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The background to the movements was provided by the impact of the First World War, the Rowlatt Act, the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and the Montagu- Chelmsford Reforms.
All these developments prepared the ground for a popular upsurge against the British Government. The Khilafat issue gave an added advantage to get the Muslim support and the final touch to it was given by Gandhi’s leadership.
During the First World War Turkey allied with Germany and Austria against the Allied Powers. The Muslims all over regarded the Sultan of Turkey as their spiritual leader Khalifa, so naturally their sympathies were with Turkey. After the war, the British removed the Khalifa from power in Turkey. Hence, the Muslims started the Khilafat movement in India for the restoration of the Khalifa’s position. Their main demands were:
1. Khalifa’s control should be retained over the Muslim sacred places,
2. In territorial adjustments after the war the Khalifa should be left with sufficient territories.
In early 1919 a Khilafat Committee was formed in Bombay. The initiative was taken by Muslim merchants and their actions were confined to meetings, petitions and deputations in favour of the Khalifa. However, there soon emerged a militant trend within the movement. The leaders of this trend were not satisfied with a moderate approach. Instead they preached for the launching of a countrywide movement. They advocated, for the first time, at the All India Khilafat Conference in Delhi (22-23 November, 1919) non-cooperation with the British Government in India. It was in this conference that Hasrat Mohani made a call for the boycott of British goods. The Khilafat leadership clearly spelt out that in case the peace terms after the war were unfavourable to Muslims they would stop all cooperation with the Government. In April 1920, Shaukat Ali warned the British that in case the Government failed to pacify Indian Muslims, “we would start a joint Hindu-Muslim movement of non-cooperation.” Shaukat Ali further stressed that the movement would start “under the guidance of Mahatma Gandhi, a man who commands the respect of both Hindus and Muslims”.
The Khilafat issue was not directly linked with politics in India but the Khalifat leaders were eager in enlisting the support of Hindus. Gandhi saw in this, an opportunity to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity against the British. But in spite of his support to the Khilafat issue and being the president of the All India Khilafat Committee, Gandhi till May 1920 had adopted a moderate approach. However, the publication of the terms of the Treaty with Turkey which were very harsh towards Turkey, and the Publication of the Hunter Committee Report on ‘Punjab disturbance’ in May 1920 infuriated the Indians, and Gandhi now took an open position.
The Central Khilafat Committee met at Allahabad from 1st and 3rd June 1920. The meeting was attended by a number of Congress and Khilafat leaders. In this meeting a programme of non-cooperation towards the Government was declared. This was to include:
August 1st, 1920 was fixed as the date to start the movement. Gandhi insisted that unless the Punjab and Khilafat wrongs were undone, there was to be non-cooperation with the Government. However, for the success of this movement, Congress support was essential. Therefore, Gandhi’s efforts now were to make the Congress adopt the non-cooperation programme.
It was not an easy task for Gandhi to get the entire Congress to approve his programme of political action. According to Prof. Ravinder Kumar, “Gandhi made a concerted bid to convince Tilak of the virtues of Satyagraha and of the expediency of an alliance with the Muslim community over Khilafat”. However, Tilak was “skeptical of Satyagraha as an instrument of politics.” He was also not in favour of having an alliance “with Muslim leaders over a religious issue.” The basis of cooperation between Hindus and Muslims, argued Tilak, should be a secular one like the Lucknow Pact (1916). A lot depended on Tilak’s attitude whether hostile or neutral - but unfortunately he passed away on 1st August 1920. Lala Lajpat Rai and C.R. Das vehemently opposed the Gandhian idea of boycotting council elections. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in his autobiography that “almost the entire old Guard of the Congress opposed Gandhi’s resolution of non-cooperation.”
The programme of non-cooperation and boycott was then placed before the Provincial Congress Committees (PCC) for their opinions. The PCC of the United Provinces after prolonged debate approved of the principle of non-cooperation, gradual boycott of government schools and colleges, government offices, British goods. But there were reservations about the boycott of the legislative councils.
The Bombay PCC, approved of non-cooperation as the legitimate method of agitation, but it objected to boycott of council and only recommended boycott of British goods as a first stage. The Bengal PCC agreed to accept the principle of non-cooperation but disagreed with the idea of council boycott. The Madras PCC approved the policies of non-cooperation but rejected Gandhi’s programme.
While this was the attitude of the ‘traditional’ bases of Indian politics to Gandhi’s programme, the comparatively ‘non-traditional’ areas in Indian politics like Gujarat and Bihar fully backed Gandhi’s programme. The Andhra and Punjab PCCs approved of non-cooperation but deferred a decision on Gandhi’s programme until the special Congress session. The dilemma of some of the provincial Congress leaders in supporting Gandhi’s programme was because of the future uncertainty of Gandhi’s movement and their unwillingness to boycott the council elections.
It was under these circumstances that a special session of the All India Congress Committee was held at Calcutta in September 1920. Lala Lajpat Rai was its president. A strong opposition to Gandhi’s programme was expected at this session. But contrary to the intentions of most established political leaders before the sessions began, Gandhi managed to get his proposals accepted at the open session of the Congress by the majority of 1000 vote.
Among Gandhi’s supporters were Motilal Nehru, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Jitendralal Benerjee, Shaukat Ali, Yakub Hassan and Dr. Ansari; while his opponents included Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Annie Besant, etc. Gandhi’s success came mainly because of the support from the business groups and the Muslims.
The Calcutta Congress approved a programme of:
1. Surrender of titles,
2. The boycott of schools, courts, foreign goods and councils, and
3. Encouragement of national schools, arbitration courts and Khadi.
The Congress supported Gandhi’s plan for non-cooperation with Government till the Punjab and Khilafat wrongs were removed and Swaraj established. The final decision was left for the Nagpur session of the Congress to be held in December 1920. However, the precise nature of the Swaraj at which Gandhi aimed was not clear to contemporaries. Although Gandhi said that it was “Parliamentary Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India”, Jawaharlal Nehru admitted that it was a “vague Swaraj with no clear ideology behind it.”
In November 1920, following the reformed franchise, the council elections were held. All the Congress candidates boycotted the elections. Gandhi’s call for boycotting elections got massive response from different Indian provinces. This was an alarming sign for the British Government. Only 27.3 per cent of the Hindu voters and 12.1 per cent of the Muslim electorate participated in urban areas. In the rural areas 41.8 per cent of the Hindus and 28.3 per cent of the Muslims voted.
In the midst of lot of controversies and debates over the Gandhian programme, the Congress session started at Nagpur from 26 December 1920. The Nagpur Congress saw the dramatic change of C.R. Das of Bengal from a critic of Gandhi’s programme to the mover of the non-cooperation resolution at Nagpur. It endorsed the non-cooperation resolution which declared that the entire scheme, beginning with the renunciation of all voluntary association with the Government at one end and refusal to pay taxes at the other, should be put into force at a time to be decided by the Congress. Resignation from the councils, renunciation of legal practice, nationalization of education, economic boycott, organization of workers for national service, raising of a national fund and Hindu-Muslim unity were suggested as steps in the programme. The Nagpur session also brought a revolutionary change in the congress organization. The changes were:
1. Formation of a working committee of 15 members,
2 formation of an All India Committee of 350 members,
3. Formation of Congress Committees from town to village level,
4. Reorganization of Provincial Congress Committees on a linguistic basis, and
5. Opening of Congress membership to all men and women of the age of 21 or more on payment of 4 annas as annual subscription.
This was the first positive move on the part of the Congress to make it a real mass based political party. This period also witnessed a fundamental change in the social composition of the party as well as in its outlook and policies. Gandhi with a novel weapon of Satyagraha emerged as the mass leader in the Congress party.
From the above discussion it becomes clear that the programme of the Non-Cooperation Movement had to main aspects:
i) Constructive and
ii) Destructive
Under the first category came:
1. The nationalization of education,
2. The promotion of indigenous goods,
3. The popularization of Charkha and Khadi, and
4. The enrollment of a volunteer corps.
In the latter category figured the boycott of:
1. Law courts,
2. Educational institutions
3. Elections to the legislature.
4. Official functions,
5. British goods as well as the surrender of honours and titles conferred by the British.
The campaign for non-cooperation and boycott started with great enthusiasm from early 1921. However, we find some changes in the central emphasis of the movement from one phase to other. In the first phase from January to March 1921, the main emphasis was on the boycott of schools, colleges, law courts; and the use of Charkha. There was widespread student unrest and top lawyers like C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru gave up their legal practice. This phase was followed by the second phase starting from April 1921. In this phase the basic objectives were the collection of Rs. one crore for the Tilak Swaraj Fund by August 1921, enrolling one crore Congress members and installing 20 lakh Charkhas by 30 June. In the third phase, starting from July, the stress was on boycott of foreign cloth, boycott of the forth coming visit of the Prince of Wales in November, 1921, popularisation of Charkha and Khadi and Jail Bharo by Congress volunteers.
In the last phase, in November 1921, a shift towards radicalism was visible. The Congress volunteers rallied the people and the country was on the verge of a revolt. Gandhi decided to launch a no revenue campaign at Bardoli, and also a mass civil disobedience movement for freedom of speech, press and association. But the attack on a local police station by angry peasants at Chauri Chaura, in Gorakhpur district of U.P. on 5th February 1922, changed the whole situation. Gandhi, shocked by this incident, withdrew the Non-Cooperation Movement.
Similar responses were there in many other regions. For example in Orissa the tenants of the Kanika Raj refused to pay Abwabs. But in Gujarat the movement went on purely Gandhian lines.
By: Subhash Singh ProfileResourcesReport error
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