Indian+Nationalism

Nationalist Challenge to the British Raj: Social Foundation of Mass Movement: Militant Nationalism: Emergence of Gandhi and the Nationalist Struggle: Leadership Analysis of Gandhi Name: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Lifespan:Oct 2 1869 -> Jan 30 1948 Title: Mahatma Gandhi( Gandhi of the Great Soul), Bapu (Father of the Nation) Years in Power: 1915-1948 Country/Region: India Conditions Prior to Gaining Power(See above notes for more info.): Ideology, Motivation, Goals: ([]) Significant Actions/ Effects: 3. Identity Qs + Mindmap A personal Identity is the way in which a person affiliates themselves to a certain group within society, and can be formed by any significant event or characteristic which sets them apart. Thus, Conformity is the forced conversion or identification of a person to a certain group by society.Our Identity can influence our perception via bias towards or against certain groups via our identification with rival/similar groups.Ideally, belonging to a group can mean that other members of the group will identify with and recognize you due to this shared characteristic or event.However, this can lead to conformism for purposes of pleasing the group, and if resisted can lead to ostracism and exclusion from the group.
 * Because India and much of Southeast Asia had been colonized long before Africa, movements for freedom and independance in Asia spread long before those in Africa.By the last years of the 19th century, the western-educated minority of the philippines and India had been politically organized for decades.
 * India became the model for the nationalist challenge, and European retreat, due both to it's size and pivotal role in British Empire's trading economy.Egypt also proved an influential center of nationalism and resistance to European encroachment.
 * Local conditions in Asia and Africa made for important variations on the sequences of decolonization worked out in Egypt versus India.But commonalities included : the lead taken by western educated elites, the importance of charismatic leaders, and a reliance on nonviolent forms of protest.
 * The National Congress party lead the Indians to Independance, and governed throughout most of the early post-colonial era. It grew out of regional associations of western-trained Indians that were organized more like Study clubs than any legitimate political movement.The Congress party had the benefit of high-ranking british officials, allowing the Indian voice to be heard and preventing full scale protest/rebellion.In the early years of it's founding, the Congress Party served it's purposes well, but it became increasingly centered on elite issues.
 * Many western-educated Indians were increasingly worried with growing british Racism.They were concerned that this was the reason for their low salaries, and limited opportunities for advancement in the colonial administration.
 * By the last years of the 19th century, the Indian elite began searching for issues which could incite larger segments of the populace into action against the British.More than a century of British rule had generated the social and economic disruptions in many areas of India, which would provide support for the Congress Party's nationalist endeavors.
 * Indian Businessmen were enraged at British favoritism against Indians, especially while establishing trading policies, and worked to fund the Congress party.Indian political leaders increasingly stressed these inequities as a "drain on Indian resources" under colonial rule.
 * A large portion of the INdian government's revenue went to funding British wars, and funding the massive armies required to do so.The Indian people also paid for the large pensions and generous salaries of British officials and administrators, wwho occupied jobs that could be easily filled by some elite Indians.The british were also indifferent to the famines in India, and the epidemic diseases in the pre-WWI era.
 * Some of the ideals stressed by early nationalist leaders had great appeal for devout Hindus, such as a protection campaign for cows. However, these campaigns often alienated other religious followers, such as Muslims.Some leaders such as B.G. tilak were not concerned, believing that Hindus made up the majority of the population, and attempted to restore what the foundations of Hinduism.
 * Tilak's oratorical skills and religious appeal made him the first Hindu nationalist to have a mass following.However, his popularity was largely confined to Bombay and the surrounding areas, being that his radical approaches frightened the more conservative hindu populace.The british exiled him to Burma for 6 years, greatly weakening the Mass Uprising movement.
 * The other major threat to British rule before WWI came from Hindu communalists who advocated violent reforms.Unlike Tilak and his followers, they favored more clandestine terrorist methods, rather than mass demonstrations. Indians in Bengal were particularly extensive in their underground network, lead by gurus and trained in western style calisthenics and making bombs.
 * The Morley Minto reforms allowed educated Indians to gain more opportuinities in the political world, and the ability to vote.
 * India was essential to the British war effort in the beginning months of WWI.Indian princes offered substantial war loans, and Indian soldiers bore the brunt of the war effort.Nationalist leaders such as Gandhi and Tilak often toured India selling British War bonds.
 * After the end of WWI in 1918, moderate Indian politicians were outraged by British refusal to honor wartime promises of self-government for the indian people. Indians hoped that these issues would be adressed in the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms of 1919, which promised greater power for INdian officials. However, that power, as well as key Indian Civil Rights were restricted by the later Rowlatt act. This primed Mohandas Gandhi to come forward and bring the Indian independance movement full circle.
 * Gandhi had a remarkable appeal to both the people of the West and the Indian Masses. Gandhi stressed nonviolent protest while being aggressive, earning him the respect of both radicals and more moderate protestors.His advocacy of peaceful protest termed satyagraha was largely effective in weakening british control while providing no opportunity to be attacked by British military power.
 * While not a physically imposing figure, Gandhi posessed a morality and inner confidence that sustained his followers and wore down his enemies., whlie his knowledge of the outside world made him an excellent negotiator.The traditional Indian Guru appearance of Gandhi was critical in his reception by the Indian public.Under Gandhi's leadership, protests surged through 1920s and 1930s.
 * British Favoritism/Racism against Indians, which concerned the western-educated upper class + Merchants as a reason for low Indian wages and limited advancement, and limited trading opportunities.
 * British indifference to famine and disease epidemics in India, as well as the severe poverty of the Indian people.
 * Corrupt British administrators, as well as use of Indian troops, money, and supplies to fund the British war efforts.
 * Truth- Gandhi dedicated his life to the pursuit of a greater truth, or Satya, attempting to achieve this through conducting of social experiments on himself.
 * Nonviolent, Nonagressive Protests- Gandhi may not have been the originator of nonviolence, but he was the first to apply it on a major political scale. Gandhi beleived that the path to truth was through Nonviolence (Ahimsa).
 * Vegetarianism- Gandhi was a devout vegetarian, and as a Hindu was raised on the beleifs of vegetarianism, which came to form a basis for his life-long philosophy.Partially, as a promise to his mother/uncle on his departure of India to "not partake of meat, wine, or women"
 * Basic Education(//Nai Talim)-// a spiritual principle which states that knowledge and work are not separate. Gandhi promoted an educational curriculum with the same name based on this principle.
 * Faith-Gandhi was born a Hindu and practised Hinduism all his life. As a common Hindu, he believed all religions to be equal, and rejected all efforts to convert him to a different faith. He was an avid theologian and read extensively about all major religions.Later in his life, when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied, "Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew"
 * Simplicity-Gandhi earnestly believed that a person involved in public service should lead a simple life. He first displayed this principle when he gave up wearing western-style clothing, which he associated with wealth and success. Gandhi dressed to be accepted by the poorest person in India, advocating the use of homespun cloth (//khadi//). Gandhi spent one day of each week in silence. He believed that abstaining from speaking brought him inner peace and made him a better listener.The practice of giving up unnecessary expenditure, embracing a simple lifestyle and washing his own clothes, Gandhi called "reducing himself to zero".
 * Brahmacharya(Spiritual Purity)-largely associated with celibacy and asceticism. Gandhi saw Brahmacharya as a means of becoming close with God and as a primary foundation for self-realisation.He felt it his personal obligation to remain celibate so that he could learn to love, rather than lust. For Gandhi, Brahmacharya meant "control of the senses in thought, word and deed.".
 * Swaraj(Political Anarchy)-Gandhi was a self-described philosophical anarchist, and his vision of India meant India without an underlying government.He once said that "the ideally nonviolent state would be an ordered anarchy."His idea was that true self-rule in a country means that every person rules his or herself and that there is no state which enforces laws upon the peopleThis would be achieved over time with nonviolent conflict mediation, as power is divested from layers of hierarchical authorities, ultimately to the individual, which would come to embody the ethic of nonviolence. Rather than a system where rights are enforced by a higher authority, people are self-governed by mutual responsibilities.
 * Gandhi faced the discrimination against Indians when he went to South Africa, a major turning point in his life in which he awakened to social injustice and sparked an interest in activism.Gandhi extended his original period of stay in South Africa to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote. Though unable to halt the bill's passage, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, and through this organisation, he moulded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force.
 * In 1906, the Transvaal government promulgated a new Act compelling registration of the colony's Indian population. At a mass protest meeting held in Johannesburg on 11 September that year, Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of satyagraha (devotion to the truth), or non-violent protest, for the first time, calling on his fellow Indians to defy the new law and suffer the punishments for doing so, rather than resist through violent means. The community adopted this plan, leading to a seven-year struggle in which thousands of Indians were jailed (including Gandhi), flogged, or even shot, for striking, refusing to register, burning their registration cards or engaging in other forms of non-violent resistance. While the government was successful in repressing the Indian protesters, the public outcry stemming from the harsh methods employed by the South African government in the face of peaceful Indian protesters finally forced South African General Jan Christiaan Smuts to negotiate a compromise with Gandhi.
 * In 1906, after the British introduced a new poll-tax, [|Zulus] in South Africa killed two British officers. In response, the British declared [|war against the Zulus]. Gandhi actively encouraged the British to recruit Indians. He argued that Indians should support the war efforts in order to legitimise their claims to full citizenship.
 * Gandhi then launched a new satyagraha against the tax on salt in March 1930. This was highlighted by the famous Salt March to Dandi from 12 March to 6 April, where he marched 388 kilometres (241 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat to make salt himself. Thousands of Indians joined him on this march to the sea. This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British hold on India; Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.
 * //Quit India(1930-1944, WW2)// became the most forceful movement in the history of the struggle, with mass arrests and violence on an unprecedented scale.Thousands of freedom fighters were killed or injured by police gunfire, and hundreds of thousands were arrested. Gandhi and his supporters made it clear they would not support the war effort unless India were granted immediate independence.While the Indian National Congress and Gandhi called for the British to quit India, the Muslim League passed a resolution for them to divide and quit, in 1943.