How accurate is it to say that little progress was made towards Indian independence 1920-1930?

In the 1920s congress began to become more successful with its appeals and ideas towards Indian Independence. The relationship with Muslims and Hindus had worsened due to the leadership of Gandhi (Hindu) and Jinnah (Muslim) who were working to have a separate state between the Indian subcontinent. Also on behalf of the British Government, they were working hard to keep the Indian empire and its Raj in good shape but they weren’t accomplishing much as the Indian opinion was much with Gandhi now as he was one of the main leaders for change in India.

Gandhi had an idea which planted his concept of satyagraha which was to create a way to come to fairness peace and justice in a non violent way. He hoped to have freedom for India. He did this by enduring a course of boycotts, demonstrations and strikes. At first Gandhi was all for the involvement of British rule when he returned to India from South Africa in 1941, however he changed his mind and decided he wanted India to be self-ruled. The Rowlatts act which continued regular wartime restrictions, the Amritsar Massacre in 1919, and the fact that Turkey had to pay indemnity and lose territories which Gandhi saw could be a threat on separateness between Muslims. Because Gandhi has a mass support within Indians due to his spiritual strengths and political awareness for change, he emerged to becoming a main political leader because of his beliefs and methods. Because congress had no idea which way to go as they couldn’t see a way to defeat the British government they had no choice to oppose or to support Gandhi so he had no controversy except the British.

Gandhi had a major effect on people with his arguments and speeches, he managed to bind Muslims and Hindus with this and persuaded political delegates to be for his non cooperation policy with the Raj. This non cooperation campaign entailed, that all Indians should boycott new legislative assemblies, give back awards and titles awarded by the Raj, tool children from government schools, boycotted law courts, refused to purchase imported goods and they were to leave all government posts. However it was sort of unrealistic, as people didn’t want to leave their jobs like lawyers and parents didn’t want to take their children out of education. Others like causing machinery of the government to reach a halt, and refusing to pay taxes which would stop the government from functioning. Gandhi targeted administration and taxation areas as it was unlikely to achieve open conflict with the police. During the campaign demonstrations like boycotting exams, not paying taxes, shops were closed in 1921. However, many riots and lootings broke out, for example one in Bombay which resulted in 53 dead and hundreds injured. The campaign came to end after mob of congress supporters set fire on a police station in Chauri Chaura which led to Gandhi’s arrest as he was blamed for the violence of his mob, so he got 6 years of prison.

After the collapse of the campaign, congress began to grow as membership was increasing to roughly one million by 1921. Firstly by extending the appeal to greater geographical areas which gave others an opportunity to join congress. Also it began to accept those who were neglected. May new members were rich citizens but later poor peasants and railway workers. Gandhi’s rise to leader of congress in 1920 allowed him to organize the party into 3 levels; local branches, provincial committees, and an All Indian Congress Committee. Because the congress membership increased, the AICC did too from 161 to 350, which meant they had more seats as they increased population. Women were also invited into unused groups like trade unions. Gandhi also made a Congress Working Committee which imitated what a cabinet would be in government, he did all this to show his ways of constructing India in his own way without having to be in the government, yet, he hoped as he was wiling to take over the government when the Raj dies. When he was released from prison in 1924 he took his ideals ‘back to basics’. He wanted to engage in spreading the word of self-efficiency, he set up the All-India spinners’ Association to spread the word as well of spinning and weaving. He believed he should turn India into a simpler state as it was in the past. It seemed that Gandhi had left the concept of non violence and seemed to be merging congress into a political party.

Gandhi called three young men ‘young hooligans’, Bose, Narayan and Nehru who campaigned for the AICC and the CWC. They wanted independence straight away and as soon as possible. Because congress had been discussing with the Raj if he could at least allow them to have ‘dominion status’ which were self governed countries but were still under the British rule. The ‘young hooligans’ disapproved of this hugely and wanted nothing but full independence. He named them this name due to their socialism ways which he thought was a dangerous approach.

The British were concerned about the growing of Indian Nationalism and wanted to keep control of India but compromise with their demands. The Simon Commission in 1927 was sent out by the British government to find out how the Indian government act 1919 was working out. The message of the commission was that the future of India was to be decided by British politicians in Westminster. Indians reacted to this in a bad way, they came up with the slogan “Simon go home” which was what they preached whilst they held demonstrations all across India. In 1928 the Nehru report came along, where Nehru who was a moderate leader of congress wanted to focus on elections for councils set up in the 1919 act. He stood for the dominion status for India as it was just another country under British empire. British India and Princely state joined in federation, this meant Hindus could form a permanent majority in central government. Which made Muslims unhappy as they would lose protection of separate electoral status. In December 1928 congress demanded instant dominion status, they organized a boycott towards everything that had to do with the Simon Commission and they wanted to have complete British withdrawal by December 1929. The British response was a general election, which PM MacDonald and secretary Wedgewood were sympathetic to demands Indians gave. Lord Irwin the new Viceroy was also understanding, and suggested two things, that the British government were to make a new declaration granting dominion status to India and arrange a conference to discuss reforms. The Irwin declaration in 1929, which took place in October, where Lord Irwin reiterated Montague Declaration of 1917 which made sure that British would give India dominion status although no date was affirmed of when this would happen, he also invited all congress politicians to attend a round table conference in London which later took place from 1930-1932.

British had prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt which forced them to buy the mineral from the British so they would earn the money. On March 12th 1930 Gandhi walked 240 miles to an Arabian sea coast followed by thousands of his followers, during the walk there he preached prayers and spoke to the crowd. As they got there, Gandhi picked up salt with one hand, as he defied the British rule it led to all followers being arrested including him the leader. The satyagraha continued without Gandhi and led by congress, where they organized more demonstrations like boycotting or foreign cloth, non payments and more. To show the Raj that without Gandhi they would continue to fight for their main goal, which was India’s independence. This obviously brought about a new campaign, of ‘Civil Disobedience’. Congress thought that by doing this the Raj would find it difficult to stop the campaign as there was not one organization to take out, it was all of them put together. The campaign was widespread from children to business men and women as their men were imprisoned. This showed that congress had major support, however after trying another salt satyagraha, they were confronted by policemen who beat the followers and imprisoned them. Because many people had been arrested (29,000), Lord Irwin wanted to induce a martial law, but with the memorial of the Amritsar he kept his thought to himself, which paid off as casually the satyagrahas began to decrease because of economical upturns in 1930, which led people to want to have a normal business life again. So the campaign slowly began to decease and become unimportant any longer.

Muslims and Hindus were working side by side by many years. Muslims who were working under a Hindu generated political party began to realize the differences within religion where they couldn’t find no mutual toleration. The Lucknow Pact 1916 showed understanding of Muslim fears, which were dominated by Muslim minorities with concerns that Hindu majorities would take over and Muslims wouldn’t have a voice. This is where separateness came around.

The Khalifat Movement was brought around in 1919 this was when Muslims regarded the Sultan of Turkey a Caliph meaning their spiritual leader. When Turkey fought Germany it challenged Muslims loyalty towards the Raj, in world war one the British government removed the Sultan of Turkey which led to the Khalifat movement. It aimed to support the Caliph and unite Muslims to go against the British as Gandhi was a religious leader he too supported this movement as the Sultan was a spiritual leader too. In 1920 and 1921 Gandhi joined Muslims in making masses for the civil disobedience campaign and the non cooperation one. As he was doing this he was bringing Hindu behind the Muslim movement. Jinnah was apart of the Khalifat movement however he did not support Gandhi as he believed it was just an opportunity for Gandhi to move forward leaving Jinnah behind. He also did not support his fight for independence being non violent. The movement collapsed as Turkey became a secular state in 1923 so the main reason for the movement was no longer there, Jinnah resigned from Congress so the mass appeal for politicians was gone, and finally because Muslims were not comfortable with Gandhi’s leadership due to different religions mixing.

In 1921 Muslims began to drift away from Congress due to split of religions, do because of two movements that were made before 1914, Tanzeem and Tabligh movements, Muslims decided to re create the purpose of Muslim league. They set up anjumans which were associations to promote Islam. This made Anti-Hinduism between communities grow and the resurgence of Muslim consciousness grew too. As said before the concept of separateness was made as the two divided religious communities were very different. All religious groups decided to take their own path and practice their beliefs within their own religion. In 1927 Muhammad Ali Jinnah continued to try and bring the Muslim league and Congress together, he persuaded the league to make an offer to the congress for what Independent India would look like. He wanted separate electorates in exchange for 113 seats in India’s parliament. He also wanted to separate Sindh from Bombay to create an Indian dominant province, congress rejected this. In 1929 he tried again offering federal institution, 1 of 3 Muslims to be allowed in parliament, separate electorates and religious freedom, he again was rejected.

To sum up the changed and improvements or failures in India 1920-1930, we could say that Gandhi had a huge impact on this. Firstly he led one of the biggest movements of non violence and civil disobedience which triggered many arrests so he didn’t achieve much. Gandhi did come to an agreement with the Viceroy at one point after the campaigns collapsed agreeing to a federal administration. However overall the aim was to make India independent without being under the rule of the British empire, but because of controversy within the Indian National Congress itself because of religion wars, it was hard for them to join together in the quest of independence. So, although there were many fights, and arrests with the agreement, imprisoned Indians were set free and due to Gandhi’s leadership to fight all the Commissions and Reports that got in his way to stop India’s independence he managed to be a major leader in this road of independence. It is accurate to say that the quest for independence was on its way to being achieved but because of so much rivalry between the majorities of religion and the failure of the British government allowing congress to pass forward any regulations like becoming a self governed country, they managed to achieve a well organized political party. Overall this was a good period of time to show prove that congress could be the main leadership of the country, however it took more than 10 years for India to finally become independent in 1947.