India - Unit 2A Flashcards
How did Gandhi appeal to the peasant masses?
Adopted a peasant lifestyle:
Wore an Indian dhoti (traditional clothes made from Indian sourced materials)
Ate the same foods the lower castes did
Spun a chakra (a spinning wheel) daily
Adopted an ashram lifestyle - renounced sexual relations due to purification beliefs
What did people begin calling Gandhi?
Mahatma - Meaning ‘the Great Soul’
What caused Gandhi to believe in swaraj?
The Rowlatt acts showed British oppression
The April 1919 Amritsar Massacre showed further oppression, along with the reaction of many British people in support of Dyer’s actions
He believed that Britain no longer had the moral right to rule India
How did Gandhi emerge as the leader of Congress?
He appealed to the peasant masses
Combined spiritual strength and political awareness
Appealed to both Hindu’s and Muslims
Other potential leaders such as Tilak and Gokhale had died, so there weren’t exactly many other options
What did Gandhi propose in an INC annual meeting in 1920?
Non-Cooperation
Majority vote of 2:1
What did non-cooperation entail?
Boycotting the elections for the new legislative assemblies
Withholding taxes
Removing children from government schools
Leaving all government posts
Boycotting imported goods
Why was non-cooperation somewhat unrealistic?
People were unlikely to deprive their children of educations
People in roles such as lawyers were unlikely to leave their lucrative jobs
Why was non-cooperation viable?
Actions like mass refusal to pay taxes could bring most government departments to a halt
What did non-cooperation actually result in?
Successes:
Students boycotted exams
Taxes not paid
Some people boycotted the 1920 elections
Failures:
Bombay - a hartal reuslted in looting and rioting, leaving 53 dead and hundreds injured
Muslim Moplahs in Malaba - Declared a jihad, resulting in them killing wealthy landowners and forcing Hindu peasants to convert to Islam
Punjab - Hindus forced Muslims to be ‘purified’ by immersing them in water, drowning many
Chauri Chaura
1922
Police attacked Indian protestors
In response they burned down a police station, killing 22 Indian policemen
Gandhi called an end to the campaign and turned to work on social welfare programmes instead
How did the British respond to Chauri Chaura?
Arrested Gandhi a month after on charges of promoting dissafection
Why was Gandhi’s imprisonment actually kind of good for Congress?
Things calmed down massively, giving both the INC and the Raj breathing space, especially as the moderate Motilal Nehru became the leader of the INC
- Congress became more involved in peasant communities
- Congress became more interested in local support
- Congress took advantage of the 1919 GOI Act to gain positions of political power
- The Raj began to actually be kind of helpful, providing a smallpox inoculation program now that things were calmed down
When was Gandhi released from prison?
1924, two years into his original six year sentence
How did Congress consolidate its position as a legitimate political party from 1922-1930?
Increased membership
Reorganisation
‘Back to basics’ campaign
Increased their political power by taking advantage of the GOI Act
Extending the appeal of Congress - Memebership
Members rose by 2 million by the end of 1921
CA: Many Muslims left due to concerns about their rights not being represented and some more moderate members of the party left as they wanted the INC to be a pressure group rather than outright anti-Raj
How was Congress organised before 1920?
3 Levels:
Local Branches
Provincial Committees
All-Indian Congress Committee
Extending the appeal of Congress - Organisation
Gandhi had called for restructure in 1920 of the party administrative levels
- All-Indian Congress Committee members raised from 161 to 350 seats
- Seats were allocated on a regional population basis
- Emphasis was placed on recruiting women
- Approximately 100 additional provincial committees and hundreds of additional local branches were set up
What did Gandhi found in 1924 as a part of the INC?
The Congress Working Committee (CWC)
It’s job was to formulate policy, mirroring what a cabinet is to a government
Gandhi’s ‘Back to basics’
- Gandhi set up the All-India spinners association to promote self-sufficiency
- He convinced congress to run campaigns for mass literacy and better village sanitation
- Campaigned for the ‘Untouchables’ to be allowed to fully enter Indian society
Gandhi and Congress seemed to be working towards a peaceful Independence road in 1924, and the country appeared to be following. What changed this?
- The young hooligans
- The Simon Commission
Who were the young hooligans and what was their goal?
Bose
Narayan
Jawaharlal Nehru
They opposed Congress’s ideas of appealing for partial independence, dominion status, and lobbied the All-Indian Congress Committee and the CWC
They wanted full independence - purna swaraj - and wanted a more active approach to gaining it
Who presented the Nehru report and when?
At an All-Parties Conference in 1928
Lawyers Motilal Nehru and Sapru presented this report
What did the Nehru report suggest?
- Dominion status for India, just like Canada and Australia had
- The princely states to join in a federation
- The disregard of separate electorates and reserved seats, which would guarantee a Hindu majority government
Congress reaction to the Nehru Report
Boycotted the Simon Commission
December 1928 Congress meeting, delegates backed two motions:
Demanded instant dominion status (backed by moderates)
Demanded that Britain completely withdraw from India by the 31st December 1929 (backed by extremists)
The demand for Britain to completely leave was unrealistic, and the INC knew this. It meant however when Britain inevitably did not leave, they would have a justification for further non-cooperation.
Lahore Congress
December 1929
Gandhi knew that another mass civil disobedience campaign would alienate moderates, but the young hooligans had garnered much support
Gandhi chose to back the young hooligans, and the INC declared purna swaraj as it’s new goal
The task of deciding how to begin non-violent confrontation was left to the CWC, who left the decision to Gandhi
When was Gandhi’s first civil disobedience campaign?
1920-1922
