The concept of Indian nationalism was developed during Indian independence movement fought against the British rule over India.
Indian history is one of the biggest reasons for India’s current ideologies because of which India came to develop the feeling of belongingness towards its nation, which is known as nationalism.
In 1608 the British entered in India as East India Company after issuing a chartered to do trade but slowly they started colonizing India.
In the year 1949 the World War-I began where the British participated in it and as India was ruled by the British government therefore many Indian farmers and youth were forced and recruited in the army to fight in the World War-I.
Due to the World War-I there aroused economical and political problems in India where to cover the expenses of the British; they increased the taxes and introduce income tax and custom duty.
Till 1989 the price of the products and food was too expensive for the Indians to buy.
In the year 1915 Mahatma Gandhi came to India with the concept of Satyagraha. He experimented the Satyagraha at three places in India first in Bihar in 1917, followed by Gujarat in 1918 lastly in 1918 in Ahmedabad in Gujarat.
All 3 satyagrahas were successful though the British Government tried to crash this protest by introducing Rowlatt Act in 1919. This act was basically authorized the British officials to imprison any Indian political leader for two years without any trial.
In the same year Gandhiji came out with the major movement called Rowlatt Satyagraha while on the other hands citizens all over India participated in the Satyagraha where the citizens closed their shops and organized rallies and several people went on protesting
To crush this movement the British government brought Martial Law which was commanded under General Dyer. On 13th April 1919 at Jallianwala Bagh a major incident happen where hundreds of innocent people were killed by General Dyer.
All this happened to create fear and to stop this Satyagrah but this incident did the opposite effect and the Indians attacked the government buildings and violence aroused throughout the country.
Due to this violence Rowlatt Satyagraha was called off by Mahatma Gandhi this is how the major movement came to an end.
After the failure of Rowlatt Satyagraha, Mahatma Gandhi focused on to bring Hindus and Muslims together along with to spread the correct meaning of Swaraj. At the time he introduced the non cooperation movement.
In September 1920 a session of Congress took place in Kolkata when Mahatma Gandhi merged the khilafat movement with non cooperation movement but some of the Congress leaders opposed that.
After which in the year 1920 in the month of December in Nagpur session these two movements were merged and were known as non cooperation khilafat movement.
In the year 1921 the non-cooperation khilafat movement was launched and this movement was distributed in three parts towns and cities country sides and lastly plantation.
The speed at which the non cooperation movement was accepted by the citizens of India was amazing as in this movement the foreign goods were boycotted.
Slowly it started to decline due to several reasons such as the prices of the khadi cloth was high and it was also limited secondly due to the lack of Indian institutions the youngsters were not getting jobs and colleges
Considering the country size and plantation there was a misconception related to concept of Swaraj among the people. Therefore the non-cooperation khilafat movement was withdrawn in February 1922 majorly because of the Chauri Chaura incident in Uttar Pradesh.
After the failure of non cooperation movement some Congress leaders formed Swaraj party such as Motilal Nehru while on the other hand Mass Agitation for full independence was pressed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose.
Simon commission came in India in 1928 where they were shown the quote to Go Back. Under the influence of Simon commission Lord Irwin decided and announced independence would be given to India but when he didn’t told about the timing which was kind of an unsatisfactory thing to the Congress party.
Another session was held in Lahore in December 1929 under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru. Where resolution for Purna Swaraj was passed and declared 26 January 1930 to be celebrated as Independence Day as well as the session pledged for the struggle of Purna Swaraj that is full independence.
Civil disobedience movement was another major movement which started with the famous breaking of the salt law on 6 April 1930.
Around 78 volunteers started salt march from Sabarmati ashram to Dandi after which Gandhiji was arrested. People attacked on police stations government buildings and railway stations. Thereafter the civil disobedience movement was withdrawn.
Gandhi Irwin Pact (Agreement) was signed by Gandhiji on 5th March 1931 so that government should release all the political prisoners and agreed to attend the second round table but they did not discuss anything in the second round table conference.
After Mahatma Gandhi came to India he launched the civil disobedience movement again. The movement was suspended in the year 1932 May by the Congress party and withdrawn in May 1934.
The civil disobedience movement had several limitations such as untouchables and secondarily the Muslims. All these movements created a sense of belongingness among the citizens of India. The people of India started to understand the power of collectiveness towards their nation.
Nationalism in India began after Gandhi came and the backbones of this were the workers, students and the citizens of India. After which Quit India Movement took place in 1942.
Hence this era of Pre-Independent Nationalism termed as Early Nationalism boosted India’s freedom movement a lot.
Written by: Rakhi Sharma
Edited by: Gourav Chowdhury
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