Chapter Notes

India's Long Road to Independence

The story of India's freedom is the story of how a vast and diverse land—with hundreds of languages, faiths, and customs—came together to challenge the world's most powerful empire. This journey was not just about battles and protests; it was a struggle of ideas, dreams, and immense courage that lasted for nearly two centuries and involved millions of Indians who sacrificed their comfort, and often their lives, for the cause of a free nation.

While everyone shared the goal of freedom, they often had different ideas on how to achieve it. This chapter explores these different paths and the key events that shaped India's long road to independence.

A Royal Proclamation

After the Great Uprising of 1857, the British government decided to change how it ruled India. In 1858, the British Crown under Queen Victoria took direct control from the East India Company. India was now governed by a Viceroy (the Queen's representative in India) and a Secretary of State for India based in London.

The Queen issued a "royal proclamation" with several promises:

• The rights and honour of the 560 Indian princes would be respected, allowing them to rule their states under British supremacy, or 'paramountcy'.
• Indians would be treated as equal subjects of the British Crown.
• Christianity would not be imposed on anyone.

However, these promises were rarely kept.

• Princely States: The British posted a 'Resident' or 'Political Agent' in most princely states, who constantly interfered in their administration, making their autonomy symbolic.
• Economic Exploitation: Heavy taxes on land continued, leading to severe famines and discontent among peasants. Indian industries could not compete with cheap British manufactured goods.
• Racial Discrimination: Indians were treated as inferior. They received lower pay than their British counterparts for the same jobs. In courts, British criminals often received lenient treatment for crimes against 'natives'. Indians were also barred from many European clubs, trains, and public spaces.
• Repressive Laws: The Arms Act of 1878 prohibited Indians from keeping weapons, while the British could. The same year, the Vernacular Press Act was passed to censor newspapers published in Indian languages.

Reform Movements and Other Influences

The period of British rule sparked intense debates within Indian society. Many Indian reformers, while challenging social evils like child marriage, the low status of widows, and caste discrimination, looked to European models to 'modernise' India. At the same time, powerful cultural and spiritual movements were awakening a sense of national pride.

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

In the 1860s, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, a writer from Bengal, wrote popular novels about Indian history. His most famous novel, Anandamath (published in 1882), was set during the Sannyasi Rebellion and the Bengal famine of 1770. The novel featured the poem Bande Mataram ("I bow to the Motherland"), which portrayed the motherland as a divine mother. The song became a powerful mantra for the freedom struggle.

Swami Vivekananda

Born in 1863, Narendranath Datta, who later became known as Swami Vivekananda, was a spiritual leader who had a profound impact on the national consciousness.

• He defended India's civilization and culture on the world stage, most famously at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893.
• He urged Indians to discover their inner strength, overcome fear, and act with self-confidence with his famous call: "Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached."
• He rejected blind imitation of the West and encouraged Indians to draw strength from their ancient spiritual roots while also embracing modern science. Though he was not a political activist, his teachings inspired countless freedom fighters. His birthday, 12 January, is celebrated as National Youth Day in India.

The Rise of the Indian National Congress

Amidst growing unrest, a retired British officer, Allan Octavian Hume, who was critical of colonial policies, helped bring together a group of educated Indians. This led to the launch of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1885 in Bombay.

• Key founding figures included Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji, and Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee, who was its first president.
• Initially, the Congress was a moderate organization. It expressed loyalty to the British Crown and aimed for dialogue with the colonial government.
• Its main demands were for greater Indian participation in governance, protection of civil rights, and social and economic reforms.

However, the British government largely ignored the Congress's resolutions, leading to growing frustration and discontent among Indians.

Growing Discontent

Resistance to British rule was not limited to the Congress. Several other movements and uprisings took place across the country.

The Kuka Movement

In the 1860s and 1870s, Baba Ram Singh led the Kuka (or Namdhari) Movement in Punjab.

• It promoted social reforms within Sikh society, such as ending female infanticide and the dowry system.
• Long before it became a national strategy, the Kukas challenged British rule by boycotting foreign goods, wearing hand-spun white clothes, and setting up their own postal and judicial systems.
• In 1872, after the Kukas attacked slaughterhouses (which they opposed), the British responded brutally, executing 65 Kukas without trial. Baba Ram Singh was exiled to Burma.

Resistance in Maharashtra and Bengal

• In 1897, following a plague epidemic in Poona (now Pune), the Chapekar brothers assassinated two British officials for their harsh control measures. They were later caught and hanged.
• Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a Congress member who found the party too moderate, wrote fiercely against colonial oppression in his Marathi newspaper, Kesari. He used the Ganesh Chaturthi and Shivaji festivals to spread patriotic messages. For this, he was jailed for 18 months and became a national hero known as 'Lokmanya' (revered by the people).
• In Bengal, revolutionary groups like the Anushilan Samiti (founded in 1902) began training young men for the freedom struggle, with leaders like Aurobindo Ghose coordinating their activities.

Birsa Munda and the 'Ulgulaan'

In the Chota Nagpur region (present-day Jharkhand), Birsa Munda led a powerful tribal uprising known as the 'Ulgulaan' or the Great Tumult in 1899-1900.

• He mobilised tribal communities to reclaim their land and reject colonial authority, oppressive landlords, and Christian missionaries.
• The British brutally suppressed the uprising. Birsa was arrested in 1900 and died in jail at the age of 24, but he remains a revered figure for tribal resistance.

The 1905 Partition of Bengal and National Awakening

In 1905, the Viceroy, George Curzon, announced the partition of the Bengal presidency.

• Official Reason: To make administration more efficient.
• Real Reason: A 'divide and rule' policy to split the province into a largely Muslim eastern part and a largely Hindu western part, weakening the nationalist movement.

The partition caused widespread outrage and had two major results:

1. Increased Division: It sharpened the divide between Hindus and Muslims, as some Muslim leaders supported the partition, hoping for more administrative posts and development.
2. National Awakening: It sparked a massive wave of protests. Leaders like Rabindranath Tagore and Bipin Chandra Pal united people against the division. This led to the emergence of two powerful mass action programs:
   • Swadeshi: Promoting goods made in one's own country to strengthen Indian industries.
   • Boycott: Rejecting foreign-made goods and British institutions like schools, colleges, and courts. People lit bonfires of foreign goods in the streets.

The Nationalist Agenda

The Swadeshi movement gave rise to a more assertive group within the Congress, known as the Nationalists.

• In 1906, Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghose launched the English daily Bande Mataram, which openly called for 'absolute national autonomy'—complete freedom from foreign control.
• The Nationalists added National Education to their agenda to counter the influence of British education. The Bengal National College was established in 1906 with Aurobindo Ghose as its first principal.
• At the 1906 Calcutta session, the Congress, under President Dadabhai Naoroji, officially adopted the fourfold objective of Swaraj (self-rule), Swadeshi, Boycott, and National Education.

India as the 'Mother'

Inspired by Bankim Chandra's Anandamath, many Nationalists began to see India as 'Bharat Mata' or Mother India, a divine motherland. This idea was powerfully expressed in art and literature, such as the famous painting of Bharat Mata by Abanindranath Tagore (1905) and the poems of Subramania Bharati in Tamil Nadu.

The All-India Muslim League

In December 1906, some prominent Muslim leaders founded the All-India Muslim League in Dhaka.

• Objective: To protect the political interests of Muslims in British India.
• Reason: They feared that in a Hindu-majority Congress, Muslim interests would not be adequately represented.
• This move laid the groundwork for future divisions and the eventual emergence of the Two-Nation Idea.

The 1907 Surat Split

The growing influence of the Nationalists alarmed the British and the Moderates within the Congress. At the 1907 Congress session in Surat, the Moderates, led by figures like Gopal Krishna Gokhale, tried to reverse the 1906 resolutions on Swaraj and Boycott.

This led to chaos, and the Congress split into two factions:

• The Moderates: Who favoured gradual reforms and self-government within the British Empire.
• The Nationalists: Led by Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, and Aurobindo Ghose, who demanded complete independence. The British called them 'Extremists', but they called themselves 'Nationalists'.

The Revolutionaries

Disappointed with moderate politics, many young Indians turned to revolutionary methods, believing that force was necessary to overthrow British rule.

• Assassination Attempt (1908): Two young revolutionaries, Khudiram Bose (aged 18) and Prafulla Chaki, attempted to assassinate a British judge. They mistakenly killed two British ladies. Prafulla shot himself, while Khudiram was caught and hanged, becoming a national hero.
• Alipore Bomb Trial: Following the attack, Aurobindo Ghose, his brother Barindra, and other revolutionaries were arrested. Aurobindo was acquitted, but many others were sentenced to long imprisonments in the infamous Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands.
• The Ghadar Movement (1914-15): The Ghadar Party, founded by Indian migrants in North America, attempted to start a mutiny in the British Indian Army during World War I. The plot was uncovered, and leaders like Kartar Singh Sarabha were executed. Rash Behari Bose, a key organiser, escaped to Japan.
• Bagha Jatin's 'German Plot': Jatin Mukherjee, known as Bagha Jatin, tried to organise an armed uprising with weapons supplied by Germany. The plan was discovered, and he died fighting the British police in Balasore (Odisha) in 1915.

Home Rule Movement and the Lucknow Pact

When Bal Gangadhar Tilak was released from jail in 1914, he worked to reunite the Congress and promote Hindu-Muslim cooperation.

• Lucknow Pact (1916): At the Lucknow session, the two factions of the Congress reunited. A historic pact was also signed between the Congress and the Muslim League, where the Congress agreed to the demand for separate electorates for Muslims.
• Home Rule Movement (1916): Tilak and Annie Besant, an Irish supporter of Indian self-government, launched a movement demanding 'Home Rule' or self-government for India within the British Empire.

Gandhi and the Non-Cooperation Movement

The entry of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi transformed the freedom struggle into a mass movement. After developing his method of non-violent resistance, or Satyagraha, in South Africa, Gandhi returned to India in 1915. He first applied Satyagraha in local struggles, such as for indigo farmers in Bihar and peasants in Kheda, Gujarat.

The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-1922)

The movement was launched in response to post-World War I British policies.

• The Rowlatt Act (1919): This act allowed the police to arrest anyone without trial, severely curtailing civil liberties.
• The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (April 13, 1919): On Baisakhi day, Brigadier-General Dyer ordered his troops to fire on a peaceful, unarmed crowd gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar. Hundreds were killed and over a thousand wounded. This brutal act shattered Indian trust in British justice and united the country in anger.
• The Khilafat Movement (1919): Indian Muslims, led by the Ali brothers (Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali) and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, protested the dismemberment of the Turkish Ottoman Empire and the removal of its Caliph. Gandhi saw this as an opportunity to unite Hindus and Muslims and merged the Khilafat cause with his own movement.

Gandhi launched the Non-Cooperation Movement with the promise of Swaraj within a year. The movement involved:

• Boycotting foreign goods, schools, colleges, and courts.
• Promoting Swadeshi goods like khadi (hand-spun cloth).
• Strict adherence to non-violence (ahimsa).

The movement was abruptly called off by Gandhi in February 1922 after protesters killed policemen in Chauri Chaura, an act of violence that went against his principles. This decision disappointed many leaders like Motilal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose.

Protests, Repression and Revenge

Discontent continued to simmer throughout the 1920s.

• Simon Commission (1927): The British sent a commission to India to study constitutional reform, but it had no Indian members. It was met with massive protests and the slogan "Simon Go Back!".
• Death of Lala Lajpat Rai: During a protest against the Simon Commission in Lahore in 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai ('The Lion of Punjab') was brutally beaten by the police. He died from his injuries a few weeks later, declaring that the blows struck at him would be "the last nails in the coffin of the British rule in India."

More Revolutionary Actions

The death of Lala Lajpat Rai and the slow pace of Gandhi's methods inspired a new wave of revolutionary actions.

• Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA): Leaders like Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh vowed to avenge Lala Lajpat Rai's death. In 1928, they mistakenly assassinated a junior police officer.
• Central Assembly Bombing (1929): Bhagat Singh and an associate threw low-intensity bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi, not to kill but "to make the deaf hear."
• Execution of Bhagat Singh: Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar, and Shivaram Rajguru were arrested, tried for the earlier assassination, and hanged in 1931. Bhagat Singh became an immortal symbol of revolutionary patriotism.
• Women Revolutionaries: Many women also took up arms. In 1931, two schoolgirls, Suniti Chowdhury and Shanti Ghosh, assassinated a British District Magistrate. Bina Das attempted to shoot the Governor of Bengal during a university convocation.

Purna Swaraj and Civil Disobedience

By the late 1920s, younger leaders in the Congress like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose were impatient with the demand for 'Dominion status' (self-government under the British Crown). They wanted complete independence.

• Purna Swaraj Resolution (1929): At the Lahore session of the Congress, a resolution was passed demanding 'Purna Swaraj' or complete independence.
• Civil Disobedience Movement (1930): To achieve this goal, Gandhi launched the Civil Disobedience Movement. It began with the famous Salt March (or Dandi March) in 1930. Gandhi and his followers marched 380 km to the coastal village of Dandi and broke the colonial salt law, which gave the British a monopoly on salt production and imposed a heavy tax.
• The movement spread across India, with mass arrests, boycott of foreign cloth, and refusal to pay taxes. Women, including leaders like Sarojini Naidu, participated in large numbers.

The Gandhi-Irwin Pact and After

In 1931, Viceroy Irwin signed a pact with Gandhi. The government agreed to release political prisoners, and the Congress suspended the Civil Disobedience Movement and agreed to attend a Round Table Conference in London. The conference failed, and the movement was resumed, but it had lost its momentum and was withdrawn in 1934.

Gandhi and Ambedkar

During this period, a major debate arose between Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar, the leader of the 'Depressed Classes' (Scheduled Castes).

• Ambedkar demanded separate electorates for the Depressed Classes to ensure their political representation.
• Gandhi feared this would permanently divide Hindu society and went on a 'fast unto death' in protest.
• A compromise was reached in the 'Poona Pact', which reserved more seats for the Depressed Classes in legislatures instead of creating separate electorates.

The Idea of Separate Nations

The dream of a united, independent India was facing a serious challenge.

• In 1930, the poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, presiding over the All-India Muslim League session, proposed a separate territory for Muslims in northwestern India.
• While Congress leaders like Maulana Azad and Abdul Ghaffar Khan strongly opposed any division, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim League, endorsed the idea of a separate nation, which came to be called Pakistan.

World War II and the Indian National Army

When World War II broke out in 1939, Britain pulled India into the war without consulting its leaders. This caused widespread resentment. Over 2.5 million Indian soldiers fought for the British, and the war caused immense hardship at home, including the horrific Bengal famine of 1943 where millions died.

Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA

Subhas Chandra Bose, who had broken away from Gandhi's path of non-violence, believed that freedom could only be won through armed struggle.

• He escaped from house arrest in India in 1941 and travelled to Germany to seek help from Britain's enemies.
• In 1943, he went to Singapore and formed the Indian National Army (INA) from Indian prisoners of war. He also declared the formation of the Azad Hind (Free India) government.
• The INA fought alongside the Japanese army in Burma and northeastern India but was ultimately defeated. Despite the military failure, Bose's courageous defiance made him a legend.

The Quit India Movement

In 1942, the British sent the 'Cripps Mission' to India, offering Dominion status after the war. The offer was rejected by Gandhi and other leaders as insufficient.

In August 1942, Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, giving the clarion call: "Do or Die." The demand was for the British to leave India immediately.

• Almost the entire Congress leadership was arrested overnight.
• The movement became a massive, spontaneous uprising. People attacked government buildings, workers went on strike, and students left schools. Underground leaders like Aruna Asaf Ali kept the resistance alive.
• The British suppressed the movement with extreme brutality, with over 100,000 people arrested and nearly 10,000 killed. However, the movement sent a clear message: British rule in India could not continue.

Partition, Turmoil, and Independence

After World War II, a weakened Britain finally began the process of transferring power. Mutinies in the Royal Indian Air Force and Royal Indian Navy in 1946 showed that the British could no longer rely on the Indian military to maintain their empire.

However, the path to freedom was marred by deep divisions.

• 'Direct Action Day': On August 16, 1946, Jinnah called for 'Direct Action Day' to press for the creation of Pakistan. This triggered horrific communal violence in Calcutta, where thousands of Hindus and Muslims were killed.
• The Partition of India: In 1947, the last Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, announced the plan to partition British India. A British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe, who had never been to India, was given just five weeks to draw the new borders (the Radcliffe Line), splitting Punjab and Bengal.
• This created two new countries: a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan.
• The partition unleashed unprecedented chaos, violence, and one of the largest migrations in human history. Millions were uprooted, and hundreds of thousands were killed in riots and massacres.

The Integration of Princely States

At independence, the 560+ princely states were given the option to join India or Pakistan, or remain independent. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, using a mix of persuasion and firm action, successfully integrated these states into the Indian Union, earning him the title 'Iron Man of India'.

On August 15, 1947, India finally achieved independence. The joy of freedom was mixed with the deep sorrow of Partition. A new government, led by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, took charge of a nation born from both triumph and tragedy.

• Moderates who sought gradual reform.
• Nationalists who organized mass movements like Swadeshi and Boycott.
• Revolutionaries who made the ultimate sacrifice through armed struggle.
• Gandhi's mass mobilization through non-violent Satyagraha.
• Countless peasants, workers, tribals, students, and women whose acts of defiance wove the fabric of independence.