Indian National Movement - States People Movement and Indian Left Movement

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States People Movement

  • The states which organized Praja Mandal were Mysore, Hyderabad, Baroda and Kathiawar.
  • In 1927, these movements were organized at a national level called All India States People Conference (AISPC) .
  • The main leaders were Balwant Rai Mehta, Mani Lai Kothari, G R Abhyankar.
  • In 1927, in order to enquire into the centre-state relations, the Harcourt Butler Commit­tee was appointed .
  • In 1929, under the leader­ship of J. L. Nehru Congress passed a resolution endors­ing the demand of AISPC.
  • The States People wanted to be treated like Indian citi­zens.
  • J. L. Nehru at Lahore ses­sion said, “the Indian states cannot leave apart from rest of India, the right to determine … must lie with the people of states.”
  • In 1935 Act, the Indian state were brought under di­rect constitutional relation­ship with British India and states were to send their rep­resentatives to federal legis­lature but the problem was that these representatives were nominees of Princes and were not democratically elected.
  • Therefore the AISPC urged for a responsible government.
  • The AISPC started agita­tion against 1935 Act.
  • It staged agitations at Rajkot, Jaipur, Kashmir, Hyderabad, and Travancore.
  • The Nizam of Hyderabad braded if as ‘anti Muslim’ movement, where as Maha­raja of Kashmir called it ‘anti Hindu’
  • The Travancore՚s ruler held that the Christians wanted to overthrow the Hindu king.
  • In 1938, at Haripura Ses­sion, Congress reiterated its policy that movements in the state should not be launched in the name of Congress but should rely on their indepen­dent strength.
  • In 1939, at Tripuri, the Congress decided to get to­tally involved with the state agitation.
  • In 1939, AISPC elected J. L. Nehru as President at the Ludhiana Session.
  • In 1945, at Udaipur and in 1947 at Gwalior, J. L. Nehru again presided AISPC.
  • In 1942, there was no dis­crimination between AISPC and Congress.

States People Movement in Different States

In Rajkot

  • It is situated in Kathiawar peninsula
  • Upto 1930 it was ruled by Lakkhaji Raj
  • He was a moderate leader and encouraged popular par­ticipation in government by inaugrating Rajkot Praja Pratinidhi Sabha.
  • He also encouraged lead­ers like Mansukh Lai Mehta, Amritlal Seth to hold the 1st Kathiawar Political Conference in 1921 presided by Vitthalbhai Patel,
  • In 1930, Lakkhaji Raj died and his son Dharmender Singhji suceeded,
  • Being a complete contrast to his father he adopted re­pressive measures.
  • During his reign Dewan Virawala was defacto.
  • At that time 4 important groups were working in Rajkot:
    1. The 1st group led by M. L. Metha and Amritlal Seth,
    2. The 2nd one was led by Phul Chand Shah,
    3. The 3rd group was led by Brajlal Shukla
  • The 4th group was led by U. N. Dhebar (this group was associated with Gandhiji) .
  • The most powerful leader was Jethalal Joshi, a Gandhian. He gained promi­nence after 1930.
  • He staged a 21 days strike in cotton mill in 1936.
  • In 1938, they organized Gokulashtimi fare.
  • On 5th September, 1938, a hartaal was organized at Rajkot under the leadership of Sardar Patel.

In Hyderabad

  • Hyderabad was the larg­est Princely state by population as well as the size.
  • It was ruled by the Nizams.
  • It had three linguistic ar­eas:
    1. Marathi- 28 per cent;
    2. Kannad- 22 per cent; and Telugu- 50 per cent.
  • Osman Ali Khan became Nizam in 1911 and contin­ued upto 1948.
  • But the court language was Urdu, and Osmania Univer­sity was set up to encourage Urdu, and Telugu.
  • Marathi and Kannad were negiected.
  • A powerful muslim orga­nization called Itthad-ul-Muslimin as also established.
  • During the NCM, the people became quite aware of Gandhiji.
  • Andhra Jana Sangam was established which later on was known as Andhra Maha-sabha.
  • The Manasatha refrained from any direct political ac­tivity till 1940s.
  • In 1937, two regions of the state, two organizations were formed:
    1. Maharashtra Parishad and
    2. Kannad Parishad.
  • In hyderabad, a satya-graha was organized under the leadership of Ramnath Tirth, a Marathi speaking na­tionalist.
  • Gandhiji also took interest in the movement.
  • He wrote a number of let­ters to Sir Akhtar Hadari (PM of Hyderabad) giving conces­sion to the satyagrahi and treat them properly.
  • The students organized satyagraha andolan known as vande matram movement
  • In 1940, Ravi Narayan Reddi emerged as the radical leader of Andhra Mahasabha and participated in state Congress Satyagrah with B. Yeila Reddi.
  • In 1942, Hyderabad played an important role in the QIM.

Indian Left Movement

  • In October, 1920 seven Indians headed by M. N. Roy alongwith Avani Mukherjee, Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Shafif set up a Communist Party at Tashkent.
  • In 1922 - 24, Communists trying to enter India from So­viet union had been tried in a series of conspiracy cases at Peshawar.
  • In Madras the Labour Kishan Party of hindustan was formed in 1923.
  • In 1924 S. A. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmad, Nalini Gupta and Shaukat Usmani were tried in the Kanpur Bol­shevik Conspiracy case.
  • On 1st September, 1924, Satyabhakta announced the formation of CPI and he be­came the Secretary.
  • Most of these of groups came together at Kanpur in December 1925 and founded an all India organisation un­der the name of Communist Party of India in December 1925. S. V. Ghate became General Secretary of CPI.
  • In November 1925, at Bengal, Muzaffar Ahmed, Qazi Nazrul Islam, Hemanta Kumar Sarkar organised La­bour-Swaraj Party of the In­dian National Congress.
  • In 1928, all the regional parues formed Worker՚s and Peasant Party (WPP)
  • In March 1929, Govern­ment arrested 32 radical po­litical and Trade Union ac­tivist, including three British communists - Philip Spratt, Ben Bradley and Lester Hutchinson in the Meerut Conspiracy case; defense of the prisoners was to be taken by many nationalists includ­ing M. C. Chagla, M. A . Ansari, Jawaharlal Nehru, K. N. Katju, etc.
  • Birendranath Chattopadhyay and Clemens Dutt established a Secretariat in Berlin
  • M. N. Roy was arrested in July 1931, prosecuted as an accused in the original Kanpur Conspiracy Case, and sentenced on 9th Janu­ary 1932, to imprisonment for 12 years The period was reduced on appeal and Roy was released on 20th No­vember in 1936.
  • Guided by the resolutions of the Sixth Congress of the Communist Interna­tional, the Communist broke their connection with the National Congress.
  • The Communists estab­lished its influence on AITUC, and split took place due to this and NTUF was formed.
  • In 1934, the Communist Party was declared illegal.
  • In 1935, the Communist Party was reorganized under the leadership of P. C. Joshi.
  • The Seventh Commu­nist International took place in August 1935.
  • The theoretical and politi­cal basis for the change in communist politics in India was laid in early 1936 by a document popularly known as the Dutt-Bradley Thesis, named The Imperialist People՚s Front in India.
  • According to this thesis, the National Congress could play a great part and a fore­most part in the work of re­alizing the anti-imperialist people՚s front.
  • In 1938, Progressive Right Association was founded
  • In 1939, P. C. Joshi pub­lished the party weekly Na­tional Front
  • In 1939, Subhas Chandra Bose founded Forward Bloc.
  • In 1940, the communists were expelled from the Con­gress Socialist Party and the United Front was dissolved.
  • In the mean time the com­munists dominated All India Student՚s Federation; esp. Hiren Mukherjee and K. M. Asraf.
  • In 1940, at the Ramgarh session of Congress the CPI issued a new statement of policy entitled ‘Proletarian Path’
  • The Communists divided into two groups: (1) the Deoli in Ajmer-Marwara Group: supported the British in the war and (2) the P. C. Joshi group
  • On 24th July 1942, the ban on Communists lifted, and as a result they not only supported the British in the Quit India Movement but also spied for them. This was revealed by the correspon­dence between P. C. Joshi and Sir Reginald Maxwell, the home Member of the Gov­ernment of India, a commit­tee was constituted under S. S. Baltivala to see this.
  • After 1942, the main ob­jective of the Communist was:
    1. To widen the league-con­gress alienation
    2. To encourage all separat­ist tendencies
    3. To work for the division of india into a number of sov­ereign states with the strat­egy to tighten control over at least one such state and to make it a base for the libera­tion of the rest of india.
    4. In 1942, cpi wanted 16 sovereign states in india.
    5. In 1946 they put forward before the cabinet mission a plan for a division of india into 17 separate sovereign states on the model of balkans or the ussr.

Important Magazines⟋Newspapers of Communists

  1. Socialist Newspaper: S. A. Dange: weekly from Bombay
  2. Navayuga: Muzaffar Ahmed (Bengal)
  3. Bengal: Narul Islam
  4. Inquilab: Gulam Hussain (Punjab)
  5. Labour Kishan Budget: M. Singhverulu (Madras)