Era of Militant Nationalism (1905-1909)

Era of Militant Nationalism (1905-1909)

• Started emerging in the 1890s and it took a concrete shape by 1905.

Militant Nationalism Grew

Recognition of the True Nature of British Rule

• Realisation that the true nature of British rule was exploitative, and that the British India government, instead of conceding more, was taking away even what existed.
• 1892 - Indian Councils Act.
• 1897 - deported without trial and Tilak and others imprisoned.
• 1899 - Indian members in Calcutta Corporation were reduced.
• 1904 - Curbed freedom of Press.
• 1904 - Indian Universities Act (Government control over universities).

Growth of self-confidence and self-respect

• Growing faith in self-effort.
• Capable of making the immense sacrifices needed to win freedom.

Growth of education

• One hand, spread of education led to increased awareness among the masses.
• Other hand, rise in unemployment and underemployment, educated drew attention to poverty.

International influences

• Demolished myths of European invincibility.
• Nationalists were inspired by the nationalist movements worldwide—in Ireland, Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Persia and China.
• Emergence of Japan—an Asian country—as an industrial power
• Abyssinia’s (Ethiopia) victory over Italy.
• Boer Wars (1899-1902) in which the British faced reverses.
• Japan’s victory over Russia (1905).
• Nationalist movements worldwide.

Reaction to increasing westernisation

• submerge the Indian national identity in the British Empire.
• Thinkers exploded the myth of western superiority by referring to the richness of Indian civilisation in the past.

Dissatisfaction with Achievements of Moderates

• Younger elements within the Congress strongly critical the, Three ‘P’s”—prayer, petition and protest - described these methods as ‘political mendicancy’.

Reactionary Policies of Curzon

• Full of missions, commissions and omissions.
• Refused to recognise India as a nation & insulted Indian nationalists.
• Spoke derogatorily of Indian character in general.
• Calcutta Corporation Act (1899), the Official Secrets Act (1904), he Indian Universities Act (1904) and partition of Bengal (1905).

Existence of a militant school of thought

• Twentieth century, band of nationalist thinkers had emerged who advocated a more militant approach to political work.
• Tilak emerged as the most outstanding representative of this school of thought.
• Hatred for foreign rule.
• Swaraj to be the goal of national movement.
• Direct political action required.
• Belief in capacity of the masses.
• Personal sacrifices required

Emergence of a trained leadership

• Energy of the masses got a release during the movement against the partition of Bengal, Acquired the form of the swadeshi agitation.

The Swadeshi and Boycott Movement

• Anti-partition movement.
• Oppose the British decision to partition Bengal.

Partition of Bengal to Divide People

• Began as a reaction to partition of Bengal which became known in 1903, was formally announced in July 1905 and came into force in October 1905.
• Bengal comprising Western Bengal as well as the provinces of Bihar and Orissa, and Eastern Bengal and Assam.
• Bengal retained Calcutta as its capital, Dacca became the capital of Eastern Bengal.
• Partition because too big to be administered, but real motive to weaken Bengal because it is centre of Indian nationalist activity.
• Bengalis under two administrations by dividing them.
• Basis of language (reducing the Bengalis to a minority in Bengal itself - 17 million Bengalis & 37 million Hindu & Oriya people)
• Basis of religion (Western half - Hindu Majority, Eastern half - Muslim majority)
• Propping up Muslim communalists to counter the Congress and the national movement

Anti-Partition Campaign Under Moderates (1903-05)

• 1903-1905, leadership of Surendranath Banerjea, K.K. Mitra and Prithwishchandra Ray, methods adopted were petitions to the government, public meetings, memoranda, and propaganda through pamphlets and newspapers such as Hitabadi, Sanjibani and Bengalee.
• Government announced partition of Bengal in July 1905.
• Boycott foreign goods was first taken.
• August 7, 1905, Boycott Resolutionin the Calcutta Townhall & also proclamation of Swadeshi Movement was made.
• October 16, 1905, People fasted, bathed in the Ganga and walked barefoot in processions singing Bande Mataram. ‘
• Amar Sonar Bangla’, the national anthem of present-day Bangladesh by Rabindranath Tagore.
• Tied rakhis on each other, symbol of unity.
• Surendranath Banerjea and Ananda Mohan Bose addressed huge gatherings, within few hours Rs 50,000 was raised for the movement.
• Movement spread
• Poona and Bombay under Tilak.
• Punjab under Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh.
• Delhi under Syed Haider Raza.
• Madras under Chidambaram Pillai.

The Congress’s Position

• Presidentship of Gokhale
• Condemn the partition of Bengal and the reactionary policies of Curzon.
• support the anti-partition and Swadeshi Movement of Bengal.
• militant nationalists led by Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh wanted the movement to be taken outside Bengal to other parts of the country and go beyond a boycott of foreign goods to become a full fledged political mass struggle with the goal of attaining swaraj.
• Moderates, dominating the Congress, not willing to go that far.
• 1906, under the presidentship of Dadabhai Naoroji, declare goal of INC is self-government or swaraj.
• Moderate-Extremist dispute over the pace of the movement and techniques of struggle reached a deadlock at the Surat session of the Indian National Congress (1907) split with serious consequences for the Swadeshi Movement.

The Movement under Extremist Leadership

After 1905, Extremists acquired a dominant influence over the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal.

The movement under Extremists (1905-08) was led by Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai, Aurobindo Ghosh.

• Moderate-led failed to yield results.
• Divisive tactics
• Government had resorted to suppressive measures, which included atrocities on students
• Corporal punishment;
• Ban on public singing of Vande Mataram;
• Restriction on public meetings;
• Prosecution and long imprisonment of swadeshi workers;
• Clashes between the police and the people in many towns;
• Arrests and deportation of leaders; and
• Suppression of freedom of the press.

The Extremist Programme

• Emboldened by Dadabhai Naoroji’s declaration at the Calcutta session (1906), self-government or swaraj is goal of INC.
• Extremists gave a call for passive resistance, boycott of government schools and colleges, government service, courts, legislative councils, municipalities, government titles, etc.
• Militant nationalists tried to transform the anti-partition and Swadeshi Movement into a mass struggle. Slogan of India’s independence from foreign rule.
• "Political freedom is the lifebreath of a nation", declared Aurobindo.

New Forms of Struggle and Impact

• Fresh ideas at the theoretical, propaganda and programme levels
• Boycott of foreign cloth and other goods
• Burning of foreign cloth, foreign-made salt or sugar, refusal by priests to ritualise marriages involving exchange of foreign goods, refusal by washermen to wash foreign clothes.
• Public meetings and processions - major methods of mass mobilisation.
• Forming corps of volunteers or samitis
• Very popular and powerful means of mass mobilisation, formed the Swadeshi Sangam.
• providing physical and moral training to their members, social work during famines and epidemics, organisation of schools, training in swadeshi crafts and arbitration courts.
• Imaginative use of traditional popular festivals and melas for propaganda
• Tilak’s use Ganapati and Shivaji festivals.
• Bengal, traditional folk theatre.
• Emphasis on self-reliance or atma shakti
• Self-reliance or ‘atma shakti’ was encouraged.
• Included social reform and campaigns against caste oppression, early marriage, dowry system, consumption of alcohol, etc.
• Programme of swadeshi or national education
• Bengal National College, inspired by Tagore’s Shantiniketan, was set up with Aurobindo Ghosh as its principal.
• 1906, the National Council of Education was set up to organise a system of education.
• Funds were raised to send students to Japan for advanced learning.
• Swadeshi or indigenous enterprises
• Establishment of swadeshi textile mills, soap and match factories, tanneries, banks, insurance companies, shops, etc.
• V.O. Chidambaram Pillai’s venture into a national shipbuilding enterprise - Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company.
• Initiating new trends in Indian painting, songs, poetry, pioneering research in science.
• Tagore’s Amar Sonar Bangla.
• Tamil Nadu, Subramania Bharati wrote Sudesha Geetham.
• Nandalal Bose, who left a major imprint on Indian art.
• First recipient of a scholarship offered by the Indian Society of Oriental Art, founded in 1907

Extent of Mass Participation

Students

• Picketing of shops selling foreign goods in Bengal, Maharashtra, South-Guntur, Madras, Salem.
• Calling for boycott of schools, colleges, councils, government service, etc.
• Students participated in the agitation were to be penalised by disaffiliating them or stopping of grants and privileges to them.
• Also disqualified for government jobs or for government scholarships & disciplinary action—fine, expulsion, arrest, beating.

Women

• Processions & Picketing.

Stand of Muslims

• Upper and middle class Muslims stayed away.
• plea that it would give them a Muslim-majority East Bengal.
• All India Muslim League was propped up on December 30, 1905 as an anti-Congress front, elements like Nawab Salimullah of Dacca were encouraged.
• Swadeshi Movement, evoking Hindu festivals exclude the Muslims.

Labour Unrest and Trade Unions

• September 1905, 250 Bengali clerks of the Burn company protest.
• July 1906, a strike of workers in the East Indian Railway, formation of Railwaymen’s Union.
• Between 1906 and 1908 - strikes in the jute mills were very frequent, affecting 18 out of 18 mills, Subramania Siva and Chidambaram Pillai led strikes in Tuticorin and Tirunelveli.
• Rawalpindi (Punjab) led by Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh
• Social base of the movement expanded, zamindari, the students, the women, and the lower middle classes in cities and towns, But the movement was not able to garner support of the Muslims, especially the Muslim peasantry.
• All India Aspect, Tilak leading role in the spread of Movement outside Bengal.

Decided to annul the partition of Bengal in 1911 mainly to curb the menace of revolutionary terrorism, shock to the Muslim political elite.

Bihar and Orissa were taken out of Bengal and Assam was made a separate province.

Evaluation of the Swadeshi Movement

Swadeshi Movement fizzled out by 1908

1908, the open phase, Swadeshi and Boycott movement was almost over.

• Severe government repression.
• Failed to create an effective organisation.
• Later came to be associated with Gandhian politics, but failed to give these techniques a disciplined focus.
• Leaderless with most of the leaders either arrested or deported by 1908.
• Internal squabbles among leaders.
• People but did not know how to tap the newly released energy.
• confined to the upper and middle classes and zamindars, failed to reach peasantry.
• Non-cooperation and passive resistance remained mere ideas.
• Difficult to sustain a mass-based movement for long time.

Movement of Turning Point

• “A leap forward” because hitherto untouched sections participated, major trends of later movement emerged.
• From conservative moderation to political extremism.
• From revolutionary activities to incipient socialism.
• From petitions and prayers to passive resistance and non-cooperation, emerged.
• Richness of the movement was not confined to the political sphere, but encompassed art, literature, science and industry also.
• People were aroused from slumber and now they learned to take bold political positions and participate in new forms of political work.
• Hegemony of colonial ideas and institutions.
• Future struggle was to draw heavily from the experience gained.

Moderate Methods Give Way to Extremist Modes

• Moderates had outlived, highlighted by their failure to get the support of the younger generation for their style of politics.
• Failure to work among the masses.
• Propaganda by the Moderates did not reach the masses.
• Extremist ideology and its functioning also lacked consistency, leaders - Aurobindo, Tilak, B.C. Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai - different perceptions of their goal.
• They raised patriotism from a level of ‘academic pastime’ to one of 'service and sacrifice for the country'.
• Tilak’s opposition to
• the Age of Consent Bill (Marriage age f Girl 10 to 12 years, such reforms must come from people governing themselves and not under an alien rule).
• Organising of Ganapati and Shivaji festivals, support to anti-cow killing campaigns as Hindu nationalist.
• B.C. Pal and Aurobindo spoke of a Hindu nation and Hindu interests.
• Extremists were directed against the foreign rulers

Moderates	Extremists
Social base—zamindars and upper middle classes in towns.	Social base—educated middle and lower middle classes in towns.
Ideological inspiration - western liberal thought and European history.	Ideological inspiration—Indian history, cultural heritage and Hindu traditional symbols.
Believed in England’s providential mission in India.	Rejected ‘providential mission theory’ as an illusion.
Believed political connections with Britain to be in India’s social, political and cultural interests.	Believed that political connections with Britain would perpetuate British exploitation of India.
Professed loyalty to the British Crown.	Believed that the British Crown was unworthy of claiming Indian loyalty.
Believed that the movement should be limited to middle class intelligentsia; masses not yet ready for participation in political work.	Had immense faith in the capacity of masses to participate and to make sacrifices.
Demanded constitutional reforms and share for Indians in services.	Demanded swaraj as the panacea for Indian ills.
Insisted on the use of constitutional methods only.	Did not hesitate to use extraconstitutional methods like boycott and passive resistance to achieve their objectives.
They were patriots and did not play the role of a comprador class.	They were patriots who made sacrifices for the sake of the country.

The Surat Split

• Congress split at Surat came in December 1907.

Run-up to Surat

• December 1905 of Benaras session of INC, presided over by Gokhale.
• Moderate-Extremist differences came to the fore, Extremists wanted to extend the Boycott and Swadeshi Movement to regions outside Bengal, include all forms of associations (such as government service, law courts, legislative councils, etc.) within the boycott programme and thus start a nationwide mass movement.
• Moderates, on the other hand, were not in favour of extending the movementbeyond Bengal and were totally opposed to boycott of councils and similar associations.
• December 1906, Calcutta session of the Congress, the Moderate enthusiasm had cooled a bit because of the popularity of the Extremists and the revolutionaries and because of communal riots.
• Extremists wanted either Tilak or Lajpat Rai as the president, Moderates proposed the name of Dadabhai Naoroji.
• Finally, Dadabhai Naoroji was elected as the president & concession to the militants, Goal of INC is 'swarajya or self-government', supporting the programme of swadeshi, boycott and national education was passed.
• Extremists, encouraged by Calcutta session, resistance and boycott of schools, colleges, legislative councils, municipalities, law courts, etc.
• Moderates, encouraged by the news that council reforms were on the anvil, decided to tone down the Calcutta programme
• Extremists thought, battle for freedom had begun, big push to drive the British out, but considered the Moderates to be a drag on the movement.
• Moderates thought that it would be dangerous at that stage to associate with the Extremists.
• Moderates saw in the council reforms an opportunity to realise their dream of Indian participation in the administration.
• Moderates were also ready to part company with the Extremists.
• Moderates failed to realise that the council reforms were meant by the government more to isolate the Extremists than to reward the Moderates.
• Extremists did not realise that the Moderates could act as their front line of defence against state repression.
• Neither side realised that in a vast country like India ruled by a strong imperialist power, only a broad-based nationalist movement could succeed.

Split Takes Place

• 1907, Extremists want session in Nagpur & Tilak or Lajpat Rai as the president. Reiteration of the swadeshi, boycott and national education resolutions.
• Moderates wanted session in Surat & Rashbehari Ghosh as the president, drop the resolutions on swadeshi, boycott and national education.
• Congress was now dominated by the Moderates, split became inevitable.
• Moderates goal of self-government within the British Empire and to the use of constitutional methods only to achieve this goal.

Government Repression

• Between 1907 and 1911, massive attack on the Extremists, five new laws to check anti-government activity.
• Seditious Meetings Act, 1907;
• Indian Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act, 1908;
• Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908;
• Explosive Substances Act (1908); and
• the Indian Press Act, 1910.
• Tilak, sedition for what he had written in 1908 in his Kesari about a bomb thrown by Bengal revolutionaries in Muzaffarpur, two European women dead.
• Tilak wrote that the real means of stopping the bombs consisted in making a beginning towards the grant of rights of ‘Swarajya’ to the people.
• Tilak was judged guilty and sentenced to six years.
• Aurobindo and B.C. Pal retired from active politics. Lajpat Rai left for abroad.
• Moderates were left with no popular base or support, youth rallied behind the Extremists.
• 1914, Tilak was released and he picked up the threads of the movement.

The Government Strategy

• Hostile to the congress. Moderates dominated the Congress from the beginning, distancing themselves from the militant nationalist.
• government hostility did not stop, Moderates still represented an anti-imperialist force consisting of basically patriotic and liberal intellectuals.
• coming of Swadeshi and Boycott Movement and the emergence of militant nationalist.
• Policy was to be of ‘rallying them’ (John Morley - the secretary of state) or the policy of ‘carrot and stick’.
• Three-pronged approach of repression conciliation-suppression.
• First, Extremists were to be repressed mildly, frighten the Moderates.
• Second, Moderates were to be placated through some concessions, and hints were to be dropped that more reforms would be forthcoming if the distance from the Extremists was maintained.
• Third, Aimed at isolating the Extremists: With the Moderates on its side, the government could suppress the Extremists with its full might; the Moderates could then be ignored.
• Neither the Moderates nor the Extremists understood the purpose behind the strategy.

Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909 or Indian Councils Act of 1909

• October 1906, a group of Muslim elites called the Simla Deputation, led by the Agha Khan - demanded separate electorates.
• "the value of the contribution" & "to the defence of the empire".
• Muslim League intended to preach loyalty to the empire and to keep the Muslim
  intelligentsia away from the Congress.
• Gopal Krishna Gokhale also went to England to meet the Secretary of State for India, John Morley, to put Congress demands of self-governing system similar to that in the other British colonies.

The Reforms

• Non-official membership of the councils in India.
• Indians were allowed to participate in the election of various legislative councils, though on the basis of class and community.
• Separate electorates for Muslims. Income qualification for Muslim voters was kept lower than that for Hindus.
• Number of elected members in the Imperial Legislative Council and the Provincial Legislative Councils was increased (non-official majority).
• Indirectly elected, local bodies were to elect an electoral college.
• Legislatures could now pass resolutions (which may or may not be accepted), ask questions and supplementaries, vote separate items.
• One Indian was to be appointed to the viceroy’s executive council (Satyendra Sinha was the first Indian).

Evaluation

• No answer to the Indian political problem.
• colonial self-government (as demanded by the Congress) was not suitable for India.
• Against the introduction of parliamentary or responsible government.
• Election was too indirect.
• "Infiltration of legislators through a number of sieves".
• Only some members like Gokhale put to constructive use the opportunity to debate in the councils by demanding universal primary education, attacking repressive policies and drawing attention to the plight of indentured labour and Indian workers in South Africa.
• Demanded self-government, given was 'benevolent despotism'