Spinning Wheels and Black Flags: Indian Nationalists Challenge British Rule

Major changes in British-ruled India toward the end of the long 19th century created the conditions for the emergence of the first modern nationalist movement in the colonial world. The expansion of railways, the establishment of postal and telegraph services, and the spread of printed materials (in both English and major Indian languages) helped to shape a stronger sense of “Indian-ness.” The founding of Indian-owned factories in textiles and metals marked the emergence of a prosperous urban Indian middle class and the beginning of a native working class. The inclusion of Indians in various representative councils and in the Indian Civil Service created a cadre of experienced administrators. The inauguration of the Indian National Congress, which met annually from 1885, provided a forum in which nationalist leaders from around India could develop and advance their goals.

In the immediate aftermath of World War I, the leaders of the Congress created the first mass-based nationalist movement outside the West. Many factors combined to produce this result. The ghastly intra-European bloodletting between 1914 and 1918, graphically illustrated in texts like All Quiet on the Western Front, undercut the argument that Westerns had come to Asia and Africa to raise moral standards. Proclamations by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson regarding the importance of national self-determination and by V.I. Lenin on the need to end colonial regimes were welcomed in India and throughout the colonial world. In addition, more than a million Indian men had served as soldiers under British command in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe during the war. Many came home with new confidence and a strengthened sense of national identity. Finally, the British combination of reforms and repression backfired, dramatically increasing the number of active (and passive) opponents of the colonial regime.

Central to this pivotal moment in the history of the Indian nationalist movement were the ideas and activities of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who returned to India in 1914 after spending twenty years in South Africa. Gandhi’s greatest achievement may have been his ability to persuade India’s prosperous middle classes to accept the rural and urban poor as allies in the fight against the British. In so doing, he transformed the Congress into the broad-based mass movement that eventually, in 1947, compelled the British to depart. Many of Gandhi’s admirers also revere him for his commitment to satyagraya (variously translated as “soul force,” “truth force,” nonviolent resistance, and civil disobedience) as well as his vigorous efforts on behalf of India’s untouchables, and his desire for harmony between Hindus and Muslims.

The documents I would like you to read come from the autobiography of an upper-class woman from north India, Manmohini Zutshi Sahgal, who followed her mother and older sisters into the nationalist movement in the early 1920s, all of them inspired by Gandhi. You can read excerpts from her autobiography by clicking here. How does this memoir illustrate the changes that were taking place in the struggle against the British in the decade after World War I?

After reading the documents, I would like you to reflect on and discuss the following: What did Gandhi mean by the strategy of “noncooperation”? What roles did women play in the protests of the early 1920s? How did the roles of women in the nationalist movement change by 1930? How do you explain this change? How do the passages by Sahgal reveal the complexity of the Indian social structure in the 1920s and 19030s? What is the relationship between this complexity and the eventual success of the Congress in winning independence? When people like Sahgal and her family began to join the nationalist movement in large numbers, why did the British not leave India? Was the argument of the “white man’s burden” still important to the British? Was it a matter of economic interest? Was it British pride? Your thoughts…