Indian Independence Movement

3 Key excerpts on "Indian Independence Movement"

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  eBook - ePub

  Literature and Politics in the Age of Nationalism

  The Progressive Episode in South Asia, 1932-56

  • Talat Ahmed(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge India

    (Publisher)

  3 The Politics of Independence

  The Indian National Congress (INC) emerged as the dominant political strand within the freedom struggle during the inter-war years. It developed into a political party that claimed to represent all Indians irrespective of class, caste, religion, region or linguistic differences as it projected the ideology of a nationalism that pitted all Indians against the foreign power of the British. The All-India Muslim League, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, was the second-largest political formation from 1936 onwards. It claimed to be the official party of India’s Muslim population and it blended ideas of Muslim identity with a nationalist project, though one which excluded non-Muslim Indians.

  It was a time of increasing militancy in opposition to the British as mass agitation of the Civil Disobedience campaigns of the early 1930s gave way to virtual insurrectionary activity during the Quit India Movement of 1942, and radical currents sought to infuse the nationalist movement with a more overt militant and revolutionary message. The political formations of the left which emerged were the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Congress Socialist Party (CSP). They were fundamentally opposed to the separatist nationalism of the League and critical of the narrow and at times elitist nationalism of Congress. There was a coming together of their socialist/communist ideology with a progressive, militant strand of nationalism as espoused in the vision of the current in the Congress leadership associated with Nehru and the fusion of their ideologies had a direct impact on the flourishing of the writers’ movement.

  The movement for independence had become a mass movement with a popular base by the mid-1930s. Gandhi had played a pivotal role in this transformation with his adoption of Indian dress, in particular khadi, travelling third class by rail and delivering speeches in Hindustani contributing to his mass appeal. He was able to reach out to ordinary people in a manner that went beyond the narrow, elitist confines of traditional Congress practice. Gandhi had championed Hindu–Muslim unity through his support for the Khilafat Movement of the early 1920s. Next to freedom, such unity had been one of the central goals of his life’s work along with the elimination of untouchability. His espousal of social reform and the upliftment of women enabled him to exercise an influence over the nationalist movement that eclipsed the patrician, Western-educated, constitutionally-wedded approach of the established leaderships of both the Congress and Muslim League. His readiness to live amongst ordinary people and give them centre stage in the struggle for emancipation had endeared him to progressive-minded intellectuals. Premchand, Mulk Raj Anand and Rashid Jahan had, as we have seen, all been inspired by Gandhi’s simple message of non-cooperation and mass, non-violent opposition to colonial rule. He had been able to revive the momentum of the movement through his campaign of Civil Disobedience of 1929–31 with the salt Satyagraha, and he launched another bout of civil disobedience in 1932–34, following the collapse of the Round Table conferences in London over constitutional reform. This stage of the movement was marked by the sheer numbers prepared to court arrest — an estimated 120,000 men and women were detained between January 1932 and March 1933, Gandhi himself was arrested and imprisonment in Yeravada jail without a trial. But, as in previous campaigns, Gandhi then invoked the spectre of violence to call a halt to the movement in April 1934. The constant igniting and reining in of mass protest proved frustrating for activists within the intelligentsia who began to see the need for a more forthright approach, and consequently they began to question the viability and effectiveness of Gandhi’s strategy.

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  Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media

  • John D. H. Downing(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  The Quit India Movement The Bharat Chhodo Andolan (Quit India) move-ment began in 1942 as result of INC demands for immediate British withdrawal. In July, the INC demanded independence, threatening mass civil disobedience if their demands were not met. In August, the All India Congress Committee passed the Quit India Resolution, and Gandhi advised nonviolent resistance to the British. The message found expression in multiple media. Political graf-fiti with slogans, propaganda, and even caricatures of Gandhi driving the British out of India began appearing in New Delhi, Calcutta, and elsewhere. Progressive vernacular literature emerged as well, particularly in novels in the Marathi and Kannada languages by Nagnath S. Inamdar and Basavaraj Kattimani, and in S. Sitarama Sastri’s poetry. Plays during the Quit India movement explicitly focused on political liberation. These include Jasti Venkata Narasayya’s Congress Vijayam (1946) and Pattigodupu Raghava Raju’s Delhi Kota (From Delhi to Kota, 1946). The Praja Natya Mandali (People’s Theatre Movement) provided a forum for revolutionary drama. Sunkara Satyanarayana and V. Bhaskara Rao’s plays, pro-duced by the Praja Natya Mandali, used folk forms such as storytelling and dance to communi-cate political messages. Audiences, however, found these performances too propagandistic. Multiple issues relating to Indian independence found their voices in the work of the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA). From the violence of World War II, to famine and starvation in Bengal, to British repression of the Quit India movement, IPTA’s goal was to use theater and other traditional performance-based art forms to fight British imperialism and the Axis powers, while enlightening middle-class and working-class consciousness. IPTA plays used stark realism, often in the social realist tradition, portraying the masses’ plight.

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  Religion and International Relations

  • K.R. Dark(Author)
  • 2000(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The history of independent India reveals that such mobilization has almost always resulted in violence and death. 140 The International Relations of India 141 It has been made theoretically interesting in at least three ways. First, it becomes part of the resurgence of ethnic and religious nationalisms that mark the end of the twentieth century, and the sheer size and potential of India ought to command attention in the study of these nationalisms. More specifically, it is a prime example of how religion can play a role in a vibrant, politically pluralistic democracy struggling to emerge as an economic power. Secondly, the very concept of 'India' is being challenged and that calls for debate on the future of that coun- try from Indians and those interested in India. Finally, it brings attention to bear on one of the world's major religious traditions, in particular, one which is different in nature from the religions which have so far been, by and large, the motive forces behind religious nationalisms. While domestic issues involving religion have tended to dominate attention, India's international affairs have also been affected. The exact role of religion has perhaps been more difficult to pin down because other, more general, strategic concerns have also influenced India's relations with its neighbours and the rest of the world. Never- theless, practical domestic concerns - mostly to do with the grubby but democratic business of winning votes - and abstract issues regarding the concept of Indian national identity have brought religious factors into India's international affairs. Of course, the nuclear tests carried out in May 1998 under a coalition government led by the dominant Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, has dramatically brought attention to bear on the relationship between India's foreign policy and Hindu nationalism. Now, not only Hindu traditions, but Islam and Sikhism, have affected these matters.

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