Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms and Government of India Act, 1919 The British government, not prepared to part with or even share its power with the Indians, once again resorted to the policy of ‘carrot and stick’. The carrot was represented by the insubstantial Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, while measures such as the Rowlatt Act represented the stick. In line […]
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Champaran Satyagrah
Champaran Satyagraha (1917)—First Civil Disobedience Gandhi was requested by Rajkumar Shukla, a local man, to look into the problems of the farmers in context of indigo planters of Champaran in Bihar. The European planters had been forcing the peasants to grow indigo on 3/20 part of the total land (called tinkathia system). When towards the end of […]
Lucknow Session of the Indian National Congress (1916)
Lucknow Session of the Indian National Congress (1916) Readmission of Extremists to Congress The Lucknow session of the Indian National Congress, presided over by a Moderate, Ambika Charan Majumdar, finally readmitted the Extremists led by Tilak to the Congress fold. Various factors facilitated this reunion:(i) Old controversies had become meaningless now.(ii) Both the Moderates and […]
Home Rule Movemenet
Home Rule League Movement The Home Rule Movement was the Indian response to the First World War in a less charged but a more effective way than the response of Indians living abroad which took the form of the romantic Ghadr adventure. Two Indian Home Rule Leagues were organised on the lines of the Irish […]
Surat Session
The Surat Split The Congress split at Surat came in December 1907, around the time when revolutionary activity had gained momentum. The two events were not unconnected. Run-up to Surat In December 1905, at the Benaras session of the Indian National Congress presided over by Gokhale, the Moderate- Extremist differences came to the fore. The […]
Morley-Minto Reforms—1909
Morley-Minto Reforms—1909 In October 1906, a group of Muslim elites called the Simla Deputation, led by the Agha Khan, met Lord Minto and demanded separate electorates for the Muslims and representation in excess of their numerical strength in view of ‘the value of the contribution’ Muslims were making “to the defence of the empire”. The same […]
Swami Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda Narendranath Datta (1862-1902), who later came to be known as Swami Vivekananda spread Ramakrishna’s message and tried to reconcile it to the needs of contemporary Indian society. He emerged as the preacher of neo-Hinduism. Certain spiritual experiences of Ramakrishna, the teachings of the Upanishads and the Gita and the examples of the Buddha and Jesus are the basis of […]
Dayananda Saraswati and Arya Samaj
Dayananda Saraswati and Arya Samaj The Arya Samaj Movement, revivalist in form though not in content, was the result of a reaction to Western influences. Its founder, Dayananda Saraswati or Mulshankar (1824-1883) was born in the old Morvi state in Gujarat in a brahmin family. He wandered as an ascetic for fifteen years (1845-60) in […]
The Ramakrishna Movement and Swami Vivekananda
The Ramakrishna Movement and Swami Vivekananda The didactic nationalism of the Brahmo Samaj appealed more to the intellectual elite in Bengal, while the average Bengali found more emotional satisfaction in the cult of bhakti and yoga. The teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836- 1886), a poor priest at the Kali temple in Dakshineshwar, on the outskirts of Calcutta (who […]
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar
Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar The great scholar and reformer, Vidyasagar’s ideas were a happy blend of Indian and Western thought. He believed in high moral values, was a deep humanist and was generous to the poor. In 1850, he became the principal of Sanskrit College. He was determined to break the priestly monopoly of scriptural knowledge, […]