Indian Nationalism Essay

It is realiz able to say that it was a go feeling of nationalism that conduct to the shift in relations between Britain and India which is what led to the ultimate end of the British Empire since it came to a designate where India was ungovernable. John Keay states that India was convulsed by a increase of satyagrahas, swadeshi boycotts strikes and disturbances in the great display of mass non-cooperation.(Keay pg. 477).This displays that India refused to be controlled by the British and did everything in their post to drive British direct come forth. A nonher realizable discernment why at that place was a remove in relations was callable to the incident that the British realized that India was not charge the date any more than(prenominal). India became more or less a burden to the British since during the contend and later on, post war constructions were too much along with other split of the conglomerate struggling for independency strike them give up contro l.The aim and liberal give manneries were willing to give India its license and at one point Lord Montagu said thered be a obligated Government in India in 1917. Although, there were more conservative British officials that didnt want to let go of the empire in India such(prenominal) as Winston Churchill. Therefore the British took apart any and tout ensemble forms of shelter to the empire. Copeland states that the British felt compelled to stay in India to honor their various commitments they had do. (Copland pg. 19) The main(prenominal) 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 revolt of nationalism in India.The Amritsar despatch was a very important part of the nationalist battle against India since it made numerous prominent Pro British Indian figures to fin in ally indorse up and say the British are done. Punjab became a completely rotatory area and becam e enemies of the empire. Many isolated mutinies occurred during this time and were mainly blamed on the radical Ghadar party. 5000 of them were arrested at the beginning of World war one to immobilise a revolution in Punjab. The Amritsar Massacre in any case led to the rise of Ghandi and his non cooperation movement. He gave up any and all reformist views and asked for complete independence for India. Tagore break 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 carnage that the late events have conclusively proved that our true salvation lies in our consume hand.( Reese pg. 85) Gandhi and his movement called for children to be commited out of schools and businessmen to tour selling 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 bat tle for independence but the Molaph riots show that they werent so united after all since 600 Hindus were killed showing the fact that they couldnt work to puther. It is also possible to argue that these non cooperation movements werent works fast enough since for two years it was highly impractical to pull children out of school when they were putting at risk their take in people.The main cause of the failure of the movement however is the fact that it was not entrap yet to survive on its own. After the failure of the Non cooperation movement came the brininess satyagrahas which again had similar goals to the previous movement. It started of a plea to the Raj that the taxes on season were absolutely high which a movement became for four years during which Gandhi was arrested which outraged people. Gandhis arrest though did lead to the signing of the Gandhi-Irwin pact which led to some restrictions being relaxed but it had a very small consequence as a whole since the Muslim c ommunity refused to take part in the riots and kept buying salt from the British boastful them the take chances to suppress the Indians easily since they were also lacking leaders as nearly of them were arrested.Then came the Quit India campaign and Gandhis famous speech communicate for Indias complete independence which in turn led to the acquittance of the Quit India resolution by Congress which was their way of saving that they werent going to settle for anything less than total independence. During this time there were many violent protests but to no avail. The British managed to silence even these protests and unendingly 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 forced the British to make and not by making it Ungovernable. Even though many previous events were subdue by the British in every possible way they did have to make certain concessions to please the Indians wh ich all gradually built its way to India being self governed by itself.The main actor these reformswere given were because of the enormous 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 suasion of Indian Independence in mind but to give them estimable 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 Act introduced where an Indian could be wrapped for two years with no trial if he or she is surmise of terrorism. This led to the massacre which in turn led to the British freehanded more than ripe a few reforms. The Government of India Act was introduced giving an expanded reach for Indians over the government along with the hopes of b eing a self governed country.Many believed this wasnt enough and that the British couldve done crack since they werent sure the British would just break this promise just as easy. Saying that, this Act did give more suffrage power to much more Indians. This act was indeed a step beforehand for India but it was made sure that the viceroy still was able to make most of the important decisions himself. The Indians still boycotted the origin elections under this act and this showed that they were fight 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 civil servant was showing how they were never intention 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. Ther e 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 bill many safeguards. This was other 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 preference of the British to let go of their empire which was a cause of the dig out party victory in England since conservatives like Churchill did not want to let go.Another possible cause why India Gained independence was because the British convinced 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 charge against British rule they couldve easily stay ed on as shapen by the way they repress and campaign Back any form of resistance put up by its people. And also even after the Great depression and other monetary troubles the British had in the 1920s and further on they still had a firm grip over the empire till after foundation 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 sedulousness 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 compulsive 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 re lations.Another reason for the change in relations between India and Britain seems to be economic pressures that were there for the British. Back wherefore during the peak of the empire before the war India was Britains largest overseas client and increased its revenue substantially. India made the British prudence 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 soundless why Britain did not want to lose India since its initial investment in India was 160 million pounds. As time went by Britains limit 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. every last(predicate) 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 pounds by the British for the Indian Army 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 dogged to let it go. Therefore we see that in reality the real change in British relations with India came about 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 operate 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 role in the change in relations since it did i ndeed spark the match to the road to independence which led to reforms and other such important changes in India but lastly it came down of the choice of Britain.