On the occasion of India's divine ceremony on 15th August we should be well known regarding India's struggle towards Independence. Hence, lets know about India's freedom struggle.
Indian
Freedom Struggle (1857-1947)
In ancient times, people from all over the world
were keen to come to India. The Aryans came from Central Europe and settled
down in India.The Persians followed by the Iranians and Parsis immigrated to
India. Then came the Moghuls and they too settled down permanently in India.
Chengis Khan, the Mongolian, invaded and looted India many times. Alexander the
Great too, came to conquer India but went back after a battle with Porus. He-en
Tsang from China came in pursuit of knowledge and to visit the ancient Indian
universities of Nalanda and Takshila. Columbus wanted to come to India, but
instead landed on the shores of America. Vasco da Gama from Portugal came to
trade his country's goods in return for Indian spices. The French came and
established their colonies in India.
Lastly, the Britishers came and ruled over India
for nearly 200 years. After the battle of Plassey in 1757, the British achieved
political power in India. And their paramountcy was established during the
tenure of Lord Dalhousie, who became the Governor- General in 1848. He annexed
Punjab, Peshawar and the Pathan tribes in the north-west of India. And by 1856,
the British conquest and its authority were firmly established. And while the
British power gained its heights during the middle of the 19th century,
the discontent of the local rulers, the peasantry, the intellectuals, common
masses as also of the soldiers who became unemployed due to the disbanding of
the armies of various states that were annexed by the British, became
widespread. This soon broke out into a revolt which assumed the dimensions of
the 1857 Mutiny.
The Indian Mutiny of 1857
The conquest of India, which could be said to have
begun with the Battle of Plassey (1757), was practically completed by the end
of Dalhousie's tenure in 1856. It had been by no means a smooth affair as the
simmering discontent of the people manifested itself in many localized revolt
during this period. However, the Mutiny of 1857, which began with a revolt of
the military soldiers at Meerut, soon became widespread and posed a grave
challenge to the British rule. Even though the British succeeded in crushing it
within a year, it was certainly a popular revolt in which the Indian rulers,
the masses and the militia participated so enthusiastically that it came to be
regarded as the First War of Indian Independence.
Introduction of zamindari system by the British,
where the peasants were ruined through exorbitant charges made from them by the
new class of landlords. The craftsmen were destroyed by the influx of the
British manufactured goods. The religion and the caste system which formed the
firm foundation of the traditional Indian society was endangered by the British
administration. The Indian soldiers as well as people in administration could
not rise in hierarchy as the senior jobs were reserved for the Europeans. Thus,
there was all-round discontent and disgust against the British rule, which
burst out in a revolt by the 'sepoys' at Meerut whose religious sentiments were
offended when they were given new cartridges greased with cow and pig fat,
whose covering had to be stripped out by biting with the mouth before using
them in rifles. The Hindu as well as the Muslim soldiers, who refused to use
such cartridges, were arrested which resulted in a revolt by their fellow
soldiers on May 9, 1857.
The rebel forces soon captured Delhi and the revolt
spread to a wider area and there was uprising in almost all parts of the
country. The most ferocious battles were fought in Delhi, Awadh, Rohilkhand,
Bundelkhand, Allahabad, Agra, Meerut and western Bihar. The rebellious forces
under the commands of Kanwar Singh in Bihar and Bakht Khan in Delhi gave a
stunning blow to the British. In Kanpur, Nana Sahib was proclaimed as the
Peshwa and the brave leader Tantya Tope led his troops. Rani Lakshmibai was
proclaimed the ruler of Jhansi who led her troops in the heroic battles with
the British. The Hindus, the Muslims, the Sikhs and all the other brave sons of
India fought shoulder to shoulder to throw out the British. The revolt was
controlled by the British within one year, it began from Meerut on 10 May 1857
and ended in Gwalior on 20 June 1858.
End of the East India Company
Consequent to the failure of the Revolt of 1857
rebellion, one also saw the end of the East India Company's rule in India and
many important changes took place in the British Government's policy towards
India which sought to strengthen the British rule through winning over the
Indian princes, the chiefs and the landlords. Queen Victoria's Proclamation of
November 1, 1858 declared that thereafter India would be governed by and in the
name of the British Monarch through a Secretary of State.
The Governor General was given title of Viceroy,
which meant the representative of the Monarch. Queen Victoria assumed the title
of the Empress of India and thus gave the British Government unlimited powers
to intervene in the internal affair of the Indian states. In brief, the British
paramountcy over India, including the Indian States, was firmly established.
The British gave their support to the loyal princes, zamindar and local chiefs
but neglected the educated people and the common masses. They also promoted the
other interests like those of the British merchants, industrialists, planters
and civil servants. The people of India, as such, did not have any say in running
the government or formulation of its policies. Consequently, people's disgust
with the British rule kept mounting, which gave rise to the birth of Indian
National Movement.
The leadership of the freedom movement passed into
the hands of reformists like Raja Rammohan Roy, Bankim Chandra and Ishwar
Chandra Vidyasagar. During this time, the binding psychological concept of
National Unity was also forged in the fire of the struggle against a common
foreign oppressor.
Raja Rammohan Roy (1772-1833) founded the Brahmo
Samaj in 1828 which aimed at purging the society of all its evil practices. He
worked for eradicating evils like sati, child marriage and purdah system,
championed widow marriage and women's education and favoured English system of
education in India. It was through his effort that sati was declared a legal
offence by the British.
Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) the disciple of
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, established the Ramkrishna Mission at Belur in 1897.
He championed the supremacy of Vedantic philosophy. His talk at the Chicago
(USA) Conference of World Religions in 1893 made the westerners realize the
greatness of Hinduism for the first time.
Formation of Indian National
Congress (INC)
The foundations of the Indian National Movement
were laid by Suredranath Banerjee with the formation of Indian Association at
Calcutta in 1876. The aim of the Association was to represent the views of the
educated middle class, inspire the Indian community to take the value of united
action. The Indian Association was, in a way, the forerunner of the Indian
National Congress, which was founded, with the help of A.O. Hume, a retired
British official. The birth of Indian National Congress (INC) in 1885 marked
the entry of new educated middle-class into politics and transformed the Indian
political horizon. The first session of the Indian National Congress was held
in Bombay in December 1885 under the president ship of Womesh Chandra Banerjee
and was attended among others by and Badr-uddin-Tyabji.
At the turn of the century, the freedom movement
reached out to the common unlettered man through the launching of the
"Swadeshi Movement" by leaders such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak and
Aurobindo Ghose. The Congress session at Calcutta in 1906, presided by Dadabhai
Naoroji, gave a call for attainment of 'Swaraj' a type of self-government
elected by the people within the British Dominion, as it prevailed in Canada
and Australia, which were also the parts of the British Empire.
Meanwhile, in 1909, the British Government
announced certain reforms in the structure of Government in India which are
known as Morley-Minto Reforms. But these reforms came as a disappointment as
they did not mark any advance towards the establishment of a representative
Government. The provision of special representation of the Muslim was seen as a
threat to the Hindu-Muslim unity on which the strength of the National Movement
rested. So, these reforms were vehemently opposed by all the leaders, including
the Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Subsequently, King George V made two
announcements in Delhi: firstly, the partition of Bengal, which had been
effected in 1905, was annulled and, secondly, it was announced that the capital
of India was to be shifted from Calcutta to Delhi.
The disgust with the reforms announced in 1909 led
to the intensification of the struggle for Swaraj. While, on one side, the
activists led by the great leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai
and Bipin Chandra Pal waged a virtual war against the British, on the other
side, the revolutionaries stepped up their violent activities There was a
widespread unrest in the country. To add to the already growing discontent
among the people, Rowlatt Act was passed in 1919, which empowered the
Government to put people in jail without trial. This caused widespread
indignation, led to massive demonstration and hartals, which the Government
repressed with brutal measures like the Jaliawalla Bagh massacre, where
thousand of unarmed peaceful people were gunned down on the order of General Dyer.
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
Jalianwala Bagh massacre of April 13, 1919 was one
of the most inhuman acts of the British rulers in India. The people of Punjab
gathered on the auspicious day of Baisakhi at Jalianwala Bagh, adjacent to
Golden Temple (Amritsar), to lodge their protest peacefully against persecution
by the British Indian Government. General Dyer appeared suddenly with his armed
police force and fired indiscriminately at innocent empty handed people leaving
hundreds of people dead, including women and children.
After the First World War (1914-1918), Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi became the undisputed leader of the Congress. During this
struggle, Mahatma Gandhi had developed the novel technique of non-violent
agitation, which he called 'Satyagraha', loosely translated as 'moral
domination'. Gandhi, himself a devout Hindu, also espoused a total moral
philosophy of tolerance, brotherhood of all religions, non-violence (ahimsa)
and of simple living. With this, new leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash
Chandra Bose also emerged on the scene and advocated the adoption of complete
independence as the goal of the National Movement.
The Non-Cooperation Movement
The Non-Cooperation Movement was pitched in under leadership
of Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress from September 1920 to
February 1922, marking a new awakening in the Indian Independence Movement.
After a series of events including the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, Gandhiji
realised that there was no prospect of getting any fair treatment at the hands
of British, so he planned to withdraw the nation's co-operation from the
British Government, thus launching the Non-Cooperation Movement and thereby
marring the administrative set up of the country. This movement was a great
success as it got massive encouragement to millions of Indians. This movement
almost shook the British authorities.
Simon Commission
The Non-cooperation movement failed. Therefore
there was a lull in political activities. The Simon Commission was sent to
India in 1927 by the British Government to suggest further reforms in the
structure of Indian Government. The Commission did not include any Indian
member and the Government showed no intention of accepting the demand for Swaraj.
Therefore, it sparked a wave of protests all over the country and the Congress
as well as the Muslim League gave a call to boycott it under the leadership of
Lala Lajpat Rai. The crowds were lathi charged and Lala Lajpat Rai, also called
Sher-e-Punjab (Lion of Punjab) died of the blows received in an agitation.
Civil Disobedience Movement
Mahatma Gandhi led the Civil Disobedience Movement
that was launched in the Congress Session of December 1929. The aim of this
movement was a complete disobedience of the orders of the British Government.
During this movement it was decided that India would celebrate 26th January
as Independence Day all over the country. On 26th January 1930,
meetings were held all over the country and the Congress tricolour was hoisted.
The British Government tried to repress the movement and resorted to brutal
firing, killing hundreds of people. Thousands were arrested along with Gandhiji
and Jawaharlal Nehru. But the movement spread to all the four corners of the
country Following this, Round Table Conferences were arranged by the British
and Gandhiji attended the second Round Table Conference at London. But nothing
came out of the conference and the Civil Disobedience Movement was revived.
During this time, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru
were arrested on the charges of throwing a bomb in the Central Assembly Hall
(which is now Lok Sabha) in Delhi, to demonstrate against the autocratic alien
rule. They were hanged to death on March 23, 1931.
Quit India Movement
In August 1942, Gandhiji started the 'Quit India
Movement' and decided to launch a mass civil disobedience movement 'Do or Die'
call to force the British to leave India. The movement was followed,
nonetheless, by large-scale violence directed at railway stations, telegraph
offices, government buildings, and other emblems and institutions of colonial
rule. There were widespread acts of sabotage, and the government held Gandhi
responsible for these acts of violence, suggesting that they were a deliberate
act of Congress policy. However, all the prominent leaders were arrested, the
Congress was banned and the police and army were brought out to suppress the
movement.
Meanwhile, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, who
stealthily ran away from the British detention in Calcutta, reached foreign
lands and organized the Indian National Army (INA) to overthrow the British
from India.
The Second World War broke out in September of 1939
and without consulting the Indian leaders, India was declared a warring state
(on behalf of the British) by the Governor General. Subhash Chandra Bose, with
the help of Japan, preceded fighting the British forces and not only freed
Andaman and Nicobar Islands from the Britishers but also entered the
north-eastern border of India. But in 1945 Japan was defeated and Netaji
proceeded from Japan through an aeroplane to a place of safety but met with an
accident and it was given out that he died in that air-crash itself.
"Give me blood and I shall give you
freedom" - was one of the most popular statements made by him, where he
urges the people of India to join him in his freedom movement.
Partition of India and Pakistan
At the conclusion of the Second World War, the
Labour Party, under Prime Minister Clement Richard Attlee, came to power in
Britain. The Labour Party was largely sympathetic towards Indian people for
freedom. A Cabinet Mission was sent to India in March 1946, which after a
careful study of the Indian political scenario, proposed the formation of an
interim Government and convening of a Constituent Assembly comprising members
elected by the provincial legislatures and nominees of the Indian states. An
interim Government was formed headed by Jawaharlal Nehru. However, the Muslim
League refused to participate in the deliberations of the Constituent Assembly
and pressed for the separate state for Pakistan. Lord Mountbatten, the Viceroy
of India, presented a plan for the division of India into India and Pakistan,
and the Indian leaders had no choice but to accept the division, as the Muslim
League was adamant.
Thus, India became free at the stroke of midnight,
on August 14, 1947. (Since then, every year India celebrates its Independence
Day on 15th August). Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime
Minster of free India and continued his term till 1964. Giving voice to the
sentiments of the nation, Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said,
Long
years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we will redeem
our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the
stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life
and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step
out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation,
long suppressed, finds utterance.... We end today a period of ill fortune, and
India discovers herself again.
Earlier, a Constituent Assembly was formed in July
1946, to frame the Constitution of India and Dr. Rajendra Prasad was
elected its President. The Constitution of India which was adopted by the
Constituent Assembly on 26th November 1949. On January 26,
1950, the Constitution was came into force and Dr. Rajendra Prasad
was elected the first President of India.
