Indian Nationalism Essay

It is realistic to say that it was a rising looking of nationalism that direct to the change in dealings between Britain and India which is what take to the ultimate end of the British Empire since it came to a point where India was ungovernable. John Keay states that India was convulsed by a crescendo of satyagrahas, swadeshi boycotts strikes and disturbances in the great pageant of mass non-cooperation.(Keay pg. 477).This shows that India refused to be controlled by the British and did e precisething in their power to drive British rule out. another(prenominal) possible reason why there was a change in relations was callable to the item that the British realized that India was not worth the fight any overmuch. India became more than or less a send to the British since during the struggle and later, post war constructions were too much along with other start outs of the empire struggling for license do them give up control.The bear on and liberal parties were willi ng to give India its independence and at one point Lord Montagu said thered be a amenable Government in India in 1917. Although, there were more conservative British officials that didnt want to permit go of the empire in India such as Winston Churchill. Therefore the British took apart any and whole forms of resistance to the empire. Copeland states that the British felt compelled to stay in India to honor their various commitments they had made. (Copland pg. 19) The main aims of Indian nationalism were to make India ungovernable so that the British would leave. Ian Copeland states that Both war and depression fuelled the rise of nationalism in India.The Amritsar Massacre was a very important part of the nationalist involution against India since it made numerous prominent Pro British Indian figures to fin all in ally stand up and say the British be done. Punjab became a accomplishly revolutionary area and became enemies of the empire. Many isolated mutinies occurred during this metre and were mainly blamed on the radical Ghadar party. 5000 of them were arrested at the beginning of World war one to stop a revolution in Punjab. The Amritsar Massacre in like manner led to the rise of Ghandi and his non cooperation movement. He gave up any and all reformist views and asked for comp permite independence for India. Tagore have up his knighthood and Motilal Nehru father of JawaharlalNehru send him to Cambridge university and Even after all this burned all his suits to show his hatred for the British.Tagore said after the Amritsar massacre that the late level(p)ts have conclusively proved that our dependable salvation lies in our stimulate hand.( Reese pg. 85) Gandhi and his movement called for children to be pulled out of schools and businessmen to stop sell foreign food and asked the police to be more kind and polite. To these aims of creating an independent India the Muslims also joined the battle for independence further the Molaph riots show that they werent so united after all since 600 Hindus were killed showing the incident that they couldnt work together. It is also possible to argue that these non cooperation movements werent working fast enough since for cardinal years it was highly impractical to pull children out of school when they were putting at risk their avouch hatful.The main agent of the failure of the movement however is the fact that it was not ready yet to stand on its own. After the failure of the Non cooperation movement came the Salt satyagrahas which again had similar goals to the previous movement. It started of a exculpation to the Raj that the taxes on salt were absolutely high which a movement became for four years during which Gandhi was arrested which outraged community. Gandhis arrest though did lead to the signing of the Gandhi-Irwin pact which led to some restrictions existence relaxed yet it had a very small effect as a whole since the Muslim community refused to take part in the rio ts and kept buying salt from the British giving them the chance to surmount the Indians easily since they were also lacking leaders as most of them were arrested.Then came the Quit India campaign and Gandhis famous public lecture asking for Indias complete independence which in turn led to the passing of the Quit India colonization by Congress which was their way of saving that they werent going to settle for anything less than total independence. During this cadence there were many violent protests but to no avail. The British managed to silence raze these protests and continuously suppress them and carry on which goes to show that India gained independence by earning its rights to self govern through all the concessions it squeeze the British to make and not by making it Ungovernable. Even though many previous events were moderate by the British in every possible way they did have to make certain concessions to occupy the Indians which all gradually built its way to India being self governed by itself.The main reason these reformswere as joinption were because of the massive uprising by the Bengal partitioning. The Morley Minto reforms of 1909 did in fact lead to Indians being able to be elected to legislative councils. These concessions however werent given with the thought of Indian Independence in mind but to give them just enough to end the rebellions. Even with other events up until the massacre all the people wanted were reforms and it was not until the Amritsar Massacre that they wanted more. The entire reason behind the protest of Amritsar was to fight the Rowlatt bite introduced where an Indian could be imprisoned for two years with no trial if he or she is suspect of terrorism. This led to the massacre which in turn led to the British giving more than just a few reforms. The Government of India Act was introduced giving an expanded reach for Indians over the government along with the hopes of being a self governed country.Many believed th is wasnt enough and that the British couldve done better since they werent trustworthy the British would just break this promise just as easy. Saying that, this Act did give more voting power to much more Indians. This act was indeed a step forward for India but it was made sure that the viceroy free was able to make most of the important decisions himself. The Indians still boycotted the premier elections under this act and this showed that they were fighting for full independence nothing else. Rees has stated that it had become clear that politically active Indians could, in certain circumstances, sway the masses behind them. The INC was started by Alan Hume who a British well-mannered servant was showing how they were never intent on giving India its independence.Unlike previous reforms the number of people voting went from 7 million people to 35 million people and more Indians were voted into positions such as the provincial assemblies. There were also countless backchannel addendums added to these reforms that acted as loopholes for the British to manipulate. Robert Horne said that the British had put into this short letter many safeguards. This was another way of saying the Brits were still very much in control. The viceroy still had majority power over military and foreign affairs. This shows that it may not have been nationalism that led to Independence but the choice of the British to let go of their empire which was a cause of the labor party advantage in England since conservatives like Churchill did not want to let go.Another possible cause why India Gained independence was because the British changed their views on India much earlier on deciding to let it go on their own accord. This point is arguable because even though the Indian empire was being very costly to keep up and also due to the rise of nationalism and revolts and figures like Gandhi leading the send out against British rule they couldve easily stayed on as seen by the way they repress and push tooshie any form of resistance put up by its people. And also even after the colossal depression and other financial troubles the British had in the 1920s and further on they still had a firm grip over the empire till after world war two which makes it possible to say they left on their own accord.Also after the labor partys victory in Britain wanted out as soon as possible and also Lord Mountbattens rapid level of decolonization shows they wanted to get out. India in fact wanted Britain to stay even after they had won their independence and it did to a certain extent since Indian tea industry belonged to the UK even after independence was achieved. Mayors of certain cities stayed on in their posts for a long time showing that they werent in fact driven because if they were there would have been no remnants of British Rule making it more than likely that it was British attitudes that changed and led to the change in relations.Another reason for the change in relat ions between India and Britain seems to be economic pressures that were there for the British. Back then during the peak of the empire before the war India was Britains largest overseas client and increased its revenue substantially. India made the British economy spin and made it the superpower it was in the 19th Century. Britain also provided 60% of its import and Britain also loaned a large sum of money for the first Great War, around 100 million pounds. It can be understood why Britain did not want to lose India since its initial investment in India was 160 million pounds. As time went by Britains hold over other countries got worse and it lost several export clients after the war. That coupled with the Great Depression led to Britains market crashing completely. All this was made so much worse with the boycotting and the revolts in India during the 1920s. The British then at one point let India set its own tariffs.By the end of the Second World War India was owed 1300 million p ounds by the British for the Indian force for Imperial Defense. Also the population inIndia was rising heavily and there was pressure placed on natural resources and supplies therefore Britain seeing India as nothing more than a burden decided to let it go. Therefore we see that in reality the real change in British relations with India came most was because of the changes in British attitudes. We see on more than one occasion that Britain couldve kept their empire in India.As strong as feelings of nationalism were and as brave as leaders like Gandhi were they couldnt have driven the British out by making India ungovernable because the British knew they couldnt be driven out by force or otherwise. It is clear that they left of their own accord due to financial political reasons or otherwise. Although it is also worth mentioning that Nationalism did play a huge theatrical role in the change in relations since it did indeed spark the match to the road to independence which led to r eforms and other such important changes in India but ultimately it came down of the choice of Britain.