Freedom Struggle — Key Figures & Movements

Why This Chapter Matters

If Ancient and Medieval India together earn you 8-10 marks, Modern India and the Freedom Struggle usually earn just as many on their own, and RRB NTPC has historically leaned even harder on this period than on the earlier two chapters combined. This is also the period students find easiest to score well in, because the story has a clear beginning (European trading companies arriving), a clear middle (the Company's expansion and colonial rule), and a clear end (Independence in 1947) — a plot, essentially, not just a list.

The single biggest mistake aspirants make is mixing up the order and outcomes of the Company's three defining early battles: Plassey (1757), Buxar (1764), and the Anglo-Mysore or Anglo-Maratha wars that followed. A close second is confusing which Congress session did what — Lahore 1929 versus Karachi 1931 versus Tripuri 1939 all get swapped around in option sets. Read this chapter as one continuous timeline rather than isolated facts, and the dates will start defending themselves in your memory instead of blurring together.

The Arrival of Europeans and the Rise of the East India Company

The Trading Powers

The Portuguese arrived first, with Vasco da Gama reaching Calicut in 1498, establishing a trading post and later a colonial foothold at Goa (which remained Portuguese territory until 1961, decades after Indian independence — a fact often tested precisely because it feels surprising). The Dutch followed, focused mainly on the spice trade and establishing bases like Pulicat and Chinsura, though their Indian presence never became politically dominant. The English East India Company was founded in 1600 by royal charter from Elizabeth I, and the French East India Company followed in 1664, setting up a base at Pondicherry.

Exam trap: Do not assume the Portuguese were the last European colonial presence to leave India. Pondicherry (French) was handed over in 1954, and Goa (Portuguese) was annexed by India through military action only in 1961 — both well after 1947.

English Footholds and the Anglo-French Rivalry

The English East India Company established its first trading factory at Surat in 1613, later expanding to Madras (Fort St. George, 1639), Bombay (received as dowry from Portugal in 1661, transferred to the Company in 1668), and Calcutta (Fort William), formally established through Job Charnock's settlement, growing into a major base by the early 1700s.

The English and French fought a series of Carnatic Wars (1746-1763) in south India, largely as an extension of European conflicts (Austrian Succession, Seven Years' War) fought on Indian soil using local alliances. The Third Carnatic War ended with the Treaty of Paris (1763), confirming British dominance over the French in India and effectively ending serious French political ambition in the subcontinent, though Pondicherry remained a small French trading enclave for another two centuries.

The Battle of Plassey (1757)

The Battle of Plassey, fought on 23 June 1757, is the single most important date in this entire chapter, arguably in the whole modern history syllabus. Robert Clive, commanding the East India Company's forces, defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, largely through the betrayal of the Nawab's own commander Mir Jafar, who had been secretly promised the Nawab's throne in exchange for staying out of the actual fighting.

Plassey was not primarily won on the battlefield through military superiority; it was won through a conspiracy engineered before the fighting even began, and this is exactly why examiners like it — it tests whether you understand cause, not just the date. Following the victory, Mir Jafar was installed as a puppet Nawab, and the Company gained effective control over Bengal's revenue and administration while keeping a local ruler as a nominal front, a pattern the Company would repeat across India for the next century.

The Battle of Buxar (1764)

The Battle of Buxar, fought on 22 October 1764, was in some ways more consequential than Plassey, even though it is less famous. A combined force of Mir Qasim (the Nawab of Bengal who had replaced Mir Jafar and then rebelled against Company control), Shuja-ud-Daulah (Nawab of Awadh), and the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II was decisively defeated by Company forces under Hector Munro.

Buxar's aftermath produced the Treaty of Allahabad (1765), under which Shah Alam II granted the East India Company the Diwani (right to collect revenue) of Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha. This is the moment the Company transformed from a trading firm with occasional military muscle into an actual territorial revenue-collecting power, a transition worth remembering as the real beginning of British colonial administration in India, even though full political conquest of the subcontinent would take another century.

Memory hook: Plassey gave the Company a puppet Nawab; Buxar gave the Company actual tax rights. Power first, then paperwork to make it official — that is the real difference between the two battles, and remembering that difference will answer most questions examiners ask about them.

Company Administration and Land Revenue Systems

Early Governance Structure

The Company's Indian territories were initially governed by a Governor-General, the first being Warren Hastings (1772-1785), who reorganised the judicial system and dealt with the First Anglo-Maratha War and the Second Anglo-Mysore War. Lord Cornwallis (Governor-General 1786-1793) is chiefly remembered for the Permanent Settlement of 1793 and for reforms establishing the civil service along more structured, less corrupt lines than the freewheeling early Company era.

The Three Major Land Revenue Systems

Land revenue collection is one of the most heavily tested administrative topics of the colonial period, because the three systems used across different regions had genuinely different effects on Indian agrarian society, and papers like to test which system applied where.

System	Introduced By	Region	Key Feature
Permanent Settlement (Zamindari)	Lord Cornwallis, 1793	Bengal, Bihar, Odisha	Fixed revenue forever; zamindars as owners
Ryotwari	Thomas Munro / Alexander Read	Madras, Bombay presidencies	Direct settlement with individual cultivators (ryots)
Mahalwari	Holt Mackenzie	North-Western Provinces, Punjab	Revenue settled village by village (mahal)

The Permanent Settlement fixed the amount of land revenue owed forever, which sounds like it should have helped landholders, but in practice it turned zamindars into a new landowning class who could evict peasants for non-payment, since the fixed sum still had to be paid to the Company regardless of harvest quality. A single bad monsoon could push a zamindar to bankruptcy or a tenant into eviction, because the revenue demand never adjusted downward — imagine a landlord forced to pay the same fixed rent to the government every year no matter whether the crop failed or flourished, and you understand exactly why this system caused such lasting agrarian distress.

The Ryotwari system, by contrast, settled revenue directly with individual peasant cultivators rather than through zamindars, in principle giving ryots ownership rights, though the state itself retained the power to periodically revise (usually increase) the assessed rate. The Mahalwari system settled revenue collectively at the village or estate (mahal) level, with joint responsibility among landholders of that unit.

Exam trap: These three systems are often confused with each other in option-based questions because they sound similar structurally. Anchor them by geography: Permanent Settlement = Bengal, Ryotwari = Madras/Bombay (south and west), Mahalwari = north India/Punjab.

The Revolt of 1857

Causes

The Revolt of 1857, called by the British the "Sepoy Mutiny" and by Indian nationalist historians the "First War of Independence," erupted from a combination of long-simmering grievances: the annexation policy of Lord Dalhousie's "Doctrine of Lapse" (which allowed the Company to annex princely states if a ruler died without a natural male heir, denying adopted heirs recognition), resentment among sepoys over pay and treatment, the annexation of Awadh in 1856, and widespread anxiety over British interference in social and religious customs.

The immediate trigger was the introduction of the Enfield rifle, whose cartridges were rumoured to be greased with cow and pig fat, requiring soldiers to bite them open before loading — an act that offended both Hindu and Muslim religious sensibilities simultaneously, uniting sepoys of both communities in refusal almost overnight.

Course of the Revolt

The revolt began at Meerut on 10 May 1857, when sepoys mutinied, and quickly spread to Delhi, where the aging Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was declared, somewhat reluctantly, as the symbolic leader of the uprising, despite holding no real political power at the time. Major centres of resistance included:

• Delhi — under Bahadur Shah Zafar, symbolically central but militarily weak
• Kanpur — led by Nana Sahib, assisted by Tantia Tope
• Lucknow — led by Begum Hazrat Mahal
• Jhansi — led by Rani Lakshmibai, who died fighting in June 1858, becoming the revolt's most enduring symbol
• Bihar (Arrah) — led by Kunwar Singh

Memory hook: Think of these five centres as five separate fires the British had to put out one by one, each with its own local leader — no single unified command tied them together, which is precisely why the British were eventually able to suppress the revolt despite its scale, region by region rather than all at once.

Suppression and Consequences

The revolt was crushed by mid-1858, with Delhi recaptured, Bahadur Shah Zafar exiled to Rangoon (Burma), where he died in 1862, and most regional leaders defeated or killed. The most immediate and far-reaching consequence was the Government of India Act, 1858, which abolished East India Company rule entirely and transferred governance directly to the British Crown, with a Secretary of State for India in London and a Viceroy in India as the Crown's representative — Lord Canning became the first Viceroy. Queen Victoria's proclamation of 1858 also promised (though rarely honoured in practice) non-interference in religious matters and equal treatment of Indian subjects.

Formation of the Indian National Congress

Founding and Early Phase

The Indian National Congress (INC) was founded in 1885, its first session held in Bombay under the presidency of Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, with 72 delegates attending. Allan Octavian Hume, a retired British civil servant, played the key organising role in bringing it together, though the broader intellectual and political groundwork had been building for decades through earlier associations and a rising educated Indian middle class.

The early Congress, dominated by figures now called Moderates (Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Surendranath Banerjee, Pherozeshah Mehta among them), pursued constitutional methods — petitions, resolutions, and dialogue — believing gradual reform within the British system was achievable. Dadabhai Naoroji's "Drain of Wealth" theory, articulated in his book "Poverty and Un-British Rule in India," argued that Britain was systematically extracting India's wealth without adequate return, a foundational economic critique of colonialism still cited in exam questions on economic nationalism.

Rise of Extremism and the Swadeshi Movement

Frustration with slow-moving Moderate politics, combined with the shock of Lord Curzon's Partition of Bengal (1905) — dividing Bengal ostensibly for administrative convenience but widely seen as a deliberate attempt to weaken Bengali unity along religious lines — gave rise to the more assertive Extremist faction, led by the trio popularly called "Lal-Bal-Pal": Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal.

The Swadeshi Movement (1905-1911), launched in direct response to the Bengal partition, promoted the boycott of British goods and the use of Indian-made products, alongside the growth of national education institutions. Bal Gangadhar Tilak's slogan, "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it," became a rallying cry of this more assertive phase of the freedom struggle. The Congress split at its Surat Session in 1907 between Moderates and Extremists, only reuniting in 1916 at the Lucknow Session, which also produced the Lucknow Pact, an unusual moment of Congress-Muslim League cooperation.

The Gandhi Era

Arrival and Early Movements

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915, having already developed and tested his method of Satyagraha (truth-force, non-violent civil resistance) in the South African context. His first major Indian campaigns were localised: Champaran (1917), addressing exploitation of indigo cultivators in Bihar; Kheda (1918), supporting Gujarati peasants seeking tax relief during crop failure; and Ahmedabad Mill Strike (1918), mediating a labour dispute over mill workers' wages.

The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-1922)

Launched in 1920, this was Gandhi's first genuinely nationwide mass movement, triggered by anger over the Rowlatt Act (1919), which permitted detention without trial, and the horror of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (13 April 1919), where General Dyer ordered troops to fire on an unarmed crowd gathered at Amritsar for Baisakhi celebrations and a peaceful protest, killing several hundred people in an enclosed space with no escape route. The movement called for boycotting British institutions, titles, schools, courts, and foreign goods, and initially ran alongside the Khilafat Movement, an issue important to Indian Muslims concerned about the treatment of the Ottoman Caliph after World War I, giving the movement unusual Hindu-Muslim unity for its time.

Gandhi abruptly called off the movement in February 1922 after the Chauri Chaura incident in Uttar Pradesh, where an angry crowd set fire to a police station, killing several policemen — a violent turn Gandhi considered a betrayal of the movement's core non-violent principle, even though many Congress leaders disagreed with the decision to halt a nationwide campaign over one local incident.

Exam trap: Chauri Chaura is frequently tested for its exact consequence — it ended the Non-Cooperation Movement, not the Civil Disobedience Movement. Keep the two movements and their respective triggers and endings clearly separated in your memory.

The Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-1934)

This movement began with the famous Dandi March (also called the Salt March), starting on 12 March 1930, when Gandhi and a group of followers walked roughly 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi in Gujarat, arriving on 6 April 1930 to break the colonial salt law by making salt from seawater. The salt tax, though small in isolated terms, symbolised the everyday reach of colonial control into ordinary life, and the march itself was a masterclass in turning a mundane household item into a nationwide political symbol — everyone used salt, so everyone could participate in breaking an unjust law over it, regardless of literacy, wealth, or region.

The movement led to the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931), under which Gandhi agreed to suspend the movement and attend the Second Round Table Conference in London as the sole Congress representative, in exchange for the release of political prisoners. The conference produced little concrete progress on self-governance, and civil disobedience resumed briefly afterward before being called off in 1934.

The Quit India Movement (1942)

Launched on 8 August 1942, following the failure of the Cripps Mission (which had offered limited post-war dominion status, rejected by Congress as inadequate), the Quit India Movement demanded immediate British withdrawal with the slogan "Do or Die." Nearly the entire top Congress leadership, including Gandhi, was arrested within hours of the announcement, leaving the movement to be carried forward by younger, more spontaneous local leadership, at times turning genuinely violent through sabotage of railways and communication lines, actions the mainstream Congress leadership had not sanctioned but could not control from prison.

Exam trap: Quit India (1942) is sometimes confused with Civil Disobedience (1930) because both involved mass arrests and civil resistance. Anchor Quit India firmly to World War II and the Cripps Mission failure; Civil Disobedience is firmly anchored to the salt tax and the Dandi March.

Revolutionary Movements

Parallel to Gandhi's mass movements, a revolutionary strand pursued more direct, sometimes armed, resistance. Bhagat Singh, along with Rajguru and Sukhdev, was executed in 1931 for his role in the killing of a British police officer and the 1929 Central Legislative Assembly bombing (a symbolic, non-lethal act, deliberately timed and designed to "make the deaf hear," in Bhagat Singh's own words, rather than to kill). Chandrashekhar Azad, a key figure of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, died in a shootout with police at Alfred Park, Allahabad, in 1931, having vowed never to be captured alive.

Subhas Chandra Bose, after breaking from mainstream Congress politics (he had briefly served as Congress President before ideological differences with Gandhi over methods led to his resignation), formed the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) with support from Japan during World War II, adopting the rallying cry "Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom." The Indian National Army trials (INA/Red Fort trials) of captured INA officers in 1945-46 generated significant nationwide sympathy and unrest, contributing to the broader post-war pressure on British authority even though the INA campaign itself achieved little military success against British forces.

Partition and Independence, 1947

The Final Years

The years following World War II brought rapid political change: the Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) attempted to design a framework for a united, federated India but ultimately failed to reconcile Congress and Muslim League positions on the shape of a future state. Growing communal tension culminated in the Direct Action Day (16 August 1946), called by the Muslim League under Muhammad Ali Jinnah, which triggered severe communal violence in Calcutta and beyond, hardening the case for eventual partition in the eyes of many political leaders on both sides.

Lord Mountbatten, appointed as the last Viceroy in 1947, accelerated the transfer of power timeline, and the Indian Independence Act, 1947, passed by the British Parliament, provided for the creation of two independent dominions: India and Pakistan, effective 15 August 1947. The border dividing Punjab and Bengal was drawn by a boundary commission chaired by Cyril Radcliffe, who had never previously visited India, working under intense time pressure with limited demographic and geographic surveys — a decision-making process whose haste directly contributed to the scale of displacement and violence that followed partition, with millions crossing the new border in one of the largest forced migrations in recorded history.

Independence

India became independent on 15 August 1947, with Jawaharlal Nehru as the first Prime Minister, delivering his famous "Tryst with Destiny" speech at midnight, and Lord Mountbatten continuing briefly as the first Governor-General of independent India. Mahatma Gandhi, notably, was not present at the official Delhi celebrations, spending the day in Calcutta attempting to calm communal violence there instead — a detail that captures, better than any single quote could, exactly what his priorities were at the moment of the nation's formal birth. He was assassinated a few months later, on 30 January 1948, by Nathuram Godse.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1498, opening the European sea route to India.
• The English East India Company was chartered in 1600; the French Company followed in 1664.
• The Company's first English factory was established at Surat in 1613.
• The Battle of Plassey (1757) was won through the betrayal of Mir Jafar, not open battle.
• The Battle of Buxar (1764) gave the Company far greater territorial consequences than Plassey.
• The Treaty of Allahabad (1765) granted the Company Diwani rights over Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha.
• Permanent Settlement (1793), introduced by Lord Cornwallis, applied to Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha.
• Ryotwari system settled revenue directly with cultivators in Madras and Bombay presidencies.
• Mahalwari system settled revenue village-wise in north India and Punjab.
• The Revolt of 1857 began at Meerut on 10 May 1857.
• Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi died fighting in June 1858.
• The Government of India Act, 1858, transferred rule from the Company to the British Crown.
• Lord Canning was the first Viceroy of India under Crown rule.
• The Indian National Congress was founded in 1885 in Bombay under W.C. Bonnerjee.
• Dadabhai Naoroji proposed the "Drain of Wealth" theory of colonial economic exploitation.
• Lord Curzon's Partition of Bengal (1905) triggered the Swadeshi Movement.
• "Lal-Bal-Pal" refers to Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal.
• The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (13 April 1919) occurred under orders of General Dyer.
• The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-22) ended after the Chauri Chaura incident.
• The Dandi March began 12 March 1930 and reached Dandi on 6 April 1930.
• The Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931) followed the Civil Disobedience Movement's first phase.
• The Quit India Movement (1942) used the slogan "Do or Die," launched 8 August 1942.
• Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were executed in 1931.
• Subhas Chandra Bose formed the Indian National Army with Japanese support.
• The Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) failed to produce a united-India framework.
• Cyril Radcliffe chaired the boundary commission dividing Punjab and Bengal.
• India became independent on 15 August 1947 with Nehru as first Prime Minister.
• Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948 by Nathuram Godse.
• Goa remained under Portuguese control until 1961, well after Indian independence.
• The Lucknow Pact (1916) briefly reunited Congress Moderates and Extremists and included the Muslim League.

Memory Tables

Table 1: Key Battles and Their Outcomes

Battle/Event	Year	Key Figures	Outcome
Battle of Plassey	1757	Clive vs Siraj-ud-Daulah	Puppet Nawab (Mir Jafar) installed
Battle of Buxar	1764	Munro vs Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-Daulah, Shah Alam II	Diwani rights over Bengal, Bihar, Odisha
Revolt of 1857	1857-58	Various regional leaders	End of Company rule, start of Crown rule
Third Battle of Panipat	1761	Marathas vs Ahmad Shah Abdali	Checked Maratha northward expansion

Table 2: Gandhi-Era Movements at a Glance

Movement	Years	Trigger	Ended By
Non-Cooperation	1920-1922	Rowlatt Act, Jallianwala Bagh	Chauri Chaura incident
Civil Disobedience	1930-1934	Salt tax (Dandi March)	Gandhi-Irwin Pact, later resumed and closed
Quit India	1942	Cripps Mission failure, WWII pressure	Mass arrests; movement continued leaderless

Practice MCQs

Q1. The Battle of Plassey (1757) was won by the British largely due to the betrayal of which commander of the Nawab's army? (a) Mir Qasim (b) Mir Jafar (c) Shuja-ud-Daulah (d) Tipu Sultan

Q2. The Treaty of Allahabad (1765), following the Battle of Buxar, granted the East India Company: (a) Control over Delhi (b) Diwani rights over Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha (c) Full sovereignty over all of India (d) Trading rights in Madras

Q3. Under the Permanent Settlement of 1793, introduced by Lord Cornwallis, land revenue was: (a) Revised every five years (b) Fixed forever (c) Collected only from cultivators directly (d) Abolished entirely

Q4. The Ryotwari system of land revenue settlement was primarily implemented in: (a) Bengal and Bihar (b) Punjab and north-western provinces (c) Madras and Bombay presidencies (d) Awadh

Q5. The immediate trigger for the Revolt of 1857 was: (a) The Doctrine of Lapse (b) Greased cartridges for the Enfield rifle (c) The Partition of Bengal (d) The Rowlatt Act

Q6. Rani Lakshmibai, who died fighting British forces in 1858, led the resistance centred at: (a) Kanpur (b) Lucknow (c) Jhansi (d) Delhi

Q7. The Indian National Congress held its first session in 1885 in which city? (a) Calcutta (b) Bombay (c) Madras (d) Lahore

Q8. Dadabhai Naoroji's theory arguing that British rule systematically extracted India's wealth is known as: (a) The Trickle-Down theory (b) The Drain of Wealth theory (c) The Deficit Financing theory (d) The Home Charges theory

Q9. "Lal-Bal-Pal" refers to which trio of Extremist Congress leaders? (a) Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal (b) Lala Lajpat Rai, Balwant Rai, Purushottam Das (c) Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Har Dayal, Pal Singh (d) Lala Hardayal, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Pal

Q10. The Non-Cooperation Movement was called off by Gandhi in 1922 following which incident? (a) Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (b) Chauri Chaura incident (c) Dandi March (d) Direct Action Day

Q11. The Dandi March of 1930, marking the start of the Civil Disobedience Movement, was primarily a protest against: (a) The Rowlatt Act (b) The salt tax and salt law (c) The Partition of Bengal (d) The Cripps Mission

Q12. The Quit India Movement, launched on 8 August 1942, used which famous slogan? (a) Swaraj is my birthright (b) Do or Die (c) Inquilab Zindabad (d) Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom

Q13. Subhas Chandra Bose formed the Indian National Army with the support of which country during World War II? (a) Germany (b) Soviet Union (c) Japan (d) Italy

Q14. The boundary dividing Punjab and Bengal at the time of Partition in 1947 was drawn by a commission chaired by: (a) Lord Mountbatten (b) Cyril Radcliffe (c) Stafford Cripps (d) Lord Wavell

Q15. Which of the following correctly identifies the year Goa was integrated into India, well after India's own independence? (a) 1947 (b) 1950 (c) 1954 (d) 1961

Answer Key

Q	Answer	Reason
1	(b) Mir Jafar	Mir Jafar's secret pact with Clive, promised the throne, ensured Siraj-ud-Daulah's defeat.
2	(b) Diwani rights	Shah Alam II granted the Company revenue-collection rights over Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha.
3	(b) Fixed forever	The Permanent Settlement fixed the revenue demand permanently, unlike Ryotwari or Mahalwari.
4	(c) Madras and Bombay presidencies	Ryotwari settled revenue directly with individual cultivators (ryots) in the south and west.
5	(b) Greased cartridges	Cartridges rumoured to be greased with cow and pig fat united Hindu and Muslim sepoys in refusal.
6	(c) Jhansi	Rani Lakshmibai led the resistance at Jhansi and died in battle in June 1858.
7	(b) Bombay	The first INC session was held in Bombay in 1885 under W.C. Bonnerjee's presidency.
8	(b) Drain of Wealth theory	Naoroji argued in "Poverty and Un-British Rule in India" that Britain extracted Indian wealth.
9	(a) Lajpat Rai, Tilak, Pal	These three led the assertive Extremist faction within the early Congress.
10	(b) Chauri Chaura incident	Violence at Chauri Chaura led Gandhi to halt the movement over the principle of non-violence.
11	(b) The salt tax	Gandhi marched to Dandi to break the colonial monopoly and tax on salt production.
12	(b) Do or Die	This slogan, delivered as the movement launched, called for immediate British withdrawal.
13	(c) Japan	The INA (Azad Hind Fauj) operated with Japanese backing during the Second World War.
14	(b) Cyril Radcliffe	Radcliffe, with no prior India experience, drew the hurried Partition boundary lines.
15	(d) 1961	Goa remained under Portuguese rule until annexed by India through military action in 1961.