Nationalism in India — RBSE Class 10 (History)
On 12 March 1930, a 61-year-old man set out on foot from Sabarmati with a band of followers, walked 240 miles to the sea at Dandi, and bent down to make salt from seawater — breaking a law. That single, simple act of defiance shook the largest empire on earth. This chapter is the story of how Mahatma Gandhi turned scattered grievances into one mass national movement.
1. The First World War, Khilafat and the rise of Gandhi
The First World War (1914–18) created conditions for a mass movement: huge defence spending funded by taxes and loans, rising prices that hit the common people, forced recruitment in villages, and crop failure and the 1918–19 influenza epidemic that killed millions.
Mahatma Gandhi returned from South Africa in 1915 with a new method — satyagraha: the idea that truth and non-violence, not physical force, could win against an unjust ruler. Early successes at Champaran (1917, indigo farmers), Kheda (1918, peasants) and Ahmedabad (1918, mill workers) built his reputation.
2. The Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh (1919)
The Rowlatt Act (1919) gave the government huge repressive powers — detention without trial. Gandhi called for a nationwide satyagraha against it. On 13 April 1919, at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, General Dyer's troops fired on a peaceful, enclosed crowd, killing hundreds. The brutality, and the official approval that followed, turned moderate Indians into nationalists and prepared the ground for a mass movement.
3. The Non-Cooperation–Khilafat Movement (1921–22)
Gandhi joined the Khilafat cause (Indian Muslims' demand to protect the Ottoman Caliph) with the national struggle, uniting Hindus and Muslims. In his book Hind Swaraj he argued British rule survived only with Indian cooperation — so withdrawing cooperation could bring it down within a year.
The movement unfolded in stages: surrender of titles, boycott of schools, courts and councils, foreign cloth, and eventually a no-tax campaign. Different groups read "swaraj" their own way:
- Towns: students, teachers and lawyers boycotted; foreign cloth burnt; khadi promoted (though it was dearer than mill cloth).
- Peasants (Awadh): led by Baba Ramchandra against high rents and the begar (forced labour) of talukdars.
- Tribal peasants (Gudem Hills): Alluri Sitaram Raju led a militant guerrilla revolt over forest rights.
- Plantation workers (Assam): "swaraj" meant the right to move freely and return to their villages.
Gandhi called off the movement in February 1922 after the violent Chauri Chaura incident, where a mob burnt a police station.
4. Towards Civil Disobedience (1928–1930)
The Simon Commission (1928), with no Indian member, was met with the slogan "Go back Simon". In December 1929, the Congress under Jawaharlal Nehru demanded Purna Swaraj (complete independence); 26 January 1930 was declared Independence Day.
5. The Civil Disobedience Movement and the Salt March (1930)
Gandhi made salt the symbol — a daily necessity taxed by the state, touching rich and poor alike. The Salt March / Dandi March (12 March – 6 April 1930) broke the salt law and launched Civil Disobedience: now people were asked not just to refuse cooperation but to break colonial laws. Foreign cloth was boycotted, peasants refused taxes, and forest laws were defied.
After the Gandhi–Irwin Pact (1931) Gandhi attended the Second Round Table Conference in London, which failed; the movement was relaunched but lost momentum by 1934.
Who participated, and with what limits:
- Rich peasants (Patidars, Jats): hit by falling prices; wanted revenue cut — disappointed when it was not.
- Poor peasants: wanted rent to landlords reduced — Congress was reluctant, so their involvement was uncertain.
- Business class: wanted protection against imports; formed FICCI; gave financial support but grew lukewarm after the failed conference.
- Women: participated in large numbers in marches, picketing and salt-making — a major change, though largely seen by Congress as symbolic rather than as a claim to authority.
- Dalits ("untouchables"): Congress was slow to take up their cause; Dr B.R. Ambedkar demanded separate electorates, resolved by the Poona Pact (1932) with reserved seats instead.
- Muslims: after the decline of Non-Cooperation, many felt alienated; the question of separate electorates and representation deepened the distance.
6. The making of national identity
A nation is held together not only by struggle but by shared feeling and symbols:
- The image of Bharat Mata — first created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (who wrote Vande Mataram) and painted by Abanindranath Tagore — gave the nation a devotional form.
- Folklore and folk songs revived pride in regional culture.
- Icons and flags — the swaraj tricolour (red, green, yellow) with a spinning wheel, carried in marches, became a symbol of defiance.
- Reinterpreting history to recover a glorious past instilled national pride.
7. Closing thought
Gandhi's genius was to make freedom a movement everyone could join — a peasant refusing begar, a student leaving college, a woman making salt. But this chapter is honest about the limits: different groups joined for different, sometimes conflicting reasons, and the unity was fragile, especially across class and community lines.
For the RBSE board, fix the three movements (Non-Cooperation, Civil Disobedience, and the events of 1919) with their dates and turning points (Jallianwala Bagh, Chauri Chaura, the Salt March), and be ready to explain how different social groups participated — the most common long-answer question.
