Study Guide · Chapter 9
The Gandhian Era (1915–1947)
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- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915 (where he had developed and tested his philosophy of Satyagraha, non-violent civil resistance, notably during the campaign against discriminatory laws for Indians in South Africa).
- Early Satyagrahas in India: Champaran Satyagraha (1917, Bihar) — against the exploitative indigo cultivation (tinkathia) system imposed on peasants; Kheda Satyagraha (1918, Gujarat) — for tax relief for peasants hit by crop failure; Ahmedabad Mill Strike (1918) — for fair wages for textile mill workers.
- Rowlatt Act (1919): Allowed detention without trial; provoked widespread protest, famously termed the "Black Act" — this unrest led directly to the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (13 April 1919, Amritsar), where General Reginald Dyer ordered troops to fire on an unarmed crowd gathered (many for the Baisakhi festival) in an enclosed garden, killing hundreds — a defining atrocity that galvanised nationwide anger and disillusionment with British rule; Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood in protest.
- Khilafat Movement (1919–1924): Led by the Ali Brothers (Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali), protesting the treatment of the Ottoman Caliph after WWI; Gandhi supported this movement to build Hindu-Muslim unity, linking it with the broader non-cooperation campaign.
- Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–1922): Launched by Gandhi, involving boycott of British institutions, titles, schools, courts, and foreign goods; called off abruptly after the Chauri Chaura incident (February 1922, UP), where a violent mob killed policemen, leading Gandhi to halt the movement over concerns about maintaining strict non-violence.
- Swaraj Party (1923): Founded by C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru as a "pro-changer" faction advocating council entry to obstruct government from within, following the suspension of Non-Cooperation.
- Simon Commission (1928): An all-British commission sent to review constitutional reforms, boycotted by Indians (including Congress) with slogans of "Simon Go Back" precisely because it had no Indian members; Lala Lajpat Rai died from injuries sustained during a lathi charge protesting the Commission's visit to Lahore, prompting revolutionary retaliation (see the Revolutionary Movements notes).
- Nehru Report (1928): Drafted by a committee headed by Motilal Nehru, proposing a constitution for India with Dominion Status — one of the first major Indian-drafted constitutional blueprints; rejected by hardliners on both the Congress-radical and Muslim League sides.
- Purna Swaraj Resolution: Passed at the Lahore Session of Congress (December 1929), under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, declaring complete independence ("Purna Swaraj") as the goal, with 26 January 1930 observed as the first "Independence Day" (Purna Swaraj Day) — later chosen as the date for India's Constitution to come into force in 1950, in commemoration.
- Civil Disobedience Movement (1930–1934): Launched with the famous Dandi March (Salt Satyagraha), in which Gandhi walked approximately 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi (Gujarat) to break the salt law by producing salt from seawater, symbolically defying a British monopoly and tax on this essential commodity.
- Round Table Conferences (1930, 1931, 1932): Held in London to discuss constitutional reform; Gandhi attended only the Second Round Table Conference (1931), following the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931), under which Civil Disobedience was suspended and political prisoners released in exchange for Congress participation.
- Communal Award (1932): Announced by British PM Ramsay MacDonald, providing separate electorates for depressed classes (Dalits) along with other minorities; Gandhi opposed this on hunger strike, leading to the Poona Pact (1932) between Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar, which replaced separate electorates for depressed classes with reserved seats within the general electorate.
- Government of India Act 1935: Introduced provincial autonomy; Congress contested and won a majority of seats in the 1937 provincial elections, forming ministries in several provinces (which later resigned in 1939 in protest against India being declared a party to World War II without consultation).
- Quit India Movement (August 1942): Launched by Gandhi with the call "Do or Die," following the failure of the Cripps Mission (1942), which had offered post-war Dominion Status but was rejected as inadequate; nearly the entire top Congress leadership was immediately arrested, leading to a spontaneous, often locally-led and sometimes violent mass uprising across the country.
- Indian National Army (INA/Azad Hind Fauj): Founded initially by Mohan Singh with Japanese assistance from Indian POWs; later reorganised and led by Subhas Chandra Bose, who escaped house arrest in India, travelled via Germany and then Japan-controlled Southeast Asia, and formed the Azad Hind (Provisional Government of Free India) in 1943, with the war cry "Jai Hind" and the slogan "Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom." The INA fought alongside Japanese forces against the British in the Imphal-Kohima campaigns (1944) but was ultimately unsuccessful.
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