unify North and South Vietnam and win the battle against US. These are extracts from his letters written to his wife fromthe scene of battle. They show how, in the nationalist imagination, personal love mingles with love for the country and thedesire for freedom. Sacrifice appears necessary for happiness.


Letter dated 6/1968


‘You ask me what “you miss most when you think of me?” I miss the environment of our wedding ... I miss the small cozyroom with lots of memories. I miss …


‘Right after our wedding I had to again leave to fight in order to protect the coastal areas of our country. What a short


time we had before I had to station permanently in the South. The more I think, the more I feel for you; therefore Iwould have to be more determined to protect the country in order to bring happiness for millions of couples like us …


‘Last night the car kept heading south. This morning I am writing to you sitting on a stone, surrounded by the sound of


streams and the rustle of trees, as if they were celebrating our happiness. Looking forward to the day when we can returnvictoriously. Then we could live in greater happiness, couldn’t we? Wish you good health and miss me always …’


‘Though you are always in my mind I have to focus on my work to contribute to the victory of the ongoing struggle ofour nation …


‘I have promised myself that only when the South is liberated and peace and happiness return to the people, only then


could I be free to focus on building our own happiness, only then I could be satisfied with our family life …’


- Hung, Dang Vuong,


(Letters Written during the War in Vietnam),  publication of Hoi nha


van (Writers’ Association), 2005. Translation by Nguen Quoc Anh.SourceSource C


Những lá thư thời chiến Việt Nam49


The Nationalist Movement in Indo-China7  The Nation and Its Heroes


Another way of looking at social movements is to see how they


affect different groups in society. Let us see how the roles of womenwere specified in the anti-imperialist movement in Vietnam, and


what that tells us about nationalist ideology.


7.1 Women as Rebels


Women in Vietnam traditionally enjoyed greater equality than in China,


particularly among the lower classes, but they had only limitedfreedom to determine their future and played no role in public life.


As the nationalist movement grew, the status of women came to be


questioned and a new image of womanhood emerged. Writers andpolitical thinkers began idealising women who rebelled against socialnorms. In the 1930s, a famous novel by Nhat Linh caused a scandalbecause it showed a woman leaving a forced marriage and marryingsomeone of her choice, someone who was involved in nationalistpolitics. This rebellion against social conventions marked the arrival


of the new woman in Vietnamese society.


7.2 Heroes of Past Times


Rebel women of the past were similarly celebrated. In 1913, the


nationalist Phan Boi Chau wrote a play based on the lives of theTrung sisters who had fought against Chinese domination in39-43


CE. In this play he depicted these sisters as patriots fighting to


save the Vietnamese nation from the Chinese. The actual reasons forthe revolt are a matter of debate among scholars, but after Phan’splay the Trung sisters came to be idealised and glorified. They weredepicted in paintings, plays and novels as representing the indomitablewill and the intense patriotism of the Vietnamese. We are told thatthey gathered a force of over 30,000, resisted the Chinese for two


years, and when ultimately defeated, they committed suicide, instead


of surrendering to the enemy.


Other women rebels of the past were  part of the popular nationalist


lore. One of the most venerated was Trieu Au who lived in thethird century


CE. Orphaned in childhood, she lived with her brother.


On growing up she left home, went into the jungles, organised alarge army and resisted Chinese rule. Finally, when her army was


Fig. 17 – Image of Trieu Au worshipped as a


sacred figure.Rebels who resisted Chinese rule continue to becelebrated.India and the Contemporary World


50crushed, she drowned herself. She became a sacred figure, not just a


martyr who fought for the honour of the country. Nationalistspopularised her image to inspire people to action.


7.3 Women as Warriors


In the 1960s, photographs in magazines and journals showed womenas brave fighters. There were pictures of women militia shooting


down planes. They were portrayed as young, brave and dedicated.


Stories were written to show how happy they felt when they joinedthe army and could carry a rifle. Some stories spoke of their incredible


bravery in single-handedly killing the enemy – Nguyen Thi Xuan,


for instance, was reputed to have shot down a jet with justtwenty bullets.


Women were represented not only as warriors but also as workers:


they were shown with a rifle in one hand and a hammer in the other.Whether young or old, women began to be depicted as selflessly


working and fighting to save the country. As casualties in the war


increased in the 1960s, women were urged to join the struggle inlarger numbers.


Many women responded and joined the resistance movement. They


helped in nursing the wounded, constructing underground roomsand tunnels and fighting the enemy. Along the Ho Chi Minh trail


young volunteers kept open 2,195 km of strategic roads and guarded


2,500 key points. They built six airstrips, neutralised tens of thousandsof bombs, transported tens of thousands of kilograms of cargo,


weapons and food and shot down fifteen planes. Between 1965


and 1975, of the 17,000 youth who worked on the trail, 70 to 80per cent were women. One military historian argues that there were


1.5 million women in the regular army, the militia, the local forces


and professional teams.


7.4 Women in Times of Peace


By the 1970s, as peace talks began to get under way and the end ofthe war seemed near, women were no longer represented as warriors.Now the image of women as workers begins to predominate. They


are shown working in agricultural cooperatives, factories and


production units,  rather than as fighters.


Fig. 18  – With a gun in one hand.


Stories about women showed them eager to


join the army. A common description was:‘A rosy-cheeked woman, here I am fightingside by side with you men. The prison ismy school, the sword is my child, the gunis my husband.’


Fig. 19 – Vietnamese women doctorsnursing the wounded.51


The Nationalist Movement in Indo-ChinaThe prolongation of the war created strong reactions even within


the US. It was clear that the US had failed to achieve its objectives:


the Vietnamese resistance had not been crushed; the support of the


Vietnamese people for US action had not been won.  In themeantime, thousands of young US soldiers had lost their lives, and


countless Vietnamese civilians had been killed. This was a war that


has been called the first television war. Battle scenes were shownon the daily news programmes. Many became disillusioned with


what the US was doing and writers such as Mary McCarthy, and


actors like Jane Fonda even visited North Vietnam and praised theirheroic defence of the country. The scholar Noam Chomsky called


the war ‘the greatest threat to peace, to national self-determination,


and to international cooperation’.


The widespread questioning of government policy strengthened


moves to negotiate an end to the war. A peace settlement was signed


in Paris in January 1974. This ended conflict with the US but fightingbetween the Saigon regime and the NLF continued. The NLF


occupied the presidential palace in Saigon on 30 April 1975 and


unified Vietnam.Fig. 20 – North Vietnamese prisoners in South


Vietnam being released after the accord .8  The End of the War


Fig. 21  – Vietcong soldiers pose triumphantly atop a tank after Saigon is liberated.


What does this image tell us about the nature of Vietnamese nationalism?


India and the Contemporary World


Project1. With reference to what you have read in this chapter, discuss the influence of


China on Vietnam’s culture and life.


2. What was the role of religious groups in the development of anti-colonial feeling in Vietnam?


3. Explain the causes of the US involvement in the war in Vietnam. What effect did this


involvement have on life within the US itself?


4. Write an evaluation of the Vietnamese war against the US from the point of


a) a porter on the Ho Chi Minh trail.


b) a woman soldier.


5. What was the role of women in the anti-imperial struggle in Vietnam? Compare this


with the role of women in the nationalist struggle in India.


Find out about the anti-imperialist movement in any one country in South America. Imaginethat a freedom fighter from this country meets a Vietminh soldier; they become friends and


talk about their experiences of the freedom struggles in their countries. Write about the


conversation they might have.


DiscussWrite in brief


1. Write a note on:


a) What was meant by the ‘civilising mission’ of the colonisersb) Huynh Phu So


2. Explain the following:


a) Only one-third of the students in Vietnam would pass the school-leaving


examinations.


b) The French began building canals and draining lands in the Mekong delta.


c) The government made the Saigon Native Girls School take back the


students it had expelled.


d) Rats were most common in the modern, newly built areas of Hanoi.


3. Describe the ideas behind the Tonkin Free School. To what extent was it a


typical example of colonial ideas in Vietnam?


4. What was Phan Chu Trinh’s objective for Vietnam? How were his ideas different


from those of Phan Boi Chau?


Write in brief


Project    As you have seen, modern nationalism in Europe came to be


associated with the formation of nation-states. It also meant a change


in people’s understanding of who they were, and what defined their


identity and sense of belonging. New symbols and icons, new songsand ideas forged new links and redefined the boundaries of


communities. In most countries the making of this new national


identity was a long process. How did this consciousness emergein India?


In India, as in Vietnam and many other colonies, the growth of


modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anti-colonialmovement. People began discovering their unity in the process of


their struggle with colonialism. The sense of being oppressed under


colonialism provided a shared bond that tied many different groupstogether. But each class and group felt the effects of colonialism


differently, their experiences were varied, and their notions of


freedom were not always the same.  The Congress under MahatmaGandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement.


But the unity did not emerge without conflict.


In an earlier textbook you have read about the growth of nationalism


in India up to the first decade of the twentieth century. In this chapter


we will pick up the story from the 1920s and study the Non-


Cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movements. We will explorehow the Congress sought to develop the national movement, how


different social groups participated in the movement, and how


nationalism captured the imagination of people.


Nationalism  in  India Chapter III Nationalism in India


Fig. 1  – 6 April 1919.


Mass processions on


the streets became acommon feature duringthe national movement.India and the Contemporary World


541  The First World War, Khilafat and Non-Cooperation


In the years after 1919, we see the national movement spreading to


new areas, incorporating new social groups, and developing new


modes of struggle. How do we understand these developments?


What implications did they have?


First of all, the war created a new economic and political situation.


It led to a huge increase in defence expenditure which was financed


by war loans and increasing taxes: customs duties were raised andincome tax introduced. Through the war years prices increased –


doubling between 1913 and 1918 –  leading to extreme hardship


for the common people. Villages were called upon to supply soldiers,and the forced recruitment in rural areas caused widespread anger.


Then in 1918-19 and 1920-21, crops failed in many parts of India,resulting in acute shortages of food. This was accompanied by aninfluenza epidemic. According to the census of 1921, 12 to 13 million


people perished as a result of famines and  the epidemic.


People hoped that their hardships would end after the war was


over. But that did not happen.


At this stage a new leader appeared and suggested a new mode


of struggle.


1.1 The Idea of Satyagraha


Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in January 1915. As you know,he had come from South Africa where he had successfully foughtNew words


Forced recruitment – A process by which the


colonial state forced people to join the army


Fig. 2  – Indian workers in South


Africa march through Volksrust, 6


November 1913.Mahatma Gandhi was leading theworkers from Newcastle toTransvaal. When the marchers werestopped and Gandhiji arrested,thousands of more workers joinedthe satyagraha  against racist laws


that denied rights  to non-whites.55


Nationalism  in  Indiathe racist regime with a novel method of mass agitation, which he


called satyagraha. The idea of satyagraha emphasised the power of


truth and the need to search for truth. It suggested that if the causewas true, if the struggle was against injustice, then physical force wasnot necessary to fight the oppressor. Without seeking vengeance or


being aggressive, a satyagrahi could win the battle through non-


violence. This could be done by  appealing to the conscience of theoppressor. People – including the oppressors – had to be persuadedto see the truth, instead of being forced to accept truth through the


use of violence. By this struggle, truth was bound to ultimately


triumph. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this dharma  of non-violence


could unite all Indians.


After arriving in India, Mahatma Gandhi successfully organised


satyagraha movements in various places. In 1916 he travelled to


Champaran in  Bihar to inspire the peasants to struggle against theoppressive plantation system.  Then in 1917,  he organised a  satyagraha


to support the peasants of the Kheda district of Gujarat. Affected


by crop failure and a plague epidemic, the peasants of Kheda could


not pay the revenue, and were demanding that revenue collection berelaxed. In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organisea satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.


1.2 The Rowlatt Act


Emboldened with this success, Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch anationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act (1919). ThisAct had been hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative


Council despite the united opposition of the Indian members. It


gave the government enormous powers to repress political activities,and allowed detention of political prisoners without trial for twoyears. Mahatma Gandhi wanted non-violent civil disobedience against


such unjust laws, which would start with a hartal on 6 April.


Rallies were organised in various cities, workers went on strike in


railway workshops, and shops closed down. Alarmed by the popularupsurge, and scared that lines of communication such as the railways


and telegraph would be disrupted, the British administration decided


to clamp down on nationalists. Local leaders were picked up fromAmritsar, and Mahatma Gandhi was barred from entering Delhi.On 10 April, the police in Amritsar fired upon a peaceful procession,


provoking widespread attacks on banks, post offices and railway


stations. Martial law was imposed and General Dyer took command.Mahatma Gandhi on Satyagraha


‘It is said of “passive resistance” that it is the


weapon of the weak, but the power which isthe subject of this article can be used onlyby the strong. This power is not passiveresistance; indeed it calls for intense activity. Themovement in South Africa was not passivebut active  …


‘ Satyagraha is not physical force. A satyagrahi


does not inflict pain on the adversary; he doesnot seek his destruction … In the use of


satyagraha , there is no ill-will whatever.


‘ Satyagraha is pure soul-force. Truth is the very


substance of the soul. That is why this force iscalled satyagraha. The soul is informed withknowledge. In it burns the flame of love. … Non-violence is the supreme


dharma  …


‘It is certain that India cannot rival Britain orEurope in force of arms. The British worship thewar-god and they can all of them become, asthey are becoming, bearers of arms. Thehundreds of millions in India can never carry arms.They have made the religion of non-violence theirown ...’


SourceSource A


Read the text carefully. What did Mahatma


Gandhi mean when he said satyagraha  is


active resistance?ActivityIndia and the Contemporary World


56On 13 April the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On


that day a crowd of villagers who had come to Amritsar to attend


a fair gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh.  Being


from outside the city, they were unaware of the martial law that hadbeen imposed. Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, andopened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. His object, as he declaredlater, was to ‘produce a moral effect’, to create in the minds ofsatyagrahis a feeling of terror and awe.


As the news of Jallianwalla Bagh spread, crowds took to the streets


in many north Indian towns. There were strikes, clashes with thepolice and attacks on government buildings. The governmentresponded with brutal repression, seeking to humiliate and terrorisepeople: satyagrahis were forced to rub their noses on the ground,crawl on the streets, and do salaam  (salute) to all sahibs; people were


flogged and villages (around Gujranwala in Punjab, now in Pakistan)were bombed. Seeing violence spread, Mahatma Gandhi called offthe movement.


While the Rowlatt satyagraha had been a widespread movement, it


was still limited mostly to cities and towns. Mahatma Gandhi nowfelt the need to launch a more broad-based movement in India.


But he was certain that no such movement could be organised without


bringing the Hindus and Muslims closer together. One way of doingthis, he felt, was to take up the Khilafat issue. The First World Warhad ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey. And there wererumours that a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on theOttoman emperor –  the spiritual head of the Islamic world (the


Khalifa). To defend the Khalifa’s temporal powers, a Khilafat


Committee was formed in Bombay in March 1919. A younggeneration of Muslim leaders like the brothers Muhammad Aliand Shaukat Ali, began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi aboutthe possibility of a united mass action on the issue. Gandhiji saw thisas an opportunity to bring Muslims under the umbrella of a unified


national movement. At the Calcutta session of the Congress in


September 1920, he convinced other leaders of the need to starta non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well asfor swaraj.


1.3  Why Non-cooperation?


In his famous book Hind Swaraj  (1909) Mahatma Gandhi declared


that British rule was established in India with the cooperation ofFig. 3  – General Dyer’s ‘crawling orders’ being


administered by British soldiers, Amritsar,


Punjab, 1919 .


Nationalism  in  IndiaNew words


Boycott – The refusal to deal and associate with


people, or participate in activities, or buy anduse things; usually a form of protestIndians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indiansrefused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within ayear, and swaraj would come.


How could non-cooperation become a movement? Gandhiji


proposed that the movement should unfold in stages. It should beginwith the surrender of titles that the government awarded, and a


boycott  of civil services, army, police, courts and legislative councils,


schools, and foreign goods. Then, in case the government used


repression, a full civil disobedience campaign would be launched.


Through the summer of 1920 Mahatma Gandhi and Shaukat Ali


toured extensively, mobilising popular support for the movement.


Many within the Congress were, however, concerned about the


proposals. They were reluctant to boycott the council elections


scheduled for November 1920, and they feared that the movementmight lead to popular violence.  In the months between September


and December there was an intense tussle within the Congress. For a


while there seemed no meeting point between the supporters andthe opponents of the movement. Finally, at the Congress session at


Nagpur in December 1920, a compromise was worked out and


the Non-Cooperation programme was adopted.


How did the movement unfold? Who participated in it? How did


different social groups conceive of the idea of Non-Cooperation?


Fig. 4  – The boycott of foreign


cloth, July 1922.


Foreign cloth was seen as thesymbol of Western economicand cultural domination.India and the Contemporary World


582  Differing Strands within the Movement


The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began in January 1921.


Various social groups participated in this movement, each with its


own specific aspiration. All of them responded to the call of Swaraj,


but the term meant different things to different people.


2.1 The Movement in the Towns


The movement started with middle-class participation in the cities.Thousands of students left government-controlled schools andcolleges, headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up


their legal practices. The council elections were boycotted in most


provinces except Madras, where the Justice Party, the party of thenon-Brahmans, felt that entering the council was one way of gaining


some power – something that usually only Brahmans had access to.


The effects of non-cooperation on the economic front were more


dramatic. Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed ,


and foreign cloth burnt in huge bonfires. The import of foreigncloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping fromRs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore. In many places merchants and traders


refused to trade in foreign goods or finance foreign trade. As the


boycott movement spread, and people began discarding importedclothes and wearing only Indian ones, production of Indian textile


mills and handlooms went up.


But this movement in the cities gradually slowed down for a variety


of reasons. Khadi  cloth was often more expensive than mass-


produced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it.How then could they boycott mill cloth for too long? Similarly theboycott of British institutions posed a problem. For the movement


to be successful, alternative Indian institutions had to be set up


so that they could be used in place of the British ones. These wereslow to come up. So students and teachers began trickling


back to government schools and lawyers joined back work in


government courts.


2.2 Rebellion in the Countryside


From the cities, the Non-Cooperation Movement spread to thecountryside. It drew into its fold the struggles of peasants and tribalsNew words


Picket – A form of demonstration or protest


by which people block the entrance to a shop,factory or office


The year is 1921. You are a student in a


government-controlled school. Design a


poster urging school students to answer


Gandhiji’s call to join the Non-Cooperation


Nationalism  in  Indiawhich were developing in different parts of India in the years


after the war.


In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra – a sanyasi  who


had earlier been to Fiji as an indentured labourer. The movement


here was against talukdars  and landlords who demanded from


peasants exorbitantly high rents and a variety of other cesses. Peasants


had to do begar  and work at landlords’ farms without any payment.


As tenants they had no security of tenure, being regularly evicted so


that they could acquire no right over the leased land. The peasant


movement demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and


social boycott of oppressive landlords. In many places nai – dhobi


bandhs  were  organised by panchayats to deprive landlords of the


services of even barbers and washermen. In June 1920, Jawaharlal


Nehru began going around the villages in Awadh, talking to thevillagers, and trying to understand their grievances. By October, the


Oudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, Baba


Ramchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300 brancheshad been set up in the villages around the region. So when the Non-


Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of the


Congress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the widerstruggle. The peasant movement, however, developed in forms that


the Congress leadership was unhappy with. As the movement spread


in 1921, the houses of talukdars  and merchants were attacked,


bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over. In many


places local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared that


no taxes were to be paid and land was to be redistributed amongthe poor. The name of the Mahatma was being invoked to sanction


all action and aspirations.New words


Begar – Labour that villagers were forced to


contribute without any payment


If you were a peasant in Uttar Pradesh in 1920,


how would you have responded to Gandhiji’scall for Swaraj? Give reasons for your response.Activity


On 6 January 1921, the police in United Provinces fired at peasants near Rae Bareli. Jawaharlal Nehru wanted to go tothe place of firing, but was stopped by the police. Agitated and angry, Nehru addressed the peasants who gatheredaround him. This is how he later described the meeting:


‘They behaved as brave men, calm and unruffled in the face of danger . I do not know how they felt but I know what


my feelings were. For a moment my blood was up, non-violence was almost forgotten – but for a moment only. Thethought of the great leader, who by God’s goodness has been sent to lead us to victory, came to me, and I saw the


kisans  seated and standing near me, less excited, more peaceful than I was – and the moment of weakness passed, I


spoke to them in all humility on non-violence – I needed the lesson more than they – and they heeded me andpeacefully dispersed.’


Quoted in Sarvapalli Gopal,


Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography , Vol. I.SourceSource BIndia and the Contemporary World


60Tribal peasants interpreted the message of Mahatma Gandhi and


the idea of swaraj in yet another way. In the Gudem Hills of Andhra


Pradesh, for instance, a militant guerrilla movement spread inthe early 1920s –  not a form of struggle that the Congress could


approve. Here, as in other forest regions, the colonial government


had closed large forest areas, preventing people from enteringthe forests to graze their cattle, or to collect fuelwood and fruits.This enraged the hill people. Not only were their livelihoodsaffected but they felt that their traditional rights were being denied.When the government began forcing them to contribute begar


for road building, the hill people revolted. The person who cameto lead them was an interesting figure. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimedthat he had a variety of special powers: he could make correctastrological predictions and heal people, and he could surviveeven bullet shots. Captivated by Raju, the rebels proclaimed thathe was an incarnation of God. Raju talked of the greatness of


Mahatma Gandhi, said he was inspired by the Non-Cooperation


Movement, and persuaded people to wear khadi and give up drinking.


But at the same time he asserted that India could be liberated onlyby the use of force, not non-violence. The Gudem rebels attackedpolice stations, attempted to kill British officials and carried onguerrilla warfare for achieving swaraj.  Raju was captured and


executed in 1924, and over time became a folk hero.


2.3 Swaraj in the Plantations


Workers too had their own understanding of Mahatma Gandhi


and the notion of swaraj.  For plantation workers in Assam, freedommeant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space inwhich they were enclosed, and it meant retaining a link with the


village from which they had come. Under the Inland Emigration


Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave thetea gardens without permission, and in fact they were rarely givensuch permission. When they heard of the Non-CooperationMovement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left theplantations and headed home. They believed that Gandhi Raj was


coming and everyone would be given land in their own villages.


They, however, never reached their destination. Stranded on the wayby a railway and steamer strike, they were caught by the police andbrutally beaten up.Find out about other participants in the


National Movement who were captured and


put to death by the British. Can you think of a


similar example from the national movement


in Indo-China (Chapter 2)?Activity61


Nationalism  in  IndiaThe visions of these movements were not defined by the Congress


programme. They interpreted the term swaraj in their own ways,imagining it to be a time when all suffering and all troubles would


be over. Yet, when the tribals chanted Gandhiji’s name and raised


slogans demanding ‘ Swatantra Bharat’ , they were also emotionally


relating to an all-India agitation. When they acted in the name of


Mahatma Gandhi, or linked their movement to that of the Congress,


they were identifying with a movement which went beyond the limitsof their immediate locality.


Fig. 5  – Chauri Chaura, 1922.


At Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur, a peaceful demonstration in a bazaar turned into a


violent clash with the police. Hearing of the incident, Mahatma Gandhi called a haltto the Non-Cooperation Movement.India and the Contemporary World


623  Towards Civil Disobedience


In February 1922, Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the


Non-Cooperation Movement. He felt the movement was turningviolent in many places and satyagrahis needed to be properly trainedbefore they would be ready for mass struggles. Within the Congress,some leaders were by now tired of mass struggles and wanted toparticipate in elections to the provincial councils that had been set


up by the Government of India Act of 1919. They felt that it was


important to oppose British policies within the councils, argue forreform and also demonstrate that these councils were not trulydemocratic. C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Partywithin the Congress to argue for a return to council politics. Butyounger leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose


pressed for more radical mass agitation and for full independence.


In such a situation of internal debate and dissension two factors


again shaped Indian politics towards the late 1920s. The first wasthe effect of the worldwide economic depression. Agricultural pricesbegan to fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930. As the demandfor agricultural goods fell and exports declined, peasants found it


difficult to sell their harvests and pay their revenue. By 1930, the


countryside was in turmoil.


Against this background the new Tory government in Britain


constituted a Statutory Commission under Sir John Simon. Set upin response to the nationalist movement, thecommission was to look into the functioning of


the constitutional system in India and suggest


changes. The problem was that the commissiondid not have a single Indian member. They wereall British.


When the Simon Commission arrived in India in


1928, it was greeted with the slogan ‘Go back


Simon’. All parties, including the Congress and the


Muslim League, participated in the demonstrations.In an effort to win them over, the viceroy, LordIrwin, announced in October 1929, a vague offerof ‘dominion status’ for India in an unspecifiedfuture, and a Round Table Conference to discuss a


future constitution. This did not satisfy the Congress


leaders. The radicals within the Congress, led by


Fig. 6  – Meeting of Congress leaders  at Allahabad, 1931.


Apart from Mahatma Gandhi, you can see Sardar Vallabhbhai


Patel (extreme left), Jawaharlal Nehru (extreme right) and SubhasChandra Bose (fifth from right).63


Nationalism  in  IndiaJawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose, became more assertive.


The liberals and moderates, who were proposing a constitutional


system within the framework of British dominion, gradually lost


their influence. In December 1929, under the presidency of JawaharlalNehru, the Lahore Congress formalised the demand of ‘PurnaSwaraj’ or full independence for India. It was declared that 26 January1930, would be celebrated as the Independence Day when peoplewere to take a pledge to struggle for complete independence. But


the celebrations attracted very little attention. So Mahatma Gandhi


had to find a way to relate this abstract idea of freedom to moreconcrete issues of everyday life.


3.1 The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement


Mahatma Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unitethe nation. On 31 January 1930, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin


stating eleven demands. Some of these were of general interest;


others were specific demands of different classes, from industrialiststo peasants. The idea was to make the demands wide-ranging, sothat all classes within Indian society could identify with them andeveryone could be brought together in a united campaign. The moststirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax. Salt was


something consumed by the rich and the poor alike, and it was one


of the most essential items of food. The tax on salt and thegovernment monopoly over its production, Mahatma Gandhideclared, revealed the most oppressive face of British rule.


Mahatma Gandhi’s letter was, in a way, an ultimatum. If the


demands were not fulfilled by 11 March, the letter stated, the


Congress would launch a civil disobedience campaign. Irwin was


unwilling to negotiate. So Mahatma Gandhi started his famoussalt march accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers. The marchwas over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to theGujarati coastal town of Dandi. The volunteers walked for 24 days,about 10 miles a day. Thousands came to hear Mahatma Gandhi


wherever he stopped, and he told them what he meant by swaraj


and urged them to peacefully defy the British. On 6 April he reachedDandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt byboiling sea water.


This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement.


How was this movement different from the Non-CooperationMovement? People were now asked not only to refuse cooperationThe Independence Day Pledge, 26 January


‘We believe that it is the inalienable right of the


Indian people, as of any other people, to havefreedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil andhave the necessities of life, so that they mayhave full opportunities of growth. We believealso that if any government deprives a people ofthese rights and oppresses them, the peoplehave a further right to alter it or to abolish it.The British Government in India has not onlydeprived the Indian people of their freedom buthas based itself on the exploitation of the masses,and has ruined India economically, politically,culturally, and spiritually. We believe, therefore,that India must sever the British connection andattain Purna Swaraj or Complete Independence.’Source C


SourceIndia and the Contemporary World


64with the British, as they had done in 1921-22, but also to break


colonial laws. Thousands in different parts of the country broke


the salt law, manufactured salt and demonstrated in front of


government salt factories. As the movement spread, foreign clothwas boycotted, and liquor shops were picketed. Peasants refused to


pay revenue and chaukidari  taxes, village officials resigned, and in


many places forest people violated forest laws – going into Reserved


Forests to collect wood and graze cattle.


Worried by the developments, the colonial government began


arresting the Congress leaders one by one. This led to violent clashesin many palaces. When Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a devout disciple of


Mahatma Gandhi, was arrested in April 1930, angry crowds


demonstrated in the streets of Peshawar, facing armoured cars andpolice firing. Many were killed. A month later, when Mahatma


Gandhi himself was arrested, industrial workers in Sholapur attacked


police posts, municipal buildings, lawcourts and railway stations –all structures that symbolised British rule. A frightened government


responded with a policy of brutal repression. Peaceful satyagrahis


were attacked, women and children were beaten, and about 100,000people were arrested.


In such a situation, Mahatma Gandhi once again decided to call off


the movement and entered into a pact with Irwin on 5 March 1931.By this Gandhi-Irwin Pact, Gandhiji consented to participate in a


Round Table Conference (the Congress had boycotted the first


Fig. 7  – The Dandi march.


During the salt march Mahatma


Gandhi was accompanied by78 volunteers. On the waythey were joined by thousands.


Fig. 8  – Police cracked down on satyagrahis,


Nationalism  in  IndiaRound Table Conference) in London and the government agreed to


release the political prisoners. In December 1931, Gandhiji went to


London for the conference, but the negotiations broke down and


he returned disappointed. Back in India, he discovered that thegovernment had begun a new cycle of repression. Ghaffar Khanand Jawaharlal Nehru were both in jail, the Congress had beendeclared illegal, and a series of measures had been imposed to preventmeetings, demonstrations and boycotts. With great apprehension,


Mahatma Gandhi relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement.


For over a year, the movement continued, but by 1934 it lostits momentum.


3.2 How Participants saw the Movement


Let us now look at the different social groups that participated in theCivil Disobedience Movement. Why did they join the movement?


What were their ideals? What did swaraj mean to them?


In the countryside, rich peasant communities – like the Patidars of


Gujarat and the Jats of Uttar Pradesh – were active in the movement.Being producers of commercial crops, they were very hard hit bythe trade depression and falling prices. As their cash incomedisappeared, they found it impossible to pay the government’s revenue


demand. And the refusal of the government to reduce the revenue


demand led to widespread resentment. These rich peasants becameenthusiastic supporters of the Civil Disobedience Movement,organising their communities, and at times forcing reluctant members,to participate in the boycott programmes. For them the fight forswaraj was a struggle against high revenues. But they were deeply


disappointed when the movement was called off in 1931 without


the revenue rates being revised. So when the movement was restartedin 1932, many of them refused to participate.


The poorer peasantry were not just interested in the lowering of the


revenue demand. Many of them were small tenants cultivating landthey had rented from landlords. As the Depression continued and


cash incomes dwindled, the small tenants found it difficult to pay


their rent. They wanted the unpaid rent to the landlord to be remitted.They joined a variety of radical movements, often led by Socialistsand Communists. Apprehensive of raising issues that might upsetthe rich peasants and landlords, the Congress was unwilling to support‘no rent’ campaigns in most places. So the relationship between thepoor peasants and the Congress remained uncertain.‘To the altar of this revolution we have


brought our youth as incense’


Many nationalists thought that the struggle


against the British could not be won throughnon-violence. In 1928, the Hindustan SocialistRepublican Army (HSRA) was founded at ameeting in Ferozeshah Kotla ground in Delhi.Amongst its leaders were Bhagat Singh, JatinDas and Ajoy Ghosh. In a series of dramaticactions in different parts of India, the HSRAtargeted some of the symbols of British power.In April 1929, Bhagat Singh and BatukeswarDutta threw a bomb in the Legislative Assembly.In the same year there was an attempt to blowup the train that Lord Irwin was travelling in.Bhagat Singh was 23 when he was tried andexecuted by the colonial government. Duringhis trial, Bhagat Singh stated that he did notwish to glorify ‘the cult of the bomb and pistol’but wanted a revolution in society:


‘Revolution is the inalienable right of mankind.


Freedom is the imprescriptible birthright of all.The labourer is the real sustainer of society …To the altar of this revolution we have broughtour youth as incense, for no sacrifice is toogreat for so magnificent a cause. We arecontent. We await the advent of revolution.


Inquilab Zindabad!’Box 1India and the Contemporary World


66What about the business classes? How did they relate to the Civil


Disobedience Movement? During the First World War, Indian


merchants and industrialists had made huge profits and become


powerful (see Chapter 5). Keen on expanding their business, theynow reacted against colonial policies that restricted business activities.


They wanted protection against imports of foreign goods, and a


rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio that would discourage imports.To organise business interests, they formed the Indian Industrial


and Commercial Congress in 1920 and the Federation of the Indian


Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927. Led byprominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and


G. D. Birla, the industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian


economy, and supported the Civil Disobedience Movement whenit was first launched.  They gave financial assistance and refused to


buy or sell imported goods. Most businessmen came to see swaraj


as a time when colonial restrictions on business would no longerexist and trade and industry would flourish without constraints. But


after the failure of the Round Table Conference, business groups


were no longer uniformly enthusiastic. They were apprehensive ofthe spread of militant activities, and worried about prolonged


disruption of business, as well as of the growing influence of


socialism amongst the younger members of the Congress.


The industrial working classes did not participate in the Civil


Disobedience Movement in large numbers, except in the Nagpur


region. As the industrialists came closer to the Congress, workersstayed aloof. But in spite of that, some workers did participate in


the Civil Disobedience Movement, selectively adopting some of


the ideas of the Gandhian programme, like boycott of foreigngoods, as part of their own movements against low wages and


poor working conditions. There were strikes by railway workers in


1930 and dockworkers in 1932. In 1930 thousands of workers inChotanagpur tin mines wore Gandhi caps and participated in protest


rallies and boycott campaigns. But the Congress was reluctant to


include workers’ demands as part of its programme of struggle.It felt that this would alienate industrialists and divide the anti-


imperial forces.


Another important feature of the Civil Disobedience Movement


was the large-scale participation of women. During Gandhiji’s salt


march, thousands of women came out of their homes to listen to


him. They participated in protest marches, manufactured salt, andSome important dates


1918-19Distressed UP peasants organised by Baba


Ramchandra.


April 1919Gandhian hartal against Rowlatt Act; Jallianwala


Bagh massacre.January 1921Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movement


launched.


February 1922Chauri Chaura; Gandhiji withdraws Non-


Cooperation movement.


May 1924Alluri Sitarama Raju arrested ending a two-year


armed tribal struggle.


December 1929Lahore Congress; Congress adopts the demand


for ‘Purna Swaraj’.


1930Ambedkar establishes Depressed Classes


Association.


March 1930Gandhiji begins Civil Disobedience Movement by


breaking salt law at Dandi.


March 1931Gandhiji ends Civil Disobedience Movement.


December 1931


Second Round Table Conference.1932


Civil Disobedience re-launched.67


Nationalism  in  Indiapicketed foreign cloth and liquor shops. Many went to jail. In urban


areas these women were from high-caste families; in rural areas


they came from rich peasant households. Moved by Gandhiji’s call,


they began to see service to the nation as a sacred duty of women.Yet, this increased public role did not necessarily mean any radical


change in the way the position of women was visualised. Gandhiji


was convinced that it was the duty of women to look after homeand hearth, be good mothers and good wives. And for a long time


the Congress was reluctant to allow women to hold any position


of authority within the organisation. It was keen only on theirsymbolic presence.


3.3 The Limits of Civil Disobedience


Not all social groups were moved by the abstract concept of swaraj.One such group was the nation’s ‘untouchables’, who from around


the 1930s had begun to call themselves dalit or oppressed. For


long the Congress had ignored the dalits, for fear of offending thesanatanis,  the conservative high-caste Hindus. But Mahatma Gandhi


declared that swaraj would not come for a hundred years ifuntouchability was not eliminated. He called the ‘untouchables’ harijan,Why did various classes and groups of Indians


participate in the Civil Disobedience


Movement?Discuss


Fig. 9  – Women join


nationalist processions.


During the nationalmovement, many women,for the first time in theirlives, moved out of theirhomes on to a public arena.Amongst the marchers youcan see many old women,and mothers with children intheir arms.India and the Contemporary World


68or the children of God, organised satyagraha to secure them entry


into temples, and access to public wells, tanks, roads and schools.He himself cleaned toilets to dignify the work of the bhangi (the


sweepers), and persuaded upper castes to change their heart and


give up ‘the sin of untouchability’. But many dalit leaders were keenon a different political solution to the problems of the community.


They began organising themselves, demanding reserved seats in


educational institutions, and a separate electorate that would choosedalit members for legislative councils. Political empowerment, they


believed, would resolve the problems of their social disabilities.


Dalit participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement wastherefore limited, particularly in the Maharashtra and Nagpur region


where their organisation was quite strong.


Dr B.R. Ambedkar, who organised the dalits into the Depressed


Classes Association in 1930, clashed with Mahatma Gandhi at


the second Round Table Conference by demanding separate


electorates for dalits. When the British government concededAmbedkar’s demand, Gandhiji began a fast unto death. He believed


that separate electorates for dalits would slow down the process of


their integration into society. Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhiji’sposition and the result was the Poona Pact of September 1932.


It gave the Depressed Classes (later to be known as the Schedule


Castes) reserved seats in provincial and central legislative councils,but they were to be voted in by the general electorate. The dalit


movement, however, continued to be apprehensive of the Congress-


led national movement.


Some of the Muslim political organisations in India were also


lukewarm in their response to the Civil Disobedience Movement.


After the decline of the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement, alarge section of Muslims felt alienated from the Congress. From the


mid-1920s the Congress came to be more visibly associated with


openly Hindu religious nationalist groups like the Hindu Mahasabha.As relations between Hindus and Muslims worsened, each


community organised religious processions with militant fervour,


provoking Hindu-Muslim communal clashes and riots in variouscities. Every riot deepened the distance between the two communities.


The Congress and the Muslim League made efforts to renegotiate


an alliance, and in 1927 it appeared that such a unity could be forged.The important differences were over the question of representation


in the future assemblies that were to be elected. Muhammad Ali


Fig. 10  – Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru


and Maulana Azad at Sevagram Ashram,


Wardha, 1935.69


Nationalism  in  IndiaJinnah, one of the leaders of the Muslim League, was willing to give


up the demand for separate electorates, if Muslims were assuredreserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in


proportion to population in the Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal


and Punjab). Negotiations over the question of representationcontinued but all hope of resolving the issue at the All Parties


Conference in 1928 disappeared when M.R. Jayakar of the Hindu


Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise.


When the Civil Disobedience Movement started there was thus


an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust between communities.


Alienated from the Congress, large sections of Muslims could notrespond to the call for a united struggle. Many Muslim leaders and


intellectuals expressed their concern about the status of Muslims


as a minority within India. They feared that the culture and identityof minorities would be submerged under the domination of a


Hindu majority.


In 1930, Sir Muhammad Iqbal, as president of the Muslim League, reiterated the importance of separate electorates for


the Muslims as an important safeguard for their minority political interests. His statement is supposed to have provided theintellectual justification for the Pakistan demand that came up in subsequent years. This is what he said:


‘I have no hesitation in declaring that if the principle that the Indian Muslim is entitled to full and free development on the


lines of his own culture and tradition in his own Indian home-lands is recognised as the basis of a permanent communalsettlement, he will be ready to stake his all for the freedom of India. The principle that each group is entitled to freedevelopment on its own lines is not inspired by any feeling of narrow communalism … A community which is inspired byfeelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws,religions and social institutions of other communities. Nay, it is my duty according to the teachings of the Quran, even todefend their places of worship, if need be. Yet I love the communal group which is the source of life and behaviour andwhich has formed me what I am by giving me its religion, its literature, its thought, its culture and thereby its whole pastas a living operative factor in my present consciousness …


‘Communalism in its higher aspect, then, is indispensable to the formation of a harmonious whole in a country like India.


The units of Indian society are not territorial as in European countries … The principle of European democracy cannot beapplied to India without recognising the fact of communal groups. The Muslim demand for the creation of a Muslim Indiawithin India is, therefore, perfectly justified…


‘The Hindu thinks that separate electorates are contrary to the spirit of true nationalism, because he understands the


word “nation” to mean a kind of universal amalgamation in which no communal entity ought to retain its private individuality.Such a state of things, however, does not exist. India is a land of racial and religious variety. Add to this the generaleconomic inferiority of the Muslims, their enormous debt, especially in the Punjab, and their insufficient majorities in someof the provinces, as at present constituted and you will begin to see clearly the meaning of our anxiety to retain separateelectorates.’Source D


Source


Read the Source D carefully. Do you agree with Iqbal’s idea of communalism? Can you define communalism in a


different way?DiscussIndia and the Contemporary World


704  The Sense of Collective Belonging


Nationalism spreads when people begin to believe that they are all


part of the same  nation, when they discover some unity that binds


them together. But how did the nation become a reality in the mindsof people? How did people belonging to different communities,


regions or language groups develop a sense of collective belonging?


This sense of collective belonging came partly through the experience


of united struggles. But there were also a variety of cultural processes


through which nationalism captured people’s imagination. History


and fiction, folklore and songs, popular prints and symbols, all playeda part in the making of nationalism.


Fig. 11 – Bal Gangadhar Tilak,


an early-twentieth-century print.Notice how Tilak is surrounded by symbols ofunity. The sacred institutions of different faiths(temple, church, masjid) frame the central figure.71


Nationalism  in  IndiaThe identity of the nation, as you know (see Chapter 1), is most


often symbolised in a figure or image. This helps create an imagewith which people can identify the nation. It was in the twentieth


century, with the growth of nationalism, that the identity of India


came to be visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata. Theimage was first created by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. In the


1870s he wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the motherland.


Later it was included in his novel Anandamath  and widely sung during


the Swadeshi movement in Bengal. Moved by the Swadeshi


movement, Abanindranath Tagore painted his famous image of


Bharat Mata (see Fig. 12). In this painting Bharat Mata is portrayedas an ascetic figure; she is calm, composed, divine and spiritual.


In subsequent years, the image of Bharat Mata acquired many


different forms, as it circulated in popular prints, and was paintedby different artists (see Fig. 14). Devotion to this mother figure came


to be seen as evidence of one’s nationalism.


Ideas of nationalism also developed through a movement to revive


Indian folklore.  In late-nineteenth-century India, nationalists began


recording folk tales sung by bards and they toured villages to gather


folk songs and legends. These tales, they believed, gave a true pictureof traditional culture that had been corrupted and damaged by


outside forces. It was essential to preserve this folk tradition  in


order to discover one’s national identity and restore a sense of pridein one’s past. In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore himself began collecting


ballads, nursery rhymes and myths, and led the movement for folk


Fig. 12  – Bharat Mata, Abanindranath Tagore,


Notice that the mother figure here is shown asdispensing learning, food and clothing. The mala


in one hand emphasises her ascetic quality.Abanindranath Tagore, like Ravi Varma beforehim, tried to develop a style of painting thatcould be seen as truly Indian.


Fig. 13 – Jawaharlal Nehru, a popular print.


Nehru is here shown holding the image of Bharat Mata and the map of Indiaclose to his heart. In a lot of popular prints, nationalist leaders are shownoffering their heads to Bharat Mata. The idea of sacrifice for the mother waspowerful within popular imagination.India and the Contemporary World


72‘In earlier times, foreign travellers in India marvelled at the courage, truthfulness and modesty of the people of the Arya


vamsa ; now they remark mainly on the absence of those qualities. In those days Hindus would set out on conquest and


hoist their flags in Tartar, China and other countries; now a few soldiers from a tiny island far away are lording it over the


land of India.’


Tarinicharan Chattopadhyay, Bharatbarsher Itihas (The History of Bharatbarsh) ,  vol. 1, 1858.Source E


Sourcerevival. In Madras, Natesa Sastri published a massive four-volume


collection of Tamil folk tales, The Folklore of  Southern India . He believed


that folklore was national literature; it was ‘the most trustworthy


manifestation of people’s real thoughts and characteristics’.


As the national movement developed, nationalist leaders became


more and more aware of such icons and symbols in unifying people


and inspiring in them a feeling of nationalism. During the Swadeshi


movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green and yellow) wasdesigned. It had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British


India, and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims. By


1921, Gandhiji had designed the Swaraj flag. It was again a tricolour(red, green and white) and had a spinning wheel in the centre,


representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help. Carrying the flag,


holding it aloft, during marches became a symbol of defiance.


Another means of creating a feeling of nationalism was through


reinterpretation of history. By the end of the nineteenth century


many Indians began feeling that to instill a sense of pride in thenation, Indian history had to be thought about differently. The British


saw Indians as backward and primitive, incapable of governing


themselves. In response, Indians began looking into the past todiscover India’s great achievements. They wrote about the glorious


developments in ancient times when art and architecture, science


and mathematics, religion and culture, law and philosophy, craftsand trade had flourished. This glorious time, in their view, was


followed by a history of decline, when India was colonised. These


nationalist histories urged the readers to take pride in India’s greatachievements in the past and struggle to change the miserable


conditions of life under British rule.


These efforts to unify people were not without problems. When the


past being glorified was Hindu, when the images celebrated were


drawn from Hindu iconography, then people of other communities


felt left out.


Fig. 14 – Bharat Mata.


This figure of Bharat Mata is a contrast to the


one painted by Abanindranath Tagore. Here sheis shown with a trishul , standing  beside a lion


and an elephant – both symbols of power andauthority.


Look at Figs. 12 and 14. Do you think these


images will appeal to all castes and communities?


Explain your views briefly.Activity73


Nationalism  in  IndiaConclusion


A growing anger against the colonial government was thus bringing


together various groups and classes of Indians into a common struggle


for freedom in the first half of the twentieth century. The Congress


under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi tried to channel people’sgrievances into organised movements for independence. Through


such movements the nationalists tried to forge a national unity. But


as we have seen, diverse groups and classes participated in thesemovements with varied aspirations and expectations. As their


grievances were wide-ranging, freedom from colonial rule also meant


different things to different people. The Congress continuouslyattempted to resolve differences, and ensure that the demands of


one group did not alienate another. This is precisely why the unity


within the movement often broke down. The high points ofCongress activity and nationalist unity were followed by phases of


disunity and inner conflict between groups.


In other words, what was emerging was a nation with many voices


wanting freedom from colonial rule.India and the Contemporary World


Project1. List all the different social groups which joined the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1921.


Then choose any three and write about their hopes and struggles to show why they


joined the movement.


2. Discuss the Salt March to make clear why it was an effective symbol of resistance


against colonialism.


3. Imagine you are a woman participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement. Explain


what the experience meant to your life.


4. Why did political leaders differ sharply over the question of separate electorates?


Find out about the anti-colonial movement in Kenya. Compare and contrast India’s nationalmovement with the ways in which Kenya became independent.


DiscussWrite in brief


1. Explain:


a) Why growth of nationalism in the colonies is linked to an anti-colonial movement.b) How the First World War helped in the growth of the National Movement in India.


c) Why Indians were outraged by the Rowlatt Act.


d) Why Gandhiji decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement.


2. What is meant by the idea of satyagraha?


3. Write a newspaper report on:


a) The Jallianwala Bagh massacre


b) The Simon Commission


4. Compare the images of Bharat Mata in this chapter with the image of Germania


in Chapter 1.


Write in brief


Project          1  The Pre-modern World


When we talk of ‘globalisation’ we often refer to an economic


system that has emerged since the last 50 years or so. But as you will


see in this chapter, the making of the global world has a long


history – of trade, of migration, of people in search of work, themovement of capital, and much else. As we think about the dramatic


and visible signs of global interconnectedness in our lives today,


we need to understand the phases through which this world inwhich we live has emerged.


All through history, human societies have become steadily more


interlinked. From ancient times, travellers, traders, priests andpilgrims travelled vast distances for knowledge, opportunity and


spiritual fulfilment, or to escape persecution. They carried goods,


money, values, skills, ideas, inventions, and even germs and diseases.As early as 3000


BCE an active coastal trade linked the Indus valley


civilisations with present-day West Asia. For more than a millennia,cowries  (the Hindi c owdi or seashells, used as a form of currency)


from the Maldives found their way to China and East Africa. The


long-distance spread of disease-carrying germs may be traced as


far back as the seventh century. By the thirteenth century it hadbecome an unmistakable link.


The Making of a Global World Chapter IV The Making of a Global World


Fig. 1 – Image of a ship on a memorial stone,


Goa Museum, tenth century CE.


From the ninth century, images of shipsappear regularly in memorial stones found inthe western coast, indicating the significanceof oceanic trade.


India and the Contemporary World


781.1 Silk Routes Link the World


The silk routes are a good example of vibrant pre-modern trade


and cultural links between distant parts of the world. The name ‘silkroutes’ points to the importance of West-bound Chinese silk cargoes


along this route. Historians have identified several silk routes, over


land and by sea, knitting together vast regions of Asia, and linkingAsia with Europe and northern Africa. They are known to haveexisted since before the Christian Era and thrived almost till thefifteenth century. But Chinese pottery also travelled the same route,as did textiles and spices from India and Southeast Asia. In return,precious metals – gold and silver – flowed from Europe to Asia.


Trade and cultural exchange always went hand in hand. Early


Christian missionaries almost certainly travelled this route to Asia, asdid early Muslim preachers a few centuries later. Much before allthis, Buddhism emerged from eastern India and spread in severaldirections through intersecting points on the silk routes.


1.2 Food Travels: Spaghetti and Potato


Food offers many examples of long-distance cultural exchange.Traders and travellers introduced new crops to the lands theytravelled. Even ‘ready’ foodstuff  in distant parts of the world mightshare common origins. Take spaghetti and noodles. It is believedthat noodles travelled west from China tobecome spaghetti. Or, perhaps Arab traderstook pasta to fifth-century Sicily, an island nowin Italy. Similar foods were also known in Indiaand Japan, so the truth about their origins maynever be known. Yet such guesswork suggeststhe possibilities of long-distance cultural contact


even in the pre-modern world.


Many of our common foods such as potatoes,


soya, groundnuts, maize, tomatoes, chillies,sweet potatoes, and so on were not known toour ancestors until about five centuries ago.These foods were only introduced in Europeand Asia after Christopher Columbusaccidentally discovered the vast continent thatwould later become known as the Americas.


Fig. 3 – Merchants from Venice and the Orient exchanging goods,


from Marco Polo, Book of Marvels , fifteenth century.Fig. 2 – Silk route trade as depicted in aChinese cave painting, eighth century, Cave217, Mogao Grottoes, Gansu, China.


The  Making  of  a  Global  World(Here we will use ‘America’ to describe North America, South


America and the Caribbean.) In fact, many of our common foods


came from America’s original inhabitants – the American Indians.


Sometimes the new crops could make the difference between life


and death. Europe’s poor began to eat better and live longer withthe introduction of the humble potato. Ireland’s poorest peasants


became so dependent on potatoes that when disease destroyed the


potato crop in the mid-1840s, hundreds of thousands died


of starvation.


1.3 Conquest, Disease and Trade


The pre-modern world shrank greatly in the sixteenth century after


European sailors found a sea route to Asia and also successfullycrossed the western ocean to America. For centuries before, the


Indian Ocean had known a bustling trade, with goods, people,


knowledge, customs, etc. criss-crossing its waters. The Indian


subcontinent was central to these flows and a crucial point in their


networks.  The entry of the Europeans helped expand or redirectsome of these flows towards Europe.


Before its ‘discovery’, America had been cut off from regular contact


with the rest of the world for millions of years. But from the sixteenth


century, its vast lands and abundant crops and minerals began to


transform trade and lives everywhere.


Precious metals, particularly silver, from mines located in present-


day Peru and Mexico also enhanced Europe’s wealth and financedits trade with Asia. Legends spread in seventeenth-century Europe


about South America’s fabled wealth. Many expeditions set off in


search of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold.


The Portuguese and Spanish conquest and colonisation of America


was decisively under way by the mid-sixteenth century.  Europeanconquest was not just a result of superior firepower. In fact, the


most powerful weapon of the Spanish conquerors was not a


conventional military weapon at all. It was the germs such as those


of smallpox that they carried on their person. Because of their long


isolation, America’s original inhabitants had no immunity against


these diseases that came from Europe. Smallpox in particular proved


a deadly killer. Once introduced, it spread deep into the continent,ahead even of any Europeans reaching there. It killed and decimated


whole communities, paving the way for conquest.


Fig. 4 –  The Irish Potato Famine,  Illustrated


London News , 1849.


Hungry children digging for potatoes in a field that


has already been harvested, hoping to discoversome leftovers. During the Great Irish PotatoFamine (1845 to 1849), around 1,000,000people died of starvation in Ireland, and double thenumber emigrated in search of work.


‘Biological’ warfare?


John Winthorp, the first governor of  the


Massachusetts Bay colony in New England,wrote in May 1634 that smallpox signalled God’sblessing for the colonists: ‘… the natives … wereneere (near) all dead of small Poxe (pox), so asthe Lord hathe (had) cleared our title to whatwe possess’.


Alfred Crosby,


Ecological Imperialism .Box 1India and the Contemporary World


80Explain what we mean when we say that the


world ‘shrank’ in the 1500s.DiscussGuns could be bought or captured and turned against the invaders.


But not diseases such as smallpox to which the conquerors weremostly immune.


Until the nineteenth century, poverty and hunger were common in


Europe. Cities were crowded and deadly diseases were widespread.


Religious conflicts were common, and religious dissenters  were


persecuted. Thousands therefore fled Europe for America. Here,


by the eighteenth century, plantations worked by slaves captured


in Africa were growing cotton and sugar for European markets.


Until well into the eighteenth century, China and India were among


the world’s richest countries. They were also pre-eminent in Asian


trade. However, from the fifteenth century, China is said to have


restricted overseas contacts and retreated into isolation.  China’sreduced role and the rising importance of the Americas gradually


moved the centre of world trade westwards. Europe now emerged


as the centre of  world trade.


New words


Dissenter – One who refuses to accept


established beliefs and practices


Fig. 5 –  Slaves for sale, New Orleans,  Illustrated London News , 1851.


A prospective buyer carefully inspecting slaves lined up before the auction. You can see two


children along with four women and seven men in top hats and suit waiting to be sold. To attractbuyers, slaves were often dressed in their best clothes.81


The  Making  of  a  Global  WorldThe world changed profoundly in the nineteenth century. Economic,


political, social, cultural and technological factors interacted in


complex ways to transform societies and reshape external relations.


Economists identify three types of movement or ‘flows’ within


international economic exchanges. The first is the flow of trade which


in the nineteenth century referred largely to trade in goods (e.g.,


cloth or wheat). The second is the flow of labour – the migrationof people in search of employment. The third is the movement of


capital for short-term or long-term investments over long distances.


All three flows were closely interwoven and affected peoples’ lives


more deeply now than ever before. The interconnections could


sometimes be broken – for example, labour migration was often


more restricted than goods or capital flows. Yet it helps us understandthe nineteenth-century world economy better if we look at the


three flows together.


2.1 A World Economy Takes Shape


A good place to start is the changing pattern of food productionand consumption in industrial Europe. Traditionally, countries liked


to be self-sufficient in food. But in nineteenth-century Britain,self-sufficiency in food meant lower living standards and social


conflict. Why was this so?


Population growth from the late eighteenth century had increased


the demand for food grains in Britain. As urban centres expanded


and industry grew, the demand for agricultural products went


up, pushing up food grain prices. Under pressure from landedgroups, the government also restricted the import of corn. The


laws allowing the government to do this were commonly known as


the ‘Corn Laws’. Unhappy with high food prices, industrialists andurban dwellers forced the abolition of the Corn Laws.


After the Corn Laws were scrapped, food could be imported into


Britain more cheaply than it could be produced within the country.British agriculture was unable to compete with imports.  Vast areas


of land were now left uncultivated, and thousands of men and


women were thrown out of work. They flocked to the cities ormigrated overseas.2  The Nineteenth Century (1815-1914)India and the Contemporary World


82As food prices fell, consumption in Britain rose. From the mid-


nineteenth century, faster industrial growth in Britain also led to higherincomes, and therefore more food imports. Around the world – in


Eastern Europe, Russia, America and Australia  –  lands were cleared


and food production expanded to meet the British demand.


It was not enough merely to clear lands for agriculture. Railways


were needed to link the agricultural regions to the ports. New


harbours had to be built and old ones expanded to ship the newcargoes. People had to settle on the lands to bring them under


cultivation. This meant building homes and settlements. All these


activities in turn required capital and labour. Capital flowed fromfinancial centres such as London. The demand for labour in places


where labour was in short supply – as in America and Australia –


led to more migration.


Nearly 50 million people emigrated from Europe to America and


Australia in the nineteenth century. All over the world some 150


million are estimated to have left their homes, crossed oceans andvast distances over land in search of a better future.


Fig. 6 – Emigrant ship leaving for the US, by


M.W. Ridley, 1869.


Fig. 7 – Irish emigrants waiting to board the ship, by  Michael Fitzgerald, 1874.83


The  Making  of  a  Global  WorldPrepare a flow chart to show how Britain’s


decision to import food led to increased


migration to America and Australia.ActivityThus by 1890, a global agricultural economy had taken shape,


accompanied by complex changes in labour movement patterns,capital flows, ecologies and technology. Food no longer came from


a nearby village or town, but from thousands of miles away. It was


not grown by a peasant tilling his own land, but by an agriculturalworker, perhaps recently arrived, who was now working on a large


farm that only a generation ago had most likely been a forest. It was


transported by railway, built for that very purpose, and by shipswhich were increasingly manned in these decades by low-paid


workers from southern Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean.


Imagine that you are an agricultural worker who has arrived in


America from Ireland. Write a paragraph on why you chose to


come and how you are earning your living.Activity


Some of this dramatic change, though on a smaller scale, occurred


closer home in west Punjab. Here the British Indian governmentbuilt a network of irrigation canals to transform semi-desert wastesinto fertile agricultural lands that could grow wheat and cotton for


export. The Canal Colonies, as the areas irrigated by the new canals


were called, were settled by peasants from other parts of Punjab.


Of course, food is merely an example. A similar story can be told


for cotton, the cultivation of which expanded worldwide to feed


British textile mills. Or rubber. Indeed, so rapidly did regional


specialisation in the production of commodities develop, thatbetween 1820 and 1914 world trade is estimated to have multiplied25 to 40 times. Nearly 60 per cent of this trade comprised ‘primary


products’ – that is, agricultural products such as wheat and cotton,


and minerals such as coal.


2.2 Role of Technology


What was the role of technology in all this? The railways, steamships,


the telegraph, for example, were important inventions without


which we cannot imagine the transformed nineteenth-century world.But technological advances were often the result of larger social,political and economic factors. For example, colonisation stimulated


new investments and improvements in transport: faster railways,


lighter wagons and larger ships helped move food more cheaplyand quickly from faraway farms to final markets.India and the Contemporary World


84The trade in meat offers a good example of this connected process.


Till the 1870s, animals were shipped live from America to Europeand then slaughtered when they arrived there. But live animals took


up a lot of ship space. Many also died in voyage, fell ill, lost weight,


or became unfit to eat. Meat was hence an expensive luxury beyondthe reach of the European poor. High prices in turn kept demand


and production down until the development of a new technology,


namely, refrigerated ships, which enabled the transport of perishablefoods over long distances.


Now animals were slaughtered for food at the starting point – in


America, Australia or New Zealand – and then transported toEurope as frozen meat. This reduced shipping costs and lowered


meat prices in Europe. The poor in Europe could now consume


a more varied diet. To the earlier monotony of bread and potatoesmany, though not all, could now add meat (and butter and eggs)


to their diet. Better living conditions promoted social peace within


the country and support for imperialism abroad.


2.3 Late nineteenth-century Colonialism


Trade flourished and markets expanded in the late nineteenthcentury. But this was not only a period of expanding trade andincreased prosperity. It is important to realise that there was a


darker side to this process.  In many parts of the world, the


expansion of trade and a closer relationship with the worldeconomy also meant a loss of freedoms and livelihoods. Late-


nineteenth-century European conquests produced many painful


economic, social and ecological changes through which thecolonised societies were brought into the world economy.


Fig. 8 — The Smithfield Club


Cattle Show, Illustrated London


News, 1851.


Cattle were traded at fairs, broughtby farmers for sale. One of theoldest livestock markets in Londonwas at Smithfield. In the mid-nineteenth century a huge poultryand meat market was establishednear the railway line connectingSmithfield to all the meat-supplyingcentres of the country.


Fig. 9 – Meat being loaded on to the ship,Alexandra,  Illustrated London News , 1878.


Export of meat was possible only after shipswere refrigerated.85


The  Making  of  a  Global  WorldLook at a map of Africa (Fig. 10). You


will see some countries’ borders runstraight, as if they were drawn using a


ruler. Well, in fact this was almost how


rival European powers in Africa drew upthe borders demarcating their respective


territories. In 1885 the big European


powers met in Berlin to complete thecarving up of Africa between them.


Britain and France made vast additions to


their overseas territories in the late nineteenthcentury. Belgium and Germany became new


colonial powers. The US also became a


colonial power in the late 1890s by takingover some colonies earlier held by Spain.


Let us look at one example of the destructive


impact of colonialism on the economy andlivelihoods of colonised people.


Sir Henry Morton Stanley in Central


Africa


Stanley was a journalist and explorer sent


by the New York Herald  to find Livingston,


a missionary and explorer who had been inAfrica for several years. Like other Europeanand American explorers of the time, Stanleywent with arms, mobilised local hunters,warriors and labourers to help him, foughtwith local tribes, investigated Africanterrains, and mapped different regions.These explorations helped the conquestof Africa. Geographical explorations werenot driven by an innocent search forscientific information. They were directlylinked to imperial projects.Box 2


Fig. 10 – Map of colonial Africa at the end of the nineteenth century.


Fig. 11 – Sir Henry Morton Stanley and his retinue in Central Africa ,


Illustrated London News, 1871.


MOROCCO


ALGERIASPANISH


SAHARA


RIO


DE ORO


PORT


GUINEAFRENCH SUDANFRENCH WEST AFRICA


NIGERIA


TOGOCAMEROONS


MIDDLE


CONGOCONGO


FREE STATE


(BELGIAN


CONGO)


ANGOLA


GERMAN


SOUTH WEST


AFRICA


UNION OF


SOUTH AFRICANORTHERN


RHODESIA


SOUTHERN


RHODESIAPORTUGUESE


EAST AFRICA


MADAGASCARGERMAN


EAST AFRICABRITISH


SOMALILAND


ETHIOPIA


ITALIAN


SOMALILANDFRENCH


SOMALILANDERITREA


ANGLO-


EGYPTIAN


SUDANEGYPTLIBYA


(TRIPOLI)TUNISIAMEDITERRANEAN SEA


FRENCH


EQUATORIAL


AFRICASPANISH


MOROCCO


RED SEA


ATLANTIC


OCEAN


BELGIAN


BRITISH


GERMAN


ITALIANPORTUGUESE


SPANISH


BRITISH DOMINIONINDEPENDENT STATEGOLD


COAST IVORY


COASTSIERRA


LEONEIndia and the Contemporary World


862.4 Rinderpest, or the Cattle Plague


In Africa, in the 1890s, a fast-spreading disease of cattle plague


or rinderpest had a terrifying impact on people’s livelihoods


and the local economy. This is a good example of the


widespread European imperial impact on colonised societies.It shows how in this era of conquest even a disease affecting


cattle reshaped the lives and fortunes of thousands of people


and their relations with the rest of the world.


Historically, Africa had abundant land and a relatively small


population. For centuries, land and livestock sustained African


livelihoods and people rarely worked for a wage. In late-nineteenth-century Africa there were few consumer goods that


wages could buy. If you had been an African possessing land


and livestock – and there was plenty of both – you too wouldhave seen little reason to work for a wage.


In the late nineteenth century, Europeans were attracted to


Africa due to its vast resources of land and minerals. Europeanscame to Africa hoping to establish plantations and mines to


produce crops and minerals for export to Europe. But there


was an unexpected problem – a shortage of labour willing towork for wages.


Employers used many methods to recruit and retain labour. Heavytaxes were imposed which could be paid only by working for wages


on plantations and mines. Inheritance laws were changed so thatFig. 12 – Transport to the Transvaal gold mines,


The Graphic , 1887.


Crossing the Wilge river was the quickest method oftransport to the gold fields of Transvaal. After thediscovery of gold in Witwatersrand, Europeansrushed to the region despite their fear of disease anddeath, and the difficulties of the journey. By the1890s, South Africa contributed over 20 per cent ofthe world gold production.


Fig. 13 — Diggers at work


in the Transvaal gold fieldsin South Africa, The


Graphic,  1875.87


The  Making  of  a  Global  Worldpeasants were displaced from land:  only one member of a family


was allowed to inherit land, as a result of which the others werepushed into the labour market. Mineworkers were also confined in


compounds and not allowed to move about freely.


Then came rinderpest, a devastating cattle disease.Rinderpest arrived in Africa in the late 1880s.  It was carried by


infected cattle imported from British Asia to feed the Italian soldiers


invading Eritrea in East Africa. Entering Africa in the east, rinderpestmoved west ‘like forest fire’, reaching Africa’s Atlantic coast in 1892.


It reached the Cape (Africa’s southernmost tip) five years later. Along


the way rinderpest killed 90 per cent of the cattle.


The loss of cattle destroyed African livelihoods. Planters, mine owners


and colonial governments now successfully monopolised what scarce


cattle resources remained, to strengthen their power and to forceAfricans into the labour market. Control over the scarce resource


of cattle enabled European colonisers to conquer and subdue Africa.


Similar stories can be told about the impact of Western conquest on


other parts of the nineteenth-century world.


2.4 Indentured Labour Migration from India


The example of indentured labour  migration from India also


illustrates the two-sided nature of the nineteenth-century world.


It was a world of faster economic growth as well as great misery,


higher incomes for some and poverty for others, technologicaladvances in some areas and new forms of coercion in others.


In the nineteenth century, hundreds of thousands of Indian and


Chinese labourers went to work on plantations, in mines, and inroad and railway construction projects around the world. In India,


indentured labourers were hired under contracts which promised


return travel to India after they had worked five years on theiremployer’s plantation.


Most Indian indentured workers came from the present-day regions


of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, central India and the dry districtsof Tamil Nadu. In the mid-nineteenth century these regions


experienced many changes – cottage industries declined, land rents


rose, lands were cleared for mines and plantations. All this affectedthe lives of the poor: they failed to pay their rents, became deeply


indebted and were forced to migrate in search of work.New words


Indentured labour – A  bonded labourer under


contract to work for an employer for a specific


amount of time, to pay off his passage to anew country or homeIndia and the Contemporary World


88Discuss the importance of language and


popular traditions in the creation of national


identity.The main destinations of Indian indentured


migrants were the Caribbean islands (mainly


Trinidad, Guyana and Surinam), Mauritius and Fiji.


Closer home, Tamil migrants went to Ceylon andMalaya. Indentured workers were also recruitedfor tea plantations in Assam.


Recruitment was done by agents engaged by


employers and paid a small commission. Many


migrants agreed to take up work hoping to escape


poverty or oppression in their home villages.Agents also tempted the prospective migrantsby providing false information about finaldestinations, modes of travel, the nature of thework, and living and working conditions. Often


migrants were not even told that they were to embark on a long


sea voyage. Sometimes agents even forcibly abducted lesswilling migrants.


Nineteenth-century indenture has been described as a ‘new system


of slavery’. On arrival at the plantations, labourers found conditionsto be different from what they had imagined. Living and working


conditions were harsh, and there were few legal rights.


But workers discovered their own ways of surviving. Many of them


escaped into the wilds, though if caught they faced severe punishment.Others developed new forms of individual and collective self-expression, blending different cultural forms, old and new. InTrinidad the annual Muharram procession was transformed into a


riotous carnival called ‘Hosay’ (for Imam Hussain) in which workers


of all races and religions joined. Similarly, the protest religion ofRastafarianism (made famous by the Jamaican reggae star BobMarley) is also said to reflect social and cultural links with Indianmigrants to the Caribbean. ‘Chutney music’, popular in Trinidadand Guyana, is another creative contemporary expression of the


post-indenture experience. These forms of cultural fusion are part


of the making of the global world, where things from differentplaces get mixed, lose their original characteristics and becomesomething entirely new.


Most indentured workers stayed on after their contracts ended, or


returned to their new homes after a short spell in India. Consequently,


there are large communities of people of Indian descent in these


countries. Have you heard of the Nobel Prize-winning writer


Fig. 14  — Indian indentured labourers in a cocoa plantation in


Trinidad, early nineteenth century.


Discuss


Fig. 15  — Indentured laboureres photographed


for identification.


For the employers, the numbers and not thenames mattered.


The  Making  of  a  Global  WorldV.S. Naipaul? Some of you may have followed the exploits of West


Indies cricketers Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan.


If you have wondered why their names sound vaguely Indian, the


answer is that they are descended from indentured labour migrants


from India.


From the 1900s India’s nationalist leaders began opposing the system


of indentured labour migration as abusive and cruel. It was abolished


in 1921. Yet for a number of decades afterwards, descendants of


Indian indentured workers, often thought of as ‘coolies’, remained


an uneasy minority in the Caribbean islands. Some of Naipaul’s


early novels capture their sense of loss and alienation.


2.5 Indian Entrepreneurs Abroad


Growing food and other crops for the world market requiredcapital. Large plantations could borrow it from banks and markets.


But what about the humble peasant?


Enter the Indian banker. Do you know of the Shikaripuri shroffs


and Nattukottai  Chettiars? They were amongst the many groups


of bankers and traders who financed export agriculture in Centraland Southeast Asia, using either their own funds or those borrowed


from European banks. They had a sophisticated system to transfer


money over large distances, and even developed indigenous forms


of corporate organisation.


Indian traders and moneylenders also followed European colonisers


into Africa. Hyderabadi Sindhi traders, however, ventured beyond


European colonies. From the 1860s they established flourishingemporia at busy ports worldwide, selling local and imported curios


to tourists whose numbers were beginning to swell, thanks to the


development of safe and comfortable passenger vessels.


2.6 Indian Trade, Colonialism and the Global System


Historically, fine cottons produced in India were exported  to Europe.With industrialisation, British cotton manufacture began to expand,


and industrialists pressurised the government to restrict cotton


imports and protect local industries. Tariffs were imposed on cloth


imports into Britain. Consequently, the inflow of fine Indian cotton


began to decline.


From the early nineteenth century, British manufacturers also began


to seek overseas markets for their cloth. Excluded from the BritishFig. 16 — A contract form of an indentured


labourer.


The testimony of  an indentured labourer


Extract from the testimony of Ram Narain


Tewary, an indentured labourer who spent tenyears on Demerara in the early twentieth century.


‘… in spite of my best efforts, I could not properly


do the works that were allotted to me ... In afew days I got my hands bruised all over and Icould not go to work for a week for which I wasprosecuted and sent to jail for 14 days. ... newemigrants find the tasks allotted to themextremely heavy and cannot complete them ina day. ... Deductions are also made from wagesif the work is considered to have been doneunsatisfactorily. Many people cannot thereforeearn their full wages and are punished in variousways. In fact, the labourers have to spend theirperiod of indenture in great trouble …’


Source: Department of Commerce and Industry,


Emigration Branch. 1916


SourceSource AIndia and the Contemporary World


90market by tariff barriers, Indian textiles now faced stiff competition


in other international markets. If we look at the figures of exports


from India, we see a steady decline of the share of cotton textiles:


from some 30 per cent around 1800 to 15 per cent by 1815. By the


1870s this proportion had dropped to below 3 per cent.


What, then, did India export? The figures again tell a dramatic


story.  While exports of manufactures declined rapidly, export of


raw materials increased equally fast. Between 1812 and 1871, the


share of raw cotton exports rose from 5 per cent to 35 per cent.Indigo used for dyeing cloth was another important export forFig. 17 – East India Company House, London.


This was the nerve centre of the worldwide operations of the East India Company.


Fig. 18 – A distant view of Suratand its river.All through the seventeenth and earlyeighteenth centuries, Surat remainedthe main centre of overseas trade inthe western Indian Ocean.91


The  Making  of  a  Global  World


Fig. 19 – The trade routes that linked India to the world at the end of the seventeenth century.many decades. And, as you have read last year, opium shipments to


China grew rapidly from the 1820s to become for a while India’ssingle largest export. Britain grew opium in India and exported it to


China and, with the money earned through this sale, it financed its


tea and other imports from China.


Over the nineteenth century, British manufactures flooded the Indian


market. Food grain and raw material exports from India to Britain


and the rest of the world increased. But the value of British exportsto India was much higher than the value of British imports from


India. Thus Britain had a ‘trade surplus’ with India. Britain used this


surplus to balance its trade deficits with other countries – that is,with countries from which Britain was importing more than it was


selling to. This is how a multilateral settlement system works –


it allows one country’s deficit with another country to be settledby its surplus with a third country. By helping Britain balance its


deficits,  India played a crucial role in the late-nineteenth-century


world economy.


Britain’s trade surplus in India also helped pay the so-called ‘home


charges’ that included private remittances home by British officials


and traders, interest payments on India’s external debt, and pensionsof British officials in India.


Surat


GoaMadrasMasulipatamHoogly


BangkokHanoiCanton


Malacca


Batavia


BantamAchehMuscatBandar AbbasBasraAleppo


Alexandria


Jedda


MachaLahoreBukhara


Yarkand TheGreatWall


Mombasa


Mozambique


Sea route


Land route


Volume of trade passing through the portRed SeaPersian Gulf


Indian OceanIndia and the Contemporary World


923  The Inter-war Economy


The First World War (1914-18) was mainly fought in Europe. But


its impact was felt around the world. Notably for our concernsin this chapter, it plunged the first half of the twentieth centuryinto a crisis that took over three decades to overcome. Duringthis period the world experienced widespread economic andpolitical instability, and another catastrophic war.


3.1 Wartime Transformations


The First World War, as you know, was fought between two powerblocs. On the one side were the Allies – Britain, France and Russia(later joined by the US); and on the opposite side were the CentralPowers – Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey.  Whenthe war began in August 1914, many governments thought it wouldbe over by Christmas. It lasted more than four years.


The First World War was a war like no other before. The fighting


involved the world’s leading industrial nations which nowharnessed the vast powers of modern industry to inflict the greatestpossible destruction on their enemies.


This war was thus the first modern industrial war. It saw the use


of machine guns, tanks, aircraft, chemical weapons, etc. on amassive scale. These were all increasingly products of modern large-scale industry. To fight the war, millions of soldiershad to be recruited from around the world andmoved to the frontlines on large ships and trains.


The scale of death and destruction – 9 million dead


and 20 million injured – was unthinkable before the


industrial age, without the use of industrial arms.


Most of the killed and maimed were men of


working age. These deaths and injuries reduced theable-bodied workforce in Europe. With fewernumbers within the family, household incomesdeclined after the war.


During the war, industries were restructured to


produce war-related goods. Entire societies werealso reorganised for war – as men went to battle,women stepped in to undertake jobs that earlier only


men were expected to do.


Fig. 20 – Workers in a munition factory during the First World


War.Production  of armaments increased rapidly to meet war demands.93


The  Making  of  a  Global  WorldThe war led to the snapping of economic links between some of


the world’s largest economic powers which were now fightingeach other to pay for them. So Britain borrowed large sumsof money from US banks as well as the US public. Thus the war


transformed the US from being an international debtor to an


international creditor. In other words, at the war’s end, the US andits citizens owned more overseas assets than foreign governmentsand citizens owned in the US.


3.2 Post-war Recovery


Post-war economic recovery proved difficult. Britain, which wasthe world’s leading economy in the pre-war period, in particularfaced a prolonged crisis. While Britain was preoccupied with war,


industries had developed in India and Japan. After the war Britain


found it difficult to recapture its earlier position of dominance inthe Indian market, and to compete with Japan internationally.Moreover, to finance war expenditures Britain had borrowed liberally


from the US. This meant that at the end of the war Britain was


burdened with huge external debts.


The war had led to an economic boom, that is, to a large increase in


demand, production and employment. When the war boom ended,production contracted and unemployment increased. At the


same time the government reduced bloated war expenditures to


bring them into line with peacetime revenues. These developmentsled to huge job losses – in 1921 one in every five British workerswas out of work. Indeed, anxiety and uncertainty about work


became an enduring part of the post-war scenario.


Many agricultural economies were also in crisis. Consider the case


of wheat producers. Before the war, eastern Europe was a majorsupplier of wheat in the world market. When this supply was


disrupted during the war, wheat production in Canada, America


and Australia expanded dramatically. But once the war was over,production in eastern Europe revived and created a glut in wheatoutput. Grain prices fell, rural incomes declined, and farmers fell


deeper into debt.


3.3 Rise of Mass Production and Consumption


In the US, recovery was quicker. We have already seen how the warhelped boost the US economy. After a short period of economicIndia and the Contemporary World


94trouble in the years after the war, the US  economy resumed


its strong growth in the early 1920s.


One important feature of the US economy of the 1920s


was mass production. The move towards mass productionhad begun in the late nineteenth century, but in the 1920s itbecame a characteristic feature of industrial production inthe US. A well-known pioneer of mass production was thecar manufacturer Henry Ford. He adapted the assembly lineof a Chicago slaughterhouse (in which slaughtered animalswere picked apart by butchers as they came down a conveyorbelt) to his new car plant in Detroit. He realised that the


‘assembly line’ method would allow a faster and cheaper way


of producing vehicles. The assembly line forced workers torepeat a single task mechanically and continuously – such asfitting a particular part to the car – at a pace dictated by theconveyor belt. This was a way of increasing the output per workerby speeding up the pace of work. Standing in front of a conveyorbelt no worker could afford to delay the motions, take a break, oreven have a friendly word with a workmate. As a result, HenryFord’s cars came off the assembly line at three-minute intervals, aspeed much faster than that achieved by previous methods. The T-Model Ford was the world’s first mass-produced car.


At first workers at the Ford  factory were unable to cope with the


stress of working on assembly lines in which they could not control


the pace of work. So they quit in large numbers. In desperationFord doubled the daily wage to $5 in January 1914. At the sametime he banned trade unions from operating in his plants.


Henry Ford recovered the high wage by repeatedly speeding up


the production line and forcing workers to work ever harder. Somuch so, he would soon describe his decision to double the dailywage as the ‘best cost-cutting decision’ he had ever made.


Fordist industrial practices soon spread in the US. They were also


widely copied in Europe in the 1920s. Mass production loweredcosts and prices of engineered goods. Thanks to higher wages,more workers could now afford to purchase durable consumer