The Story of India’s Freedom Movement
Author : Nayantara Sahgal
Publisher : Rupa, Rs195
The author, despite being so close to the power centre, fails to provide anything new in this book as it merely presents an overview of India’s freedom struggle, says Sanjoy Bagchi
Nayantara Sahgal is Motilal Nehru’s grand-daughter, Jawaharlal Nehru’s niece and Vijayalakshmi Pandit’s daughter. Nehrus, father and son, were leaders of the freedom movement until the dawn of Independence and the son even later. Indeed, the Nehru dynasty has dominated, except for brief spells, the political life of the country since 1947. An account of the freedom movement by a member of such a family, it was expected, would contain an insightful history, punctuated by personal anecdotes.
This book from this point of view is a disappointment. It is, in fact, a book for schoolchildren — a fact that has not been revealed anywhere except an oblique reference to “all young readers” at the fag-end of the write-up on the back-page.
Sahgal begins her book with the European intrusion into India around 1600 AD, in the search for easy access to spices. The British were more adventurous, more disciplined and better organised. The European adventure coincided with the fall of the Mughals. The British took its advantage and became the rulers of India. However, the arrogance of power, the high-handed administration together with the introduction of new systems of education, judicature, railways, posts and telegraph disturbed the indigenous society. A new bullet for the rifles sparked a revolt in the Bengal army, the largest one among the three presidencies, and the rebels, after killing their British officers, flocked to Delhi to invoke the leadership of the Mughal emperor residing in the Red Fort. The revolt was squashed, the Mughal emperor was banished to Burma, and the trading company was wound up with the British Government taking up the administration in its own hands.
The peace generated its own developments. The elite groups in the presidency towns gathered together to form the Indian National Congress and demanded more representation for themselves in the legislative councils. lord Curzon, the Viceroy, decided on the traditional policy of divide et impera by partitioning Bengal into two halves with distinct majorities of Hindus and Muslims. It sparked a huge uproar and generated a massive mass movement the like of which had not been seen earlier. It was of such an unprecedented dimension that King George V had to come to India to announce the annulment of the partition of the province. As a sharp knock on the Bengali knuckles, the King also announced the transfer of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi.
On the other side of the subcontinent, Bal Gangadhar Tilak claimed: “Swaraj is my birthright and I will have it.” He revived the Ganesh festival and this became the nucleus of a vibrant political movement. Soon the Congress was split into two: The Moderates and the Extremists.
During World War I, Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa. He made his first moves in non-violent mass movements in Champaran in Bihar and Kheda in Gujarat. The Congress adopted his new technique of non-violent non-cooperation for struggle against the British. Soon Gandhi captured the Congress and transformed it structurally for mass struggle. But his first movement was not successful. There was an outbreak of violence and Gandhi had to call off the campaign.
The World War had changed the political outlook in Britain and elsewhere. Britain made the first tentative effort to devolve political power through the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, which came into effect in 1921. A group led by Motilal Nehru, CR Das and Vitthalbhai Patel overturned the policy of Gandhi’s total non-cooperation and decided to contest the elections to the Central legislature. This group proved to be remarkably effective during the 1920s but petered out after the death of its main leaders like Das and Nehru
In the early 1930s, the British Government convened a Round Table Conference of all political parties in Britain and the various shades of opinions in India to devise a new Constitution for India. The Congress sent a single member delegation of Gandhi who proved unequal to the task of handling the multi-faceted aspects of Constitution-making. The deliberations of the conference were converted into the Act of 1935 whose main provisions have remained in force after Independence having been incorporated into the Indian Constitution. There was hardly any contribution of the Indian Congress in the 1935 Act.
The elections held under the new Act returned the Congress in overwhelming numbers in all the provinces except the Muslim-majority Punjab and Bengal where the Unionist Party and the Krishak Praja Party respectively came to power. Interestingly, despite separate electorates, the Muslim league was totally rejected with a voting share of less than 4 per cent. The elections in 1937 provided an opportunity to shove the Muslim league into oblivion. Instead the Congress continued to woo the Muslim league and did not support the parties in power in Bengal and the Punjab.
After World War II ended in 1945, the British realised that it cannot fight another war to retain the empire. The British Army was anxious to return home and the Indian soldiers could not be relied upon; it had shown its support for Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army. There were mutinies in the Air Force and the Navy. The labour Party decided to wind up in India and on August 15, 1947, India got Independence.
The book is a simplistic account of India’s modern history. It merely presents an overview of the recent past. Sahgal, despite being so close to the power centre, fails to provide anything new in this book.
The reviewer is a Fellow of Royal Asiatic Society (london) and a former member of the IAS