The growth of nationalism in India in the twentieth century was a movement of the people, reaching far beyond the small circle of educated elites who had led the earlier Indian National Congress. The First World War and the years that followed created a new economic and political situation in India, in which a broad-based national movement could take shape. From 1919 onwards, the struggle against British rule was no longer just a demand for reforms; it became a mass movement that drew in peasants, workers, students, women, and people of every region and religion. This chapter studies how the national movement grew, the role of Mahatma Gandhi, the Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movements, and the many social groups that participated.
Nationalism in India was not a single, unified force. Different social groups had different expectations from the movement, and their participation was often motivated by local grievances as much as by the dream of a free nation. The peasants demanded relief from taxes and debt, the industrial workers demanded better wages, the business classes wanted protection of their trade, and the lower castes and women sought social equality. The chapter examines the tensions between these groups and how Gandhi tried to bring them together under the banner of a united struggle for swaraj, or self-rule.
For the board examination, students must understand the sequence of events, the important personalities, and the concepts of satyagraha, swaraj, boycott, and the many committees and sessions that shaped the movement. The chapter also connects the growth of nationalism to the new mediums of culture, such as the novel, poetry, posters, and the modern press, showing how nationalism was imagined and expressed. The map-based questions in this chapter are important as well, as students are expected to locate the centres of the movement on an outline map of India.
The First World War (1914-1918) created a severe economic and political crisis in India. The British government increased taxes and customs duties, and the war created a huge demand for military supplies, causing food prices to rise sharply and leading to forced recruitment of soldiers in villages. Crops failed in many areas and epidemics such as influenza spread, killing millions of people. People in the countryside and in towns grew resentful of the hardship they were made to bear, and the war created a new political and economic situation that prepared the ground for a mass movement.
Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915 and soon established himself as a leader who could mobilise the masses. In 1917, he organised a satyagraha in Champaran, Bihar, to support the peasants who were forced to grow indigo on a share of their land. He then led a satyagraha at Kheda in Gujarat in support of peasants who could not pay the revenue because of a failure of crops, and later supported the mill workers of Ahmedabad. These early struggles gave Gandhi a method: satyagraha, which he defined as the power of truth and the need to search for truth, a non-violent insistence on truth.
The situation was further inflamed by the Rowlatt Act of 1919, which gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial. Gandhi called for a nationwide hartal, or a day of fasting and protest, against the Act. This protest culminated in the tragedy of Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on 13 April 1919, when General Dyer ordered troops to fire on a peaceful crowd, killing hundreds. The massacre and the subsequent martial law in Punjab convinced many Indians that the British were not interested in reform, and it drew Gandhi into the national movement more directly.
Gandhi, in 1920, launched the Non-Cooperation Movement, demanding swaraj. He called upon the people to withdraw their cooperation from the British government by surrendering titles that the government had honoured, boycotting civil services, army, police, courts and legislative councils, and refusing to attend official durbars. In 1921, the government of the time agreed to a compromise under the Gandhi-Irwin Pact. The movement also became linked with the Khilafat issue, as Muslims were angered by the British treatment of the Ottoman Empire and the Khalifa after the First World War.
The Khilafat Committee was formed in 1919 in Bombay, and the leaders of the Khilafat movement, including Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, joined hands with Gandhi and the Congress. This Hindu-Muslim unity, an attempt to forge a common platform against the British, was a remarkable feature of the Non-Cooperation years. The movement was widely supported by students, teachers, peasants and workers, who saw it as a struggle for their own rights and grievances.
The Non-Cooperation Movement spread rapidly, with strikes in many industrial towns, and boycotts of foreign goods. The most dramatic event came in February 1922, when peasants at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh set fire to a police station in which policemen were killed. Gandhi, who was committed to non-violence, called off the movement immediately, as he was convinced that the people had not yet fully imbibed the message of non-violence. The abrupt withdrawal of the movement was a disappointment for many nationalists, but it demonstrated Gandhi's firm commitment to the principle of non-violence.
The Civil Disobedience Movement was launched in 1930 with the famous Dandi March. On 31 January 1930, Gandhi sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands, of which the most stirring was the demand to abolish the salt tax. When Irwin refused to meet these demands, Gandhi started his famous march on 12 March 1930 from Sabarmati ashram to the village of Dandi, walking for twenty-four days covering 240 miles, to make salt from the sea and break the salt law. This action, the Salt Satyagraha, was a brilliant stroke that made the salt tax, which affected every Indian, a symbol of British oppression.
Rich and poor peasants alike participated in the movement. The peasants joined in the demand for the reduction of revenue and the abolition of the salt tax, while the poor and landless peasants wanted the removal of feudal and zamindari exploitation. The business classes, who had earlier supported the movement in the hope of profits and trade protection, became lukewarm when the movement was not brought under the control of the Indian Industrialists, and they began to lose interest after 1931.
The industrial working classes of Bombay, Chotanagpur, Madras and other regions took part in strikes, though their relation with the Congress was complex. Women, who were not seen as a very important part of the movement earlier, now participated in thousands, in marches, in manufacturing of salt, and in the picketing of foreign cloth and liquor shops. Many of them were drawn into the public arena for the first time. However, for the untouchables and dalits, the movement was a double-edged sword: while some joined the national struggle, leaders like Dr B.R. Ambedkar demanded separate electorates for the depressed classes, leading to the Poona Pact of 1932 between Ambedkar and Gandhi, which gave reserved seats in provincial councils but no separate electorates.
The sense of collective belonging came partly through the experience of united struggles. But there were also a variety of cultural processes through which nationalism captured people's imagination. History, fiction, folklore, songs, popular prints and symbols were all part of making the nation. The identity of India was depicted in the image of Bharat Mata, the mother goddess, whose image was first created in the late nineteenth century by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who wrote Vande Mataram, and later drawn by Abanindranath Tagore as a calm, composed, divine and motherly figure.
In Bengal, folklore and tales from the Indian past were collected and sung by a band of folk singers, who used them to spread nationalist messages. Nationalists began to search for the real spirit of the nation in the folk traditions, which they believed had survived in rural areas, uncontaminated by Western influences. At the same time, images of nationalist heroes and events began to be produced in abundance in the form of posters and prints, and a tricolour flag was developed by the Swarajists, which was adopted by the Congress in 1921, symbolising the unity of the nation.
Rebel leaders like Alluri Sitaram Raju, the leader of the Gudem rebellion in Andhra Pradesh, were glorified through songs and legends. Raju, inspired by Gandhi, claimed that he had been inspired by Gandhi's ideas of non-cooperation, though he combined them with militant methods. The image of the nation was also created through the mapping of the country and through song and print. All of these cultural productions created a powerful sense of belonging that sustained the national movement across its many phases.
The Civil Disobedience Movement had clear limits. The industrial working class did not participate in large numbers, and the movement was more effective in urban areas than in rural areas. The participation of Muslims was limited, as some Muslim organisations felt alienated from the Congress's refusal to give them reserved seats in government jobs. In 1935, the Government of India Act created elected provincial governments, and in 1937 the Congress formed governments in several provinces, but this period of constitutional politics did not end the demand for complete independence.
With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, India was declared a belligerent by the British without consulting Indian leaders. The Congress ministries resigned in protest, and in August 1942, Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, demanding that the British leave India immediately. The movement saw widespread strikes, demonstrations and underground activity, and the government responded with brutal repression, arresting thousands including Gandhi himself. The demand for Pakistan, put forward by the Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah, also grew stronger in these years, as communal politics sharpened the divisions within the national movement.
The Second World War years also saw the 'Do or Die' slogan, and the movement, though crushed by force, demonstrated that the British could not hold India without the consent of the Indian people. The freedom struggle culminated in 1947 with the Partition of India and the achievement of Independence, but the dream of swaraj was realised at the cost of great suffering and division. Nationalism in India, thus, succeeded in uniting people against colonial rule, but it also revealed the deep tensions and conflicts within Indian society.
| Year | Event | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| 1915 | Gandhi returns to India from South Africa | Brought the method of satyagraha to the Indian struggle |
| 1917 | Champaran satyagraha (Bihar) | Support to peasants forced to grow indigo |
| 1919 | Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh massacre | Repression; massacre of peaceful crowd at Amritsar on 13 April |
| 1920 | Non-Cooperation Movement | Demand for swaraj through boycott and non-cooperation |
| 1921 | Swaraj Flag adopted by Congress | Symbol of collective national identity |
| 1922 | Chauri Chaura incident | Police station burnt; Gandhi called off the movement |
| 1927 | Simon Commission announced | Protested with slogan 'Simon Go Back' |
| 1930 | Dandi March / Civil Disobedience Movement | Breaking of the salt law; mass civil disobedience |
| 1932 | Poona Pact between Ambedkar and Gandhi | Reserved seats for depressed classes in provincial councils |
| 1942 | Quit India Movement | Demand 'Do or Die' for immediate British withdrawal |
| Social Group | Contribution in the National Movement | Expectation/Interest |
|---|---|---|
| Peasants | Participated in Champaran, Kheda and Civil Disobedience movements | Reduction of revenue, abolition of salt tax |
| Business classes | Financed the movement; supported boycott of foreign goods | Protection of trade and profits |
| Industrial workers | Took part in strikes | Better wages and working conditions |
| Women | Joined marches, made salt, picketed shops | Public participation and social recognition |
| Dalits/Depressed classes | Some joined, but leaders demanded separate electorates | Social equality and political representation |
The national movement in India, shaped decisively by Mahatma Gandhi, transformed the struggle for freedom from a limited elite demand into a mass movement of the people. Through satyagraha, the movements of non-cooperation, civil disobedience and Quit India, millions of Indians from every class, region and religion were drawn into the political arena. Culture, symbol and image played a vital role in creating a sense of collective belonging, giving the nation a shared emotional identity. Yet the movement also revealed deep tensions, between Hindus and Muslims, castes and classes, and these divisions ultimately culminated in the tragedy of Partition. Nationalism in India, therefore, is a story of both unity and division, of great courage and of deep conflicts. For the student, the chapter teaches that nationalism is not a single sentiment but a living, complex process shaped by the hopes and grievances of the people.