Gandhian Era and the Mass Movements

Why this matters for CAPF

This is the single highest-yield chapter in the CAPF history syllabus and a core Paper II essay theme (see theme freedom struggle). Between 1917 and 1942 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi turned the national movement into a mass struggle built on satyagraha (truth-force) and ahimsa (non-violence), leading three great all-India movements, Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience, and Quit India, around local satyagrahas, pacts, and Congress sessions that fixed the goal of Purna Swaraj. Paper I tests this almost entirely as chronology and matching: the movement-to-year sequence, the cause that began or ended a movement, the pacts and their parties, the session-to-president, and who-did-what. Because the movements turned on the limits of a non-violent population against an armed state, the chapter is also a study in the legitimacy and cost of colonial coercion, which makes it useful for the security and human-rights essay (see theme internal security and theme human rights where relevant).

This account follows the NCERT modern-India coverage and the standard reference treatment in Spectrum's "A Brief History of Modern India."

Core narrative

Gandhi's return and method

Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in January 1915, where he had developed satyagraha during struggles against racial laws. On Gokhale's advice he spent a year travelling India before entering politics. His method combined satyagraha (insistence on truth through non-violent resistance), ahimsa, the constructive programme (khadi, the spinning wheel, removal of untouchability, Hindu-Muslim unity, village self-reliance), and a readiness to accept suffering and imprisonment.

The early satyagrahas (1917 to 1918)

• Champaran (Bihar, 1917): Gandhi's first satyagraha in India, against the tinkathia system that forced indigo cultivation on the peasantry on the planters' terms. He defied the order to leave, won an inquiry, and secured relief. This was his first act of civil disobedience in India.
• Ahmedabad Mill Strike (1918): a dispute between mill workers and owners over the plague bonus and wages; Gandhi undertook his first hunger strike here, and the matter was settled by arbitration with a wage rise.
• Kheda (Gujarat, 1918): a satyagraha supporting peasants' demand for the suspension of land revenue after crop failure and plague. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel rose to prominence as Gandhi's lieutenant here.

The Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh (1919)

• The Rowlatt Act (the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, 1919) allowed detention without trial and trial without jury, prompting the protest "no appeal, no argument, no lawyer". Gandhi launched the Rowlatt Satyagraha, his first nationwide protest.
• Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Amritsar, 13 April 1919: General Reginald Dyer ordered troops to fire without warning on an unarmed gathering trapped in an enclosed garden, killing hundreds. In protest Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood, and Gandhi later returned his Kaiser-i-Hind medal. The Hunter Commission inquired into it and censured Dyer, who was nonetheless feted by sections of the British public.

The Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement (1920 to 1922)

Endorsed at the Calcutta special session (September 1920) and adopted at the Nagpur session (December 1920), the Non-Cooperation Movement fused three grievances:

• the Khilafat issue (Indian Muslim anger at the harsh post-war treatment of the Ottoman Caliph, led by the Ali brothers, Shaukat Ali and Mohammad Ali),
• the Punjab wrong (Jallianwala Bagh and martial law), and
• the demand for swaraj.

The programme involved the surrender of titles and honours, the boycott of British schools, courts, councils, and goods, the boycott of the 1921 elections, and the promotion of khadi, national schools, and panchayats for dispute settlement. Gandhi promised swaraj within a year. He abruptly suspended the movement after the Chauri Chaura incident (5 February 1922, Gorakhpur district, United Provinces), where a mob set fire to a police station and killed 22 policemen; Gandhi held that the movement had turned violent. He was arrested and tried in March 1922.

The constructive interlude and the road to Purna Swaraj (1922 to 1929)

• The Swaraj Party (1923), founded by Motilal Nehru and C. R. Das, decided to contest council elections to obstruct from within (the "pro-changers"), against the "no-changers" who favoured constructive work.
• Simon Commission (1928): an all-British statutory commission to review the 1919 reforms, with no Indian member. It was boycotted with the slogan "Simon Go Back". At Lahore, Lala Lajpat Rai was injured in a lathi charge and died soon after, an event that the revolutionaries later avenged.
• Nehru Report (1928): a constitutional blueprint drafted by a committee under Motilal Nehru, proposing dominion status and rejecting separate electorates; Muslim League objections (Jinnah's "Fourteen Points") followed.
• Lahore session (December 1929): under Jawaharlal Nehru as president, the Congress adopted the goal of Purna Swaraj (complete independence). The tricolour was unfurled on the banks of the Ravi, and 26 January 1930 was observed as the first Independence Day, a date later chosen for the commencement of the Constitution.

The Civil Disobedience Movement and the Dandi March (1930 to 1934)

• Dandi March / Salt Satyagraha (12 March to 6 April 1930): Gandhi marched about 240 miles (385 km) from the Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi with 78 followers and broke the salt law by making salt from sea water on 6 April 1930, launching the Civil Disobedience Movement. The movement spread to the boycott of foreign cloth and liquor, the non-payment of taxes, and the defiance of forest laws; the salt satyagraha at Dharasana (1930) drew worldwide attention. Women participated on a large scale.
• The First Round Table Conference (1930 to 1931) was held in London without the Congress.
• Gandhi-Irwin Pact (5 March 1931): the Congress agreed to suspend Civil Disobedience and to attend the next Round Table Conference; the government agreed to release political prisoners (except those convicted of violence) and to permit salt-making for personal use.
• Second Round Table Conference (1931, London): Gandhi attended as the sole Congress representative but it proved inconclusive, deadlocked over the question of minorities.
• The Communal Award (August 1932) by the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald granted separate electorates to the Depressed Classes among others. Gandhi began a fast unto death against it; the resulting Poona Pact (September 1932) with B. R. Ambedkar replaced separate electorates for the Depressed Classes with a larger number of reserved seats within the general (joint) electorate.
• Civil Disobedience was revived in 1932 after Gandhi's return, met with severe repression, and was finally withdrawn in 1934.

The 1937 elections and the resignation of 1939

Under the Government of India Act 1935 (see towards independence acts and partition), provincial elections were held in 1937; the Congress won majorities and formed ministries in most provinces. These ministries resigned in 1939 when the Viceroy committed India to the Second World War without consulting Indian opinion; the Muslim League observed the resignation as a "Day of Deliverance".

The Quit India Movement (1942)

The failure of the Cripps Mission (1942), wartime hardship, and the threat of a Japanese advance led the Congress to pass the Quit India Resolution at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee at Gowalia Tank on 8 August 1942, where Gandhi gave the call "Do or Die". The entire top leadership was arrested in the early hours of 9 August 1942. Leaderless, the movement (the "August Revolution") became a spontaneous and at places violent mass upsurge: attacks on railways, telegraphs, and police stations, and the establishment of parallel governments (prati sarkar) at Ballia (Uttar Pradesh), Tamluk (Midnapore, Bengal), and Satara (Maharashtra, the longest-lasting). It was suppressed with great severity but demonstrated that British rule could no longer continue without Indian consent. Underground leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan, Ram Manohar Lohia, and Aruna Asaf Ali (who hoisted the flag at Gowalia Tank) sustained resistance.

Static facts to memorise

Security and nation-building angle

Gandhian mass civil disobedience was a distinctive instrument that the colonial security apparatus struggled to suppress without forfeiting legitimacy, as the worldwide revulsion at Jallianwala Bagh and at the salt satyagraha at Dharasana showed. Non-violent non-cooperation transferred the moral and political cost of repression onto the state. The Karachi session's resolution on fundamental rights and the national economic programme (1931) is an early Indian charter of civil liberties and socio-economic goals that later informed Part III and Part IV of the Constitution (see fundamental rights and directive principles and fundamental duties). The parallel governments of Quit India, especially the long-lived Satara prati sarkar, prefigured the question of administrative control that the new state would face, and Quit India demonstrated that the security cost of holding India against a mobilised population had become unsustainable. The Poona Pact's device of reserved seats within a joint electorate is the direct ancestor of constitutional reservation.

How CAPF asks it

Common formats: movement-to-year chronology and ordering; the cause that began or ended a movement; pact-to-parties matching; where and when Purna Swaraj was adopted; session-to-president matching; the Quit India call and venue.

Authored practice:

Common confusion

• Champaran (1917, indigo) versus Kheda (1918, land revenue) versus Ahmedabad (1918, mill wages): three early satyagrahas, easily swapped.
• Rowlatt Act (1919, detention without trial) versus the Government of India Act 1919 (Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, dyarchy): same year, opposite character.
• Chauri Chaura (1922) ended Non-Cooperation; Jallianwala Bagh (1919) was a cause of it. Do not reverse.
• Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931, suspended CDM) versus Poona Pact (1932, with Ambedkar): both are 1931 to 1932, different parties and purposes.
• Communal Award (MacDonald) versus Poona Pact (Gandhi-Ambedkar): the Award gave separate electorates, the Pact replaced them with reserved seats.
• Lahore session 1929 (Purna Swaraj) versus the Lahore Resolution of the Muslim League 1940 (Pakistan demand): different events at the same city.

Memory hook

• Three great movements: "NCM 20, CDM 30, QIM 42" (1920, 1930, 1942, neatly a decade apart).
• Early satyagrahas: "Champaran indigo, Kheda revenue, Ahmedabad wages."
• Pacts of the thirties: "Irwin then Ambedkar" (Gandhi-Irwin 1931, Poona Pact 1932).
• Quit India: "Gowalia Tank, Do or Die, 8 August 42."
• Prati sarkar trio: "Ballia, Tamluk, Satara" (Satara lasted longest).

Night before

• Gandhi returned in January 1915; first satyagraha Champaran (1917, indigo); Kheda and Ahmedabad (1918).
• Rowlatt Act 1919; Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, 13 April 1919 (Dyer); Tagore returned his knighthood.
• Non-Cooperation (1920 to 1922) joined the Khilafat cause; adopted at Nagpur (1920); called off after Chauri Chaura (5 February 1922).
• Simon Commission 1928 (no Indian member, "Simon Go Back"); Lajpat Rai injured at Lahore.
• Lahore session 1929 (Nehru), Purna Swaraj; first Independence Day 26 January 1930.
• Dandi (Salt) March, 12 March to 6 April 1930, began Civil Disobedience.
• Gandhi-Irwin Pact 1931 (suspended CDM; Gandhi to Second RTC); Poona Pact 1932 (with Ambedkar).
• Quit India launched at Gowalia Tank, Bombay, 8 August 1942, "Do or Die"; leaders arrested 9 August.
• Prati sarkar at Ballia, Tamluk, and Satara; Aruna Asaf Ali hoisted the flag at Gowalia Tank.
• Bose was Congress president at Haripura (1938) and Tripuri (1939), then founded the Forward Bloc.

Glossary

• Satyagraha: Gandhi's method of non-violent resistance based on insistence on truth.
• Ahimsa: non-violence in thought, word, and deed, the moral core of the Gandhian method.
• Khadi: hand-spun, hand-woven cloth, a symbol of self-reliance and the constructive programme.
• Tinkathia: the system in Champaran that forced peasants to grow indigo on a fixed share of their land.
• Khilafat: the movement of Indian Muslims to protect the Ottoman Caliphate, fused with Non-Cooperation.
• Chauri Chaura: the 1922 incident of mob violence that led Gandhi to suspend Non-Cooperation.
• Purna Swaraj: complete independence, the goal adopted at Lahore in 1929.
• Civil Disobedience: the deliberate, non-violent breaking of specific laws, begun by the salt satyagraha.
• Gandhi-Irwin Pact: the 1931 agreement suspending Civil Disobedience.
• Communal Award: MacDonald's 1932 scheme granting separate electorates to several groups.
• Poona Pact: the 1932 Gandhi-Ambedkar agreement substituting reserved seats for separate electorates.
• Prati sarkar: the parallel government set up by Quit India activists, notably at Satara.
• Round Table Conference: the London conferences (1930 to 1932) on India's constitutional future.
• Forward Bloc: the party founded by Subhas Chandra Bose in 1939 after leaving the Congress presidency.

Related notes

• rise of nationalism moderates and extremists
• towards independence acts and partition
• fundamental rights
• directive principles and fundamental duties
• theme freedom struggle
• Index
• syllabus index