UNIT 4 FROM HOME RULE TO SWARAJ: USHERING IN OF THE GANDHIAN ERA IN INDIA Structure 4.0 Objectives 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Non-Cooperation Movement 4.2.1 Implementation of the Programme 4.2.2 Misgivings about Non-cooperation 4.2.3 The Revolt of Moplahs 4.2.4 Tagore’s Objection to ‘Spin and Weave’ 4.2.5 The Bardoli Satyagraha 4.2.6 Chauri-Chaura Incident 4.3 The path of Swaraj 4.4 Simon Commission and the Nehru Committee Report 4.5 The Civil Disobedience Movement 4.5.1 Salt Satyagraha 4.5.2 Gandhi-Irwin Pact 4.5.3 Communal Award 4.5.4 Individual Satyagraha 4.5.5 Cripps Proposals 4.6 Quit India Movement 4.7 Towards Independence 4.8 Let Us Sum Up 4.0 OBJECTIVES Within a few years after his return from South Africa, Gandhi got fully involved in India’s freedom struggle. After going through this unit, you should be able to: • analyse the objectives of the non-cooperation movement; • recall the reason why non- cooperation movement was called off by Mahatma Gandhi; • explain the formation of the Swaraj Party; • discuss the recommendations of the Nehru Committee report; • trace the launching and progress of civil disobedience movement; 44 • explain the significance of Gandhi-Irwin Pact, and • discuss the nature of Quit India Movement and its outcome. 4.1 INTRODUCTION You have read in the last three units about Gandhi’s childhood, his education in India and the U.K., his limited success as a lawyer in India and his encounter with the racist regime of South Africa. You have also read about his resolve to follow the ideals of truth and non-violence, and his emergence as a satyagrahi in South Africa. Later, when he returned to India, he got himself acquainted with the country and its problems. He prepared the country for non-violent and non-cooperation movement. He accepted Gokhale as his political guru, but adopted a middle path between the Moderates and the Extremists. In this unit, you will read how Gandhi organised and led the non-cooperation movement in India, and how and why he suddenly called it off. This unit will also give you a clear idea about his defiance of unjust laws. Most importantly he never hated the British people but only the British colonial administration. He served a number of jail terms and went in fast unto death against injustice. Gandhi began the civil disobedience movement with salt satyagraha, and gave a call for Quit India Movement. The unit ends with the country gaining independence under Gandhi’s inspiring leadership. 4.2 NON-COOPERATION MOVEMENT The non-cooperation movement launched by Gandhi captured the imagination of India across all visible divides. The Khilafat and the Punjab issues became the rallying point. Gandhi toured the whole country with Ali brothers to explain the mechanism and purpose of the movement. 45 The Congress was no longer satisfied with Home rule. One of the first resolutions passed at the 1920 Congress session said “that the object of the Congress is the attainment of Swaraj by the people of India by all legitimate means.” Gandhi drafted the resolution. Thereafter, Congress was no longer a loose organisation; it became a structured political party. From an exclusive middle class organisation, it transformed itself into a mass organisation with a constitution and membership. Realising the gravity of the situation, the Duke of Connaught, uncle of King George V, arrived in January 1921 to assuage the resentment in India. The king sent his message proclaiming “the beginning of swaraj within my empire” and expressed sorrow for the Punjab tragedy and his sympathy for those who suffered. Gandhi wrote to the Duke with due courtesy. “For me it is no joy and pleasure to be actively associated in the boycott of your Royal Highness’s visit. …Not one amongst us has anything against you as an English gentleman… We are not at war with individual Englishmen. …We do desire to destroy the system that has emasculated our country in body, mind and soul. We are determined to battle with all our might against that in English nature which has made O’Dwyerism and Dwyerism possible in the Punjab and has resulted in wanton affront upon Islam, a faith professed by seven crores of countrymen. We consider it inconsistent with our self-respect any longer to brook the spirit of superiority and dominance which has systematically ignored and disregarded the sentiments of thirty crores of innocent people of India on many a vital matter.” “Your Royal Highness has come, not to end the system I have described, but to sustain it by upholding its prestige. … Hence this non-violent non-cooperation. I know we have not yet become non-violent in speech and deed, but the results so far achieved have, I assure Your Royal Highness, been amazing. The people have understood the secret and value of non-violence, as they have never done before. He who will may see that this is a religious, purifying movement. We are leaving off drink. We are trying to rid India of its curse of untouchability. We are trying to throw off foreign tinsel splendour, and by reverting to the spinning wheel, reviving the ancient and poetic simplicity of life. We hope thereby to sterilise the existing harmful institutions.” Non-cooperation thus was not only a movement to oppose whatever was immoral in British empire but also against whatever was immoral in human beings as individuals and groups. It was a movement for swaraj with a difference. The concept of Swaraj was not to be confined to freedom from the British rule; it had to extend to freedom from ills that make man suffer the humiliation heaped on them by the British Empire. ‘Swaraj means self-control’. 4.2.1 Implementation of the Programme Gandhi’s message of non-cooperation bore fruit first in Bengal. 3000 college students went on strike. “If I could infect the whole of the student world with my faith, I know that the suspension of studies need not extend even to a year.” Gandhi visited several national Colleges all over the country: Calcutta, Patna, Aligarh, Ahmedabad, Bombay, Benares and Delhi. Gandhi and Mohammad Ali Jinnah founded Jamia Millia Islamia or the National Muslim University, jointly. 46 Students boycotted schools and lawyers gave up their practice: C. Rajagopalachari, Motilal Nehru, C. R. Das, Vallabhbhai Patel and Rajendra Prasad were some of the distinguished lawyers who gave up legal practice at the call of Gandhi. An outstanding instance of a government servant giving up his post was Subhas Chandra Bose. He, at the age of 25, resigned from ICS and became the Principal of the National College in Calcutta. There were mass meetings all over the country, attended by hundreds of thousands, men and women, and addressed by Gandhi, Azad, Ali Brothers, C.R. Das, Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru. As people’s morale grew, that of the government went down and repressive measures to curb the movement started surfacing. Gandhi invited the government and the liberals to cooperate with the nation in making hand-spinning universal and making drinking a crime. “Neither party need speculate as to the result of these two movements. The tree will be judged by its fruits.” The movement spread far and wide. There were cases of violence too. Gandhi felt concerned about it and tried his level best to keep it peaceful. Lord Reading, the new Viceroy, invited Gandhi to Simla for a talk in mid-May. He met Gandhi six times for about 13 hours. Writing to his son, Reading gave his assessment of Gandhi thus: “There is nothing striking about his appearance … and I should have passed him by in the street without having a second look at him. When he talks, the impression is different. He is direct, and expresses himself well in excellent English with a fine appreciation of the value of words he uses. There is no hesitation about him and there is a ring of sincerity in all that he utters, save when discussing some political questions. His religious views are, I believe, genuinely held and he is convinced to a point, almost bordering on fanaticism, that non-violence and love will give India its Independence and enable it to withstand the British government. His religious and moral views are admirable and indeed are on a remarkably high altitude, though I must confess that I find it difficult to understand his practice of them in politics…. Our conversations were of the frankest; he was supremely courteous, with manners of distinction … He held in every way to his word in the various discussions we had.” 4.2.2 Misgivings about Non-cooperation There were several misgivings about non-cooperation within the country. Tagore did not want students to be involved in the movement. The liberals had already rejected it as a source of disaffection in the society. And the extremists did not consider it powerful enough to get freedom for the country. Gandhi however remained undeterred and appealed to everyone including the Englishmen to join the non-cooperation movement. Foreign clothes were burnt in public and swadeshi became the kernel of the movement. Addressing the women, he remarked, “Having given much, more is required of you. Men bore the principal share of subscription to the Tilak Swaraj Fund. But the completion of the swadeshi programme is possible only if you give the largest share. Boycott is impossible, unless you surrender the whole of your foreign clothing…We must be satisfied with such cloth that India can produce, even as we are thankfully content with such children as god gives us.” 47 4.2.3 The Revolt of Moplahs Gandhi toured extensively and wherever he went, in big cities or in far off interior villages, thousands and thousands of people assembled to hear him.