Changing Political Relationships, 1920-30

• Actions taken to adopt a peasant lifestyle

  • Discarded western clothes and began wearing Indian Dhoti
  • Began eating more sparingly as the peasants did
  • Walked everywhere he could
  • Began a routine of daily spinning
  • Believed to bring him into closer contact with millions of Indian peasants for whom spinning with a charkha was a daily task
• Mahatma


  A title given to Gandhi by the Indian people meaning 'Great Soul'
• Gandhi winning hearts and minds


  Believed in the journey of truth, wanted India to return to small traditional communities
• Indian masses identifying with Gandhi


  People call him Mahatma
• Indian masses began to identify not just with his ideas but also himself
• Consequences of Gandhi's methods


  • Popular appeal
• Factors propelling Gandhi to the forefront of Indian politics

  • Rowlatt Acts
  • Amritsar Massacre
  • Outcome of WW1 on Turkey
• Gandhi believed Britain no longer had the moral right to rule India
• Gandhi captured popular imagination through style of campaigning


  Combining spiritual strength with politics
• Gandhi as leader of Congress

  Gandhi leading the Indian National Congress
• Groups that challenged Gandhi's influence over Indian people


  • None
• Groups divided in which path to take

  • Members of Congress
• Groups that appeared as delegates supporting Gandhi


  • Members of social and religious groups previously exercised little influence at meetings of congress
• Gandhi and Congress urged all Indians to boycott elections to new legislative assemblies, hand back all titles and decorations awarded by Raj, remove children from government schools, refuse invitations to social events run by Raj, boycott the law courts, withhold taxes, refuse to buy imported goods, and leave all government posts
• Many areas of non-cooperation were realistic and could quite easily bring the machinery of government to a halt
• Some of the demands are completely unrealistic
• Gandhi dominated the proceedings and, by the force of his arguments, his ability to bind together Hindus and Muslims and by his sheer charisma, he persuaded the delegates to vote for his policy of non-cooperation with the Raj
• He did so by majority of just over two votes to one
• Increased popularity of Gandhi through his tactics of making India ungovernable
• Congress’s Non-Cooperation Campaign in action

  4th September 1920 - 4th February 1922
• Consequences of the campaign

  • Millions unwilling or unable to understand morality underpinning the concept of satyagraha
  • Violence broke out at different times in different provinces
  • In Bombay, a hartal turned into looting and rioting leaving 53 dead and hundreds injured
  • Satyagraha spiralling out of control
  • Some initial successes such as students boycotting exams, taxes not being paid, a large number not voting, and 200 lawyers stopping work
  • Matters came to a head in Feb 1922 when a mob torched a police station in Chauri Chaura, burning alive 22 Indian policemen
• Extending the Appeal of Congress: Membership

  • From base 100,000 2 million by 1921.
  • Analysis - Extended appeal to a wider geographical spread and began wooing interest groups previously neglected.
  • Opposition - Conservative members (for seeing Congress go from a pressure group to open defiance) and Muslim League (after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire).
• Gandhi’s Imprisonment ended


  January 1924
• Gandhi’s Imprisonment began


  10th March 1922
• By the end of the decade, members were poised to embark on the most extensive satyagraha to date- one that was to have profound effects on Indians and the Raj
• Congress

  An organisation with 3 administrative levels: Local branches, provincial committees and an all-indian congress committee
• Gandhi set up the All Indian Spinners Association


  Event
• Event

  Congruent with Gandhi's basic belief of dismantling state structures and returning to self-sufficient communities of the past
• Event

  • Intention of spreading word about hand spinning and weaving, promoting the general cause of self-sufficiency
• Gandhi began campaigning vigorously on behalf of 'untouchables' to enable them to enter fully into Indian society


  Event
• Consequences

  • Persuaded Congress to embark on campaigns of mass literacy and improvement of village sanitation
  • Seemed to abandon confrontational programmes of non-violence
  • Congress emerged as a responsible political party
• Young Hooligans

  • Context - Bose, Narayan and Nehru. they wanted renewed action instantly. Independence = ultimate aim and impatient with what they perceived to be Congress's reluctance to confront the Raj. 
  • Event - Congress had in fact for some time been discussing the limited independence and freedom which would come from dominion status.
  • Consequence - This the young hooligans fiercely opposed. It had to be full of independence.
• The Nehru report suggested the princely states and British India be joined in a federation
• Dominion status for India

  • Canada
  • Australia
• The Nehru report recommended dominion status for India
• The Nehru Report was written on 28th August 1928
• The Nehru report did not suggest further devolution of power to the provinces
• The Nehru report left the fragile Hindu-Muslim alliance unhappy
• Under the Nehru report, they would lose the protection of separate electorates
• Consequence

  • Congress left it to the working committee to decide how and when the non-violent confrontation was to begin
  • The working committee left the decision to Gandhi