India's Struggle for Independence Read online

  BIPAN CHANDRA

  MRIDULA MUKHERJEE

  ADITYA MUKHERJEE

  K.N. PANIKKAR

  SUCHETA MAHAJAN

  INDIA’S

  STRUGGLE FOR

  INDEPENDENCE

  1857-1947

  Contents

  About the Author

  A Note on Style

  Dedication

  Introduction

  1. The First Major Challenge: The Revolt of 1857

  2. Civil Rebellions and Tribal Uprisings

  3. Peasant Movements and Uprisings after 1857

  4. Foundation of the Congress: The Myth

  5. Foundation of the Indian National Congress:

  The Reality

  6. Socio-Religious Reforms and the National Awakening

  7. An Economic Critique of Colonialism

  8. The Fight to Secure Press Freedom

  9. Propaganda in the Legislatures

  10. The Swadeshi Movement—1903-1908

  11. The Split in the Congress and the Rise of

  Revolutionary Terrorism

  12. World War I and Indian Nationalism: The Ghadar

  13. The Home Rule Movement and Its Fallout

  14. Gandhiji’s Early Career and Activism

  15. The Non-Cooperation Movement—1920-1922

  16. Peasant Movements and Nationalism in the 1920s

  17. The Indian Working Class and the National Movement

  18. The Struggles for Gurdwara Reform and Temple Entry

  19. The Years of Stagnation—Swarajists, No-Changers and

  Gandhiji

  20. Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen and the Revolutionary

  Terrorists

  21. The Gathering Storm—1927-1929

  22. Civil Disobedience—1930-1932

  23. From Karachi to Wardha: The Years from 1932-1934

  24. The Rise of the Left-Wing

  25. The Strategic Debate—1934-1937

  26. Twenty-eight Months of Congress Rule

  27. Peasant Movements in the 1930s and ’40s

  28. The Freedom Struggle in Princely India

  29. Indian Capitalists and the National Movement

  30. The Development of a Nationalist Foreign Policy

  31. The Rise and Growth of Communalism

  32. Communalism—The Liberal Phase

  33. Jinnah, Golwalkar and Extreme Communalism

  34. The Crisis at Tripuri to the Cripps Mission

  35. The Quit India Movement and the INA

  36. Post-War National Upsurge

  37. Freedom and Partition

  38. The Long-Term Strategy of the National Movement

  39. The Indian National Movement: The Ideological

  Dimension

  Additional Reading

  Footnotes

  Introduction

  1. The First Major Challenge: The Revolt of 1857

  2. Civil Rebellions and Tribal Uprisings

  3. Peasant Movements and Uprisings after 1857

  4. Foundation of the Congress: The Myth

  5. Foundation of the Indian National Congress:

  The Reality

  6. Socio-Religious Reforms and the National

  Awakening

  7. An Economic Critique of Colonialism

  8. The Fight to Secure Press Freedom

  9. Propaganda in the Legislatures

  10. The Swadeshi Movement—1903-1908

  11. The Split in the Congress and the Rise of

  Revolutionary Terrorism

  12. World War I and Indian Nationalism: The Ghadar

  13. The Home Rule Movement and Its Fallout

  14. Gandhiji’s Early Career and Activism

  15. The Non-Cooperation Movement—1920-1922

  16. Peasant Movements and Nationalism in the 1920s

  17. The Indian Working Class and the National

  Movement

  18. The Struggles for Gurdwara Reform and Temple

  Entry

  19. The Years of Stagnation—Swarajists, No-Changers

  and Gandhiji

  20. Bhagat Singh, Surya Sen and the Revolutionary

  Terrorists

  21. The Gathering Storm—1927-1929

  22. Civil Disobedience—1930-1932

  23. From Karachi to Wardha: The Years from 1932-1934

  24. The Rise of the Left-Wing

  25. The Strategic Debate—1934-1937

  26. Twenty-eight Months of Congress Rule

  27. Peasant Movements in the 1930s and ’40s

  28. The Freedom Struggle in Princely India

  29. Indian Capitalists and the National Movement

  30. The Development of a Nationalist Foreign Policy

  31. The Rise and Growth of Communalism

  32. Communalism—The Liberal Phase

  33. Jinnah, Golwalkar and Extreme Communalism

  34. The Crisis at Tripuri to the Cripps Mission

  35. The Quit India Movement and the INA

  36. Post-War National Upsurge

  37. Freedom and Partition

  38. The Long-Term Strategy of the National Movement

  39. The Indian National Movement: The Ideological

  Dimension

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

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  PENGUIN BOOKS

  INDIA’S STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

  BIPAN CHANDRA was born in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh. He was educated at Forman Christian College, Lahore and at Stanford University, California. He was Professor of Modern History at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, where he is currently Professor Emeritus. He has recently been honoured as National Professor and is also the Chairperson of the National Book Trust. Professor Chandra is the author of several books on nationalism, colonialism and communalism in modern India.

  MRIDULA MUKHERJEE was educated at Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi and at JNU. She is Professor of Modern Indian History at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU and Director, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library. Her areas of special interest are agrarian history, peasant movements and the national movement.

  ADITYA MUKHERJEE was educated at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and at JNU. He is Professor of Contemporary Indian History at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU and Director, Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Studies. His research interests are in modern business history and capitalist development, and contemporary economy and politics.

  K. N. PANIKKAR was educated at the Madras and Rajasthan Universities. He was professor of Modern Indian History at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU and Vice Chancellor, Shri Shankaracharya University, Kalady, Kerala. He is currently Chairman, Kerala Council for Historical Research and Vice Chairman, Higher Education Council, Government of Kerala. He has published widely in the areas of cultural and intellectual history and agrarian history.

  SUCHETA MAHAJAN was educated at Indraprastha College, Delhi and JNU. She is Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU and Chairperson, P.C. Joshi Archives on Contemporary History, JNU. Her research focus has been on the political process in India in the 1940s, including independence and partition, popular struggles and the issues that occupied the last phase of Mahatma Gandhi’s life.

  A Note on Style

  In order to ensure the continuity of the book’s narrative the authors of the various chapters are mentioned here and nowhere else in the volume. The Introduction and Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38 and 39 have been written by Bipan Chandra; Chapters 1 and 6 have been written by K.N. Panikkar; Chapters 10, 17 and 29 have been written by Aditya Mukherjee; Chapters 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 27, 28 and 35 have been written by Mridul
a Mukherjee; and Chapters 36 and 37 have been written by Sucheta Mahajan.

  To Romila Thapar and S. Gopal

  Introduction

  The Indian national movement was undoubtedly one of the biggest mass movements modern society has ever seen. It was a movement which galvanized millions of people of all classes and ideologies into political action and brought to its knees a mighty colonial empire. Consequently, along with the British, French, Russian, Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions, it is of great relevance to those wishing to alter the existing political and social structure.

  Various aspects of the Indian national movement, especially Gandhian political strategy, are particularly relevant to these movements in societies that broadly function within the confines of the rule of law, and are characterized by a democratic and basically civil libertarian polity. But it is also relevant to other societies. We know for a fact that even Lech Walesa consciously tried to incorporate elements of Gandhian strategy in the Solidarity Movement in Poland.

  The Indian national movement, in fact, provides the only actual historical example of a semi-democratic or democratic type of political structure being successfully replaced or transformed. It is the only movement where the broadly Gramscian theoretical perspective of a war of position was successfully practised; where state power was not seized in a single historical moment of revolution, but through prolonged popular struggle on a moral, political and ideological level; where reserves of counter-hegemony were built up over the years through progressive stages; where the phases of struggle alternated with ‘passive’ phases.

  The Indian national movement is also an example of how the constitutional space offered by the existing structure could be used without getting co-opted by it. It did not completely reject this space, as such rejection in democratic societies entails heavy costs in terms of hegemonic influence and often leads to isolation — but entered it and used it effectively in combination with non-constitutional struggle to overthrow the existing structure.

  The Indian national movement is perhaps one of the best examples of the creation of an extremely wide movement with a common aim in which diverse political and ideological currents could co-exist and work — and simultaneously continue to contend for overall ideological and political hegemony over it. While intense debate on all basic issues was allowed, the diversity and tension did not weaken the cohesion and striking power of the movement; on the contrary, this diversity and atmosphere of freedom and debate became a major source of its strength.

  Today, over forty years after independence, we are still close enough to the freedom struggle to feel its warmth and yet far enough to be able to analyse it coolly, and with the advantage of hindsight. Analyse it we must, for our past, present and future are inextricably linked to it. Men and women in every age and society make their own history, but they do not make it in a historical vacuum, de novo. Their efforts, however innovative, at finding solutions to their problems in the present and charting out their future, are guided and circumscribed, moulded and conditioned, by their respective histories, their inherited economic, political and ideological structures. To make myself clearer, the path that India has followed since 1947 has deep roots in the struggle for independence. The political and ideological features, which have had a decisive impact on post-independence development, are largely a legacy of the freedom struggle. It is a legacy that belongs to all the Indian people, regardless of which party or group they belong to now, for the ‘party’ which led this struggle from 1885 to 1947 was not then a party but a movement — all political trends from the Right to the Left were incorporated in it.

  ⋆

  What are the outstanding features of the freedom struggle? A major aspect is the values and modern ideals on which the movement itself was based and the broad socio-economic-and political vision of its leadership (this vision was that of a democratic, civil libertarian and secular India, based on a self-reliant, egalitarian social order and an independent foreign policy).

  The movement popularized democratic ideas and institutions in India. The nationalists fought for the introduction of a representative government on the basis of popular elections and demanded that elections be based on adult franchise. The Indian National Congress was organized on a democratic basis and in the form of a parliament. It not only permitted but encouraged free expression of opinion within the party and the movement; some of the most important decisions in its history were taken after heated debates and on the basis of open voting.

  From the beginning, the nationalists fought against attacks by the State on the freedoms of the Press, expression and association, and made the struggle for these freedoms an integral part of the national movement. During their brief spell in power, from 1937-39, the Congress ministries greatly extended the scope of civil liberties. The defence of civil liberties was not narrowly conceived in terms of one political group, but was extended to include the defence of other groups whose views were politically and ideologically different. The Moderates defended Tilak, the Extremist, and non-violent Congressmen passionately defended revolutionary terrorists and communists alike during their trials. In 1928, the Public Safety Bill and Trade Disputes’ Bill were opposed not only by Motilal Nehru but also by conservatives like Madan Mohan Malaviya and M.R. Jayakar. It was this strong civil libertarian and democratic tradition of the national movement which was reflected in the Constitution of independent India.

  The freedom struggle was also a struggle for economic development. In time an economic ideology developed which was to dominate the views of independent India. The national movement accepted, with near un animity, the need to develop India on the basis of industrialization which in turn was to be independent of foreign capital and was to rely on the indigenous capital goods sector. A crucial role was assigned to the public sector and, in the 1930s, there was a commitment to economic planning.

  From the initial stages, the movement adopted a pro-poor orientation which was strengthened with the advent of Gandhi and the rise of the leftists who struggled to make the movement adopt a socialist outlook. The movement also increasingly moved towards a programme of radical agrarian reform. However, socialism did not, at any stage, become the official goal of the Indian National Congress though there was a great deal of debate around it within the national movement and the Indian National Congress during the 1930s and 1940s. For various reasons, despite the existence of a powerful leftist trend within the nationalist mainstream, the dominant vision within the Congress did not transcend the parameters of a capitalist conception of society.

  The national movement was, from its early days, fully committed to secularism. Its leadership fought hard to inculcate secular values among the people and opposed the growth of communalism. And, despite the partition of India and the accompanying communal holocaust, it did succeed in enshrining secularism in the Constitution of free India.

  It was never inward looking. Since the days of Raja Rammohan Roy, Indian leaders had developed a broad international outlook. Over the years, they evolved a policy of opposition to imperialism on a world-wide scale and solidarity with anti-colonial movements in other parts of the world. They established the principle that Indians should hate British imperialism but not the British people. Consequently, they were supported by a large number of English men, women and political groups. They maintained close links with the progressive, anti-colonial and anti-capitalist forces of the world. A non-racist, anti-imperialist outlook, which continues to characterize Indian foreign policy, was thus part of the legacy of the anti-imperialist struggle.

  ⋆

  This volume has been written within a broad framework that the authors, their colleagues and students have evolved and are in the process of evolving through ongoing research on and study of the Indian national movement. We have in the preparation of this volume extensively used existing published and unpublished monographs, archival material, private papers, and newspapers. Our understanding also owes a great deal to our recorded interv
iews with over 1,500 men and women who participated in the movement from 1918 onwards. However, references to these sources have, for the ease of the reader and due to constraints of space, been kept to the minimum and, in fact, have been confined mostly to citations of quoted statements and to works readily available in a good library.

  For the same reason, though the Indian national movement has so far been viewed from a wide variety of historiographic perspectives ranging from the hard-core imperialist to the Marxist, and though various stereo types and shibboleths about it exist, we have generally avoided entering into a debate with those whose positions and analyses differ from our own — except occasionally, as in the case of Chapter 4, on the origin of the Indian National Congress, which counters the hoary perennial theory of the Congress being founded as a safety valve. In all fairness to the reader, we have only briefly delineated the basic contours of major historiographical trends, indicated our differences with them, and outlined the alternative framework within which this volume has been written.

  ⋆

  We differ widely from the imperialist approach which first emerged in the official pronouncements of the Viceroys, Lords Dufferin, Curzon and Minto, and the Secretary of State, George Hamilton. It was first cogently put forward by V. Chirol, the Rowlatt (Sedition) Committee Report, Verney Lovett, and the Montagu-Chelmsford Report. It was theorized, for the first time, by Bruce T. McCully, an American scholar, in 1940. Its liberal version was adopted by Reginald Coupland and, after 1947, by Percival Spear, while its conservative version was refurbished and developed at length by Anil Seal and J.A. Gallagher and their students and followers after 1968. Since the liberal version is no longer fashionable in academic circles, we will ignore it here due to shortage of space.

  The conservative colonial administrators and the imperialist school of historians, popularly known as the Cambridge School, deny the existence of colonialism as an economic, political, social and cultural structure in India. Colonialism is seen by them primarily as foreign rule. They either do not see or vehemently deny that the economic, social, cultural and political development of India required the overthrow of colonialism. Thus, their analysis of the national movement is based on the denial of the basic contradiction between the interests of the Indian people and of British colonialism and causative role this contradiction played in the rise of the national movement. Consequently, they implicitly or explicitly deny that the Indian national movement represented the Indian side of this contradiction or that it was anti-imperialist, that is, it opposed British imperialism in India. They see the Indian struggle against imperialism as a mock battle (‘mimic warfare’), ‘a Dassehra duel between two hollow statues, locked in motiveless and simulated combat.’1 The denial of the central contradiction vitiates the entire approach of these scholars though their meticulous research does help others to use it within a different framework.