Rise of Indian Nationalism

Rise of nationalism and the Congress

The social and economic basis of nationalism lay in the grievances and opportunities created by colonial rule. Peasants faced revenue demands, debt and commercialisation; artisans faced decline under imports; merchants faced discriminatory tariffs and competition; educated Indians faced a racial ceiling in services and professions. At the same time, railways, post, telegraph and print created an all-India public: a lawyer in one presidency could read about a peasant grievance in another, a newspaper could report a Congress session to readers across regions, and associations could coordinate petitions and protests. Regional associations of landlords, merchants and professionals preceded the Congress and taught Indians how to organise, petition and debate in public. The Congress, born from these associations and from the initiative of educated Indians and a retired British official, provided an annual, all-India forum where grievances could be articulated as national demands.

Ideologies and programmes of the Congress in its first decades show a movement learning its politics. Early nationalists, often called moderates, believed in constitutional agitation: petitions, resolutions, legislative debate and public education, aimed at persuading the British to reform administration, expand councils, Indianise services and address economic drain. Their programme was moderate in method but radical in implication, because it claimed that Indians should govern India and that colonial economic policy impoverished the country. Assertive nationalists, often called extremists, criticised moderate methods as too slow and too dependent on British goodwill: they demanded self-government as a right, used boycott, national education and mass mobilisation, and drew on religious and cultural symbols to inspire sacrifice. Revolutionaries went further, believing that armed action, assassination and conspiracy could overthrow colonial rule or inspire mass revolt, and they organised secret societies, published revolutionary literature and sought foreign help. These three strands debated each other fiercely, but they also learned from each other: moderates provided organisation and economic critique, assertive nationalists provided mass energy and the demand for self-government, and revolutionaries provided the willingness to sacrifice that shamed constitutional politics into greater boldness.

Congress programmes in this period combined political, economic and social demands: expansion of councils and Indian representation, reform of civil services and judiciary, reduction of military expenditure, protection for Indian industry, reform of land revenue, and attention to education, famine and public health. The movement's social base remained largely middle class and urban in this phase, with peasants and workers participating through local grievances rather than through Congress organisation. That limitation would be addressed, unevenly, by Swadeshi and by Gandhian mass movements, which sought to carry nationalism to villages and to link it with everyday economic and social life.

Swadeshi, Swaraj and Gandhian movements

Swadeshi and Swaraj transformed nationalism from petition to mass action. Swadeshi, the promotion of Indian goods and the boycott of foreign goods, began as an economic response to the partition of Bengal, which was seen as a colonial attempt to divide a politically active province. Boycott of foreign cloth and goods, promotion of national education, establishment of Indian industries and schools, and mass meetings, processions and cultural festivals turned a regional protest into a national programme. Swaraj, self-rule, became the goal that united moderates and assertive nationalists in aspiration even when they differed on method: for some it meant colonial self-government, for others complete independence, and the ambiguity allowed a broad coalition to form around the word while debating its content. Swadeshi also revealed the movement's limits: boycott hurt poor consumers and traders, national schools struggled for funds, and the movement's Hindu cultural idiom alienated some Muslims, a tension that communal politics would later exploit.

Gandhian mass movements carried nationalism to a new scale. Gandhi's method combined non-violent non-cooperation, civil disobedience, constructive work and moral appeal: boycott of foreign goods and government institutions, refusal to pay taxes, breaking of salt laws, and the building of village industries, khadi, Hindu-Muslim unity and the removal of untouchability as constructive programmes. His leadership drew on religious language, on personal example and on an organisation that reached villages through Congress committees, ashrams and volunteers. The mass movements mobilised peasants, workers, students, women and merchants in numbers earlier movements had not achieved, and they forced the colonial state to negotiate, repress or concede in turn. Their limitations were also clear: movements were called off when violence erupted, negotiations produced settlements that disappointed radicals, and the emphasis on unity sometimes muted class and caste demands.

Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army represent a different strand: the belief that armed struggle and foreign alliance could achieve independence where non-violence and negotiation had not. Bose escaped colonial surveillance, sought Axis support, and organised the Indian National Army from Indian prisoners of war and civilians in south-east Asia, proclaiming a provisional government and campaigning alongside Japanese forces. The Army's military impact was limited, but its political impact in India was enormous: its trial after the war provoked mass protests, united Congress, League and other groups in defence of its soldiers, and shook the loyalty of the Indian armed forces. The middle class played a central role throughout these movements: lawyers, teachers, journalists, doctors and merchants funded, organised and led Congress, staffed its committees, ran its newspapers and bore the costs of boycott and imprisonment. Women participation was equally central: women joined processions, picketed foreign cloth and liquor shops, courted arrest, ran underground networks, and, in the Army's women's regiment, took up arms, transforming the national movement's gender politics even where patriarchal norms persisted.

Left, depressed class and communal politics

Left-wing politics challenged the Congress from within and from outside, arguing that political independence without social and economic transformation would leave peasants and workers exploited by Indian landlords and capitalists. Communists and socialists organised trade unions, peasant associations and youth leagues, demanded land reform, labour rights and state planning, and criticised Congress leadership as bourgeois and compromising. Their influence was strongest among workers in mills and plantations, among peasants in regions with strong tenancy grievances, and among students and intellectuals. Left politics also shaped Congress itself: the Congress Socialist Party worked within Congress to push it towards socialist resolutions, and left leaders participated in mass movements while criticising their suspension and their compromises. The left's strength was its attention to class; its weakness was its fragmentation, its dependence on international communism, and its difficulty in building a mass base beyond organised workers and peasants in certain regions.

The depressed class movement, led most prominently by Ambedkar, challenged both colonial rule and the caste hierarchy within Indian society. It demanded separate representation, education, temple entry, access to wells and public spaces, and, above all, dignity and political power for communities treated as untouchable. Ambedkar's critique of caste as a system of graded inequality, his demand for separate electorates, and his later negotiation of reserved seats in joint electorates shaped the constitutional settlement on representation. The movement's tension with Gandhian nationalism was profound: Gandhi saw untouchability as a moral blot to be removed by Hindu reform and by constructive work, while Ambedkar saw it as a political system requiring separate organisation and constitutional safeguards. Their debate, and the compromise that followed, left a legacy of reservations and of continuing struggle over caste, representation and social justice that persists in post-independence India.

Communal politics, the Muslim League and the genesis of Pakistan form the most consequential and painful thread of this section. The League, founded to safeguard Muslim political interests, initially sought safeguards within a united India: separate electorates, weightage in representation, and provincial autonomy. Over time, under Jinnah's leadership and in response to Congress majoritarianism, to provincial politics and to the failure of power-sharing negotiations, the League adopted the demand for Pakistan — a separate state for Muslims — as its goal. The genesis of Pakistan involved not only elite negotiations but also mass mobilisation, communal violence, and the fears and aspirations of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in provinces where religious identity shaped electoral politics. The failure of Congress-League negotiations, the experience of provincial ministries, the impact of war, and the British decision to transfer power quickly all contributed to partition. Understanding this genesis requires attention to both leadership and social forces: communal organisations, newspapers, local riots and the competition for jobs, council seats and provincial power made religious identity a political identity for millions, even where everyday life had been shared.

Towards independence and partition

Towards independence and partition, the final phase combined mass movement, war, negotiation and violence in rapid succession. The Quit India movement, launched during the Second World War, demanded immediate British withdrawal and provoked mass protests, underground organisation and severe repression, even though its leaders were imprisoned at the outset. The war itself transformed politics: it expanded Indian industry, created shortages and inflation, brought famine in Bengal, and politicised soldiers whose loyalty was shaken by the Indian National Army trial and by naval and military mutinies. Post-war negotiations — cabinet missions, interim government, constituent assembly elections — attempted to transfer power while preserving unity, but they foundered on the Congress-League disagreement over Pakistan, over the grouping of provinces, and over the nature of the centre. The British decision to set a date for transfer and to partition the subcontinent accelerated a process that was already violent: communal riots, mass migration and killings accompanied the drawing of boundaries and the movement of millions across new borders.

Partition was not only a political division but a human catastrophe. Refugees fled in both directions, leaving homes, land and livelihoods, and facing violence, disease and destitution in camps and new settlements. Women suffered abduction, assault and forced conversion, and their recovery and rehabilitation became a major post-independence task. Princely states, whose rulers had to choose accession, added a further complication, with most acceding peacefully and a few — notably in Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagarh — becoming sites of conflict and negotiation. The independence settlement thus left India and Pakistan as separate states, with disputed borders, shared rivers, divided armies and assets, and a legacy of communal suspicion that would shape their relations. The achievement of independence and the tragedy of partition must be held together: the national movement succeeded in ending colonial rule, but it could not preserve the unity it had sought, and the cost was borne most heavily by ordinary people who had played little part in elite negotiations.

India after independence

India after independence faced challenges of partition, integration and construction simultaneously. The challenges of partition included rehabilitating millions of refugees, restoring order, recovering abducted women, and dividing assets, armies and administrative services between two states. Integration of the Indian princely states required persuading or compelling rulers to accede, with Kashmir, Hyderabad and Junagarh posing special problems of popular will, military action and international dispute. Kashmir's accession, contested from the outset, became a lasting conflict; Hyderabad's integration followed police action after negotiation failed; Junagarh's accession was resolved by popular and political pressure. These integrations created a unified Indian state from a patchwork of British provinces and princely territories, but they left border and identity disputes that endure.

B. R. Ambedkar and the making of the Indian Constitution gave the new state its institutional framework. The Constitution, drafted by a constituent assembly, established a democratic republic with fundamental rights, directive principles, universal adult franchise, a federal structure with a strong centre, an independent judiciary, and reservations for scheduled castes and tribes. Its features — parliamentary government, federalism with unitary bias, secularism, and social justice commitments — reflected both the national movement's ideals and the compromises of partition and princely integration. The structure of bureaucracy inherited from colonial rule — the civil service, police and army — was retained and Indianised, providing continuity and capacity, but also carrying colonial habits of hierarchy and distance from citizens. New education policy expanded primary, secondary and higher education, created universities and technical institutions, and sought to combine access with excellence, though resources and quality remained uneven.

Economic policies and the planning process sought development through state-led planning: five-year plans, public sector industries, land reform, community development and, later, green revolution agriculture. Planning aimed at self-reliance, industrialisation and poverty reduction, and it achieved growth in industry and food production, but it also produced inefficiency, regional imbalance and bureaucratic control. Development, displacement and tribal issues accompanied large projects: dams, mines and industries displaced tribal and peasant communities, often with inadequate compensation and rehabilitation, raising questions about who bore the costs of development. Linguistic reorganisation of states, responding to popular movements for language-based provinces, redrew India's internal map and strengthened federal democracy while also creating new regional identities and disputes. Centre-state relations — over finance, language, water, and the use of central powers — became a permanent negotiation within federalism.

Foreign policy initiatives, above all Panchsheel — the five principles of peaceful coexistence with China — expressed India's non-alignment: independence from Cold War blocs, support for decolonisation, and peaceful settlement of disputes. Panchsheel's promise was tested by border conflict and by the realities of Cold War politics, but non-alignment remained a defining framework. Dynamics of Indian politics in later decades included the Emergency, when democratic rights were suspended, press censored and opposition imprisoned, testing the Constitution's resilience and leading to a popular verdict against authoritarian rule. Liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation of the Indian economy, from the early 1990s, dismantled much of the licence system, opened trade and investment, and produced rapid growth alongside new inequalities, agrarian distress and debates about the state's role. The post-independence story is therefore one of democratic survival, developmental ambition and persistent inequality — a story in which the promises of the national movement remain both an achievement and an agenda.

Congress strands compared