Indian National Movement - Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement

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Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement

Background:

  1. Jalianwala Bagh Massacre: ­
    1. On 13th April, 1919, a huge crowd had assembled in Jalianwala Bagh, in Amritsar to protest peacefully against the arrest of 2 prominent leaders - Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal.
    2. British Officer M. O. Dyer who arrived there and gave orders of firing without warning the people.
    3. 1600 rounds were fired, 379 were killed and 1200 were wounded.
    4. This created a feeling of hatred all over India.
  2. Rowlatt Act: It suspended Haebeus Corpus. ­
  3. III conceived Dyarchy in Montague - Chelmsford Reforms of 1919. ­
  4. Dismemberment of Turkey: after the end of World War I, by the Treaty of Serbs, the Dismemberment of Turkey became eminent. This agitated the muslims of India and they blamed the British for this. ­­
  5. The success of Gandhiji:
    1. After the success of Gandhiji at Champaran, Kheda and Ahamdabad a new vision of leadership had emerged.
    2. Events of Khilafat Movement:
    3. Peace terms offered to Turkey were announced on the 15th may, 1920.
    4. 2 days later Gandhiji issued a statement urging ­Non-Cooperation as the only effective remedi, which was accepted Central Khilafat Committee. ­
    5. Central Khilafat Committee had the following members: ­­
      1. Hakim Ajmal Khan
      2. Hasrat Mohani
      3. Ah Brothers- Jafar AH and Md. Ah
      4. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
    6. The All India Khilafat Conference was held in Delhi in November 1919.
    7. The 2nd Khilafat Conference took place in Allahabad on 2nd June, 1920. A lot of hindu leaders attended the meeting like: Gandhiji, Motilal Nehru, Lala Lajpat Rai, Tej Bahadur Sapru, B. C. Pal, C. Rajgopalachari, Satyamurti, Chintamani, Madan Mohan Malviya and J. L. Nehru. ­
    8. The Khilafat Conference was held at Sindh in July 1920. It was attended by Gandhiji.
    9. Central Khilafat Committee organized an all India Hartal on 1st August, 1920, under the guidance of Gandhiji. ­
    10. Gandhiji returned the Kai-ser-i-Hind medal awarded to him for his services in the war.

Non-Cooperation Movement 1919 - 1922

  • The movement was launched formally on 1 August, 1920, after the expiry of the notice that Gandhiji had given to the Viceroy, in his letter of 22 June, in which he had asserted the right and recognized From time immemorial of the subject to refuse to assist a ruler who misrules. ­­
  • Lokmanya Tilak passed away in the early hours of 1 August, and the day of mourning and of launching of the movement merged as people all over the country observed hartal and took out processions.
  • By December at Nagpur, the opposition had melted away, the elections were over and therefore, the boycott of council was non issue, and it was C. R. Das who moved the main resolution on non cooperation.
  • The programme of non-cooperation included within its ambit the surrender of titles and honors, boycott of government affiliated schools and colleges, law courts, foreign cloth and could be extended to include resignation from government service and mass Civil Disobedience including the nonpayment of taxes. ­­
  • National schools and colleges were to be set up, panchayats were to be established for settling disputes, hand spinning and weaving was to be encouraged and people were asked to maintain Hindu-Muslim unity, give up untouchability and observe strict non-violence. ­­­
  • Concomitantly, the goal of the Congress was changed from the attainment of self-government by constitutional and legal means to the attainment of Swaraj by peaceful and legitimate means. ­
  • At the organizational level, the Congress was now to have a Working Committee of fifteen members to look after its day-to-day affairs.
  • Provincial Congress Committees were now to be organized on the linguistic basis, so that they could keep in touch with the people by the formation of village and mohalla or world committees. ­­
  • The membership fee was reduced to four annas per year to enable the poor to become members which would facilitate Congress a constant source of income. Thus, the organizational structure was both streamlined and democratized. ­­

Non-Cooperation

  • In 1919 the Congress session was held at Amritsar presided over by Motilal Nehru.
  • In 1920, special session was held at Calcutt, a In this session the following decisions were taken: ­
    1. Surrender of titles and honorary offices and resignation from nominated seats of local bodies. ­
    2. Refusal to attend government darbars and semi-official and official functions held by government officials. ­­
    3. Gradual withdrawal of children from schools and colleges owned and established by the government and in the place of such schools and colleges, national schools and colleges were to be established in various provinces. ­­­
    4. Gradual boycott of courts by lawyers and litigants and establishment of private arbitration courts and settlement of private disputes by them. ­­
    5. Refusal on the part of military, clerical and labouring classes to offer themselves as recruits in Mesopotamia.
    6. Withrawal by candidates of their canditature in election to the reformed council and refusal on the part of the voters to vote for any candidate. ­­
    7. Boycott of foreign goods.
  • An amendment was introduced by Gandhiji which was opposed by C. R. Das, M. M. Malviya, B. C. Pal, Annie Besant, Jinnah and others. ­
  • Motilal Nehru supported Gandhiji and his programme was supported by the Congress. ­
  • After a prolonged debate the motion was carried out by 1886 as against 884 votes (Sumit Sarkar gives this figure as 1855 and 873) . ­
  • In Nagpur annual congress session of 1920, the following decisions were taken: ­
      • Congress became a political organisation. ­
      • A Congress Working Committee with 15 members and All India Congrss Committee with 350 members was set up. ­­
      • Provincial Committee percolating to the districts, towns and villages were set up.
      • The subscription was fixed at 4 annas and minimum age of membership was reduced to 18 yrs. ­

Events During Non-Cooperation Movement

  • On 30th May, 1919, Rabindra Nath Tagore renounced his Knighthood. ­
  • All India College Students conference was held at Nagpur on 25th December, 1920.

Regional variations:

  1. Bihar and U. P. :
    1. The main centers were Muzaffarpur, Purnea and Bhagalpur.
    2. In Chotanagpur Biswa-nanda with the help Ramjas Agarwal of Jharia started the movement. The Tana Bhagat movement also started in Chotanagpur.
    3. The movement was strongest in U. P. 137 national institutions were set up. ­­
    4. The Kashi Vidhya Peeth was established.
    5. Munshi Premchand՚s Rangbhumi and Premsharan gives information about the movement.
    6. In Awadh, Baba Ramchandra was the prominent leader. ­
    7. The other important leaders were Motilal Nehru and Gauri Shankar Mishra. ­
  2. Bengal:
    1. C. R. Das and J. M. Sen-gupta were the prominent leaders.
    2. C. R. Das had 3 lieutenant: Barindranath Samsal in Midnapur; J. M. Sengupta in Chittagaon and Subhas Chandra Bose in Calcutta.
    3. In Midnapur Peasants refused to pay Union Board Taxes and Peasants Unions were formed. ­
    4. On 17th November. the visit of Prince of Wales was protested.
    5. Basanti Devi, wife of Chitranjan Das, participated in the protest movement.
    6. Gorkha Outrage took place in Chittagaon.
    7. In Nadia, Someshwar Prasad Chaudhary was the prominent leader.
    8. Barindranath Samsal led the Tamluk Revolt.
    9. In Rampur hat (Birbhum) , Jitendra Lai Banerjee was the important leader.
  3. Punjab:
    1. The Akali Dal started a movement to cleanse the Gurudwaras.
    2. The movement was initiated by Lala Lajpat Rai in 1921. . ­
    3. The movement was relatively weaker in Punjab. Arur Singh, the manager of Golden temple invited General M. O. Dyer. Nevertheless, the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee participated in the movement. ­­
    4. Babbar Akali Dal was active in Jallandhar and Hoshiyarpur and Kishen Singh and Mota Singh were the prominent leaders. ­
    5. However there was a struggle among the Akalis for the Control of Gurudwaras which rendered the movement weaker. ­
  4. Rajasthan:
    1. In Ajmer , the Rajasthan Seva Sangh was established.
    2. In Udaipur, the Maharana organised the Matrikundiya Fair, in May 1921.
    3. Maniklal Verma established the Bijolia Praja Mandal. ­
    4. The Bhil tribals were organized by Motilal Tejawat. ­
  5. Bombay:
    1. The important leaders were Jairam Das Daulatram and Swami Govindanand.
    2. Radical Students group was started by S. A. Dange with the following members:
      1. R. S. Nimbkar
      2. V. D. Sathe
      3. R. VNadkarni
      4. S. V. Deshpande
      5. K. N. Joglekar
    3. Under the leadership of R. B. Lotawala, S. A. Dange and his group propounded the ideals of Marxism.
    4. Near Poona peasants of Mulsipeta organised a Satyagrah.
    5. In Maharashtra the movement was relatively weaker because: ­
      1. Tilak was dead.
      2. Congress was conceived as a Chitta Pawan Brahaman led organisation and therefore it did not receive the support of low castes.
  6. Gujarat:
    1. Powerful Gandhian movement started Kheda, Borsad and Anand. ­
    2. In Bardoli movement started.
  7. South India:
    1. Madras Lawyers՚ Association was started by Singvarelu Chettiyar, the first communist of South India.
    2. In Tamil Nadu, C. Rajagopalachari was the prominent leader.
    3. In Madras, the movement was led by Satyamurthi and Kasturirang Aiyangar.
    4. Unnav Lakshmi Narayan՚s book Malpalli, in Telegu, gives information about Non-Cooperation.
    5. In Malabar, Khilafat Committees were set up with Kalathingal Mamad, Kunh-amad Haji, Ali Musaliyar and Imbichi Koyathangal as the members. ­
    6. Important Congress leaders were K. Madhavan Nair, Yakub Hassan, RMoydin Koya and U. Gopahnenon. ­
    7. Duggirala Gopal Krishnan led an agitation in Guntur.
    8. The whole population of Chirala moved to form a new township due to the non payment of Municipal Taxes.
    9. At Peddanipadu, all rural officials resigned and 95% of the population refused pay taxes.
    10. At Palnad, the peasants refused to pay the grazing fees and a Forest Satyagraha began. ­­
  8. United Province:
    1. Agitation began at Raibareli and Faizabad.
    2. At Aligarh political agitator Malkhan Singh was being tried by a Magistrate. The people in a collective way attacked the police. ­­
    3. The Ikka Movement was started by Madari Pasi.
    4. In 1921, Baba Ram-chandra started Peasant Movement in Raibareli, Sultanpur, Faizabad and Pratapgarh.

Termination of the Movement

  • On 5th February, 1922, Chauri-Chaura incident took place, in which a mob attacked a Police Station and 22 policemen were killed. ­
  • On 12 February, 1922, Gandhiji, in the Bardoli meeting of Congress Working Committee, suspended the movement. ­
  • On 10th March, 1922, Gandhiji was arrested and imprisoned for 6 years. J. L. Nehru was arrested and was given 18 months rigrous imprisonment. ­
  • The withdrawal of Non-Cooperation Movement was vehemently protested by leaders like:
    1. C. R. Das
    2. Motilal Nehru
    3. Subhas Chandra Bose