According to the indian perspective of history The Indian Independence movement more or less completely revolves around Mahatma Gandhi.He was born in 1969 studied barristership from London and started law practice in South-Africa. He led an unequal movement of resistence in south-africa against the government,which was based on racial discrimination faced by the black skinned natives in south-africa(1893-1905) .
Meanwhile the political scenario of India was complicated.The Congress was already divided into two during the Surat session in 1907. The moderates were led by the likes of surendranath banerjee,Gopal krishna Gokhale,Raas behari bose etc.While the extremist faction was led by the trio of Bal-Pal-LaL. The Muslim league had already attained separated electoral colleges for them through the Morley-Minto reform and were considered as the British-loyalist along with the moderates of Congress.From this clear void in the political scenario of India ,emerged a leader ,whom the world came to know as "father of India".
Gandhiji's political philosophy can be defined in his own words in just two concepts i.e. 'satyagraha' and 'ahimsa'. He had developed the practice of satyagraha in south-africa itself but the concept of ahimsa based on the teachings of buddha developed gradually in his active years in India.
Before him the politics of India was confined to the limit of the big cities and towns.The visionary leadership of gandhi took the spirit of independence and resistence to the masses. His scope became pan-indian and inclusive.
He established his sabarmati ashram ahmedabad,gujarat and started his political activities in India.
He led the struggles of champaran satyagraha in bihar and ahemedabad jute mills in gujarat and started his reach among the rural population.
The first ever achievement credited to Gandhi can be the Lucknow-pact in 1916.In which the two biggest party in India,Indian National Congress and Muslim league came together for the sake of the struggle for independence and laid the foundation of hindu-muslim unity among the masses all over India.He even opened the way for the dalits to enter his politics of inclusive India through the practices of banning 'untouchablity' and defining whole Indian population as shudras through his writings and speeches.He reached out to the traders industrialists and zamindars from various parts of India and developed the feeling of the lack of security to their businesses under the foreign rule.
The lucknow pact gave the 1/3rd of seats to the Muslim league and both the parties jointly demanded self-rule in India.The international events like Russian-Revolution and various national movements all over asia after the fall of the mighty ottoman-empire(or caliphate) also motivated the Indian mass for the sttuggle and resistence.The idea of communism and nationalism also motivated the Indian elites and leaders.
The ground implementation of his theory of ahimsa can be seen in the non-cooperation movememt and his idea of inclusive-india religious-tolerance can be seen from his support to the khilafat movement.
The social scenario of India was very tense before the proclamation of the non-cooperation movement.Mahatma Gandhi with his new brand of politics had already sidelined the liberalist from the political scenario.His was a politics of agitation,boycott,swadeshi and non-cooperation instead of prayers,petition and delegation.The first world -war and fall of ottoman caliphate had already angered the muslim community and the sikh community had recently faced the tragedy popularly known as the jalianwala-massacre.
The non-cooperation movement came after the declaration of the montagu-chelmsford reform. The british empire had promised self rule to the nationalist before the great war but after the war they just raised some seats in the council and gave the department of education and health in the hands of the elected members while the finance and police department remained under the governor.Congress rejected the reforms in response to it they passed the Rowlatt-act. The nationalists started mass boycott of foreign products and started promoting charkhas.A lot of students left the english colleges and joined the national schools while Gandhi promoted hindu-muslim unity,ahimsa and untouchablity but then an incident named chauri-chaura happend in 1922 and Gandhi took the non-cooperation movement back.This act proves his belief in the concept of ahimsa. Many leaders saw this as an act of weakness and criticised Gandhi. Chitranjan das along with Motilal nehru founded a different party named "swaraj-party".Meanwhile in the trial for the case of violence Gandhi pleaded Guilty and demanded maximum punishment for himself.This selfless act proves his sense of justice and his belief in Independent judiciary system.Gandhi was sentenced to 6 years of imprisionment and the non-cooperation movement came to an end.Turkey elected Mustafa Kamal pasha as their leader and he established a secular state in turkey and abolished the position of khalifa and sultan from turkey thereby killing the khilafat movement.
Gandhis health deteriorated in jail during the first month of the year 1924.The government pardoned his further imprisionment unconditionally. He moved himself from politics for some time . The swaraj party also dissolved after the death of chitranjan das and motilal nehru's return to the Indian national congress.
The british government appointed the simon commision in 1928 in order to frame rules for India.Not a single Indian was included in this commission. This fascist law was against the theory of swaraj or self-rule. A lot of mass agitations,hartals,boycott mass gatherings broke out all over the country.Which even got instified by police brutality and death of lala lajpat rai by lathicharge.The hindu mahasabha and Muslim league also condemned the simon commission and again every eye was turned towards the best hope they had,Gandhi.
Mahatma Gandhi started the civil disobedience movement by marching from ahmedabad to dandi.His 375 km on-foot march was accompanied by 78 of his companions.Gandhi reached Dandi and broke the salt law and started the civil-disobedience movement.Similar protests were done in other parts of India under the leadership of C.Rajagopalachari, sarojini naidu,Khan abdur ghaffar khan and others.
When the first round table conference was called on november 1930 to discuss the simon-commission ,congress boycotted the conference. The conference without congress was like Ramleela without Ram. Then Governor general of India Lord Irwin approached Gandhi and the Famous Gandhi-Irwin pact was signed.They agreed to release every political prisionors who weren't part of violence and even accepted independent businesses like productivity of salt and other local products.This pact had proved the congress as an equal to the head of state of India.
Congress agreed to attend the second round table conference and choosed Gandhi to represent them in the conference. This confrence came out to be unfruitful and Gandhi returned India unsatisfied and decided to continue the civil disobedience movement.The congress was banned and gandhi was arrested again along with many satyagrahis. Although he managed to come in common terms with Dr bhimrao ambedkar and persuaded him(ambedkar) to surrender his demand for a separate electoral college for dalits but in whole he hadn't achieved anything concrete.The Government of India act 1935 was passed giving all the all india departments to the natives but keeping the monoploies in hands of the governors.Leaders like vittalbhai patel and subhash chandra bose critised Gandhi by calling it a "failure of Leadership".
The 30s of the tweentieth century began with the great depression in america,this affected all the capitalist countries of that time.A lot of people in the capitalist countries became jobless.On the other hand the condition of the socialist country USSR was different they have successfully completed their two 5 year plans of the government. This advancement of the socialist ideologies gave rise to two socialist movements in India i.e. Communist party of India under P.C.Joshi and Socialist party under Ram manohar lohia and jay prakash narayana.
Gandhi in order to counter this rise of socialism appointed Jawaharlal Nehru a centre-left leader as the president of the Indian National Congress in the historic lahore session of congress in 1929.They declared complete-swaraj as their ultimate goal in this very session. The 30s were dominated by Jawaharlal Nehru till 1937.Although the round table confreences failed,the british government decided to pass the Government of India act which every department to the natives but still whole of it's power resided in the hands of the governors in the provinces and the governor general in the centre.Although congress rejected this act yet they decided to took part in the elections in 1937 and won in 7 out of 11 provinces in India.
Then in 1938 the politics of congress shifted towards Subhash Chandra Bose a far-left leader.He was again elected congress president in the year 1939.But Gandhi opposed him and due to this opposition Subhash chandra bose resigned from the Congress despite being elected as it's president.He formed a new party named Forward-bloc and moved his way out congress.The reason behind this this favourotism of Gandhi towards nehru has been explained in detail in the book Nehru & Bose Parallel Lives, written by Rudrangshu Mukherjee.The acceptance of socialism in congress can be seen as awareness and openness of the political philosophy of Gandhi.
When hitler attacked poland and 2nd world-war broke out under the banner of fascism the Gandhi condemned italy germany and japan.Although keeping their support intact towards indian Independence.Gandhi launched the non-violent Quit India movement on 8 August 1942 in the bombay session of congress and gave the nation-lovers the cry of "Do or die".He along with congress leaders were immediately arrested on 9 august and were taken to some unknown place.The Quit India movement became leaderless and soon the leaderless people became violent.The Quit India Movement got crushed by the British goverment but it raised the phenomenon of Nationalism in every citizen in India.
The deadly war ended in 1945 and the british rule had already became unpopular in India.The british had already lost it's control in the heart of the people as well as the peasents and labours.The newly elected labour party was also in favour of the indian independence movement.The Indian Independence act was passed by the british government on 18th july 1947 and India declared it's freedom on 15th august 1947.
In this struggle of three decades Gandhi emerged as a populist,nationalist,tolerant,socialist and secular leader from India.His concept of sarvodaya was based on the ideas of john ruskin.Which defines that upliftment of the state lies in the upliftment of the villages.The social welfare schemes should be made keeping the lastest person on the social structure of the state in mind.He believed in a society based on principles of 'truth' and 'non-violence',A society which is tolerant and inclusive and is equally and independently represented by every person who is a citizen of that socity.But the tragedy is these pure concepts of Gandhi has been reduced to mere words by the politicians of coming age.
Md Mubassir Aquil
3 year law 1st semester.
