Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT History Class XII (Themes in Indian History Part III), Chapter 11.

A fistful of salt

On 6 April 1930, on the beach at Dandi, a man in a dhoti bent down and picked up a lump of natural salt. Under colonial law, making or collecting salt was an offence, because the state held a monopoly on it. With this small act, Mahatma Gandhi broke the law in public and invited the whole country to do the same.

Why did a pinch of salt shake an empire? To answer that, this chapter follows Gandhi from his return in 1915 to his death in 1948, and shows how he changed what nationalism looked like and who could take part in it. It ends with a different question: how do historians know all this, and how far can each kind of source be trusted?

The big idea: three great campaigns

Gandhi led or shaped several movements, but three are remembered as the great all India struggles. Each followed a failure or a provocation, and each ended in a settlement, a halt or a repression.

The return: learning India first

Gandhi returned to India in January 1915 after two decades abroad, mostly in South Africa, where he had developed satyagraha, the method of non-violent resistance ("truth force"). His political mentor, the Moderate leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale, advised him to spend a year travelling across British India to know the land and its people before entering politics.

His first big public statement came at the opening of Banaras Hindu University in February 1916. Before an audience of princes and elite leaders he said that Indian nationalism so far had been the creation of lawyers, doctors and landlords and had shown little concern for the labouring poor. It was a signal that he meant to make nationalism more representative.

Local struggles, 1917 to 1918

Before leading the country, Gandhi tested his methods in three local struggles.

These campaigns taught him how ordinary people responded to non-violent protest and made him a recognised leader among peasants and workers.

Rowlatt, Jallianwala and Khilafat

Rowlatt Satyagraha (1919). The Rowlatt Act continued wartime measures, such as detention without trial and censorship of the press, on the recommendations of a committee headed by Sir Sidney Rowlatt. Gandhi called a countrywide campaign against the Act, and protests were especially intense in Punjab.

Jallianwala Bagh (April 1919). In Amritsar a British Brigadier ordered troops to fire on a nationalist meeting, and more than 400 people were killed. The shock turned many Indians against the government, and the Rowlatt satyagraha made Gandhi a truly national leader.

The Khilafat link. After the First World War, Indian Muslims were anxious about the Turkish Sultan, who was the Khalifa. They demanded that he retain control of Muslim sacred places. The Khilafat Movement was led by Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali. Gandhi saw an opportunity: by joining the Khilafat cause to the national cause, he hoped to bring Hindus and Muslims together in one movement.

Non-cooperation, 1920 to 1922

Gandhi asked Indians to renounce all voluntary association with the British government. Students stopped going to government schools and colleges, lawyers stopped attending courts, and people refused to pay taxes. If it succeeded, he said, swaraj would come within a year.

The movement released energy beyond the leaders' plans.

Chauri Chaura. In February 1922, in Chauri Chaura in the United Provinces, a crowd of peasants attacked a police station and set it on fire, killing several constables. Gandhi called off the movement, saying that no provocation could justify the brutal murder of defenceless men. In March 1922 he was arrested and tried for sedition by Justice C. N. Broomfield, who sentenced him to six years in prison. He was released in February 1924.

Pause and predict: The movement was at its height, with strikes and boycotts across the country. Why would a leader stop it because of one incident?

Check your answer: Because Gandhi believed that the method, and not only the goal, mattered. A movement that turned to violence, in his view, no longer fitted satyagraha, and he feared that it could not be controlled. The decision shows that for him non-violence was a principle and not just a tactic.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Chauri Chaura led to the withdrawal of Non-cooperation in February 1922. In reality: the historian Shahid Amin, in Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura 1922 to 1992, showed that the event was remembered in very different ways: in police and court records, in nationalist accounts, and in local memory. This does not change the date or the outcome, but it shows that one event can be told differently depending on who records it.

The Mahatma and his style

Gandhi tried to look and live like the people he wanted to reach. While other leaders wore Western suits or Indian bandgalas, he wore a simple dhoti, and in 1921 he adopted a loincloth to identify with the poor. He worked every day at the charkha (spinning wheel), which for him broke the barrier between mental and manual labour. The charkha became the most lasting image of Indian nationalism.

After his release in February 1924, he turned to what he called the constructive programme: spinning and wearing khadi (home-spun cloth), ending untouchability, reforming child marriage and building Hindu-Muslim harmony. These campaigns reached villages and did not depend on colonial institutions.

Two views. For the exam: Gandhi transformed nationalism by drawing peasants, workers and artisans into it. Another reading: Shahid Amin's study of rumours in eastern Uttar Pradesh in 1921 and 1922 shows that peasants gave the "Mahatma" meanings of their own. Stories of miraculous powers spread among them that Gandhi did not control. Local grievances were attached to his name, and this suggests that the mass movement was shaped by the people as much as by the leader.

1928 to 1930: from Lahore to Dandi

In 1928 Gandhi supported the all India protests against the Simon Commission, which had no Indian member, and blessed the Bardoli peasant satyagraha, but did not lead either. At the Lahore session of the Congress in December 1929, with Jawaharlal Nehru as president, the Congress proclaimed Purna Swaraj, or complete independence. 26 January 1930 was to be observed as Independence Day.

The Salt March. On 12 March 1930 Gandhi set out from his Sabarmati ashram with 78 followers and walked about 240 miles to Dandi on the coast, reaching it on 6 April, where he made salt.

Why salt? Salt was needed in every household, and the state's monopoly on it was unpopular with every class. A protest on salt could unite the rich and the poor, Hindus and Muslims, in a single act. About 60,000 Indians were arrested in the movement that followed.

Pause and predict: Why would the British find it harder to deal with a protest about salt than a protest about political rights?

Check your answer: Because everyone could take part and everyone understood the issue. A law that taxed a daily necessity looked unjust, and arresting thousands of ordinary people for picking up salt made the government look harsh.

After Dandi: conferences, a pact and a dispute

The First Round Table Conference in London in November 1930 was held without the Congress and achieved little. Gandhi was released in January 1931, and in March 1931 he signed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact: civil disobedience was called off, prisoners were released and people along the coast were allowed to make salt. He did not get a commitment to political independence, only an assurance of talks.

Gandhi attended the Second Round Table Conference in London in late 1931 as the Congress representative. His claim that the Congress spoke for all India was challenged by three parties: the Muslim League, the Princes, and B. R. Ambedkar, who said that the Congress did not represent the lowest castes. The conference ended without agreement.

Two views. For the exam: Gandhi opposed separate electorates for the lower castes, fearing that they would remain permanently separated from the rest of society. Another reading: Ambedkar argued that the Congress did not represent the interests of the lowest castes and that they needed their own political safeguards. Both leaders were seeking the welfare of the lowest castes by different routes, and the dispute led to the Poona Pact of 1932, which arranged reserved seats for the Depressed Classes.

From provincial rule to Quit India

The Government of India Act of 1935 promised representative government in the provinces. In the elections of 1937 the Congress won in eight of the eleven provinces and formed governments there. In October 1939 the Congress ministries resigned after the British declared India a party to the war without consulting Indian leaders and refused to promise independence in return for support. In March 1940 the Muslim League passed a resolution demanding autonomy for Muslim majority areas.

In spring 1942 the British government sent Sir Stafford Cripps to India with proposals, but the talks broke down. In August 1942 Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, his third great movement. He was jailed at once, but younger activists organised strikes and acts of sabotage, and socialist leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan led underground resistance. In Satara in the west and Medinipur in the east, parallel governments were proclaimed. The British took more than a year to suppress the movement.

The last years, 1944 to 1948

Gandhi was released from prison in 1944 and held talks with Jinnah. After the Labour government in Britain committed itself to independence in 1945, fresh provincial elections were held in early 1946. The Congress did well in the general seats, and the League won an overwhelming majority of the reserved Muslim seats. The Cabinet Mission of 1946 failed to bring the Congress and the League to an agreement on a federal system. On 16 August 1946 the League's Direct Action Day was followed by bloody riots in Calcutta, which spread to other regions.

Lord Mountbatten became Viceroy in 1947 and the transfer of power was set for 15 August 1947. India was freed but divided. On Independence Day Gandhi was in Calcutta, marking the day with a 24 hour fast, as the freedom had come at the price of Partition. In the following months he visited hospitals and refugee camps and worked for peace.

On 20 January 1948 there was an attempt on his life. On the evening of 30 January 1948, at his daily prayer meeting in Delhi, he was shot dead by Nathuram Godse, who surrendered.

Knowing Gandhi: how historians use sources

The chapter closes with a method. A historian pieces together a leader's life from several kinds of source, and each has strengths and limits.

Pause and predict: A Home Department report says the Salt March drew little response, and a nationalist paper says crowds followed it in thousands. Whom should the historian trust?

Check your answer: Neither blindly. Each had a reason to see what it saw. The historian compares them with other sources such as letters, foreign press and later memory, and notes where they agree.

Key people and terms

Timeline

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Before this: Rebels and the Raj shows an earlier, armed challenge to the colonial order, in contrast to the mass non-violent politics of this chapter.
• Next: Framing the Constitution shows how the leaders of the national movement debated and wrote the Constitution of independent India.
• Also read: Challenges of Nation Building for what followed Partition and Independence.