Important Terms
Council : Council is an appointed or elected body of people with an administrative, advisory or representative function.
“General” Constituencies : “General” constituencies are election districts with no reservations for any religious or other communities.
Illegal Eviction : Illegal eviction is a forcible and unlawful throwing out of tenants from the land they rent.
Knighthood : Knighthood is an honour granted by the British Crown for exceptional personal achievement or public service.
Moderates : A group in Congress who believed that struggles should be peaceful. It had immense faith in British rule.
Nationalism : The feeling of oneness and unity among the people of a nation or patriotic feeling, principles and policy no of national independence is termed as nationalism.
Picket : Picket is an act of protest by the people outside a building or shop to prevent others from entering.
Provincial Autonomy : Provincial autonomy is the capacity of the province to make relatively independent decisions while remaining within a federation.
Publicist : Publicist is the one who publicises an idea by circulating information, writing reports, speaking at meetings, etc.
Radicals : A group of people with new opinions and beliefs in the Congress. They opposed the methods of the moderates.
Repeal : Repeal refers to officially ending the validity of a law.
Revolutionary violence : Revolutionary violence refers to the use of violence to make a radical change within society.
Refugee : A person who is forced to leave his native country due to political, religious or social cause.
Revolutionaries : The revolutionaries were a small group of people who suggested that the use of violence to make a radical change within the society would be necessary to overthrow the British rule.
Sarvajanik : Public
Swaraj : Self-rule government
Swadeshi : The broad meaning of Swadeshi is “the use of all homemade things and the exclusion of foreign things.”
Satyagraha : Satyagraha is the policy of non-violent resistance developed by Mahatma Gandhi as a means of pressing for political reforms in South Africa and India.
Sovereign : Sovereign means the capacity to act independently without outside interference.
Important Dates
1878 : The Arms Act and the Vernacular Press Act was passed.
1885 : Establishment of the Indian National Congress.
1905 : Partition of Bengal, beginning of the Swadeshi Movement.
1906 : Establishment of All India Muslim League.
1915 : Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa.
1916 : Lucknow Pact to achieve Hindu-Muslim unity.
1919 : Beginning of Rowlatt Satyagraha.
1920 : Beginning of Non-Cooperation Movement.
1922 : Non-Cooperation Movement called off by Gandhiji.
1929 : The Congress decided to fight to achieve ‘Purna Swaraj’ (complete independence).
26th January 1930 : Independence Day was observed across India.
1930 : Mahatma Gandhi started the Dandi March.
1939 : Second World War started.
August 1942 : Beginning of the Quit India Movement.
1945 : The Britishers opened negotiations with the Congress, and Muslim League for independence of India. The talks failed as the League demanded for new Pakistan.
1947 : Partition of the country into India and Pakistan.
Important Notes
Indian National Congress
The founder leaders of Indian National Congress were Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Badruddin Tyabji, W. C. Banerjee, Romesh Chandra Dutt, S. Subramania Iyer Mainly.They came from Bombay and Calcutta. Naoroji was a businessman and publicist settled in London, he guided the younger nationalists. A. O. Hume, a retired British official, worked significantly in reuniting Indians together.
The early moderate Congress raised a number of economic issues :
(a) It declared that British rule had led to poverty and famines, increase in the land revenue had impoverished peasants and zamindars, and export of grains to Europe had created food shortage.
(b) The Congress demanded reduction of revenue, cut in military expenditure, and more funds for irrigation.
The factors that led to the rise of national consciousness among the people of India were :
(i) Awareness among the people that the Britishers were exercising control over them, leading to the formation of political associations. The important political association formed during 1870-1880 were the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, the Indian Association, the Madras Mahajan Sabha, the Bombay Presidency Association and the Indian National Congress.
(ii) The dissatisfaction with British rule intensified in the 1870s and 1880s. They posted various laws which agitated the people of India.
(iii) The Arms Act passed in 1878, disallowed the Indians from possessing arms.
(iv) In the same year, the Vernacular Press Act was also enacted in an effort to check those who were critical of the government. The Act allowed the government to confiscate the assets of newspapers which published anything that was found ‘objectionable’.
(v) In 1883, there was an attempt by the government to introduce the Ilbert Bill. The bill provided for the trial of British or European persons by Indians, and sought equality between British and Indian judges in the country. But when white opposition forced the government to withdraw the bill, Indians were enraged. of the British The in event India highlighted the racial attitudes in India.
Partition of Bengal
Results of partition of Bengal :
(a) All sections of the Congress – the Moderates and the Radicals, as they were called, opposed it.
(b) Large public meetings and demonstrations were organised and novel methods of mass protest were developed.
(c) The struggle that unfolded came to be known as the Swadeshi movement, strongest in Bengal but with echoes elsewhere too, in deltaic Andhra for instance, it was known as the Vandemataram Movement.
Quit India Movement
Mahatma Gandhi was a mass leader. Gandhiji, aged 46, arrived in India in 1915 from South Africa. Having led Indians in that country in non-violent marches against racist restrictions, he was already a respected leader, known internationally.
His South Africa campaigns had brought him in contact with various types of Indians:Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Christians, Gujaratis, Tamil and North-Indians and upper-class merchants, lawyers and workers.
Mahatma Gandhi spent his first year in India travelling throughout the country, understanding umall the people, their needs and the overall situation.
Mahatma Gandhi decided to initiate a new phase of movements against the British in the middle of the Second World War.
(a) He told them that the British must quit India immediately. He urged the people “do or die in your effort to fight against the British-but you must fight non-violently”.
(b) Gandhi and other leaders were jailed at once when the movement spread.
(c) It specially attracted peasants and the youth who gave up their studies to join it.
(d) Communications and symbols of state authority were attacked on, all over the country
(e) In many areas, people set up their own governments.
Swadeshi Movement
Muslim League
A groups of Muslim landlords and Nawabs formed the All India Muslim league at Dacca in 1906. The league supported the partition of Bengal. It desired separate electorates for Muslims. This demand was conceded by the government in 1906.
The goals of Muslim League were :
(a) The Muslim League supported the partition of Bengal.
(b) It demanded separate electorates for Muslim, conceded by the government in 1909.
(c) It wanted special favours for its own religious group/minority people.
Demands of Muslim League
The Muslim league had moved a resolution demanding “Independent states” for Muslims in the north-western and eastern areas of the country.
(a) The resolution did not mention partition or creation of Pakistan.
(b) From the late 1930, the league began viewing the Muslims as a separate `nation’ from the Hindus.
(c) The development of this nation may have been influenced by the history of tension between some Hindu and Muslim groups in the 1920s and 1930s.
(d) More importantly, the provincial elections of 1937 seemed to have convinced the league that Muslims were a minority and they would always have to play second fiddle in any democratic structure. It feared that Muslims may even go unrepresented.
(e) The Congress’s rejection of the league’s desire to form a joint congress – league government in the United Provinces in 1937, also annoyed the league.
Rowlatt Act
Moderates
The leaders and workers of the Congress were known as ‘Moderates’. Moderates practised the “Politics of progress”. They would raise various political, administrative and economic issues, place their demands before the government, and expected the government to take action accordingly. Struggle against British Rule : They wanted to develop public awareness about the unjust nature of British rule. They published newspapers, wrote articles, and showed how the British rule was leading to the economic ruin of the country. They criticised British rule in their speeches and sent representatives to different parts of the country to mobilise public opinion. They felt that the Britishers had respect for the ideals of freedom and justice, and so would accept the just demands of Indians.
The effects of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre :
(i) On learning about the massacre, Rabindranath Tagore expressed the pain and anger of the country by renouncing his knighthood.
(ii) The Congress campaigned against Jallianwala Bagh massacre by initiating Non-cooperation Movement.
The aims of NCM and Khilafat movements were :
(a) They demanded for Swaraj.
(b) They wanted to reduce the ‘wrongs’ committed against Punjab and Turkey.
Non-Cooperation Movement
Mahatma Gandhi was against violent movements. He abruptly called off the Non-Cooperation Movement when in February 1922, a crowd of peasants set fire to a police station in Chauri Chaura. The Non-Cooperation Movement gained momentum through 1921-22. Thousands of students left government controlled schools and colleges. Many lawyers gave up their practices. British titles were surrendered, people lit public bonfires of foreign cloth. Large part of the country was on the edge of revolt.
Lala Lajpat Rai
Lala Lajpat Rai was a nationalist from Punjab, he was one of the leading members of the Radical group which was critical of the politics of petitions. He was also an active member of the Arya Samaj.
Jinnah’s role in the Muslim League
Mohammed Ali Jinnah was an ambassador of Hindu Muslim unity until 1920. He played an important role in the making of the Lucknow pact. He reorganised the Muslim League after 1934 and became the major spokesperson for the illicit demand of a separate country-Pakistan.
The British expand its army during the War period :
People in for an villages were pressurized to supply soldiers for an alien cause.
(i) A large number of soldiers were sent overseas.
(ii) Many returned after the ways with an understanding of the ways in which imperialist powers were exploiting the people in Asia and Africa, and with a desire to oppose colonial rule in India.
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