Gandhian Nationalism (1916-⁠1922) | ISC Class 11 History Notes

This note covers the agitation against the Rowlatt Act and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919, and the launching, course and suspension of the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements between 1919 and 1922.

What was the background to Gandhian nationalism in this period?

When Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned to India in January 1915 after two decades mostly in South Africa, the country was already more politically active than when he had left in 1893.

The Swadeshi movement of 1905-07 had broadened the Indian National Congress's appeal among the middle classes and had produced leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, known together as "Lal, Bal and Pal".

Alongside these militant leaders stood a group of "Moderates", including Gandhi's mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale.

On Gokhale's advice, Gandhi spent a year travelling around British India. His first major public appearance was at the opening of the Banaras Hindu University in February 1916, where he told the assembled elite that "there is no salvation for India unless you strip yourself of this jewellery and hold it in trust for your countrymen in India", and that "our salvation can only come through the farmer".

This speech was a statement of intent: Gandhi wished to make Indian nationalism more representative of ordinary people.

At the Congress session at Lucknow in December 1916, a peasant from Champaran told him of the harsh treatment of indigo cultivators, which led Gandhi to his first satyagraha campaigns.

In 1917 Gandhi worked in Champaran in Bihar for the security of tenure of indigo peasants.

In 1918 he intervened in a labour dispute among textile mill workers in Ahmedabad and supported peasants in Kheda, Gujarat, who were seeking remission of revenue after their harvest failed, Kheda also having been hit by a plague epidemic.

These were localised struggles, but they established Gandhi as a nationalist leader with a deep sympathy for the poor, and prepared the ground for the countrywide movement that followed.

Why was the Rowlatt Act passed, and what did it provide?

Definition: Rowlatt Act (1919). An act passed by the Imperial Legislative Council, despite the united opposition of Indian members, on the recommendation of a committee chaired by Sir Sidney Rowlatt.

It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities and allowed the detention of political prisoners without trial for up to two years.

The First World War of 1914-18 had already created a new economic and political situation in India. Defence expenditure rose sharply, financed by war loans and higher taxes: customs duties were increased and income tax introduced.

Prices roughly doubled between 1913 and 1918, causing hardship, and forced recruitment of soldiers from villages caused anger.

In 1918-19 and 1920-21 crop failures and an influenza epidemic followed; the 1921 census recorded that 12 to 13 million people died from the famines and the epidemic combined.

People hoped their hardships would end once the war was over, but censorship of the press and detention without trial, which had been wartime measures, were continued through the Rowlatt Act instead of being lifted.

Gandhi, emboldened by his earlier local successes, decided in 1919 to launch a nationwide, non-violent satyagraha against this "Rowlatt Act", starting with a hartal (general strike) on 6 April 1919.

Rallies were organised in various cities, railway workshop workers went on strike, and shops closed down.

The protests were particularly intense in the Punjab, where many men had served on the British side during the war, expecting reward, and had instead been given the Rowlatt Act.

How did the satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act lead to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre?

Alarmed by the popular upsurge and fearing disruption to railways and telegraph lines, the British administration moved to suppress the nationalists.

Local leaders were picked up in Amritsar, and Gandhi himself was barred from entering Delhi and detained while proceeding to the Punjab.

On 10 April 1919, the police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession, which provoked attacks on banks, post offices and railway stations. Martial law was then imposed, and command of the city passed to General Dyer.

On 13 April 1919, a large crowd gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwala Bagh.

Some had come to protest against the government's repressive measures; others, including many villagers unaware that martial law had been declared, had come for the annual Baisakhi fair.

Dyer entered the ground, blocked the exit points and ordered his troops to open fire on the unarmed crowd, killing hundreds: more than four hundred people were killed.

He later declared that his object had been "to produce a moral effect", to create terror and awe in the minds of satyagrahis.

As news of the massacre spread, crowds took to the streets in many north Indian towns, leading to strikes, clashes with the police and attacks on government buildings.

The government's response was brutally humiliating: satyagrahis were forced to rub their noses on the ground, crawl on the streets and salaam every sahib; people were flogged; and villages around Gujranwala in Punjab were bombed from the air.

Seeing the spread of violence, Gandhi called off the Rowlatt satyagraha, but it had already made him a truly national leader.

Note: Students sometimes confuse the Rowlatt Act with the Rowlatt Satyagraha. The Act was the repressive law passed by the government in 1919.

The Satyagraha was Gandhi's non-violent, nationwide campaign of hartals and protest against that Act, which led to the firing at Amritsar on 10 April and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre on 13 April 1919.

Why did Gandhi join the Khilafat Movement to the national struggle?

Definition: Khilafat Movement (1919-1922). A movement of Indian Muslims, led by Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, demanding that the Turkish Sultan or Khalifa retain control over Muslim sacred places in the former Ottoman empire, that Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Palestine remain under Muslim sovereignty, and that the Khalifa be left enough territory to defend the Islamic faith.

The Rowlatt satyagraha had still been limited mostly to cities and towns. Gandhi now felt the need for a broader movement, but was certain that no such movement could succeed without bringing Hindus and Muslims closer together.

The First World War had ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey, and there were rumours of a harsh peace treaty against the Ottoman emperor, the spiritual head of the Islamic world.

A Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919, and a younger generation of Muslim leaders, the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, began discussing united mass action with Gandhi.

Gandhi saw this as an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a single national movement.

At the Calcutta session of the Congress in September 1920, Gandhi convinced other leaders of the need to start a non-cooperation movement in support of the Khilafat cause as well as for swaraj.

His reasoning drew on his earlier book Hind Swaraj (1909): British rule had been established in India only with the cooperation of Indians, and would collapse within a year if that cooperation was withdrawn.

How did the launching and course of the Non-Cooperation Movement unfold, 1920-1922?

Gandhi proposed that non-cooperation should unfold in stages: it should begin with the surrender of government titles and a boycott of civil services, the army, the police, the courts, legislative councils, government schools and foreign goods; if the government resorted to repression, a full civil disobedience campaign would follow.

Through the summer of 1920, Gandhi and Shaukat Ali toured extensively to mobilise support. Many within the Congress were reluctant to boycott the council elections due in November 1920 and feared that the movement might lead to popular violence.

After an intense debate, a compromise was reached at the Congress session at Nagpur in December 1920, where the Non-Cooperation programme was formally adopted.

The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in January 1921. Thousands of students left government schools and colleges, headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal practices. Council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras.

On the economic front the effects were dramatic: foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed and foreign cloth burnt in bonfires; the import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value falling from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore.

According to official figures, there were 396 strikes in 1921, involving 600,000 workers and a loss of seven million workdays.

Hill tribes in northern Andhra violated forest laws, farmers in Awadh refused to pay taxes, and peasants in Kumaun refused to carry loads for colonial officials.

The movement in the cities gradually slowed, partly because khadi cloth was often more expensive than mill cloth and the poor could not sustain the boycott, and partly because alternative Indian institutions to replace boycotted British ones were slow to come up, so students and lawyers began drifting back.

Then, in February 1922, a group of peasants attacked and torched a police station at Chauri Chaura in the United Provinces, and several constables perished in the fire.

This act of violence prompted Gandhi to call the movement off altogether, insisting that "no provocation can possibly justify (the) brutal murder of men who had been rendered defenceless".

Thousands of Indians had been jailed during the movement, and Gandhi himself was arrested in March 1922 and charged with sedition; the presiding judge, Justice C.N. Broomfield, called him "a great patriot and a leader" even while sentencing him to six years' imprisonment.

How did the Khilafat Movement itself unfold and end?

The Khilafat Movement ran alongside non-cooperation, but it had its own course, from its start in 1919 to its suspension in 1922. Its main stages, in order, were:

1. March 1919: the Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay to defend the position of the Khalifa.
2. November 1919: an All-India Khilafat Conference met at Delhi; Gandhi attended and backed the Khilafat demands, and joint Hindu-Muslim action was discussed.
3. 1920: the peace terms imposed on Turkey by the Treaty of Sèvres (signed in August 1920) broke up the Ottoman empire and confirmed Muslim fears. The Khilafat Committee adopted Gandhi's programme of non-cooperation, and the Congress joined it at Calcutta and Nagpur.
4. 1921: the two campaigns ran together as one passive resistance movement. In July 1921 a Khilafat conference at Karachi declared that it was unlawful for Muslims to serve in the British army; Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali were arrested soon after and sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
5. February 1922: when Gandhi suspended non-cooperation after Chauri Chaura, the Khilafat campaign lost the mass support of the joint movement and was suspended with it.
6. 1922 to 1924: in Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Pasha's nationalists abolished the Sultanate in November 1922 and the Caliphate itself in March 1924, so the cause that had given the movement its purpose disappeared.

The Khilafat Movement therefore rose and fell with non-cooperation. Its lasting result in India was the brief but striking period of Hindu-Muslim cooperation in 1920-22, which Gandhi had hoped would become the base of a single national movement.

Which different groups took part in the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movements?

The movement drew support from very different sections of Indian society, each attaching its own meaning to the call for swaraj.

Students and professionals in the towns

The movement began with middle-class participation in the cities. Students left government-controlled institutions, teachers and headmasters resigned, and lawyers abandoned their practices in protest against British rule. For many of this group, non-cooperation was primarily a matter of symbolic and institutional withdrawal from the colonial state.

Peasants in the countryside

In Awadh, peasants led by Baba Ramchandra, a sanyasi who had earlier worked as an indentured labourer in Fiji, agitated against talukdars and landlords who demanded exorbitant rents and begar (unpaid forced labour) and gave tenants no security of tenure.

By October 1920 the Oudh Kisan Sabha, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru and Baba Ramchandra among others, had set up over 300 branches in villages.

As the movement spread in 1921, houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked and grain hoards seized, often with local leaders claiming that Gandhi himself had sanctioned non-payment of taxes, which went well beyond what the Congress leadership intended.

Workers, merchants and tribal peasants

In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods, while industrial workers struck work in large numbers, contributing to the 396 strikes of 1921.

In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh a militant guerrilla movement, led by Alluri Sitaram Raju, spread among hill people angered by colonial forest laws and forced begar for road building, a form of struggle the Congress could not approve. Each group thus interpreted swaraj to suit its own grievance.

How did the Rowlatt Satyagraha differ from the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement?

The Rowlatt satyagraha of 1919 and the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement of 1920-22 were two distinct phases of Gandhi's early career in Indian politics, separated by little more than a year but differing sharply in their aim, their method and how far they spread.

The Rowlatt satyagraha arose directly out of a single unjust law, and Gandhi called it off as soon as popular anger turned to violence after Jallianwala Bagh. The later movement, by contrast, set out from the beginning to end British rule itself, through a staged programme of non-cooperation that Gandhi believed would, if fully carried out, bring colonial administration to a halt within a year, as he had already argued in Hind Swaraj of 1909.

The two movements also differed in whom they drew in, in whether they were joined to the Khilafat cause, and in how and why they were finally brought to an end, as the table below shows.

Despite these differences, both movements shared Gandhi's conviction that disciplined, non-violent mass action could achieve more than scattered acts of individual defiance, and both ended on Gandhi's own initiative rather than through any British concession, once he judged that violence had broken the discipline the campaign required of its participants.

What were the consequences and significance of these movements?

The Rowlatt satyagraha and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 converted a series of local struggles into a genuinely national protest and made Gandhi "a truly national leader".

The brutality of the British response, including the "crawling orders" at Amritsar and the bombing of villages near Gujranwala, deepened popular anger against colonial rule across north India.

The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement that followed shook the British Raj to its foundations "for the first time since the Revolt of 1857".

It transformed Indian nationalism from an elite movement of lawyers, doctors and landlords into one in which hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and artisans participated, fulfilling the promise Gandhi had made in his Banaras speech of 1916.

By calling off the movement after Chauri Chaura in 1922 and submitting to arrest, Gandhi also established non-violence and strict discipline as non-negotiable conditions for mass struggle under his leadership, even at the cost of ending a movement at its peak.

After his release from prison in 1924, he turned to constructive work on khadi and the removal of untouchability, before launching further movements such as civil disobedience in 1930 and Quit India in 1942, both building on methods and organisation first tested in 1919-22.

Timeline

Going beyond the syllabus

Gandhian nationalism did not end with the suspension of the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1922. Between 1917 and 1922, a group of talented associates gathered around Gandhi, among them Vallabh Bhai Patel, J.B. Kripalani, Subhas Chandra Bose, Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu and C. Rajagopalachari, drawn from different regions and religious traditions, who helped carry his methods to new parts of the country.

After his release from prison in 1924, Gandhi turned for some years to constructive work on khadi and the removal of untouchability. In 1928 he gave his blessing to a peasant satyagraha at Bardoli. At the Lahore Congress session of December 1929 the party committed itself to "Purna Swaraj", or complete independence, and Jawaharlal Nehru was elected president. This was followed by the Dandi or Salt March of 1930, the Gandhi-Irwin Pact of 1931, the Government of India Act of 1935, the resignation of Congress ministries in 1939, and the Quit India Movement launched in 1942, all building on the organisation and methods of mass civil resistance first tested during the Rowlatt satyagraha and the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement of 1919-1922.

Glossary

• Satyagraha — Gandhi's method of non-violent mass resistance based on the power of truth, developed first in South Africa.
• Rowlatt Act — a 1919 law allowing detention of political prisoners without trial for up to two years.
• Khilafat — the office of the Khalifa, spiritual head of the Islamic world, whose protection Indian Muslims campaigned for after the Ottoman defeat.
• Khalifa — the Ottoman Turkish ruler regarded as spiritual head of the Islamic world.
• Swaraj — self-rule; the broad goal to which the Non-Cooperation Movement was directed.
• Hartal — a general strike closing shops, schools and businesses in protest.
• Boycott — refusal to deal with, associate with or buy from a target, used as a form of protest.
• Picket — blocking the entrance to a shop, factory or office as a form of demonstration.
• Begar — labour that villagers were forced to contribute without payment.
• Martial law — rule by military authority, imposed in Amritsar after the firing of 10 April 1919.
• Sedition — the charge under which Gandhi was tried and sentenced in March 1922.
• Talukdar — a landlord holding revenue rights over an estate, a target of peasant protest in Awadh.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh massacre are the same event. Correct: The Act was the 1919 law; Jallianwala Bagh was the massacre on 13 April 1919 during the protests against it.
• Misconception: Gandhi called off Non-Cooperation because the British agreed to concessions. Correct: He called it off after the Chauri Chaura violence of February 1922, insisting no provocation justified the killing of constables.
• Misconception: The Khilafat Movement was only about Indian swaraj. Correct: It specifically demanded protection of the Khalifa's control over Muslim sacred places and territory, and was joined to the swaraj campaign by Gandhi.
• Misconception: Non-Cooperation was confined to the cities. Correct: It spread to peasants in Awadh, tribal peasants in the Gudem Hills, and workers across many towns.
• Misconception: All participants understood "swaraj" identically. Correct: Peasants, students and tribal groups each read their own specific aspirations into the term.
• Misconception: General Dyer acted without any stated purpose. Correct: He later declared his object was "to produce a moral effect" through terror.
• Misconception: Non-Cooperation ended because of lack of public interest. Correct: Urban participation slowed partly from the cost of khadi and the slow growth of alternative institutions, but rural and tribal participation continued strongly.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Name the committee whose recommendation led to the Rowlatt Act. [1 mark]

1. The committee chaired by Sir Sidney Rowlatt.

Q2. State any two main terms of the Rowlatt Act. [2 marks]

1. It gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities.
2. It allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for up to two years, despite the united opposition of Indian members of the Imperial Legislative Council.

Q3. Explain how the satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act led to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919. [4 marks]

1. Gandhi launched a nationwide satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act, beginning with a hartal on 6 April 1919, with rallies, strikes and closed shops.
2. Alarmed by the upsurge, the government arrested local leaders in Amritsar and barred Gandhi from entering Delhi.
3. On 10 April, police fired on a peaceful procession in Amritsar, provoking attacks on government buildings, and martial law was imposed under General Dyer.
4. On 13 April, Dyer blocked the exits of Jallianwala Bagh, where a crowd including unaware villagers had gathered for Baisakhi, and ordered his troops to fire, killing hundreds, to "produce a moral effect".

Q4. State any four reasons why Gandhi decided to link the Khilafat issue with the Non-Cooperation Movement. [4 marks]

1. He wanted a broader, more powerful movement than the Rowlatt satyagraha, which had stayed mostly in cities and towns.
2. He was certain no such movement could succeed without bringing Hindus and Muslims closer together.
3. Ottoman Turkey's defeat in the First World War had raised Muslim fears about a harsh peace treaty against the Khalifa, the spiritual head of Islam.
4. Muslim leaders such as Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali were already discussing united mass action with Gandhi through the Khilafat Committee formed in Bombay in March 1919, giving him an opening to bring Muslims under one national movement.

Q5. Distinguish between the Rowlatt Satyagraha and the Non-Cooperation Movement with reference to their methods and spread. [4 marks]

1. The Rowlatt Satyagraha of 1919 was directed specifically against the Rowlatt Act and used a hartal and related protests, remaining mostly confined to cities and towns.
2. The Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22 was directed against British rule generally, using a staged boycott of titles, councils, courts, schools and foreign cloth.
3. Non-Cooperation deliberately combined with the Khilafat cause to unite Hindus and Muslims, which the Rowlatt agitation had not attempted.
4. Non-Cooperation spread well beyond the cities into the countryside, drawing in peasants in Awadh, workers, and tribal groups in the Gudem Hills.

Q6. Discuss the course of the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement from its launch in 1921 to its suspension in 1922. [8 marks]

1. The Nagpur Congress of December 1920 adopted Gandhi's staged programme of non-cooperation, after resolving disputes within the Congress over boycotting council elections.
2. The movement formally began in January 1921, with students leaving schools and colleges, teachers and lawyers resigning their posts, and council elections boycotted in most provinces except Madras.
3. Foreign cloth was boycotted and burnt, liquor shops were picketed, and the value of imported cloth fell from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore between 1921 and 1922.
4. 396 strikes occurred in 1921 involving 600,000 workers, while peasants in Awadh, Kumaun and the Gudem Hills joined with their own, sometimes more violent, protests against taxes, forced labour and forest laws.
5. Urban participation slowed because khadi was costly for the poor and alternative Indian institutions were slow to replace boycotted British ones.
6. In February 1922, peasants attacked and burnt a police station at Chauri Chaura, killing several constables.
7. Gandhi, insisting that no provocation could justify such violence, called off the entire movement on 12 February 1922.
8. He was arrested in March 1922 and sentenced to six years' imprisonment for sedition, even as the judge acknowledged him as a patriot and leader.

Q7. Analyse the significance of the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement for Indian nationalism. [8 marks]

1. It transformed Indian nationalism from an elite movement of lawyers, doctors and landlords into a genuinely mass movement involving peasants, workers and artisans.
2. It fulfilled Gandhi's intent, first announced at his 1916 Banaras Hindu University speech, of making nationalism more representative of ordinary Indians.
3. It temporarily united Hindus and Muslims in a common political cause by linking swaraj with the Khilafat demand.
4. It shook the foundations of British rule for the first time since the Revolt of 1857.
5. It established, through its suspension after Chauri Chaura, that non-violence and strict discipline were non-negotiable conditions for mass struggle under Gandhi's leadership.
6. It created an organisational base, through new Congress branches and Praja Mandals, that would support later movements such as civil disobedience in 1930 and Quit India in 1942.

Key takeaways

• The Rowlatt Act of 1919 allowed detention without trial, and Gandhi launched a satyagraha against it with a hartal on 6 April 1919.
• Police firing in Amritsar on 10 April and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre on 13 April 1919 under General Dyer followed, killing hundreds.
• The Khilafat Committee, formed in Bombay in March 1919, demanded protection of the Khalifa's control over Muslim sacred places.
• Gandhi linked the Khilafat cause with the demand for swaraj to unite Hindus and Muslims in a single movement.
• The Nagpur Congress of December 1920 adopted a staged programme of boycotting titles, councils, courts, schools and foreign goods.
• The movement, launched in January 1921, drew in students, lawyers, workers, peasants in Awadh and tribal groups in the Gudem Hills.
• Violence at Chauri Chaura in February 1922 led Gandhi to suspend the movement entirely.
• Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 and sentenced to six years for sedition, having transformed Indian nationalism into a mass movement.

Test yourself

What was the hartal called by Gandhi against the Rowlatt Act, and when was it held?

It was a countrywide general strike held on 6 April 1919, with shops closed, schools shut and rallies organised in cities across North and West India.

Who commanded British troops at Jallianwala Bagh, and what did he later say was his object?

General Dyer commanded the troops; he later declared his object was "to produce a moral effect", creating terror and awe among satyagrahis.

What three things did the Khilafat Committee demand regarding the Khalifa?

That the Khalifa retain control over Muslim sacred places, that Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Palestine remain under Muslim sovereignty, and that he keep enough territory to defend Islam.

Where and when was the Non-Cooperation programme formally adopted by the Congress?

At the Congress session held at Nagpur in December 1920, after an intense internal debate through the preceding months.

Give two examples of rural participation in the Non-Cooperation Movement outside the Congress's planned programme.

Peasants in Awadh led by Baba Ramchandra attacked talukdars' houses and seized grain hoards; tribal peasants in the Gudem Hills under Alluri Sitaram Raju waged a guerrilla movement against forest laws.

What happened at Chauri Chaura in February 1922, and what was its effect?

Peasants attacked and burnt a police station, killing several constables; Gandhi, condemning the violence, called off the entire Non-Cooperation Movement.

What charge was brought against Gandhi in March 1922, and what sentence did he receive?

He was charged with sedition and sentenced to six years' imprisonment, though the judge, Justice Broomfield, called him a great patriot and leader.