Indian Independence Movement

The Indian Independence Movement was a series of revolutions empowered by the people of India put forth to battle the British Empire for complete political independence, beginning with the Rebellion of 1857, reaching its climax with Mahatma Gandhi's Quit India Movement (1942-1945), and Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army invasion of British India during World War II, and freedom came on August 15, 1947.

The Gandhian generation

:Main article: Mahatma Gandhi

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India's option for an entirely original path to obtaining swaraj (self-rule, sometimes translated as Home Rule or Independence) was due largely to Mahatma Gandhi, (Mahatama meaning Great Soul). A native of Gujarat who had been educated in Britain, he had been a timid lawyer with a modest practice. His legal career lasted a short time, since he immediately took to fighting for just causes on behalf of the Indian community in South Africa. Gandhi had accepted an invitation in 1893 to represent indentured Indian laborers in South Africa, where he stayed on for more than twenty years, lobbying against racial discrimination. Gandhi's battle was not only against basic discrimination and abusive labour treatment; it was in protest of suppressive police control akin to the Rowlatt Acts. After several months of non-violent protests and arrests of thousands of indentured laborers, the ruler of South Africa, Gen. Jan Smutts released all prisoners and repealed the oppressive legislation. A young, timid Indian was now blooded in the art of revolution, and on well on course to Mahatma-hood. His victory in South Africa excited many Indians at home.

Related Topics:
Swaraj - Mahatma Gandhi - Gujarat - South Africa - 1893 - Racial discrimination - Rowlatt Acts - Jan Smutts

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He returned to India in 1915, virtually a stranger to public life but fired with a patriotic vision of a new India. It should be noted, however, that Gandhi did not yet believe that political independence from the Empire was the solution to India's problems. Upon his return, he had candidly stated that if as a citizen of the Empire, he wanted freedom and protection, it would be wrong of him not to aid in the defense of the Empire during World War I.

Related Topics:
1915 - World War I

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A veteran Congressman and Indian leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale became Gandhi's mentor, and Gandhi traveled widely across the country for years, through different provinces, villages and cities, learning about India's cultures, the life of the vast majority of Indians, their difficulties and tribulations.

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Gandhi's ideas and strategies of nonviolent civil disobedience initially appeared impractical to some Indians and veteran Congressmen. In Gandhi's own words, "civil disobedience is civil breach of unmoral statutory enactments," but as he viewed it, it had to be carried out nonviolently by withdrawing cooperation with the corrupt state. Gandhi's ability to inspire millions of common people was initiated when he used satyagraha during the anti-Rowlatt Act protests in Punjab.

Related Topics:
Civil disobedience - Satyagraha

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In Champaran, Bihar, Gandhi took up the cause of desperately poor sharecroppers, landless farmers who were being forced to grow cash crops at the expense of crops which formed their food supply, and pay horrendously oppressive taxes. Neither were they sufficiently paid to buy food. By now, Gandhi had shed his European dress for self-woven khadi dhotis and shawls, as is seen in the picture at the head of the article and his most famous pictures.

Related Topics:
Champaran - Bihar - Khadi - Dhoti

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This simple Gandhi instantly electrified millions of poor, common Indians. He was one of them, not a fancy, educated elitist Indian. His arrest by police caused major protests throughout the province and the British government was forced to release him, and grant the demands of Gandhi and the farmers of Bihar, which were the freedom to grow the crops of their choosing, exemption from taxation when hurt by famine or drought, and proper compensation for cash crops.

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It was with his victory in Champaran, that Gandhi was lovingly accorded the title of Mahatma. It was given not by journalists or observers, but the very millions of people for whom he had come to fight.

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In 1920, under Gandhi's leadership, the Congress was reorganized and given a new constitution, whose goal was Swaraj (independence). Membership in the party was opened to anyone prepared to pay a token fee, and a hierarchy of committees was established and made responsible for discipline and control over a hitherto amorphous and diffuse movement. The party was transformed from an elite organization to one of mass national appeal and participation.

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Gandhi always stressed that the movement should not be directed against the British people, but the unjust system of foreign administration. British officers and leaders are human beings, emphasized Gandhi, and capable of the same mistakes of intolerance, racism and cruelty as the common Indian or any other human being. Punishment for these sins was God's task, and not the mission of the freedom movement. But the liberation of 350 million people from colonial and social tyranny definitely was.

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During his first nationwide satyagraha, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British educational institutions, law courts, and products; to resign from government employment; to refuse to pay taxes; and to forsake British titles and honors. Although this came too late to influence the framing of the new Government of India Act of 1919, the magnitude of disorder resulting from the movement was unparalleled and presented a new challenge to foreign rule. Over 10 million people protested according to Gandhi's guidelines in all cities and thousands of towns and villages in every part of the country. But Gandhi made a tough decision and called off the campaign in 1922 because of an atrocious murder of policemen in Chauri Chaura by a mob of agitators. He was deeply distressed with the act, and the possibility that crowds of protestors would lose control like this in different parts of the country, causing the fight for national freedom to degenerate into a chaotic orgy of bloodshed, where Englishmen would be murdered by mobs, and the British forces would retaliate against innocent civilians. He felt Indians needed more discipline and had to understand that they were not out to punish the British, but to expose the cruelty and evil behind their discrimination and tyranny. As much as liberating India, he hoped to reform the British, see them as friends and break the back of racism and colonialism across the world.

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He was imprisoned in 1922 for six years, but served only two. On his release from prison, he set up the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, on the banks of river Sabarmati, established the newspaper Young India, and inaugurated a series of reforms aimed at the socially disadvantaged within Hindu society - the rural poor, and the untouchables.

Related Topics:
1922 - Sabarmati Ashram - Ahmedabad - Sabarmati - Untouchable

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Emerging leaders within the Congress --Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose, and others-- championed Gandhi's leadership in articulating nationalist aspirations. The Indian political spectrum was further broadened in the mid-1920s by the emergence of both moderate and militant parties, such as the Swaraj Party, Hindu Mahasabha, Communist Party of India and the Rashtriya Swayemsevak Sangh. Regional political organizations also continued to represent the interests of non-Brahmans in Madras, Mahars in Maharashtra, and Sikhs in Punjab.

Related Topics:
Jawaharlal Nehru - Vallabhbhai Patel - Subhash Chandra Bose - Swaraj Party - Hindu Mahasabha - Communist Party of India - Rashtriya Swayemsevak Sangh - Brahman - Madras - Mahar - Maharashtra - Sikh

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Dandi March and the civil disobedience movement

:Main article: Salt Satyagraha

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Following the rejection of the recommendations of the Simon Commission by Indians, an all-party conference was held at Bombay in May 1928. The conference appointed a drafting committee under Motilal Nehru to draw up a constitution for India. The Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress asked the British government to accord dominion status to India by December 1929, or a countrywide civil disobedience movement would be launched. The Indian National Congress, at its historic Lahore session in December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, adopted a resolution to gain complete independence from the British. It authorised the Working Committee to launch a civil disobedience movement throughout the country. It was decided that 26 January 1930 should be observed all over India as the Purna Swaraj (complete independence) Day. Many Indian political parties and Indian revolutionaries of a wide spectrum united to observe the day with honor and pride.

Related Topics:
Simon Commission - Bombay - 1928 - Motilal Nehru - Calcutta - Lahore - 1929 - 26 January - 1930

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Gandhi emerged from his long seclusion by undertaking his most famous campaign, a march of about 400 kilometers from his commune in Ahmedabad to Dandi, on the coast of Gujarat between 12 March and 6 April, 1930. The march is usually known as the Dandi March or the Salt Satyagraha. At Dandi, in protest against British taxes on salt, he and thousands of followers broke the law by making their own salt from sea water.

Related Topics:
Ahmedabad - Dandi - Gujarat - 12 March - 6 April - 1930

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In April 1930 there were violent police-crowd clashes in Calcutta. Approximately over 100,000 people were imprisoned in the course of the Civil disobedience movement (1930-31). While Gandhi was in jail, the first Round Table Conference was held in London in November 1930, without representation from the Indian National Congress. The ban upon the Congress was removed because of economic hardships caused by the satyagraha. Gandhi, along with other members of the Congress Working Committee, was released from prison in January 1931.

Related Topics:
Calcutta - Round Table Conference

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In March of 1931, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact was signed, and the government agreed to set all political prisoners free. In return, Gandhi agreed to discontinue the civil disobedience movement and participate as the sole representative of the Congress in the second Round Table Conference, which was held in London in September 1931. However, the conference ended in failure in December 1931. Gandhi returned to India and decided to resume the civil disobedience movement in January 1932.

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For the next few years, the Congress and the government were locked in conflict and negotiations until what became the Government of India Act of 1935 could be hammered out. By then, the rift between the Congress and the Muslim League had become unbridgeable as each pointed the finger at the other acrimoniously. The Muslim League disputed the claim of the Congress to represent all people of India, while the Congress disputed the Muslim League's claim to voice the aspirations of all Muslims.

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