The campaign of nonviolent cilvil resitance organized by Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi against British rule in India led to the country's independence in 1947. Born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and later called Mahatma, (Sanskrit for "great soul"), Gandhi studied law in London, England. As a lawyer and later as a political activist, he effectively fought discrimination with the princles of truth, nonviolence, and courage, which he desirved in part form the teachings of Hinduism.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Political
strife became intense in India after World War I. In reply to the
upsurge of nationalist activity, the British government obtained passage
of legislation, known as the Rowlatt Acts, which suspended civil rights
and provided for martial law in areas disturbed by riots and uprisings.
Passage of the Rowlatt Acts precipitated a wave of violence and disorder
in many parts of India. In this period of turmoil, Mohandas K. Gandhi,
a Hindu social and religious reformer, called on the Indian people to meet
British repression with passive resistance (Satyagraha). The protest movement
reached insurrectionary proportions on April 13, 1919, proclaimed by Gandhi
as a day of national mourning. In Amritsar, Punjab, city authorities, unable
to cope with the aroused citizenry, appealed to the military for aid. The
troops dispersed a huge assembly of people, freely using their firearms and
causing more than 400 casualties.
In consequence of the Amritsar Massacre, the anti-British movement in India reached new levels of intensity. The outstanding feature of this stage of the struggle was the Gandhian policy of noncooperation instituted in 1920. Among other things, the policy called for the boycott of British commodities, courts, and educational institutions; for noncooperation in political life; and for the renunciation of British titles held by Indians. The noncooperation movement was often attended by violence, despite admonitions by Gandhi against the use of force. Combined with parliamentary methods of struggle, the movement proved to be a remarkably effective weapon in the fight for Indian freedom. In the view of British officialdom, the activities engaged in by Gandhi constituted sedition, and the Indian leader was periodically imprisoned or interned in the course of the next two decades. Gandhi, known among the Indian people as Mahatma (Sanskrit for "great soul"), figured decisively in Indian political history.
INCREASING INTERNAL DISSENSION
Between 1922, the year of the initial imprisonment of Gandhi for sedition, and 1942, when he was placed in custody for the last time, the fight for Indian independence was marked by serious setbacks, including the renewal of dissension between Muslims and Hindus, and by many victories.
Civil Disobedience
The tide of Indian nationalism, having acquired momentum steadily since Gandhi was first arrested, attained a climactic stage in the spring of 1930. On March 12 of that year, following British rejection of demands for dominion status for India, Gandhi announced that he would lead a mass violation of the government salt monopoly. The violation was accomplished, after a long march to the Gulf of Khambhat, by boiling seawater to produce salt. Similar actions occurred throughout India, and on May 5 Gandhi was again jailed by the British authorities. Riots and demonstrations developed immediately in Calcutta, Delhi, and other centers. Trains were stoned, telegraph wires were cut, and various government officials were assassinated. Striving to cope with these and later disorders, the government carried out wholesale arrests, and by November about 27,000 Indian nationalists had been sentenced to prison terms.
Hindu-Muslim Schism
Finally, in March 1931, the British government arranged a truce with Gandhi, who had been released in the preceding January along with Jawaharlal Nehru, his closest associate and the secretary of the Indian National Congress, and other political prisoners. Meanwhile the Muslim League, professing fears of Hindu domination, had advanced demands for special privileges in the proposed dominion government. In the course of the resultant controversy, bitter Hindu-Muslim rioting ravaged many communities of India. Adding to the misery and suffering occasioned by these outbursts, the world economic crisis, which had begun in 1929, completely disrupted the economy of India during the early 1930s.
Government of India Act
In 1935, following a series of conferences in London between British and Indian leaders, legislation known as the Government of India Act received the approval of the British Parliament. The legislation provided for the establishment of autonomous legislative bodies in the provinces of British India, for the creation of a central government representative of the provinces and princely states, and for the protection of Muslim minorities. In addition, the act provided for a bicameral national legislature and an executive arm under the control of the British government. Largely influenced by Gandhi, the Indian people approved the measure, which became operative on April 1, 1937, although many members of the Indian National Congress continued to insist on full independence for India.
On the provincial level few difficulties developed in the application of the Government of India Act. The plan for federation proved unworkable for a variety of reasons, however, including the reluctance of the Indian princes to cooperate with the radicals of the Indian National Congress, reciprocal hostility on the part of the latter, and Muslim claims that the Hindus would have excessive influence in the national legislature. As an alternative, the Muslim League, then headed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, advocated the creation of an independent Muslim state (Pakistan). This proposal met violent Hindu opposition. Further complicating the Indian political situation, Subhas Chandra Bose, an extreme nationalist, was elected president of the Indian National Congress early in 1939. Within a few months, however, the Congress rejected his policies and he resigned.
On the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945) the viceroy of India, Victor Alexander John Hope, Marquess of Linlithgow, declared war on Germany in the name of India. This step, taken in accordance with the constitution of 1937 but without consulting Indian leaders, alienated Gandhi and important sections of the Indian National Congress. Influential groups of the National Congress, supporting Gandhi's position, intensified the campaign for immediate self-government, naming self-government as their price for cooperation in the war effort. At the end of October 1939 the ministries of eight provinces resigned in protest against the adamant attitude of the British. The civil disobedience campaign was resumed by the National Congress in October 1940. Meanwhile the Muslim League, many of the princely states, and certain members of the Indian National Congress had endorsed the British war effort. The subsequent contributions of India to the struggle against the Axis powers were extensive. Indian troops at home and on the fronts numbered about 1.5 million before the termination of hostilities and Indian expenditures totaled approximately $12 billion.
In December 1941 the British authorities in India released the various Congress leaders who had been placed under arrest in 1940. A new wave of anti-British agitation followed, and in March 1942 the government of Great Britain dispatched Sir Stafford Cripps, then lord privy seal, to India with proposals designed to satisfy nationalist demands. These proposals contained the promise of full independence for India after World War II and called for the establishment of an interim Indian government in which Great Britain would retain control of national defense and foreign affairs. Because the leaders of both the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League had basic objections to various sections of the proposed program, the Cripps mission ended in failure.
The civil disobedience movement was again resumed in August 1942. Gandhi, Nehru, and thousands of their supporters were rounded up and imprisoned, and the National Congress was outlawed. Encouraged by Indian disunity and with the help of Bose, who had organized a "provisional Indian government" in Burma (Myanmar), the Japanese promptly intensified military operations along the Burmese-Indian frontier. The Japanese invasion of India began along a 322-km (200-mi) front in March 1944. After a number of initial successes, the invaders were gradually forced back into Burma by Anglo-Indian troops.
The British government released Gandhi from jail on May 6, 1944. In the meantime the Indian leader had modified most of his views regarding the nature of the war and the Cripps program, and in September 1944 he and the Muslim leader Jinnah began discussions on mutual differences. Primarily because of Jinnah's insistence on demarcation of the Pakistani frontiers prior to the formation of an interim government, the discussions ended in failure.
In June 1945 India became a charter member of the United Nations (UN). In the same month Nehru was released from jail, and shortly thereafter the British government issued a white paper on the Indian question. The proposals closely resembled those of the Cripps program. Another deadlock developed and during the second half of 1945 a new wave of anti-British riots and outbursts swept over India. Three representatives of the British government, including Cripps, made another attempt to negotiate an agreement with Indian leaders in the spring of 1946. Although the Muslim League temporarily withdrew its demands for the partition of India along religious lines, insuperable differences developed with respect to the character of an interim government. The negotiations were fruitless, and in June the British viceroy Archibald Wavell announced the formation of an emergency "caretaker" government. An interim executive council, headed by Nehru and representative of all major political groups except the Muslim League, replaced this government in September. In the next month the Muslim League agreed to participate in the new government. Nonetheless, communal strife between Muslims and Hindus increased in various parts of India.
By the end of 1946 the Indian political situation verged on anarchy. The British prime minister Clement R. Attlee announced in February 1947 that his government would relinquish power in India not later than June 30, 1948. According to the announcement, the move would be made whether or not the political factions of India agreed on a constitution before that time. Political tension mounted in India following the announcement, creating grave possibilities of a disastrous Hindu-Muslim civil war. After consultations with Indian leaders, Louis Mountbatten, who succeeded Wavell as viceroy in March 1947, recommended immediate partition of India to the British government as the only means of averting catastrophe. A bill incorporating Mountbatten's recommendations was introduced into the British Parliament on July 4; it obtained speedy and unanimous approval in both houses of Parliament.
Act Under the provisions of this enactment, termed the Indian Independence Act, which became effective on August 15, 1947, India and Pakistan were established as independent dominions of the Commonwealth of Nations, with the right to withdraw from or remain within the Commonwealth. The Indian government, by the terms of a declaration issued jointly by the then eight members of the Commonwealth on April 28, 1949, elected to retain its membership. For the subsequent history of Pakistan.
The new states of India and Pakistan were created along religious lines. Areas inhabited predominantly by Hindus were allocated to India and those with a predominantly Muslim population were allocated to Pakistan. Because the overwhelming majority of the people of the Indian subcontinent are Hindus, partition resulted in the inclusion within the Union of India, as the country was then named, of most of the 562 princely states in existence prior to August 15, 1947, as well as the majority of the British provinces and parts of 3 of the remaining provinces.
By the terms of the Indian Independence Act, governmental authority in the Union was vested in the Constituent Assembly, originally an all-India body created for the purpose of drafting a constitution for the entire nation. The All-India Constituent Assembly, which held its first session in December 1946, was boycotted by the delegates of the Muslim League, the major political organization of Muslim nationalists; the remaining delegates, who were chiefly representative of the Indian National Congress, the corresponding Hindu organization, formed the Constituent Assembly of the Indian Union.
After the transfer of power from the British government, the Constituent Assembly assigned executive responsibility to a cabinet, with Nehru as prime minister. Mountbatten became governor-general of the new dominion.
CONTINUED HINDU-MUSLIM-SIKH ANTAGONISMS
The termination of British rule in India was greeted enthusiastically by Indians of every religious faith and political persuasion. On August 15, 1947, officially designated Indian Independence Day, celebration ceremonies were held in all parts of the subcontinent and in Indian communities abroad. These ceremonies took place, however, against an ominous background of Hindu-Muslim and Sikh-Muslim antagonisms, which were particularly acute in regions equally or almost equally shared by members of the different faiths.
Population Shifts
In anticipation of border disputes in such regions, notably Bengal and Punjab, a boundary commission with a neutral (British) chairperson was established prior to partition. The recommendations of this commission occasioned little active disagreement with respect to the division of Bengal. In that region, largely because of Gandhi's moderating influence, little communal strife developed. In the Punjab, however, where the line of demarcation brought nearly 2 million Sikhs, traditionally anti-Muslim, under the jurisdiction of Pakistan, the decisions of the boundary commission precipitated bitter fighting. A mass exodus of Muslims from Union territory into Pakistan and of Sikhs and Hindus from Pakistan into Union territory took place. In the course of the initial migrations, which involved more than 4 million people in the month of September 1947 alone, convoys of refugees were frequently attacked and massacred by fanatical partisans. Coreligionists of the victims resorted to reprisals against minorities in other sections of the Union and Pakistan. Indian and Pakistani authorities brought the strife under control during October, but the shift of populations in the Punjab and other border areas continued until the end of the year. Relations between the two states grew worse in October when the Indian armed forces surrounded Junagadh, a princely state on the Kathiawar Peninsula. This action was taken because the nawab of the state, which had a large majority of Hindus, had previously announced that he would affiliate with Pakistan. The Indian military authorities subsequently assumed control of the state, pending a plebiscite.
War in Kashmėr
Kashmėr, a princely state inhabited predominantly by Muslims, became the next major source of friction between India and Pakistan. Here, the situation was the exact opposite of that in Junagadh. On October 24, 1947, Muslim insurgents, supported by invading coreligionists from the North-West Frontier Province, proclaimed establishment of a "Provisional Government of Kashmėr." Three days later the Hindu leader Hari Singh, Maharaja of Kashmėr, announced the accession of Kashmėr to the Union of India. Approving the maharaja's decision and promising a plebiscite after the restoration of peace, the Indian government immediately dispatched troops to Srėnagar, the capital of Kashmėr and the major objective of the insurgents. Hostilities quickly attained serious proportions, and at New Year 1948 the Indian government filed a formal complaint with the UN Security Council, accusing Pakistan of giving help to the Muslim insurgents.
Despite repeated attempts by the Security Council to obtain a truce in the troubled area, fighting continued throughout 1948. The peacemaking efforts of the Security Council finally met with success at New Year 1949, when both India and Pakistan accepted proposals for a plebiscite, under the auspices of the UN, on the political future of Kashmėr. Cease-fire orders were issued by the two governments on the same day. Among other things, the UN plan provided for the withdrawal of combat troops from the state, for the return of refugees desirous of participating in the plebiscite, and for a free and impartial vote under the direction of a "personality of high international standing." In March UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie appointed U.S. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz administrator of the Kashmėr plebiscite, scheduled for later in 1949.
Meanwhile both the Union of India and Pakistan had suffered the loss of outstanding leaders and the Indian government had become embroiled in a dispute with the nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur. Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic on January 30, 1948, and Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, died the following September. The tension between the Indian government and Hyderabad, inhabited preponderantly by Hindus, resulted from the reluctance of the nizam, a Muslim, to bring his state into the Union. Protracted negotiations for a peaceful solution of the dispute ended in failure and on September 17 Indian forces occupied Hyderabad, the capital city, ending the nizam's resistance. The ruler subsequently signed instruments of accession making Hyderabad part of the Union of India.
Although India and Pakistan agreed (July 1949) on a line demarcating their respective zones of occupation in Kashmėr, the two nations were unable to reconcile basic differences on the terms of the proposed plebiscite. The deadlock was primarily due to Indian insistence that Pakistani troops be withdrawn from the disputed territory before the plebiscite and to Pakistan's refusal to withdraw its troops unless the Indians also withdrew theirs.
