Q. Explain the causes, program and the success, failure of the Non-Cooperation Movement. [66th BPSC/2021-History Optional]
Ans:
During 1919-22, the British were opposed through two mass movements—the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation. Though the two movements emerged from separate issues, they adopted a common programme of action—that of non-violent non- cooperation. ©crackingcivilservices.com
The causes:
- The circumstances of the movement was created by a series of events after the First World War which led to strong feeling of discontent among all sections of Indians.
- The economic situation of the country in the post-War years had become alarming with a rise in prices of commodities, decrease in production of Indian industries, increase in burden of taxes and rents etc.
- Almost all sections of society suffered economic hardship due to the war and this strengthened the anti-British attitude.
- The Rowlatt Act, the imposition of martial law in Punjab and the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre exposed the brutal and uncivilised face of the foreign rule.
- The Hunter Commission on thee Punjab atrocities proved to be an eyewash. In fact, the House of Lords (of the British Parliament) endorsed General Dyer’s action and the British public showed solidarity with General Dyer by helping The Morning Post collect 30,000 pounds for him.
- The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms with their ill conceived scheme of dyarchy failed to satisfy the rising demand of the Indians for self government.
- Now, the Congress was becoming skeptical of any possibility of political advance through constitutional means.
- Increasing trend of Hindu-Muslim Unity:
- The Lucknow Pact (1916) had stimulated Congress Muslim League cooperation;
- The Rowlatt Act agitation brought Hindus and Muslims, and also other sections of the society, together;
- Radical nationalist Muslims like Mohammad Ali, Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Hasan Imam had now become more influential than the conservative Aligarh school elements who had dominated the League earlier. The younger elements advocated militant nationalism and active participation in the nationalist movement. They had strong anti-imperialist sentiments.
- Khilafat issue:
- The sultan of Turkey was regarded as Khalifa (spiritual leader) by Muslims in India and all over the world. During the War, Turkey had allied with Germany and Austria against the British.
- When the War ended, the British took a stern attitude towards Turkey. In the Treaty of Sevres, Turkey(Ottoman Empire) was dismembered and the Khalifa removed from power. This incensed Muslims all over the world.
- In India, it led to huge discontent among Muslims. Leaders like Mohammad Ali, Shaukat Ali, Hasrat Mohani, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad etc created an All India Khilafat Committee in 1919. Which demanded for the reverting some provisions of the treaty of Severes.
- Although it was a pan-Islamic movement and had nothing to do with India, it was anti-British and provided the immediate background to the movement. It inspired Gandhi to support this cause in a bid to bring the Muslims into the mainstream of Indian nationalism.
- The people were chafing for action. They had been awakened to political consciousness by the incessant propaganda efforts that the nationalist leadership had been making for the previous four decades or more, were thoroughly outraged by what they perceived as insults by the British government. To swallow these insults appeared dishonourable and cowardly.
In February 1920, Gandhi announced that the issues of the Punjab wrongs and constitutional advance had been overshadowed by the Khilafat question and that he would soon lead a movement of non-cooperation if the terms of the peace treaty failed to satisfy the Indian Muslims. The Treaty of Sevres with Turkey, signed in May 1920, completely dismembered Turkey. In June 1920, an all-party conference at Allahabad approved a programme of boycott of schools, colleges and law courts, and asked Gandhi to lead it.
On August 1, 1920, The Khilafat Committee started a campaign of non-cooperation and the movement was formally launched. In September, 1920,at a special session in Calcutta, the Congress approved a noncooperation programme till the Punjab and Khilafat wrongs were removed and swaraj was established.
The program of NCM provided for:
- surrender of government titles,
- boycott of schools, courts and councils,
- boycort of foreign goods,
- encouragement of national schools, arbitration courts and khadi (homespun cloth),
- During the movement, the participants were supposed to work for HinduMuslim unity and for removal of untouchability, all the time remaining non-violent.
The movement wend on till February 1922, and was withdrawn after Chauri Chaura Incident.
Gandhiji had promised Swaraj within a year if his programme was adopted. But the year was long over, the movement was withdrawn, and there was no sign of Swaraj. However, movement did contributed in the India’s Struggle for freedom.
The success:
- With the Non-Cooperation Movement, nationalist sentiments reached every nook and corner of the country and politicised every strata of population—the artisans, peasants, students, urban poor, women, traders etc. It was this politicisation and activisation of millions of men and women which imparted a revolutionary character to the national movement.
- Impressive participation of peasant and working class made the movement broader in nature.
- Geographical spread: It was a pan-British India movement. All regions like Punjab, Bengal, Bombay, Gujarat, Madras, Assam, United Province etc. participated.
- The council election boycott was more or less successful. There was low turn out at the council election almost everywhere with the polling average being 5-8 per cent.
- It demonstrated that Congress commanded the support and sympathy of vast sections of the Indian people. After Noncooperation, the charge of representing a ‘microscopic minority,’ made by the Viceroy, Dufferin, in 1888,’ could never again be hurled at the Indian National Congress.
- Colonial rule was based on two myths—one, that such a rule was in the interest of Indians and two, that it was invincible. The first myth had been exploded by the economic critique by Moderate nationalists. The second myth had been challenged by satyagraha through mass struggle.
- Now, the masses lost the hitherto all-pervasive fear of the colonial rule and its mighty repressive organs.
- The movement brought the urban Muslims into, the national movement.
- In possession, meetings and in jails people of all castes and communities worked together and even ate together. this weakened the caste separateness and accelerated the pace of social mobility and reform. This trend continued throughout the nation movement.
- Economic boycott was more intense and successful– the value of imports of foreign cloth dropped from Rs. 1,020 million in 1920-21 to Rs. 570 million in 1921-22.
- Partly responsible for this success was trader participation, as the businessmen pledged not to indent foreign cloth for specific periods.
- Small traders and merchants used their networks to promote hartal and generously donated money to the Tilak Swaraj Fund.
- Some other successful initiatives:
- Collection of funds: The Tilak Swaraj Fund was oversubscribed, exceeding the target of rupees one crore.
- Enrolment of members: membership drive was launched and Congress membership reached a figure roughly of 50 lakhs.
- Distribution of charkhas: Charkhas were popularized on a wide scale and khadi became the uniform of the national movement.
- Together with non-cooperation, there were other associated Gandhian social movements, which also achieved some success.
- Temperance or anti-liquor campaign resulted in significant drop in liquor excise revenue in Punjab, Madras, Bihar and Orissa.
- For the first time Gandhi had brought this issue to the forefront of nationalist politics by inserting in the historic 1920 resolution an appeal “to rid Hinduism of the reproach of untouchabiliry”.
- Even after sudden official withdrawal on 11-Feb, 1922, in different localities it continued for some more time in pockets of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.
The failure:
- Middle-class participation was not spectacular, as revealed in the figures for school, colleges and court boycotts.
- Many liberal leaders like C.R. Das, Jinnah had opposed the idea of non-cooperation movement. They thought that the program was too radical.
- It communalised the national politics to an extent. The national leaders failed to raise the religious political consciousness of the Muslims to a level of secular political consciousness.
- There was uneven geographical spread and wide regional variations. Local issues also shaped the nature of movement in different regions.
- In many cases, such as in the small towns of Gujarat, mobilisation depended on local issues, like temple politics, control over municipalities or control over educational institutions or in the south Indian towns grievances against rising municipal taxes or the income tax.
- In some other areas, mobilisation to an extent depended on personal influence of local leaders, such as C.R. Das in Bengal, whose personal sacrifices— giving up a lucrative legal practice, for example-inspired the younger generation.
- In Punjab, the Akali movement has been described as representing “the largest and longest application of the Gandhian programme of satyagraha, or non-violent resistance.” However, the main theme of this movement had very little direct relevance to his non-co-operation programme.
- Of the four linguistic regions in south India, three were effectively brought into the movement, while Karnataka remained unaffected.
- The area, where there was no pre-history of peasant mobilisation, the response of the countryside was rather muted. This shows that it was the internal dynamics of the regions that accounted for the success of the non-cooperation movement, rather than the Congress mobilising an as yet inert peasantry into an organised nationalist campaign.
- The tribal movements were organised on local issues and had very little in common with the aims and forms of the Gandhian movements. Sometimes, these movement also turned militant and then the Congress became lukewarm in its support.
- Thus, the specific structure of community, the local situations and the nature of existing organisation, determined the extent of mass militancy. which leadership tried to control but without success. What passed as a Gandhian mass movement actually contained with it various levels of consciousness informed by different visions of freedom.
- In Madras, council election boycott was not so successful. Very few candidates actually withdrew and the justice Party returned as a majority party in the legislature.
- The larger Indian capitalists opposed the non-cooperation programme and remained pro-government from the very beginning. The enthusiasm of smaller traders and merchants also subsided gradually.
- Despite being mentioned in the 1920 resolution, the anti-untouchability campaign, remained a secondary concern for the Congressmen.
- The masses often crossed the limits of Gandhian creed of non-violence. Gandhi himself condemned the unruly mob, but failed to restrain them.
- On the day of the arrival of Prince of Wales Bombay witnessed the outbreak of the first violent riot of the movement, targeting the Europeans, Anglo-Indians and the Parsis in the city. Gandhi was incensed; full-scale civil disobedience or a no tax campaign.which was planned to be launched in 1922, was postponed.
- While chanting Gandhi’s name, peasants participated in activities, which easily crossed the threshold of Gandhian ideals. The Tribal peasants of Bengal looted markets and fisheries and violated forest laws; prisoners broke the prison gates.
- In north Bihar, where the lower caste poor peasants were the most militant, messianic expectations led to a series of market looting incidents.
- The final threshold was reached in the Chauri Chaura incident in Gorakhpur district of Utrar Pradesh on 4 February 1922, when villagers burned alive twenty-two policemen in the local police station. This event prompted Gandhiji to withdrawn on 11 February 1922.
- The Hindu-Muslim unity in this movement was based on religious issue. Moreover, for Khilafat leaders the Gandhian creed of non-violence more as a matter of convenience to take advantage of Gandhi’s charismatic appeal, rather than as a matter of faith.
- By bringing in the ulama and by overtly using a religious symbol, the movement evoked religious emotions among the Muslim masses.
- Violent tendencies soon appeared in the Khilafat movement, as the masses lost self-discipline and the leaders failed to control them. The worst-case scenario was the Moplah uprising in Malabar, where the poor Moplah peasants, emboldened by the Khilafat spirit, rose against the Hindu moneylenders and the state.
- By the end of 1921, with the outbreak of the Moplah uprising in Malabar, followed by other communal riots in various parts of the subcontinent in 1922-23, there was a visible breach in the Hindu-Muslim alliance.
- The symbol itself, around which Muslim mass mobilisation had taken place, soon lost its significance, as a nationalist revolution in Turkey abolished monarchy or the Khilafat in 1924.
- The Khilafat movement hereafter died down, but the religious emotions which it had articulated continued to persist, matched by an equally militant Hindu radicalism.
Although the movement was withdrawn without realising Swaraj, the retreat that was ordered on 12 February, 1922 was only a temporary one. The battle was over, but the war would continue. ©crackingcivilservices.com
