Friends Of India

Some people still have the illusion that the British Raj was not all that bad. But in reality is that the British Colonial rule as against the interests of the common people of the Indian sub-continent and it destroyed the education system, economy, ancient monuments and livelihood of the people.

One can trace the education system in India to third century B.C. Ancient days, the sages and scholars imparted education orally. After the development of letters it took the form of writing. Palm leaves and bark of trees were used for education. Temples and community centers often took the role of schools. When Buddhism spread in India, education became available to everyone and this led to the establishment of some world famous educational institutions Nalanda, Vikramshila and Takshashila. These educational institutes in fact arose from the monasteries. History has taken special care to give Nalanda University, which flourished from the fifth to 13th century AD, full credit for its excellence. This university had around 10,000 resident students and teachers on its roll at one time. These students included Chinese, Sri Lankan, Korean and other international scholars. It was in the 11th century that the Muslims established elementary and secondary schools. This led to the forming of few universities too at cities like Delhi, Lucknow and Allahabad. Medieval period saw excellent interaction between Indian and Islamic traditions in all fields of knowledge like theology, religion, philosophy, fine arts, painting, architecture, mathematics, medicine and astronomy. The British bring English education to India but the old education system was destroyed. The literacy rate in British India were only 6% in 1911, 8% in 1931 and crawled to 11% in 1947. In 1935, only 40 in 100,000 were enrolled in universities or higher education institutes.

It is true that the British built modern cities with modern conveniences for their administrative officers but these were exclusive zones not intended for the natives. In 1911, 69 per cent of Bombay's population lived in one-room tenements and in 1931 it had increased to 74 per cent. The same was true of Karachi and Ahmedabad. After the Second World War, 13 per cent of Bombay's population slept on the streets. As for sanitation, 10-15 tenements typically shared one water tap.

But in 1757 Clive of the East India Company had observed of Murshidabad in Bengal: "This city is as extensive, populous and rich as the city of London..." Dacca was even more famous as a manufacturing town, it's muslin a source of many legends and its weavers had an international reputation that was unmatched in the medieval world. But in 1840 it was reported by Sir Charles Trevelyan to a parliamentary enquiry that Dacca's population had fallen from 150,000 to 20,000. The percentage of population dependant on agriculture and pastoral pursuits actually rose to 73% in 1921 from 61% in 1891.

In 1854, Sir Arthur Cotton writing in ‘Public Works in India’ noted: "Public works have been almost entirely neglected throughout India... The motto hitherto has been: 'Do nothing, have nothing done, let nobody do anything....." John Bright in the House of Commons on June 24, 1858 said, "The single city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabitants with the single article of water, has spent a larger sum of money than the East India Company has spent in the fourteen years from 1834 to 1848 in public works of every kind throughout the whole of its vast dominions."

Ancient India was famous for its canal system which controls flood water and provides irrigation for the agriculture land. Under the colonial rule it was destroyed because of the lack of maintenance. In 1838 G. Thompson noted in ‘India and the Colonies’, “The roads and tanks and canals which Hindu or Mussulman Governments constructed for the service of the nations and the good of the country have been suffered to fall into dilapidation; and now the want of the means of irrigation causes famines." In 1858 Montgomery Martin noted in ‘The Indian Empire’, “…omitted not only to initiate improvements, but even to keep in repair the old works upon which the revenue depended." The Report of the Bengal Irrigation Department Committee in 1930 reads: "In every district the Khals (canals) which carry the internal boat traffic become from time to time blocked up with silt. Its Khals and rivers are the roads end highways of Eastern Bengal, and it is impossible to overestimate the importance to the economic life of this part of the province of maintaining these in proper navigable order ... As regards the revival or maintenance of minor routes, ... practically nothing has been done, with the result that, in some parts of the Province at least, channels have been silted up, navigation has become limited to a few months in the year, and crops can only be marketed when the Khals rise high enough in the monsoon to make transport possible". Sir William Willcock, a distinguished hydraulic engineer, noted “Not only was nothing done to utilize and improve the original canal system, but railway embankments were subsequently thrown up, entirely destroying it. Some areas, cut off from the supply of loam-bearing Ganges water, have gradually become sterile and unproductive, others improperly drained, show an advanced degree of water-logging, with the inevitable accompaniment of malaria. Nor has any attempt been made to construct proper embankments for the Gauges in its low course, to prevent the enormous erosion by which villages and groves and cultivated fields are swallowed up each year."

Even some serious critics of colonial rule grudgingly grant that the British brought modern medicine to India. A 1938 report by the International Labor Office on ‘Industrial Labor in India’ revealed that life expectancy in India was barely 25 years in 1921 and had actually fallen to 23 in 1931. Mike Davis noted in ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’ that life expectancy fell by 20% between 1872 and 1921. Infant mortality in Bombay was 255 per thousand in 1928.

Several Indians when confronted with such data from the colonial period argue that the British should not be specially targeted because India's problems of poverty pre-date colonial rule, and in any case, were exacerbated by rapid population growth. Of course, no one who makes the first point is able to offer any substantive proof that such conditions prevailed long before the British arrived, and to counter such an argument would be difficult in the absence of reliable and comparable statistical data from earlier centuries. But some readers may find the anecdotal evidence intriguing. In any case, the population growth data is available and is quite remarkable in what it reveals.

Some people believe that the poverty and famine caused during colonial rule was partly caused by population growth. But in reality the population growth in India was less half o that in Europe. Between 1870 and 1910, India's population grew at an average rate of 19%. Average population growth in the same period in Europe was 45%. In the first half of the 19th century, there were seven famines leading to a million and a half deaths. In the second half, there were 24 famines (18 between 1876 and 1900) causing over 20 million deaths (as per official records). W. Digby, noted in ‘Prosperous British India’ in 1901 that "stated roughly, famines and scarcities have been four times as numerous, during the last thirty years of the 19th century as they were one hundred years ago, and four times as widespread." In ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’, Mike Davis points out that here were 31(thirty one) serious famines in 120 years of British rule compared to 17(seventeen) in the 2000 years before British rule. The export of food grains had increased by a factor of four just prior to that period. And export of other agricultural raw materials had also increased in similar proportions. Land that once produced grain for local consumption was converted to plantations for the cultivation of lucrative cash crops exclusively for export. Even during the famine years the British colonial rulers continued to export food grains from India to Britain.

Annual British Government reports repeatedly published data that showed 70-80% of Indians were living on the margin of subsistence. This is in contrast with the following accounts of Indian life prior to colonization. Tavernier wrote in ‘Travels in India’ about 17^th century India, “....even in the smallest villages rice, flour, butter, milk, beans and other vegetables, sugar and sweetmeats can be procured in abundance ....” Manouchi, chief physician to Aurangzeb (17th century) wrote: "Bengal is of all the kingdoms of the Moghul, best known in France..... We may venture to say it is not inferior in anything to Egypt - and that it even exceeds that kingdom in its products of silks, cottons, sugar, and indigo. All things are in great plenty here, fruits, pulse, grain, muslins, cloths of gold and silk..." The French traveler, Bernier described 17th century Bengal as "The knowledge I have acquired of Bengal in two visits inclines me to believe that it is richer than Egypt. It exports in abundance cottons and silks, rice, sugar and butter. It produces amply for its own consumption of wheat, vegetables, grains, fowls, ducks and geese. It has immense herds of pigs and flocks of sheep and goats. Fish of every kind it has in profusion. From Rajmahal to the sea are an endless number of canals, cut in bygone ages from the Ganges by immense labor for navigation and irrigation."

The poverty of British India stood in stark contrast to these eye witness reports and has to be ascribed to the pitiful wages that working people in India received in that period. A 1927-28 report noted that "all but the most highly skilled workmen in India receive wages which are barely sufficient to feed and clothe them. Everywhere will be seen overcrowding, dirt and squalid misery..." Also in 1922, an 11 hour day was the norm and in 1934 it had been reduced to 10.

Perhaps the least known aspect of the colonial legacy is the early British attitude towards India's historic monuments and the extend of vandalism that took place. Instead, there is this pervasive myth of the British as an unbiased ‘protector of the nation's historic legacy’.

R.Nath in his 'History of Decorative Art in Mughal Architecture' records that scores of gardens, tombs and palaces that once adorned the suburbs of Sikandra at Agra were sold out or auctioned. He wrote, "Relics of the glorious age of the Mughals were either destroyed or converted beyond recognition… Out of 270 beautiful monuments which existed at Agra alone, before its capture by Lake in 1803, hardly 40 have survived". David Carroll wrote in ‘Taj Mahal’, "The forts in Agra and Delhi were commandeered at the beginning of the nineteenth century and turned into military garrisons. Marble reliefs were torn down, gardens were trampled, and lines of ugly barracks, still standing today, were installed in their stead. In the Delhi fort, the Hall of Public Audience was made into an arsenal and the arches of the outer colonnades were bricked over or replaced with rectangular wooden windows."

Lord William Bentinck went so far as to announce plans to demolish the best Mogul monuments in Agra and Delhi and remove their marble facades. These were to be shipped to London, where they would be broken up and sold to members of the British aristocracy. Several of Shahjahan's pavilions in the Red Fort at Delhi were indeed stripped to the brick, and the marble was shipped off to England. Plans to dismantle the Taj Mahal were in place, and wrecking machinery was moved into the garden grounds. Just as the demolition work was to begin, news from London indicated that the first auction had not been a success, and that all further sales were cancelled -- it would not be worth the money to tear down the Taj Mahal. Thus the Taj Mahal was spared.

Perhaps the most important aspect of colonial rule was the transfer of wealth from India to Britain. In his pioneering book, India Today, Rajni Palme Dutt conclusively demonstrates how vital this was to the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Several patents that had remained unfunded suddenly found industrial sponsors once the taxes from India started rolling in. Without capital from India, British banks would have found it impossible to fund the modernization of Britain that took place in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In addition, the scientific basis of the industrial revolution was not a uniquely European contribution. Several civilizations had been adding to the world's scientific database - especially the civilizations of Asia, (including those of the Indian sub-continent). Without that aggregate of scientific knowledge the scientists of Britain and Europe would have found it impossible to make the rapid strides they made during the period of the Industrial revolution. Moreover, several of these patents, particularly those concerned with the textile industry relied on pre-industrial techniques perfected in the sub-continent. In fact, many of the earliest textile machines in Britain were unable to match the complexity and finesse of the spinning and weaving machines of Dacca.

Some euro-centric authors have attempted to deny any such linkage. They have tried to assert that not only was the Industrial Revolution a uniquely British/European event - that colonization and the phenomenal transfer of wealth that took place was merely incidental to its fruition. But the words of Lord Curzon still ring loud and clear. The Viceroy of British India in 1894 was quite unequivocal, "India is the pivot of our Empire .... If the Empire loses any other part of its Dominion we can survive, but if we lose India the sun of our Empire will have set." Lord Curzon knew fully well, the value and importance of the Indian colony. It was the transfer of wealth through unprecedented levels of taxation on Indians of virtually all classes that funded the great "Industrial Revolution" and laid the ground for "modernization" in Britain. As early as 1812, an East India Company Report had stated, "The importance of that immense empire to this country is rather to be estimated by the great annual addition it makes to the wealth and capital of the Kingdom....."

Few would doubt that Indo-British trade may have been unfair - but it may be noteworthy to see how unfair. In the early 1800s imports of Indian cotton and silk goods faced duties of 70-80%. British imports faced duties of 2-4%. As a result, British imports of cotton manufactures into India increased by a factor of 50, and Indian exports dropped to one-fourth. A similar trend was noted in silk goods, woolens, iron, pottery, glassware and paper. As a result, millions of ruined artisans and craftsmen, spinners, weavers, potters, smelters and smiths were rendered jobless and had to become landless agricultural workers.

Another aspect of colonial rule that has remained hidden from popular perception is that Britain was not the only beneficiary of colonial rule. British trade regulations even as they discriminated against Indian business interests created a favorable trading environment for other imperial powers. By 1939, only 25% of Indian imports came from Britain. 25% came from Japan, the US and Germany. In 1942-3, Canada and Australia contributed another 8%. In the period immediately before independence, Britain ruled as much on behalf of its imperial allies as it did in its own interest. The process of "globalization" was already taking shape. But none of this growth trickled down to India. In the last half of 19th century, India's income fell by 50%. In the 190 years prior to independence, the Indian economy was literally stagnant - it experienced zero growth.

Those who wish India well should re-read the history so the nation isn't brought to the same situation once again in this era of globalization.

# posted by Friends Of India @ 2:01 AM 12 Comments

Geographical region in ancient India is divided into multiple countries now. Sri Lanka (Ceylon) was part of the South Indian kingdoms and part of the Madras presidency of British India. In 1798 it become a separate crown colony and granted independence on February 4, 1948. Myanmar (old Burma) was annexed by the British in 1826 and governed as part of the British Indian administration until 1937. There after directly administrated by the British until it granted independence on January 4, 1948. The countries Nepal and Bhutan had singed treaties with the British designating them as independent states and they were never a part of British India.

End of British Raj led to the creation of Dominion of Pakistan (now Islamic Republic of Pakistan) on August 14, 1947 and Union of India (now Republic of India) on August 15, 1947. The actual division between the two new dominions was done according to what has come to be known as the Mountbatten Plan. The border between India and Pakistan was determined by a British Government-commission led by Sir Radcliffe, a London lawyer. Pakistan came into being with two non-contiguous enclaves, East Pakistan and West Pakistan, separated geographically by India. As a result the Bengal province of British India into the Pakistani state of East Bengal and the Indian state of West Bengal and the Punjab region of British India into the Punjab province of West Pakistan and the Indian state of Punjab. India was formed out of the majority Hindu regions of the colony, and Pakistan from the majority Muslim areas.

On July 18, 1947, the British Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act that finalized the partition arrangement. The Government of India Act 1935 was adapted to provide a legal framework for the two new dominions. Following partition, Pakistan was added as a new member of the United Nations, while the Republic of India assumed the seat of British India as a successor state. The 565 Princely States were given a choice of which country to join. Those states whose princes failed to accede to either country or chose a country at odds with their majority religion, such as Junagadh, Hyderabad, and especially Kashmir, became the subject of much dispute. All three were eventually annexed by India.

The secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan in the 1971 was the result of the Bangladesh Liberation War. It was an armed conflict between West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) that lasted about nine months and ended on December 16, 1971. As a result of the war Dominion of Pakistan divided again and East Pakistan become an independent nation named Bangladesh.

Although all these division takes place in the Indian Subcontinent, the term ‘The Partition of India’ refers to the creation Dominion of Pakistan on August 14, 1947 and Union of India on August 15, 1947. The ceremonies for the transfer of power were held a day earlier to allow the last British Viceroy Louis Mountbatten to attend both the ceremony in India and Pakistan. So Pakistan celebrates Independence Day on August 14, while India celebrates it on August 15.

The seeds of partition were sown long before independence. Muslims had ruled the subcontinent for over 300 years under the Mughal Empire before the British gained the power. Organization of citizens into religious communities was a feature of Mughal rule. Conversion of Hindu temples into Muslim mosques and additional taxes for Hindu’s are happened during some Mughal rules. British under divide and rule policy exploited this sentiment and keep Muslims threatened by the Hindu majority. Indian Muslims were encouraged, initially by the British, to forge a distinct political and cultural identity.

Most of the Congress leaders were secularists and resolutely opposed the division of India on the lines of religion. Mohandas Gandhi was believing that Hindus and Muslims could and should live in amity. He said, “My whole soul rebels against the idea that Hinduism and Islam represent two antagonistic cultures and doctrines. To assent to such a doctrine is for me a denial of God.” But the All India Muslim League was formed in Dhaka in 1906 by Muslims who were suspicious of the mainstream secular but Hindu-majority Indian National Congress.

Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was Allama Iqbal in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that he felt a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated subcontinent. The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making it a demand in 1935. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who had till then worked for Hindu-Muslim unity, come to lead the movement for this new nation and begun to despair of the fate of minority communities in a united India and had begun to argue that mainstream parties such as the Congress were insensitive to Muslim interests. At the 1940 Muslim League conference in Lahore, Jinnah made clear his commitment to two separate states and said, “The Hindus and the Muslims belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature… To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state.”

The Hindu organizations such as the Hindu Mahasabha were against the division of the country but see the cultural differences. In 1937 at the 19th session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Ahmedabad, Veer Savarkar in his presidential address said, “India cannot be assumed today to be Unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main — the Hindus and the Muslims.”

For years, Gandhi and his adherents struggled to keep Muslims in the Congress Party in the process enraging both Hindu Nationalists and Indian Muslim Nationalists. Gandhi was assassinated soon after Partition by Hindu Nationalist Nathuram Godse, who believed that Gandhi was appeasing Muslims at the cost of Hindus.

Before the Boundary Commission began formal hearings, governments were set up for the East and the West Punjab regions. Their territories were provisionally divided by "notional division" based on simple district majorities. In both the Punjab and Bengal, the Boundary Commission consisted of two Muslim and two non-Muslim judges with Sir Cyril Radcliffe as a common chairman. The mission of the Punjab commission was worded generally as: "To demarcate the boundaries of the two parts of the Punjab, on the basis of ascertaining the contiguous majority areas of Muslims and non-Muslims. In doing so, it will take into account other factors." Each side presented its claim through counsel with no liberty to bargain. The judges too had no mandate to compromise and on all major issues they divided two and two, leaving Radcliffe the difficult task of making the actual decisions.

Massive population exchanges occurred between the two newly-formed nations in the months immediately following Partition. Once the lines were established, about 14.5 million people crossed the borders to what they hoped was the relative safety of religious majority. Based on 1951 Census of displaced persons, 7,226,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 7,249,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan immediately after partition. About 11.2 million or 78% of the population transfer took place in the west, with Punjab accounting for most of it.

The newly formed governments were completely unequipped to deal with migrations of such staggering magnitude, and massive violence and slaughter occurred on both sides of the border. There are various estimates about the causality related to the partition. The common belief is that at least half a million people perished and twelve million become homeless. But no one can count the pain of separation and human suffering. The anger and suspicion causes the partition still flames in the region and resulting in communal violence and riots.

Many Sikhs and Hindu Punjabis settled in the Indian parts of Punjab and Delhi. Hindus migrating from East Pakistan settled across Eastern India and Northeastern India, many ending up in close-by states like West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. Some migrants were sent to the Andaman Islands. Hindu Sindhis found themselves without a homeland. The responsibility of rehabilitating Hindu Sindhis was borne by all the states in Indian Union, but most Sindhis settled in the western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra. Refugee camps were set up for Hindu Sindhis. Many refugees did consider returning to Sindh once the violence settled down, but it was found that this was not possible, as they found their

Refugees or Muhajirs in Pakistan came from various parts of India. There was a large influx of Punjabi Muslims from East Punjab fleeing the riots. Despite severe physical and economic hardships, East Punjabi refugees to Pakistan did not face problems of cultural and linguistic assimilation after partition. However, there were many Muslim refugees who migrated to Pakistan from other Indian states. The descendants of these non-Punjabi refugees in Pakistan often refer to themselves as Muhajir whereas the assimilated Punjabi refugees no longer make that political distinction. Large numbers of non-Punjabi refugees settled in Sindh, particularly in the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad. They are united by their refugee status and their native Urdu language and are a strong political force in Sindh.

The events leading up to the partition, the ideology of communalism and the consequences of partition are discussed in films, literature, memoirs and commentaries even today. The consequences of partition are still there to be seen. India and Pakistan continue to be embroiled in conflict, and Kashmir remains a point of contention between them. Will the people ever leave behind the pain and suffering caused by the partition? Will the separated bother nations can be trusted neighbors?

# posted by Friends Of India @ 2:58 AM 1 Comments

After many years of struggle and resolutions, Indian National Congress finally passed a resolution which asks for complete independence for India. On August 8, 1942 the Quit India Resolution was passed at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee which demands complete independence from Britain. It proposed that if the British did not accede to the demands, massive civil disobedience would be launched. At Gowalia Tank, Bombay, Gandhi urged Indians to follow non-violent civil disobedience. He told the masses to act as an independent nation and not to follow the orders of the British. His call found support among a large number of Indians. It also found support among Indian revolutionaries who were not necessarily agree to Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence.

Within the Indian independence movement there was a concept of an armed force fighting its way into India to overthrow the British Raj. During the Second World War, this plan found revival, with a number of different leaders, units and movements formed over the duration of the war. These included Indian National Army under Subhash Chandra Bose formed with the help of Italy, Japan and Germany. The INA was in action against the allies, including the British Indian Army, in the forests of in Arakan, Burma and Assam, laying siege on Imphal and Kohima with the Japanese 15th Army. During the war, the Andaman and Nicobar islands were captured by the Japanese and handed over by them to the INA; Bose renamed them Shahid (Martyr) and Swaraj (Independence). The INA would ultimately fail, owing to disrupted logistic, poor arms and supplies from the Japanese, and lack of support and training.

During the war, the Indian press was prohibited from reporting the existence of the Indian National Army. Little was known at the time among the common people within India of the existence and activities of the INA It was only after the war that the existence of the INA, its objectives, activities, strength etc could be reported and burst into popular imagination after the war. Majority of Indians view the INA as patriots and revolutionaries.

The Royal Indian Navy mutiny encompasses a total strike and subsequent mutiny by Indian sailors of the Royal Indian Navy on board ship and shore establishments at Bombay harbor on 18 February 1946. From the initial flashpoint in Bombay, the mutiny spread and found support throughout British India, from Karachi to Calcutta and ultimately came to involve 78 ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 sailors. The RIN Mutiny started as a strike by ratings of the Royal Indian Navy on 18 February in protest against general conditions. The immediate issue of the mutiny was conditions and food, but there were more fundamental matters such as racist behavior by Royal Navy personnel towards Indian sailors, and disciplinary measures being taken against anyone demonstrating pro-nationalist sympathies. The strike found immense support among the Indian population, already gripped by the stories of the Indian National Army. The actions of the mutineers were supported by demonstrations which included a one-day general strike in Bombay. The strike spread to other cities, and was joined by the Royal Indian Air Force and local police forces. Naval officers and men began calling themselves the "Indian National Navy" and offered left-handed salutes to British officers. At some places, NCOs in the British Indian Army ignored and defied orders from British superiors. In Madras and Pune, the British garrisons had to face revolts within the ranks of the Indian Army. Widespread rioting took place from Karachi to Calcutta. Notably, the mutinying ships hoisted three flags tied together — those of the Congress, Muslim League, and the Red Flag of the Communist Party of India, signifying the unity and demarginalisation of communal issues among the mutineers.

Finally the British decided to leave India. On the 15th March 1946, Mr. Attlee the British Prime Minister said in a statement, “My colleagues are going to India with the intention of using their utmost endeavors to help her to attain her freedom as speedily and fully as possible. What form of Government is to replace the present regime is for India to decide; but our desire is to help her to set up forthwith the machinery for making that decision . . .”.

Which phase of our freedom struggle won for us Independence? Mahatma Gandhi’s 1942 Quit India movement or The INA army launched by Netaji Bose to free India or the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of 1946? According to the British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, during whose regime India became free, it was the INA and the RIN Mutiny of February 18-23 1946 that made the British realize that their time was up in India. An extract from a letter written by P.V. Chuckraborty, Former Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court P.V. Chuckraborty wrote on March 30 1976, "When I was acting as Governor of West Bengal in 1956, Lord Clement Attlee who as the British Prime Minister in post war years was responsible for India’s freedom, visited India and stayed in Raj Bhavan Calcutta for two days and I put it straight to him like this: ‘The Quit India Movement of Gandhi practically died out long before 1947 and there was nothing in the Indian situation at that time, which made it necessary for the British to leave India in a hurry. Why then did they do so?’ In reply Attlee cited several reasons, the most important of which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, which weakened the very foundation of the British Empire in India, and the RIN Mutiny which made the British realize that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the British. When asked about the extent to which the British decision to quit India was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s 1942 movement, Attlee’s lips widened in smile of disdain and he uttered, slowly, ‘Minimal’."

May be the Gandhian movement and the Civil Disobedience Movement may not directly led to independence. But the movement united the people of India together and give people hope. Subhash Chandra Bose and INA with the help of Japan and Germany tried to free the country by armed revolt. In spite of brilliant planning and initial success, the violent campaign failed. The Battles for India's freedom were also being fought against Britain, though indirectly, by Hitler in Europe and Japan in Asia. None of these scored direct success, but few would deny that it was the cumulative effect of all the three that brought freedom to India. In particular, the revelations made by the INA trial, and the reaction it produced in India, made it quite plain to the British, already exhausted by the war, that they could no longer depend upon the loyalty of the sepoys for maintaining their authority in India. This had probably the greatest influence upon their final decision to quit India.

The long struggle for freedom was based on non-violent resistance but the end was plagued with communal violence and division. On 3 June 1947, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last British Governor-General of India, announced the partitioning of the British Indian Empire into a secular India and a Muslim Pakistan. On 14 August 1947, Pakistan was declared a separate nation. At midnight, on 15 August 1947, India became an independent nation. On the first Independence day Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said in his speech, “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance..... We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again.”

# posted by Friends Of India @ 6:00 AM 5 Comments

India’s struggle for swaraj continues under the leadership of Gandhi, commonly known as "Mahatma" (or Great Soul). He had been educated in Britain he didn’t have much success as a lawyer while he was in India. He had accepted an invitation in 1893 to represent indentured Indian laborers in South Africa. He stayed on for more than twenty years and been a prominent leader of the anti-Apartheid movement. He had been a vocal opponent of basic discrimination and abusive labor treatment as well as suppressive police control. He returned to India in 1915 and joins the national movement. Gopal Krishna Gokhale, a veteran Congressman and Indian leader became Gandhi's mentor.

Gandhi's ideas and strategies of nonviolent civil disobedience (Satyagraha) appeared impractical to many educated Indians at the beginning. Observers realized Gandhi's political potential when he used the Satyagraha during the anti-Rowlett Acts protests in Punjab. In 1920, under Gandhi's leadership, the Congress was reorganized and given a new constitution, whose goal was swaraj. 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. During his first nationwide Satyagraha, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British education institutions, law courts, and products (in favor of swadeshi); to resign from government employment; to refuse to pay taxes; and to forsake British titles and honors. The party was transformed from an elite organization to one of mass national appeal.

Gandhi was forced to call off the campaign in 1922 because of atrocities committed against police. However, the abortive campaign marked a milestone in India's political development and Gandhi was imprisoned in 1922 for six years, but was released after serving two. On his release from prison, he set up an ashram, established a newspaper, and inaugurated a series of reforms aimed at the socially disadvantaged within Hindu society, the rural poor, and the. His popularity soared in Indian politics as he reached the hearts and minds of ordinary people, winning support for his causes as no one else had ever done before. By his personal and eclectic piety, his asceticism, his vegetarianism, his espousal of Hindu-Muslim unity, and his firm belief in ahimsa, Gandhi appealed to the many Hindu ideals. For Gandhi, moral regeneration, social progress, and national freedom were inseparable.

As voices inside and outside the Congress became more strident, the British appointed Simon commission in 1927 to recommend further measures in the constitutional devolution of power. The British failure to appoint an Indian member to the commission outraged the Congress and others as a result Congress boycotted the commission. In 1929 the Congress responded by drafting its own constitution under the guidance of Motilal Nehru demanding full independence by 1930 and the Congress observed January 26, 1930, as the first anniversary of the first year of independence.

Gandhi led his most inspired campaign to protest against British taxes on salt on the coast of Gujarat between March 12 and April 6, 1930. Gandhi and his followers marched from his ashram in Ahmadabad to Dandi (400 kilometers) made their own salt from sea water by breaking the law. This symbolic move reflected the rage of Indians on unjust law and India's determination to be free. 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. 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.

The Government of India Act 1935, the voluminous and final constitutional effort at governing British India, articulated three major goals: establishing a loose federal structure, achieving provincial autonomy, and safeguarding minority interests through separate electorates. The federal provisions, intended to unite princely states and British India at the centre, were not implemented because of ambiguities in safeguarding the existing privileges of princes. In February 1937, however, provincial autonomy became a reality when elections were held; the Congress emerged as the dominant party with a clear majority in five provinces and held an upper hand in two, while the Muslim League performed poorly. In 1939, the Viceroy Lord Linlithgow declared India's entrance into World War II without consulting provincial governments. In protest, the Congress asked all of its elected representatives to resign from the government.

Jinnah, the president of the Muslim League, persuaded participants at the annual Muslim League session at Lahore in 1940 to adopt what later came to be known as the Lahore Resolution, demanding the division of India into two separate sovereign states, one Muslim, the other Hindu; sometimes referred to as Two Nation Theory. Although the idea of Pakistan had been introduced as early as 1930, very few had responded to it. However, the volatile political climate and hostilities between the Hindus and Muslims transformed the idea of Pakistan into a stronger demand.

In March 1942, faced with an increasingly dissatisfied sub-continent only reluctantly participating in the war, and deteriorations in the war situation in Europe and South East Asia, and with growing dissatisfactions among Indian troops- especially in Europe- and among the civilian population in the sub-continent, the British government sent a delegation to India under Stafford Cripps, in what came to be known as the Cripps' Mission. The purpose of the mission was to negotiate with the Indian National Congress a deal to obtain total co-operation during the war, in return of progressive devolution and distribution of power from the crown and the Viceroy to elected Indian legislature. However, the talks failed, having failed to address the key demand of a timeframe towards self-government, and of definition of the powers to be relinquished, essentially portraying an offer of limited dominion-status that was wholly unacceptable to the Indian movement. To force the Raj to meet its demands and to obtain definitive word on total independence, the Congress took the decision to launch the Quit India Movement.

The aim of the movement was to bring the British Government to the negotiating table by holding the Allied War Effort hostage. The call for determined but passive resistance that signified the certitude that Gandhi foresaw for the movement is best described by his call to Do or Die, issued on 8 August at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay, since re-named August Kranti Maidan (August Revolution Ground). However, almost the entire Congress leadership, and not merely at the national level, was put into confinement less than twenty-four hours after Gandhi's speech, and the greater number of the Congress leaders were to spend the rest of the war in jail.

On August 8, 1942 the Quit India resolution was passed at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). The draft proposed that if the British did not accede to the demands, a massive Civil Disobedience would be launched. However, it was an extremely controversial decision. At Gowalia Tank, Mumbai, Gandhi urged Indians to follow a non-violent civil disobedience. Gandhi told the masses to act as an independent nation and not to follow the orders of the British.

The British swiftly responded by mass detentions. A total over 100,000 arrests were made nationwide, mass fines were levied, and demonstrators were subjected to public flogging. The movement soon became a leaderless act of defiance (all the leaders were in jail), with a number of acts that deviated from Gandhi's principle of non-violence.

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