Category: History

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, political, religious, social and economic conditions began to change all over the world, due to geographical discoveries, the Renaissance, the Reformation and “the age of kings”. By the time the eighteenth century ended, there were two revolutions: The American Revolution of 1775–83 and the French Revolution of 1789–95.

These revolutions dealt a severe blow to the monarchical form of government and had a lasting impact on the subsequent history of humanity. The Industrial Revolution, beginning in the eighteenth century, engendered many changes in the lives of the people, heralding a new era that was marked by the shift from a primarily agriculture-based economy to an industry-based economy. This lesson will help us understand the aforesaid events of global importance.

War for independence America

During the Age of Discovery, adventurous seafarers explored the so-called New World and discovered new trade routes with royal support. This ensured better connectivity and profits. Though Spain and Portugal took the lead in exploring the new places, establishing trade centres first and later colonies, it was Britain that established colonies all over the world and successfully controlled them over a long period of time.

Though the English were the first to settle in North America, in due course of time, the Germans, the Swedes, the French, the Italians, and the Dutch too went to America and settled there. The colonisation of the New World absorbed the growing population of Europe at a time of rapid economic and demographic growth.

King James I sent an expedition to Virginia, where a colony was established in 1607 and named Jamestown. Then the Pilgrims from Britain sailed in a ship called the Mayflower and set up a colony at Plymouth in Massachusetts. Slowly, other colonies were established.

The Dutch set up a colony in 1624, near the mouth of the River Hudson and named it New Amsterdam. Later, the English acquired it from the Dutch and renamed it New York. In the early 1700s, enslaved Africans made up a growing percentage of the colonial population. By 1770, more than 2 million people lived and worked in Great Britain’s 13 North American colonies.

In 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh set up the first colony at Roanoke Island in North Carolina and named it Virginia after the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I. However, due to the stiff resistance put up by the native Indians some of the early settlers returned to England.

The Roanoke Island became a lost colony as there was no trace of it when the British sailors reached the island some years later.

Life in Colonial America: The Thirteen Colonies

The colonies varied much in character and the manner in which they had been acquired. They were divided into the South and the North. In the southern part, endowed with fertile land, agriculture was the primary means of subsistence.

The slaves brought from Africa worked in the farm-lands which mainly grew cotton, wheat and tobacco. The Northern states, on the other hand, were devoid of agricultural farmlands. They created mills for cutting timber, shipbuilding, and milling the grains. Iron and textiles were also manufactured. The harbour promoted sea-borne trade.

Fed up with the unsettled living conditions in Europe, people came to live in these colonies mainly to lead a free life. They also wanted to experience religious freedom and to practice the religion of their choice (for example, the Puritans).

The colonies were ruled by British representatives called Governors appointed by the British monarch. The Governors had an assembly similar to a parliament. Women had no voting rights.

Among the men, those who paid taxes and owned land alone could vote. Initially, they built a cordial relationship with the indigenous people of America, known as American Indians and Native Americans. (They were then referred to pejoratively as ‘Red Indians’)However, in due course of time, they were dispossessed of their land or liquidated.

The transatlantic slave trade is a blot in the history of humanity. The Portuguese began the African slave trade at the opening of
seventeenth century.

The other nations of Christian Europe followed immediately. The
first slaves to be brought to America came in a Dutch ship in 1619. The first English man who realised that lots of money could be made
by seizing “unsuspecting negroes” in Africa and selling them to work on plantations in the New World (America) was John Hawkins.
He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for “his prosperous success and much gain.” It is estimated that more than 11 million Africans
reached the Americas as slaves.

By the time Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean in 1492, there were 10 million indigenous people living in U.S. territory. But by 1900, the number had reduced to less than 300,000.

Spreading disease was one of the strategies adopted by the Europeans to exterminate the native population. In 1763, a serious uprising threatened British garrisons in Pennsylvania. Worried about limited resources, and provoked by the violence of some Native Americans, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, wrote to Colonel Henry Bouquet at Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania:“You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians [with smallpox] by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method, that can serve to extirpate this execrable race.” Consequently, small pox was spread to the Native Americans by distributing blankets previously used by infected patients.

Colonists in search of gold (1848) staged violent ambushes on tribal villages. Several wars broke out between tribes and American settlers which led to large scale deaths, land dispossession, oppression and blatant racism.

Causes for the American War for Independence

Colonial Governance: Navigation Acts

England considered the colonies as part of its country and governed them for their ownbenefit, neglecting the interests of the colonies. England passed laws known as the Navigation Acts, which mandated that colonial produce should be exported only in British ships. There were also laws restricting or prohibiting the manufacture of certain articles in the colonies, such as cloth.

1756–63

The Seven Years’ War (1756–63)

The revolt of colonies against England was a direct consequence of England’s intervention in the Seven Years’ War. During the War, the colonial assemblies did not co-operate with the mother country in the way expected of them.

They voted for inadequate supplies and resisted the moves of England to impose certain duties on articles used by the Americans. The English conquest of Canada and removal of all danger from the French made the British government to feel secure. This in turn made the colonies jittery and less disposed than ever to submit to the dictates of England.

Taxes on Colonies

Taxes on Sugar and Molasses

In order to solve the financial crisis arising out of constant wars with other European powers, the British imposed new taxes on the colonies. The first tax imposed was on sugar and molasses, a by-product of sugar, in 1764. All the colonies in North America were forced to pay this tax, and the settlers protested against this by raising the slogan ‘no taxation without representation’.

1765 – Stamp Act

In 1765, a new tax was introduced on the stamps. The settlers were forced to use stamps on all legal documents and pay the tax for the use of stamps. The settlers refused to buy them, and the British traders forced the colonial government to repeal the act.

1766 – Townshend Act

Though the Stamp Act was abolished in 1766, in the very next year, an Act was passed that imposed taxes on certain goods imported from Britain. Townshend, who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Britain, brought this act into force and hence came to be called the Townshend Act.

1770 – Boston Massacre

In 1770, Lord North, the new prime minister of England, abolished taxes on products except tea. This was retained to assert that the British Parliament had a right to tax the colonies directly as well as indirectly. When the British forces marched on the streets of Boston, Americans criticised the British. This angered the British forces, who fired against the people.

This Boston Massacre brought to light the aggressive and autocratic nature of the British government.

1773 – Boston Tea Party

In the wake of the Boston Massacre, around 100 activists dressed like Native Americans boarded the three ships carrying tea and threw 342 boxes into the sea at Boston. This incident came to be called the Boston Tea Party.

The British Parliament retaliated with severity. General Gage was appointed Governor of Massachusetts, and troops were dispatched with instructions to bring the colony to heel.

1774 – Intolerable Acts

Angered by the Boston Tea Party, the British Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill. The Boston harbour was closed until the colonists paid for all the tea thrown into the sea. Then the Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government Act, replacing the elective local council, and enhancing the powers of the military governor Gage.

The third measure, the Administration of Justice Act, allowed British officials charged with capital offences to be tried in another colony or in England. The fourth intolerable Act, a replica of the Quartering Act, which was abolished, permitted the requisition of unoccupied buildings to house British troops. The Intolerable Acts (1774), also known as Coercive Acts, evoked a wave of outrage in colonies.

1774 – Quebec Act

The Quebec Act passed by the British government in 1774 awarded the territory between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the province of Quebec. The colonial governments of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia were angered by the unilateral assignment of the Ohio lands to Quebec, which had been granted to them in their royal charters. By permitting French civil law and the Roman Catholic religion in the newly carved-out area, Britain also provoked the protestant colonies.

The Intolerable Acts of 1774 became the justification for convening the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia. The representatives of all the colonies, except that of Georgia, demanded the repeal of the Intolerable Acts.

The Congress decided to boycott British goods until then. They sent a representation with an olive branch (peace proposal) to the British King George III. This was known as the Olive Branch Petition. The king, however, refused to buy peace.

1775 – Outbreak of War

In the meantime, in 1775, at Lexington in Massachusetts, the farmers fought the British and then marched on Boston to besiege the British garrison at Bunker Hill. On 4 July 1776, all the thirteen colonies declared independence from Britain. The Declaration of Independence was essentially the work ofThomas Jefferson, which marked the beginning of the history of an independent country called the United States of America.

The Declaration of Independence (1776)

It was Richard Lee who proposed that the colonies should be independent states. A draft committee was formed to draft the declaration of independence whose members included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams.

The British army was led by William Howe, while the American forces were led by George Washington. Though in the initial phases Howe made a few successful attempts by defeating Washington at Brooklyn, New York, and New Jersey, Washington, through his planned military tactics, inflicted defeat on the British army.

In 1777, at the Battle of Saratoga, the British General Burgoyne was forced to surrender. Finally, the British forces surrendered to the American forces in 1781 at Yorktown. With this victory, the northern colonies became free. However, Howe retained New York almost until the end of the war.

Solidarity of European Powers with Colonists

During the American War of Independence, the European powers that were not on friendly terms with the British decided to support the American colonies. The countries in Northern Europe, including Prussia, Sweden and Denmark, formed the ‘Armed neutrality’ against Great Britain. Britain was in turmoil as it had to face hostility from its enemies as well as neutral powers.

The French, followed by the Spanish and the Dutch, helped the American colonies in this war of independence. France lent support to the Americans as vengeance against the loss of Canada. The French volunteers who crossed the Atlantic to fight for the colonists returned with ideas of individual liberty which made them intolerant of the restrictions of the Bourbon monarchy.

Many of the wealthy merchants and large landowners remained loyal to the British monarchy and influenced a large section of the population, especially in New York and Pennsylvania. The colonists split into two divisions: the Patriots who wanted freedom and the Loyalists who wanted to remain loyal to the British crown. The Loyalists, called Tories, wanted the British to rule as they belonged to the Anglican Church. So a civil war in the midst of the revolution became inevitable.

1783 – Treaty of Paris

In 1783, the British Parliament decided that it was pointless to carry on the war. Lord North resigned as Prime Minister. King George lost control over the House of Commons. The new Prime Minister, Lord Rockingham, started the peace talks. A peace treaty was signed between Great Britain and America in 1783 at Paris.

George Washington (1732–1799) became the first president of the United States of America. One of the founding fathers of America, he played a significant role in the American Revolution, first as a military officer and later as an astute politician.

Important Provisions of the Treaty

• Britain recognised the freedom of the 13 colonies and the formation of a new country called the United States of America.
• The area bordered by the Mississippi River on the west and the 31st parallel in the south went to the USA.
• France gained certain British territories in the West Indies, India and Africa.
• Spain obtained Florida from Great Britain
• Holland and England maintained the status quo that prevailed before the war.

Significance of American Revolution

• The American Revolution opened up many avenues in the history of the world.
• The concepts of democracy and republic became widespread.
• The political and social changes were along the lines of democracy and equality.
• USA became a land of opportunities and freedom for all settlers.
• Education gained prominence.
• The principle of federalism became widespread.
• The American Revolution was a setback for colonialism. The demand of the colonies for independence against their colonial masters became widespread in many parts of the world.
• It paved the way for a free society where every individual was given the freedom of speech, freedom of religion and equal opportunities.

When India became independent in 1947,
the economy of the country was very fragile and
facing many problems. The level of poverty was
very high. Nearly 80% of the population was
living in rural areas, depending on agriculture
for their livelihood. As the craft-based
occupations had suffered during British rule,
many skilled artisans had lost their livelihood.
As a result, agriculture was overcrowded, and
the per capita income from agriculture was very low. Agriculture was also characterised
by semi-feudal relations between landowners
and cultivators or peasants, who were often
exploited by the land-owning classes.
The industrial sector had grown in the
decades before Independence, but it was still
quite small. The best known heavy industry
was Tata Iron and Steel. Besides this, the
main manufactures were cotton spinning and
weaving, paper, chemicals, sugar, jute and
cement. Engineering units produced machinery for these units. However, the sector was
relatively small and did not offer a significant
potential for employing the surplus labour from
the agricultural sector. In fact, the industry
sector only accounted for 13% of the total
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1950. Most
manufactured consumer goods were imported.
T
he Indian offices of major foreign companies
were involved only in marketing and sales, and
not in manufacturing.
Thus, the new government of India was
faced with the mammoth task of developing the
economy, improving conditions in agriculture,
widening the manufacturing sector, increasing
employment and reducing poverty.

Socialistic Pattern of Society

Economic development can be achieved in
many ways. One option would be to follow the
free enterprise, capitalist path; the other was to
follow the socialist path. India chose the latter.
In fact, the Preamble to the Indian Constitution,
cited in the previous lesson, stated
unambiguously that India would be “a sovereign,
socialist, secular democratic republic”. The
objectives of this socialist pattern of development
were: the reduction of inequalities, elimination
of exploitation, and prevention of concentration
of wealth. Social justice meant that all citizens
would have an equal opportunity to education
and employment. This essentially entailed the
active participation of the state in the process of
development.

In agriculture, social
and economic justice was
to be achieved through a
process of land reforms
which would empower the
cultivator. In industry, the
state would play an active
role by setting up major
industries under the public
sector. These were to be
achieved through a comprehensive process of
planning under Five Year Plans. These strategies
had been borrowed from the Soviet experience
of rapid economic development. Nehru was a great admirer of the success of the Soviet Union
in achieving rapid development, and thus the
ideology on which this strategy is based is often
referred to as “Nehruvian Socialism”.

Agricultural Policy

At the time of Independence, agriculture in
India was beset with many problems. In general,
productivity was low. The total production of
food grains was not enough to feed the country,
so that a large quantity of food grains had to be
imported. Nearly 80 percent of the population
depended on agriculture for their livelihood.
This automatically reduced the income of each
person to very low levels. This is a situation
described as ‘disguised unemployment’. That is,
even if many people shifted to other occupations,
total production levels would remain the same,
because this surplus population was not really
required to sustain the activity, and was, in
effect, unemployed. Given the high level of
poverty among the rural population, most of
them were heavily indebted to moneylenders.

At the time of Independence, agriculture in
India was beset with many problems. In general,
productivity was low. The total production of
food grains was not enough to feed the country,
so that a large quantity of food grains had to be
imported. Nearly 80 percent of the population
depended on agriculture for their livelihood.
This automatically reduced the income of each
person to very low levels. This is a situation
described as ‘disguised unemployment’. That is,
even if many people shifted to other occupations,
total production levels would remain the same,
because this surplus population was not really
required to sustain the activity, and was, in
effect, unemployed. Given the high level of
poverty among the rural population, most of
them were heavily indebted to moneylenders.

Land Reforms and Rural Reconstruction

Under the Constitution of India, agriculture
was a ‘state subject’, that is, each state had to
pass laws relating to land reforms individually. T
hus, while the basic form of
land reforms was common
among all the states, there
was no uniformity in the
specific terms of land reform
legislation among the states.

(a) Zamindari Abolition

Abolition of Zamindari was part of the
manifesto of the Indian National Congress
party even before Independence.
What was Zamindari and who were the
zamindars? Zamindar referred to the class of
landowners who had been designated during
British rule as the intermediaries who paid
the land revenue to the government under a
Permanent Settlement. They collected rent from
peasants cultivating their land and were obliged
to remit a fixed amount to the government as
land taxes. There was no legal limit to these
demands, and zamindars generally extorted
high rents from the cultivators leaving them
impoverished. In public opinion, these
zamindars were considered to be a decadent,
extravagant and unproductive class who were
living on unearned income. Abolishing their
privileges and restoring land to the cultivators
was therefore a prime objective of the
government.

Most provinces in India had enacted laws
abolishing the zamindari system even before
the Constitution was framed. By 1949, Uttar
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Madras, Assam and Bombay had introduced such
legislation. West Bengal, where the Permanent
Settlement was first introduced, the act was
passed only in 1955. Land taken away from the
zamindars was distributed among the tenants.
The provincial legislatures also recommended
the amount of compensation to be paid to the
zamindars.

Zamindars in various parts of the country
challenged the constitutionality of the zamindari
abolition laws in court. The government then
passed two amendments to the Constitution,
the First Amendment in 1951 and the Fourth
Amendment in 1955, which pre-empted the
right of zamindars to question the takeover of
their land or the value of the compensation.

Finally, zamindari abolition was completed
by 1956, and was possibly the most successful
of the land reforms. About 30 lakh tenants
and sharecroppers gained ownership of 62
lakh hectares of land. The total compensation
actually paid to the zamindars amounted to
`16,420 lakhs (which amounted to only about
one-fourth of the total compensation amount
due).

In sum, however, the reform only achieved
a very small part of the original objective. Many
zamindars were able to evict their tenants and
take over their land claiming that this land was
under their ‘personal cultivation’. Thus, while
the institution of zamindari was dismantled,
many landowners continued in possession of
vast tracts of land.

(b) Tenancy Reform

Nearly half of the total cultivated land in
India was under tenancy. Tenancy refers to an
arrangement under which land was taken on
lease from landowners by cultivators under
specific terms. Not all tenants were landless
peasants. Many small landowners who wanted
to cultivate additional land leased out land from
other landowners. Some richer landowners also
took additional land for cultivation on lease. In
general, the rent was paid in kind, as a share of
the produce from the land.

It was common for large landowners to
lease out the land to tenants. Usually these
tenancy arrangements continued for long
periods of time. The rents received by the
landowners generally amounted to about 50%
or more of the produce from the land, which
was very high. Tenancy was a customary
practice and agreements were rarely recorded.
Thus, tenants of long-standing were almost
never deprived of tenancy rights. However,
tenants could also be evicted at short notice,
and tenants therefore always lived under some
uncertainty.
Tenancy reform was undertaken with two
objectives. One was to empower the cultivators
by protecting them against the landowners.
The other was to improve the efficiency of land
use, based on the assumption that tenancy was
inefficient. Landowners rarely had any incentive
to invest in improving the land, and were
interested only in deriving an income from their
land. Tenants, who had no ownership rights and
were liable to pay high rents, had neither the
incentive nor surplus money to invest in land.

Tenancy reform legislation was aimed at achieving three ends:
(i) to regulate the rent;
(ii) to secure the rights of the tenant;
(iii) to confer ownership rights on the tenants by expropriating the land of the land
owners.

Legislation was passed in the states
regulating the rent at one-fourth to one
third of the produce. But this could never be
implemented successfully. The agricultural
sector had a surplus of labour whereas land
was a resource in short supply. Price controls
did not work in a situation when the demand
exceeded the supply. All that happened was that
rent rates were pushed under the table without
any official record.

Laws to secure the rights of the tenant
and to make tenancy heritable were equally
unsuccessful. Tenancy agreements were made
orally, and were unrecorded. The tenant thus
always had to live with the uncertainty that their land could be resumed by the landlord any time.
When tenancy reform laws were announced
many landowners claimed to have taken back
their land for ‘personal cultivation’ and that
tenants were only being employed as labour to
work the land. Tenancy reform was bound to be
ineffectual in the absence of a comprehensive
and enforceable land ceiling programme.

Land reform measures initiated in Kerala
and West Bengal met with reasonable success.
While abolition of landlordism was remarkably
successful, conferment of ownership rights to
tenants had mixed results.

(c) Land Ceiling

Land ceiling refers to the maximum amount of land that could be legally owned by
individuals. Laws were passed after the 1950s to enforce it. In Tamilnadu it was implemented first in 1961. Until 1972, there was a ceiling on
the extent of land that a ‘landholder’ could own.

After 1972, the unit was changed to a ‘family’.
This meant that the landowners could claim
that each member of the family owned a part
of the land which would be much less than the
prescribed limit under the ceiling.

Deciding the extent of land under land
ceiling was a complex exercise, since land was not
of uniform quality. Distinctions had to be made
between irrigated and unirrigated dry land, and
single crop and double crop producing land. At the
same time, exemptions from the Act were granted
to certain categories of land such as orchards,
horticultural land, grazing land, land belonging
to religious and charitable trusts, and sugarcane
plantations. These exemptions were also used to
evade the land cieling acts and reported cases of
manipulation of land records adversely impacted
the otherwise laudable initiative.

Ultimately, only about 65 lakh hectares of
land was taken over as surplus land. This was
distributed to about 55 lakh tenants–an average
of a little over 1 hectare per tenant.

Efforts like Bhoodan
started by Vinoba Bhave to
persuade large landowners
to surrender their surplus
land voluntarily attracted
much public attention.

(d) Overall Appraisal

Land reform legislation has overall not
been a great success. In economic terms, the
dream of an agricultural sector prospering
under peasant cultivators with secure
ownership rights has remained just that – a
dream – and there was no visible improvement
in efficiency. In more recent years, when
agriculture has grown due to technological
progress, a more efficient land market is seen
to be operating which is more conducive for
long term growth.
In terms of social justice, the abolition of
the semi-feudal system of zamindari has been
effective. The land reform measures have also
made the peasants more politically aware of
their rights and empowered them.

Development of Agriculture

(a) Green Revolution

By the middle of the 1960s the scenario with
regard to food production was very grim. The
country was incurring enormous expenditure
on importing food. Land reforms had made
no impact on agricultural production. The
government therefore turned to technological
alternatives to develop agriculture. High
Yielding Variety (HYV) of seeds of wheat and
rice was adopted in 1965 in select areas well
endowed with irrigation.

Unlike traditional agriculture, cultivation
of HYV seeds required a lot of water and use
of tractors, chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
The success of the initial experimental projects
led to the large-scale adoption of HYV seeds
across the country. This is generally referred to as the Green Revolution. This also created an
enormous demand for chemical fertilizers and
pesticides, and these industries grew as well.

Finally, within twenty years, India achieved
self-sufficiency in food production. Total rice
production increased from 35 million tonnes
in 1960–61 to 104 million tonnes in 2011–12.
The increase in wheat production was even more
impressive, from 11 million tonnes to 94 million
tonnes during the same period. Productivity
also increased. A large reserve stock of food
grain was built up by the government through
buying the surplus food grain from the farmers
and storing this in warehouses of the Food
Corporation of India (FCI). The stored food
grains were made available under the Public
Distribution System (PDS) and to ensure food
security for the people.

Another positive feature has been the
sustained increase in the production of milk
and eggs. Due to this, the food basket of all
income groups became more diversified.
While the Green Revolution has been
very successful in terms of increasing food
production in India, it has also had some
negative outcomes. First of all, it increased the
disparities between the well-endowed and the
less well-endowed regions. Over the decades,
there has been a tendency among farmers to use
chemical fertilizers and pesticides in excessive
quantities resulting in environmental problems.
There is now a move to go back to organic
farming in many parts of the country. The
lesson to be learnt is that development comes at
a certain cost.

(b) Rural Development Programmes

By the 1970s, the levels of poverty had
not declined in spite of overall development
of industry and agriculture. The assumption
that development would solve the problem of
poverty was not realised, and nearly half the
population was found to be living below the
poverty line. (The poverty line is defined as the
level of expenditure required to purchase food
grains to supply the recommended calorie level
to sustain a person.) Though the percentage
of the persons below the poverty line did not
increase, as the population grew, the number
of persons living below the poverty line kept
increasing.
Poverty prevailed both in rural and
urban areas. But since nearly three-fourths
of the population lived in rural areas, rural
poverty was a much more critical problem
requiring immediate attention. Poverty levels
were also much higher among specific social
groups such as small and marginal farmers,
landless labourers and depressed classes in
resource poor regions without irrigation and
with poor soil, etc.
A whole range of rural development
programmes was introduced by the government
to tackle rural poverty. These included
Community
Development
Programmes,
reviving local institutions like Panchayati Raj, and
targeted programmes aimed at specific groups
such as small and marginal farmers. The thrust
was on providing additional sources of income to
the rural households to augment their earnings
from agriculture. Two major programmes are
explained in greater detail below.

Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), 1980–1999

In 1980 a consolidated rural development
programme called Integrated Rural
Development Programme was introduced. The
purpose was to provide rural households with
assets which would improve their economic
position, so that they would be able to come out of poverty. These could be improvements to
the land, supply of cows or goats for dairying or
help to set up small shops or other trade-related
businesses. Introduced in all the 5011 blocks in
the country, the target was to provide assistance
to 600 families in each block over five years
(1980–1985), which would reach a total of 15
million families.
The capital cost of the assets provided
was covered by subsidies (divided equally
between the Centre and the States) and loans.
The subsidy varied according to the economic
situation of the family receiving assistance. For
small farmers, the subsidy component was 25%,
33.3% for marginal farmers and agricultural
labourers, and 50% for tribal households. Banks
were to give loans to the selected households to
cover the balance of the cost of the asset. About
53.5 million households were covered under the
programme till 1999.
Dairy animals accounted for 50% of the
assets, non-farm activities for 25% and minor
irrigation works for about 15%. The functioning
and the effects of IRDP were assessed by many
economists as well as government bodies. Many
studies were conducted about the end result of
this programme.
Lack of proper selection procedures for
identification of beneficiaries, insufficient
investment per household, absence of post
implementation audits of the scheme, regional
disparities in lifting the identified beneficiaries
above the poverty line was a major issue.

Considering the limited success achieved
by the programme it was restructured in 1999
as a programme to promote self-employment of
the rural poor.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA)

Over the years, due to concerted efforts,
the percentage of households below the poverty
line has come down substantially in India. It is
now widely recognised that eradicating rural
poverty can be achieved only by expanding the scope for non-agricultural employment. Many
programmes to generate additional employment
had been introduced over the years. Many were
merged with the employment guarantee
scheme, which is now the biggest programme
on this front in the country.
The National Rural
Employment Guarantee
Act (subsequently
renamed MGNREGA
after Mahatma
Gandhi) was passed in
2005, with the aim of
providing livelihood
security to poor rural
households. This was to
be achieved by giving at
least 100 days of wage employment each year to
adult members of every household willing to do
unskilled manual work. This would provide a
cushion to poor rural households which could
not get any work in the lean agricultural season
which lasted for about three months each year.
In this exercise, the work undertaken would
create durable assets in rural areas like roads,
canals, minor irrigation works and restoration
of traditional water bodies.
The earlier targeted programmes of rural
development were based on the identification
of below poverty line families, which had led
to several complaints that ineligible families
had been selected. MGNREGA, however, is
applicable to all rural households. The reasoning
is that it is a self-targeting scheme, because
persons with education or from more affluent
backgrounds would not come forward to do
manual work at minimum wages.
The earlier employment generation
programmes did not give the rural poor any right
to demand and get work. The significant feature
of this Act is that they have the legal right to
demand work. The programme is implemented
by Gram Panchayats. The applicants have
to apply for this work and are provided with
job cards. Work is to be provided by the local
authorities within 15 days. If not, the applicant is entitled to an unemployment allowance.
The work site should be located within five
kilometres of the house of the applicant.
No contractors are to be involved. This is
to avoid the profits which will be taken by the
middlemen thus cutting into the wages. The
ratio of wages to capital investment should
be 60:40. One-third of the workers would be
women. Men and women would be paid the
same wage.
As with all government programmes,
many studies were conducted regarding the
proper implementation of MGNREGA. On
the positive side, agricultural wages have gone
up due to the improved bargaining power of
labour. This has also reduced the migration
of agricultural workers to urban areas during
the lean period or during droughts. One of
the most important benefits is that women are
participating in the works in large numbers and
have been empowered by the programme.
Wages of the workers are paid directly
into bank accounts or post office accounts to
ensure transparency and hassle – free transfer
of payments. The involvement of civil society
organisations, non-governmental organisations
and political representatives, and a more
responsive attitude of the civil servants have
improved the functioning of MGNREGA in
states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and
Rajasthan. Efficiency has increased up to 97%.
Between
2006
and
2012,
around
`1,10, 000 crores had been distributed directly as
wage payment under the programme, generating
1200 crore person-days of employment. In spite
of many shortcomings, the functioning of the
programme has improved due to higher levels
of consciousness among the rural poor and
concerned civil society organisations. Though
many critics feel that the high expenditure
involved in the programme increases the
fiscal deficit, the programme remains popular
and nearly one-fourth of all rural households
participate in the programme each year.

World War II (1939–1945) was fought
between the Allied and the Axis powers. Britain,
France and Russia formed the allied camp;
the United States joined it later in 1941 after
the attack on Pearl Harbour. Germany, Italy
and Japan were the Axis powers. Despite the
ideological differences amongst Allies, it was
Germany’s fascist and war-mongering attitude
that compelled them to work together. United
States and Britain were not comfortable with
the Soviet Union given its communist form of
government.
At the end of the Second World, USSR and
USA emerged as super powers. In their bid to
gain ideological supremacy they entertained
mutual suspicion and distrust. Both countries
tried to spread their ideology either by force
or by enticement. In the newly emerged bi-
polar world, most of the countries had to
either ally with the US or with USSR. Many
Afro-Asian countries, India included, decided
to remain un-aligned. This group of countries
came together and formed the Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM).
The destruction and displacement
caused by the Second World War was much
greater than during the First World War
and so the world leaders realised the need
for a world organisation to prevent a war
in the future. As a result, United Nations
Organisation (UNO) was established in 1945.
UNO played its role in resolving the disputes
among the member states. But the cold war
situation prevented the UN from functioning
independently and effectively. The War had
ruined European economy and devastated
several cities in Western Europe. European
states had to come together initially for the
purpose of reconstruction of the shattered
economy, paving the way for its evolution as
a strong collective in course of time.

133The World affer World War II
In this chapter we will be discussing the
emergence of the two power blocs, strategies
used by them to enlarge their spheres of
influence, emergence of NAM, the role of
UNO in resolving disputes, the post-war
reconstruction in Europe and the establishment
of European Union, and finally the end of cold
war with the collapse of Soviet Union.

Post-War Conditions in Europe

The Second World War was more
catastrophic than the First World War. As many
as 60 million civilians were killed. In a planned
genocide the Nazis killed 6 million European
Jews. Millions became homeless and refugees.
The War had destroyed factories and farm
lands. Great cities such as Warsaw, Kiev, Tokyo
and Berlin were totally devastated. Britain and
France, which enjoyed prestige in international
politics prior to the War, were badly undermined.
The condition of post-war Europe appeared
grave with shortages of food and raw materials.
There was by high rates of unemployment.

The post-War material conditions
challenged the laissez-faire attitude of capitalist
countries. Many European countries turned into
social welfare states committed to enhancing
the conditions of its citizens. Not satisfied with
the measures of the ruling governments the
distressed masses tended to support socialist
movements. This was especially so in Greece
and Turkey where the communist movement
was active. The USSR supported parties and
movements which were left-leaning. By 1948 the
Soviets had established left wing governments
in the countries of eastern Europe notably in
Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Elections
held in Yugoslavia had already resulted in the
formation of a communist state under Tito. As
communism strengthened its grip on eastern
Europe, the Americans and the British began
to worry about the threat of Soviet-influenced
parties coming to power in western Europe.

Emergence of a Bi-Polar World

Following the defeat of Germany, Stalin,
Truman and Churchill, later replaced by
Clement Attlee, met at Potsdam near Berlin
in July 1945 to discuss the future of Germany.
During the course of the meeting Truman
informed Churchill about the invention of an
atomic bomb. A few days after the conference,
USA dropped atomic bombs over the Japanese
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With the
bombardment of Japanese cities, Japanese
Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s
unconditional surrender. This act of bombing
Japan without informing USSR created a
diplomatic void between two countries. USSR
produced an atomic bomb in 1949.

M e a n w h i l e ,
difference of opinion
had arisen on the
creation of the
World Bank and the
International Monetary
Fund between the US
and the USSR. On 22
February 1946 George
Kennan, the American charge d’affaires
in Moscow, in an 8,000-word telegram to
the Department of State, known as ‘Long
Telegram,’ emphasised that the Soviet Union
did not see the possibility for long-term
peaceful coexistence with the capitalist world
and suggested that the best strategy was to
“contain” communist expansion around the
globe.

In March 1946 Churchill, who was invited
to speak at Fulton in Missouri, condemned
the Soviet action of installing communist
governments in Eastern European region.
He declared “From Stettin in the Baltic to
Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has
descended across the continent.” He called
for a western alliance which would stand
firm against communism. Churchill’s speech
is considered to signal the beginning of the
Cold War. Stalin criticised Churchill as a
warmonger. After the Iron Curtain Speech
of Churchill, USSR continued to tighten its hold over Eastern Europe. By the end of 1947
except Czechoslovakia the rest of the area was
brought under Communist rule.

The Berlin Blockade and Formation of East Germany and West Germany

By the Yalta and Potsdam Conference
agreements, Germany, with its capital city Berlin,
was divided into four zones, viz., U.S zone, U.K.
zone, French zone and USSR zone. By early
1948 all the three western zones were merged
together and with the Marshall Plan these zones
registered rapid growth and development.
USSR’s response was to put pressure on
communications between West Berlin and West
Germany. In June 1948 the Russians stopped all
road and rail traffic between West Berlin and
West Germany. The western powers decided to
maintain contact with Berlin by air. For nearly
eleven months West Berlin was supplied by air,
and vast quantities of supplies were flown in at
immense cost. In May 1949 USSR ended its ban
on land traffic and the crisis ended. The western
powers now went ahead and set up the Federal
Republic of Germany in August 1949 (FRG,
popularly known as West Germany) and USSR
set up the German Democratic Republic (GDR,
popularly known as East Germany) in October

1949. If the division of Germany marked the real
      beginnings of the Cold War, the reunification of
      Germany in 1990 signalled the end of Cold War.

Cold War

On 16 April 1947 Bernard Baruch, the US
Presidential adviser, in a speech at the State House
in Columbia, used the term “Cold War,” (earlier
coined by George Orwell, the great English
writer and author of Animal Farm and 1984), to
describe the relations between the United States
and the Soviet Union after the Second World
War. A war without weapons, the Cold War was
a war of ideologies.
Between 1945 and 1991, the Cold War
defined the foreign policy of the super powers.
During this period both the powers were in a
constant state of military preparedness. The US
wanted to promote open market for its goods and
wanted to stop the spread of communism. On the
other hand USSR wanted to spread communism
and desired to have friendly governments on its
borders who shared the same value systems. The
powers adopted six major strategies to achieve
their ends: Economic Aid, Military Pacts,
Propaganda, Espionage, Brinkmanship, and
Surrogate Wars.

Cold War Strategies
(a) Economic Aid

Truman Plan

In 1945 a civil war broke out in Greece.
Britain which had supported Greece for
years, now decided to withdraw given its own
economic problems. Sometime later trouble
started in Turkey also, with the communists
trying to take control. In 1947, Britain told the United States that it could no longer afford to
fight communist insurgencies in Greece and
Turkey and decided to leave it as of March 31.
United States chose to act. President Harry S.
Truman decided to intervene in support of
Greece and Turkey. He committed to provide
financial and military assistance to those
countries where communism was ascendant.
This laid the framework for US policy towards
containing communism, known popularly as
the Truman Doctrine which dominated until
the end of the Cold War.

Marshall Plan

With its experience in Greece and Turkey,
USA understood the value of American dollars
in containing Communism. So it decided to
move further in the same direction. In June
1947, George C. Marshall, the Secretary of
State under President Truman, came out with
an economic plan for all those European
countries which were affected by war. He
called it a European Recovery Programme.
Marshall declared, “Our Policy is directed not
against any country or doctrine but against
hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos”.
European states were provided with financial
assistance. Over the next four years 13,000
million dollars were pumped into western
Europe in the name of Marshall plan. By 1948
sixteen European states and the three Western
zones of Germany set up the Organisation for
European Economic Cooperation (OEEC).
Marshall Aid lasted for four years (1948–52).
Molotov, the soviet foreign minister dubbed
the Marshall Plan as “dollar imperialism”.

In the Soviet view, Marshall Plan was little
more than a ploy to spread American
influence.

Molotov Plan

In response to Marshall Plan, USSR set up
The Cominform (the Communist Information
Bureau) in September 1947. This was an
organisation in which all European communist
parties were represented. It discouraged trade
contact between the non-communist countries
and tried to forge ideological and material linkages
with its member countries. In 1949, USSR came
out with its economic package known as Molotov
Plan. Another organisation, known as Comecon
(Council of Mutual Economic Assistance), was
set up to co-ordinate the economic policies of
USSR and its satellite states.

(b) Military Pacts

Forging strategic alliances by signing
military pacts was another notable strategy
used by both the powers to enlarge their
camps. In 1948 Czechoslovakia was the only
democratic state in Eastern Europe and was
a buffer between the capitalist bloc and the
Soviet Union. In the elections of May 1948
the Communist party swept the polls. This
further alarmed the western powers.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)

Despite the friendship of the United States,
Western European countries felt insecure.
Communist victory in Czechoslovakia added
to their fears.

The Western European countries were
now willing to consider a collective security
solution. The representatives of Great Britain,
France, Belgium, the Netherlands and
Luxembourg met in Brussels and signed a treaty
in March 1948 which provided for military,
political, economic and cultural collaboration.
After sometime USA, Italy, Canada, Iceland,
Denmark, Norway, Ireland and Portugal joined
the five Brussels Treaty Powers resulting in
the formation of NATO. Under NATO, all the
member states agreed to regard an attack on
any one of them as an attack on all of them
and placed their defence forces under a joint
NATO Command Organisation. This collective
defence arrangement applied only to attacks
that occurred in Europe or North America and
did not include conflicts in colonial territories.
In 1952, Greece and Turkey were admitted to
NATO and West Germany joined in 1955.

Warsaw Treaty Organisation

When West Germany became a member of
NATO, USSR saw it as a direct threat and decided
to make a counter arrangement. In May 1955, a
“treaty of mutual friendship, co-operation and
mutual assistance” was signed by Soviet Union
and seven of its European allies. It was named as The Warsaw Pact, as the treaty was signed
in Warsaw, the capital of Poland. The members
were Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania,
Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and
Bulgaria. The treaty called upon member states
to come to the defence of any member if it was
attacked by an outside force. A unified military
command under Marshall Ivan S. Konev of
the Soviet Union was set up. The Warsaw Pact
remained valid till 1991, the year of collapse of
Soviet Union.

South East Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO)

In 1949 China turned into a Communist
state under the leadership of Mao. Communism
was spreading from China to Korea. Alarmed by
the spread of communism in the Asian region,
in September 1951, a tripartite military alliance
was signed between the US, Australia and New
Zealand (known as the ANZUS treaty). In 1954
the US signed a Mutual Defence Treaty with
Nationalist China (Taiwan), providing the latter
with American support in the event of an attack
or invasion by Communist China.

In September of 1954, USA, France,
Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, the
Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan formed the
Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO).
SEATO is seen as an Asian-Pacific version
of NATO. Interestingly only two south-east
Asian countries, the Philippines and Thailand,
had taken up membership and the rest of the
countries refused to be part of it. The alliance
was headquartered at Bangkok. SEATO existed only for consultation, leaving each individual
nation to react individually to internal threats.
SEATO was not as popular as NATO. With the
end of Vietnam War, SEATO was disbanded in
1977.

Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO)

In February 1955, Iraq and Turkey signed
a “pact of mutual cooperation” at Baghdad.
The membership was open to all countries in
the region. In April, Great Britain joined the
Pact, followed by Pakistan and Iran. The aim
was to check communist influence. A series of
events took place in Middle East in 1958 which
threatened regional stability: the Egypt–Syria
union, revolution in Iraq and civil unrest in
Lebanon. In response to these developments,
the United States intervened in Lebanon. The
members of the Baghdad Pact except for Iraq
endorsed the US intervention. Iraq left the pact.
As a result, the other signatories of the Baghdad
Pact formed the Central Treaty Organisation
(CENTO), moving its headquarters to Ankara,
Turkey. United States continued to support
the organisation as an associate, but not as a
member. In 1979, the Iranian revolution led to
the overthrow of the Shah and Iran withdrew
from CENTO. Pakistan also withdrew that year
after the organisation ceased to play an active
role. CENTO was formally disbanded in 1979.

(c) Propaganda

During the Cold War both the US and
the USSR used propaganda as effective tools
to glorify their ideology, while criticising the
opponents values and ideals. Pro-American
values were promoted in film, television, music, literature and art. While the ideology
of capitalism was promoted, communism was
condemned both as a political ideology and
a social and economic system by the United
States. In USSR propaganda was designed in
such a way that collective work and collective
leadership within the socialist frame were
encouraged. Democracy and market economy
was dubbed as a façade to mask an exploitative
capitalism.

(d) Espionage

Espionage or spying was a key ploy used
by the both super powers to get information on
military secrets and access government records.
During the Cold War both superpowers
maintained strong intelligence-gathering
agencies. In the United States the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established
in 1947 and the Soviet Union’s Komitet
Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB), or
‘Committee for National Security’ was formed
in 1954. The espionage wars fuelled a great
amount of suspicion and hatred, and a huge
amount of popular films and novels with spies
as heroes and villains added to it (e.g. James
Bond films).

(e) Brinkmanship

Brinkmanship was a term that was
constantly used during the Cold War. The word
comes from U.S. Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles. In an interview to Life in 1956, he claimed
that, in diplomacy, “if you are scared to go to
the brink [of war], you are lost.” An example of
this policy was in 1962 when the Soviet Union
placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. This nearly
brought about a nuclear war. The United States
responded by putting a naval blockade around
Cuba. Finally, after much negotiations, the
missiles were removed from Cuba.

(f) Surrogate Wars

US and USSR engaged in surrogate or
proxy wars as part of Cold War strategy. The
Korean War of 1950–53 and the Vietnam
Wars of 1955–75 were classic examples of the
Cold War period. In both cases Soviet Union
supported the communist government in
North Korea and in North Vietnam and the
United States supported South Korea and South
Vietnam. These wars resulted in huge casualties
and losses, and turned out to be civil wars as well. International opinion was mobilised in
these wars, and anti-Vietnam protests made a
profound impact on the politics, society and
culture of the US and western Europe.

Third World Countries and Non-Alignment

In the aftermath of Second World War
many colonial countries in Asia, Africa and
Latin America got their independence from
imperial rule. The newly independent countries
were upset by the Cold War strategy of USA
and USSR. They viewed power blocs as another
form of imperialism and so decided to keep
away from such politics. Calling themselves
countries of Third World, a term coined by
French demographer and historian Alfred Sauvy
in 1952, they decided to follow an independent
and neutral policy in their foreign affairs.

Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)

In 1955 the first Afro-Asian Conference was
held at Bandung in Indonesia where 29 states,
mostly new independent states, including Egypt,
Indonesia, India, Iraq and the People’s Republic
of China, gathered to condemn colonialism,
apartheid and growing tensions due to Cold
War. The conference adopted a ‘Declaration on
Promotion of World Peace and Cooperation’
which included Nehru’s Panchsheel and a
collective pledge to remain neutral in the Cold
War. The ten principles of Bandung later became 139The World affer World War II
the guiding principles of NAM. The term
“non-alignment” was coined by V. K. Krishna
Menon in 1953 at the United Nations.
Based on the Ten Principles of Bandung,
the First Summit of NAM was held at Belgrade,
the capital of Yugoslavia in 1961. Five members
played a prominent role in the foundation of
NAM: Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Sukarno
of Indonesia, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt,
Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Josip Broz Tito
of Yugoslavia. The objective of NAM was to
“create an independent path in world politics.
The most important objectives included ending
of imperialism and colonialism, promotion
of international peace and security and
disarmament, ending of racism and racial
discrimination.” The statement issued at the
end of the Belgrade conference also deprecated
military pacts with any great power or the
permission for any super power to build a
military base in its territories.

First Non-Aligned Conference, Belgrade

The following goals and objectives were set by the proponents of the Non-Aligned Movement at the 1955 Bandung Conference:

• Respect of fundamental human rights and of the objectives and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
• „„ Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations.

The international order that emerged after the First World War, based on the concept of collective security, collapsed. In September 1939 Europe plunged into a terrible war again. The war of 1939–45 was much more of a world war than that of even 1914–18. This was partly because of the part played by Japan. In consequence the loss of life, the damage to property and the cost of the war was much greater. Following the end of the Second World War, a wave of unrest swept colonies and nationalist agitation gained greater force. This set in motion a process of decolonisation in Asia and Africa. In Southeast Asia, the Dutch fought a losing war but finally conceded independence to Indonesia, the former Dutch East Indies, in 1949. The developments in Indonesia, a Dutch colony and Philippines, an American colony are explored as case studies in this lesson. In China, people turned away from the corrupt and incompetent nationalists. A civil war in China resulted in the establishment of People’s Republic of China under Mao Tse Tung.

Second World War: Causes

In the beginning of the war, with Great Britain and France opposing Germany and with Italy remaining temporarily neutral and later joining Germany, the line-up of the two sides in both world wars was similar. The notable difference was that Japan aligned with Germany instead of with the Western powers. Russia and the USA did not enter the conflict until two years after it began. The methods of warfare had changed during the Second World War. Trench warfare gave way to aerial bombing. No distinction was made between combatants and civilians in the Second World War. Casualties in the Second World War were therefore heavy. Let us first trace the circumstances that led to the outbreak of the War.

• The Unjust Nature of the Peace Treaty

The terms imposed upon Germany at the end of First World War were harsh. Stripped off its colonies, the size of the German army was drastically reduced. Germany was forced to cede Alsace and Lorraine to France and to agree to the temporary occupation by French troops of the Saar valley. Germany was also compelled to hand over to Poland large parts of the industrial area of Silesia. Further Germany was to pay an impossible sum (6600 million pounds) in reparation. These terms gave rise to a strong feeling of injustice in Germany and had much do with the subsequent success of the Nazi Politics. Italy felt aggrieved as Dalmatia, claimed to be predominantly Italian, was incorporated in the new state of Yugoslavia. Reduced to the status of a small republic, Austria was not allowed to unite with Germany as the combination would be a threat to France.

• Failure of the League of Nations

The League of Nations, envisaged as an international body to avert another world war, turned out to be an alliance of the victors against the vanquished. The seeds for another war were sowed ever since the Treaty of Versailles was signed. From 1918 to 1933 a series of conferences were held to eliminate threats of war. In 1925, representatives of the chief European powers met at Locarno, a Swiss town, where Germany and France agreed to respect the Rhine frontiers, as established in the Versailles treaty. The next agreement widely appreciated was the Kellogg– Briand Pact of 1928. Though the US did not become a member of the League of Nations, it participated in this meet. The outcome of this pact was the pledge of all nations of the world to renounce war as “an instrument of national policy”. But the League of Nations was not strong enough to enforce these agreements when some countries defied them.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, a Disarmament Conference was organised by the League of Nations at Geneva. The issue was the German rearmament plan on a par with France. The French refused to agree to this proposal, while Britain was willing to concede Germany’s demand. Hitler’s response to French refusal was withdrawal of Germany from the conference and from the League of Nations. A plebiscite in Germany showed enormous support in favour of Hitler’s step. Encouraged, in March 1935, Hitler announced Germany’s intention of building up an army by conscription to over half a million men. This was the first breach of the Treaty of Versailles. The League of Nations attended by Britain, France and Italy condemned Germany’s action but took no further steps. Britain even went to the extent of negotiating a naval agreement. According to this agreement, Germany could build up to 35 per cent of Britain’s naval strength.

Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia appealed to the League of Nations, but received no help.

• Economic Depression of 1930s

The most important economic cause of World War II was the Great Depression. The Depression intensified economic nationalism. Hit by the problems of unemployment and business stagnation, governments resorted to high tariffs to preserve the home market for consumption of their home products. This resulted in an expansionist policy leading to the conquest of neighboring territories as a means of solving economic problems. Japan took the lead. In 1931 it reacted to the global economic crisis by seizing the Chinese northern region of Manchuria. In the face of decline of Japanese exports of raw silk and cotton cloth, Japanese militarists came up with this idea so that Manchuria could be a market.

• Aspirations of German Big Business and Grievances of German Patriots

Britain, France, the US and the USSR each controlled vast areas as colonies across the world. Germany, the most powerful industrial country in continental Europe, had no colonies. This prompted German big business to campaign vigorously to break the restraints imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. It wanted to recover German territory lost to Poland, absorb the German-speaking Austrian state and Czech border land, the Sudetenland. Under Nazi rule there was convergence between the requirements of big business and Nazi ideology. Powers like Great Britain, the United States, France and Russia had their empire extending over one fourth of land area of the earth. Germany, Italy and Japan seemed poor by comparison. German patriots openly articulated their grievance by stating that the average German citizen had only .004 of square mile of living space at his disposal, whereas the average Briton could draw upon the wealth and economic opportunities of almost three square miles of imperial territory.

• Mussolini’s Expansionist Policy

Mussolini’s Italy sought to expand its colonial empire by grabbing Ethiopia to add to its colonial possessions such as Somaliland, Eritrea and Libya. It looked for an opportunity to seize Albania from Yugoslavia.The establishment of an economy based on military state capitalism encouraged the drive to armed expansion. The arms industries needed raw materials and the only way to obtain the resources required was to grab extra territory.

Britain and France condemned Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia and this helped Hitler to establish close relationship with Italy. This was the beginning of Rome–Berlin Axis.

• Japan’s Imperial Policy

The German approach was emulated in East Asia by Japan. It had already taken Taiwan and Korea as colonies, and controlled Manchuria. The government that came up after a military coup in Japan (1936) began to cast its covetous eye over Dutch East Indies, the British colonies in Malaya and Singapore, the French colonies in Indochina and the US-controlled Philippines.

• Responsibility of Hitler for the War

Incorporation of Saar into Germany

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, a plebiscite was to be held in the Saar in January 1935. The people were to decide whether they wished to join Germany or France, or remain under League of Nations’ control. Ninety per cent voted for a return to Germany. In March 1935 the Saar was incorporated into Germany. This was a morale booster for Hitler. (ii) Annexation of Rhineland In 1936 Hitler flouted the peace settlement by sending troops to occupy Rhineland, the area of Germany demilitarised by the Treaty of Versailles. If the French had resisted, the Germans would have withdrawn. The French army at that time was stronger than the German, but economic distress caused by

Three great events of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries – the Renaissance, the geographical discoveries and the Reformation – mark a transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern. The essence of the Renaissance was the centrality given to the human and the natural, with religion relegated to a subordinate place. The Renaissance had a profound impact on the making of the modern world. It stimulated the geographical imagination of Europe. The success of Columbus encouraged overseas enterprise enormously. The Reformation, a revolt against the Catholic Church, transformed the religious map and marked a major turning point in attitudes to religion. Attempts to consolidate a monarchy and to make it absolute resulted in Spain, France, and England evolving as nation-states.

Renaissance in Italy and Its Spread in Western Europe

The word Renaissance, of Latin origin, means rebirth or revival. It signifies the sudden revival of interest in the classical learning of Greece and Rome. In the course of development, however, the Renaissance became more than a mere revival of classical learning. It included an impressive record of new achievements in art, literature, science, philosophy, education, religion, and politics. The Renaissance incorporated a number of ideas. Notable among them were humanism, scepticism, individualism, and secularism. A unique aspect of the Renaissance was the contribution made not by monks and nobles, but by laypersons.

Causes of the Renaissance

(i) New experiences during the Crusades [religious wars aimed at recovering the Holy Land from Muslim rule], the rise of independent trading cities like Venice, Florence, Genoa, Lisbon, Paris, London, Antwerp, Hamburg and Nuremberg, with many visiting travellers, and the establishment of universities at Paris (France), Oxford (England), and Bologno (Italy) provided the necessary preliminary conditions for the birth of renaissance.

Religious wars aimed at recovering the Holy Land from Muslim rule

(ii) Philosophical discussion, which had begun as early as the eleventh century, continued to produce great minds. The most prominent among them in the thirteenth century was Roger Bacon
(1214–1294). An
English philosopher
who lived in
Oxford, Bacon is
considered the
father of modern
e x p e r i m e n t a l
science. He wanted human kind to be
ruled not by dogma and authority but
rather by reason.
(iii) In 1393, a famous scholar of
Constantinople, Manuel Chrysaloras,
arrived in Venice on a mission from the
Byzantine emperor to seek the help of
the West in the war against the Turks.
Chrysaloras was eventually persuaded to
accept a professorship of Greek classics
at the University of Florence. About the
beginning of the fifteenth century several
other Byzantine scholars migrated to
Italy. The influence of these scholars
inspired Italian scholars to make trips
to Constantinople and other Byzantine
cities in search of manuscripts. Between
1413 and 1423 one Giovanni Aurispa
brought back nearly 250 manuscript
books, including the works of Sophocles,
Euripides, and Thucydides. After the
fall of Constantinople in 1453 there was
a great exodus of classical scholars to
Western Europe which gave a fillip to
classical learning.
(iv) The Byzantine world not only gave
Christendom the stimulus of its scholars
and philosophers, it also gave it paper.
Though paper originated in China in
second century BC (BCE)., it reached
Germany only by the fourteenth century.
Thereupon, the invention of moveable
type and the printing press by Johannes
Gutenberg followed. With printing, the
intellectual life of the world entered a far
more vigorous phase. Knowledge spread swifty.

Italy as the birthplace of Renaissance

Renaissance began in Italian cities and later
spread to western Europe. Italians preserved the
belief that they were descendants of the ancient
Romans. They looked back upon their ancestry
with pride. Italy had a more secular culture than
most other parts of Latin Christendom. The
old cathedrals and paintings seemed to them
gloomy and the old traditions irksome. So in
their search for something more to their liking,
they discovered books written in Latin. They
learnt to write Latin as the ancient Romans did.
They also learnt Greek and thereby discovered
wonderful works of the Athenians of the time of
Pericles and facilitated a rebirth of the ancient
and the bygone era of Greek and Roman culture.
Italian universities were established primarily
for the study of law and philosophy.

The Medici Family: Florence is one of the city states in Italy which was influence by a powerful merchant family called Medici. Cosimi de Mesdici who was engaged in banking with many branches across Italy had indirect control over the functioning of the government between 1434 and 1464. After his death, his grandson lorenzo took over and controlled the government. He was known as Lorenzo, the Magnificent. During this period, the Medici family patronized many artist including Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

Italy was situated in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, and hence the Italian cities were the main beneficiaries of the revival of trade with the East. By the fourteenth century, Italian cities engaged in sea-borne trade had become fabulously rich. The Renaissance movement was accelerated by two prosperous families, the Medici family in Florence and the Sforza family in Milan.

Popes such as Nicholas V, Pius II, Julius II and Leo X bestowed their patronage upon the most brilliant artist of the Italian Renaissance.

Florence as the Homes of the Renaissance

Even in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Florence had produced Dante (1265-1321) and Petrarch, the two great poets of the Italian language. Dante’s Divine Comedy is a summation of medieval culture. Its dominant theme is the salvation of mankind through reason and divine grace. But it abounds with many other themes such as human love, love of country, interest in natural phenomena and even the desire for a free and united Italian nation.

Petrarch (1304-1374) produced works both in Latin and Italian. An early humanist, he is considered the father of Italian Renaissance literature. Petrarch’s inquiring mind and love of classical authors led him to travel, visiting men of learning and searching in monastic libraries for classical manuscripts. It is believed that his discovery of Cicero’s letters was a key moment in the 14th-century Italian Renaissance.

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), also a Florentine, produced Decameron, a collection of 100 stories, as told by seven young women and three young men, during their stay at a villa outside of Florence to escape the ravages of the Black Death.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527)

Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince became famous because of its relevance as a political guide for rulers. In his view, the supreme obligation of the ruler was to maintain the power and safety of the country over which he ruled. No consideration of justice or mercy or the sanctity of treaties should be allowed to stand in his way. Machiavelli maintained that a man prompted exclusively by motives of self-interest and the head of the state should therefore take nothing for granted as to the loyalty or affection of his subjects.

‘A Prince’ says Machiavelli, must know how to play at once man and beast, lion and fox. He neither should nor can keep his word when to do so will turn against him. I venture to maintain that it is very disadvantageous always to be honest; useful, on the other hand, to appear pious and faithful, humane and devout. Nothing is more useful than the appearance of virtue.

Nationalism in India

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 songs and 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 emerge in India?

In India and as in many other colonies, the growth of modern nationalism is intimately connected to the anti-colonial movement. 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 groups together.
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 Mahatma Gandhi tried to forge these groups together within one movement. But the unity did not emerge without conflict.

In this post we will pick up the story from the 1920s and study the Non -Non-Cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movements. We will explore how the Congress sought to develop the national movement, how different social groups participated in the movement, and how nationalism captured the imagination of people.

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 and income 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 an influenza 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 fought against 31 Nationalism in India, the 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 cause was true, if the struggle was against injustice, then physical force was not 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 the oppressor. People – including the oppressors – had to be persuaded to see the truth, instead of being forced to accept the 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 1917, he travelled to Champaran in Bihar to inspire the peasants to struggle against the oppressive 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 be relaxed. In 1918, Mahatma Gandhi went to Ahmedabad to organise a satyagraha movement amongst cotton mill workers.

1.2 The Rowlatt Act

Emboldened with this success, Gandhiji in 1919 decided to launch a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act (1919). This Act 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 two years. 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 popular upsurge 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 from Amritsar, 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.

On 13 April, the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day, a large crowd gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh. Some came to protest against the government’s new repressive
measures. Others had come to attend the annual Baisakhi fair. Being from outside the city, many villagers were unaware of the martial law that had been imposed. Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. His object, as he declared later, was to ‘produce a moral effect’, to create in the minds of satyagrahis 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 the police and attacks on government buildings. The government responded with brutal repression, seeking to humiliate and terrorise people: 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 off the movement.

While the Rowlatt satyagraha had been a widespread movement, it was still limited mostly to cities and towns. Mahatma Gandhi now felt the need to launch a broader-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 doing
this, he felt, was to take up the Khilafat issue. The First World War ended with the defeat of Ottoman Turkey. And there were rumours that a harsh peace treaty was going to be imposed on the Ottoman 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 young generation of Muslim leaders, like the brothers Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, began discussing with Mahatma Gandhi about the possibility of a united mass action on the issue. Gandhiji saw this as 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 start a non-cooperation movement in support of Khilafat as well as for 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 of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation. If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would come. How could non-cooperation become a movement? Gandhiji proposed that the movement should unfold in stages. It should begin with 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 movement might 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 and the 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?

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 and colleges, 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 the
non-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 foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs 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 imported clothes 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 the boycott 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 were slow 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 the countryside. It drew into its fold the struggles of peasants and tribals which 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 the villagers, 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 branches
had 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 wider struggle. 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 among
the poor. The name of the Mahatma was being invoked to sanction all action and aspirations.

Tribal 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 in the 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 entering the forests to graze their cattle, or to collect fuelwood and fruits.

This enraged the hill people. Not only were their livelihoods affected 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 came to lead them was an interesting figure. Alluri Sitaram Raju claimed
that he had a variety of special powers: he could make correct astrological predictions and heal people, and he could survive even bullet shots.

Captivated by Raju, the rebels proclaimed that he 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 only by the use of force, not non-violence. The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, attempted to kill British officials and carried on
guerrilla 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, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space in which 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 the tea gardens without permission, and in fact they were rarely given such permission. When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations 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 way by a railway and steamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally beaten up. The 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 limits of their immediate locality.

In February 1922, Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement. He felt the movement was turning violent in many places and satyagrahis needed to be properly trained before they would be ready for mass struggles. Within the Congress, some leaders were by now tired of mass struggles and wanted to participate 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 for reform and also demonstrate that these councils were not truly democratic.

C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swaraj Party within the Congress to argue for a return to council politics. But younger 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 was the effect of the worldwide economic depression. Agricultural prices
began to fall from 1926 and collapsed after 1930. As the demand for 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 up in response to the nationalist movement, the commission was to look into the functioning of the constitutional system in India and suggest changes. The problem was that the commission did not have a single Indian member. They were all 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, Lord Irwin, announced in October 1929, a vague offer
of ‘dominion status’ for India in an unspecified future, and a Round Table Conference to discuss a
future constitution. This did not satisfy the Congress leaders. The radicals within the Congress, led by Jawaharlal 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 Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress formalised the demand of ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence for India. It was declared that 26 January
1930, would be celebrated as Independence Day when people were 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 more concrete issues of everyday life.

3.1 The Salt March and the Civil Disobedience Movement

Mahatma Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unite the 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 industrialists to peasants. The idea was to make the demands wide-ranging, so that all classes within Indian society could identify with them and everyone could be brought together in a united campaign. The most stirring 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 the government monopoly over its production, Mahatma Gandhi declared, 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 famous salt march accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers. The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati 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 reached Dandi, and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling sea water.
This marked the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement. How was this movement different from the Non-Cooperation Movement?

People were now asked not only to refuse cooperation with 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 cloth was 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 clashes in 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 and police 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 100,000 people 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 Round 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 the government had begun a new cycle of repression. Ghaffar Khan and Jawaharlal Nehru were both in jail, the Congress had been declared illegal, and a series of measures had been imposed to prevent meetings, demonstrations and boycotts. With great apprehension, Mahatma Gandhi relaunched the Civil Disobedience Movement. For over a year, the movement continued, but by 1934 it lost its momentum.

How Participants saw the Movement

Let us now look at the different social groups that participated in the Civil 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 by the trade depression and falling prices. As their cash income disappeared, 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 became enthusiastic 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 for swaraj 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 restarted
in 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 land they 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 Socialists and Communists. Apprehensive of raising issues that might upset the rich peasants and landlords, the Congress was unwilling to support
‘no rent’ campaigns in most places. So the relationship between the poor peasants and the Congress remained uncertain.

What 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, they now 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 by prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G. D. Birla, the industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian
economy, and supported the Civil Disobedience Movement when it 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 longer exist 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 of the 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, workers stayed 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 foreign goods, 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 in
Chotanagpur 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, and picketed 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 home and 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 their symbolic 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 the sanatanis, the conservative high-caste Hindus. But Mahatma Gandhi declared that swaraj would not come for a hundred years if untouchability was not eliminated. He called the ‘untouchables’ harijan, or 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 keen on 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 choose dalit members for legislative councils. Political empowerment, they believed, would resolve the problems of their social disabilities.

Dalit participation in the Civil Disobedience Movement was therefore 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 conceded Ambedkar’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’s position 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, a large 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 various cities. 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 Jinnah, one of the leaders of the Muslim League, was willing to give up the demand for separate electorates, if Muslims were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in proportion to population in the Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal and Punjab). Negotiations over the question of representation continued 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 not respond 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 identity of minorities would be submerged under the domination of a Hindu majority.

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 minds of 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 played a part in the making of nationalism.

The identity of the nation, as you know , is most often symbolised in a figure or image. This helps create an image with 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. The image 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 . In this painting Bharat Mata is portrayed as 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 painted
by different artists.

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 picture of 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 pride in one’s past. In Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore himself began collecting ballads, nursery rhymes and myths, and led the movement for folk revival.

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) was designed.

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 the nation, 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 to discover 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, crafts and 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 great achievements 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.

Conclusion

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’s grievances into organised movements for independence.

Through such movement, the nationalists tried to forge a national unity. But as we have seen, diverse groups and classes participated in these movements with varied aspirations and expectations. As their
grievances were wide-ranging, freedom from colonial rule also meant different things to different people. The Congress continuously attempted 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 of Congress 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.

After the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the company became a political power. India was under the rule of the East India Company until 1858, when it came under the direct administration of the British Crown. Robert Clive was the first Governor of Fort William under the Company’s rule. He was succeeded by Verelst and Cartier.

In 1772, the Company appointed Warren Hastings as the Governor of Fort William.

Reforms of Warren Hastings

When Warren Hastings assumed the administration of Bengal in 1772, he found it in utter chaos. The financial position of the company became worse, and the difficulties were intensified by famine. Therefore, Warren Hastings realised the immediate need for introducing reforms.

Administrative and judicial reforms of Warren Hastings

1. Abolition of the Dual System

• The East India Company decided to act as Diwan and to undertake the collection of revenue by its own agents. Hence, the “Dual System” introduced by Robert Clive was abolished.
• As a measure to improve the finances of the company, Warren Hastings reduced the Nawab’s allowance of 32 lakhs of rupees to half that amount. He also stopped the annual payment of 26 lakhs given to the Mughal Emperor.

2. Revenue Reforms

• After the abolition of the Dual System, the responsibility of collecting the revenue fell on the shoulders of the company.
• For that purpose, a Board of Revenue was established at Calcutta to supervise the collection of revenue.
• English collectors were appointed in each district. The treasury was removed from Murshidabad to Calcutta, and an Accountant General was appointed. Calcutta thus became the capital of Bengal in 1772 and shortly after, of British India.
• The Board of Revenue farmed out the lands by auction for five years instead of one year to find out their real value.
• The zamindars were given priority in the auction. However, certain good measures were taken to safeguard the interests of the peasants.
• Arbitrary cesses and unreasonable fines were abolished.
• Besides, restrictions were imposed on the enhancement of rent. Yet the system was a failure. Many zamindars defaulted, and the arrears of revenue accumulated.

Judicial reforms of Warren Hastings

3. Reorganisation of the Judicial System

• The judicial system at the time of Warren Hastings’ ascendancy was a storehouse of abuses.
• The Nawab, who was hitherto the chief administrator of justice, misused his powers. Often, his judgments were careless.
• The zamindars who acted as judges at lower levels within their own areas were highly corrupt and prejudiced.
• On the whole, the judicial institution suffered from extreme corruption.

• Warren Hastings felt the necessity of reorganising the judicial system. Each district was provided with a civil court under the Collector and a criminal court under an Indian Judge.
• To hear appeals from the district courts, two appellate courts, one for civil cases and another for criminal cases, were established at Calcutta.
• The highest civil court of appeal was called Sadar Diwani Adalat, which was to be presided over by the Governor and two judges recruited from among the members of his council.
• Similarly, the highest appellate criminal court was known as Sadar Nizamat Adalat, which was to function under an Indian judge appointed by the Governor-in-Council.
• Experts in Hindu and Muslim laws were provided to assist the judges. A digest of Hindu law was prepared in Sanskrit by learned Pandits, and it was translated into Persian. An English translation of it – Code of Hindu Laws – was prepared by Halhed.

4. Trade Regulations and Other Reforms

• Warren Hastings abolished the system of dastaks, or free passes and regulated the internal trade.
• He reduced the number of custom houses and enforced a uniform tariff of 2.5 per cent for Indian and non-Indian goods.
• Private trade by the Company’s servants continued, but within enforceable limits.
• Weavers were given better treatment, and facilities were made to improve their condition.
• He also introduced a uniform system of prepaid postage system.
• A bank was started in Calcutta. He improved the police in Calcutta, and the dacoits were dealt with severely.

5. The Regulating Act of 1773

• The Regulating Act of 1773 opened a new chapter in the constitutional history of the Company. Previously, the Home government in England consisted of the Court of Directors and the Court of Proprietors.
• The Court of Directors were elected annually and practically managed the affairs of the Company.
• In India, each of the three presidencies was independent and responsible only to the Home Government. The government of the presidency was conducted by a Governor and a Council.
• The following conditions invited the Parliamentary intervention in the Company’s affairs. The English East India Company became a territorial power when it acquired a wide dominion in India and also the Diwani rights.
• Its early administration was not only corrupt but notorious. When the Company was in financial trouble, its servants were affluent. The disastrous famine which broke out in Bengal in 1770 affected the agriculturists.

• As a result, the revenue collection was poor. In short, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy.
• In 1773, the Company approached the British government for an immediate loan. It was under these circumstances that the Parliament of England resolved to regulate the affairs of the Company.
• Lord North, the Prime Minister of England, appointed a select committee to inquire into the affairs of the Company.
• The report submitted by the Committee paved the way for the enactment of the Regulating Act.

Provisions of the Regulating Act of 1773

The Regulating Act reformed the Company’s Government at Home and in India. The important provisions of the Act were:

1. The term of office of the members of the Court of Directors was extended from one year to four years. One-fourth of them were to retire every year, and the retiring Directors were not eligible for re-election.
2. The Governor of Bengal was styled the Governor-General of Fort William, whose tenure of office was for a period of five years.
3. A council of four members was appointed to assist the Governor-General. The government was to be conducted in accordance with the decision of the majority. The Governor-General had a casting vote in case of a tie.
4. The Governor-General in Council was made supreme over the other Presidencies in matters of war and peace.
5. Provision was made in the Act for the establishment of a Supreme Court at Calcutta consisting of a Chief Justice and three junior judges. It was to be independent of the Governor-General in Council. In 1774, the Supreme Court was established by a Royal Charter.
6. This Act prevented the servants of the Company, including the Governor-General, members of his council and the judges of the Supreme Court, from receiving directly or indirectly any gifts in kind or cash.

Merits and Demerits of the Act

• The significance of the Regulating Act is that it brought the affairs of the Company under the control of Parliament.
• Besides, it proved that the Parliament of England was concerned about the welfare of Indians.
• The greatest merit of this Act is that it put an end to the arbitrary rule of the Company and provided a framework for all future enactments relating to the governing of India.
• The main defect of the Act was that the Governor-General was made powerless because the council which was given supreme power, often created deadlocks by overruling his decision.
• However, many of these defects were rectified by Pitt’s India Act of 1784.

Expansionist Policy of Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings was known for his expansionist policy. His administration witnessed the Rohilla War, the First Anglo-Maratha War and the Second Anglo-Mysore War.

1. The Rohilla War (1774)

• Rohilkhand was a small kingdom situated between Oudh and the Marathas. Its ruler was Hafiz Rahmat Khan.
• He concluded a defensive treaty in 1772 with the Nawab of Oudh, fearing an attack by the Marathas. But no such attack took place.

• But the Nawab demanded money. When Rahmat Khan evaded, the Nawab, with the help of the British, invaded Rohilkand.
• Warren Hastings, who sent the British troops against Rohilkand, was severely criticised for his policy on the Rohilla affair.

2. First Anglo-Maratha War (1775-82)

• The Marathas largely remained disunited since the Third Battle of Panipat (1761). The internal conflict among the Marathas was best utilised by the British in their expansionist policy.
• In 1775, there was a dispute for the post of Peshwa between Madhav Rao and his uncle Ragunatha Rao.
• The British authorities In Bombay, the Treaty of Surat was signed with Raghunatha Rao in March 1775.
• Rahunatha Rao promised to cede Bassein and Salsette to the British, but later, when he was unwilling to fulfil his promise, the British captured them.
• This action of the Bombay Government was not approved by Warren Hastings. In 1776, Warren Hastings sent Colonel Upton to settle the issue.
• He cancelled the Treaty of Surat and concluded the Treaty of Purander with Nana Fadnavis, another Maratha leader.
• According to this treaty, Madhava Rao II was accepted as the new Peshwa, and the British retained Salsette along with a heavy war indemnity.

• However, the Home authorities rejected the Treaty of Purander. Warren Hastings also considered the Treaty of Purandar as a ‘scrap of paper’ and sanctioned operations against the Marathas.
• In the meantime, the British force sent by the Bombay Government was defeated by the Marathas.

• In 1781, Warren Hastings dispatched British troops under the command of Captain Popham.
• He defeated the Maratha chief, Mahadaji Scindia, in a number of small battles and captured Gwalior.
• Later in May 1782, the Treaty of Salbai was signed between Warren Hastings and Mahadaji Scindia.
• Accordingly, Salsette and Bassein were given to the British. Raghunath Rao was pensioned off, and Madhav Rao II was accepted as the Peshwa.

• The Treaty of Salbai established the British influence in Indian politics. It provided the British with twenty years of peace with the Marathas.
• The Treaty also enabled the British to exert pressure on Mysore with the help of the Marathas in recovering their territories from Haider Ali.
• Thus, the British, on the one hand, saved themselves from the combined opposition of Indian powers and on the other, succeeded in dividing the Indian powers.

3. The Second Anglo-Mysore War (1780-84)

The first Anglo-Mysore War took place in 1767-69. Haider Ali emerged victorious against the British, and at the end of the War, a defensive treaty was concluded between Haider Ali and the British.

After eleven years, the Second Mysore War broke out, and the main causes for the Second Anglo-Mysore War were:

1. The British failed to fulfil the terms of the defensive treaty with Haider when he was attacked by the Marathas in 1771.
2. There was an outbreak of hostilities between the English and the French (an ally of Haider) during the American War of Independence.
3. The British captured Mahe, a French settlement within Haider’s territories.
4. Haider Ali formed a grand alliance with the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas against the British in 1779.
5. The War began when the British led their forces through Haider’s territory without his permission to capture Guntur in the Northern Sarkars.
6. Haider Ali defeated Colonel Baillie and captured Arcot in 1780. In the next year, Warren Hastings, by a clever stroke of diplomacy, divided the Confederacy.
7. He made peace with the Nizam, won the friendship of Bhonsle and came to an understanding with the Scindia (both Marathas). Consequently, Haider was isolated without any alliance.
8. He was defeated by Sir Eyre Coote at Porto Novo in March 1781. In December 1782, Haider died of cancer at the age of sixty, and his death was kept secret till his son Tipu Sultan assumed power.
9. The Second Mysore War came to an end with the Treaty of Mangalore. Accordingly, all conquests were mutually restored, and the prisoners on both sides were liberated.

Pitt’s India Act, 1784

• The Regulating Act proved to be an unsatisfactory document as it failed in its objective.
• In January 1784, Pitt the Younger (who became Prime Minister of England after the General Elections) introduced the India Bill in the British Parliament.
• Despite bitter debate in both Houses, the bill was passed after seven months, and it received royal assent in August 1784. This was the famous Pitt’s India Act of 1784.

Main Provisions of Pitts India

1. A Board of Control consisting of six members was created. They were appointed by the Crown.
2. The Court of Directors was retained without any alteration in its composition.
3. The Act also introduced significant changes in the Indian administration. It reduced the number of members of the Governor-General’s Council from four to three, including the Commander-in-Chief.
4. Pitt’s India Act constitutes a significant landmark with regard to the foreign policy of the Company.
5. A critical review of the Act reveals that it introduced a kind of contradiction in the functions of the Company.
6. The Court of Directors controlled its commercial functions, whereas the Board of Control maintained its political affairs. The Board represented the King, and the Directors symbolised the Company.

The Impeachment of Warren Hastings

• The Pitt’s India Act of 1784 was a rude shock and bitter disappointment for Warren Hastings.
• The Prime Minister’s speech censuring the policy of the Government of Bengal was considered by Warren Hastings as a reflection on his personal character. His image and reputation were tarnished in England.
• Therefore, he resigned and left India in June 1785.
• In 1787, Warren Hastings was impeached in Parliament by Edmund Burke and the Whigs for his administrative excesses.
• Burke brought forward 22 charges against him. The most important of them were related to the Rohilla War, the Case of Nanda Kumar, the treatment of Raja Chait Singh of Benares and the pressures on the Begums of Oudh.
• After a long trial which lasted till 1795, Warren Hastings was completely acquitted. He received a pension from the Company and lived till 1818.

Estimate of Warren Hastings

• He was a gifted personality endowed with ‘strong will, great energy and resourcefulness’. His long stay in Bengal, in the shadow of the Mughal cultural tradition, gave him enough opportunity to learn oriental languages such as Bengali (the local language) and Persian (the diplomatic language) and to develop ‘oriental tastes’.
• Since he considered Indian culture as a basis for sound Indian administration, he patronised the learning of Indian languages and arts.
• His task was a challenging one since he was surrounded by hostile forces. “He faced his external enemies with unflinching courage and unfailing resource, and his internal opponents with extraordinary patience and firmness.”
• It was on the foundation which Warren Hastings laid down that others erected a ‘stately edifice’.

1. AGRICULTURE & LAND REVENUE

Key Systems

• Zabt System (Akbar) – Standardized cash revenue
• Dahsala (Todar Mal) – 10-year yield assessment
• Batai/Ghalla Bakshi – Crop-sharing (1/3rd to 1/2)
• Polaj (Annual cultivation), Parauti (Fallow)

Revenue Terms

• Jama (Assessed) vs Hasil (Collected)
• Taccavi Loans – Advances to peasants
• Zamindars – Revenue intermediaries (20-25% share)

2. TRADE & COMMERCE

Domestic Trade

• Banjaras – Mobile trading communities
• Sarraf – Bankers/money-changers
• Hundis – Bills of exchange

International Trade

• Major Ports:
• Surat (Gujarat) – European hub
• Hooghly (Bengal) – Portuguese trade
• Masulipatnam (Textile exports)
• Commodities:
• Textiles: Dacca muslin, Calico
• Spices: Pepper (Malabar)
• Indigo: Bayana (Best quality)

European Factories

• EIC (1600), Dutch VOC (1602), French (1664)

3. URBANISATION & INDUSTRIES

• Mega Cities: Agra, Delhi, Lahore (1 M+ population)
• Karkhanas – Royal workshops (luxury goods)
• Textile Hubs:
• Dacca – Muslin
• Lahore – Shawls
• Ahmedabad – Silk
• Mining: Golconda diamonds, Bihar saltpetre

4. COINAGE SYSTEM

• Gold Mohur (High-value)
• Silver Rupiya (Standard currency)
• Copper Dam (1/40th of a rupiya)

5. SOCIAL HIERARCHY

Classes

1. Ruling Elite (Turani/Iran nobles, Rajputs)
2. Middle Class (Merchants, Physicians)
3. Peasants (Ryots) – 80% population
4. Artisans (Weavers, Blacksmiths)
5. Slaves (Domestic/Military)

Merchant Groups

• Hindu: Banias, Khatris
• Muslim: Bohras, Khojas

6. WOMEN & SOCIAL ISSUES

• Purdah – Elite practice
• Sati (Discouraged by Akbar)
• Dowry – Prevalent in upper castes
• Devadasis – Temple dancers

7. RELIGIOUS GROUPS

• Hindus: Majority, paid Jizya (Aurangzeb)
• Muslims: Ashraf (elite) vs Ajlaf (commoners)
• Sikhs: Faced persecution post-Guru Arjan (1606)

8. CULTURAL LIFE

• Food: New World crops (Tomato, Chilli)
• Clothing: Pashmina shawls, Muslin
• Festivals: Navroz (Persian New Year)

9. DECLINE FACTORS

• Agrarian Crisis: Over-taxation
• Jagirdari Collapse – Revenue Mismanagement
• European Dominance – Sea trade control

1. Religious Policies of Key Mughal Rulers

Akbar (1556–1605) – Liberal Policies

• Sulh-i-Kul (“Peace with All”) – Universal religious tolerance
• Din-i-Ilahi (1582) – Syncretic religion (blended Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism)
• Ibadat Khana (House of Worship) – Interfaith debates (1575)
• Abolition of Jizya (1564) – Tax on non-Muslims revoked
• Pilgrim Tax removed – For Hindu shrines
• Marriage Alliances – Hindu Rajput wives (e.g., Jodha Bai)

Jahangir (1605–1627) – Moderate Approach

• Continued Sulh-i-Kul but less actively
• Execution of Guru Arjan Dev (1606) – Sikh relations strained
• Permitted Jesuit missionaries in court

Shah Jahan (1628–1658) – Orthodox Shift

• Temple Destruction (e.g., Benaras temples)
• Restrictions on Hindus – Barred from public offices

Aurangzeb (1658–1707) – Orthodox Extremes

• Reimposition of Jizya (1679) – Tax on non-Muslims
• Temple Destruction – Kashi Vishwanath (1669), Mathura’s Kesava Deo
• Ban on Music & Art – Considered un-Islamic
• Fatwa-i-Alamgiri – Islamic legal code based on Sharia

2. Key Religious Terms & Institutions

• Jizya – Poll tax on non-Muslims (abolished by Akbar, revived by Aurangzeb)
• Zakat – Alms tax on Muslims
• Waqf – Religious endowments (for mosques/schools)
• Madad-i-Maash – Tax-free land grants to scholars/clerics
• Sufi Orders – Chishti, Naqshbandi (played advisory roles)

3. Interfaith Relations & Conflicts

Hindu-Muslim Dynamics

• Akbar’s Rajput Policy – Alliances via marriages, granted autonomy
• Aurangzeb’s Demolitions – Targeted major Hindu temples
• Guru Tegh Bahadur’s Execution (1675) – Anti-Sikh policy

Christian Interactions

• Jesuit Missions – Akbar allowed churches in Agra/Lahore
• European Traders – Portuguese, British, given limited religious freedom

4. Cultural Syncretism

• Persian + Indian Traditions – Urdu language emergence
• Mughal Miniatures – Blended Islamic & Hindu motifs
• Music – Tansen (Hindu) in Akbar’s court
• Architecture – Fusion styles (e.g., Taj Mahal’s lotus motifs)

5. Impact of Policies

Comparative Table: Akbar vs. Aurangzeb