Nationalism In India

Question 1

How did the First World War help in the growth of national movement in India?

Answer 1

i. The First World War created a new economic and political situation. It led to a huge increase
in the war expenditure financed by war loans and increasing taxes.; customs duties were raised
and income tax was introduced.
ii. The price rise was double during the war years. It led to severe hardship for the common
people.
iii. Forced recruitment of soldiers in the rural areas caused wide spread anger.
iv. Failure of crops in 1918-19 and 1920-21 resulted in acute shortage of food. This was
accompanied by an influenza. 13 million people perished in this famine and the epidemic. All
these led to the growth of national movement in India

Question 2

What is meant by the idea of ‘satyagraha ’? Or ‘ A satyagrahi wins the battle
through non-violence .’ Explain with examples .

Answer 2

i. The idea of satyagraha emphasized the power of truth and the need to search for truth. It is
suggested that if the cause was true, if the struggle was against injustice, then physical force was
not necessary to fight the oppressor.
ii. With out seeking vengeance or being aggressive, a satyagrahi could win the battle
through non-violence. This could be done by appealing to the conscience of the
oppressor.
iii. People – including the oppressors – had to be persuaded to see the truth, instead of being
forced to accept truth through the use of violence. By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately
triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.i. After arriving in India, Mahatma Gandhi successfully organized satyagraha
movements in various places. In 1916 he traveled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants
to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
ii. Then in 1917, he organized a satyagraha to support the peasants of the Kheda district of
Gujarat. Affected by crop failure and a plague epidemic, the peasants of Kheda could not pay the
revenue, and were demanding that revenue collection be relaxed.
iii. In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organize a satyagraha movement amongst
cotton mill workers.

Question 3

Mention some of the early political agitations of Mahatma Gandhi in India.

Answer 3

i. After arriving in India, Mahatma Gandhi successfully organized satyagraha
movements in various places. In 1916 he traveled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants
to struggle against the oppressive plantation system.
ii. Then in 1917, he organized a satyagraha to support the peasants of the Kheda district of
Gujarat. Affected by crop failure and a plague epidemic, the peasants of Kheda could not pay the
revenue, and were demanding that revenue collection be relaxed.
iii. In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organize a satyagraha movement amongst
cotton mill workers.

Question 4

Write a note on the Rowlatt Act

Answer 4

i. This Act gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and
allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years. This Act had been hurriedly
passed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian
members
ii. Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt
Act. He wanted non-violent civil disobedience against such unjust laws, which would start with a
‘hartal’ on 6 April.
iii. Rallies were organized in various cities, workers went on strike in railway workshops, and
shops closed down. Alarmed by the popular upsurge, and scared that lines ofcommunication such as the railways and telegraph would be disrupted, the British
administration decided to clamp down on nationalists.
iv. Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from
entering Delhi. On 10 April, the police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession, provoking
widespread attacks on banks, post offices and railway stations. Martial law was imposed and
General Dyer took command.

Question 5

What were the circumstances that led to the Jallian walla Bagh massacre? ( Why was the
Rowlatt Satyahraha launched ? Why was it called off?)

Answer 5

i. The British Government passed the Rowlatt Act in 1919. It gave the British officers wide
powers to imprison people with out trial.
ii. Rowlatt satyagraha was organized in different parts of the country against this Black Act. iii.
On 13 April a crowd of villagers who had come to Amritsar to attend a fair gathered in
the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh. Being from outside the city, they were unaware
of the martial law that had been imposed.
iv. General Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing
hundreds. His object, as he declared later, was to ‘produce a moral effect’, to create in the minds
of satyagrahis a feeling of terror and awe.
v. As the news of Jallianwalla Bagh spread, crowds took to the streets in many north Indian
towns. There were strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on government buildings.
vi. The government responded with brutal repression, seeking to humiliate and terrorize
people: satyagrahis were forced to rub their noses on the ground, crawl on the streets, and do
‘salaam’ (salute) to all sahibs; people were flogged and villages (around Gujranwala in Punjab,
now in Pakistan) were bombed. Seeing violence spread, Mahatma Gandhi called off the
movement.

Question 6

What was the Khilafat issue? How did it become part of the nationalist movement?

Answer 6

i. The First World War had ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey. And there were rumours
that a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman emperor – the spiritual head of
the Islamic world (the Khalifa).
ii. To defend the Khalifa’s powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay
in March 1919. A young generation of Muslim leaders like the brothers Muhammad Ali and
Shaukat Ali, started this movement and they began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi about the
possibility of a united mass struggle on the issue.
iii. Gandhiji saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a unified
national movement. At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, he convinced
other leaders of the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as
for swaraj.

Question 7

What were the reasons for the launching of the Non-cooperation movement?

Answer 7

i. The attainment of Swaraj: Self-rule became the goal of the Congress in 1906. The British had
promised to give self rule after the First World War. However, it was not achieved. The Rowlatt
Act and the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre forced Gandhiji to start Non Cooperation Movement.ii. To support Khilafat Movement: The Khilafat Movement was started by Ali Brothers to stop
the injustice done to Turkey. Gandhiji decided to work together with this movement to bring
the Muslims to the nationalist movement.
iii. To do away the economic distress: Many sections of the Indian society suffered
considerable economic distress. In the towns workers and artisans, the middle class had been hit
by high prices and shortage of food and essential commodities. The rural poor and peasants were
victims of wide spread drought and epidemics. The
British were unmindful to these developments.
In his famous book Hind Swaraj (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule
was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this
cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse
within a year, and swaraj would come. Therefore, he started Non Cooperation
Movement.

Question 8

What were the stages proposed for the Non Cooperation Movement?

Answer 8

i. Renunciation of titles: Subhramanya Iyer and Ravindranath Tagore renounced the honorary
title ‘Sir’ that they received from the British. Gandhiji returned his ‘Kaiser-e- Hind’ medal.
ii. Resigning of important jobs: Many officers resigned their jobs.
iii. Boycott of legislatures: Many people refused to caste vote when the elections to the
legislatures were held. It was followed by the boycott of schools and colleges, law courts etc.
iv. Nonpayment of taxes: This was a powerful method of fighting an oppressive government.
They were not ready to recognize the Govt. legitimate

Question 9

How did Non-Cooperation Movement become a mass movement? Illustrate the answer
by narrating the major developments.

Answer 9

i. The movement started with middle-class participation in the cities. Thousands of students left
government-controlled schools and colleges, headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers
gave up their legal practices.
ii. Council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras, where the Justice Party,
the party of the non-Brahmans, felt that entering the council was one way of gaining
some power – something that usually only Brahmans had access to.
iii. The effects of non-cooperation on the economic front were more dramatic. Foreign goods
were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in huge bonfires.
iv. The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs
102 crore to Rs 57 crore. In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign
goods or finance foreign trade.
v. As the boycott movement spread, and people began discarding imported clothes and wearing
only Indian ones, production of Indian textile mills and handlooms went up.

Question 10

Why was the Non-Cooperation Movement slowed down in the cities?

Answer 10

The Non-Cooperation Movement in the cities gradually slowed down for a variety of reasons.
i. ‘Khadi’ cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth and poor people could
not afford to buy it. So they could not boycott mill cloth for too long.
ii. For the movement to be successful, alternative Indian institutions had to be set up so that they
could be used in place of the British ones. These were very slow to come up.Consequently teachers and children started going back to schools and lawyers started going
back to their courts.

Question 11

What were the causes for the peasant movements in Awadh? How did they organize it?
Why were the congress leaders unhappy with it?

Answer 11

i. The movement in Awadh was against ‘talukdars’ and landlords who demanded from
peasants high rents and a variety of other causes. The movement was led by Baba
Ramchandra – a ‘sanyasi’ who went to Fiji as an indentured labourer.
ii. Peasants had to do begaar and work at landlords’ farms without any payment. As tenants they
had no security of tenure, being regularly evicted so that they could acquire no right over the
leased land.
iii. The peasant movement demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of ‘begar,’ and social
boycott of oppressive landlords.
iv. In many places ‘nai – dhobi bandhs’ were organized by panchayats to deprive landlords
of the services of even barbers and washer men.
v. In June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru began going around the villages in Awadh, talking to the
villagers, and trying to understand their grievances. By October, the Oudh Kisan Sabha was set
up headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300
branches had been set up in the villages around the region.
vi. So when the Non- Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the
Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the wider struggle.
vii. The Congress leadership was unhappy with the peasant movement. As the movement
spread in 1921, the houses of ‘talukdars’ and merchants were attacked, bazaars were
looted, and grain hoards were taken over. In many places local leaders told peasants that
Gandhiji had declared that no taxes were to be paid and land was to be redistributed among the
poor. The name of the Mahatma was being invoked to sanction all action and aspirations.

Question 12

Give an example to prove that the tribal peasants interpreted the message of Non
Cooperation Movement in a different way.

Answer 12

i. In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, for instance, a militant guerrilla movement spread in
the early 1920s – not a form of struggle that the Congress could approve. Here, as in other forest
regions, the colonial government had closed large forest areas, preventing people from entering
the forests to graze their cattle, or to collect fuel wood and fruits.
ii. This made the hill people angry. Not only were their livelihoods affected but they felt that
their traditional rights were being denied.
iii. When the government began forcing them to contribute beggar for road building, the hill
people revolted. The person who came to lead them was Alluri Sitaram Raju. Raju talked of the
greatness of Mahatma Gandhi, said he was inspired by the Non-Cooperation Movement,
and persuaded people to wear ‘khadi’ and give up drinking.
iv. But at the same time he asserted that India could be liberated only by the use of force, not
non-violence. The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British officials
and carried on guerrilla warfare for achieving swaraj. Raju was captured and executed in 1924,
and over time became a folk hero.

Question 13

What did ‘swaraj’ mean for the workers of the plantations? What did they do
when they heard about the Non-Cooperation Movement?

Answer 13

Workers had their own understanding of Mahatma Gandhi and the notion of swaraj. For
plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined
space in which they were enclosed, and it meant retaining a link with the village from which they
had come.
ii. Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the
tea gardens without permission, and in fact, they were not given such permission.
iii. When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers disobeyed the
authorities, left the plantations and went home. They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming and
everyone would be given land in their own villages.
iv. They, however, never reached their destination. They were caught by the police and brutally
beaten up.

Question 14

Why was the Non-Cooperation Movement called off by Gandhiji?

Answer 14

In February 1922, Mahatma Gandhi called off the Non-Cooperation Movement because of the
Chauri Chaura incident,in which 22 policemen were killed by the congressmen. He did not want
to continue the movement in violent methods.
15. Give examples to prove that the term ‘swaraj’ means different things to different people.
i. The term swaraj means self rule or dominion status for the Congress people. It is the type of
Government granted by the British in other self-governing colonies of Australia and Canada.
ii. To peasants in Awadh ‘swaraj’ means reduction in tax, abolition of ‘begaar’ or forced
labour and social boycott of oppressive land lords.
iii. To plantation workers in Assam, ‘swaraj’ means right to move freely in and out the
plantation where they were enclosed and retaining a link with the village from, which they had
come.
iv. To the tribal peasants of the Gudem hills of Andhra Pradesh ‘swaraj’ meant right to
enter forest and collect forest products, graze cattle and give up forced labour.

Question 15

With what aim was ‘the Swarajya Party’ set up?

Answer 15

i. Swarajya party or the Congress Khilafat Swarajya Party was set up by Motilal Nehru and C.R.
Das in 1923. They were tired of mass struggles and wanted to participate in elections to the
provincial councils that had been set up by the Government of India Act of 1919.
ii. They felt that it was important to oppose British policies within the councils, argue for reform
and also demonstrate that these councils were not truly democratic.
iii. They also wanted to keep the anti British spirit of the people alive since Non
Cooperation Movement was suspended.

Question 16

Trace two major developments in the Indian politics towards the late 1920s. or
What were the two factors that shaped Indian politics towards the late 1920’s?

Answer 16

i. The first was the effect of the worldwide economic depression. Agricultural prices began to
fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930. As the demand for agricultural goods fell and exports
declined, peasants found it difficult to sell their harvests and pay their revenue.
ii. The Simon Commission was appointed and came to India in February, 1928. It was appointed
to look in to the working of the Government of India Act of 1919 and to suggest further reformsin the system of administration. The members of the commission were all Englishmen and not a
single Indian was included in it. It led to Simon go back agitation.
iii. Lahore session decision ( Answer 19)

Question 17

Why did Simon Commission visit India? Why was it boycotted?

Answer 17

i. The Simon Commission was appointed in 1927 and it came to India in February, 1928.
It was appointed to look in to the working of the Government of India Act of 1919 and
to suggest further reforms in the system of administration.
ii. The members of the commission were all Englishmen and not a single Indian was included
in it .
The composition of the commission confirmed the fear of Indian people that the government was
not willing to accept the demand for Swaraj. So it was boycotted.

Question 18

What were the two important decisions taken at Lahore Session of the Indian National
Congress in 1929? or Discuss the significance of the Congress session in 1929 in the
freedom struggle of India.

Answer 18

The Lahore session of Indian National Congress of 1929 was held under the president ship of
Jawaharlal Nehru. The two important decisions taken were the following:
a. The attainment of complete independence: It was declared in this session that the chief goal
of the Indian National congress was the attainment of complete independence.
b. It was decided to launch the Civil Disobedience Movement under the leadership of
Gandhiji to get the complete independence..
c. It was decided in this session to celebrate 26th January as the Independence Day all
over the country. Because of its significance the same day was chosen as the Republic day of
India.

Question 19

Why did Gandhiji start the civil disobedience movement? or Under what circumstances
did Gandhiji start the civil disobedience movement?

Answer 19

i. Complete independence became the goal of the Congress at the Lahore session in 1929.
It was decided to launch civil disobedience movement to get complete independence.
ii. On 31 January 1930, Gandhiji sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands. Some of
these were of general interests; others were specific demands of different classes, from
industrialists to peasants. The idea was to make the demands wide-ranging, so that all classes
within Indian society could identify with them and everyone could be brought together in a
united campaign.
iii. The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax. Salt was something
consumed by the rich and the poor alike, and it was one of the most essential items of food.
Mahatma Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unite the nation.
iv. The tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production, Mahatma Gandhi
declared, revealed the most oppressive face of British rule. Since the demands were not accepted
Mahatma Gandhi started his famous Dandi march accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers.
v. The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati
coastal town in Dandi. The volunteers walked for 24 days, about 10 miles a day.
Thousands came to hear Mahatma Gandhi wherever he stopped, and he told them what he meant
by swaraj and urged them to peacefully defy the British.vi. On 6 April, he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, producing salt by boiling
sea water. This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement. What was the salt
satyagraha? ( Write points iv, v and vi above)

Question 20

How was the Civil Disobedience Movement different from the Non
Cooperation Movement?

Answer 20

i. The Non Cooperation Movement was started in 1920 to get swaraj and to support the Khilafat
movement. The Civil Disobedience movement was started in 1930 to get complete
independence.
ii. The Non Cooperation Movement was the first mass movement started by Gandhiji in which
large number of peasants participated where as in Civil disobedience movement a large
number of women participated.
iii. Hindu Muslim unity was achieved its best during Non Cooperation Movement since it
supported the Khilafat Movement where as in Civil Disobedience Movement a large
number of Muslims were alienated.
iv. During the Non Cooperation movement, people were asked not to cooperate with the British
where as in Civil disobedience movement people were asked not to cooperate and to violate
colonial laws.

Question 21

Describe the civil Disobedience Movement. How did it become a mass movement? Or
How was the civil disobedience movement organized?

Answer 21

i. The Dandi march marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.
People were now asked not only to refuse cooperation with the British, as they had done during
Non Cooperation Movement, but also to break colonial laws.
ii. Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured salt and
demonstrated in front of government salt factories.
iii. As the movement spread, foreign cloths were boycotted, and liquor shops were
picketed. Peasants refused to pay revenue and ‘chaukidari’ taxes, village officials resigned, and
in many places, forest people violated forest laws by going into Reserved Forests to collect
wood and graze cattle.
iv. Worried by the developments, the colonial government began arresting the
Congress leaders one by one. This led to violent clashes in many palaces.
v. When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a disciple of Mahatma Gandhi, was arrested in April
1930, angry crowds demonstrated in the streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars
and police firing. Many were killed.
vi. When Mahatma Gandhi was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked police posts,
municipal buildings, law courts, and railway stations –all structures that symbolized British
rule.
vii. The frightened government responded with a policy of brutal repression. Peaceful
satyagrahis were attacked, women and children were beaten, and about 100,000
people were arrested. In such a situation, Mahatma Gandhi decided to call off the movement.
Why did Gandhi call of civil disobedience movement? ( Write points v, vi, and vii above)

Question 22

Why did Gandhi re-launch civil disobedience movement?

Answer 22

i In December 1931, Gandhiji went to London to attend the Second Round Table
Conference, but the negotiations broke down and he returned disappointed.
ii Back in India, he discovered that the government had begun a new cycle of repression.
Ghaffar Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru were both in jail, the Congress had been declared
illegal.
iii A series of measures had been imposed to prevent meetings, demonstrations and
boycotts. With great apprehension, Mahatma Gandhi re-launched the Civil
Disobedience Movement.

Question 23

Describe the participation of different social groups in the Civil Disobedience
Movement. Why did they join the movement?

Answer 23

Peasnat communities.
ii Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by the trade depression and
falling prices. As their cash income disappeared, they found it impossible to pay the
government’s revenue demand.
iii The refusal of the government to reduce the revenue demand led to widespread
resentment. These rich peasants were active in organizing their communities, and at times
forcing reluctant members, to participate in the boycott programmes.
iv For them the fight for swaraj was a struggle against high revenues.
v But they were deeply disappointed when the movement was called off in 1931 without the
revenue rates being revised. Therefore, when the movement was restarted in 1932, many of them
refused to participate.
i. The poorer peasants were not just interested in the lowering of the revenue demand.
Many of them were small tenants cultivating land they had rented from landlords.
ii. As the Depression continued and cash incomes decreased, the small tenants found it difficult
to pay their rent. They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted.
iii. They joined a variety of radical movements, often led by Socialists and Communists.
iv. Congress did not want to upset the rich peasants and landlords, and was unwilling to
support ‘no rent’ campaigns of the poor peasants in most places. So the relationship
between the poor peasants and the Congress remained uncertain.
Business class
i. Indian merchants and industrialists wanted protection against imports of foreign goods and a
rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio that would discourage imports.
ii. They wanted to end colonial control over Indian economy. They joined Civil
Disobedience Movement and gave financial assistance and refused to buy or sell imported goods.
iii. Most businessmen came to see swaraj as a time when colonial restrictions on business would
no longer exist and trade and industry would flourish without constraints.
iv.As the industrialists came closer to the Congress, workers stayed aloof. The Congress was
reluctant to include workers’ demands as part of its programme of struggle. It felt that this would
alienate industrialists and divide the anti-imperial forces.Indian merchants and industrialists
i. To organize business interests, they formed the Indian Industrial and Commercial
Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries
(FICCI) in 1927.
ii. Led by prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G. D. Birla, the
industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian economy, and supported the Civil
Disobedience Movement when it was first launched. They gave financial assistance and refused
to buy or sell imported goods.
Women in the civil disobedience movement.
i An important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement was the large-scale
participation of women. During Gandhiji’s salt march, thousands of women came out of their
homes to listen to him.
ii They participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, and picketed foreign cloth and liquor
shops. Many went to jail.
iii In urban areas, these women were from high-caste families; in rural areas, they came from
rich peasant households. Moved by Gandhiji’s call, they began to see service to the nation as a
sacred duty of women.
iv.And for a long time the Congress was reluctant to allow women to hold any position of
authority within the organization. It was keen only on their symbolic presence.
‘Dalit participation in the civil disobedience movement
i. For long the Congress had ignored the Dalits, for fear of offending the Sanatanis, the
conservative high-caste Hindus.
ii. Many Dalit leaders had different political solution to the problems of the community.
They began organizing themselves, demanding reserved seats in educational institutions, and
separate electorates that would choose Dalit members for legislative councils.
Therefore their participation in the civil disobedience movement was limited

Question 24

Why did Gandhiji and Dr. Ambedkhar come into a conflict in the Second Round
Table Conference? What was the result? Or Explain the circumstances leading to
the Poona Pact of 1932. What are its provisions?

Answer 24

i Dr. Ambedkhar demanded separate electorates for dalits. Gandhiji opposed it.
Gandhiji believed that separate electorates for Dalits would slow down the process
of their integration into society.
ii When the British government granted Ambedkar’s demand, Gandhiji began a fast unto
death. Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhiji’s position and the result was the Poona
Pact of September 1932.
iii It gave the Depressed, reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils, but they
were to be voted in by the general electorate.

Question 25

What were the main features of the Gandhi-Irwin Pact?

Answer 25

i. Gandhi-Irwin Pact which was signed in March 1931, was the result of the effort made by the
Viceroy Irwin to persuade the Congress to join the Second Round Table Conference.ii. According to the agreement the govt. agreed to release all political prisoners. Gandhiji should
attend the 2nd Round Table Conference and he should call off the Civil Disobedience
Movement. The congress agreed to take part in the Second Round Table Conference.

Question 26

What were the means of creating a feeling of nationalism or collective belonging in the
minds of the Indian people? Or What were the icons and symbols used during the
nationalist movement in unifying people and inspiring in them a feeling of nationalism?

Answer 26

i. The sense of collective belonging came partly through the experience of united
struggles. But there were also a variety of cultural processes through which
nationalismcaptured people’s imagination. History and fiction, folklore and songs, popular
prints and symbols, all played a part in the making of nationalism.
ii. The identity of the nation is most often symbolized in a figure or image like the Bharat
Mata. This helps create an image with which people can identify the nation.
iii. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ in 1870s as a hymn to the
motherland. Later it was widely sung during the Swadeshi movement in Bengal. Moved by the
Swadeshi movement, Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata In this
painting Bharat Mata is portrayed as an ascetic figure; she is calm, composed, divine and
spiritual.
iv. Ideas of nationalism also developed through a movement to revive Indian folklore. In late
nineteenth-century India, nationalists began recording folk tales sung by bards and they toured
villages to gather folk songs and legends. These tales, they believed, gave a true picture of
traditional culture that had been corrupted and damaged by outside forces. It was essential to
preserve this folk tradition in order to discover one’s national identity and restore a sense of pride
in one’s past.
v. As the national movement developed, nationalist leaders became more and more aware of
such icons and symbols in unifying people and inspiring in them a feeling of
nationalism. During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green and yellow)
was designed. It had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent
moon, representing Hindus and Muslims.
vi. By 1921, Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolour (red, green and
white) and had a spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self- help.
Carrying the flag, holding it aloft, during marches became a symbol of defiance.
vii. Another means of creating a feeling of nationalism was through reinterpretation of history.
By the end of the nineteenth century many Indians began feeling that to instill a sense of pride in
the nation, Indian history had to be reinterpreted. They wrote about the
glorious developments in ancient times when art and architecture, science and
mathematics, religion and culture, law and philosophy, crafts and trade had flourished. These
nationalist histories urged the readers to take pride in India’s great achievements in the past and
struggle to change the miserable conditions of life under British rule. (any 5 points)