NCERT Explained: Class X History, Chapter 2 - Nationalism in India

Introduction to the Topic

Welcome to another exciting journey through history! In Class X History, Chapter 2 - Nationalism in India, we explore one of the most inspiring chapters of human history. Unlike European nationalism, which often emerged alongside the formation of nation-states, modern nationalism in India was intimately connected to the anti-colonial movement. People from diverse backgrounds, communities, and regions discovered unity in their shared struggle against British rule. The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi's leadership tried to forge these groups together into one movement. However, the unity did not emerge without conflict. In this chapter, we will understand how the growth of nationalism was linked to the First World War, the emergence of Satyagraha, the Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience movements, and finally, the sense of collective belonging that united millions of Indians.

Key Concepts Explained

To master this chapter, let us break down the core themes into easily digestible segments. Each segment highlights a major phase or tool of the Indian national movement.

1. The Impact of the First World War (1914-1918)

The First World War created a new economic and political situation in India. It led to a huge increase in defence expenditure which was financed by war loans and increasing taxes: customs duties were raised and income tax was introduced. Through the war years, prices increased—doubling between 1913 and 1918—leading to \textreme hardship for the common people. Villagers were called upon to supply soldiers, and through forced recruitment in rural areas, widespread anger spread across the country. Furthermore, in 1918-19 and 1920-21, crops failed in many parts of India, resulting in acute shortages of food. This was accompanied by an influenza epidemic. According to the census of 1921, 12 to 13 million people perished due to famines and the epidemic. People hoped that their hardships would end after the war was over. But that did not happen.

2. The Idea of Satyagraha

It was in this backdrop that Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in January 1915. As you know, he had come from South Africa where he had successfully fought the racist regime with a novel method of mass agitation, which he called Satyagraha. The idea of Satyagraha emphasised the power of truth and the need to search for truth. It suggested that if the cause was true, if the struggle was against injustice, then physical force was not necessary to fight the oppressor. Without seeking vengeance or being aggressive, a satyagrahi could win the battle through non-violence. This could be done by appealing to the conscience of the oppressor. People—including the oppressors—had to be persuaded to see the truth, instead of being forced to accept truth through the use of violence. By this struggle, truth was bound to triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.

3. Early Satyagraha Movements in India

After arriving in India, Mahatma Gandhi successfully organised satyagraha movements in various places:

• Champaran (Bihar, 1916): Organised a movement against the oppressive plantation system.
• Kheda (Gujarat, 1917): Supported peasants who, affected by crop failure and plague, could not pay revenue and demanded relaxation.
• Ahmedabad (Gujarat, 1918): Went on a hunger strike amongst cotton mill workers.

4. The Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh

Encouraged by the success, Mahatma Gandhi in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act (1919). This Act had been rushed through the Imperial Legislative Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members. It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities, and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for two years. Mahatma Gandhi wanted non-civil disobedience against such unjust laws, starting with a hartal on 6 April. Rallies were organised in various cities, workers went on strike in railway workshops, and shops closed down. Alarmed by the popular upsurge, British administration clamped down on nationalists. Local leaders were picked up from Amritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from entering Delhi. On 10 April, the police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession, provoking widespread attacks on banks, post offices, and railway stations. Martial law was imposed, and General Dyer took command.

On 13 April, the infamous Jallianwala Bagh incident took place. A large crowd gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwala Bagh—some to protest against the government's new repressive measures, others to attend the annual Baisakhi fair. Being from outside the city, many villagers were unaware of the martial law that had been imposed. General Dyer entered the area, blocked the only exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. As the news of Jallianwala Bagh spread, crowds took to the streets in north Indian towns. There were strikes, clashes with the police, and attacks on government buildings. The government responded with brutal repression, terrorising people.

5. The Non-Cooperation Movement

Mahatma Gandhi now felt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India. But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without bringing Hindus and Muslims closer together. One way of doing this, he felt, was to take up the Khilafat issue. The First World War had ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey. There were rumours that a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman emperor—the spiritual head of the Islamic world (the Khalifa). To defend the Khalifa's temporal powers, a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919. A young generation of Muslim leaders like the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi about a joint mass action on the issue. Gandhiji saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a unified national movement. At the Nagpur session of the Congress in December 1920, the Non-Cooperation programme was adopted.

The movement unfolded in stages:

• Surrender of government titles, honours, and honorary positions.
• Boycott of civil services, army, police, courts, and legislative councils, schools, and foreign goods.
• In case of government repression, a full civil disobedience campaign would be launched.

Different social groups interpreted the idea of non-cooperation in their own ways:

• The Movement in the Towns: The movement started with middle-class participation in the cities. Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and colleges, headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal practices. The council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras. Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in huge bonfires.
• Rebellion in the Countryside: In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra against landlords and talukdars who demanded exorbitantly high rents and a variety of other cesses. The peasant movement demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and social boycott of oppressive landlords. In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s led by Alluri Sitaram Raju, who claimed he had a variety of special powers.
• Swaraj in the Plantations: For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space in which they were enclosed, and it meant retaining a link with the village from which they had come. Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not allowed to leave the tea gardens without permission, and rarely was such permission granted. When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations, and headed home.

6. Towards Civil Disobedience

In February 1922, Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement. The incident at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur, where a peaceful demonstration turned into a violent clash resulting in the death of several police officers, made Gandhiji feel that the movement was turning violent in many places and satyagrahis needed proper training before they would be ready for mass struggles. Within the Congress, some leaders were by now tired of mass struggles and wanted to participate in elections to the provincial councils set up by the Government of India Act of 1919. C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within the Congress to argue for a return to council politics. Meanwhile, in the late 1920s, Indian politics was shaped by two major factors: the worldwide economic depression and the arrival of the Simon Commission. The Simon Commission, arriving in India in 1928 to look into the functioning of the constitutional system and suggest changes, met with vehement opposition because it did not have a single Indian member. The slogan 'Go back Simon' greeted the commission everywhere.

In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress formalised the demand of 'Purna Swaraj' or full independence for India. It was declared that 26 January 1930 would be celebrated as Independence Day when people were to take a pledge to struggle for complete independence. Gandhiji chose the Salt March as an effective weapon to unite the nation. Salt was something consumed by the rich and the poor alike, and it was one of the most essential items of food. The tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production revealed the most oppressive face of British rule. On 31 January 1930, Gandhiji sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands. Some of these were of general interest; others were specific demands of different classes, from industrialists to peasants. The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax. Irwin was unwilling to negotiate. So, Mahatma Gandhi started his famous salt march accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers. The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji's ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi. The volunteers walked for 24 days, about 10 miles a day. Thousands came to hear Mahatma Gandhi wherever he stopped, and he urged them what swaraj meant and urged them to peacefully defy the British. On 6 April he reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling seawater. This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.

7. How Participants Saw the Movement

Just like Non-Cooperation, different social groups participated in the Civil Disobedience Movement with their own ideals and aspirations:

• Rich peasants: Communities like the Patidars of Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh were active in the movement. Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by the trade depression and falling prices. As their cash income disappeared, they found it impossible to pay the government's revenue demand. For them, fight for swaraj was a struggle against high revenues.
• Poor peasantry: They were not just interested in the lowering of the revenue demand. Many of them were small tenants cultivating land they had rented from landlords. As the Depression continued and the cash incomes of small tenants fell, the small farmers found it difficult to pay their rent. They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted.
• Business class: Indian merchants and industrialists were keen on expansive business and reacted against colonial policies that restricted business activities. They wanted protection against import of foreign goods and a rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio that would discourage imports. To organise business interests, they formed the Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927. Led by prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G.D. Birla, industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian economy, and supported the Civil Disobedience Movement when it was first launched.
• Industrial working class: The industrial working class did not participate in the Civil Disobedience Movement in large numbers, except in the Nagpur region. As the industrialists came closer to the Congress, workers stayed aloof. However, some workers did participate in spite of that, selectively adopting some of the ideas of the Gandhian programme, like boycott of foreign goods, as part of their own movements against low wages and poor working conditions.
• Women: An important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement was the large-scale participation of women. During Gandhiji's salt march, thousands of women came out of their homes to listen to him. They participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, and picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops. Many went to jail.

8. The Limits of Civil Disobedience

Not all social groups were moved by the abstract concept of swaraj. One such group was the 'untouchables', who from around the 1930s had begun to call themselves dalit or oppressed. For a long time, the Congress had ignored dalits for fear of conservative high-caste Hindus (sanatanis). But Mahatma Gandhi declared that swaraj would not come for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated. He called the 'untouchables' Harijan, organised satyagraha to secure them entry into temples, and access to public wells, tanks, roads, and schools. He himself cleaned toilets to dignify the work of the bhangi (the sweepers), and persuaded upper castes to change their heart and give up 'the sin of untouchability'. However, many dalit leaders were keen on a different political solution to the problems of the community. They began organising themselves, demanding reserved seats in educational institutions, and a separate electorate that would choose dalit members for legislative councils. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who organised the dalits into the Depressed Classes Association in 1930, clashed with Mahatma Gandhi at the Second Round Table Conference by demanding separate electorates for dalits. When the British government conceded Ambedkar's demand, Gandhiji began a fast unto death. He believed that separate electorates for dalits would slow down their integration into society. The issue was resolved through the Poona Pact of September 1932. It gave the Depressed Classes (later to be known as the Schedule Castes) reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils, but they were to be voted in by the general electorate.

The Muslim political organisations in India were also lukewarm in their response to the Civil Disobedience Movement. After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, a large section of Muslims felt alienated from the Congress. From the mid-1920s the Congress came to be more visibly associated with Hindu religious nationalist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha. As relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened, each community organised religious processions with militant fervour, provoking Hindu-Muslim communal clashes and riots in various cities. Every riot deepened the distance between the two communities. Efforts were made to renegotiate an alliance, and in 1927 it appeared that such a unity could be forged. The important difference was over the question of representation in the future assembly that was to be elected. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, one of the leaders of the Muslim League, was willing to give up the demand for separate electorates, if Muslims were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in proportion to population in the Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal and Punjab). Negotiations failed in 1928 when M.R. Jayakar of the Hindu Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise. When the Civil Disobedience Movement started there was thus an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust between communities.

9. The Sense of Collective Belonging

Nationalism spreads when people begin to believe that they are all part of the same nation, when they discover some unity that binds them together. This sense of collective belonging came partly through the experience of united struggles. But history and fiction, folklore and songs, popular prints and symbols, all played a part in the making of nationalism.

• Bharat Mata: The identity of the nation came to be visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata. The image was first created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in the 1970s when he wrote 'Vande Mataram' as a hymn to the motherland. Later, Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata portraying her as an ascetic figure; she is calm, composed, divine, and spiritual.
• Indian Folklore: In late-nineteenth-century India, nationalists began recording folk tales sung by bards and they toured villages to gather folk songs and legends. This was done to preserve what was considered national identity and restore a sense of pride in one's past. In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore began collecting ballads, nursery rhymes and myths, and led the movement for folk revival. In Madras, Natesa Sastri published a massive four-volume collection of Tamil folk tales, The Folklore of Southern India.
• Flags as Symbols: During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green, and yellow) was designed. It had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims. By 1921, Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag, a tricolour (red, green, and white) and had a spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help. Carrying the flag, holding it aloft, during marches became a symbol of defiance.
• Reinterpretation of History: Another means of creating a feeling of nationalism was through the reinterpretation of history. The British saw Indians as backward and primitive, incapable of governing themselves. In response, Indians began looking into the past to discover India's great achievements. They wrote about the glorious developments in art and architecture, science and mathematics, religion and culture, law and philosophy, craft and trade. This glorious time was followed, they stated, by a period of decline when India was colonised.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Modern nationalism in India developed out of the anti-colonial movement against British rule, amplified by the hardships of World War I.
• Mahatma Gandhi introduced Satyagraha, a method of mass agitation based on truth and non-violence, successfully applied in Champaran, Kheda, and Ahmedabad.
• The Rowlatt Act led to nationwide outrage and culminated in the tragic Jallianwala Bagh massacre in April 1919.
• The Non-Cooperation Movement combined with the Khilafat issue to bring Hindus and Muslims together, engaging urban middle classes, peasants, and plantation workers.
• The Civil Disobedience Movement began with the historic Dandi March in 1930, protesting the oppressive salt tax and uniting diverse groups including women and business leaders.
• Social differences, such as the debate over separate electorates for Dalits resolved by the Poona Pact (1932) and growing communal alienation, posed challenges to absolute national unity.
• A deep sense of collective belonging was forged through cultural symbols like Bharat Mata, folklore, patriotic songs, the tricolour flag, and the reinterpretation of India's glorious history.