Nationalism in India
and
Southwest Asia
“I have nothing new to teach the world.
Truth and non-violence are as old as the
hills. All I have done is to try experiments
in both on as vast a scale as I could.”
-Gandhi
The effect of World War I
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WWI signaled the end of Imperialism
The British Empire began to crumble
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Stirred nationalist movements in
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India
Turkey
Persia (Iran)
Saudi Arabia
Indian Nationalism
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Upper class Indians who had attended
British schools learned European views of
nationalism and democracy and began to
resent British rule
Two groups formed
Indian National Congress (Congress Party)
 Muslim League
Although Hindus and Muslims have a rocky
history they could find common ground in
resisting foreign rule
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The WWI Effect
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Indians fighting in the British armies in
Europe were offered government
promises of reforms in exchange for
their service
The ultimate goal of these reforms was
eventual independence
In 1918 Indian troops returned home
expecting the promises to be fulfilled
Instead they were again treated as
second class citizens
The British React to Indian
Resentment
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Radical nationalists carried out acts of violence
against the British in India
The British government pass the Rowlatt Act
(1919)
Allowed the government to jail protestors without trail
for as long as two years
 Denial of Trial by Jury was a serious offense to
western educated Indians who had learned from the
British the importance of individual rights
What is it that allows the British to pass laws against
Indians they wouldn’t pass in Britain?
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Resistance and Oppression
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Amritsar Massacre – protest to the
Rowlatt Act
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10,000 Hindus and Muslims flocked to
the Amritsar (capital of Punjab) spring
1919
Intended to fast and pray and listen to
political speeches
The demonstration and alliance between
Hindus and Muslims terrified the British
The British had banned public meetings
therefore the entire festival was “illegal”
Resistance and Oppression
British General Reginald Dyer ordered his
troops to fire on the crowd without warning
 The shooting lasted 10 minutes
 British troops killed 400 Indians and injured
1200
 News of the slaughter sparked fury across
India
 Overnight millions of Indians changed from
loyal British subjects to revolutionaries
How did the British reaction to the festival
change minds and heart?
What examples of extreme reaction can you
think of from today?
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The Role of Gandhi
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WATCH GANDHI
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Gandhi’s philosophies
blended ideas from all
of the major world
religions – Hinduism,
Islam and Christianity
Gandhi attracted
millions of followers
He was soon called
“Mahatma” meaning
Great Soul
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Noncooperation
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After the Amritsar Massacres and
British failure to punish the offending
officers Gandhi proposed his policy of
“noncooperation”
Who else used/uses noncooperation
as a form of protest?
Civil Disobedience
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“It is not desirable,” he said, “to cultivate a
respect for the law, so much for the
right…Law never made men a whit more
just; and by means of their respect for it,
even the well-disposed are daily made the
agents of injustice.”

Henry David Thoreau
The demands of conscience are higher than
the demands of the law
“This is in essence the principle of nonviolent
noncooperation. Its object should not be to punish
the opponent or to inflict injury upon him. Even
while noncooperating with him, we must make him
feel that in us he has a friend and we should try to
reach his heart by rendering him humanitarian
services wherever possible”
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How does this differ from Mao’s view of revolution
against oppression?
Which path to change is more effective? Why?
Civil Disobedience
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Passive Resistance – Satyagraha –
“Truth-force”
Deliberate and public refusal to obey an
unjust law
 “Complete Civil Disobedience is a rebellion
without the element of violence…one perfect
resister is enough to win the battle of Right
and Wrong”
In 1920 the Indian National Congress Party
adopted this policy of civil disobedience and
nonviolence
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Civil Disobedience
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Name a law you find to be unjust that
you are obligated to obey (school or
government law)
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How could you protest the law without
violence?
Applying Civil Disobedience
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Gandhi urged the people to refuse to buy
British goods, attend government schools, pay
British taxes and vote in elections
Throughout 1920 the British
arrested thousands of Indians
who had
participated in strikes and
demonstrations
Applying Civil Disobedience
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Gandhi’s civil disobedience took a heavy
economic toll on the British
Struggled to keep
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Trains running
Factories open
And overcrowded jails from bursting
Despite Gandhi’s pleas for nonviolence, riots often
broke out
Salt March
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1930 the Indian National Congress and Gandhi
declared India independent of British rule
Obviously the British ignored this so Gandhi decided to
take his protests to another level
He organized a salt protest
According to British law, Indians could only buy salt
from the government AND they had to pay a tax on salt
To show their opposition, Gandhi and his followers
walked 240 miles to the seacoast and collected their
own salt by letting ocean water evaporate
Why is a salt protest so important?
Civil Disobedience
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Soon after the Salt March to Dandi
demonstrators planned to march to a factory
where the British processed salt
Police officers with steel tipped clubs
attacked the demonstrators
An American journalist on the scene
described the “sickening whacks of clubs on
unprotected skulls and people writhing in
pain with fractured skulls or broken
shoulders”
Salt Marches Effect
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The salt march gained worldwide
attention and sympathy
Indians throughout the country took up
the protest and began illegally
processing their own salt
Eventually 60,000 people as well as
Gandhi himself were arrested
Great Britain Grants India Self
Rule
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Eventually the protests and
international pressure were too much
for the British to ignore
In 1935 they passed the Government
of India Act – giving limited self rule to
the Indians
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The Hindu Indian National Congress was
the party in control and this quickly
offended the Muslim league
Fight for Power
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Over the next few decades the Muslim
League conflicted with the Indian National
Congress in the ruling of the country
The Hindus outnumbered the Muslims and
they feared lack of representation in the
government
They fought the Indian National Congress’
control of the government on every front
Stay Tuned!!
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The rest of the Indian Independence
story doesn’t pick up again until after
World War II when the British finally
lose the ability to control India from
abroad and give up in 1947… opening
a whole new can of worms with the
creation of Muslim Pakistan
Nationalism Spreads to Southwest
Asia
The people of the Middle East also launched
independence movements during this time of
weakening European Imperialism
-Turkey
- Iran
- Saudi Arabia
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Turkey
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At the end of World War I, all that remained
of the Ottoman Empire was Turkey
The Greeks were eager to expand and rebuild
their ancient empire at the expense of the
weakening Ottomans
The Sultan was ineffectual in stopping the
invading Greeks
Turkish Nationalism
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Mustafa Kemal led Turkish nationalists in
overthrowing the Sultan in 1922
1923 – Kemal became the president of the
new Republic of Turkey
Kemal introduced many reforms,
transforming Turkey into a modern state
The New Turkey
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He separated the laws of Islam from the laws
of the nation
Abolished religious courts, created a new
legal system based on European law
Women were given more freedom, the right to
vote and to hold public office
Launched government programs to
industrialize Turkey
Persia Becomes Iran
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Great Britain and Russia fought over
influence over the ancient empire of Persia
After WWI the Russians were wrapped up in
their Bolshevik revolution and the British
tried to seize the opportunity to expand in
Persia
1921 – Persians revolted against the ruling
Shah who had allowed the “invasion” of
foreign powers
Iran
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A Persian Army Officer – Reza Shah Pahlavi
overthrew the Shah in 1925 and established
himself the ruler of Iran
Set up public schools, built roads, railroads,
promoted industrial growth and extended
women’s rights
Unlike his revolutionary counterpart in
Turkey, Pahlavi gathered all power into his
hands
Saudi Arabia
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Going in the opposite direction the Saud family led
by Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud began a successful
campaign to unify Arabia under strict Islamic law
In 1932 he established Saudi Arabia (named after his
family)
Ibn Saud carried on many Arabic and Islamic
traditions, alcoholic drinks were outlawed
Ibn Saud brought some modernization to his new
country but not as much as Reza Shah and Kemal
OIL
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In the midst of nationalist awakenings in the
middle east a new economic advantage was
being discovered
During the 1920’s and 1930’s western powers
began oil explorations throughout the region
and discovered huge reserves in Iraq, Iran,
Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Foreign business invested Huge sums of
money into the oil field
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Eventually it would be realized that the
Persian Gulf region held 2/3 of the world’s oil
reserve
This new economic power of natural resource
would shape the coming century
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Western powers would find the resource too
tempting to leave in native control without their
influence in the politics and economics of the
region