NATIONALISM IN INDIA [PART-3]
1394 Words
→How Participants saw the Movement
Let us now look at the different social groups that participated in the
Civil Disobedience Movement. Why did they join the movement?
What were their ideals? What did swaraj mean to them?
In the countryside, rich peasant communities – like the Patidars of
Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh – were active in the movement.
Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit by
the trade depression and falling prices. As their cash income
disappeared, they found it impossible to pay the government’s revenue
demand. And the refusal of the government to reduce the revenue
demand led to widespread resentment. These rich peasants became
enthusiastic supporters of the Civil Disobedience Movement,
organising their communities, and at times forcing reluctant members,
to participate in the boycott programmes. For them the fight for
swaraj was a struggle against high revenues. But they were deeply
disappointed when the movement was called off in 1931 without
the revenue rates being revised. So when the movement was restarted
in 1932, many of them refused to participate.
The poorer peasantry were not just interested in the lowering of the
revenue demand. Many of them were small tenants cultivating land
they had rented from landlords. As the Depression continued and
cash incomes dwindled, the small tenants found it difficult to pay
their rent. They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted.
They joined a variety of radical movements, often led by Socialists
and Communists. Apprehensive of raising issues that might upset
the rich peasants and landlords, the Congress was unwilling to support
‘no rent’ campaigns in most places. So the relationship between the
poor peasants and the Congress remained uncertain.
What about the business classes? How did they relate to the Civil
Disobedience Movement? During the First World War, Indian
merchants and industrialists had made huge profits and become
powerful (see Chapter 5). Keen on expanding their business, they
now reacted against colonial policies that restricted business activities.
They wanted protection against imports of foreign goods, and a
rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio that would discourage imports.
To organise business interests, they formed the Indian Industrial
and Commercial Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian
Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927. Led by
prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and
G. D. Birla, the industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian
economy, and supported the Civil Disobedience Movement when
it was first launched. They gave financial assistance and refused to
buy or sell imported goods. Most businessmen came to see swaraj
as a time when colonial restrictions on business would no longer
exist and trade and industry would flourish without constraints. But
after the failure of the Round Table Conference, business groups
were no longer uniformly enthusiastic. They were apprehensive of
the spread of militant activities, and worried about prolonged
disruption of business, as well as of the growing influence of
socialism amongst the younger members of the Congress.
The industrial working classes did not participate in the Civil
Disobedience Movement in large numbers, except in the Nagpur
region. As the industrialists came closer to the Congress, workers
stayed aloof. But in spite of that, some workers did participate in
the Civil Disobedience Movement, selectively adopting some of
the ideas of the Gandhian programme, like boycott of foreign
goods, as part of their own movements against low wages and
poor working conditions. There were strikes by railway workers in
1930 and dockworkers in 1932. In 1930 thousands of workers in
Chotanagpur tin mines wore Gandhi caps and participated in protest
rallies and boycott campaigns. But the Congress was reluctant to
include workers’ demands as part of its programme of struggle.
It felt that this would alienate industrialists and divide the anti-
imperial forces.
Another important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement
was the large-scale participation of women. During Gandhiji’s salt
march, thousands of women came out of their homes to listen to
him. They participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, and picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops. Many went to jail. In urban
areas these women were from high-caste families; in rural areas
they came from rich peasant households. Moved by Gandhiji’s call,
they began to see service to the nation as a sacred duty of women.
Yet, this increased public role did not necessarily mean any radical
change in the way the position of women was visualised. Gandhiji
was convinced that it was the duty of women to look after home
and hearth, be good mothers and good wives. And for a long time
the Congress was reluctant to allow women to hold any position
of authority within the organisation. It was keen only on their
symbolic presence.
→The Limits of Civil Disobedience
Not all social groups were moved by the abstract concept of swaraj.
One such group was the nation’s ‘untouchables’, who from around
the 1930s had begun to call themselves dalit or oppressed. For
long the Congress had ignored the dalits, for fear of offending the
sanatanis, the conservative high-caste Hindus. But Mahatma Gandhi
declared that swaraj would not come for a hundred years if
untouchability was not eliminated. He called the ‘untouchables’ harijan, or the children of God, organised satyagraha to secure them entry
into temples, and access to public wells, tanks, roads and schools.
He himself cleaned toilets to dignify the work of the bhangi (the
sweepers), and persuaded upper castes to change their heart and
give up ‘the sin of untouchability’. But many dalit leaders were keen
on a different political solution to the problems of the community.
They began organising themselves, demanding reserved seats in
educational institutions, and a separate electorate that would choose
dalit members for legislative councils. Political empowerment, they
believed, would resolve the problems of their social disabilities.
Dalit participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement was
therefore limited, particularly in the Maharashtra and Nagpur region
where their organisation was quite strong.
Dr B.R. Ambedkar, who organised the dalits into the Depressed
Classes Association in 1930, clashed with Mahatma Gandhi at
the second Round Table Conference by demanding separate
electorates for dalits. When the British government conceded
Ambedkar’s demand, Gandhiji began a fast unto death. He believed
that separate electorates for dalits would slow down the process of
their integration into society. Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhiji’s
position and the result was the Poona Pact of September 1932.
It gave the Depressed Classes (later to be known as the Schedule
Castes) reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils,
but they were to be voted in by the general electorate. The dalit
movement, however, continued to be apprehensive of the Congress-
led national movement.
Some of the Muslim political organisations in India were also
lukewarm in their response to the Civil Disobedience Movement.
After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, a
large section of Muslims felt alienated from the Congress. From the
mid-1920s the Congress came to be more visibly associated with
openly Hindu religious nationalist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha.
As relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened, each
community organised religious processions with militant fervour,
provoking Hindu-Muslim communal clashes and riots in various
cities. Every riot deepened the distance between the two communities.
The Congress and the Muslim League made efforts to renegotiate
an alliance, and in 1927 it appeared that such a unity could be forged.
The important differences were over the question of representation
in the future assemblies that were to be elected. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, one of the leaders of the Muslim League, was willing to give
up the demand for separate electorates, if Muslims were assured
reserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in
proportion to population in the Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal
and Punjab). Negotiations over the question of representation
continued but all hope of resolving the issue at the All Parties
Conference in 1928 disappeared when M.R. Jayakar of the Hindu
Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise.
When the Civil Disobedience Movement started there was thus
an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust between communities.
Alienated from the Congress, large sections of Muslims could not
respond to the call for a united struggle. Many Muslim leaders and
intellectuals expressed their concern about the status of Muslims
as a minority within India. They feared that the culture and identity
of minorities would be submerged under the domination of a
Hindu majority.
- Writer
