hints were to be dropped that more reforms would be forthcoming if the distance from the Extremists was maintained. With the Moderates on its side, the government could suppress the Extremists with its full might.

Question 37

What was the Simla Deputation of 1906?

Answer 37

In October 1906, a group of Muslims elites called the Simla Deputation, led by the Agha Khan, met Lord Minto and demanded separate electorates for the Muslims.

Question 38

The elective principle was recognised for the non- official membership of the councils in India. Indians were allowed to participate in the election of various legislative councils, though on the basis of class and community.
Which Act?

Answer 38

Morley-Minto Reforms that translated into the Indian Councils Act of 1909.

Question 39

For the first time, separate electorates for Muslims for election to the central council was established a most detrimental step for India.
Which Act?

Answer 39

Morley-Minto Reforms that translated into the Indian Councils Act of 1909.

Question 40

The number of elected members in the Imperial Legislative Council and the Provincial Legislative Councils was increased. In the provincial councils, non-official majority was introduced, but since some of these non-officials were nominated and not elected, the overall non-elected majority remained.
Which Act?

Answer 40

Morley-Minto Reforms that translated into the Indian Councils Act of 1909.

Question 41

According to Sumit Sarkar, in the Imperial Legislative Council, of the total 69 members, 37 were to be the officials and of the 32 non-officials, 5 were to be nominated. Of the 27 elected non-officials, 8 seats were reserved for the Muslims under separate electorates (only Muslims could vote here for the Muslim candidates), while 4 seats were reserved for the British capitalists, 2 for the landlords and 13 seats came under general electorate.
Which Act?

Answer 41

Morley-Minto Reforms that translated into the Indian Councils Act of 1909.

Question 42

The elected members were to be indirectly elected. The local bodies were to elect an electoral college, which in turn would elect members of provincial legislatures, who in turn would elect members of the central legislature.
Which Act?

Answer 42

Morley-Minto Reforms that translated into the Indian Councils Act of 1909.

Question 43

Besides separate ectorates for the Muslims, representation in excess of the strength of their population was accorded to the Muslims. Also, the income qualification for Muslim voters was kept lower than that for Hindus.
Which Act?

Answer 43

Morley-Minto Reforms that translated into the Indian Councils Act of 1909.

Question 44

Provinces of legislatures– both at the centre and in provinces were enlarged and the Legislatures could now pass resolutions (which may or may not be accepted), ask questions and supplementaries, vote separate items in the budget though the budget as a whole could not be voted upon.
Which Act?

Answer 44

Morley-Minto Reforms that translated into the Indian Councils Act of 1909.

Question 45

One Indian was to be appointed to the viceroy’s executive council.
Which Act?

Answer 45

Morley-Minto Reforms that translated into the Indian Councils Act of 1909.

Question 46

Who was the first Indian to be appointed in 1909 to the viceroy’s executive council?

Answer 46

Satyendra Sinha.

Question 47

1. Moderate led anti partition movement (1903–05) was under _____.
2. The movement under Extremists was led by______.

Answer 47

1. Surendranath Banerjee, K.K. Mitra, Prithwishchandra Ray.
2. Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai, Aurobindo Ghosh.