Nationalism in India and Mohandas K. Gandhi, Chapter 30:4, pg. 887
Two groups formed to rid India of foreign rule:
The Hindu Indian National Congress and the Muslim League
Participation of India in WWI
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1 million Indians troop enlisted in the British army.
British government promised that would eventually lead to self-government.
Upon their return they were again treated as second class citizens.
Radical nationalists carried out acts of violence.
British government passed the Rowlatt Acts.
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It allowed the government to jail protesters for to 2 years without trial
Censorship in communications
The Amritsar Massacre
To protest, around 10,000 Hindus and
Muslims gathered in Amritsar, Punjab in the spring of 1919. This alliance made the British
concerned.
The British commander ordered his troops to fire on the crowd. In ten minutes nearly 400
Indians dies and about 1,200 were wounded.
Millions of Indians changed from subjects into nationalist and demanded independence.
Mohandas K. Gandhi, “Mahatma”, “great soul.”
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Gandhi urged to follow a policy of noncooperation with the British government.
In 1920, the Congress Party endorsed civil disobedience. The refusal to obey an unjust law
and weaken the British government’s authority and economic power over India.
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Boycotts. Gandhi called on Indians to refuse to buy British goods and weave their
own cloth.
Gandhi himself devoted two hours each day to spinning his own yarn on a simple handwheel.
Strikes and Demonstrations
Civil disobedience took an economic toll on the British.
In 1920, the British arrested thousands of Indians who had participated in strikes and
demonstrations.
The Salt March
In 1930, Gandhi organized a demonstration to defy the hated Salt Act. Indian could
buy salt from the British government and pay sales tax on salt. Gandhi and his
followers walked about 240 miles to the seacoast.
60,000 people, included Gandhi, were arrested.
Britain Grants Limited Self-Rule
In 1935, The British Parliament passed the Government of India Act. It provided local
self-government but not total independence.
India gains Independence.
On August 15. Independence Day marks the end of British rule in 1947 and the
establishment of a free and independent Indian nation. It also marks the anniversary
of the partition of the subcontinent into two countries, India and Pakistan, which
occurred at midnight on August 14–15, 1947. (In Pakistan, Independence Day is
celebrated on August 14.)
Gandhi’s dream is shatered
The Tensions between Muslins and Hindus mounted.
Gandhi fasts to ask his people to stop fighting.
The assassination of Gandhi
In 1948, Nathuram Godse wanted to show that a Hindu too can be intolerant.
... Godse stated that "Gandhi had betrayed his Hindu religion and culture by
supporting Muslims at the expense of Hindus" because his lectures of ahimsa (nonviolence) were directed at and accepted by the Hindu community only.
Gandhi’s Funeral