Gandhian Era — Freedom Struggle 1915–1939 — Complete UPSC Notes

1. Gandhi's South African Years & the Making of Satyagraha

1.1 Biography in Brief (1869–1915)

• Born 2 October 1869 at Porbandar, Gujarat; father Karamchand Diwan of Porbandar/Rajkot; mother Putlibai (Pranami sect).
• Married Kasturba at 13 (1883).
• Sailed for London 4 September 1888; called to the Bar at Inner Temple, 10 June 1891.
• Sailed for Durban, South Africa, April 1893 — to work on a case for Dada Abdullah & Co.
• The Pietermaritzburg incident, 7 June 1893 — thrown off a first-class compartment despite a valid ticket — was, in his own words, "the most creative experience of my life".
• Spent 21 years in South Africa (1893–1914); returned to India on 9 January 1915 (commemorated as Pravasi Bharatiya Divas).

1.2 South African Campaigns

• 1894: Founded the Natal Indian Congress against the disenfranchisement bill.
• 1903: Launched Indian Opinion from Phoenix Settlement.
• 1906: First mass satyagraha — against the Asiatic Registration ("Black") Act in the Transvaal, requiring Indians to register and be fingerprinted. The word satyagraha ("truth-force") was coined here, replacing "passive resistance".
• 1908: Bonfire of registration certificates at Johannesburg.
• 1910: Tolstoy Farm founded near Johannesburg with Hermann Kallenbach.
• 1913: Great March from Newcastle to Transvaal (with women, including Kasturba), against the £3 tax on indentured labourers and the invalidation of Hindu/Muslim/Parsi marriages.
• 30 June 1914: Smuts-Gandhi Agreement — recognition of Indian marriages, abolition of £3 tax.

1.3 Sources of Gandhian Thought

1.4 The Concept of Satyagraha

• Etymology: Satya (truth) + agraha (firmness, holding). Coined in Indian Opinion 1906 via a competition; Maganlal Gandhi suggested sadagraha, Gandhi modified it to satyagraha.
• Distinguished from passive resistance: Satyagraha is active — it seeks to convert the opponent through suffering, not to defeat him through pressure.
• Core elements: Ahimsa (non-violence), truth, suffering accepted by the satyagrahi (not inflicted on the opponent), purity of means matched to purity of ends, faith in the opponent's capacity for moral response.
• Methods: Hartal, picketing, fasting, boycott, civil disobedience of specific laws, refusal of taxes, non-cooperation with institutions.

2. Return to India — Early Satyagrahas (1917–18)

On Gokhale's advice, Gandhi spent his first year (1915) touring India without political engagement to "understand the country". He founded the Satyagraha Ashram at Kochrab (Ahmedabad) on 25 May 1915, moved it to Sabarmati in 1917.

2.1 Champaran Satyagraha (1917) — First Indian Satyagraha

• Issue: The tinkathia system — peasants in Champaran district, Bihar, were forced to grow indigo on 3/20 (15%) of their land for European planters. Synthetic German indigo had collapsed the market price, but planters demanded compensation for releasing the obligation, ruining peasants.
• Invitation: Rajkumar Shukla, a Champaran peasant, persistently followed Gandhi at the Lucknow Congress 1916 and finally persuaded him to come.
• Gandhi arrived at Motihari on 15 April 1917; the District Magistrate ordered him to leave; he refused and offered to be arrested — the case was withdrawn on Viceroy Chelmsford's intervention.
• Result: Champaran Agrarian Committee included Gandhi as a member; the Champaran Agrarian Act of 1918 abolished the tinkathia system.
• Significance: First successful satyagraha in India; first use of the technique in the rural-agrarian context; recruited Rajendra Prasad, Brajkishore Prasad, J.B. Kripalani, Mahadev Desai, Mazharul Haq as lifelong associates.

2.2 Ahmedabad Mill Strike (February–March 1918)

• Issue: Ahmedabad mill workers demanded a 50% wage hike (the "plague bonus" instituted in 1917 was being withdrawn after the epidemic subsided); mill owners offered 20%.
• Gandhi was invited by his friend Anusuya Sarabhai (sister of mill-owner Ambalal Sarabhai); he proposed arbitration; when mill-owners broke the arbitration, he advised the workers to strike for 35%.
• 15 March 1918: Gandhi went on his first fast in India ("unto death") to keep the strikers from violence; the mill owners settled within three days on the 35% formula via arbitration by Anandshankar Dhruv.
• Significance: Demonstrated satyagraha in the urban-industrial context; Indulal Yagnik, Vallabhbhai Patel joined Gandhi here.

2.3 Kheda Satyagraha (March–June 1918)

• Issue: Crop failure in Kheda district, Gujarat (in 1917 the kharif had failed; the rabi was poor). Under revenue rules, if the yield was less than one-fourth of normal, full remission was due. Officials denied the remission.
• Gandhi launched no-revenue satyagraha with the support of Vallabhbhai Patel, Indulal Yagnik, Mahadev Desai, Mohanlal Pandya, Shankarlal Banker.
• June 1918: Government quietly issued orders that revenue would be recovered only from those who could pay — a face-saving compromise that satisfied Gandhi.
• Significance: Established Patel as a major leader; first peasant satyagraha against the colonial revenue machinery.

2.4 Recruiting Sergeant for the War — Kheda 1918

Immediately after Kheda, Gandhi did something that puzzled contemporaries and historians: in the summer of 1918 he campaigned in Kheda villages to recruit Indians for the British Army in WWI. His reasoning — Indians could not claim the rights of equal citizenship if they would not share in imperial defence — was characteristic of his moral consistency, but politically unpopular. The campaign was a failure; he caught dysentery and nearly died.

3. Home Rule Leagues (1916)

While Gandhi was still finding his Indian feet, two parallel Home Rule Leagues were launched in 1916 to demand self-government within the British Empire — the model being the white-settler "dominions" of Canada, Australia, and South Africa.

3.1 Tilak's Indian Home Rule League

• Founded: 28 April 1916 at Belgaum, Bombay Presidency, by Bal Gangadhar Tilak (who had returned from Mandalay in June 1914 and rejoined Congress at Lucknow December 1915).
• Area: Maharashtra (excluding Bombay city), Karnataka, Central Provinces, Berar.
• Slogan: "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it."
• Membership: ~32,000 by 1917.

3.2 Besant's Home Rule League

• Founded: September 1916 at Madras by Annie Besant (then Theosophical Society President; had been in India since 1893).
• Lieutenants: George Arundale, B.P. Wadia, C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar; Jamnadas Dwarkadas in Bombay.
• Area: Rest of India (including Bombay city, Madras Presidency, UP, Bihar, Bengal).
• Newspapers: New India (English daily), Commonweal (weekly).
• Membership: ~27,000 by 1917.

3.3 The Internment of Besant — June 1917

Madras government interned Besant, Arundale, Wadia in June 1917 — sparking a nationwide protest that doubled Home Rule League membership and forced the Government to release her in September 1917. Annie Besant became INC President at the Calcutta session, December 1917 — the first woman to hold the office. The internment also pushed the Secretary of State towards the 20 August Declaration.

3.4 Significance

• Created an organisational base for mass politics that the Congress had lacked since 1907.
• Bridged Moderates and Extremists in joint work — the Lucknow Pact (Dec 1916) reunited the two wings of the Congress.
• Brought a new generation into politics — Jawaharlal Nehru joined Besant's League in 1916; Jamnadas Dwarkadas, S. Subramania Iyer, Indulal Yagnik, B. Chakravarti all began here.
• Both leagues merged with Congress by 1920 when Gandhi launched Non-Cooperation; the dominion-status demand of 1916 would yield to Purna Swaraj by 1929.

4. Lucknow Pact & the Montagu Declaration (1916–17)

4.1 Lucknow Session — December 1916

The 31st INC session at Lucknow, presided by Ambika Charan Mazumdar, achieved two historic results:

• Reunion of Moderates and Extremists after the Surat split of 1907. Tilak attended; the four Calcutta resolutions of 1906 (Swaraj, Boycott, Swadeshi, National Education) were reaffirmed.
• Lucknow Pact between the INC and the All-India Muslim League — drafted by Tilak and Jinnah (then a Congressman and the "ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity", per Gokhale).

4.2 Terms of the Lucknow Pact

1. Both INC and ML demanded self-government, Indian majority in central legislature, expansion of provincial councils, separation of judicial and executive, expansion of military & naval colleges in India.
2. Congress accepted separate electorates for Muslims — the most consequential concession; abandoned the principle of joint electorates.
3. Weightage — Muslims to be given representation in excess of their population in provinces where they were a minority, in exchange for representation below their population in provinces where they were a majority (Punjab, Bengal). The exact percentages (Bengal 40%, Punjab 50%, Madras 15%, UP 30%, Bombay 33⅓%, Bihar 25%, CP 15%) were agreed.
4. No bill or resolution affecting a community would be passed in any council if 3/4 of the community's representatives in that council opposed it (the "communal veto").

4.3 Montagu Declaration — 20 August 1917

In the wake of WWI Indian contributions (more than 1.4 million Indian troops served; ~74,000 dead) and the Home Rule agitation, the Secretary of State Edwin Montagu made the historic declaration in the House of Commons on 20 August 1917:

"The policy of His Majesty's Government… is that of increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire."

Significance: For the first time the British government formally committed itself to "responsible government" (i.e., the executive accountable to the elected legislature) as the goal of Indian constitutional development — though the timing was left vague. This was the constitutional charter on which the 1919 and 1935 Acts were built.

5. Government of India Act 1919 — Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms

Following Montagu's tour of India (winter 1917–18 — he visited Delhi, Calcutta, Madras, Bombay) and the Montagu-Chelmsford Report (July 1918), Parliament passed the Government of India Act 1919 on 23 December 1919. The reforms came into force on 1 January 1921.

5.1 At the Centre

• Bicameral legislature for the first time:
  • Council of State (upper) — 60 members (33 elected, 27 nominated), 5-year term.
  • Legislative Assembly (lower) — 144 members (104 elected, 40 nominated), 3-year term.
• Direct election introduced for the first time — on a property/income/education franchise.
• Viceroy's Executive Council — 8 members of whom 3 were to be Indian.
• Governor-General retained extensive powers — could certify any rejected bill as essential; could prorogue, dissolve, veto.
• No fiscal autonomy — defence, foreign affairs, communications, public debt remained reserved central subjects.

5.2 In the Provinces — Dyarchy ("Double Rule")

The defining feature: provincial subjects were divided into two lists:

• Governor chose Indian ministers from elected members of the Legislative Council to administer transferred subjects.
• "Reserved" subjects remained under the Governor and his Executive Council, not responsible to the legislature.
• Governor could override the ministers on transferred subjects "in the public interest".
• Provincial Legislative Council — single chamber, 70% elected, 30% nominated/officials.

5.3 Other Features

• Separate electorates extended — to Sikhs, Christians, Anglo-Indians, Europeans, in addition to Muslims.
• Franchise broadened — about 5.5 million eligible voters (~10% of adult males); still a tiny electorate.
• High Commissioner for India in London (1920) — replacing some functions of the Secretary of State; Indian responsibility for purchases formerly handled through the India Office.
• Statutory Public Service Commission recommended (set up 1926 — chaired by Sir Ross Barker).
• Statutory Commission to review the working of the Act after ten years — this was the Simon Commission (appointed Nov 1927; reported May 1930).

5.4 Indian Reaction

• Special Bombay Session of Congress (August–September 1918), President Hasan Imam, condemned the Mont-Ford proposals as "disappointing and unsatisfactory".
• Annie Besant called the reforms "unworthy of England to offer and India to accept".
• The Surendranath Banerjee group split off as the Indian Liberal Federation (1919, Bombay) to support the Act.
• Within months the Rowlatt Act & Jallianwala destroyed any goodwill the reforms might have generated.

6. The Rowlatt Act & the Satyagraha (1919)

6.1 The Rowlatt Committee

Appointed in December 1917 under Sir Sidney Rowlatt, a King's Bench judge, to advise on legislation to deal with the "revolutionary movement" after the wartime Defence of India Act 1915 lapsed. The committee's report (April 1918) recommended emergency powers in peacetime.

6.2 The Rowlatt Acts — 18 March 1919

Two laws were passed by the Imperial Legislative Council over the unanimous opposition of all 22 Indian elected members — Jinnah, Malaviya, Mazharul Haq resigned in protest:

• Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, 1919 ("Black Act") — the principal Rowlatt Act.
• Imprisonment without trial for up to two years for those suspected of seditious activity.
• Trial by a special tribunal of three High Court judges, with no right of appeal.
• Press freedom further curtailed; restrictions on possession of "seditious" literature.
• "No vakil, no daleel, no appeal" — the popular slogan that captured the Act's denial of basic legal rights.

6.3 Gandhi's Satyagraha

• 24 February 1919: Gandhi formed the Satyagraha Sabha at his Sabarmati Ashram with the Satyagraha Pledge — to refuse obedience to the Rowlatt Act and to such other laws as the committee might select.
• 6 April 1919 declared as the day of nationwide hartal — Gandhi's first all-India political call.
• The hartal was a striking success — Delhi observed it on 30 March (advance date); Bombay, Ahmedabad, Calcutta, Madras, Lahore all closed down on 6 April.
• In Punjab — already simmering from heavy wartime recruitment and revenue collection — the agitation turned militant. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal (Amritsar leaders) were arrested and deported on 10 April. Crowds protesting their arrest were fired on; in retaliation crowds attacked banks, killed five Europeans, and burned buildings. The town hall was set on fire. Marcella Sherwood, a missionary, was assaulted in a lane.
• Gandhi himself was prevented from entering Punjab; arrested at Palwal (10 April) and sent back to Bombay.

7. Jallianwala Bagh — 13 April 1919

7.1 The Massacre

On Sunday, 13 April 1919 (Baisakhi), a meeting was called at the Jallianwala Bagh — a walled garden with a single narrow entrance — to protest the deportation of Kitchlew and Satyapal and the Rowlatt Acts. The crowd numbered around 15,000–20,000, including many pilgrims who had come to Amritsar for Baisakhi and were unaware that Brigadier-General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer had proclaimed an order banning all assemblies that morning.

Dyer arrived with 90 soldiers (50 of them rifle-armed Gurkhas and Baluchis, 40 with kukris). Without warning, he ordered his troops to open fire — for 10–15 minutes, until the ammunition was almost exhausted. 1,650 rounds fired.

• British official figure: 379 dead, ~1,200 wounded.
• INC enquiry committee (Madan Mohan Malaviya, Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das, Fazlul Haq, Abbas Tyabji, Gandhi): over 1,000 dead.
• Wells filled with bodies; many died trying to climb the walls or jumping into the well in the bagh (which still survives as a memorial).

7.2 Martial Law & the "Crawling Order"

Martial law was declared in Punjab on 15 April 1919 by Lieutenant-Governor Sir Michael O'Dwyer. Dyer's notorious order in the lane where Marcella Sherwood had been assaulted required all Indians passing through to crawl on their hands and knees; public floggings, summary trials, aerial bombing of Gujranwala — collective punishment on a scale that shocked even sections of British opinion.

7.3 The Hunter Commission

Appointed October 1919 under Lord William Hunter; report March 1920. The majority of the commission (the British members) censured Dyer for an "error of judgement" — he had used excessive force — but stopped short of finding him guilty of any criminal offence. The Indian members (Setalvad, Jagat Narayan, Sultan Ahmed) wrote a dissenting minority report finding the action "inhuman and un-British".

• Dyer was relieved of command by the Army Council in March 1920 and sent into early retirement on half-pay; the House of Lords commended him; the British public (through the Morning Post) raised a "Dyer Fund" of ~£26,000 for him.
• Tagore renounced his knighthood on 31 May 1919 in a letter to Viceroy Chelmsford.
• Gandhi returned his Kaisar-i-Hind medal (awarded for his South African ambulance work) and his Boer War medal in 1920.
• Shankaran Nair resigned from the Viceroy's Executive Council in protest.
• O'Dwyer was assassinated by Udham Singh at Caxton Hall, London, on 13 March 1940 — 21 years after Jallianwala. Udham Singh was hanged at Pentonville on 31 July 1940.

8. The Khilafat Movement (1919–24)

8.1 Background

Indian Muslims regarded the Ottoman Sultan (in Constantinople) as the Khalifa — the temporal head of the worldwide Islamic community and the guardian of the holy places of Mecca and Medina. During WWI, Turkey had fought on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary against Britain. As the war ended (Armistice November 1918), Indian Muslims feared the Allies would dismember the Ottoman Empire and depose the Khalifa — and were proved right by the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).

8.2 Formation of the Khilafat Committee

• March 1919: All-India Khilafat Committee formed at Bombay; led by the Ali Brothers (Muhammad Ali, Shaukat Ali), Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Hasrat Mohani, Dr M.A. Ansari.
• 17 October 1919: First All-India Khilafat Day — Hindus joined in solidarity (Gandhi presided at the Delhi Khilafat Conference, 23–24 November 1919).
• 1 August 1920: Khilafat Non-Cooperation launched (Gandhi formally inaugurated it on the day Tilak died).

8.3 Demands

• Khalifa must retain control over Muslim holy places (Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem).
• The Khalifa must be left with sufficient territory to enable him to defend the Islamic faith.
• The Jaziratul-Arab (Arabian peninsula, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine) must remain under Muslim sovereignty.

8.4 Gandhi's Strategic Calculation

Gandhi saw the Khilafat agitation as a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to forge Hindu-Muslim unity around a concrete cause. He argued — against many Hindu leaders and against critics like Ambedkar — that supporting Muslim religious feeling on Khilafat would consolidate the bond. Most contemporary observers and most modern historians (Bipan Chandra qualified; Sumit Sarkar more critical) judge this miscalculation: it tied Hindu-Muslim unity to a backward-looking pan-Islamic cause that the rise of Kemal Atatürk would soon make obsolete.

8.5 End of Khilafat

• 1 November 1922: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished the Ottoman Sultanate (deposed Mehmed VI).
• 3 March 1924: Atatürk abolished the Khalifa institution itself — pulling the rug from under the Indian Khilafat movement.
• The Khilafat Committee dissolved; some of its leaders (Ali brothers) drifted to communal politics in the late 1920s.
• Hijrat Movement (1920): ~18,000 Indian Muslims migrated to Afghanistan believing India had become Dar-ul-Harb (abode of war); turned back at the Afghan border, many died on the way home — a tragic episode.
• Moplah Rebellion (Aug–Dec 1921) in Malabar (Kerala) — Mappila Muslim peasants rose against Hindu landlords and British rule under Khilafat-Non-Cooperation enthusiasm; widely portrayed in subsequent Hindu-nationalist literature as communal violence, complicating the unity narrative.

9. Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–22)

9.1 The Decision

• 1 August 1920: Gandhi formally launched Non-Cooperation — a date he had calculated to maximise the Khilafat sentiment. By unfortunate symbolism, this was also the day Bal Gangadhar Tilak died in Bombay.
• Calcutta Special Session, 4–9 September 1920 (President: Lala Lajpat Rai) — Gandhi's resolution for Non-Cooperation was passed against the opposition of Bipin Chandra Pal, Annie Besant, M.A. Jinnah, Madan Mohan Malaviya. C.R. Das opposed initially.
• Nagpur Session, 26–31 December 1920 (President: C. Vijayaraghavachariar) — Non-Cooperation endorsed by the regular annual Congress; C.R. Das now moved the resolution in support; Jinnah walked out (his political break with the Congress dates from Nagpur).

9.2 The Nagpur Congress Reorganisation

The Nagpur session was also a structural revolution in the Congress:

• Provincial Congress Committees reorganised on a linguistic basis (anticipating the 1956 States Reorganisation by 36 years).
• 15-member Working Committee created — the day-to-day executive body.
• Membership opened on payment of four annas per year — opening the Congress to peasants and the poor.
• Hindi/Hindustani adopted as the language of Congress proceedings.
• Goal of the Congress redefined as "attainment of Swarajya by the people of India by all legitimate and peaceful means".

9.3 Programme of Non-Cooperation

9.4 Mass Response

• Students: Tens of thousands left government institutions. Subhas Chandra Bose resigned from the ICS in 1921 (he had stood fourth in the 1920 ICS examination).
• Lawyers: Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das, Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Asaf Ali, Saifuddin Kitchlew, T. Prakasam, K.M. Munshi all gave up lucrative practices.
• Foreign cloth boycott — imports fell sharply; massive bonfires of Manchester cloth.
• Peasants: Awadh Kisan Sabha under Baba Ramchandra; Eka Movement in Hardoi-Sitapur under Madari Pasi.
• Workers: Strike wave 1921–22 (jute mills Bengal, Assam tea plantations, Bombay textile mills).
• Tribals: Alluri Sitarama Raju's Rampa Rebellion (Andhra hills, 1922–24) under Non-Cooperation inspiration — though Raju used force; killed by police 7 May 1924.
• Royal visit boycott: Prince of Wales' visit (17 November 1921, Bombay) met with empty streets and a hartal. ~30,000 arrested across India in the following weeks.

9.5 The Ahmedabad Congress, December 1921

(President in absentia: C.R. Das, who was in jail; acting: Hakim Ajmal Khan.) Gandhi was given executive authority for a "sole executive authority of the Congress". The plan: launch full civil disobedience (no-revenue) in Bardoli taluka of Surat district as a "model satyagraha" from 1 February 1922.

10. Chauri Chaura & the Swaraj Party

10.1 Chauri Chaura — 5 February 1922

On 5 February 1922, in the small town of Chauri Chaura, Gorakhpur district, UP, a procession of Non-Cooperation volunteers was taunted and beaten by the police at the bazaar. The volunteers regrouped and returned in larger numbers; when the police fired into the crowd and exhausted their ammunition, the crowd attacked the thana (police station), set it on fire, and killed 22 policemen (most sources say 22; some say 23) in the flames.

10.2 Gandhi's Withdrawal — Bardoli Resolution, 12 February 1922

Within a week, on 11–12 February 1922, the Congress Working Committee met at Bardoli (where civil disobedience was about to be launched) and, on Gandhi's insistence, passed the Bardoli Resolution suspending the entire Non-Cooperation Movement. Gandhi believed the country was not yet ready for non-violent mass action; the violence at Chauri Chaura proved the discipline was inadequate.

10.3 Reactions

• Disappointment and anger from younger leaders. Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das, Subhas Bose, Lajpat Rai all opposed withdrawal — Motilal wrote a sharp protest from prison.
• The mass movement subsided within months; the constructive programme (khadi, Hindu-Muslim unity, removal of untouchability) continued but without political momentum.
• Gandhi arrested 10 March 1922 at Ahmedabad, tried by Justice C.N. Broomfield, pleaded guilty, sentenced to 6 years' simple imprisonment on 18 March 1922. (Released early on health grounds, February 1924, after appendicitis surgery in Yeravda jail.)
• 172 of the Chauri Chaura accused were sentenced to death by the Sessions Court (Jan 1923); the Allahabad High Court reduced this to 19 hangings + 110 transportations for life — still one of the largest mass-execution episodes of the British Raj.

10.4 The Swaraj Party

The post-NCM Congress split into two camps:

• Pro-Changers (Swarajists): Wanted to enter the new councils set up under the 1919 Act, in order to wreck them from within ("council-entry"). Led by C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru.
• No-Changers: Wanted to stick to Gandhi's constructive programme — khadi, Hindu-Muslim unity, removal of untouchability — and stay out of the councils. Led by Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari, Vallabhbhai Patel, M.A. Ansari, Vinoba Bhave.

10.5 Formation of the Swaraj Party

• Gaya Congress, December 1922 (President: C.R. Das) — Council-entry resolution defeated. Das and Motilal resigned from their Congress posts.
• 1 January 1923: Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party formed at Allahabad — C.R. Das President, Motilal Nehru Secretary.
• September 1923, Delhi Congress (President: M.A. Ansari) — a compromise: Swarajists allowed to contest elections "without prejudice to the basic Non-Cooperation programme".

10.6 Swaraj Party Performance — 1923 Elections

• Central Legislative Assembly: 42 of 101 elected seats; with allies, controlled ~45.
• Central Provinces: Absolute majority; formed government refusing to take office, blocking all government bills.
• Bengal: Largest single party; Das became leader.
• Bombay, UP: Substantial blocs.
• Madras, Punjab: Limited success (where Justice Party and Unionists dominated).

10.7 Achievements & Decline

• Achievements: Defeated several government bills; passed the Vithalbhai Patel Resolution (8 Feb 1924) demanding a constituent assembly; embarrassed the government on Rowlatt's continuance, the Public Safety Bill, the Lee Commission's pro-British recommendations on services.
• C.R. Das died 16 June 1925 at Darjeeling — a body blow.
• Communalisation: The 1923–24 split in Bengal between Hindu Mahasabha-leaning Swarajists (Lala Lajpat Rai, Madan Mohan Malaviya formed the Independent Congress / Responsivist Party 1926) and the secular Swarajists damaged the party.
• 1926 elections — Swaraj Party still won 40 of 101 central seats but lost ground in the provinces.
• 1929: Motilal Nehru withdrew from the Assembly in response to the Lahore Purna Swaraj resolution; the Swaraj Party effectively dissolved.

11. Revolutionary Nationalism — Phase II (1923–1931)

The suspension of Non-Cooperation in February 1922 disillusioned the younger militants who had given up education and careers for it. From 1923 onwards a second wave of revolutionary activity, more socialist and more secular in orientation than the 1905–17 phase, swept across the Hindi-speaking belt and Punjab.

11.1 Hindustan Republican Association (HRA), October 1924

• Founded at Kanpur in October 1924 by Sachindranath Sanyal (author of Bandi Jeevan), Ramprasad Bismil, Jogesh Chandra Chatterji, Ashfaqullah Khan, Chandrashekhar Azad.
• Manifesto "The Revolutionary" (1 January 1925) — armed revolution to establish a "Federal Republic of the United States of India".
• Kakori Train Robbery, 9 August 1925 — HRA members held up the 8-down train at Kakori (near Lucknow) and looted the government treasury chest (Rs ~8,000); a passenger was accidentally killed. Mass arrests followed.
• Kakori Conspiracy Case (1925–27): Ramprasad Bismil hanged at Gorakhpur, Ashfaqullah Khan hanged at Faizabad, Roshan Singh hanged at Allahabad, Rajendra Lahiri hanged at Gonda on 19 December 1927 (Ashfaq on 19 Dec; the others on adjacent days). Chandrashekhar Azad evaded arrest.

11.2 Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), 8–9 September 1928

• Founded at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi on 8–9 September 1928 — the HRA reorganised by Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar, Shivaram Rajguru, Bhagwati Charan Vohra, Yashpal, Jaidev Kapoor, with Chandrashekhar Azad as Commander-in-Chief.
• Addition of "Socialist" in the name was deliberate — Bhagat Singh and Bhagwati Charan had been reading Marx, Lenin, Bakunin, Trotsky.
• Goal: Socialist republic of India through armed revolution.

11.3 The Saunders Murder, 17 December 1928

To avenge Lala Lajpat Rai's death (from injuries received in the Simon Commission protest at Lahore on 30 October 1928 — he died 17 November), the HSRA planned to assassinate James A. Scott, the Superintendent of Police who had ordered the lathi-charge. By mistake they shot Assistant Superintendent J.P. Saunders outside the Lahore District Police Office on 17 December 1928. Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Chandrashekhar Azad escaped (Bhagat Singh in disguise as a sahib with Durga Bhabhi posing as his wife).

11.4 The Central Assembly Bomb, 8 April 1929

• Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw two low-intensity bombs into the empty benches of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi, during the debate on the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill, on 8 April 1929. No one was killed (deliberately — the bombs were designed to make noise, not casualties).
• They threw leaflets — "It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear" — quoting French anarchist Auguste Vaillant (1893).
• They surrendered, refused legal defence, and used the trial as a political platform.

11.5 The Lahore Conspiracy Case & the Hangings

• Combined Lahore Conspiracy Case tried Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Jatindra Nath Das (and others) on Saunders murder + earlier HSRA conspiracies.
• Jatindra Nath Das: hunger strike of 63 days for political-prisoner status; died 13 September 1929 — the first political-prisoner martyr in India.
• Bhagat Singh's writings in prison: Why I Am An Atheist (1930); the Letter to Young Political Workers (2 February 1931) which argued for socialism, scientific outlook, and a long preparatory phase of organisation rather than spectacular acts.
• Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev hanged at Lahore Central Jail on 23 March 1931 — a day before they were scheduled (to forestall demonstrations). Bodies cremated at Hussainiwala (now in Indian Punjab on the Pakistan border).

11.6 The End of Phase II

• Chandrashekhar Azad killed at Alfred Park, Allahabad on 27 February 1931 in a shootout with police — shot himself with his last bullet to honour his vow never to be taken alive.
• Surya Sen: Chittagong Armoury Raid, 18 April 1930 — captured the police and auxiliary armouries of Chittagong with ~64 revolutionaries (including women — Pritilata Waddedar, Kalpana Datta). Surya Sen hanged 12 January 1934; Pritilata Waddedar consumed cyanide after the Pahartali European Club raid 24 September 1932.
• Bhagwati Charan Vohra killed in a bomb accident on the banks of the Ravi, 28 May 1930.
• The wave of repression following CDM and Bhagat Singh's hanging broke the HSRA. The revolutionary tradition would re-emerge only with Bose's INA (1942–45) and a handful of Bengali groups during the war.

12. Simon Commission, Nehru Report, Jinnah's 14 Points

12.1 Simon Commission

• Appointed 8 November 1927 under the GoI Act 1919's mandatory 10-year review clause. Chaired by Sir John Simon; seven all-British members (including a young Major Clement Attlee, future PM).
• The all-white composition — no Indian member — was an enormous insult; the British justification was that the future of India should be decided by Parliament, not by a partisan Indian. The reception was uniformly hostile.
• Madras Congress (December 1927), President M.A. Ansari, resolved to boycott the Commission "at every stage and in every form".
• 3 February 1928: Commission landed at Bombay. Met everywhere with black flags, "Simon Go Back" placards, hartal. Boycotted by INC, Muslim League (Jinnah faction), Hindu Mahasabha, Liberal Federation. (The Justice Party in Madras and the Unionists in Punjab cooperated.)
• 30 October 1928: Simon's second tour. Demonstration at Lahore Railway Station led by Lala Lajpat Rai attacked by police under Superintendent J.A. Scott; Lajpat Rai lathi-charged on the chest. He died on 17 November 1928 at Lahore.
• Report: Two volumes, May 1930. Recommended abolition of provincial dyarchy, expansion of franchise, federation in the future, continuance of separate electorates. Already overtaken by events.

12.2 Birkenhead's Challenge & the Nehru Report

Secretary of State Lord Birkenhead had taunted Indians that they could not produce an agreed constitutional scheme. The All Parties Conference accepted the challenge:

• All Parties Conference met at Delhi (Feb 1928), Bombay (May 1928), Lucknow (Aug 1928).
• A drafting committee under Motilal Nehru (with Tej Bahadur Sapru, Subhas Bose, M.S. Aney, Ali Imam, M.R. Jayakar, Shoaib Qureshi, Pradhan, G.R. Pradhan, and Jawaharlal Nehru as secretary) produced the Nehru Report, submitted 10 August 1928.

Principal Recommendations

• Dominion Status on the model of self-governing dominions (Canada, Australia) — not Purna Swaraj (Subhas Bose and Jawaharlal opposed; lost the vote).
• Federal form of government with residual powers vested in the Centre.
• Joint electorates with seat reservations for Muslims (where they were in minority — i.e., not in Punjab and Bengal — for ten years).
• Fundamental rights including freedom of speech, religion, equality, language, association.
• Separation of state and religion (secularism).
• Universal adult suffrage.
• Linguistic provinces — Sindh to be separated from Bombay, Karnataka and Andhra to be created.
• Bicameral legislature; cabinet government; supreme court.

12.3 Jinnah's 14 Points (March 1929)

The Calcutta All Parties Convention (December 1928) failed to reach agreement on the Nehru Report's communal provisions — Jinnah's three amendments (1/3 Muslim seats in Central Assembly; reservation in Punjab/Bengal; residual powers to provinces) were rejected. Jinnah famously called it "the parting of the ways". In March 1929 at the Muslim League Delhi session, Jinnah formulated his 14 Points:

1. Federal constitution with residual powers vested in the provinces.
2. Uniform provincial autonomy.
3. All legislatures and elective bodies to be constituted on the principle of adequate Muslim representation.
4. In the Central Legislature, Muslim representation not less than 1/3.
5. Separate electorates to continue.
6. No territorial redistribution to affect Muslim majority in Punjab, Bengal, NWFP.
7. Full religious liberty.
8. No bill or resolution to be passed in any legislature if 3/4 of any community oppose it (the communal veto from Lucknow 1916).
9. Sindh to be separated from Bombay.
10. Reforms to be introduced in NWFP and Baluchistan on the same footing as other provinces.
11. Muslims to have adequate share in services.
12. Constitution to protect Muslim culture, education, language, religion, personal law, and charitable institutions.
13. No cabinet — central or provincial — to be formed without at least 1/3 Muslim ministers.
14. No constitutional change in the federal system without the consent of all the constituent units.

13. Lahore Session 1929 — Purna Swaraj

13.1 The Calcutta Ultimatum, December 1928

At the Calcutta Congress (December 1928), presided over by Motilal Nehru, Gandhi moved a resolution accepting the Nehru Report and demanding Dominion Status — with a one-year ultimatum: if the British did not concede Dominion Status by 31 December 1929, the Congress would commit itself to Purna Swaraj and launch a movement for complete independence.

13.2 Irwin Declaration, 31 October 1929

Viceroy Lord Irwin (Edward Wood), on instructions from the Labour Secretary of State Wedgwood Benn, issued the Irwin Declaration (31 October 1929) stating that Dominion Status was the "natural issue" of India's constitutional progress, and promising a Round Table Conference. The declaration was diluted in the British Parliament under Conservative pressure; the Delhi Manifesto (2 November 1929, signed by Gandhi, Motilal, Sapru, Annie Besant, Jinnah, Patel) sought clarification — when Irwin in a meeting on 23 December refused to promise Dominion Status as the guaranteed outcome of the RTC, the path was cleared for Purna Swaraj.

13.3 Lahore Session — 29 December 1929

• President: Jawaharlal Nehru (just 40 — Gandhi had bypassed Patel, who had more committee votes, in favour of the younger leader; Patel accepted gracefully). The session was held on the bank of the Ravi.
• Purna Swaraj Resolution passed on 19 December 1929 (some sources 31 Dec): "The British Government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually. We believe therefore that India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or Complete Independence."
• Tricolour flag unfurled by Jawaharlal Nehru at midnight on 31 December 1929 on the bank of the Ravi.
• 26 January 1930 declared "Independence Day" — to be celebrated annually with the Independence Pledge (drafted by Gandhi). Celebrated continuously until 1947; on 26 January 1950 the date was chosen for the Republic Day in homage to this.
• Programme of Civil Disobedience to be framed by Gandhi and the Working Committee.

14. Dandi March & Civil Disobedience (1930)

14.1 Gandhi's Eleven-Point Ultimatum, 30 January 1930

In Young India (30 January 1930) Gandhi published an Eleven-Point Ultimatum to Viceroy Irwin — issues whose redress would still allow him to call off the planned movement. The points combined the political (50% cut in military expenditure and civil service salaries; release of political prisoners; reform of CID), the economic (total prohibition; abolition of salt tax; reduction of land revenue by 50%; protective tariffs on textiles; reservation of coastal shipping for Indians), and the social (currency reform; issue of firearms licences). Irwin's reply (18 February 1930) was a flat refusal.

14.2 Why Salt?

The choice of the Salt Tax — a 25-paise per maund (~4% per ton) excise on a basic necessity that even the poorest household could not avoid — was inspired:

• Salt was a universal necessity that hit every Indian regardless of class, region, or religion.
• Salt could be made simply by evaporating seawater — accessible technology of mass civil disobedience.
• The government's monopoly was both economically absurd (salt was abundant on every coast) and morally indefensible.
• The salt tax produced only ~Rs 2.5 crore (3% of the central revenue) — its loss would not bankrupt the government, but its defiance would symbolise total rejection.

Most of the Working Committee (Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal) initially thought salt a trivial issue — Gandhi's choice was contested. It would prove the masterstroke of his political career.

14.3 The Dandi March — 12 March to 6 April 1930

• Gandhi wrote to Viceroy Irwin on 2 March 1930 announcing the march; received no substantive reply.
• Left Sabarmati Ashram on 12 March 1930 with 78 chosen satyagrahis (a deliberately small core; Sarojini Naidu was added later).
• The march was 240 miles (~387 km), travelled in 24 days through 4 districts of Gujarat (Ahmedabad, Kheda, Anand, Borsad, Bharuch, Surat, Navsari).
• Gandhi addressed huge meetings at every halt; village panchayats joined; the international press (including Webb Miller of UPI) accompanied.
• Reached Dandi on 5 April 1930. At dawn on 6 April 1930, Gandhi picked up a handful of natural salt from the seashore — formally breaking the Salt Law.

14.4 Spread of Civil Disobedience

• Salt satyagraha spread along every coast: Sarojini Naidu & Manilal Gandhi led the raid on the Dharasana Salt Works (21 May 1930) — Webb Miller's report of the unresisting satyagrahis being beaten became a defining image worldwide.
• C. Rajagopalachari led a march from Tiruchirapalli to Vedaranyam (Tamil Nadu coast).
• K. Kelappan led the Payyannur salt march in Malabar.
• Boycott of foreign cloth, liquor shops, government schools, courts resumed.
• No-revenue campaigns: Bardoli (again), Kheda, eastern UP (Mewar), Gujarat, Karnataka.
• No-chaukidara tax: Bihar, Orissa, Bengal.
• NWFP — Khudai Khidmatgars (Red Shirts) under Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan ("Frontier Gandhi"): Peshawar 23 April 1930 — Garhwal Rifles refused to fire on unarmed Pathan protesters — a stunning moment of cross-community non-violence in a region stereotyped as warlike.
• Chittagong Armoury Raid (18 April 1930) under Surya Sen — armed action in parallel to the Gandhian movement.
• Sholapur: textile workers seized control of the town for several days after the police killed protesters; martial law imposed.
• Tribal movements: Manipur — Rani Gaidinliu's Heraka movement (1929–32, jailed at 16); Bastar tribal unrest 1930.
• Women's participation on an unprecedented scale: Kasturba, Sarojini Naidu, Kamala Nehru, Lakshmi Pandit, Hansa Mehta, Avantikabai Gokhale, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Mira Behn. Government had never expected women in such numbers; jails became overcrowded.

14.5 Government Response

• Mass arrests — over 90,000 imprisoned in the first year.
• Gandhi arrested 5 May 1930; Nehru, Patel, Rajendra Prasad and the entire Working Committee in jail.
• Ordinances: Press Ordinance, Unlawful Instigation Ordinance, Unlawful Association Ordinance — emergency rule by executive decree.
• Congress declared illegal (June 1930).
• Confiscation of property; cattle and household goods seized for unpaid taxes; lands forfeited.
• Lathi charges, firings: 100+ deaths in police firings during 1930.

15. First RTC, Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Second RTC

15.1 First Round Table Conference, London — 12 November 1930 – 19 January 1931

• Convened by Labour PM Ramsay MacDonald in pursuance of the Irwin Declaration.
• 89 delegates — 16 from British political parties, 16 from Indian princely states, 57 from British India.
• Boycotted by the Congress (its leaders in jail).
• Attended by Muslim League (Aga Khan, Jinnah, Muhammad Iqbal, Maulana Muhammad Ali — who died in London during the session, January 1931 — buried in Jerusalem); Hindu Mahasabha (Moonje, Jayakar); Liberals (Sapru, C.Y. Chintamani, Srinivasa Sastri); Sikhs (Sardar Sampuran Singh); Depressed Classes (Dr B.R. Ambedkar, Rao Bahadur Srinivasan); Princes (Bikaner, Patiala, Bhopal, Hyderabad — represented by Sir Akbar Hydari).
• Achievement: Princes' acceptance of an all-India federation; agreement that British India would be a federation; provincial autonomy and responsible government in provinces accepted. No conclusions on the communal issue or on safeguards.
• Without Congress, no real progress was possible.

15.2 Gandhi-Irwin Pact — 5 March 1931

Returning from the First RTC, Viceroy Irwin authorised conversations with Gandhi. Through Tej Bahadur Sapru and M.R. Jayakar as intermediaries, eight meetings between Gandhi (released 26 January 1931) and Irwin produced the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (Delhi Pact) signed on 5 March 1931.

Government's Concessions

• Withdrawal of all ordinances and prosecutions for non-violent offences.
• Release of all political prisoners not convicted of violence.
• Restoration of confiscated property where not yet sold to third parties.
• Removal of salt tax for coastal villagers making salt for personal use.
• Right of peaceful picketing of liquor and foreign-cloth shops.

Congress Concessions

• Suspension of Civil Disobedience Movement.
• Participation in the Second RTC.
• No enquiry into police excesses (the most controversial concession).

15.3 Karachi Congress — 29 March 1931

• President: Vallabhbhai Patel.
• Endorsed the Gandhi-Irwin Pact — but in the shadow of the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev five days earlier (23 March 1931). Gandhi was booed by Bhagat Singh sympathisers at Karachi.
• Resolution on Fundamental Rights and Economic and Social Programme — drafted by Jawaharlal Nehru — was the Congress's first explicit charter of social-economic rights: freedom of speech, religion, equality before law; protection of culture/language/script of minorities; universal adult franchise; free primary education; nationalisation of key industries; substantial reduction in agricultural rent and revenue; protection of women's rights; abolition of untouchability.

15.4 Second Round Table Conference — 7 September – 1 December 1931

• Gandhi was the sole Congress representative — sailed on the SS Rajputana.
• Stayed at Kingsley Hall (East End, with Muriel Lester); met King George V at Buckingham Palace ("loincloth and sandals" controversy); met Charlie Chaplin, Romain Rolland, Mussolini (briefly).
• Communal question was the central obstacle. Muslims (Aga Khan, Muhammad Iqbal, Sir Muhammad Shafi), Depressed Classes (Ambedkar), Sikhs, Anglo-Indians, Christians all demanded separate electorates. Gandhi opposed separate electorates for Depressed Classes (the central issue).
• Conservatives had returned to power in the National Government (October 1931 election); Lord Willingdon, the new Viceroy, was hostile.
• The session ended without an agreement on the communal issue or on the federal scheme. Gandhi sailed home in December 1931 empty-handed.

15.5 Resumption of Civil Disobedience & Repression (January 1932)

• Gandhi landed at Bombay 28 December 1931; demanded urgent talks with the new Viceroy Lord Willingdon, who refused.
• 4 January 1932: Gandhi arrested again; Civil Disobedience resumed.
• Government response far harsher than 1930 — fresh ordinances within hours of Gandhi's arrest, Congress declared unlawful, all leaders interned, 80,000+ arrested in three months, women lathi-charged for the first time in some districts.
• By summer 1932 the movement was clearly losing momentum; Gandhi turned to the question of untouchability from his Yeravda cell.

16. Communal Award & Poona Pact (1932)

16.1 Communal Award — 16 August 1932

British PM Ramsay MacDonald, having failed to broker a communal settlement at the Second RTC, announced his own award on 16 August 1932:

• Separate electorates retained for Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, and Europeans.
• Separate electorates also for the Depressed Classes — a new and politically explosive provision. Depressed Class voters would vote in both a separate electorate (for reserved seats) and the general electorate (for the general seats).
• Weightage for minorities in provincial legislatures.
• Bengal and Punjab — Muslim-majority provinces — given Muslim majorities of representation (Bengal 47.8% Muslims, Punjab 49% Muslims).

16.2 Gandhi's Fast Unto Death — 20 September 1932

Gandhi, in Yeravda Jail (Pune), was opposed to separate electorates for the Depressed Classes on the ground that this would split Hindu society for ever and weaken the campaign against untouchability. He announced a fast unto death from 20 September 1932 in protest.

16.3 Ambedkar's Position

Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the foremost leader of the Depressed Classes, argued that without separate electorates, Depressed Class candidates would always need upper-caste Hindu votes to win and would therefore become tools of the caste Hindus — defeating the very purpose of representation. Ambedkar had won this argument at the Second RTC.

16.4 The Poona Pact — 24 September 1932

With Gandhi's life at stake, intense negotiations took place between Ambedkar, Madan Mohan Malaviya, M.C. Rajah, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Rajagopalachari, and Gandhi (through emissaries). After four days the Poona Pact was signed at the Yeravda Jail Office on 24 September 1932:

• Separate electorates for Depressed Classes abolished.
• Joint electorates with reserved seats for Depressed Classes — to be elected through a primary election in which only Depressed Class voters could vote to nominate the four most popular candidates; these four would then contest in the general (joint) electorate.
• Reserved seats greatly increased over the Communal Award figure: 148 (out of 1,585) in the provincial legislatures — Bombay 15, Bengal 30, UP 20, Bihar & Orissa 18, CP 20, Madras 30, Punjab 8, Assam 7. (Communal Award had 71.)
• Central legislature reserved seats: 18% of the British India general seats for Depressed Classes.
• Educational grants and adequate representation in public services for Depressed Classes.
• Reserved seats arrangement to last 20 years (extended thereafter; survives in modified form as SC reservation under the Constitution).

16.5 Gandhi Broke His Fast on 26 September 1932

Ambedkar later (What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to the Untouchables, 1945) called the Poona Pact a coerced agreement — Gandhi had used his own life as moral blackmail. The substantive judgement: Depressed Classes got far more reserved seats than under the Communal Award, but lost the independent political voice that separate electorates would have given them. Both achievements and resentments of the Poona Pact survive into contemporary Indian politics.

16.6 The Harijan Sevak Sangh & Gandhi's Anti-Untouchability Campaign

• All-India Anti-Untouchability League founded 30 September 1932; renamed Harijan Sevak Sangh in early 1933 — President Ghanshyam Das Birla, Secretary A.V. Thakkar.
• Gandhi began his weekly Harijan newspaper on 11 February 1933 (in English; Hindi/Gujarati editions followed).
• Harijan Yatra (Harijan Tour) — Gandhi toured India for ten months (Nov 1933 – Aug 1934) covering ~12,500 miles, addressing meetings, collecting funds, opening temples and wells to "Harijans".
• Term Harijan ("people of Hari", i.e. God) was Gandhi's coinage — Ambedkar and many Dalit activists rejected the patronising religious framing.

17. Third RTC & Suspension of Civil Disobedience

17.1 Third Round Table Conference, 17 November – 24 December 1932

• A small, working-level conference. The Congress was not represented (Gandhi still in jail). The British government had its own draft ready — the White Paper was published in March 1933 and led directly to the Joint Select Committee (chaired by Lord Linlithgow, 1933–34) whose report became the GoI Act 1935.

17.2 The Final Phase of CDM

• April 1934: Gandhi formally suspended Civil Disobedience as a mass programme — to be confined to individual satyagraha by selected representatives.
• October 1934: Gandhi formally retired from the Congress (no longer even a "four anna" member) to devote himself to constructive work — though he remained the supreme political authority informally.
• Total CDM cost: ~120,000 imprisoned (1930–34); 1,500+ killed in police firings; thousands beaten and tortured.

17.3 Why CDM Did Not "Succeed" Like NCM

• The British government was now psychologically prepared and used the lessons of 1920–22 — quick mass arrests, ordinances, communal counter-offers.
• The communal divisions hardened — Muslim League stayed aloof; the Communal Award completed the separation.
• Indian capitalists were ambivalent — supported the political goals but feared prolonged strikes.
• The princes' resistance to federation prevented constitutional progress.
• The movement could not be sustained in the face of brutal repression — by 1933 the leadership was in jail, the foot soldiers exhausted, and the country in the grip of the Depression.

17.4 The Congress Socialist Party (1934)

• Founded at Patna in May 1934 by Acharya Narendra Dev, Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), Achyut Patwardhan, Yusuf Meherally, Ashok Mehta, Minoo Masani, Ram Manohar Lohia, Sampurnanand.
• Within Congress as a left bloc; first conference Bombay October 1934.
• Pushed Congress towards socialist programme — culminated in the Faizpur (1936) and Haripura (1938) sessions' agrarian programme and the National Planning Committee (1938, chaired by Nehru).
• Subhas Bose's twin presidencies (Haripura 1938, Tripuri 1939) were the high water mark; after Bose's resignation and the war, the CSP split (some to CPI in the People's War line, JP and others to underground resistance during Quit India).

18. Government of India Act 1935

The longest Act ever passed by Parliament (321 sections, 10 schedules), enacted 2 August 1935. Drafted by the Joint Select Committee on the basis of the White Paper of March 1933; principal authors: Sir Samuel Hoare (Secretary of State), Lord Linlithgow (Joint Select Committee chair), Sir Reginald Coupland.

18.1 Principal Features — All-India Federation

• Federation of British Indian provinces and Indian princely states — provinces compulsorily included; princes' accession voluntary.
• Three lists dividing legislative powers — Federal (59 items), Provincial (54), Concurrent (36). (The 1950 Constitution preserved this three-list structure with modifications.)
• Residual powers with the Governor-General.
• Federal Court set up (1937, Sir Maurice Gwyer first Chief Justice) — predecessor of the Supreme Court.
• Federation never came into effect — princes refused to accede in sufficient numbers (a federation required princes representing half the population of princely India to accede; ultimatum after ultimatum was extended; the Second World War froze the question on 3 September 1939; federation provisions never operationalised).

18.2 Provincial Autonomy — The Part That Worked

• Dyarchy abolished at the provincial level (it was paradoxically re-introduced at the centre).
• Provincial subjects fully under Indian ministers responsible to the legislature.
• Bicameral legislatures in Madras, Bombay, Bengal, UP, Bihar, Assam (the other five provinces — Punjab, NWFP, CP, Orissa, Sind — unicameral).
• Eleven provinces (NWFP separated 1932; Sind separated from Bombay 1936; Orissa separated from Bihar 1936).
• Governor's "special responsibilities" and discretionary powers — internal security, minority safeguards, financial stability, services. A real residual veto.
• Franchise expanded to ~14% of population (~35 million voters) — including women (on property/income qualifications).
• Separate electorates extended further — to Scheduled Castes (via primary + reservation per Poona Pact), women, labour, commerce, landlords.

18.3 At the Centre

• Dyarchy at the Centre — defence, external affairs, ecclesiastical affairs, tribal areas were "reserved" to the Governor-General; others were "transferred" to ministers responsible to the federal legislature. But since federation never came into effect, the central government continued under the GoI Act 1919 with modifications until 1947.
• Federal Legislature: Council of State (260) + Federal Assembly (375) — never elected.
• Reserve Bank of India established 1 April 1935 (Reserve Bank of India Act 1934).
• Federal Public Service Commission, Provincial Public Service Commissions created.

18.4 Reception

• Jawaharlal Nehru: "A new charter of slavery". "A car with all brakes and no engine."
• Jinnah: "Thoroughly rotten, fundamentally bad, and totally unacceptable."
• The Congress decided (after long debate at Lucknow 1936 and Faizpur 1936) to contest the 1937 elections in order to capture provincial power and demonstrate the Act's deficiencies from within.

18.5 Lasting Significance

Despite contemporary condemnation, the GoI Act 1935 became the structural template of the 1950 Constitution of India — federal architecture, three lists, Federal Court, public service commissions, governor's role, much of the language of Part XI & Part XII. As Granville Austin observed, "the 1935 Act was the major source of the Constitution of 1950 — about 250 of its sections were taken almost verbatim."

19. Congress Ministries 1937–39

19.1 1937 Provincial Elections

• Held Jan–Feb 1937.
• Congress contested 1,161 of the 1,585 general seats; won 716 — absolute majority in Madras, UP, CP, Bihar, Orissa, Bombay; largest party in Bengal, Assam, NWFP; minority in Punjab and Sind (where Unionists and regional parties dominated).
• Muslim League won only 108 of 482 reserved Muslim seats — under 25% of the Muslim vote. A catastrophic showing that radically altered Jinnah's strategy after 1937.

19.2 Initial Refusal of Office

After the elections, the Congress hesitated for two months. Its objection: the Governor's special powers/discretionary functions under the 1935 Act gave him a residual veto that would make ministers accountable both to the legislature and (in extremis) to the Governor. After negotiations and a clarifying statement by Viceroy Lord Linlithgow (21 June 1937) that Governors would use their discretion "with restraint", the Congress accepted office in seven provinces in July 1937.

19.3 The Congress Premiers

19.4 Achievements

• Civil liberties: Press restrictions relaxed; political prisoners released; ban on Congress organisations lifted.
• Agrarian reform: Bihar & UP tenancy laws (Bakasht in Bihar); abolition of forced labour (Begar) in some provinces.
• Labour reform: Bombay Industrial Disputes Act 1938; Trade Disputes Act amendments.
• Education: The Wardha Scheme (Basic Education, 1937) under Dr Zakir Husain — manual labour as the centre of pedagogy.
• Prohibition in parts of Madras, Bombay.
• Reduction of ministerial salaries to Rs 500/month (a fraction of British ICS levels).

19.5 Limitations & Criticisms

• Police excesses continued — Congress ministries fired on tribal protesters in Orissa, on textile workers in Cawnpore, on Muslims in some communal riots.
• Communalisation — Muslim League charged that the UP Congress ministry (Pant) had refused coalition; that Vande Mataram, Hindi, the Wardha Scheme, Bande Mataram as a national song were all Hindu impositions on Muslims. Jinnah commissioned the Pirpur Report (Nov 1938), the Sharif Report (Bihar, 1939), and the Fazlul Haq's "Muslim Sufferings under Congress Rule" (Dec 1939) — sweeping (and exaggerated) catalogues of grievance.
• Bose-Gandhi split — Subhas Bose was elected Congress President at Haripura (1938); re-elected at Tripuri (1939) defeating Gandhi's candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Gandhi withdrew co-operation; Bose resigned April 1939; founded the Forward Bloc 22 June 1939.

19.6 Resignation — October–November 1939

• 3 September 1939: Britain declared war on Germany; Viceroy Linlithgow declared India a belligerent without consulting any Indian leader or the Central Assembly.
• 14 September 1939: CWC at Wardha demanded a clear declaration of British war aims as they applied to India — would the principle of self-determination apply to India after the war?
• Linlithgow's reply (17 October 1939) was evasive — vague promises of "consultative committee" and reference to post-war "modifications" of the 1935 Act.
• 22–23 October 1939: CWC asked the Congress ministries to resign.
• By 15 November 1939 all eight Congress ministries had resigned.
• Jinnah declared 22 December 1939 as "Deliverance Day" from Congress rule — celebrated by the Muslim League. The path was now open to the Lahore Resolution of 23 March 1940 demanding a separate Muslim state.

20. Historiography of the Gandhian Movement

20.1 The Verdict for UPSC

For a Mains answer: The Gandhian movement was the first sustained mass-democratic anti-colonial movement in modern world history. Its great achievement was to mobilise tens of millions of Indians across class, region, and (partially) community in disciplined non-violent struggle, building the political and institutional infrastructure of independent India. Its limitations — on the communal question, on caste, on class — were real and consequential, but it remains the central episode of twentieth-century Indian political history.

Previous Year Questions (Theme-aligned)