Essays

With increasing intrusion of aliens in their lives, it was natural that nationalist feelings began to be articulated by an increasing number of Indians. A group of middle class Indians formed the Indian National Congress (1885) - a society of English – educated affluent professionals - to seek reforms from the British. The British did not respond adequately to the legitimate demands of the Indians and this resulted in growing resentment against them.

By the last decade of the 19th Century a younger, more militant generation of Indians had begun to assert their birthright to independence. The Indian National Congress inevitably changed under the constant pressure exerted by men like Bal Gangadhar Tilak from Maharashtra. In Bengal too, there was a fiery group of revolutionaries who maintained that violence was the only language the foreigners understood.

The partition of Bengal, announced by Lord Curzon in 1905, triggered a political earthquake - people rose in revolt en masse and forced the withdrawal of the ill-advised plan. The mass movement brought out the widespread love for India and things Indian - Swadeshi - and reinforced communal harmony. Foreign produce was boycotted and a bonfire of imported clothes became the characteristic feature of protest.

The anticolonial struggle became truly a mass movement with the arrival of Gandhi in 1915. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 -1948) had suffered great humiliation in South Africa due to the policy of racial discrimination and was committed to rid his motherland of the ills of foreign rule. While practicing as an attorney in South Africa, Gandhi had read widely and contemplated deeply. After having acquainted himself with the ground reality in India he devised a unique strategy for India's freedom struggle. Laying equal emphasis on the ends and means, he told his compatriots to accept non-violence as their creed and civil disobedience as their invincible weapon.

Gandhi had a unique gift for dramatic manipulation of symbols as well as a charismatic personality. It was not long, before he galvanised the masses in the fight against the British. Almost all the major leaders in the national movement accepted him as their mentor. He conceived and led the Non-cooperation Movement in 1922, the Salt Satyagraha in 1930 that climaxed in the Dandi March and the Quit India Movement in 1942 with its stirring battle cry - Do or Die - shaking the roots of the British empire.

Even revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad, who disagreed with the philosophy of non-violence, respected Gandhi Ji. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, who organised the Indian National Army (1943) m South East Asia during the Second World War to liberate India, also sought his blessings before starting his military campaign. Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Jaiprakash Narayan, Vallabhbhai Patel followed Gandhi's commands as disciplined soldiers of the Congress party.

After a long and arduous round of constitutional negotiations and in the face of the determined struggle of the Indian people, the British agreed to transfer power on 15th August 1947(the date is commemorated as Independence Day).

But with freedom came the division of the country - a partition (leading to the creation of Pakistan) that brought in its wake unprecedented death and devastation. Undeterred, millions of Indians continued their endeavour to build the nation.