The Non-Cooperation Movement

Part 1

The year 1919 marks an important and definite stage in the Freedom Struggle. It was important for the emergence of Gandhi as a force in Indian politics. From that time onwards, for the next quarter of a century Indian politics was almost entirely dominated by Gandhi. A radically different approach was ushered into Indian politics and a totally different direction was given, the consequences of which are being felt even today. At the same time certain important events that had a direct bearing on the Freedom Movement took place. These are:

1. The Rowlatt Bill and the Jallianwalabagh massacre
2. The passing of the Government of India Act on the basis of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report
3. The emergence of the Pan-Islamic movement in the Khilafat agitation.

Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869 in a well-to-do family at Porbandar in Gujarat. In 1888, he proceeded to England and qualified himself for the Bar. In 1893, he moved over to South Africa and it was there, a few years later, that he started the movement of Satyagraha to fight against the unjust treatment meted out to Indians by the South African Government. In 1915, he returned to India and established a Satyagraha Ashram on the banks of the Sabarmati River. During the next couple of years (1916-18), he participated in two peasant movements in the districts of Champaran in Bihar and in Kaira in Gujarat.  It was here that he put the Satyagraha into practice. In 1919, Gandhi persuaded the Indian National Congress to mount a campaign in support of the Khilafat projecting it as united India’s national demand. This was done in exchange for the support of the Muslims in India. The combined assault snow balled into the Khilafat Non-Cooperation-Movement and catapulted Gandhi into the forefront of the Congress as the logical successor to Tilak who had died in August 1920. It is generally believed that Gandhi was an outsider to Indian politics when he arrived in 1915 from South Africa. However, his activities in South Africa were keenly watched and he was quite well known in India. Between 1915 and 1920, Gandhi moved from the periphery to the centre of Indian politics. In 1921, when the Non-cooperation movement began, Gandhi was chosen as its supreme commander. By 1921 the Gandhian alternative had fully emerged. Before we study the Gandhian alternative, let us take a brief look at some of the events of the time.

The Rowlatt Act

The Government drew up and published two bills on January 18,1919, one seeking to alter the Penal Code providing greater and stricter control over the Press and the other empowering the government to short-circuit the due process of the law so as to check terrorist activities. This Act had ignited the smouldering discontent of the   people into open defiance of lawmakers and their authority. The people of Punjab in particular were incensed by this Act as they had contributed liberally to the First World War and reacted strongly to the restrictive nature of the new legislation. There was a violent reaction, which led to attacks on public as well as private property. The civil government then handed over the administration to the military authorities under Brigadier General Dyer. On 13 April a meeting was called in Jallianwala Bagh to protest against the ban, which Dyer had imposed on political activity. As the crowd gathered, Dyer marched in and without warning opened fire into the crowd. The crowd in a frantic effort tried to run towards the exits. Imagining that they were rushing towards him, Dyer ordered his troops to direct their fire against them. Approximately 20,000 people were caught beneath the hail of bullets. The firing, which lasted for over 10 minutes, stopped only when the ammunition ran out. This incident was not an isolated one. In fact, the Punjab was treated as more or less newly conquered territory and a message was sent to the people not to dare or threaten the British Government.

The August Declaration of 1917 had assured that there would be a gradual transfer of authority to Indian hands.  As a result the Montagu-Chelsmford reforms were announced in 1919. Without going into the details of these proposals, it will be enough to say that the majority of Congressmen considered them inadequate, disappointing and unsatisfactory. After initially being inclined to make the reforms work, the Congress led by Gandhi rejected the proposals and adopted the resolution of Non-Cooperation. However the Moderates accepted them and left the Congress to found the Indian Liberal Federation.

The Khilafat Movement (1919-23)

Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War, the Allies were loudly proclaiming their sympathy for smaller and weaker nations. Worried that Turkey might join the Germans in the War, the British government in order to win its support gave assurances of sympathetic treatment at the end of the war. The British Prime Minister, Llyod George publicly declared on January 5 1918, that the Allies were “not fighting to deprive Turkey of the rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor and Thrace, which are predominantly Turkish in race”. And President Wilson too endorsed this view in his message to the Congress. These specific assurances by leading statesmen of Allied countries led the Indian Muslims to believe that whatever happened in the War, the independence of Turkey and her territorial integrity -so far at least as her Asiatic dominions were concerned - would be maintained. But all these hopes were doomed to disappointment by the terms of the Armistice and the Treaty of Sevres in August 1920, after the end of the War. Thrace was presented to Greece, and the Asiatic portions of the Turkish Empire were put under the control of England and France in the guise of Mandates. While Turkey was dispossessed of her homelands, her ruler, the Sultan was deprived of all real authority even in the remaining dominions as he was placed under the authority of a High Commission appointed by the Allied Powers who really ruled the country under his name. The Muslims of India regarded this as a great betrayal on the part of the British; a storm of indignation broke out and seething with rage they yearned for bold action. This was the beginning of the Pan Islamic movement and it gathered force in the year 1919. The All India Muslim League, led by the brothers Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali launched an agitation for the Khilafat movement and they got the full support of Gandhi. In supporting the Khilafat movement, Gandhi saw “an opportunity of uniting Hindus and Muslims as would not arise in another hundred years”.

Thus was launched the Non-cooperation campaign and Gandhi emerged as the party’s undisputed leader. Gandhi described this movement as ‘a state of peaceful rebellion’ and called for defiance of ‘every single state made law’. The objective was two-fold: first, to raise a fund of Rs 1 crore to finance the country’s non-cooperation movement and secondly to enroll a volunteer corps of one crore members to help promote various boycotts – social, educational, legal and economic. There was to be boycott of law courts and lawyers; of schools and colleges owned by the Government; of elections to the Central Legislative Assemblies and Provincial Councils; of honours, titles and official functions. At the same time Swadeshi was to be encouraged. The use of khaddar was to be encouraged and drinking of liquor was prohibited.

The Movement evoked a tremendous public response. CR Das, Motilal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Rajagopalchari and Jawaharlal Nehru all left their lucrative practice as lawyers. Subhas Bose quit his career in the Indian Civil Service. A large number of students left schools and colleges and politicians refused to contest elections. The boycott of foreign cloth adversely affected the import of British goods and there was a fall in the excise revenues. By mid-July, the Non-Cooperation Movement had roused the people to fever heat and there was tremendous enthusiasm and expectation all over the country. This was accentuated by the promise of Gandhi to bring Swaraj within one year. When the Prince of Wales visited India in November 1921, there were huge popular demonstrations against him and over 30,000 people were imprisoned. The campaign against the use of foreign cloth provided Gandhi with the opportunity to develop the mystique of the spinning wheel. This became a cardinal tenet in his ideology, in fact almost an obsession. This was to be at once a manual exercise, a spiritual exercise and the means of freeing India from the capitalist exploitation. Gandhi, however, decided to confine the movement to Bardoli, a small district of 87,000 people. But even this was suspended on account of an outbreak of mob violence at Chauri Chaura, a small village near Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. In this incident a police station was burnt and twenty-two policemen killed. The decision to suspend the movement was received with feelings of dismay all over the country; senior Congressmen were totally taken aback but despite that, the Congress Working Committee endorsed it on 12^th February 1922. As a result, the whole movement collapsed and was revived later only after several years.

As already seen, Gandhi first began his experiments in local areas like Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad. Those activities brought him countrywide fame as a powerful leader. It was through the Rowlatt Satyagraha that he made his entry into national
politics. Gandhi effectively utilized the Khilafat issue and the Punjab “wrong” to advance his political standing.

The acceptance of Gandhi into mainstream politics was not complete and unquestioned. The national leaders were keenly aware of the fact that Non-cooperation would jeopardize council entry. Yet they finally yielded to Gandhi and accepted his plan of action because circumstances forced their hands. Gandhi’s intervention in Indian politics since the Rowlatt Satyagraha emerged as the all-important factor. Since then it seemed to determine the course of mainstream politics. How does one explain the events of 1919-22?Perhaps it was because of expectation. There was expectation in the air. The public expected from him a miracle. In 1920-21, all eyes were fixed on Gandhi. The promise of swaraj in one year cast a spell. Even the revolutionaries were willing to suspend activity for a year. Gandhi’s immense popularity had made him almost irresistible. The government did not know what to do with him. At the same time he was an embarrassment to some of the Indian leaders. He was not planning to capture the Congress and turn it to his will but his attitude changed sharply after the release of the Hunter Commission report in May 1920 on the Punjab incidents. This was something, which Gandhi could not bear. He came out openly against council entry. The die was cast. Gandhi made up his mind to launch Satyagraha. Gandhi knew that he had to take the Congress along with him. To get the Congress to pass the right resolutions was a practical problem. Gandhi overcame this by using the Khilafat plank and the Punjab atrocities. He thus became the supreme leader.

But at the same time it must be admitted that Gandhi’s calculations went wrong. Satyagraha did not bring about swaraj in one year. People did not remain non-violent. The Hindu-Muslim entente did not take place. When violence erupted, Gandhi suspended the movement and finally called it off to the great dismay of his followers and onlookers. Gandhi’s action came in for attack from all sides. It seemed that the Gandhian style of politics was discredited though not altogether discarded. After the collapse of the Non-cooperation movement, the unity of mainstream politics was broken. Non-cooperation failed, but it broke the spell of fear of British authority among the common people. The British in India had lost the mandate of history.

The Non-Cooperation Movement

Part 2

As we have seen in the previous chapter, Gandhi introduced a completely new style of politics. It is necessary to analyze this in some detail for it has in a big way influenced the later history of the Freedom Movement as well as independent India. The Non-Cooperation Movement led by Gandhi was based on three planks.

        The total boycott of the British by the method of Satyagraha

       The movement was to be totally non-violent

        The plank of Hindu-Muslim unity.

In order to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity, Gandhi supported the Khilafat movement, a movement that had nothing to do with Indian Nationalism. It thus encouraged the Pan-Islamic sentiment and went against the very grain of Indian Nationalism.The Pan-Islamic sentiment behind the Khilafat movement was clearly indicated by the mass migration of Muslims from India to Afghanistan. This planned movement known as hijrat started in Sindh and gradually spread to NWFP. It was estimated that in the month of August 1920, nearly 18,000 people were on their way to Afghanistan. But unfortunately for the Khilafat movement the Afghan Government which was inspired more by national than Pan-Islamic sentiment forbade the admission of the Indian Muhajirs to Afghanistan. This was a severe blow to the Khilafat Movement. Soon, the British Government arrested the Ali brothers. The Hindu-Muslim alliance, founded as it was on a momentary hostility towards the British, could not long endure. As already seen, after the arrest of the Ali brothers, Gandhi, seized upon an incident at Chauri Chaura, a remote village in the U.P., to call off the movement. Then, Turkey herself took the fateful decision to abolish the institution of Khilafat in March 1924. Mustapha Kemal, whose Nationalist forces deposed the Sultan in November 1922, proclaimed Turkey a republic a year later and finally abolished the office of the Caliph early March 1924. The Khilafat movement in India thus died a natural death; but it had encouraged and succeeded in strengthening the Indian Muslims sense of separateness. This Turkish decision robbed the movement of its raison d'etre and the Khilafat movement came to an end with the Muslims sinking to a state of utter despondency and helplessness. But the movement mobilized the Muslims politically at the grass root level for the first time, and this experience came in handy later during the subsequent Pakistan movement. Since the Khilafat movement was launched for the advancement of an Islamic cause, it helped strengthen their Islamic sensibilities and orientation and quickened their communal consciousness. This sense of separateness finally led to the formation of Pakistan.

It will be of interest to note the role of the Ali brothers in the Khilafat movement. The Ali brothers in their speeches emphasized the interests of the Indian Muslims with the Muslims everywhere in the world whether in Tripoli or Algeria in preference to those of the Hindus. When there were rumours that the Amir of Afghanistan might invade India, Mohamed Ali said: “If the Afghans invade India to wage holy war, the Indian Muslms are not only bound to join them but also to fight the Hindus if they refuse to cooperate with them”. Gandhi also said: “I claim that with us both the Khilafat is the central fact; with Maulana Mohamed Ali because it is his religion, with me, because in laying down my life for the Khilafat, I ensure the safety of the cow, that is my religion, from the knife of the Muslim”. It is thus evident that the Hindu-Muslim split had been fostered and encouraged by the policies of the Congress. It also signaled the beginning of the policy of appeasement of the Muslims by the Congress party.

Let us see what Sri Aurobindo has to say: “What has created the Hindu-Muslim split was not Swadeshi, but the acceptance of the communal principle by the Congress, (here Tilak made his great blunder), and the further attempt by the Khilafat movement to conciliate them and bring them in on wrong lines. The recognition of that communal principle at Lucknow made them permanently a separate political entity in India, which ought never to have happened; the Khilafat affair made that separate political entity an organised separate political power. It was not Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education, Swaraj (our platform) which made this tremendous division, how could it? Tilak …was responsible for it not by that, but by his support of the Lucknow affair - for the rest, Gandhi did it with the help of his Ali brothers”.

During the height of the Khilafat agitation, which had for its aim the Hindu-Muslim rapprochement, the country was rocked by some of the worst communal riots in Kerala. These riots known as the Moplah Riots took place in August 1921 and sent shock waves throughout India. The Hindus were butchered and the expected harmony between the Hindus and Muslims did not materialize. But neither Gandhi nor the Congress party made any critical reference to the killing of Hindus; the façade of Hindu-Muslim unity had to be maintained and anything that would displease the Muslims had to be avoided. This is another instance of appeasement of the Muslims.

It will be worthwhile noting what Sri Aurobindo had written as early as in 1909 regarding the Hindu-Muslim problem:

“Of one thing we may be certain, that Hindu-Muslim unity cannot be effected by political adjustments or Congress flatteries. It must be sought deeper down in the heart and in the mind, for where the causes of disunion are there the remedies must be sought. We shall do well in trying to solve the problem to remember that misunderstanding is the most fruitful cause of our differences, that love compels love and that strength conciliates the strong. We must strive to remove the causes of misunderstanding by a better mutual knowledge and sympathy; we must extend the unfaltering love of the patriot to our Mussulman brother, remembering always that in him too Narayana dwells and to him too our Mother has given a permanent place in her bosom; but we must cease to approach him falsely or flatter out of a selfish weakness and cowardice. We believe this to be the only practical way of dealing with the difficulty. As a political question the Hindu-Muslim problem does not interest us at all, as a national problem it is of supreme importance. We shall make it a main part of our work to place Mohammed and Islam in a new light before our readers to spread juster views of Mohammedan history and civilization, to appreciate the Musulman's place in our national development and the means of harmonizing his communal life with our own, not ignoring the difficulties that stand in the way of the possibilities of brotherhood and mutual understanding. Intellectual sympathy can only draw together, the sympathy of the heart can alone unite. But the one is a good preparation for the other.”

Another striking feature of the Gandhian politics was the erection of non-violence to a creed. In 1906, when Passive resistance was started in Bengal, non-violence was a tactic to be adopted in the then prevailing conditions. The conditions were not ready for any kind of violence. But it was never turned into a creed and dogma to be followed in all circumstances. It was this approach that led to the calling off of the Non-Cooperation Movement. The leaders of the Congress Party resented it. Here is Jawaharlal Nehru’s comment on the suspension of the movement by Gandhi:

“We were angry when we learned of this stoppage of our struggle at a time when we seemed to be consolidating our position and advancing on all fronts… The sudden suspension of our movement after the Chauri Chaura incident was resented, I think, by almost all the Congress leaders – other than Gandhiji, of course. My father (who was in jail at the time) was much upset by it. The younger people were even more agitated. Our mounting hopes tumbled to the ground and this mental reaction was to be expected. What troubled us even more were the reasons given for this suspension and the consequences that seemed to flow from them. Chauri Chaura may have been and was a deplorable occurrence and wholly opposed to the spirit of the non-violent movement, but were a remote village and a mob of excited peasants in an out-of-way place going to put an end, for some time at least, to our national struggle for freedom? If this was the inevitable consequence of a sporadic act of violence, then surely there was something lacking in the philosophy and technique of a non-violent struggle?  For it seemed to us to be impossible to guarantee against the occurrence of some such untoward incident. Must we train the three hundred odd millions of India in the theory of non-violent action before we could go forward? And even so how many of us could say that under extreme provocation from the police we would be able to remain perfect peaceful. But even if we succeeded, what of the numerous agents provocateurs, stool pigeons and the like who crept into our movement and indulged in violence themselves or induced others to do so? If this was the sole condition of its function, then the non-violent method of resistance would always fail”.

And yet, most unfortunately, the Congress accepted Gandhi’s decision. This trend was to continue right through the Freedom Movement.

It will be quite relevant to note some remarks regarding the method of Satyagraha applied by Gandhi. Here is what Sri Aurobindo has to say about the method of Satyagraha. “I believe Gandhi does not know what actually happens to the man's nature when he takes to Satyagraha or non-violence. He thinks that men get purified by it. But when men suffer, or subject themselves to voluntary suffering, what happens is that their vital being gets strengthened. These movements affect the vital being only and not any other part. Now, when you cannot oppose the force that oppresses, you say that you will suffer. That suffering is vital and it gives strength. When the man who has thus suffered gets power he becomes a worse oppressor....

What one can do is to transform the spirit of violence. But in this practice of Satyagraha it is not transformed. When you insist on such a one-sided principle, what happens is that cant, hypocrisy and dishonesty get in and there is no purification at all. Purification can come by the transformation of the impulse of violence, as I said. In that respect the old system in India was much better: the man who had the fighting spirit became the Kshatriya and then the fighting spirit was raised above the ordinary vital influence. The attempt was to spiritualise it. It succeeded in doing what passive resistance cannot and will not achieve. The Kshatriya was the man who would not allow any oppression, who would fight it out and he was the man who would not oppress anybody. That was the ideal”.

Another point to note regarding the leadership of Gandhi, was that the Congress party despite not agreeing with him, still followed him without any serious discussion. The democratic process was the casualty; unfortunately this seems to have been one of the shortcomings of the Congress till recent times.

Despite these serious shortcomings, the Non-Cooperation Movement had the following positive effects:

•         There was a general awakening of the masses to their political rights and privileges.
•         The total loss of faith in the existing system of government
•         The belief that only through our own efforts could India hope to be free
•         The faith in the Congress as the organization, which could direct the national effort to gain freedom.
•         The utter failure of repression to cow down the people.

The most outstanding feature of the movement was the willingness of people to endure to a remarkable degree the hardships and punishments inflicted by the Government. In addition two other undeniable facts emerge: The first was that the Congress had really become a mass movement and secondly the Congress party was almost overnight turned into a revolutionary party. It was no longer a merely deliberative organisation; it had become an organised fighting party pledged to action and revolution – even though a kind of non-violent revolution. Unfortunately as we shall see in the later chapters, the revolution was directed neither on sound political lines nor on a deep understanding of Indian culture.

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