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The first act of rebellion against the british that started making people want freedom and sovereignty. A small group of people took it into their own hands and started a revolt against their british masters to escape their situation. Since this revolt was violent it was not able to do much change but it did create more patriotism for indians.

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Table of Contents

Background

To regard the rebellion merely as a sepoy mutiny is to underestimate the root causes leading to it. British paramountcy-i.e., the belief in British dominance in Indian political, economic, and cultural life-had been introduced in India about 1820. The British increasingly used a variety of tactics to usurp control of the Hindu princely states that were under what were called subsidiary alliances with the British. Everywhere the old Indian aristocracy was being replaced by British officials. One notable British technique was called the doctrine of lapse, first perpetrated by Lord Dalhousie in the late 1840s. It involved the British prohibiting a Hindu ruler without a natural heir from adopting a successor and, after the ruler died or abdicated, annexing his land. To those problems may be added the growing discontent of the Brahmans, many of whom had been dispossessed of their revenues or had lost lucrative positions.

Another serious concern was the increasing pace of Westernization, by which Hindu society was being affected by the introduction of Western ideas. Missionaries were challenging the religious beliefs of the Hindus. The humanitarian movement led to reforms that went deeper than the political superstructure. During his tenure as governor-general of India (1848-56), Lord Dalhousie made efforts toward emancipating women and had introduced a bill to remove all legal obstacles to the remarriage of Hindu widows. Converts to Christianity were to share with their Hindu relatives in the property of the family estate. There was a widespread belief that the British aimed at breaking down the caste system. The introduction of Western methods of education was a direct challenge to orthodoxy, both Hindu and Muslim.

The mutiny broke out in the Bengal army because it was only in the military sphere that Indians were organized. The pretext for revolt was the introduction of the new Enfield rifle. To load it, the sepoys had to bite off the ends of lubricated cartridges. A rumour spread among the sepoys that the grease used to lubricate the cartridges was a mixture of pigs' and cows' lard; thus, to have oral contact with it was an insult to both Muslims and Hindus. There is no conclusive evidence that either of these materials was actually used on any of the cartridges in question. However, the perception that the cartridges were tainted added to the larger suspicion that the British were trying to undermine Indian traditional society. For their part, the British did not pay enough attention to the growing level of sepoy discontent.

Table of Contents

Date:

June 8, 1857 - September 21, 1857
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Context:

Indian Mutiny
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Indian Mutiny | History, Causes, Effects, Summary, & Facts

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Indian Mutiny, also called Sepoy Mutiny or First War of Independence, widespread but unsuccessful rebellion against British rule in India in 1857-59. Begun in Meerut by Indian troops (sepoys) in the service of the British East India Company, it spread to Delhi, Agra, Kanpur, and Lucknow.

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This was a huge step because it was the first time that Indian people had some control of the politics in India. Though this congress was a huge step in the beginning it was censored and did not allow us to talk about freedom. But as Leaders like Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah joined it became much more of a prominent political force.

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The Indian National Congress was formed. What happened?
On 28 December 1885, the first session of the Indian National Congress (INC) was held at Bombay and continued till 31 December. It was started by a retired British civil servant Allan Octavian Hume along with Dadabhai Naoroji and Dinshaw Wacha.
Indian National Congress Formation

The INC was the first national movement of a political kind in India with the initial aim of getting more Indians involved in the governance of the country. Later on, its purpose upgraded to complete independence. And, post-independence, it emerged as a major political party in the country.

For the first session, Hume obtained permission from the then Viceroy of India Lord Dufferin. It was initially supposed to be held in Poona but was moved to Bombay due to the outbreak of cholera in Poona.

In 1883, Hume had written an open letter to Calcutta University graduates expressing his idea of having a body for educated Indians to demand more share in the government and also for a platform by which dialogue could be initiated and sustained between educated Indians and the British government.

The first session was attended by 72 delegates from all the Indian provinces. There were 54 Hindus, 2 Muslims and the rest were Jain and Parsi members.

The president of the first session was Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee.

Prominent attendees of the maiden session were Dadabhai Naoroji, Dinshaw Wacha, William Wedderburn, Pherozeshah Mehta, etc.

In its early years, the INC was a moderate organisation and limited its means to constitutional methods and dialogue. Its demands were limited to including more Indians in the civil service and the armed forces. It never talked of independence.

After a few years, the party became more radical in its demands and approach. By 1905, there was a clear rift in the party which was now divided between old moderates and the newer group, the extremists - who were so called because of their radical methodologies.

The 1905 partition of Bengal saw the party transforming into a mass movement.

The extremist faction was led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The party split openly in the Surat session in 1907.

The congress truly became a mass party with the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi, who returned from South Africa in 1915. Gandhi introduced methods like satyagraha and civil disobedience to the independence struggle. Gandhi remained a spiritual leader for the party and his presence drew a lot of support from both the elite and the masses. More young leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, C Rajagopalachari, Subhash Chandra Bose, etc. made their presence felt.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was also a member of the party and although he joined the Muslim League in 1913, he continued to be a Congress member as well until 1920.

Starting with home rule, by 1929, the demand for poorna swaraj was being made.

The Congress was now a party that had huge mass support and was the chief political party in the Indian freedom struggle.

After the Government of India Act 1935 was passed, provincial elections were held in 1936-37 and out of the 11 provinces, the Congress formed the government in 8 of them except Sindh, Punjab and Bengal.

It must be noted that the INC was not the sole Indian political force, there were other parties like the Hindu Mahasabha, the Forward Bloc, etc.

After independence, the first Prime Minister of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru was from the party. In the first general elections in 1952, the Congress had a thumping victory and Nehru became the first directly elected PM of India. He was in power till his death in 1964.

Other Prime Ministers from the party are Gulzarilal Nanda (acting PM), Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. Even the non-Congress Prime Ministers like Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, V P Singh, Chandra Shekhar, Deve Gowda and I K Gujral were formerly members of the Congress.

Also on this day 1932: Birth of Dhirubhai Ambani, prominent industrialist and Padma Vibhushan awardee.1937: Birth of Ratan Tata, prominent industrialist and Padma Vibhushan awardee.1974: Death of Pandit Hiralal Shastri, first Chief Minister of Rajasthan.

See previous 'This Day in History' here.

Also read:

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The Indian National Congress Was Formed on December 28, 1885 - This Day in History

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The INC was the first national movement of a political kind in India with the initial aim of getting more Indians involved in the governance of the country. The first session was attended by 72 delegates from all the Indian provinces.

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This movement was the first movement to fight against the british. This is the first act of nonviolence in India against the British. This was based on self-suffiency and not depending on the british for any goods or services. They were basically boycotting the cotton made in manchester by making their own cotton.

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Bal Gangadhar Tilak was an Indian nationalist, teacher, social reformer, lawyer and an independence activist. He was the first leader of the Indian Independence Movement. Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of Swaraj ("self-rule") and a strong radical in Indian consciousness. He is known for his quote in Marathi: "Swarajya is my birthright and I shall have it!".

The extremist like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai, and Aurobindo Ghosh demanded Swaraj or complete independence from British rule. They believed in self-reliance as a weapon against domination. They promoted Swadeshi and boycott of foreign goods. Swarajya (self-rule) being the ultimate aim that was to be achieved and the means were swadeshi and boycott.

The Swadeshi movement launched in the early 20th Century was a direct fallout of the decision of the British India government to partition Bengal.

Use of Swadeshi goods and boycott of foreign made goods were the two main objectives of this movement.

A Boycott Resolution was passed in Calcutta City Hall on August 7, 1905, where it was decided to boycott the use of Manchester cloth and salt from Liverpool.

In the district of Barisal, the masses adopted this message of boycott of foreign-made goods, and the value of the British cloth sold there fell sharply.

Bande Mataram became the boycott and Swadeshi movement theme song.

Among the movement's various forms of struggle, it was the boycott of foreign-made goods that encountered the greatest visible success on the practical and popular level.

Boycott and public burning of foreign clothes, picketing of shops selling foreign goods, all became common in remote corners of Bengal as well as in many major cities and towns across the country.

Another form of mass mobilization widely used by the Swadeshi movement was the corps of volunteers (samitis).

Ashwini Kumar Dutt, a school teacher, set up the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti in Barisal was the best - known volunteer organization of all of them.

The Shivaji and Ganapati festivals in Western India (Maharashtra) were organized by Lokmanya Tilak to spread the swadeshi message and boycott movements among the masses.

The Swadeshi and boycott movements placed great emphasis on ' Atmasakti ' or self - reliance as a means of reasserting national dignity in different fields.

In the field of national education, this emphasis on self - reliance was most evident.

The National College of Bengal was founded as its principal with Aurobindo. Numerous national schools have been established throughout the country in a short period of time.

The National Education Council was established in August 1906.

In Indians entrepreneurial zeal, self - reliance was also evident. The period saw an explosion of textile mills, factories of soap and match, tanneries, banks, insurance companies, shops, etc.

While most of these Swadeshi companies were set up and run as a result of patriotic fervor than any real business interest and were unable to survive for a long time, some others like Acharya P.C. Ray

In the field of culture, Amar Sonar Bangla, written by Rabindranath Tagore in protest against Bengal's partition, became a rallying point for the Swadeshi and boycott movements and later inspired Bangladesh's liberation struggle.

Importance of the Swadeshi and Boycott Movements

The Swadeshi and boycott movements were India's first 20th century movements that encouraged mass participation in modern nationalist politics by a large section of society.

For the first time, women came out of their homes and joined processions and picketing of foreign-made goods shops.

The Swadeshi and boycott movements also changed the character of the Indian National Congress (INC) from being driven largely by moderates to the main agenda now being set by the ' Extremists ' who gave the Congress's 1906 Calcutta session's call for ' Swaraj ' or self - government.

The ideas of non - cooperation and passive resistance, successfully applied many years later by Mahatma Gandhi, found their origin in early 20th century Swadeshi and boycott movements.

Gandhian techniques used during Swadeshi movement:

The methods adopted were petitions to the Government, public meetings, adopted were petitions to the Government, public meetings, memoranda, and propaganda through pamphlets and newspapers such as Hitabadi, Sanjibani and Bengalee.

Their objective was to exert sufficient pressure on the Government through an educated public opinion in India and England to prevent the unjust partition of Bengal from being implemented.

The movement threw up the entire gamut of Gandhian techniques such as passive resistance, non-violent non-cooperation, the call to fill the British jails, social reform, constructive work, boycott of foreign-made salt or sugar, refusal by priests to ritualize marriages involving exchange of foreign goods, refusal by washermen to wash foreign clothes

Crops of volunteers of 'Samitis':
Samitis such as the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti of Ashwini Kumar Dutta (in Barisal) emerged as a very popular and powerful method of mass mobilization.

Programme of swadeshi or national education:
National school and colleges sprang up in various parts of the country.

Reasons behind the decadence of the Swadeshi movement:

Government suppression:

Realizing the revolutionary potential, the government came down with a heavy hand. Most of the important leaders of the movement were either imprisoned or deported between 1907 and 1908.

Any mass movement cannot be sustained endlessly at the same pitch of militancy and self-sacrifice, especially when faced with severe repression.

Congress split:
The internal squabbles, and especially, the split in 1907 in the Congress, the apex all-India organization, weakened the movement.

Organization structure:

It lacked the effective organization and party structure.

The movement failed to create an effective organization or a party structure.

It threw up an entire gamut of techniques that came to be associated with Gandhian politics like non-cooperation, passive resistance, filling of British jails, social reform and constructive work but failed to give these techniques a disciplined focus.

Reach limited:

The movement largely remained confined to the upper and middle classes and zamindars, and failed to reach masses especially the peasantry.

It was not able to garner the support of the mass of Muslims and especially of the Muslim peasantry. Hindus and Muslims were divided along class lines with the former being the landlords and the latter constituting the peasantry.

Though the Swadeshi Movement had spread outside Bengal, the rest of the country was not as yet fully prepared to adopt the new style and stage of politics.

Ideas failed:
The movement aroused the people but did not know how to tap the newly released energy or how to find new forms to give expression to popular resentment.

Leadership issues:

The movement was rendered leaderless with most the leaders either arrested or deported by 1908 and with Aurobindo Ghosh and Bipin Chandra Pal retiring from active politics.

Tilak was sentenced to six years imprisonment, Ajit Singh and Lajpat Rai of Punjab were deported and Chidambaram Pillai was arrested.

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Bal Gangadhar Tilak was an Indian nationalist, teacher, social reformer, lawyer and an independence activist. He was the first leader of the Indian Independence Movement. Tilak was one of the first and strongest advocates of Swaraj ("self-rule") and a strong radical in Indian consciousness.

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This is the base movement that started all the other movements; other movements were based on this movement. The main people in this movement were Bal Gangadhar Tilak and VO Chidambaram. It mainly used strategies such as boycotting British products.

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By IndiaToday.in: The Swadeshi Movement, now known as 'Make in India' campaign was officially proclaimed on August 7, 1905 at the Calcutta Town Hall, in Bengal. Boycott movement was also launched along with the Swadeshi movement. The movements included using goods produced in India and burning British-made goods.. Bal Gandadhar Tilak encouraged Swadeshi and Boycott movement after the British government decided the partition of Bengal.
Timeline of Swadeshi movement:
In 1900, Bengal was the major province in British India. The Indian national movement began in Bengal and thus, Britishers decided to part Bengal.

When Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, announced the partition of Bengal in July 1905, Indian National Congress, initiated Swadeshi movement in Bengal. Swadeshi movement was launched as a protest movement which also gave a lead to the Boycott movement in the country.

In 1909, the movement had spread across the country and people had started anti-partition and anti-colonial movements. In Andhra Pradesh, the Swadeshi movement was also known as Vandemataram movement

In 1910, there were many secret associations that had been set up and there were many revolutionary movements, which were synonymous to Swadeshi movement

Later movements by Mahatma Gandhi from 1915, such as Satyagraha movement, Non-Cooperation movement etc. were based on Swadeshi movement.
Key people in the Swadeshi movement:

Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Bipin Chandra Pal
Lala Lajpat Rai
Aurobindo Ghosh
VO Chidambaram Pillai
Babu Genu

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Swadeshi Movement: Timeline and Important facts that you must know

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By IndiaToday.in : The Swadeshi Movement, now known as 'Make in India' campaign was officially proclaimed on August 7, 1905 at the Calcutta Town Hall, in Bengal. Boycott movement was also launched along with the Swadeshi movement. The movements included using goods produced in India and burning British-made goods..

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This was a movement launched by Annie Besant in the idea of reaching self-rule for india in Madras. This lasted for about 2 years and it was also related to the home rule movement in Maharashtra by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. It made to bring the idea of self rule to the masses and the idea of political representation of indians.

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Home Rule Movement Modern History NCERT Notes For UPSC IAS Exam

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Home Rule Movement. The aim of the home rule movement was the attainment of home rule or a dominion status for India under the British Empire along the lines of countries like Canada and Australia. For UPSC 2023 preparation, follow BYJU’S

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This movement was based off of the indigo farmers and their rights as farmers. During this time farmers had little to no say in what they grew in their land. They were forced to grow indigo in their land which left them with no food for them to eat and left them in poverty.

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Champaran Satyagraha. Source: PIB

By India Today Web Desk: You might be reading this in an air-conditioned room or car, shying away from the summer sun behind your pair of shades. A hundred years ago, on a day very much like this, Mohandas Gandhi travelled in a train with no AC to reach Champaran, to hold India's first civil disobedience movement.

Under the British rule, many farmers in the Champaran district of Bihar were forced to grow indigo in their lands, much to their dismay. To fight this, a money lender named Raj Kumar Shukla reached out to Gandhiji and requested him to come and help them.

As Gandhi wrote in his autobiography, he did not even know of Champaran before this. Nonetheless, he came down to this district on April 10 of 1917 with a band of lawyers, including Dr Rajendra Prasad, to fight it out with the British.

There had been the Indigo Riots in 1859-60, but this was a new struggle altogether.

Preparations began. Gandhi and his lawyers travelled across the district to different villages, meeting farmers and taking note of their sufferings and complaints against the forced indigo cultivation.

Ever since Gandhi arrived in Champaran, the British rulers started keeping a close eye on his moves. Finally, on April 15, he was given an ultimatum at Motihari by the commissioner to leave Champaran.
To that, Gandhi responded that he wouldn't leave, but was ready to bear "the penalty of civil disobedience".
It was apparent now that Gandhi would be taken to jail for this resistance. As a response, scores of Champaran tenants turned up in protest outside the jail, police stations and courts.

In the end, troubled by this unusual form of resistance that spilled no violence, the government was forced to let go of Gandhi.

"The country, thus, had its first direct object-lesson in Civil Disobedience," Gandhi wrote in his autobiography.

The struggle against forced indigo cultivation continued. Now, however, the possibility of Gandhi's arrest was more eminent. But he put together a plan, a chain of people who would take over the work if he, or anyone after him, was arrested. This way, the struggle would go on, with or without him.

The struggle went on, the civil disobedience continued. The protests and hunger strikes ultimately ended with the abolishing of the cultivation of Indigo, or as it was known then, the tinkathia system.

The landlords under the British government were made to sign an agreement that granted the farmers more control over what they wanted to grow on their own lands, among other benefits.

It was during this movement when Gandhi was first referred to as Bapu and Mahatma, or so goes the legend.

And that was the story of India's first civil disobedience movement, Champaran Satyagraha, which completes 100 years this month.
Also read: 100 years of Champaran Satyagraha: Gandhiji's arrival at Motihari re-enacted On centenary of Champaran Satyagraha, Government to launch digital exhibition 'Bapu ko Karyanjali' on April 10 Bihar govt to celebrate centenary of "Champaran satyagraha" Bihar plans progs to celebrate Champaran Satyagraha centenary PM Modi pays tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 147 birth anniversary Also watch:

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The story of Champaran Satyagraha, India's first civil disobedience movement

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Champaran Satyagraha. Source: PIB By India Today Web Desk : You might be reading this in an air-conditioned room or car, shying away from the summer sun behind your pair of shades. A hundred years ago, on a day very much like this, Mohandas Gandhi travelled in a train with no AC to reach Champaran, to hold India's first civil disobedience movement.

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This act was one of the acts that woke everyone up and started the independence movement. It infringed on people's rights so much by not allowing them a fair trial. This law could have been taken to many extremes and would have made people's lives so much harder.

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Table of Contents

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford, in full Frederic John Napier Thesiger, 1st Viscount Chelmsford of Chelmsford, Baron Chelmsford of Chelmsford, (born August 12, 1868, London, England-died April 1, 1933, London), English colonial administrator and statesman who served for several years as governor of Queensland and New South Wales in Australia before becoming viceroy of India. As viceroy, he helped to institute reforms that increased Indian representation in government but provoked opposition with his severe measures against nationalists.

Chelmsford was the eldest son of the 2nd Baron Chelmsford and, on his mother's side, a grandson of Major General John Heath of the Bombay army. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he led the cricket team in 1890. He later served on both the London school board and the county council. In 1905 he succeeded his father as Baron Chelmsford and was appointed governor of the state of Queensland. In 1909 he became governor of New South Wales, where he was active and popular despite political conflict and labour unrest.

Knighted in 1912, Chelmsford left Australia the next year to serve in India as a captain in the Dorsetshire regiment. During the early part of World War I (1914-18) he received quick promotions, to the surprise of many, and was named viceroy in 1916. He inherited a series of repressive wartime emergency measures, such as the internment of persons accused of subversion, that had been enacted over concerns about potential activity associated with a surge in Indian nationalism. Nevertheless, he undertook, with Edwin Samuel Montagu, the secretary of state for India, a study of the subcontinent's political situation that became known as the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, which was presented to Parliament in 1918 and became the basis of the Government of India Act of 1919. The principal tenet of the proposed reforms was the concept of dyarchy-essentially, dual government. The central and provincial legislatures were to be increased in size and given elected majorities, and certain departments of government were to be transferred to the control of Indian ministers who were to be responsible to the legislature. Other responsibilities (e.g., law and revenue) were to remain with the British governor. The number of Indians on the viceroy's executive council of seven was to be increased from one to three.

Before those measures could be implemented, however, Chelmsford, concerned about the growing nationalist movement in India, spearheaded the passage of the Rowlatt Acts in early 1919, which were intended to continue the wartime emergency powers of the executive branch. The acts were met by strong Indian opposition and led to the bloody Massacre of Amritsar (April 13, 1919), in which hundreds of unarmed Indians at a gathering in Amritsar (now in Punjab state) were killed or wounded by British soldiers. Martial law was quickly imposed in the Punjab region, and Chelmsford's competence in handling the situation was questioned. The Government of India Act reforms were finally implemented at the end of 1919. By the time the first elections to the reformed councils were held in late 1920, however, Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi had already launched the noncooperation movement (1920-22)-the first of his sustained nonviolent protest (satyagraha) campaigns-and the Indian National Congress boycotted the polling.

Chelmsford's term as viceroy ended in 1921, and he returned to England. That year he was created a viscount, and in 1924 he became first lord of the Admiralty in Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald 's Labour government. During his last years Chelmsford was chairman of the Miner's Welfare Committee and active in education projects, collecting many honours.

Kenneth Pletcher.

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Rowlatt Acts, (February 1919), legislation passed by the Imperial Legislative Council, the legislature of British India. The acts allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries and permitted internment of suspects without trial. Their object was to replace the repressive provisions of the wartime Defence of India Act (1915) by a permanent law.

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Though this law was never passed it greatly affected the country's state at the moment. It added more fuel to the fire and ended up making people more angry and more protests. This act in many ways started the protesting which led up to the Amritsar Massacre so it was a crucial event in the timeline.

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The year 1919 was, in many ways, a turning point for India. For one, the First World War had just ended, allowing the British to turn their focus once again to the uncomfortable developments taking place in India.

The rising tide of nationalism was beginning to cause the colonial British serious alarm. The demand for independence was getting more and more strident and frequent acts of political violence were proving worrisome. Moreover, Mahatma Gandhi had launched his first Satyagraha in India, in Champaran in Bihar in 1917, signalling that a new - and very effective - form of protest had arrived in the Indian subcontinent.

Then, in March 1919, the British introduced one of the most hated pieces of legislations in India. It was called the 'Rowlatt Act' and it had far-reaching consequences on the freedom movement.

The formal name of the legislation was the 'Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919', a dead giveaway to the intentions of the colonial administration.

<img alt="Sidney Rowlatt, the President of the Rowlatt Committee" sizes="100vw" srcSet="/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F68cbd8e3749e5787d4f2f194633c3c711a036458-540x410.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=640&amp;q=75 640w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F68cbd8e3749e5787d4f2f194633c3c711a036458-540x410.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=750&amp;q=75 750w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F68cbd8e3749e5787d4f2f194633c3c711a036458-540x410.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=828&amp;q=75 828w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F68cbd8e3749e5787d4f2f194633c3c711a036458-540x410.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=1080&amp;q=75 1080w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F68cbd8e3749e5787d4f2f194633c3c711a036458-540x410.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=1200&amp;q=75 1200w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F68cbd8e3749e5787d4f2f194633c3c711a036458-540x410.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=1920&amp;q=75 1920w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F68cbd8e3749e5787d4f2f194633c3c711a036458-540x410.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=2048&amp;q=75 2048w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F68cbd8e3749e5787d4f2f194633c3c711a036458-540x410.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=3840&amp;q=75 3840w" src="/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F68cbd8e3749e5787d4f2f194633c3c711a036458-540x410.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=3840&amp;q=75" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;bottom:0;right:0;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0;border:none;margin:auto;display:block;width:0;height:0;min-width:100%;max-width:100%;min-height:100%;max-height:100%" loading="lazy"/>

Sidney Rowlatt, the President of the Rowlatt Committee | Wikimedia Commons

Highlights of the Rowlatt Act
* Anyone suspected of 'terrorist' activities could be arrested for a maximum 2 years without a trial

* Trials could be conducted without a jury for 'forbidden political acts'

* Police could detain people without citing a reason

* Police could conduct a search without a warrant

* The press was muzzled

The Rowlatt Act was passed on 18th March 1919 and was called the 'Black Act' and it triggered outrage across the nation. It was based on a committee headed by Sidney Rowlatt and modelled on the Defence of India Act of 1915. The latter, enacted during World War I (1914-18), gave the police 'extraordinary powers' and allowed for 'emergency measures' to deal with people who were a threat to national security while Britain was fighting a world war.

- The British had taken a temporary, emergency, wartime legislation and imposed it on Indians in peacetime.

The Rowlatt Act evoked the wrath of the nation. The immediate fallout was the Rowlatt Satyagraha called for by Mahatma Gandhi, less than three weeks later, on 6th April 1919. Accordingly, Indians would refrain from going to work and hold meetings against the repressive Act.

<img alt="Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal" sizes="100vw" srcSet="/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F6d3909bbb913c4f32f554ed9715d518b59b7232d-2048x1456.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=640&amp;q=75 640w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F6d3909bbb913c4f32f554ed9715d518b59b7232d-2048x1456.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=750&amp;q=75 750w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F6d3909bbb913c4f32f554ed9715d518b59b7232d-2048x1456.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=828&amp;q=75 828w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F6d3909bbb913c4f32f554ed9715d518b59b7232d-2048x1456.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=1080&amp;q=75 1080w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F6d3909bbb913c4f32f554ed9715d518b59b7232d-2048x1456.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=1200&amp;q=75 1200w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F6d3909bbb913c4f32f554ed9715d518b59b7232d-2048x1456.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=1920&amp;q=75 1920w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F6d3909bbb913c4f32f554ed9715d518b59b7232d-2048x1456.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=2048&amp;q=75 2048w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F6d3909bbb913c4f32f554ed9715d518b59b7232d-2048x1456.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=3840&amp;q=75 3840w" src="/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2F6d3909bbb913c4f32f554ed9715d518b59b7232d-2048x1456.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=3840&amp;q=75" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;bottom:0;right:0;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0;border:none;margin:auto;display:block;width:0;height:0;min-width:100%;max-width:100%;min-height:100%;max-height:100%" loading="lazy"/>

Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal | Aashish Kochhar

Violent clashes broke out in some places, especially in Delhi and Punjab, where the army had to be called out. Also, two Congress leaders, Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal, were arrested. When the violence would not stop, Gandhi suspended the satyagraha.

But the groundswell of anger was growing and, a few days later, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in Amritsar. On 13th April 1919, the people of Amritsar had gathered in an enclosed garden to celebrate the festival of Baisakhi and also to condemn the arrest of the two Congress leaders during the Rowlatt protests.

Colonel Reginald Dyer arrived at the garden with his troops and, without warning, fired upon the unarmed crowd. Hundreds of Indians were slaughtered.

The violence and bloodshed sparked by the Rowlatt Act had drawn Mahatma Gandhi into the vortex of the freedom movement and he launched his Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920, opening a new chapter in India's fight for freedom.

<img alt="News headlines of the Rowlatt Bills (1919)" sizes="100vw" srcSet="/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2Fb49be91775521eec63ca7f9d14b28bc020b63b62-457x360.gif%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=640&amp;q=75 640w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2Fb49be91775521eec63ca7f9d14b28bc020b63b62-457x360.gif%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=750&amp;q=75 750w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2Fb49be91775521eec63ca7f9d14b28bc020b63b62-457x360.gif%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=828&amp;q=75 828w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2Fb49be91775521eec63ca7f9d14b28bc020b63b62-457x360.gif%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=1080&amp;q=75 1080w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2Fb49be91775521eec63ca7f9d14b28bc020b63b62-457x360.gif%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=1200&amp;q=75 1200w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2Fb49be91775521eec63ca7f9d14b28bc020b63b62-457x360.gif%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=1920&amp;q=75 1920w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2Fb49be91775521eec63ca7f9d14b28bc020b63b62-457x360.gif%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=2048&amp;q=75 2048w, /_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2Fb49be91775521eec63ca7f9d14b28bc020b63b62-457x360.gif%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=3840&amp;q=75 3840w" src="/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fnlpqts3z%2Fproduction%2Fb49be91775521eec63ca7f9d14b28bc020b63b62-457x360.gif%3Fauto%3Dformat&amp;w=3840&amp;q=75" decoding="async" data-nimg="fill" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;bottom:0;right:0;box-sizing:border-box;padding:0;border:none;margin:auto;display:block;width:0;height:0;min-width:100%;max-width:100%;min-height:100%;max-height:100%" loading="lazy"/>

News headlines of the Rowlatt Bills (1919) | WIkimedia Commons

The Rowlatt Act was never enforced. It was repealed in 1921.
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Rowlatt Act: The 'Black Act' And How It Backfired

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The year 1919 was, in many ways, a turning point for India. For one, the First World War had just ended, allowing the British to turn their focus once again to the uncomfortable developments taking place in India. The rising tide of nationalism was beginning to cause the colonial British serious alarm.

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This was one of the events that showed the brutality of the British people in India. An English general started to open fire on a group of unarmed protesters in Amritsar. It allowed more people to understand the reason why protest is needed and made many people join the cause.

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More than a million Indians fought for Britain in the First World War, 60,000 of whom were killed. In the immediate aftermath of the war, pressure for Indian independence mounted. Early in April 1919 news of the arrest of Indian nationalist leaders in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar sparked riots in which a mob went on the rampage, killing several Europeans, leaving an English female missionary for dead, and looting numerous banks and public buildings. British and Indian troops under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer were sent to restore order and Dyer banned all public meetings which, he announced, would be dispersed by force if necessary.

Despite this, thousands gathered in protest in a walled enclosure called the Jallianwala Bagh, near the city's Golden Temple, sacred to Sikhs. Dyer marched a force of 90 Gurkha and Indian soldiers into the enclosure and, without warning, they opened fire for about 10 to 15 minutes on the panicking crowd trapped in the enclosure. According to an official figure, 379 were killed and some 1,200 wounded, though other estimates suggest much higher casualties. Many died when they leapt into a deep well to escape the gunfire. Dyer withdrew his men, leaving the dying and wounded where they lay. Dyer issued instructions that all Indians traversing the street where the woman missionary had been attacked were to crawl along it on their hands and knees. His actions were praised by the governor of the Punjab, Sir Michael O'Dwyer, and he was made an honorary Sikh by the elders of the Golden Temple. Excused from growing a beard, he did promise to cut his smoking by one cigarette a year.

The news of the massacre provoked fierce disapproval. Speaking in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill condemned 'an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation'. A committee under Lord Hunter, a Scottish judge, was appointed to report on what had happened. Dyer appeared before it to defend himself, but its conclusions were damning; he was strongly censured and forced to resign from the Indian Army. Opinion was divided between those who agreed with the Hunter Committee's verdict and those who thought that Dyer had acted effectively to prevent another Indian Mutiny. The episode soured relations between British and Indian politicians for years, but it helped to gather recruits to Mahatma Gandhi's policy of non-violent resistance to British rule.

Dyer died in England in 1927. Sir Michael O'Dwyer was assassinated in London in 1940 by a Sikh revolutionary, Udham Singh, who had been injured at Amritsar. He was duly hanged. Gandhi condemned his action as senseless, but in some quarters in India he was praised as a heroic martyr.

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More than a million Indians fought for Britain in the First World War, 60,000 of whom were killed. In the immediate aftermath of the war, pressure for Indian independence mounted.

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This is closely related to the swadeshi movement because it uses similar ideologies such as boycotting goods and not cooperating with the british. This was one of Gandhi's first large-scale movements to get home rule. This was an answer to previous injustices such as the Rowlatt act and the amritsar massacre. This movement was the transition from freedom movements from the educated to all people.

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Noncooperation movement | India, Gandhi, Satyagraha, & Khilafat Movement

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noncooperation movement, unsuccessful attempt in 1920–22, organized by Mahatma Gandhi, to induce the British government of India to grant self-government, or swaraj, to India. It was one of Gandhi’s first organized acts of large-scale civil disobedience (satyagraha). The movement arose amid a polit…

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The Indian Independence movement had many important events that helped achieve justice but one of the main events was the Salt March of 1930.  This event led by Gandhi was one of the first and largest national acts of nonviolence in the movement. Gandhi was disobeying the British government by walking from his ashram in Ahmedabad to the ocean in 24 days and making salt. The main people involved in this were Mahatma Gandhi and his followers along with many other political leaders. Indian nationalists and many people around the world took interest.  Many people along the route of the march followed suit, “with each passing day an increasing number of people joined the salt satyagraha.” (History.com Editors, 2010). This event was basically a major act of civil disobedience to demonstrate Gandhi’s ideas of satyagraha. It was a way to unify people and fight for justice in a simple and impactful way. The salt march was basically a march to the Arabian Sea Coast of India to defy the salt tax imposed by the British. This law  made it illegal to produce salt by yourself.This event caused “the arrest of nearly 60,000 people, including Gandhi himself.” but also unified India because, “ all Indians required salt.”(History.com editors). The impact of this event was a turning point for Indian independence because it “ prompted an international outcry against British policy in India.” People around the world were astonished at the treatment of the Indian people. Moreover the nonviolent action of Gandhi was very big and so many people started joining the cause.

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Kami Export - Salt March_ Definition, Date & Gandhi - HISTORY - HISTORY.pdf

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Quit India Movement                                                                  Started 8 August 1942 by National Indian Congress

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Quit India Movement                                                                  Started 8 August 1942 by National Indian Congress

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This movement was one of the last movements of the indian independence movements. It was also the most significant movement in the independence movement because it was when everyone was united and they were all fighting together.Gandhi delivered his famous "Do or Die" speech in this movement.

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Quit India Movement: Mahatma Gandhi's Call For 'Do Or Die'

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Quit India Movement Day: Bharat Chodo Andolan was a turning point in India's freedom struggle. Under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, people across India came together to uproot British imperialism. In 1942, in a fiery speech in Mumbai, Mahatma Gandhi gave a 'do or die' call to the people of India in a final push to make the British quit.

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"Do or Die" - Mahatma Gandhi Speech                                Quit India Movement 

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"Do or Die" - Mahatma Gandhi Speech                                Quit India Movement 

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This was one of the main speeches that helped inspire freedom in India. Gandhi's speech emphasizing the freedom and rights were more important than our lives was inspiring and an important part of the quit India movement. THe british tried their hardest to try and censor his speech but in the end people caught on to the mantra and protested for independence. But eventually the protests started getting violent because of Hindu Muslim conflict.

****I tried whatever I could but i could not get rid of the add in the scribble link. But if you scroll down you can see my comments and annotations****

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For more than 200 years, Britain had asserted its iron will over India. From the East India Company levying taxes starting in the 18th century to Britain instituting direct rule over two-thirds of the country in the mid-19th century, India had been extorted for centuries-and with the start of World War II, India was declared to be at war with Germany without any Indian political leaders actually being consulted. The nation would go on to provide 2.3 million soldiers for an army as well as food and other goods to help the Allies defeat the Axis Powers. Much as the Indian National Congress (the largely Hindu public assembly that had some governmental functions) sympathized with defeating fascism, they balked at seeing their country further pillaged for resources.

So in 1939, members of the Congress informed Viceroy Lord Linlithgow-the highest-ranking British official in India-they would only support the war effort if Indian independence lay at the end of it. To which Linlithgow issued his own threat: if the Congress didn't support Britain, Britain would simply turn to, and empower, the Muslim League (a political group that fought to protect the rights of Muslim Indians and later called for a separate nation for Muslims). As Winston Churchill later confessed, "the Hindu-Moslem feud [was] a bulwark of British rule in India." The Congress could do nothing but acquiesce.

But they hadn't abandoned the fight, especially one of their most notable members: Mohandas "Mahatma" Karamchand Gandhi. The spiritual and political leader first experienced racism decades earlier, as a London-educated lawyer working in colonial South Africa. There, he was thrown off a train for trying to sit in the first class car; the 1893 incident led him to his civil rights work, for which he was repeatedly imprisoned. "I discovered that as a man and as an Indian I had no rights," Gandhi later said of that period in South Africa. "More correctly, I discovered that I had no rights as a man because I was an Indian."

Agitating for change through nonviolence would become Gandhi's lifelong pursuit. On the eve of World War II, he wrote Hitler twice in hopes of persuading the dictator to avoid total war (it's impossible to know if Hitler read the letters, as no response was ever sent). And when India was forced to assist the United Kingdom in the fight, Gandhi began a small individual civil disobedience campaign, recruiting political and community leaders for the cause. Although his 1940 effort was disrupted by arrests of the participants, popular opinion in England was largely on Gandhi's side-U.K. citizens favored Indian independence.

By 1942, Prime Minister Churchill felt enough pressure to send Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the War Cabinet, to discuss a change to India's political status. But upon learning that Cripps wasn't actually offering full independence and that current Indian politicians would still have no say in military strategy, the Congress and the Muslim League rejected his proposal-leaving Gandhi open to harness the wave of anti-British sentiment for a new round of protests.

The movement, Gandhi decided, would be called "Quit India" to reflect his main demand: that the United Kingdom leave India voluntarily. In a speech at a meeting of the Congress in Bombay at the beginning of August 1942, Gandhi instructed his fellow leaders that this was the moment to seize power:

"Here is a mantra, a short one, that I give to you. You may imprint it on your hearts and let every breath of yours give expression to it. The mantra is 'Do or Die.' We shall either free India or die in the attempt; we shall not live to see the perpetuation of our slavery. Every true Congressman or woman will join the struggle with inflexible determination not to remain alive to see the country in bondage and slavery."

The Congress agreed that Gandhi should lead a nonviolent mass movement and passed their decision as the "Quit India Resolution" on August 8. Gandhi was prepared to give a public address on the subject the very next day, when word came that British authorities were planning on arresting him and other members of the Congress.

"They dare not arrest me. I cannot think they will be so foolish. But if they do, it will mean that their days are numbered," Gandhi said.

But late that night, Gandhi and many other members of the Congress were indeed arrested and imprisoned under the Defense of India Rules. The press was forbidden from publishing any part of Gandhi's speech, supporting the Congress's call to action, or reporting on measures the British government enacted to suppress the nascent movement.

"The resolution said, 'On the declaration of India's independence a provisional government will be formed and free India will become an ally of the United Nations.' This meant unilaterally declaring India's independence," writes Pramod Kapoor, author of the forthcoming book Gandhi: An Illustrated Biography, by email. The thought of an unauthorized shift to independence is what so terrified the British. "The intelligence reports the government was getting were equally alarming. The British had at one point even mulled over the possibility of deporting Gandhi to Aden."

On August 10, India's Secretary of State Leo Amery, working with the War Cabinet and other British leaders, announced the reason for the arrests of Gandhi and the Congress to the press. Amery said the Indian leaders planned to incite "strikes, not only in industry and commerce, but in the administration and law courts, schools and colleges, the interruption of traffic and public utility services, the cutting of telegraph and telephone wires, the picketing of troops and recruiting stations... The success of the proposed campaign would paralyze not only the ordinary civil administration of India, but her whole war effort." In short, the movement would have led to dire calamity if the British government had not detained its leaders.

But Amery's speech, meant to paint the British government in a positive light and vilify the Congress, completely backfired. As historian Paul Greenough writes, "The chief irony of 1942 in India was that the awesome power of the press to inspire united action was unleashed by the British government; the radicalizing text was the composition of Leopold Amery, not Mahatma Gandhi... [the] self-consciously rebellious underground press was never able to duplicate the impact or achieve the degree of mass coordination which Amery's speech had provoked." In essence, Amery had provided the blueprints for how to rebel. Civilians attacked railway stations and post offices, fought against police officers and held riots. The police and the British Army in India led a violent crackdown on the rioters, arresting over 100,000 people. Viceroy Lord Linlithgow compared the uprising to the failed Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, when nearly one million Indians and thousands of Europeans were killed. The total civilian deaths after the Quit India protests, however, were closer to 1,000.

Still, the underground press did have success in one thing: getting Gandhi's mantra out to the masses. "Do or die" became the unifying rallying cry for a civil disobedience campaign that spread across the subcontinent and lasted from August 1942 to September 1944. Protests erupted from Bombay to Delhi to Bengal; a steel plant closed for 13 days; a strike at a textile factory lasted 3.5 months. Even though Muslim participation in "Quit India" wasn't as high as other groups, supporters of the Muslim League still offered shelter to activists. And, crucially, Indians employed by the British government as police officers and administrative officials turned on their employer.

"They gave shelter, provided information and helped monetarily. In fact, the erosion of loyalty to the British Government of its own officers was one of the most striking aspects of the Quit India struggle," writes Bipan Chandra in India's Struggle for Independence.

Although Gandhi deeply regretted that the movement had turned so violent after his arrest, he and his wife, Kasturba, were both incarcerated in Agha Khan Palace and could do nothing but struggle to survive, writes Kapoor. In February 1943, Gandhi staged a 21-day hunger strike that nearly killed him, but remained imprisoned. His wife developed bronchitis and suffered several heart attacks behind bars; she would ultimately die there just a month before Gandhi was released in May 1944. The day of Gandhi's release marked his last ever in an Indian prison, where had spent a combined total of 2,089 days over the course of his life-nearly six years (and not factoring in the 249 days he was in South African prisons).

While the "Quit India" movement ended in late 1944, the momentum it provided in securing the country's independence proved unstoppable. Three years later, India was independent. And through a successful lobbying effort by the Muslim League, the independent Islamic state of Pakistan was also established along the new sovereign nation's northwestern border. Although some scholars have argued the rebellion was only a small part of Britain's decision to relinquish the "Crown Jewel" of the colonies-citing the need to rebuild after World War II as a more pressing concern-others, including Kapoor, see the movement as a major turning point.

"It was an opportune time in the life of a long freedom struggle," Kapoor says. "With or without the war, the time was ripe for some sort of intensive movement." And that movement happened to be "Quit India."

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The Speech That Brought India to the Brink of Independence

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For more than 200 years, Britain had asserted its iron will over India. From the East India Company levying taxes starting in the 18th century to Britain instituting direct rule over two-thirds of the country in the mid-19th century, India had been extorted for centuries-and with the start of World War II, India was declared to be at war with Germany without any Indian political leaders actually being consulted.

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