Mahatma Gandhi

&

The Nationalist Movement

 Early Life
• Born October 2nd, 1869 in Porbander, Gujarat as Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi to a Hindu family
• Mahatma Gandhi’s father was a chief minister
and Mahatma Gandhi was thus raised in a
relatively higher class family

• As per tradition of the time and place, Mahatma

Gandhi was married at the age of 13 to
Kasturbai who was 14 in an arranged marriage

• Mahatma Gandhi was an average student overall

but was the best within his family. He was
therefore sent to Britain to study in hopes that
he would succeed his father as chief minister
 Mahatma Gandhi in Britain
• In order to go to Britain to study, Mahatma Gandhi had to
promise his mother he would abstain from sex, meat and
alcohol which he did.

• In Britain, Mahatma Gandhi studied to be a barrister ( a type of

lawyer) and in 1891 he passed the bar exams and then
returned to India
 Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa
1893-1914
• After a couple of years failing
to establish himself as a
lawyer in India, Mahatma
Gandhi was hired by a Muslim
Indian trading company called
Dada Abdulla & Co. in South
Africa. Mahatma Gandhi left
for South Africa in 1893 at the
age of 24.

• In South Africa, Mahatma

Gandhi developed his political
views, ethics and leadership
skills
• In South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi becomes connected with
Indians from different religions and different regions of India and
becomes more aware of the complexities of the religious and
cultural life in India

• Mahatma Gandhi also becomes aware of the great social

injustices Indian people faced. He experiences discrimination
firsthand.

Pictorial image of when Mahatma Gandhi

was thrown out of a train in South Africa
in 1893. Mahatma Gandhi had purchased
a first class ticket but once in the trail was
told he could not sit in first class because
he was Indian. He protested and was
thrown off the train.
• In South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi develops a
non-violent philosophy that leads to tactics and
strategies to oppose unjust, discriminatory laws
that Indian people faced. This philosophy and
political strategy is based on the concepts of:

Satyagraha – insistence on truth

Ahimsa – cause no injury

• Together, satyagraha and ahimsa form Mahatma

Gandhi’s strategy of non-violent civil
disobedience against unjust laws
• Mahatma Gandhi formed the “Natal Indian Congress” in 1894,
thus helping to organize the Indian community of South Africa
into a political force

• Through the NIC, Mahatma Gandhi attempted negotiation with

British South African officials that made little progress

• In 1906, however, the British South African government refused

to budge on the “Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act” requiring
Indians in South Africa to register with the British government
and be prepared at all times to show registration papers and give
their fingerprint to British officials when asked to do so

• Gandhi leads a non-violent campaign (his first major one) against

the act. The act was abolished, but reinstated a couple of years
later.

• Gandhi became a national hero

 Return to India – 1915

• By the time he returned to India, Mahatma Gandhi’s journey

with satyagraha and ahimsa had led him to simplify his own life,
getting rid of possessions and dressing in only a dhoti, shawl and
sandals
• Mahatma Gandhi was already a hero among Indian nationalists
when he returned in 1915

• Gandhi’s experience with the diverse Indian community in South

Africa gave him a broader background than most of the other
nationalist leaders

• However, upon his return Gandhi had limited success as his

speeches and lectures focused more on the need for Indian self-
improvement than active resistance to the British

• Gandhi makes his base on an ashram in Ahmedebad

 Champaran Satyagraha
• Indian farmers in the Champaran district of Gujarat were forced
to grow indigo by their British landlords even in the face of food
shortages in their region

• Farmers began revolting and in 1917 Gandhi came to launch a

satyagraha campaign

• Gandhi inspired a mass civil disobedience among the farmers and

was arrested

• His arrest inspired even larger protests and the British were
forced to negotiate and an agreement was forged giving the
farmers more autonomy
• Gandhi was clear to state that the Champaran Satyagraha was
simply a humanitarian mission, but it aroused excitement
among Indians everywhere for change

• Among Indian nationalist leaders, Gandhi was still an enigma.

• The nationalist sympathizer Edwin Montagu described Gandhi

saying, “he forswears all personal advancement, lives practically
on air and is a pure visionary”
 Non-Cooperation Movement
• The movement was undertaken to

A. Restore the status of caliph to the Ottoman sultan

B. In response to sense of helplessness after the Jallianwala

Massacre and other violence in Punjab and

C. To secure Swaraj (independence) for India.

• The movement
consisted of strikes,
boycotts of schools,
courts, councils, and
foreign goods

• Nearly 100,000
students dropped out
of government-
controlled universities
and began attending
nationalist colleges

• Value of imported
British cloth fell by 44%
between 1922-1924
• Gandhi himself becomes a leader of the
Noncooperation Movement by joining
with the Khilafat leaders, bringing them
into the INC, and helping to reorganize
the INC in 1920

• The INC reorganized creating within it a

350-member All-India Congress
Committee with elected representatives
from 21 different Indian regions
• One young leader to emerge from the Congress during the
Noncooperation Movement was Jawaharlal Nehru, son of
Motilal (also a member of the INC)

• Upon visiting impoverished regions

of India for the first time Nehru
remarked, “shame at my own
easygoing and comfortable life…
sorrow at the degradation and
overwhelming poverty of India”

• Nehru was very inspired by the ideals

of Gandhi. He also had a strong
interest in socialism
• By the end of 1921, 20,000 Indians had been jailed for civil
disobedience!

• The combined Khilafat and Congress movement brought British

India into a state of rebellion that turned violent at times causing
Gandhi to end his participation in the Noncooperation Movement
in 1922 and focused for the next several years on relief projects
and village work
1925
 Post-Khalifat Communal Violence
&
Rise of the Hindu Mahasabha

* Between 1924 – 1930 extremist Muslim and Hindu groups rise in

prominence and Muslim-Hindu unity is once again broken
• The worldwide Khilifat movement ended in 1924 when
the new ruler of Turkey (Kemal Attaturk) abolished the
position of Ottoman sultan and caliph

• In India, local Muslim leaders therefore assumed

caliph-like roles in several regions of the country and
led movements to “protect Islam”

• The Hindu Mahasabha was an alliance of Hindu

revivalists working for cow protection, language
reform, and Hindu social welfare mostly in northern
India
• The Mahasabha had a paramilitary offshoot
called the “Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh” or
the RSS. Members pledged to serve the RSS with
“their whole body, heart, and money for in it lies
the betterment of Hindus and the country”

• In 1926, the Mahasabha beat out INC candidates

in provincial elections
 Effects of Great Depression on India

• The Great Depression which began in 1929 destroyed India’s

export market and changed Britain’s economic relationship with
India

1929-1933: Value of Indian exports cut in half

1929-1933: Value of Indian imports cut in half

• The economic stagnation worsened poverty throughout the

country

• Only growth was in home grown industries, especially in textiles.

By the 1930s, Indian textile mills were producing two-thirds of all
textiles bought in India
 Salt March – 1930

• The most famous of all of Gandhi’s

campaigns

• The British imposed Salt Tax made it illegal

for any Indian to manufacture salt or even
collect natural sea salt without paying a tax

• Gandhi started a march to the sea on March

12th, 1930 with 70 followers.
• They walked for 240 miles gathering hundreds of followers
along the way and reached the coast at Dandi on April 6th
“With this I am
shaking the
foundations of
the British
Empire!”
• Gandhi’s next satyagraha was to take over the British
owned Dharasana Salt Works. Before he was able to
begin the action he was arrested on May 4th

• The action went on as planned starting May 21st.

Hundreds were arrested and hundreds more were
beaten by police as they attempted to enter the salt
works. The protesters remained non-violent and
continued to take the beatings.
• The Salt March and Dharasana Satyagraha served to:

1. Bring worldwide attention and sympathy to the non-

violent struggle in India for independence
2. Increase peasant participation in the independence
movement
3. Increased police violence against protesters
throughout the land
4. Led to the Round Table Conferences of 1930-1932..
 Round Table Conferences
(1930-1932)
• Discussions take place in London over two years between
the British government and INC/Muslim League
representatives in regards to self-rule for India

• By 1932, no agreements were made allowing for complete

independence and talks broke down.
• In 1932, with no agreement made at the conferences,
the British designed a system awarding a certain
number of seats in provincial governments to members
of different religious and social groups based on their
populations in those areas. These were known as
“Communal Awards”

• Untouchables were separated from other Hindus and

given their own electorates which Gandhi protested
through fast fearing what it would mean for
Untouchables to split off from the Hindu community in
this kind of way
 Poona Pact

• Reorganizes the British communal awards placing

Untouchables in the same electorate with Hindus but
reserving for them a certain number of seats within
that Hindu electorate
• The Poona Pact results in:

-More rights for Untouchables and better attention given

to the needs of their communities

-A greater divide within the Hindu community as orthodox

Hindus dislike being politically associated with
Untouchables
 Government of India Act (1935)
• Preserved control of the central government for the
British while ceding provincial control to Indians

• The Indian National Congress Party won 8 out of 11

provinces in 1937 elections

• Regional parties won 3 out of the 4 Muslim majority

provinces

• PROBLEM: Winning INC politicians made few

concessions to Muslims in the provinces they won
 Pakistan
• Jinnah uses the losses of the 1937 election to rebuild the
Muslim League using populism and the idea of a separate
nation for Muslims

• In the “Lahore Resolution” of 1940 the League agreed that

Muslims must have an autonomous state in the northwest and
east
• PAKISTAN PROBLEM – It does not address the political
needs of most muslims as the majority of India’s
muslims are scattered throughout the country

• “Minority Muslim populations needed constitutional

safeguards within provincial and central governments,
not a Muslim state hundreds, even thousands of miles
from their homes”

• Some scholars have suggested that Jinnah was using the

idea of Pakistan as a way to get concessions from
Congress leaders… instead it turned into a popular
movement with a lot of momentum
 Quit India!
• In 1939 with the beginning of WWII, Britain sought
India’s help in the war effort.

• This time the INC only offered support on the

condition of the immediate sharing of power in
India’s central government.

• When Britain offered only a guarantee of such

sharing at the end of the war, Gandhi and the
Congress started a new civil disobedience campaign
called Quit India
 Bengal Famine – 1943

• An estimated 3 million people died of famine related

causes between 1943-1946

• The main causes of the famine are disputed but are

largely related to the abrupt changes in local food
sources as a result of the British war effort in
neighboring Burma

• It is in complete agreement that Britain completely

failed to prepare for or react to the famine thus leading
to its terrible toll on the Bengali population
 Independence

• At the end of WWII, Britain’s controlling position was

untenable as a result of:

1. The continuing opposition and civil disobedience

movements led by the INC
2. British debt to India which had accumulated during the
war
 Independence - PROBLEMS
• The major problem facing India’s ability to form a
modern democratic state in the 1940s was how to
unite all the various political, religious, and social
groups under one government.

• The Congress Party, dominated by Hindus, continued

to hold the majority of political power and were
ready to form a central government under its control

• The Congress felt that political differences between

Hindus and Muslims could be solved after
independence…
• …Muslims felt otherwise. For the Muslim League,
religious identity became intertwined with political
identity and they required political protection through
constitutional safeguards before independence arrived

• Agreements could not be forged and Jinnah called for a

“Direct Action Day” on August 16th, 1946 to achieve
Pakistan

• This resulted in terrible Hindu-Muslim riots throughout

India that lasted between 1946 and 1947 and resulted
in tens of thousands of deaths
• Among the disorder and chaos, India became
independent on August 14th, 1947 with Nehru becoming
the first Prime Minister
* On the same day, Pakistan declared its independence
with Liaquat Ali Khan its Prime Minister and Jinnah
serving as Speaker of the Parliament
 Partition Violence

• With the partition of India and Pakistan more violence

broke out between Hindus and Muslims.

• By March, 1948 more than 10 million Muslims, Hindus

and Sikhs had fled their homes on either side of the
border to become refugees within the other country

• An estimated 1 million people lost their lives in partition

violence
 Gandhi’s Last Campaign
• Mahatma Gandhi took no part in the final negotiations for
partition or independence

• He instead focused on stopping the violence taking place and in

January 1948 he pledged to fast unto death in Calcutta. He
would only stop his fast if the violence stopped there.

• As he became increasingly weak, the violence finally came to a

stop in that city and Gandhi stopped his fast.

• On January 30th, 1948 Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by

Naturam Godse a right-wing Hindu fundamenalist with ties to
the RSS