How did Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership change the nature and quality of the national movement?

✓ Introduction
o Point out how India was colonised, how the question of national
consciousness emerged and anti-imperialist struggle started in India.
o In brief, discuss how Gandhian movements changed the patterns of
freedom struggle in India.
✓ Early Nationalism
o Its limitation
o D.A. Low’s arguments

✓ Gandhi’s Ideas & Philosophy (Some historiography)
o Hind Swaraj (Satya & Ahimsha)
o Ashish Nandi
o Partha Chatterjee
o Rudolf C. Heredia
o Bhikhu Parekh
o Anthony Parel
o Judith Brown
o Shekhar Bandyopadhyay
Rudolf C. Heredia says Gandhi's Hind Swaraj presents us with an
idealized version of Indian culture that is completely opposite to the
'modern west'. Gandhi radically re-interprets 'Swaraj' and gives it a
dual meaning.
According to Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi’s usage of the terms ancient
civilization and Modern civilization gave Gandhi an advantage as
now he could argue Europeans were upstarts and had forgotten their
glorious Greco Roman past leading to an impoverishment of the
west while Indian civilization had attempted to preserve its ancient
past and was therefore fighting for the entire mankind. By this
Parekh says Gandhi undermined universalistic claims of European
‘modernity’ and Europeans found it hard to critique Gandhi’s anti-
colonial critique.
Anthony Parel says despite Hind Swaraj’s writing it is incorrect
to say Gandhi rejected modernity completely. As in the
introduction to Hind Swaraj –the text is presented as a dialogue
between a reader and an editor- a very modern figure Gandhi
took on. Also, throughout his career, he used print media and
travelled by railways to organize his campaigns. Thus, we need
not see him as only modern or traditional as Claude Markovits
says we see in Gandhi, ‘the paradoxical modernity of Gandhi’s
anti-modernism.’
Judith Brown says Gandhi’s rise did not symbolize ‘a radical
restructuring of political life’ or ‘opening up of modern
politics to the masses’ but the rise of Western-educated and
regional literal elites of the backward areas in place of
Western-educated leaders of Presidency towns. It was these
local leaders -the “subcontractors” who mobilized popular
support for Gandhi in the Indian countryside.
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay critiqued Brown as feels that such an image of Gandhi reduced
his popular appeal. Gandhi’s simple ways, use of colloquial language, and his popular
allegory Ramrajya made him comprehensible to common people-people interpreted
Gandhi in their own ways and it was difficult to ignore this millenarian aspect of his
popular appeal. Brown’s subcontractors had very little to do with this groundswell.
 ✓ Early Intervention

o Coming of Gandhi

o Champaran

o Kheda

o Ahmedabad

✓ Rowlett Satyagraha

Ravinder Kumar argued that the Rowlett Satyagraha was the first countrywide movement
against the Britishers. It not only transformed nationalism in India from a movement
representing classes to a movement representing masses, but it also paved the way for
Gandhi’s emergence as the dominant figure in Indian politics.
Why did Gandhi call off the movement?

Gandhi’s reason for calling off the movement was widely

debated. RP Dutt and other scholars continued to condemn
the decision taken by Gandhi and saw it as proof of his
concern for the propertied classes of Indian society.
According to them, he withdrew it because the action at ✓ Khilafat & Non-Cooperation Movement
Chauri Chaura was a symbol of the growing militancy of
the Indian masses and their growing radicalization as well
as their willingness to launch an attack on the status quo of
property relations. This they say was the real though
hidden motive behind the historic decision of February
o Unity among Hindu-Muslim/Participation of All classes
1922. Bipin Chandra argues that the movement never
became as radical as to pose a threat to the interest of the
propertied class. Instead, he says that Gandhi always
asserted the importance of non-violence if the movement o Role of Rumour: Gandhi as Mahatma (Shahid Amin)
was to achieve its goals. If he continued this movement, it
would mean giving up his higher moral ground. Mushirul
Hasan brings attention to the Khilafat angle and says that
the growing strain with the Khilafat movement was a
factor. Certain sections of the Ulema who were Khilafat o Why did he withdraw the NCM?
leaders did not agree with Gandhi on a few issues and by
the end of 1921, the Khilafat movement was slipping out
of Gandhi’s control. The Moplah riots of August 1922
ended any possibility of reconciliation. Judith Brown
argues that Gandhi’s differences with the established
politicians of the Congress who felt that NC would be ✓ Civil Disobedient Movement
ineffective if it was not followed by civil disobedience led
to his decision. The leaders wanted to contest elections and
confront the government in legislatures. The program had
to move forward if it had to survive and Gandhi’s failure in
responding to these emerging challenges led to the
• Logic of Gandhian Nationalism (Sumit Sarkar)
withdrawal of the movement. However, the arguments put
forward by Gandhi’s critics that violence in a remote
village could not be a sufficient cause for such a decision
and that the real motive for withdrawal was the fear of the ✓ Quit India Movement
growth of radical forces and Chauri Chaura was the proof
of the emergence of precisely such a radical settlement are
both on weak ground and are not accepted. Whether or not
the withdrawal was made at the correct time would always
be open to debate but Gandhi probably had enough reasons ✓ Conclusion
to believe that the moment he chose was the right one.
 Reading List

Amin, Shahid. (1984). “Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern UP, 1921-22”, in Ranajit Guha ed. Subaltern Studies
III. Writings on South Asian History and Society. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-61.
_____ (1996). Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura, 1922 – 1992. Delhi: Penguin. Reprint, 2006, pp. 9-19, 45-56, 69-93.
Baker, Chris. (1976). Politics of South India: 1920-1937. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar. (Ed.) (2009). Nationalist Movement in India: A Reader. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 55-
155.
_____ (2017). From Plassey to Partition and After: A History of Modern India, New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
Brown, Judith. (1972). Gandhi’s Rise to Power. Indian Politics 1915-1922. New York: Cambridge University Press (Chapters
3,4,5,6,7,9).
Guha, Ramchandra. (2018). Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-1948. New Delhi: Penguin.
Hardiman, David. (2005). Gandhi in his time and ours. Delhi, Orient Blackswan, pp.1-81; 109-184.
Kumar, Ravinder. (1971). Essays on Gandhian Politics, Rowlatt Satyagraha 1919. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 1-30
Minault, Gail. (1982). The Khilafat Movement: Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilisation in India. Delhi: Oxford
University Press (Introduction, Chapters II, III, IV).
Pandey, Gyanendra. (1988). The Indian Nation in 1942. Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi and Company (Chapters 1,2,3, 4, 8).
Parel, Anthony J. ed. (2009 edition). ‘Hind Swaraj’ and Other Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Editor’s
Introduction, pp. xiv – xxxviii).
Pouchepadass, Jacques. (1974). “Local leaders and the intelligentsia in the Champaran Satyagraha (1917): a study in peasant
mobilization”, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Vol. 8 (1), Jan 1, pp. 67-87.
Sarkar, Sumit. (1983). Modern India 1885-1947. Delhi: Macmillan.
_____ (1985) ‘The Logic of Gandhian Nationalism: Civil Disobedience and the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1930-31)’, in Sumit Sarkar,
A Critique of Colonial India. Calcutta: Papyrus, pp. 86 – 115.
Sarkar, Tanika. (2011). “Gandhi and Social Relations”, in Judith Brown and Anthony Parel (eds). The Cambridge Companion to
Gandhi. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 173-179.