12 th History

MILITANT NATIONALISM

Unit - 2.Rise of Extremism and Swadeshi Movement

Introduction

 By the last decade of the nineteenth century, there was conspicuous

resentment against moderate politics within the Indian National Congress.
This feeling of resentment eventually evolved into a new trend, referred to
as the ‗Extremist‘ trend. The extremist or what we may call radical or
militant group was critical of the moderates for their cautious approach and
the ―mendicant policy‖ of appealing to the British by way of prayers and
petitions. This form of militancy developed under the leadership of Bal
Gangadhar Tilak in Maharashtra, Bipin Chandra Pal in Bengal and Lala
Lajpat Rai in the Punjab. The primary reasons for the rise of this trend were:
factionalism in the Congress, frustration with the moderate politics, anger
against Lord Curzon for dividing Bengal.

 The partition of Bengal in 1905 – a prime example of the British divide and
rule policy – acted as the catalyst for the growth of anti-colonial swadeshi
nationalism. The partition plan was first opposed by moderates but as the
movement progressed, different techniques were improvised for the
Swadeshi campaign. Swadeshi constructive programme included boycott of
foreign goods and government-administered educational institutions. The
Swadeshi movement (1905–1911) is the most important phase of the Indian
National Movement in the pre-Gandhian era, as, during the course of the

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 movement, the character of the Indian national movement changed
significantly in terms of the stated objectives, methods and in its social base.

 The mass base of the movement was expanded by exposing the problems of
various social groups under the British governance and the underlying
commonality in their lives - that is colonial exploitation. For the first time, in
the history of Indian national movement, women, workers, peasants, and
marginalised groups were exposed to modern nationalist ideas and politics.
It was a period when the elite made a conscious effort to address the
common people, calling upon them to join politics. The other prominent
development during the Swadeshi period was the growth of the vernacular
press (newspapers published in Indian languages) in various parts of India.
The nationalistic tone of the vernacular press became more pronounced
during this time. The role played by Swadesamitran in Tamil Nadu, Kesari
in Maharashtra, Yugantar in Bengal are a few examples.

 As the movement gained support among the people, the government

passed a series of repressive Acts such as the Public Meetings Act (1907), the
Explosive Substance Act (1908), the Newspaper (Incitement and Offence Act
1908) and the Indian Press Act (1910) to crush the nationalistic activities of
any nature. One such measure was recording and monitoring of public
meetings which were considered a matter of judicial scrutiny. (Shorthand
was used by the police for the first time to record political speeches.) In this
lesson, while discussing the Bengal as well as national scenarios, the
Swadeshi Campaigns conducted in Tamil nadu with particular focus on the
role played by V.O. Chidambaram, V.V. Subramaniam, Subramania Siva
and Subramania Bharati.

Partition of Bengal

 On January 6, 1899, Lord Curzon was appointed the new Governor General
and Viceroy of India. This was a time when British unpopularity was
increasing due to the impact of recurring famine and the plague. Curzon
did little to change the opinion of the educated Indian class. Instead of
engaging with the nationalist intelligentsia, he implemented a series of
repressive measures. For instance, he reduced the number of elected Indian
representatives in the Calcutta Corporation (1899). The University Act of
1904 brought the Calcutta University under the direct control of the
government. The Official Secrets Act (1904) was amended to curb the
nationalist tone of Indian newspapers. Finally, he ordered partition of
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 Bengal in 1905. The partition led to widespread protest all across India,
starting a new phase of the Indian national movement.

 Bengal Presidency as an administrative unit was indeed of unmanageable in

size; the necessity of partition was being discussed since the 1860s. The
scheme of partition was revived in March 1890. In Assam, when Curzon
went on a tour, he was requested by the European planters to make a
maritime outlet closer to Calcutta to reduce their dependence on the
Assam– Bengal railways. Following this, in December 1903, Curzon drew
up a scheme in his Minutes on Territorial Redistribution of India, which
was later modified and published as the Risely Papers. The report gave two
reasons in support of partition: Relief of Bengal and the improvement of
Assam. The report, however, concealed information on how the plan was
originally devised for the convenience of British officials and the European
businessmen.

 From December 1903 and 1905 this initial idea of transferring or reshuffling
some areas from Bengal was changed to a full-fledged plan of partition. The
Bengal was to be divided into two provinces. The new Eastern Bengal and
Assam were to include the divisions of Chittagong, Dhaka, parts of Rajshahi
hills of Tippera, Assam province and Malda.

Aimed at Hindu Muslim Divide

 The intention of Curzon was to suppress the political activities against the
British rule in Bengal and to create a Hindu–Muslim divide. The
government intentionally ignored alternative proposals presented by the
civil servants, particularly the idea of dividing Bengal on linguistic basis.
Curzon rejected this proposal as this would further consolidate the position
of the Bengali politicians. Curzon was adamant as he wanted to create a
clearly segregated Hindu and Muslim population in the divided Bengal.
Curzon, like many before him, knew very well that there was a clear
geographical divide along the river Bhagirathi: eastern Bengal dominated
by the Muslims, and western Bengal dominated by the Hindus and in the
central Bengal and the two communities balancing out each other. There
was a conscious attempt on the part of British administration to woo the
Muslim population in Bengal. In his speech at Dhaka, in Februry 1904,
Curzon assured the Muslims that in the new province of East Bengal,
Muslims would enjoy a unity, which they had never enjoyed since the days
of old Muslim rule.
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 The partition, instead of dividing the Bengali people along the religious line,
united them. Perhaps the British administration had underestimated the
growing feeling of Bengali identity among the people, which cut across
caste, class, religion and regional barriers.By the end of the nineteenth
century, a strong sense of Bengali unity had developed among large
sections in the society. Bengali language had acquired literary status with
Rabindranath Tagore as the central figure. The growth of regional language
newspapers played a role in building the narrative of solidarity. Similarly,
recurring famines, unemployment, and a slump in the economic growth
generated an anti-colonial feeling.

Anti-Partition Movement

 Both the militants and the moderates were critical of the partition of Bengal
ever since it was announced in December 1903. But the anti-partition
response by leaders like Surendranath Banerjee, K.K. Mitra, and
Prithwishchandra Ray remained restricted to prayers and petitions. The
objective was limited to influencing public opinion in England against the
partition. However, despite this widespread resentment, partition of Bengal
was officially declared on 19 July 1905.

 With the failure to stop the partition of Bengal and the pressure exerted by
the radical leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal, Aswini Kumar Dutta, and
Aurobindo Ghose, the moderate leaders were forced to rethink their
strategy, and look for new techniques of protest. Boycott of British goods
was one such method, which after much debate was accepted by the
moderate leadership of the Indian National Congress. So, for the first time,
the moderates went beyond their conventional political methods. It was
decided, at a meeting in Calcutta on 17 July 1905, to extend the protest to
the masses. In the same meeting, Surendranath Banerjee gave a call for the
boycott of British goods and intuitions. On 7 August, at another meeting at
the Calcutta Town Hall, a formal proclamation of Swadeshi Movement was
made.However, the agenda of Swadeshi movement was still restricted to
securing an annulment of the partition and the moderates were very much
against utilizing the campaign to start a full-scale passive resistance. The
militant nationalists, on the other hand, were in favour of extending the
movement to other provinces too and to launch a full-fledged mass
struggle.

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Spread of the Movement

 Besides the organized efforts of the leaders, there were spontaneous

reactions against the partition of Bengal. Students, in particular, came out in
large numbers. Reacting to the increased role of the students in the anti-
partition agitation, British officials threatened to withdraw the scholarships
and grants to those who participated in programmes of direct action. In
response to this, a call was given to boycott official educational institutions
and it was decided that efforts were to be made to open national schools.
Thousands of public meetings were organized in towns and villages across
Bengal. Religious festivals such as the Durga Pujas were utilized to invoke
the idea of boycott. The day Bengal was officially partitioned – 16 Oct 1905 –
was declared as a day of mourning. Thousands of people took bath in the
Ganga and marched on the streets of Calcutta singing Bande Mataram.

Boycott and Swadeshi Movements in Bengal (1905–1911)

 Such efforts, both organized and spontaneous, laid the foundation for a
sustained campaign against the British. The boycott and swadeshi were
always interlinked to each other and part of a wider plan to make India self-
sufficient. G. Subramaniam, a nationalist leader from Madras, succinctly
explained the aim of the swadeshi movement as ‗a revolt against their state
of dependence…in all branches of their national life‘. In the words of Gopal
Krishna Gokhale, ‗the swadeshi movement is not only for the improvement
of our industry but for an allround enhancement of our national life ....‘ As
the movement progressed, different definitions of Swadeshi appeared.
However, for the larger part, the movement of Swadeshi and Boycott was
practiced as an anti-colonial political agitation and not as a viable method to
achieve dignity and freedom in life, a definition which would be later
infused with the entry of Mahatma Gandhi.

Evolution of the idea of Swadeshi

 During the freedom struggle, the idea of Swadeshi movement was

conceptualized first during 1905 by a string of Congress leaders and then
later in the 1920s under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.

 Swadeshi means ‗of one‘s own country‘. The origin of the idea can be traced
to 1872 when Mahadev Govind Ranade, in a series of lectures in Poona,
popularised the idea of Swadeshi. According to Ranade, the goods

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 produced in one‘s own country should be given preference even if the use
of such goods proved to be less satisfactory.

 In the 1920s Gandhi gave a new meaning to the idea of Swadeshi by linking
it to the fulfilment of a duty that all Indians owed to the land of their birth.
For Gandhi, Swadeshi did not merely mean the use of what is produced in
one‘s own country. Gandhi defined Swadeshi in following words
―Swadeshi is that spirit in us which restricts us to the use and service of our
immediate surroundings to the exclusion of more remote. I should use only
things that are produced by my immediate neighbours and serve those
industries by making them efficient and complete where they may be found
wanting.‖

(a) Constructive Swadeshi

 The constructive Swadeshi programmes largely stressed upon self-help. It

focused on building alternative institutions of self-governance that would
operate entirely free from British control. It also laid emphasis on the need
for self-strengthening of the people which would help in creating a worthy
citizen before the launch of political agitations.

 Rabindranath Tagore was one of the central figures who popularised such
ideas through his writings. He outlined the constructive programme of
atmashakti (self-help). Tagore called for economic self- development and
insisted that education should be provided in swadeshi languages. He also
made the call for utilising melas, or fairs, to spread the message of
atmashakti. This became the creed of the whole of Bengal and swadeshi
shops sprang all over the place selling textiles, handlooms, soaps,
earthenware, matches and leather goods.

The idea of education in vernacular language made its appearance

much before the swadeshi movement with the foundation of Dawn
Society by Satish Chandra in 1902

 On 5 November 1905, at the initiative of the Dawn Society, the National

Council of Education was formed. In August 1906, Bengal National College
and a School were founded. A passionate appeal was made by Satish
Chandra to the students to come out of ‗institutions of slavery.‘ Such efforts,
however, failed to attract many due to the bleak job prospects.

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(b) Samitis

 The other successful method of mass mobilization was the formation of

samitis (corps of volunteers). The samitis were engaged in a range of
activities such as physical and moral training of members, philanthropic
work during the famines, epidemics, propagation of Swadeshi message
during festivals, and organization of indigenous arbitration courts, and
schools. By its very nature boycott was passive action and its aim was to
refuse to cooperate with the British administration.

 But these mass mobilization efforts failed to flourish as they could not
extend their base among the Muslim peasantry and the ―Depressed
Classes‖. Most of the samitis recruited from the educated middle class and
other upper caste Hindus. Besides this, the swadeshi campaigners often
applied coercive methods, both social and physical. For instance, social
boycott of those purchasing foreign goods was common and taken up
through caste associations and other nationalist organisations.

(c) Passive Resistance

 From 1906, when the abrogation of partition was no longer in sight, the
Swadeshi Movement took a different turn. For many leaders, the movement
was to be utilized for propagating the idea of the political independence or
Swaraj across India. The constructive programmes came under heavy
criticism from Aurobindo Ghose, Bipin Chandra Pal, and other militant
leaders. Under their new direction, the swadeshi agenda included boycott
of foreign goods; boycott of government schools and colleges; boycott of
courts; renouncing the titles and relinquishing government services; and
recourse to armed struggle if British repression went beyond the limits of
endurance. The programme of this nature required mass mobilization.
Using religion, combined with the invocation of a glorious past, became the
essential features of their programmes.

Militant Nationalism

 As pointed out earlier, thanks to the campaigns conducted by Bal

Gangadhar Tilak Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, often referred to as
the Lal–Bal–Pal triumvirate, Maharashtra, Bengal, Punjab, emerged as the
epicentres of militant nationalism during the Swadeshi phase. Aurobindo
Ghose was another influential figure in the militant leadership. The
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 nationalism of this form was more assertive compared to the early Indian
nationalism.

 Both the groups, moderate and militant, were well aware of the evils or the
wrong doings of the British rule. The moderates, however, worked under
the belief that the British rule in India could be reformed by convincing the
rulers through representation and petitioning. The militant nationalist, on
the other hand, was of the opinion that the colonial rulers would never be
amenable to reason, as they would not like to give up the advantages of an
empire.

 Sometime around 1905, Aurobindo Ghose was asked by a man as to how to

become a patriot. In response Aurobindo pointed to a wall map of India,
and said ―Do you see this map? It is not a map but the portrait of Bharat
Mata: its cities and mountains rivers and jungles form her physical body.
All her children are her nerves, large and small…. Concentrate on Bharat as
a living mother, worship her with nine-fold bhakti.‖

 Militant nationalism also changed the nature of political pressure from the
earlier force of public opinion of educated Indians to the protesting masses.
Despite these changes, the militant nationalism phase retained a continuity
from the moderate phase. This continuity was evident in the inability to
transcend the peaceful method of struggle and for the most parts militant
nationalism remained tied to the idea of non-violence. However, they
appealed to the patriotic sentiments of the people using the religious
symbols.

Swaraj or Political Independence

 One of the common goals of the militant leaders was to achieve Swaraj or
Self Rule. However, the leaders differed on the meaning of Swaraj. For
Tilak, Swaraj was restricted to the Indian control over the administration or
rule by the natives, but not total severance of relation with Britain. In Bipin
Chandra Pal‘s view, Swaraj was the attainment of complete freedom from
any foreign rule.

 The other point of departure of the militants from the moderates was over
the rising extremism in Bengal, Punjab, and Maharashtra. Unlike the
moderates, who were critical of the reckless revolutionaries, militant

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 nationalists were sympathetic towards them. However, the political
murders and individual acts of terrorism were not approved of by the
militant leaders and they were cautious of associating themselves with the
cause of revolutionaries.

 The patriotism glued with the assertion of Hindu beliefs was not accepable
to the Muslims. Also much like their predecessors the leaders of the
swadeshi movement failed to penetrate the larger section of the society. By
1908 militant nationalism was on the decline. The Surat split of 1907 was
another contributing factor to this decline.

Surat Split

 The tension between the militants and the moderates became more
pronounced with the appointment of Lord Minto as the new Secretary of
State to India in 1906. As the tension was rising between the two groups, a
split was avoided, in the 1906 Calcutta session, by accepting demands of
moderate leaders and electing Dadabhai Naoroji as president. Most of the
moderates, led by Pherozeshah Mehta, were defeated in the election. The
militants managed to pass four resolutions on Swadeshi, Boycott, National
Education, and Self-Government.

 The next session of Congress was originally planned to be held in Poona,

considered to be a stronghold of the militants. Fearing a repeat of the
Calcutta session, the moderates shifted the venue to Surat. The militants
proposed Lala Lajpat Rai‘s name for the next Congress presidency opposing
the moderate‘s candidate Rash Behari Ghosh. Lala Lajpat Rai, however,
turned down the offer to avoid the split. The matter finally boiled down to
the question of retaining the four resolutions that were passed in the
Calcutta session in 1906. The Pherozeshah Mehta group sought removal of
those items from the agenda. In order to counter Mehta‘s manoeuvering,
the militants decided to oppose the election of Rash Behari Gosh as
president. The session ended in chaos.

 The Indian National Congress, born in December 1885, was now split into
two groups – militant and moderate. The Congress which emerged after the
Surat split was more loyal to the British than they were before. The new
Congress, minus the militants, came to be known as Mehta Congress and
the 1908 session of the Congress was attended only by the moderates who
reiterated their loyalty to the Raj. The politics of militants, on the other
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 hand, could not crystallize into a new political organization. The primary
reason was the repressive measures of the government by putting all the
prominent leaders in jail.

Revolutionary Extremism

 Around 1908, the decline of the militant nationalists and the rise of
revolutionary activities marked an important shift from non-violent
methods to violent action. It also meant a shift from mass-based action to
elite response to the British rule. In Bengal, revolutionary terrorism had
developed even earlier; around the 1870s, when the akharas or gymnasiums
were setup in various places to develop what Swami Vivekananda had
described as strong muscles and nerves of steel. Bankim Chandra
Chatterjee‘s novel, Anandmath also had a significant impact. Anandmath was
widely read by the revolutionaries in Bengal. The Bande Mataram song,
which is part of the novel, became the anthem of the swadeshi movement.

 During the Swadeshi movement three factors contributed to the upsurge in

the individual acts of violence:

 The apolitical constructive programmes had little acceptance among the

youth who was growing impatient under the repressive foreign rule.

 The failure of the militant nationalists to lead the young people into a long-
term mass movement also contributed to the growth of individual action.

 The revolutionary action was part of an effort towards the symbolic

recovery of Indian manhood, which the revolutionaries believed was often
challenged and looked down upon by the British.

 Such actions, however, did not lead to any organised revolutionary

movement as was the case in Russia. The revolutionary actions were mostly
attempts to assassinate specific oppressive British officers.

(a) Alipore Bomb Case

 In Bengal, the story of revolutionary terrorism begins in 1902 with the

formation of many secret societies. Most notable among them all was the
Anushilan Samity of Calcutta, founded by Jatindernath Banerjee and
Barindarkumar Ghose, brother of Aurobindo Ghose. Similarly, the Dhaka
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 Anushilan Samity was born in 1906 through the initiative of Pulin Behari
Das. This was followed by the launch of the revolutionary weekly Yugantar.
The Calcutta Anushilan Samity soon started its activities and the first
swadeshi dacoity, to raise funds, was organised in Rangpur in August 1906.

 In the same year, Hemchandra Kanungo went abroad to get military

training in Paris. After his return to India in 1908, he established a bomb
factory along with a religious school at a garden house in Maniktala. In the
same garden house, young inmates underwent various forms of physical
training, reading classic Hindu text, and reading literature on revolutionary
movement across the world

 A conspiracy was hatched there to kill Douglas Kingsford, notorious for his
cruel ways of dealing with the swadeshi agitators. Two young
revolutionaries - 18-year-old Khudiram Bose and 19-year-old Prafulla Chaki
– were entrusted with the task of carrying out the killing. On 30 April 1908,
they mistakenly threw a bomb on a carriage, that, instead of killing
Kingsford, killed two English women. Prafulla Chaki committed suicide
and Khudiram Bose was arrested and hanged for the murder.

 A u r o b i n d o Ghose, along with his brother Barinder Kumar Ghose and

thirty-five other comrades, were arrested. Chittaranjan Das took up the
case. It came to be known as the Alipore Bomb case.

 The judgement observed that there was no evidence to show that

Aurobindo Ghose was involved in any conspiracy against the British rule.
Ghose was acquitted of all the charges. Barindra Ghose and Ullaskar Dutt
were given the death penalty (later commuted to the transportation of life),
with the rest being condemned to transportation for life. The year-long
hearing of Alipore Bomb case made a great impact and portrayed the
nationalist revolutionaries as heroes to the general public.

Trial and the Aftermath

 After his acquittal, Aurobindo Ghose took to a spiritual path and shifted his
base to Pondicherry, where he stayed until his death in 1950. The idea of
bringing an armed revolution, envisaged by Aurobindo Ghose, never
materialized. The reason for the gradual decline in the revolutionary
activities in Bengal was a combination of government repression and

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 alienation from the people. Beside this, revolutionary terrorism suffered
from certain social limitations too as most of the revolutionaries were
drawn from the three upper castes – Brahmin, Kayastha, and Vaishya.

(b) British Repression

 In December 1908 the Morley-Minto constitutional reforms were

announced. The moderates welcomed the reforms. However, they soon
realised that there was hardly any shift of power. In fact, measures taken by
Minto were highly divisive as it institutionalised communal electorates
creating Hindu-Muslim divide. Beside this, the colonial government also
introduced certain repressive laws such as:

 The Newspapers (Incitement to Offence) Act, 1908. This act empowered the
magistrate to confiscate press property which published objectionable
material making it difficult to publish anything critical of British rule.

 Indian Press Act 1910 made it mandatory for publishers and the printers to
deposit a security that could be seized in case they printed ‗obnoxious
material‘.

 The Indian Criminal Law Amendment Act allowed summary trails and also
imposed the prohibition of ‗association dangerous to the public peace‘.

 Even with the widespread repression, the charm of revolutionary action

never disappeared from the Indian national movement. The centre of
activities moved from Bengal to Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

Swadeshi Campaign in Tamil Nadu

 Swadeshi movement in Tamil Nadu, notably in Tirunelveli district,

generated a lot of attention and support. While the Swadeshi movement in
Tamil Nadu had an all India flavour, with collective anger against the
British rule remaining the common thread, it was also underpinned by
Tamil - pride and consciousness. There was a deep divide in the Tamil
Nadu congress between the moderates and the extremists.

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(a) Development of Vernacular Oratory

 Initially, the movement was more of a reaction to the partition of Bengal

and regular meetings were held to protest the partition. The speakers, in
such meetings, spoke mostly in the vernacular language to an audience that
included students, lawyers, and laborers at that time. The shift from English
oratory to vernacular oratory was a significant development of this time,
which had a huge impact on the mass politics in Tamil Nadu.

 Swadeshi meetings at the Marina beach in Madras were a regular sight. The
Moore Market complex in Madras was another venue utilised for such
gatherings. During the period (1905- 1907) there are police reports calling
students dangerous and their activities as seditious. Europeans in public
places were greeted by the students with shouts of Vande Mataram. In 1907,
Bipin Chandra Pal came to Madras and his speeches on the Madras Beach
electrified the audience and won new converts to the nationalist cause. The
visit had a profound impact all over Tamil Nadu. The public speeches in the
Tamil language created an audience which was absent during the formative
years of the political activities in Tamil Nadu.

(b) V.O.C. and Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNC)

 The Swadeshi movement in Tamil Nadu came to national attention in 1906

when V.O. C h i d a m b a r a m mooted the idea of launching a swadeshi
shipping venture in opposition to the monopoly of the British in navigation
through the coast.

 In 1906, V.O.C. registered a joint stock company called The Swadeshi Steam
Navigation Company (SSNC) with a capital of Rs 10 Lakh, divided into
40,000 shares of Rs. 25 each. Shares were open only to Indians, Ceylonese
and other Asian nationals. V.O.C. purchased two steamships, S.S. Gallia
and S.S. Lawoe. When in the other parts of India, the response to Swadeshi
was limited to symbolic gestures of making candles and bangles, the idea of
forging a Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company was really spectacular.
V.O.C invoked the rich history of the region and the maritime glory of
India‘s past and used it as a reference point to galvanize the public opinion
in favour of a Swadeshi venture in the sea.
 The initiative of V.O.C. was lauded by the national leaders. Lokmanya Tilak
wrote about the success of the Swadeshi Navigation Company in his papers

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 Kesari and Mahratta. Aurobindo Ghose also lauded the Swadeshi efforts
and helped to promote the sale of shares of the company. The major
shareholders included Pandithurai Thevar and Haji Fakir Mohamed.

 The initial response of the British administration was to ignore the

Swadeshi company. As patronage for Swadeshi Company increased, the
European officials exhibited blatant bias and racial partiality against the
Swadeshi steamship.

(c) The Coral Mill Strike

 After attending the session of the Indian National Congress at Surat, V.O.C.
on his return decided to work on building a political organisation. While
looking for an able orator, he came across Subramania Siva, a swadeshi
preacher. From February to March 1907, both the leaders addressed
meetings almost on a daily basis at the beach in Tuticorin, educating the
people about swadeshi and the boycott campaign. The meetings were
attended by thousands of people. These public gatherings were closely
monitored by the administration.

 In 1908, the abject working and living conditions of the Coral Mill workers
attracted the attention of V.O.C and Siva. In the next few days, both the
leaders addressed the mill workers. In March 1908, the workers of the Coral
Cotton Mills, inspired by the address went on strike. It was one of the
earliest organised labour agitations in India.

 The strike of the mill workers was fully backed by the nationalist
newspapers. The mill owners, however, did not budge and was supported
by the government which had decided to suppress the strike. To further
increase the pressure on the workers, the leaders were prohibited from
holding any meetings in Tuticorin. Finally, the mill owners decided to
negotiate with the workers and concede their demands
.
 This victory of the workers generated excitement among the militants in
Bengal and it was hailed by the newspapers in Bengal. For instance,
Aurobindo Ghosh‘s Bande Matram hailed the strike as ―forging a bond
between educated class and the masses, which is the first great step towards
swaraj…. Every victory of Indian labour is a victory for the nation….‖

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(d) Subramania Bharati: Poet and Nationalist

 The growth of newspapers, both in English and Tamil language, aided the
swadeshi movement in Tamil Nadu. G. Subramaniam was one of the first
among the leaders to use newspapers to spread the nationalist message
across a larger audience. Subramaniam, along with five others, founded The
Hindu (in English) and Swadesamitran (which was the first ever Tamil
daily). In 1906 a book was published by Subramaniam to condemn the
British actions during the Congress Conference in Barsal. Swadesamitran
extensively reported nationalist activities, particularly the news regarding
V.O.C. and his speeches in Tuticorin.

 Subramania Bharati became the sub-editor of Swadesamitran around the

time (1904) when Indian nationalism was looking for a fresh direction.
Bharati was also editing Chakravartini, a Tamil monthly devoted to the
cause of Indian women.

 Two events had a significant impact on Subramania Bharati. A meeting in

1905 with Sister Nivedita, an Irish woman and a disciple of Vivekananda,
whom he referred to as Gurumani (teacher), greatly inspired his nationalist
ideals. The churning within the Congress on the nature of engagement with
the British rule was also a contributory factor.

 As discussed earlier in this lesson, the militants ridiculed the mendicancy of

the moderates who wanted to follow the constitutional methods. Bharati
had little doubt, in his mind, that the British rule had to be challenged with
a fresh approach and methods applied by the militant nationalists appealed
to him more. For instance, his fascination with Tilak grew after the Surat
session of the Congress in 1907. He translated into Tamil Tilak‘s Tenets of the
New Party and a booklet on the Madras militants‘ trip to the Surat Congress
in 1907. Bharati edited a Tamil weekly India, which became the voice of the
radicals.

(e) Arrest and imprisonment of V.O.C. and Subramania Siva

 On March 9, 1907, Bipin Chandra Pal was released from prison after serving
a six-month jail sentence. The swadeshi leaders in Tamil Nadu planned to
celebrate the day of his release as ‗Swarajya Day‘ in Tirunelveli. The local
administration refused permission. V.O.C., Subramania Siva and

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 Padmanabha Iyengar defied the ban and went ahead. They were arrested
on March 12, 1908, on charges of sedition.

 The local public, angered over the arrest of the prominent swadeshi leaders,
reacted violently. Shops were closed in a general show of defiance. The
municipality building and the police station in Tirunelveli were set on fire.
More importantly, the mill workers came out in large numbers to protest
the arrest of swadeshi leaders. After a few incidents of confrontation with
the protesting crowd, the police open fired, and four people were killed.

 On 7 July 1908, V.O.C. and Subramania Siva were found guilty and
imprisoned on charges of sedition. Siva was awarded a sentence of 10 years
of transportation for his seditious speech whereas V.O.C. got a life term (20
years) for abetting him. V.O.C. was given another life sentence for his own
seditious speech. This draconian sentence reveals how seriously the
Tirunelveli agitation was viewed by the government.

 In the aftermath of this incident, the repression of the British administration

was not limited to the arrest of a few leaders. In fact, people who had
actively participated in the protest were also punished and a punitive tax
was imposed on the people of Tirunelveli and Tuticorin.

Excerpts from the Judgment in the case of King Emperor versus V.O.C. and
Subramania Siva (4 November 1908).―It seems to me that sedition at any time
is a most serious offense. It is true that the case is the first of its kind in the
Presidency, but the present condition of other Presidencies where the crime
seems to have secured a foothold would seem to indicate that light sentences
of imprisonment of a few months or maybe a year or two are instances of
misplaced leniency. ...The first object of a sentence is that it shall be deterrent
not to the criminal alone but to others who feel any inclination to follow his
example. Here we have to deal with a campaign of sedition which nearly
ended in revolt. The accused are morally responsible for all the lives lost in
quelling the riots that ensured on their arrest‖.

(f) Ashe Murder

 Repression of the Swadeshi efforts in Tuticorin and the subsequent arrest

and humiliation of the swadeshi leaders generated anger among the youth.
A plan was hatched to avenge the Tirunelveli event. A sustained campaign
in the newspapers about the repressive measures of the British
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 administration also played a decisive role in building people‘s anger against
the administration.

 In June 1911, the collector of Tirunelveli, Robert Ashe, was shot dead at
Maniyachi Railway station by Vanchinathan. Born in the Travancore state in
1880, he was employed as a forest guard at Punalur in the then Travancore
state. He was one of the members of a radical group called Bharata Mata
Association. The aim of the association was to kill the European officers and
inspire Indians to revolt, which they believed would eventually lead to
Swaraj. Vanchinathan was trained in the use of a revolver, as part of the
mission, by V.V. Subramanianar in Pondicherry.

 After shooting Ashe at the Maniyachi Junction, Vanchinathan shot himself

with the same pistol. A letter was found in his pocket which helps to
understand the strands of inspiration for the revolutionaries like
Vanchinathan.

The aftermath of the Assassination

 During the course of the trial, the British government was able to establish
that V.V.S and other political exiles in Pondicherry were in close and active
association with the accused in the Ashe murder conspiracy. The colonial
administration grew more suspicious with the Pondicherry groups and
their activities. Such an atmosphere further scuttled the possibility of
nationalistic propaganda and their activities in Tamil Nadu. As a fall-out of
the repressive measure taken by the colonial government, the nationalist
movement in Tamil Nadu entered a period of lull and some sort of revival
happened only with the Home Rule Movement in 1916.

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 Unit 5. Period of radicalism in Anti-imperialist
Struggles
Introduction

 The influence of the Left-wing in the Indian National Congress and

consequently on the struggle for independence was felt in a significant
manner from the late 1920s. The Communist Party of India (CPI) was
formed, by M.N. Roy, Abani Mukherji, M.P.T. Acharya, Mohammad Ali and
Mohammad Shafiq, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan then in the Soviet Union in
October 1920. This opened a new radical era in the anti-imperialist struggles
in India.

 Even though there were many radical groups functioning in India earlier the
presence of a Communist state in the form of USSR greatly alarmed the
British in India. The first batch of radicals reached Peshawar on 3 June 1921.
They were arrested immediately under the charges of being Bolshevik
(Russian communist agents) comeing to India to create troubles. A series of
five conspiracy cases were instituted against them between the years 1922
and 1927. The first of these was the Peshawar Conspiracy case. This was
followed by the Kanpur (Bolshevik) Conspiracy case in (1924) and the most
famous, the Meerut Conspiracy case (1929). Meanwhile, the CPI was
formally founded on Indian soil in 1925 in Bombay.

 Various revolutionary groups were functioning then in British India,

adopting socialist ideas but were not communist parties. Two
revolutionaries – Bhagat Singh of the Hindustan Revolutionary Socialist
Association and Kalpana Dutt of the Indian Republican Army that organised
repeated raids on the Chittagong Armoury in Bengal will be the focus of the
next section. The Karachi Session of the INC and its famous resolutions
especially on Fundamental Rights and Duties is dealt with next. The last two
topics are about the world-wide economic depression popularly known as
Great Depression and its impact on India and Tamil Society and the
Industrial Development registered in India in its aftermath. The Great
Depression dealt a severe blow to the labour force and peasants and
consequently influenced the struggle for independence in a significant way.

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Kanpur Conspiracy Case, 1924

 The colonial administrators did not take the spread of communist ideas
lightly. Radicalism spread across the British Provinces – Bombay, Calcutta
and Madras - and industrial centres like Kanpur in United Province (UP)
and cities like Lahore where factories had come up quite early. As a result,
trade unions emerged in the jute and cotton textile industries, the railway
companies across the country and among workers in the various municipal
bodies. In order to curb the radicalisation of politics, especially to check what
was then called Bolshevism, repressive measures were adopted by the
British administration. The Kanpur Conspiracy case of 1924 was one such
move. Those charged with the conspiracy were communists and trade
unionists.

 The accused were arrested spread over a period of six months. Eight of them
were charged under Section 121-A of the Indian Penal Code – ‗to deprive the
King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of
India from imperialistic Britain by a violent revolution‘, and sent to various
jails. The case came before Sessions Judge H.E. Holmes who had earned
notoriety while serving as Sessions Judge of Gorakhpur for awarding death
sentence to 172 peasants for their involvement in the Chauri Chaura case. In
the Kanpur Conspiracy case, Muzaffar Ahmed, Shaukat Usmani, Nalini
Gupta and S. A. Dange were sent to jail, for four years of rigorous
imprisonmentl. The trial and the imprisonment, meanwhile, led to some
awareness about the communist activities in India. A Communist Defence
Committee was formed in British India to raise funds and engage lawyers
for the defence of the accused. Apart from these, the native press in India
reported the court proceedings extensively.

 The trial in the conspiracy case and the imprisonment of some of the leaders
rather than kill the spirit of the radicals gave a fillip to communist activities.
In December 1925, a Communist Conference of different communist groups,
from all over India, was held.SingaraveluChettiar from Tamil Nadu took
part in this conference. It was from there that the Communist Party of India
was established, formally, with Bombay as its Headquarters.

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13 persons were originally accused in the Kanpur case: (1) M.N. Roy, (2)
Muzaffar Ahmad, (3) Shaukat Usmani, (4) Ghulam Hussain, (5) S.A. Dange, (6)
M. Singaravelu, (7) R.L. Sharma, (8) Nalini Gupta, (9) Shamuddin Hassan, (10)
M.R.S Velayudhun, (11) Doctor Manilal, (12) Sampurnananda, (13)
Satyabhakta. 8 persons were charge-sheeted: M.N. Roy, Muzaffar Ahmad, S.A.
Dange, Nalini Gupta, Ghulam Hussain, Singaravelu, Shaukat Usmani, and
R.L. Sharma. Ghulam Hussain turned an approver. M.N. Roy and R.L. Sharma
were charged in absentia as they were in Germany and Pondicherry (a French
Territory) respectively. Singaravelu was released on bail due to his ill health.
Finally the list got reduced to four.

M. Singaravelu (18 February 1860 – 11 February 1946), was born in Madras. He

was an early Buddhist, and like many other communist leaders, he was also
associated with Indian National Congress initially. However, after sometime
he chose a radical path. Along with Thiru. V. Kalyanasundaram, he organised
many trade unions in South India. On 1 May 1923, he organised the first ever
celebration of May Day in the country. He was one of the main organisers of
the strike in South Indian Railways (Golden Rock, Tiruchirappalli) in 1928 and
was prosecuted for that.

Meerut Conspiracy Case, 1929

Communist Activities

 The Meerut Conspiracy Case of 1929, was, perhaps, the most famous of all
the communist conspiracy cases instituted by the British Government. The
late 1920s witnessed a number of labour upsurges and this period of unrest
extended into the decade of the Great Depression (1929–1939). Trade
unionism spread over to many urban centres and organised labour strikes.
The communists played a prominent role in organising the working class
throughout this period. The Kharagpur Railway workshop strikes in
February and September 1927, the Liluah Rail workshop strike between
January and July 1928, the Calcutta scavengers‘ strike in 1928, the several
strikes in the jute mills in Bengal during July-August 1929, the strike at the
Golden Rock workshop of the South Indian Railway, Tiruchirappalli, in July
1928, the textile workers‘ strike in Bombay in April 1928 are some of the
strikes that deserve mention.

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Government Repression

 Alarmed by this wave of strikes and the spread of communist activities, the
British Government brought two draconian Acts - the Trade Disputes Act,
1928 and the Public Safety Bill, 1928. These Acts armed the government with
powers to curtail civil liberties in general and suppress the trade union
activities in particular. The government was worried about the strong
communist influence among the workers and peasants.

 Determined to wipe out the radical movement, the government resorted to

several repressive measures. They arrested 32 leading activists of the
Communist Party, from different parts of British India like Bombay,
Calcutta, Punjab, Poona and United Provinces. Most of them were trade
union activists though not all of them were members of the Communist
Party of India. At least eight of them belonged to the Indian National
Congress. The arrested also included three British communists-Philip Spratt,
Ban Bradley and Lester Hutchinson – who had been sent by the Communist
Party of Great Britain to help build the party in India. Like those arrested in
the Kanpur Conspiracy Case they were charged under Section 121A of the
Indian Penal Code. All the 32 leaders arrested were brought to Meerut (in
United Province then) and jailed. A good deal of documents that the colonial
administration described as ‗subversive material,‘ like books, letters, and
pamphlets were seized and produced as evidence against the accused.

The British government conceived of conducting the trial in Meerut (and not,
for instance in Bombay from where a large chunk of the accused hailed) so that
they could get away with the obligations of a jury trial. They feared a jury trial
could create sympathy for the accused.

Trial and Punishment

 Meanwhile, a National Meerut Prisoners‘ Defence Committee was formed to

coordinate defence in the case. Famous Indian lawyers like K.F. Nariman
and M.C. Chagla appeared in the court on behalf of the accused. Even
national leaders like Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru visited the accused in
jail. All these show the importance of the case in the history of our freedom
struggle.

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 The Sessions Court in Meerut awarded stringent sentences on 16 January
1933, four years after the arrests in 1929. 27 were convicted and sentenced to
various duration of transportation. During the trial, the Communists made
use of their defence as a platform for propaganda by making political
statements. These were reported widely in the newspapers and thus lakhs of
people came to know about the communist ideology and the communist
activities in India. There were agitations against the conviction. That three
British nationals were also accused in the case, the case became known
internationally too. Most importantly, even Romain Rolland and Albert
Einstein raised their voice in support of the convicted.

 Under the national and international pressure, on appeal, the sentences were
considerably reduced in July 1933.

Bhagat Singh and Kalpana Dutt

Bhagat Singh’s Background

 Bhagat Singh represented a distinct strand of nationalism. His radical strand

complemented, in a unique way, to the overall ideals of the freedom
movement.

 Bhagat Singh was born to Kishan Singh (father) and Vidyavati Kaur
(mother) on 28 September 1907 in Jaranwala, Lyallpur district, Punjab, now a
part of Pakistan. His father was a liberal and his family was a family of
freedom fighters. The Jallianwala Bagh massacre happened when Bhagat
Singh was 14 years. Early in his youth, he was associated with the Naujawan
Bharat Sabha and the Hindustan Republican Association. The latter
organisation was founded by Sachin Sanyal and Jogesh Chatterji. It was
reorganised subsequently in September 1928 as the Hindustan Socialist
Republican Association (H.S.R.A) by Bhagat Singh and his comrades.
Socialist ideals and the October Revolution in Russia of 1917 were large
influences on these revolutionaries. Bhagat Singh was one of the leaders of
the H.S.R.A along with Chandrashekhar Azad, Shivaram Rajguru and
Sukhdev Thapar.

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―I began to study. My previous faith and convictions underwent a remarkable
modification. The romance of the violent methods alone which was so
prominent among our predecessors was replaced by serious ideas. No more
mysticism, no more blind faith. Realism became our cult. Use of force
justifiable when resorted to as a matter of terrible necessity: non-violence as a
policy indispensable for all mass movements. So much about methods. The
most important thing was the clear conception of the ideal for which we were
to fight….. from Bhagat Singh‘s ―Why I am an Atheist‖.

Bhagat Singh’s Bomb Throwing

 The image that comes to our mind at the very mention of Bhagat Singh‘s
name is that of the bomb he threw in the Central Legislative Assembly on
April 8, 1929. The bombs did not kill anybody. It was intended as a
demonstrative action, an act of protest against the draconian laws of the
British. They chose the day on which the Trade Disputes Bill, an anti-labour
legislation was introduced in the assembly.

Lahore Conspiracy Case

 Bhagat Singh along with Rajguru, Sukhdev, Jatindra Nath Das and 21 others
were arrested and tried for the murder of Saunders (the case was known as
the Second Lahore Conspiracy Case). Jatindra Nath Das died in the jail after
64 days of hunger strike against the discriminatory practices and poor
conditions in jail. The verdict in the bomb throwing case had been
suspended until the trial of Lahore Conspiracy trials was over. It was in this
case that Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death on 7
October 1930.

 A letter from them to the Governor of Punjab shows their courage and their
optimism over the future of India even while facing death for the cause of
freedom of their country. It says, ‗the days of capitalism and imperialism are
numbered. The war neither began with us nor is going to end with our
lives… According to the verdict of your court we had waged a war and we
are therefore war prisoners. And we claim to be treated as such i.e., we claim
to be shot dead instead of being hanged.‖

 Some narratives describe Bhagat Singh and his fellow patriots as terrorists.
This is a misconception. The legendary Bhagat Singh clarified how his group
is different from the terrorists. He said, during his trial, that revolution is not
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 just the cult of bomb and pistol…Revolution is the inalienable right of
mankind. Freedom is the imperishable birth-right of all. The labourer is the
real sustainer of society.. To the altar of this revolution we have brought our
youth as incense, for no sacrifice is too great for so magnificent a cause.‘
Symbolically, they also shouted Inquilab Zindabad after this defence
statement of his in the court.

 Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged early in the morning of
March 23, 1931 in the Lahore Jail. They faced the gallows with courage,
shouting Inquilab Zindabad and Down with British Imperialism until their
last breath. The history of freedom struggle is incomplete without the
revolutionary strand of nationalism and the ultimate sacrifice of these
revolutionaries. One more name in the list of such fighters is Kalpana Dutt.

Kalpana Dutt (1913–1995)

 In the late 1920s a young woman, Kalpana Dutt (known as Kalpana Joshi
after her marriage to the communist leader P.C. Joshi), fired the patriotic
imagination of young people by her daring raid of the Chittagong armoury.

 To understand the heroism of Kalpana Dutt, you should understand the

revolutionary strand of nationalism that attracted women like her to these
ideals. You have already learnt that there existed many revolutionary groups
in British India. The character of these organisations gradually changed from
being ones that practiced individual annihilation to organising collective
actions aimed at larger changes in the system.

 As Surya Sen, the revolutionary leader of Chittagong armoury raid, told

Ananda Gupta, ‗a dedicated band of youth must show the path of organised
armed struggle in place of individual action. Most of us will have to die in
the process but our sacrifice for such noble cause will not go in vain.‘ When
revolutionary groups like the Yugantar and the Anushilan Samiti began
stagnating in the mid-1920s, new groups sprang out of them. Among them,
the most important group was the one led by Surya Sen, a school teacher by
profession, in Bengal. He had actively participated in the Non-cooperation
movement and wore Khadi. His group was closely working with the
Chittagong unit of the Indian National Congress.

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The H.S.R.A was a renewed chapter of the Hindustan Republican Association.
Its aim was the overthrow of the capitalist and imperialist government and
establish a socialist society through a revolution. The H.S.R.A involved a
number of actions such as the murder of Saunders in Lahore. In that, Saunders
was mistaken for the Superintendent of Police, Lahore, James A. Scott who
was responsible for seriously assaulting Lajpat Rai, in December 1928, and
Rai‘s subsequent death. They also made an attempt to blow up the train in
which Lord Irwin (Governor General and Viceroy of India, 1926-1931) was
travelling, in December 1929, and a large number of such actions in Punjab
and UP in 1930.

Chittagong Armoury Raid

 Surya Sen‘s revolutionary group, the Indian Republican Army, was named
after the Irish Republican Army. They planned a rebellion to occupy
Chittagong in a guerrilla-style operation. The Chittagong armouries were
raided on the night of 18 April 1930. Simultaneous attacks were launched on
telegraph offices, the armoury and the police barracks to cut off all
communication networks including the railways to isolate the region. It was
aimed at challenging the colonial administration directly.

 The revolutionaries hoisted the national flag and symbolically shouted

slogans such as Bande Matram and Inquilab Zindabad. The raids and the
resistance continued for the next three years. Often, they operated from the
villages and the villagers, gave food and shelter to the revolutionaries and
suffered greatly at the hands of police for this. Due to the continuous nature
of the actions, there was an Armoury Raid Supplementary Trial too. It took
three years to arrest Surya Sen, in February 1933, and eleven months before
he was sent to the gallows on 12 January 1934. Kalpana Dutt was among
those who participated in the raids.

On 13 June 1932 in a face-to-face battle against government forces, two of the

absconders of the Armoury Raid were killed, while they in turn killed Capt.
Cameron, Commander of the government forces in the village of Dhalghat in the
house of a poor Brahmin widow, Savitri Debi. After the incident the widow was
arrested together with her children. Despite many offers and temptations, not a
word could the police get out of the widow. They were uneducated and poor,
yet they resisted all the temptation offers of gold and unflinchingly could bear
all the tortures that were inflicted upon them. —From Kalpana Dutt‘s
autobiography Chittagong Armoury Raiders‘ Reminiscences.
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Women in Action

 While Bhagat Singh represented young men who dedicated their lives to the
freedom of the country, Kalpana Dutt represented the young women who
defied the existing patriarchal set up and took to arms for the liberation of
their motherland. Not only did they act as messengers (as elsewhere) but
they also participated in direct actions, fought along with men, carrying
guns.

 Kalpana Dutt‘s active participation in the revolutionary Chittagong

movement led to her arrest. Tried along with Surya Sen, Kalpana was
sentenced to transportation for life. The charge was ―waging war against the
King Emperor.‖ As all their activities started with the raid on the Armoury,
the trial came to be known as the Chittagong Armoury Raid Trial.

 Kalpana Dutt recalls in her book Chittagong Armoury Raiders

Reminiscences the revolutionary youth of Chittagong wanted ―to inspire
self-confidence by demonstrating that even without outside help it was
possible to fight the Government.

Karachi Session of the Indian National Congress, 1931

 The Indian National Congress, in contrast to the violent actions of

revolutionaries, mobilised the masses for non-violent struggles. The
Congress under the leadership of Gandhi gave priority to the problems of
peasants. In the context of great agrarian distress, deepened by world-wide
economic depression, the Congress mobilised the peasantry. The Congress
adopted a no-rent and no-tax campaign as a part of its civil disobedience
programme. Under the pressure of Great Depression, socio-economic
demands were sharply articulated in its Karachi Session of the Indian
National Congress.

 The freedom struggle was taking a new shape. Peasants organised

themselves into Kisan Sabhas and industrial workers were organized by the
trade unions, made their presence felt in a big way in the freedom struggle.
The Indian National Congress had become a mass party during the 1930s.
The Congress leadership, which was now taking a left turn under Nehru‘s
leadership, began to talk about an egalitarian society based on social and
economic justice.
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 The Karachi session held in March 1931, presided over by Sardar Valabhbhai
Patel, adopted a resolution on Fundamental Rights and Duties and provided
an insight into what the economic policy of an independent India. In some
ways, it was the manifesto of the Indian National Congress for independent
India. These rights and the social and economic programmes were derived
from a firm conviction that political freedom and economic freedom were
inseparable.

 Even a cursory look at the fundamental rights resolution will tell you that all
the basic rights that the British denied to the Indians found a prominent
place in the Resolution. The colonial government curtailed civil liberties and
freedom by passing draconian acts and ordinances. Gandhian ideals and
Nehru‘s socialist vision also found a place in the list of rights that the Indian
National Congress promised to ensure in free India.

 The existing social relations, especially the caste system and the practice
untouchability, were also challenged with a promise to ensure equal access
to public places and institutions.

 The Fundamental Rights, in fact, found a place in the Part III of the
Constitution of India– Fundamental Rights - and some of them went into
Part IV, the Directive Principles of the State policy. You will study more on
these in unit 13 of the second volume in the discussion on the Constitution of
India.

The Great Depression and its Impact on India

 The Great Depression was a severe and prolonged economic crisis which
lasted for about a decade from 1929. The slowdown of the economic
activities, especially industrial production, led to crises like lockouts, wage
cut, unemployment and starvation. It began in North America and affected
Europe and all the industrial centres in the world. As the world was
integrated by the colonial order in its economic sphere, developments in one
part of the world affected other parts as well.

 The crash in the Wall Street (where the American Stock Exchange was
located) triggered an economic depression of great magnitude. The
Depression hit India too. British colonialism aggravated the situation in
India. Depression affected both industrial and agrarian sectors. Labour
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 unrest broke out in industrial centres such as Bombay, Calcutta, Kanpur,
United Province and Madras against wage cuts, lay-offs and for the
betterment of living conditions. In the agriculture sector, prices of the
agricultural products, which depended on export markets like jute and raw
cotton fell steeply. The depression brought down the value of Indian exports
from Rs. 311 crores in 1929–1930 to Rs 132 crores in 1932–33. Therefore, the
1930s witnessed the emergence of the Kisan Sabhas which fought for rent
reduction, relief from debt traps and even for the abolition of Zamindari.

 The only positive impact was on the Indian industrial sector that could use
the availability of land at reduced prices and labour at cheap wage rates. The
weakening ties with Britain and other capitalist countries created a condition
where growth was recorded in some of the Indian industries. Yet only the
industries which fed the local consumption thrived.

Industrial Development in India

 The British trade policy took a heavy toll on the indigenous industry.
Industrialization of India was not part of British policy. Like other colonies,
India was treated as a raw material procurement area and a market for their
finished goods.

 Despite this, industrial expansion took place in India, because of certain

unforeseen circumstances, first during the course of the First World War and
then during the Great Depression.

 The first Indian to start a cotton mill was Cowasjee Nanabhoy Davar (1815–
73), a Parsi, in Bombay in 1854. This was known as the Bombay Spinning
and Weaving Company. The city‘s leading traders, mostly Parsis,
contributed to this endeavour. The American Civil War (1861–65) was a
boon to the cotton farmers. But after the Civil War when Britain continued to
import cotton from America, Indian cotton cultivators came to grief. But
Europeans started textile mills in India, taking advantage of the cheapness of
cotton available. Ahmedabad textiles mills were established by Indian
entrepreneurs and both Ahmedabad and Bombay became prominent centres
of cotton mills. By 1914, there were 129 spinning, weaving and other cotton
mills within Bombay presidency. Between 1875–76 and 1913-14, the number
of cotton textile mills in India increased from 47 to 271.

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 An important landmark in the establishment of industries in India was the
expansion of the railways system in India. The first passenger train ran in
1853, connecting Bombay with Thane. By the first decade of the twentieth
century, railways was the biggest engineering industry in India. This British-
managed industry, run by railway companies, employed 98,723 persons in
1911. The advent of railways and other means of transport and
communication facilities helped the development of various industries.

 Jute was yet another industry that picked up in India in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century. The first jute mill in Calcutta was founded in
1855. The growth of jute industry was so rapid and by 1914, there were 64
mills in Calcutta Presidency. However, unlike the Bombay textile industry,
these mills were owned by Europeans. Though the industrial development
in the nineteenth century was mainly confined to very limited sectors like
cotton, jute, etc., efforts were made to diversify the sectors. For example, the
Bengal Coal Company was set up in 1843 in Raiganj by Dwarakanath Tagore
(1794–1847), grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore. The coal industry picked
up after 1892 and its growth peaked during First World War years.

 It was in the early twentieth century, industries in India began to diversify.

The first major steel industry – Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO) – was
set up by the Tatas in 1907 as a part of swadeshi effort in Sakchi, Bihar. Prior
to this, a group of Europeans had attempted in 1875 to found the Bengal Iron
Company. Following this, the Bengal Iron and Steel Company was set up in
1889. However, TISCO made a huge headway than the other endeavourers
in this sector. Its production increased from 31,000 tons in 1912–13 to
1,81,000 tons in 1917–18.

 The First World War gave a landmark break to the industrialisation of the
country. For the first time, Britain‘s strategic position in the East was
challenged by Japan. The traditional trade routes were vulnerable to attack.
To meet the requirements, development of industries in India became
necessary. Hence, Britain loosened its grip and granted some concessions to
the Indian capitalists. Comparative relaxation of control by the British
government and the expansion of domestic market due to the War,
facilitated the process of industrialisation. For the first time, an industrial
commission was appointed in 1916. During the war-period, the cotton and
jute industries showed much growth. Steel industry was yet another sector
marked by substantial growth.

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 Other industries showing progress were paper, chemicals, cement, fertilisers,
tanning, etc. The first Indian owned paper mill – Couper Paper Mill – was
set up in 1882 in Lucknow. Following this, Itaghur Paper Mill and Bengal
Paper Mill, both owned by Europeans, were established. Cement
manufacturing began in 1904 in Madras with the establishment of South
Indian Industries Ltd. Tanning industry began in the late nineteenth century
and a government leather factory was set up in 1860 in Kanpur. The first
Indian-owned National Tannery was established in 1905 in Calcutta. The
gold mining in Kolar also started in the late nineteenth century in the Kolar
mining field, Mysore.

 The inter-war period registered growth in manufacturing industries.

Interestingly the growth rate was far better than Britain and even better than
the world average. After a short slug in 1923–24, the output of textile
industry began to pick up. During the interwar period, the number of looms
and spindles increased considerably.

 In 1929–30, 44 per cent of the total amount of cotton piece goods consumed
in India came from outside, but by 1933–34, after the Great Depression, the
proportion had fallen to 20.5 percent. Other two industries which registered
impressive growth were sugar and cement. The Interwar years saw a growth
in the shipping industry too. The Scindia Steam Navigation Company
Limited (1919) was the pioneer. In 1939, they even took over the Bombay
Steam Navigation Company Ltd., a British concern. Eight Indian concerns
were operational in this sector. A new phase of production began with the
Second World War, which led to the extension of manufacturing industries
to machineries, aircrafts, locomotives, and so on

Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, popularly known as J. N. Tata (1839– 1904), came

from a Parsi (Zoroastrian) business family in Navsari, Baroda. The first
successful Indian entrepreneur, he is called the father of the Indian modern
industry. In order to help his father‘s business, he travelled all over the world
and this exposure helped him in his future endeavours. His trading company,
established in 1868, evolved into the Tata Group. A nationalist, he called one
of the mills established in Kurla, Bombay ―Swadeshi‖. His children Dorabji
Tata and Ratanji Tata followed his dream and it was Dorabji Tata who finally
realised the long term dream of his father to establish an iron and steel
company in 1907. His enthusiasm was such that he spent two years in US to
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learn from the American Iron Industrialists. His yet another dream to set up a
hydroelectric company did not materialize during his life time. However, the
first major Hydroelectric project – Tata Hydroelectric Company–was set up in
1910. With great foresight the Tatas founded the Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore.

Industrial Development in Tamilnadu during the Depression

 The industrial growth in the Madras Presidency was substantial. In

Coimbatore, after Stanes Mill (Coimbatore Spinning and Weaving Mills) was
established in 1896, no other mill could come up. The objective conditions
created by the Depression like fall in prices of land, cheapness of labour and
low interest rates led to the expansion of textile industry in Coimbatore.
Twenty nine mills and ginning factories were floated in the Coimbatore area
during 1929-37. A cement factory started at Madukkarai in Coimbatore
district in 1932 gave fillip to the cement industry in the state. The number of
sugar factories in the province rose from two to eleven between 1931 and
1936. There were also proliferation of rice mills, oil mills and cinema
enterprise during this period.

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