From Home Rule to Non-Cooperation (1914-1922)

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Home Rule Leagues

The First World War (1914-18) brought high prices, forced recruitment and war loans. With Tilak released in 1914 and Annie Besant active, two Home Rule Leagues were set up in 1916 on the Irish model. Tilak's league, founded in April 1916 at Belgaum, worked in Maharashtra (except Bombay city), Karnataka, the Central Provinces and Berar; Besant's league, founded in September 1916 at Madras, covered the rest of India. Besant's papers New India and Commonweal and Tilak's Kesari and Mahratta spread the demand for self-government. Besant's arrest in 1917 caused nationwide protest; she was released and became the first woman president of the Congress at Calcutta in 1917. Secretary of State Montagu's August Declaration of 20 August 1917 promised the gradual development of responsible government in India.

Lucknow Pact, 1916

At Lucknow in December 1916 two reunions took place. The Extremists returned to the Congress, ending the split of 1907, and the Congress, under A.C. Mazumdar, and the Muslim League, whose session Jinnah presided over, agreed on joint demands for self-government. The Congress accepted separate electorates for Muslims, a concession later criticised, but the pact marked the high point of Hindu-Muslim political unity. Tilak and Jinnah were its main architects.

Gandhi's early struggles

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned from South Africa on 9 January 1915, having developed satyagraha there against racial laws; Gokhale was his political guru. He first took up three local causes. In Champaran (Bihar, 1917), at the request of Rajkumar Shukla, he championed indigo cultivators forced under the tinkathia system to grow indigo on 3/20 of their land; joined by Rajendra Prasad, Mazharul Haq, J.B. Kripalani and Mahadev Desai, he defied an order to leave the district and won an inquiry that ended the system. This was his first civil disobedience in India. In Ahmedabad (1918) he backed mill workers in a dispute over a plague bonus, went on hunger strike for the first time in India, and the workers won a 35 percent wage increase; Anasuya Sarabhai helped him. In Kheda (1918) in Gujarat, where crops had failed, he supported the peasants' demand for remission of revenue; Vallabhbhai Patel joined him, and this is called his first non-cooperation.

Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh

The Rowlatt Act (Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act) of March 1919, based on a committee chaired by Justice Sidney Rowlatt, allowed detention without trial for up to two years and trials without juries. Gandhi formed the Satyagraha Sabha and called a nationwide hartal on 6 April 1919, his first all-India protest. In Amritsar, after the arrest of Saifuddin Kitchlew and Satyapal, a peaceful crowd gathered at Jallianwala Bagh on Baisakhi day, 13 April 1919; Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer blocked the main exit and opened fire without warning. The official count of the dead was 379; Indian estimates were far higher. Rabindranath Tagore gave up his knighthood, Gandhi later returned his Kaiser-i-Hind medal, and the government's Hunter Committee let Dyer off lightly. In 1940 Udham Singh shot Michael O'Dwyer, the former Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, in London.

Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms

Based on the 1918 report of Secretary of State Edwin Montagu and Viceroy Chelmsford, the Government of India Act 1919 introduced dyarchy in the provinces, dividing subjects into transferred ones run by ministers answerable to the legislature and reserved ones kept by the Governor and his executive council. It created a bicameral central legislature and extended separate electorates to Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans. Coming with the Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh, the reforms satisfied few.

Khilafat and Non-Cooperation

After the war the Ottoman Sultan, regarded as the Khalifa of Islam, was stripped of power by the Treaty of Sevres (1920). The Ali brothers (Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali), Maulana Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Hasrat Mohani led the Khilafat movement, and Gandhi saw in it a chance to unite Hindus and Muslims. The Non-Cooperation movement began on 1 August 1920, the day Tilak died; a special Congress session at Calcutta (September 1920, Lala Lajpat Rai) approved it, and the Nagpur session (December 1920, C. Vijayaraghavachariar) confirmed it and reorganised the party on the basis of linguistic provinces with a Working Committee. Indians surrendered titles and boycotted government schools, courts, foreign cloth and the council elections of 1920; national institutions such as Jamia Millia Islamia, Kashi Vidyapith and Gujarat Vidyapith were founded; the Tilak Swaraj Fund was raised; and the visit of the Prince of Wales in November 1921 was met with a hartal. Gandhi promised swaraj within a year.

Chauri Chaura and withdrawal

On 5 February 1922 at Chauri Chaura in Gorakhpur district of the United Provinces, an angry crowd set fire to the police station, killing 22 policemen by the usual count (some accounts say 23). Gandhi, feeling the people were not yet ready for non-violence, withdrew the movement, and the Working Committee confirmed this at Bardoli on 12 February 1922. Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 and sentenced to six years in prison, and the Khilafat issue itself ended when Mustafa Kemal abolished the caliphate in 1924. Even so, the movement had turned the Congress into a mass organisation.

Key facts

Home Rule Leagues 1916: Tilak's (April, Belgaum) and Annie Besant's (September, Madras); Besant's papers New India and Commonweal.
Lucknow Pact, December 1916: Congress-League unity; the Congress accepted separate electorates; Extremists readmitted; architects Tilak and Jinnah.
August Declaration, 20 August 1917: Montagu promised gradual progress towards responsible government in India.
Gandhi's early struggles: Champaran 1917 (indigo, tinkathia, Rajkumar Shukla) - first civil disobedience; Ahmedabad 1918 (first hunger strike, 35 percent rise); Kheda 1918 (revenue remission, Patel) - first non-cooperation.
Rowlatt Act, March 1919: detention without trial; Gandhi's Satyagraha Sabha; nationwide hartal on 6 April 1919.
Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, 13 April 1919: General Dyer; Hunter Committee; Tagore gave up his knighthood; Udham Singh shot O'Dwyer in London in 1940.
Government of India Act 1919: dyarchy in the provinces (transferred and reserved subjects), bicameral central legislature, separate electorates extended to Sikhs and others.
Non-Cooperation began on 1 August 1920 (Tilak died that day); approved at the Calcutta special session (September 1920) and Nagpur (December 1920).
Chauri Chaura, Gorakhpur, 5 February 1922: 22 policemen killed (the usual count; some sources say 23); the movement was withdrawn at Bardoli on 12 February 1922.

Quick revision

Home Rule Leagues 1916 (Tilak - April, Besant - September); Lucknow Pact Dec 1916; August Declaration 1917; Gandhi back 9 Jan 1915; Champaran 1917, Ahmedabad and Kheda 1918; Rowlatt Act Mar 1919; Jallianwala Bagh 13 Apr 1919 (Dyer); Act of 1919 - dyarchy; Khilafat; Non-Cooperation 1 Aug 1920, Nagpur Dec 1920; Chauri Chaura 5 Feb 1922; withdrawn at Bardoli

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