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:
- The 1st group led by M. L. Metha and Amritlal Seth,
- The 2nd one was led by Phul Chand Shah,
- 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:
- Marathi- 28 per cent;
- 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:
- Maharashtra Parishad and
- 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:
- To widen the league-congress alienation
- To encourage all separatist tendencies
- 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.
- In 1942, cpi wanted 16 sovereign states in india.
- 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
- Socialist Newspaper: S. A. Dange: weekly from Bombay
- Navayuga: Muzaffar Ahmed (Bengal)
- Bengal: Narul Islam
- Inquilab: Gulam Hussain (Punjab)
- Labour Kishan Budget: M. Singhverulu (Madras)