Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement

NCERT opens by comparing the habit of linking one person with a nation — Garibaldi with Italy, Washington with American independence, Ho Chi Minh with Vietnam — and calls Gandhi’s description as the ‘Father’ of the nation ‘not misplaced’ in that he was the most influential and revered leader; but, it adds, his career was ‘shaped and constrained by the society in which he lived’ — individuals ‘are made by history even as they make history’. The chapter covers 1915–1948: his campaigns, his interactions with different social groups, the movements he led, and the sources for them.

• Links in this series: lehs302 (1857 — NCERT compares the non-cooperation movement’s impact to it, and Source 2 here asks you to recall how rumours worked then); lehs301 (peasants, revenue and moneylenders — the grievances Gandhi took up in Champaran, Kheda and Bardoli); keec101 (the colonial economy behind khadi, swadeshi and the salt tax); lehs304 and leps201 (Partition, the Constituent Assembly and the making of the Republic).
• Earlier reading: Class 8 Our Pasts III, ‘The Making of the National Movement: 1870s–1947’ (Moderates and Radicals, Gandhi’s movements, Quit India, Partition); Class 10 India and the Contemporary World II, ‘Nationalism in India’ (Rowlatt, non-cooperation, civil disobedience, the sense of collective belonging).
• UPSC: GS1 modern history’s busiest area. Prelims returns again and again to Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad, Rowlatt and Jallianwala, Khilafat and non-cooperation, Chauri Chaura, Lahore 1929, Dandi, the Round Tables, the Gandhi–Irwin and Poona Pacts, the 1939 resignations, Cripps and Quit India. Mains asks about Gandhi’s significance (2015, 2026), Gandhi and Ambedkar (2015), Gandhi and Bose (2016), women (2016), ‘many voices’ (2019), constructive programmes (2021) and Quit India (2024).

• Arrival: back in India January 1915; South Africa ‘the making of the Mahatma’ (Chandran Devanesan); mentor Gokhale; BHU speech February 1916 — nationalism must reach peasants and workers.
• Local campaigns: Champaran 1917 (indigo, tenure, crop choice), Ahmedabad 1918 (mill workers), Kheda 1918 (revenue remission after crop failure).
• 1919–22: Rowlatt satyagraha → Jallianwala Bagh (April 1919) → Non-cooperation + Khilafat; 396 strikes in 1921; called off after Chauri Chaura (Feb 1922); Gandhi jailed for six years (Broomfield).
• Mahatma and organisation: dhoti, charkha, khadi; rumours of miracles (Shahid Amin); Congress branches, Praja Mandals, linguistic PCCs; associates from many regions and faiths; support of industrialists such as G.D. Birla.
• 1928–35: Simon boycott, Bardoli; Lahore 1929 Purna Swaraj, 26 Jan 1930; Dandi 12 March–6 April 1930; ~60,000 arrests; Gandhi–Irwin Pact (1931); 2nd RTC — challenged by League, princes, Ambedkar; separate-electorates debate.
• 1935–48: Act of 1935; Congress ministries in 8 of 11 provinces (1937), resign 1939; Lahore Resolution 1940; Cripps 1942; Quit India Aug 1942 (Satara prati sarkar); 1946 elections polarised; Direct Action Day; Partition; Gandhi’s fast, peace work; killed 30 January 1948.

South Africa. In January 1915 Gandhi returned after two decades abroad, mostly in South Africa, where he had gone as a lawyer and become a leader of the Indian community. The historian Chandran Devanesan called South Africa ‘the making of the Mahatma’: there Gandhi first forged satyagraha, promoted harmony between religions, and alerted upper-caste Indians to their treatment of low castes and women.

The India of 1915. More politically active than in 1893, when he had left: the Congress had branches in most cities and towns; the Swadeshi movement of 1905–07 had widened its middle-class appeal and produced leaders — Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Maharashtra), Bipin Chandra Pal (Bengal) and Lala Lajpat Rai (Punjab), ‘Lal, Bal and Pal’, whose distant home provinces signalled an all-India struggle. Where they advocated militant opposition, the ‘Moderates’ preferred a gradual, persuasive approach — among them Gandhi’s acknowledged political mentor Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah, like Gandhi a London-trained lawyer of Gujarati origin. On Gokhale’s advice Gandhi spent a year travelling British India.

The BHU speech, February 1916. At the opening of the Banaras Hindu University, among princes, philanthropists and leaders such as Annie Besant, the relatively unknown Gandhi called the event ‘a most gorgeous show’ but contrasted the ‘richly bedecked noblemen’ with the absent ‘millions of the poor’; there was no salvation unless the jewellery was held in trust for the countrymen; ‘our salvation can only come through the farmer’ — not lawyers, doctors or rich landlords. NCERT reads this as both a statement of fact (nationalism was an elite affair) and a statement of intent (to make it representative of the people as a whole).

Champaran, Ahmedabad, Kheda. At the Lucknow Congress (December 1916) a peasant from Champaran in Bihar told Gandhi of harsh treatment by British indigo planters; Gandhi spent much of 1917 there, seeking security of tenure and the freedom to grow crops of the peasants’ choice. In 1918 he intervened in a labour dispute in Ahmedabad, demanding better conditions for textile mill workers, and joined peasants in Kheda asking for remission of taxes after their harvest failed. These marked him out as a nationalist with deep sympathy for the poor — but they were localised struggles.

Rowlatt and Jallianwala. During the First World War the British had censored the press and allowed detention without trial; in 1919, on the recommendation of a committee under Sir Sidney Rowlatt, these measures were continued. Gandhi called a countrywide campaign against the ‘Rowlatt Act’: shops shut and schools closed across north and west India. Protest was most intense in the Punjab, where many men had served in the war expecting reward. Gandhi was detained on his way there and local Congressmen arrested; in Amritsar in April 1919 a British Brigadier ordered troops to fire on a nationalist meeting — NCERT says more than 400 were killed in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. NCERT’s verdict: the Rowlatt satyagraha made Gandhi ‘a truly national leader’.

Non-cooperation and Khilafat. Emboldened, Gandhi called for ‘non-cooperation’: Indians who wanted colonialism ended should stop attending schools, colleges and courts and stop paying taxes — a ‘renunciation of (all) voluntary association’ with the government — and India would win swaraj within a year. To broaden the struggle he joined hands with the Khilafat Movement, hoping Hindus and Muslims together could end colonial rule.

Knitting a popular movement. The surge of popular action was unprecedented. Students left government schools and colleges; lawyers boycotted courts; workers struck — officially 396 strikes in 1921, involving 600,000 workers and a loss of seven million workdays. Hill tribes in northern Andhra violated forest laws; farmers in Awadh withheld taxes; peasants in Kumaun refused to carry loads for officials. These protests were sometimes made in defiance of local nationalist leadership — people interpreted ‘non-cooperation’ in ways that suited their own interests. Louis Fischer, Gandhi’s American biographer, called it ‘negative enough to be peaceful but positive enough to be effective… training for self-rule’. NCERT: the Raj was ‘shaken to its foundations for the first time since the Revolt of 1857’.

Chauri Chaura and the trial. In February 1922 peasants attacked and burnt the police station at Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur district, United Provinces); several constables died. Gandhi called off the movement altogether: ‘No provocation… can possibly justify (the) brutal murder of men who had been rendered defenceless’. Thousands had been jailed; Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 for sedition. Justice C.N. Broomfield said he was ‘in a different category’ from anyone he had tried — ‘a great patriot and a leader’ to millions, of ‘saintly life’ even to opponents — but sentenced him to six years, adding he would be pleased if the government could release him earlier. Gandhi was released in February 1924.

A people’s leader. By 1922 nationalism was no longer only for professionals and intellectuals; hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers and artisans took part, many venerating Gandhi as ‘Mahatma’ because he dressed, lived and spoke like them. Other leaders wore Western suits or the bandgala; Gandhi wore a simple dhoti or loincloth and spun on the charkha daily, urging others to do so — spinning broke the caste-bound line between mental and manual labour.

Organisation behind the appeal. NCERT stresses that mass appeal rested on careful organisation: new Congress branches; Praja Mandals in princely states; the message in mother tongues, with provincial Congress committees on linguistic lines rather than British India’s boundaries. Prosperous businessmen such as G.D. Birla supported the movement, openly or tacitly — expecting British competitors’ privileges to end — so Gandhi’s admirers included poor peasants and rich industrialists, for different and perhaps opposed reasons. Between 1917 and 1922 a talented group gathered round him from many regions and faiths: Mahadev Desai, Vallabhbhai Patel, J.B. Kripalani, Subhas Chandra Bose, Abul Kalam Azad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarojini Naidu, Govind Ballabh Pant, C. Rajagopalachari. After 1924 Gandhi worked on khadi, the abolition of untouchability, against child marriage and for Hindu–Muslim harmony — to him, being worthy of freedom required social reform and economic self-reliance.

Back to politics. After non-cooperation Gandhi concentrated on social reform. In 1928 there was an all-India campaign against the all-White Simon Commission, which he blessed without joining, as he blessed the peasant satyagraha at Bardoli. At Lahore in December 1929 the Congress elected Jawaharlal Nehru President — the baton passing to a younger generation — and proclaimed Purna Swaraj. On 26 January 1930 ‘Independence Day’ was observed: flags hoisted, songs sung, Gandhi asking for meetings at the same minute everywhere, announced by drums, the day spent in constructive work (spinning, service of ‘untouchables’, Hindu–Muslim reunion, prohibition), and a pledge affirming the people’s inalienable right to freedom and to the fruits of their toil, and their right to alter or abolish a government that oppressed them.

Dandi. Gandhi then chose the salt monopoly — salt was indispensable, yet people could not make it even for home use and had to buy it at a high price. He gave the Viceroy Lord Irwin advance notice; Irwin ‘failed to grasp’ its significance. On 12 March 1930 Gandhi set out from Sabarmati; about three weeks later he reached the sea and made a fistful of salt, becoming a criminal in law; parallel salt marches took place elsewhere. Other streams of protest followed — peasants breaching forest laws, factory strikes, lawyers and students boycotting — and some 60,000 Indians were arrested, Gandhi among them.

Following the march. Secret police reports reproduce Gandhi’s speeches — at Wasna he told upper castes that swaraj required serving ‘untouchables’ and the unity of Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Sikhs, not merely the repeal of taxes. Police reported well-attended meetings of all castes, women as well as men, and officials resigning; a District Superintendent wrote that Gandhi ‘appeared calm and collected’ and was ‘gathering more strength as he proceeds’. The American magazine Time first mocked his ‘spindly frame’ and doubted he could go on, then within a week wrote that the British were ‘desperately anxious’ and called him ‘Saint’ and ‘Statesman’.

Three reasons the Salt March mattered (NCERT): it first brought Gandhi to world attention; it was the first nationalist activity with women in large numbers — the socialist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay persuaded Gandhi not to restrict it to men, and she was among many women who courted arrest by breaking salt or liquor laws; and it forced the British to realise their Raj would not last for ever and they must devolve some power.

Dialogues. The British convened Round Table Conferences in London. The first (November 1930) lacked the pre-eminent leader. Released in January 1931, Gandhi held long talks with Irwin, producing the Gandhi–Irwin Pact (March 1931): civil disobedience called off, prisoners released, salt manufacture allowed along the coast. Radical nationalists criticised it because Gandhi got no commitment to independence — only an assurance of talks. At the Second RTC (late 1931) Gandhi represented the Congress, but his claim that it represented all India was challenged by the Muslim League (for the Muslim minority), the Princes (the Congress had no stake in their territories) and B.R. Ambedkar (Gandhi and the Congress did not really represent the lowest castes). The conference was inconclusive; Gandhi resumed civil disobedience. The new Viceroy Lord Willingdon, in a private letter, wrote that behind every move Gandhi said was inspired by God one found ‘the political manoeuvre’, and that the American press called him wonderful while Indians, ‘unpractical, mystical, and superstitious’, saw him as holy — a colonial official’s view in his own words.

Ministries and war. The Government of India Act, 1935 promised some representative government; in 1937, on a restricted franchise, the Congress won a comprehensive victory and 8 of 11 provinces had Congress ‘Prime Ministers’ under British Governors. When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, Gandhi and Nehru, strongly critical of Hitler and the Nazis, offered support if Britain promised independence after the war. The offer was refused; the Congress ministries resigned in October 1939. Through 1940–41 the Congress organised individual satyagrahas.

A three-way struggle. In March 1940 the Muslim League passed a resolution demanding, in NCERT’s words, ‘a measure of autonomy’ for Muslim-majority areas; politics became a three-way struggle of Congress, League and British. Britain’s all-party government had sympathetic Labour members, but Prime Minister Winston Churchill was, NCERT says, a ‘diehard imperialist’. In spring 1942 Churchill sent Sir Stafford Cripps; talks broke down when the Congress insisted that, to help defend India against the Axis, the Viceroy first appoint an Indian Defence Member of his Executive Council.

Quit India. After Cripps, Gandhi launched his third major movement in August 1942. He was jailed at once, but younger activists organised strikes and sabotage across the country; socialist Congress members such as Jayaprakash Narayan were especially active underground. In districts such as Satara (west) and Medinipur (east), ‘independent’ governments were proclaimed. The British used much force; suppression took over a year. NCERT: ‘genuinely a mass movement’, energising the young, many of whom left colleges for jail. Meanwhile Jinnah and the League, with Congress leaders in jail, expanded their influence — making a mark in the Punjab and Sind, where they had had little presence.

Released in 1944, Gandhi held talks with Jinnah to bridge the gap between the Congress and the League. In 1945 a Labour government in Britain committed itself to independence, and Viceroy Lord Wavell brought the Congress and League together for talks. In the 1946 provincial elections the Congress swept the ‘General’ seats and the League the seats reserved for Muslims — ‘the political polarisation was complete’. A Cabinet Mission (summer 1946) failed to agree a federal system keeping India together with provincial autonomy. Jinnah called a ‘Direct Action Day’ for 16 August 1946; riots broke out in Calcutta and spread to rural Bengal, Bihar, the United Provinces and the Punjab — ‘in some places, Muslims were the main sufferers, in other places, Hindus’ (NCERT). Mountbatten replaced Wavell; when last talks failed he announced that British India would be freed but divided, with power transferred on 15 August. In the Constituent Assembly there was ‘prolonged applause’ when its President invoked Gandhi as Father of the Nation.

The last heroic days. On 15 August 1947 Gandhi was in Calcutta, attending no function and marking the day with a 24-hour fast: freedom had come at an unacceptable price. Through September and October, writes his biographer D.G. Tendulkar, he toured hospitals and refugee camps and appealed to Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims to forget the past. At his and Nehru’s initiative the Congress resolved on ‘the rights of minorities’: it had never accepted the ‘two-nation theory’; India would be ‘a democratic secular State’ with equal rights and protection for all citizens irrespective of religion. Many scholars call these months Gandhi’s ‘finest hour’. In Delhi his prayer meetings were disrupted by refugees objecting to readings from the Koran or asking why he did not speak of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan; Tendulkar notes he was equally concerned for minorities in Pakistan but felt he could not go there while unable to guarantee redress to Muslims in Delhi. After an attempt on his life on 20 January 1948, he spoke on 26 January of hope for ‘equality of all classes and creeds’ and that India and Pakistan would remain friends at heart. On 30 January 1948, at his evening prayer meeting, he was shot dead by Nathuram Godse. Tributes came from across the political spectrum and from George Orwell and Albert Einstein; Time, which had once mocked him, compared his death to Lincoln’s — each killed, in its words, by a bigot for believing in equality or in friendship across faiths.

Public voice and private scripts. Gandhi’s and his contemporaries’ writings and speeches are a key source; speeches give the public voice, letters a glimpse of private thoughts — anger, pain, hopes. But the line blurs: letters may be written knowing they might be published, and fear of publication can restrain them. Gandhi published letters to him in Harijan; Nehru edited A Bunch of Old Letters. Autobiographies are rich but retrospective, written from memory — ‘a way of framing a picture of yourself’ — so we must look for silences. Government records such as the Home Department’s Fortnightly Reports were secret then and open now; they drew on local police information but often expressed what higher officials saw or wanted to believe, reassuring themselves that fears were unwarranted — the Salt March appeared as ‘a drama, an antic’. Newspapers, Indian and foreign, tracked Gandhi and recorded popular opinion, but reflected their owners’ politics — a London paper’s report differed from an Indian nationalist one’s.

Q1–5: 100–150 words. Q6–9: short essays of 250–300 words. Try each first.

Numbers

One-liners

• South Africa was ‘the making of the Mahatma’; Gokhale his political mentor.
• BHU 1916: nationalism must reach the farmer — statement of fact and of intent.
• Champaran, Ahmedabad, Kheda: sympathy for the poor, but local struggles.
• Rowlatt satyagraha made Gandhi a national leader; Jallianwala followed.
• Non-cooperation + Khilafat: unprecedented mass action, often on people’s own terms; ended at Chauri Chaura.
• Dhoti, charkha, khadi and peasant rumours made the ‘Mahatma’; organisation spread the message.
• Salt: a universal grievance, easy to defy — world attention, women’s participation.
• Round Tables: League, princes and Ambedkar challenged the Congress’s claim to speak for all.
• 1939–47: from Indians vs British to a three-way struggle; Quit India a genuine mass movement.
• Sources: speeches, letters, autobiographies, police reports and newspapers each have a slant.

Traps to avoid

• NCERT says the Caliphate had been ‘recently abolished’ — it was abolished in 1924, after the Khilafat movement.
• Non-cooperation began in 1920 (timeline’s ‘1921’ is its peak).
• Gandhi was released on 6 May 1944, not June.
• Fig. 11.4’s ‘July 1922’ falls after non-cooperation was called off.
• Jallianwala deaths: official 379; NCERT ‘more than 400’; Congress inquiry about 1,000.
• The Lahore Resolution sought ‘independent states’, not merely ‘a measure of autonomy’.
• The Poona Pact was between Gandhi and Ambedkar/caste-Hindu leaders, not with the British.
• Gandhi stopped non-cooperation (not civil disobedience) after Chauri Chaura, 1922.
• Gandhi–Irwin Pact released only prisoners not charged with violence; no police-excess inquiry.
• On 15 August 1947 Gandhi was in Calcutta, fasting.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• 1915–22: Gokhale (1981); South Africa (1983); Champaran (1979, 1994, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2018); Ahmedabad TLA (2009); Kheda (2011); sequence (1983, 1993); Rowlatt (1980, 2007, 2009, 2012, 2015); Jallianwala (1979); first all-India venture (1999); Khilafat (1979, 1987, 1993, 1998); non-cooperation and Chauri Chaura (1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2025).
• 1928–35: Simon (1998, 2013); Bardoli (2003, 2026); Lahore (1981, 2006, 2012, 2014); Dandi and civil disobedience (1979, 1982, 1985, 1995, 2009, 2015, 2019); RTCs and pacts (1984, 1985, 1990, 2005, 2017, 2020); Communal Award and Poona Pact (1983, 1997, 2012, 2025); Ambedkar (1984, 1985).
• 1937–48: ministries resign (1991, 2005, 2012); Cripps (1979, 2016); individual satyagraha (2009); Quit India (1981, 1983, 1991, 2005, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2021); Bose and Forward Bloc (2026); Father of the Nation (1993); Gandhi’s Congress membership in 1947 (1998).
• Answer-key notes: UPSC 2005 (RTC/Poona Pact statements) — answer (d) 1, 2 and 3: statement 2 is the one candidates doubt, but the Poona Pact did provide for fair representation of the Depressed Classes in local bodies and public services. UPSC 1986 (Dandi, Simon, Poona, Gandhi–Irwin) has no correct option — the true order is Simon → Dandi → Gandhi–Irwin → Poona (ii, i, iv, iii); our record holds no key, rightly. Debatable but keep: 1980 (stem wrongly says ‘Civil Disobedience… 1921’ — answer Chauri Chaura), 1985 (‘first civil disobedience… after the Rowlatt Act’), 1991 A–R (Quit India as ‘culmination’), 1993 sequence (Ahmedabad and Kheda both 1918), 1996 (NCM outcomes), 2011 (Quit India ‘not non-violent’ vs ‘labour’), 1979 (‘post-dated cheque’ commonly attributed to Gandhi). UPSC 1997’s stem misdescribes the Poona Pact as signed with the British government; its answer (joint electorates with reservation) is right.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• Gandhi’s significance (2015 ‘without Gandhi’; 2026 ‘masses they mobilised’): widening base, method, symbols, organisation — balanced by the limits NCERT notes and by structural factors (war, British decline, other movements).
• Comparisons: Gandhi and Ambedkar (2015) — shared goal, different methods (Sources 5–6, Poona Pact); Gandhi and Bose (2016) — non-violence vs armed struggle, negotiation vs exploiting the war; ‘many voices’ (2019) — socialists, revolutionaries, Ambedkar, peasants, women, local movements like Satara.
• Movements: constructive programmes (2021) — khadi, untouchability, Hindu–Muslim unity, prohibition, basic education; women (2016) — Kamaladevi, salt and liquor picketing, Quit India processions; Quit India (2024) — Cripps’ failure and war → mass, leaderless upsurge, parallel governments, League’s growth.

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