Discovery of India Building Dr. Annie Besant Road, Worli, Mumbai - 400 018. Phone : 2496 4676-80 Newsletter Fax : 2497 3827 Vol. 21 Issue 11 NOVEMBER 2020 Website: www.nehru-centre.org Price Rs. 10/- Per Copy Annual Subscription Rs. 100 100 years of Non-Cooperation Movement A century ago, Gandhiji had given a call perpetrator of the Jallianwala carnage Khilafat and the Punjab, he retained for non-violent non-cooperation with a mild reproof holding him guilty neither respect nor affection for the Raj. against the British rulers of India with a of 'grave error of judgement'. The All over India, many returned their view to ending their rule. In the first half House of Lords, as if to add insult to medals. o f 1 9 2 0 , t w o e v e n t s c a u s e d injury, gave Dyer a vote of approval. simultaneous resentment amongst There was a wave of anger throughout At the Calcutta session of the Indian Hindus and Muslims of India against the country over the Hunter National Congress, the older leaders the British. Consequent to Turkey's Commission report. viz. Motilal Nehru, Mohammad Ali defeat in the First World War (1914- Jinnah, Mrs. Annie Besant, Chittaranjan 1918) and the subsequent Treaty of In the widespread feeling of hurt Das, Bipin Chandra Pal, Madan Mohan Sevres in 1920, the Ottoman Empire had amongst Hindus and Muslims, Malviya and Lala Lajpat Rai, who been dismembered and the institution Gandhiji saw a possibility of Hindu- presided over the session, were of Caliph (Sultan of Turkey), regarded Muslim unity and the end of British opposed to non-cooperation. But the as leader of the world-wide Muslim rule. He, therefore, supported the rank and file were with Gandhiji as was c o m m u n i t y w a s r e d u c e d t o Khilafat movement. A Central Khilafat the younger leadership including insignificance making the entire Committee of India's Muslims Vallabhbhai Patel, Chakravarthi Muslim world angry. A campaign in embraced non-violent non-cooperation Rajagopalachari, Rajendra Prasad, the defence of the Caliphate was and several leading Muslim figures Jawaharlal Nehru and Abul Kalam launched. It came to be known as the allied themselves to Gandhiji including Azad. Gandhiji's resolution asking for 'Khilafat' movement in India and was the Ali brothers, Hakim Ajmal Khan, non-cooperation was passed by a large led by Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari and Abul majority of 1855 votes to 873. Mohammad Ali, Hakim Ajmal Khan Kalam Azad who was a brilliant writer, and Abul Kalam Azad. orator and Islamic scholar. The resolution asked for a surrender of all honours and titles conferred by the In May 1920, the report of the Hunter The Indian National Congress had British Raj, a boycott of its councils and Commission was made public. The decided to take a decision on non- November elections, a boycott of Hunter Commission had been cooperation at its Calcutta session foreign goods and a gradual appointed to look into the atrocities scheduled to be held in September. withdrawal by students and lawyers committed in Punjab in 1919 which Before that Lokmanya Tilak passed from the Raj's schools, colleges and culminated in the massacre of away on 1st August at Bombay. Gandhiji courts. In Gandhiji's scheme of things, hundreds of innocent people gathered attended the funeral and, on the same Indians were to resign from civilian at Jallianwala Bagh in April that year. evening, sent a letter to the Viceroy government jobs and also from the The Hunter Report absolved Michael enclosing the medals he had received police and military and finally there O'Dwyer, the Governor of Punjab, of all for services in South Africa and saying would be non-payment of taxes. responsibility and let off General Dyer, that after the double letdown over contd. on page 2 Nehru Centre Newsletter - November 2020 1 When the Indian National Congress landlords. Alleged insults to their district of Bardoli, in the Bombay met for its annual session in Nagpur in religious leaders brought them into presidency for this experiment. On 29th December, the non-cooperation violent rebellion, first against the January 1922, 4000 khadi-clad Bardoli resolution was confirmed. Chittaranjan government and then against their residents pledged their willingness to Das moved the resolution backed by landlords. There was arson and murder stop paying taxes and to face Lala Lajpat Rai and Bipin Chandra Pal. and some Hindus were forcibly 'imprisonment and even death without At Nagpur, the Congress changed its converted. The rebellion was crushed resentment'. He informed Lord aim from 'Swaraj within the Empire' to but stories of violence and forcible Reading, the Viceroy that the non- just 'Swaraj'. Jinnah emphatically conversion spread across the land, violent rebellion would start on 12th opposed the change but his was a lone seriously hurting Hindu-Muslim trust, February. Sadly that was not to be. voice. He left the Indian National to the unfortunate delight of the Congress for good after the Nagpur British. On 5th February, in a place called session. Chauri Chaura near the town of Non-violence also received a jolt when Gorakhpur, an angry crowd of about With non-cooperation there was indeed riots occurred in Bombay during the 4000 Hindus and Muslims surrounded some lessening of the authority of the visit of the Prince of Wales to India. He a police party that had taken shelter in Empire. It diminished as villagers landed in Bombay on 17th October 1921. its post after exhausting its supply of settled cases out of court. Its revenues Those joining the ceremonies of ammunition. The police post was burnt shrank as liquor sales went down and welcome – mostly Parsis, Anglo Indians and fleeing constables were forced back its prestige shrank when, in city after and Jews - became targets of Hindu- into the flames. Twenty two policemen city, influential persons threw foreign Muslim mobs. In five days of riots, five lost their lives. The news reached cloth, suits and shawls into a blaze. Poet constables were murdered and 53 Gandhiji on 8th February. It so Rabindranath Tagore, though, did not Hindus and Muslims were killed in depressed the Mahatma that he was compelled to cancel the entire approve the burning of the cloth as he police firing. Gandhiji who was in campaign of civil disobedience not only felt it could have been given to the Bombay said that Hindu-Muslim unity in Bardoli district, but everywhere in shivering half naked millions. had become a menace to the handful of India. In the words of Vincent Sheean, Parsis, Christians and Jews. A fast by “In penitence of the crime committed at Meanwhile, the Khilafat movement in him ended the rioting but the violence Chauri Chaura he fasted for five days India suffered a serious setback when had left him completely shaken. while both India and Great Britain Mustafa Kemal, Turkey's man of looked on in amazement. It seemed destiny, showed utter contempt for the By the end of December, there was hardly possible, at that time, that a man Sultan of Turkey for whom India's tension in the atmosphere. Almost all could go so far toward revolution- Muslims were willing to die. Later, on leaders except Gandhiji and about bloodless and peaceful, but still 3rd March 1924, the Caliphate was 30,000 others were put behind bars. At revolution- and then call it off with a abolished by a decree of the Grand its year-end session in Ahmedabad, prayer. However it was Gandhiji's way National Assembly of Turkey. Congress volunteers signed a pledge of and the masses did as he said, not as any non-violence and Gandhiji prepared for other might tell them.” Hindu-Muslim unity too received a a campaign of straight non-violent civil blow by the Moplah uprising in August disobedience in which no Indian would This article is largely based on the chapter 1921 in Malabar. Moplahs of Malabar in any way assist the British 'The Empire Challenged' in Rajmohan were Muslims with a trace of Arab government or public services to carry Gandhi's book titled Mohandas: A true story blood. They were tenants of Hindu out their functions. He chose the small of a man, his people and an empire. What Nehru said.... Gandhiji had pleaded for the adoption of the way of nonviolence, with all the eloquence and persuasive power which he so abundantly possessed. His language had been simple and unadorned, his voice and appearance cool and clear and devoid of all emotion, but behind that outward covering of ice there was the heat of a blazing fire and concentrated passion, and the words he uttered winged their way to the innermost recesses of our minds and hearts… ....From an Autobiography Nehru Centre Newsletter - November 2020 2 NEHRU PLANETARIUM John Goodricke and Astronomy of Variable Stars This is the story of a young man named John Goodricke who is credited with the introduction of a new branch of astronomy - the astronomy of variable stars. What are variable stars? We see hundreds of stars twinkling in the night sky. But what is not noticed is that some of these stars periodically change either in brightness or magnitude. In 1783, Goodricke observed that the brightness of a star called Algol kept varying. Until this time, astronomers had busied themselves only in the study of the sun, the moon, planets, the moons of the planet Jupiter and the comets. Though a few astronomers had spent time in recording the exact position of stars in the sky, stellar astronomy or the study of the physical nature of stars was still in its infancy.