Mahatma Gandhi And The Nationalist Movement | Class 12 History Notes
This chapter introduces the life of one of India's greatest leaders, the father of the nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. It follows the events that led to the making and the unmaking of the Non-cooperation Movement against British rule, and it explains the many satyagrahas that Gandhiji led, along with their causes and their consequences. These are standardised study notes: for the full set you can browse our Class 12 History notes, or explore the wider study-notes library.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returns to India
Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in January 1915, after roughly two decades away. He had worked as a lawyer in South Africa and had been a prominent member of the Indian community there.
By 1915 the Indian National Congress already had branches in many major cities and towns, and the British colony was becoming more politically active. Between 1905 and 1907 the Swadeshi movement had helped to instil a strong sense of nationalism.
Several powerful figures had risen from that movement, including Bal Gangadhar Tilak of Maharashtra, Bipin Chandra Pal of Bengal, and Lala Lajpat Rai of Punjab. These leaders called for firmer resistance to colonial control.
In South Africa, Gandhiji had developed his method of non-violent protest known as satyagraha. He also promoted religious unity and urged upper-caste Indians to end their discriminatory treatment of lower castes and of women.
The Moderates
"Moderate" describes leaders who rejected radical or extreme methods and preferred a gradual, persuasive approach. Gandhiji's own political mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, belonged to the Moderates, as did other prominent leaders of the time such as Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
Banaras Hindu University
For about a year Gandhiji travelled across British India to understand its land and its people. In February 1916 he made his first major public appearance at the founding of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU).
The gap between the Indian elite and the labouring poor was a key concern for him.
The launch of BHU was a moment of joy, because it marked the start of a nationalist institution funded by Indian money and initiative. Gandhiji argued that Indian nationalism so far had been the work of the upper crust: lawyers, doctors and landowners. A few months later he got his chance to put these ideas into practice.
At the annual Congress session in Lucknow in December 1916, a farmer from Champaran in Bihar told him about the harsh treatment of peasants by British indigo planters.
The first satyagrahas: Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda
In Champaran in 1917, Gandhiji took up the peasants' cause, fighting for their security of tenure and for the freedom to grow the crops they chose. This became the "Champaran Satyagraha".
In 1918 he used satyagraha and a hunger strike to support cotton-mill workers in Ahmedabad during their dispute with the mill owners, demanding better working conditions.
Also in 1918, the "Kheda Satyagraha" asked the state for a remission of taxes after the harvest failed. His work in Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda established Gandhiji as a nationalist who cared deeply about ordinary and underprivileged people.
The Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh
During the First World War the British government had imposed press censorship and allowed detention without charge or trial. Sir Sidney Rowlatt's committee recommended that these harsh powers be kept in place.
Gandhiji launched a campaign against the "Rowlatt Act". Shops and schools across north and west India shut in response to his call for a bandh, bringing normal life to a halt.
The protests were especially strong in Punjab, where many men had fought for the British during the First World War and expected to be rewarded for their service. Instead, the Rowlatt Act was passed.
On his way to Punjab, Gandhiji was arrested.
The mood grew tense, and in April 1919 British troops opened fire on a nationalist gathering in Amritsar. This became the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in which nearly four hundred people were killed.
The Rowlatt Satyagraha raised Gandhiji to the status of a national leader. He now vowed to wage a "non-cooperation" campaign against British rule.
The programme was simple: if Indians wanted colonial rule to end, they should refuse to cooperate with it. People were asked not to pay taxes and to stay away from government schools, colleges and courts. Gandhiji believed that, if it was done properly, non-cooperation could win India swaraj, or self-rule, within a single year.
The Khilafat Movement
Gandhiji also linked the Non-cooperation Movement to the Khilafat cause, hoping to unite Hindus and Muslims in one struggle.
The Khilafat Movement (1919 to 1920) was a movement of Indian Muslims led by Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali. It demanded that the Turkish Sultan, or Khalifa, keep control over the Muslim holy places in the former Ottoman empire; that the region known as the jazirat-ul-Arab (Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Palestine) stay under Muslim authority; and that the Khalifa be left with enough territory to defend the Islamic faith.
The Congress supported the movement, and Gandhiji sought to join it to the Non-cooperation Movement. The All India Khilafat Committee was set up in 1919, and Gandhiji became its first president.
Non-cooperation: a popular movement
What were the consequences?
In February 1922, a crowd of peasants attacked and burned a police station in the village of Chauri Chaura, in the United Provinces (today Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand). The violence disturbed Gandhiji deeply, and he decided to call off the Non-cooperation Movement.
During the movement, thousands of Indians were jailed. Gandhiji himself was arrested in March 1922 and charged with sedition.
The judge at his trial, Justice C. N. Broomfield, sentenced Gandhiji to six years in prison.
A people's leader
By 1922, hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and artisans had taken part in the movement, alongside professionals and intellectuals. Indian nationalism had been transformed in line with Gandhiji's vision.
People valued the fact that Gandhi dressed like them, lived like them and spoke their language. Unlike many other leaders, he did not stand apart from ordinary people but felt with them and even identified with them.
He spent part of every day working at the charkha, or spinning wheel, and encouraged other nationalists to do the same. Spinning let Gandhiji break down the boundaries that the caste system had built between mental and manual labour.
Many rumours spread about Gandhiji and his supposed miraculous powers. In some places it was said that he had been sent by the King to right the wrongs done to farmers, and that he could overrule local officials.
Known variously as "Gandhi baba", "Gandhi Maharaj" or simply "Mahatma", Gandhiji appeared to many Indian peasants as a saviour who would rescue them from high taxes and harsh officials and restore dignity to their lives. His appeal among the poor was strengthened by his simple, ascetic way of life and by his careful use of the dhoti and the charkha.
The Congress expands
Congress opened branches in many parts of India. Across the princely states, many "Praja Mandals" were formed to carry the nationalist cause. Gandhiji spoke in Indian languages rather than in the rulers' languages.
The Congress also set up provincial committees based on linguistic regions.
Some very successful business people and manufacturers supported the Congress. Indian entrepreneurs quickly realised that the advantages enjoyed by their British competitors would end in a free India.
Some of these business leaders, such as G. D. Birla, openly backed the national cause, while others stayed quiet. So both poor peasants and wealthy industrialists supported Gandhiji, even though the peasants' reasons often differed from, and sometimes clashed with, those of the industrialists.
A gifted circle of colleagues helped to shape what we can call "Gandhian nationalism". Between 1917 and 1922 they included Mahadev Desai, Vallabhbhai Patel, J. B. Kripalani, Subhas Chandra Bose, Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Govind Ballabh Pant and C. Rajagopalachari. They came from many religions and regions, and they encouraged large numbers of other Indians to join the Congress.
In February 1924 Gandhiji was released from prison and turned his energy to promoting khadi, or home-spun cloth, and to ending untouchability. He believed that social evils such as child marriage and untouchability had to go if Indians were to be worthy of freedom, and he stressed Hindu and Muslim unity and economic self-reliance. This is why he urged people to wear khadi rather than mill-made cloth.
The Salt Satyagraha
In 1928 Gandhiji did not lead the protest against the Simon Commission, which had been sent from England to study conditions in the colony. Instead he led a satyagraha at Bardoli.
In December 1929 the Congress met for its annual session in Lahore. Two things made it important: Jawaharlal Nehru was elected President, and the Congress declared its commitment to "Purna Swaraj", or complete independence.
Independence Day
The first "Independence Day" was observed on 26 January 1930. The national flag was hoisted at different venues and patriotic songs were sung.
Gandhiji issued clear instructions on how the day should be kept, suggesting that the meeting time be announced in the traditional way, by beating drums.
The day would begin with the hoisting of the flag, and the rest of it would be spent in constructive work such as spinning or the service of those treated as "untouchables".
Participants took a pledge affirming that it was "the inalienable right of the Indian people ... to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil", and that if any government took away these rights, the people had the right to alter or abolish it.
The Dandi March
In March 1930 Gandhiji announced that he would march to break one of the most hated laws in British India, the law that gave the state a monopoly over making and selling salt.
Salt was essential, yet people were forbidden from making it even for home use and had to buy it from shops at a high price. Gandhiji gave advance notice of the march to the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, who failed to grasp its importance.
On 12 March 1930 Gandhiji set out from his ashram at Sabarmati towards the sea. Three weeks later he reached the coast and picked up a fistful of salt, making himself a criminal in the eyes of the law.
Parallel salt marches took place elsewhere. Across large parts of India, peasants broke the colonial forest laws that had shut them and their cattle out of the woods. In some towns factory workers went on strike, lawyers boycotted British courts and students stayed away from government schools and colleges. Gandhiji's call had drawn Indians of every class to show their anger at colonial rule.
The rulers responded by arresting the protesters. After the Salt March, nearly 60,000 Indians were arrested, including Gandhiji himself.
Gandhiji said that Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs would have to unite, and that they must make amends for the wrongs done to those treated as untouchables. Thousands of volunteers joined the nationalist cause, among them officials who resigned from their posts under the colonial government. These developments made the British anxious, and some praised Gandhiji as a "saint" and "statesman".
Why did the Salt March matter?
The Salt March was notable for three reasons:
- First, it was widely covered by the European and American press.
- Second, it was the first nationalist campaign in which women took part in large numbers. The socialist activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay persuaded Gandhiji not to limit the protest to men, and she was among many women who broke the salt and liquor laws.
- Third, it forced the British to realise that their rule would not last forever, and that they would have to hand some power to Indians.
The Round Table Conferences
A series of Round Table Conferences was held in London. The first, in November 1930, took place without India's most important leader, which made it largely pointless.
Gandhiji was released from jail in January 1931 and held several long meetings with the Viceroy. These led to the "Gandhi-Irwin Pact", which was really only a truce between the two sides.
At the second Round Table Conference in late 1931, Gandhiji represented the Congress. His claim that the Congress spoke for all of India was challenged by three groups: the Muslim League, which said it stood for the Muslim minority; the Princes, who said the Congress had no place in their territories; and the brilliant lawyer and thinker B. R. Ambedkar, who argued that Gandhiji and the Congress did not truly represent the lowest castes.
The conference ended without agreement, and Gandhiji resumed the Civil Disobedience Movement.
In 1935 the Government of India Act promised a form of representative government. The Congress won elections held on a limited franchise, and soon eight of the eleven provinces had a Congress "Prime Minister" working under a British Governor.
The Second World War and Quit India
In September 1939, only two years after the Congress ministries took office, the Second World War broke out.
Gandhiji and Nehru offered Congress support for the war effort in return for a British promise of independence once the war ended, but the offer was rejected. The Congress ministries resigned in protest in October 1939.
In 1940 and 1941 the Congress organised individual satyagrahas to press the rulers to promise independence after the war.
In March 1940 the Muslim League passed a resolution demanding a separate nation to be called "Pakistan". The situation grew more complicated: it was no longer only a contest between Indians and the British, but among the Congress, the Muslim League and the British.
Britain now had an all-party wartime government. The Conservative Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was a firm imperialist who did not want to preside over the break-up of the British Empire.
In the spring of 1942 one of Churchill's ministers, Sir Stafford Cripps, was sent to India to try to reach a deal with Gandhiji and the Congress. The Congress wanted an Indian to be appointed as a defence member of the Viceroy's executive council, but the talks failed.
Quit India
After the Cripps Mission failed, the Quit India campaign began in August 1942. Gandhiji was arrested at once, and younger activists organised strikes and acts of sabotage across the country.
Socialists in the Congress, such as Jayaprakash Narayan, were very active in the underground movement, and independent local governments were set up in places such as Satara and Medinipur.
The British hit back hard, but "Quit India" became a genuine mass movement involving thousands of ordinary Indians. It energised young people who left college to serve time in prison.
Meanwhile Jinnah and the Muslim League worked to strengthen their position, gaining ground in Punjab and Sind during these years.
Gandhiji was released in June 1944. A series of meetings between him and Jinnah tried to heal the divisions and bring the Congress and the League closer together.
In 1945 a Labour government came to power in Britain and promised independence. Viceroy Lord Wavell called a series of meetings between the Congress and the League.
Fresh elections to the provincial legislatures were held in 1946. The Congress won the "General" seats, while the League won a landslide in the seats reserved for Muslims.
A Cabinet Mission failed to persuade the Congress and the League to agree on a federal plan that would keep India united while giving provinces wide autonomy.
When the talks collapsed, Jinnah called for a "Direct Action Day" to press the demand for Pakistan. On 16 August 1946 bloody riots broke out in Calcutta and spread to rural Bengal, then to Bihar, and finally to the United Provinces and Punjab.
In February 1947 Lord Mountbatten replaced Wavell as Viceroy. His final round of talks failed, and he announced that British India would be freed but divided. The transfer of power was set for 15 August.
The last heroic days
On 15 August 1947 Gandhiji was not at the celebrations in the capital. He was in Calcutta, where he attended no functions and hoisted no flag, and he marked the day with a 24-hour fast.
For him, the freedom he had fought for so long had come at a terrible price, in a land now divided between Hindus and Muslims.
His biographer D. G. Tendulkar wrote that Gandhiji visited hospitals and refugee camps to comfort those who were suffering.
Gandhiji urged Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims to forget the past, to stop dwelling on their suffering, and to offer one another the hand of friendship and live in peace. After working for peace in Bengal, he moved to Delhi, hoping to travel on to the riot-hit areas of Punjab.
On 20 January 1948 there was an attempt on Gandhiji's life. On 30 January 1948 he was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, the publisher of an extremist Hindu paper who had condemned Gandhiji as a "Muslim appeaser".
His death led to an outpouring of grief across the country.
Knowing Gandhi: how historians study him
Gandhiji's career, and the wider history of the national movement, can be pieced together from many kinds of sources.
Public and private writings
The writings and speeches of Gandhiji and of his contemporaries, both supporters and opponents, are crucial. There were two kinds: public and private. In his journal Harijan, Gandhiji often published letters from the public. Nehru collected and published the letters written to him during the movement in a volume called A Bunch of Old Letters.
Framing a picture
Autobiographies give a detailed account of the past, but they are usually written from memory and looking back. They reveal what the author remembered, what he or she thought important, and how the writer wished others to see his or her life.
Through police eyes
Government records are another important source, because the colonial rulers kept a close watch on people they saw as critics. The letters and reports written by police officers and officials were secret at the time, but they can now be read in archives.
From the early twentieth century the Home Department produced fortnightly reports. These were based on local police information, but they often reflected what senior officials wanted to believe. During the Salt March, for example, the Home Department refused to accept that Gandhiji's campaign had stirred any real enthusiasm, describing the march instead as a mere performance meant to stir up people who were otherwise content under the Raj.
From newspapers
Contemporary newspapers, in English and in the different Indian languages, followed Gandhiji's movements and recorded what ordinary Indians thought of him. But newspaper reports were not neutral: they were written by people with their own political views, so a report in a London paper would read very differently from one in an Indian nationalist paper.
Why it still matters
Gandhiji died in 1948, but the method he built, satyagraha or non-violent resistance, did not die with him. It has become one of the most studied tools in world politics, and it still shapes events today.
Every year on 2 October, Gandhiji's birthday, the whole world marks the International Day of Non-Violence. This is not just an Indian holiday. The United Nations General Assembly created it through resolution A/RES/61/271, adopted on 15 June 2007, as an occasion to spread "the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness". Around 140 countries co-sponsored that resolution, agreeing that the idea Gandhiji tested in Champaran, Kheda and on the Salt March now belongs to everyone.
Researchers have also tried to measure whether non-violence really works. The political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan studied 323 major campaigns from 1900 to 2006. They found that non-violent movements were about twice as likely to succeed as violent ones, and that no campaign which got at least 3.5% of a country's people to take part at its peak had ever failed to reach its goal. That widely quoted "3.5% rule" is a modern, data-backed echo of what Gandhiji argued a century earlier: that mass, peaceful participation can move even a powerful state.
So when you revise these notes, you are not only preparing for an exam. You are learning about a way of changing the world that people from the American civil-rights movement to today's climate and democracy protests still use. To see how this history connects to current affairs and other subjects, explore the Learnacy Hub.
Sources
- United Nations, International Day of Non-Violence: https://www.un.org/en/observances/non-violence-day
- UN News, "UN declares 2 October, Gandhi's birthday, as International Day of Non-Violence" (2007): https://news.un.org/en/story/2007/06/222502
- International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, "The Success of Nonviolent Civil Resistance" (Chenoweth and Stephan): https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/success-nonviolent-civil-resistance/