Impact of World War I on Indian Freedom Movement - Study Notes

Lesson summary

Events before the First World War, such as Japan's defeat of Russia in 1905, the Young Turks in 1908 and the Chinese nationalists in 1911, formed the background to Indian nationalism in 1916-1920. India contributed about 367 million pounds (229 million as direct cash, the rest as loans) and war materials worth 250 million pounds, causing economic distress and discontent. Indians who expected a reward for their loyalty were disappointed.

3.1 All India Home Rule League

• Annie Besant: Irish by birth; active in Irish home rule, Fabian socialist and birth control movements; joined the Theosophical Society and came to India in 1893; founded the Central Hindu College in Benaras (upgraded to Benaras Hindu University by Madan Mohan Malaviya in 1916); succeeded H.S. Olcott as international president of the Theosophical Society in 1907.
• Weekly The Commonweal (1914); book How India Wrought for Freedom (1915); daily New India (14 July 1915).
• Slogan: "The moment of England's difficulty is the moment of India's opportunity."
• 28 September 1915: formal declaration to start a Home Rule League on the lines of the Irish Home Rule League.
• December 1915 Bombay Congress session altered the constitution to admit the extremists.
• Twin objectives: Home Rule for India within the British Empire, and a sense of pride for the Motherland among the masses.

• Sir S. Subramaniam renounced his knighthood; Malaviya and Surendranath Banerjea joined; Tilak urged civil disobedience at the AICC meeting of 28 July 1917; Jamnadas Dwarkadas and Shankerlal Banker collected 1,000 signatures.
• 20 August 1917: Montagu declared responsible government the goal; Besant became a near-loyalist and was elected president of the Calcutta Congress, 1917.
• Importance: prepared ground for Gandhi's satyagraha; first movement to cut across sectarian lines.
• Decline: Besant accepted the Montagu-Chelmsford proposals; Tilak went to Britain in September 1918 for his libel case against Valentine Chirol (Indian Unrest).
• The Indian Home Rule League became the Commonwealth of India League and, under V.K. Krishna Menon, the India League in 1929.

3.2 Impact of the War

• Minto-Morley Reforms (1909) aimed to win the Moderates and the League; Jinnah joined the League in 1913.
• Ghadar Party: Lala Hardayal founded the Pacific Coast Hindustan Association in San Francisco in 1913, president Sohan Singh Bhakna; mostly immigrant Sikhs; journal Ghadar from 1 November 1913.
• Komagatamaru: ship of Indian immigrants turned back from Canada; passengers killed or arrested on return.
• October 1916 memorandum of elected members to the Viceroy; Congress and League met at Calcutta in November 1916.
• 1916 Lucknow: Congress, League and Home Rule League held sessions; A.C. Mazumdar welcomed back the extremists.

3.3 Lucknow Pact

• Provinces freed from central control; four-fifths of councils elected, one-fifth nominated; half the executive council members to be Indians elected by the councils.
• Separate electorates for Muslims, with weightage in all provinces except Punjab and Bengal.
• Governments bound by council resolutions; India to have equal status with the Dominions.
• Sarojini called Jinnah, its chief architect, "the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity".

3.4-3.5 Repression

• CID by Curzon (1903); Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act and Explosives Substances Act (1908); Indian Press Act (1910); Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act (1911); Foreigners Ordinance (1914).
• Defence of India Act, 1915: special tribunals of three Commissioners; death, transportation for life or up to ten years; trial in camera, no appeal; used in the First Lahore Conspiracy trial; basis of the Rowlatt Act.

3.6 Khilafat Movement

• The Sultan of Turkey (the Caliph) sided against the Allies. Treaty of Sevres: Syria and Lebanon to France; Palestine and Jordan British protectorates.
• Led by the Ali brothers; Azad, M.A. Ansari and others joined. Demands presented in Paris in March 1920.
• Gandhi returned his Kaisar-i-Hind, Zulu War and Boer War medals. Mappillais of Malabar turned it into an anti-landlord revolt.

3.7 Labour movement

• Early leaders: Sorabjee Shapoorji, N.M. Lokhanday, Sasipada Banerjee.
• Causes: post-war layoffs and prices, influenza, Bolshevik Revolution (1917), ILO.
• Madras Labour Union, 1918, B.P. Wadia; Buckingham and Carnatic Mills, Perambur.
• AITUC, Bombay, 30 October 1920: 64 unions, 140,854 members, chaired by Lala Lajpat Rai.
• Registered unions rose from 107 (1919-20) to 1833 (1946-47).