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Unit 10: National Movements and Indian Independence

of charkhas. As a result, a vigorous membership drive was launched and though the target of one Notes
crore members was not achieved, Congress membership reached a figure roughly of 50 lakhs. The
Tilak Swaraj Fund was oversubscribed, exceeding the target of rupees one crore. Charkhas were
popularized on a wide scale and khadi became the uniform of the national movement. There was
a complaint at a students meeting Gandhiji addressed in Madurai that khadi was too costly. Gandhiji
retorted that the answer lay in wearing less clothes and, from that day, discarded his dhoti and
kurta in favour of a langot. For the rest of his life, he remained a ‘half-naked fakir.’
In July 1921, a new challenge was thrown to the Government. Mohammed Ali, at the All India
Khilafat Conference held at Karachi on 8 July, declared that it was ‘religiously unlawful for the
Muslims to continue in the British Army’ and asked that this be conveyed to every Muslim in the
Army. As a result, Mohammed Ali, along with other leaders, was immediately arrested. In protest,
the speech was repeated at innumerable meetings all over the country. On 4 October, forty-seven
leading Congressmen, including Gandhiji, issued a manifesto repeating whatever Mohammed Ali
had said and added that every civilian and member of the armed forces should sever connections
with the repressive Government. The next day, the Congress Working Committee passed a similar
resolution, and on 16 October, Congress committees all over the country held meetings at which
the same resolution was adopted. The Government was forced to ignore the whole incident, and
accept the blow to its prestige.
The next dramatic event was the visit of the Prince of Wales which began on 17 November, 1921.
The day the Prince landed in Bombay was observed as a day of hartal all over the country. In
Bombay, Gandhiji himself addressed a mammoth meeting in the compound of the Elphinstone
Mill owned by the nationalist Umar Shobhani, and lighted a huge bonfire of foreign cloth.
Unfortunately, however, clashes occurred between those who had gone to attend the welcome
function and the crowd returning from Gandhiji’s meeting. Riots followed, in which Parsis,
Christians, Anglo-Indians became special targets of attack as identifiable loyalists. There was
police firing, and the three-day turmoil resulted in fifty-nine dead. Peace returned only after
Gandhiji had been on fast for three days. The whole sequence of events left Gandhiji profoundly
disturbed and worried about the likelihood of recurrence of violence once mass civil disobedience
was sanctioned.
The Prince of Wales was greeted with empty streets and downed shutters wherever he went.
Emboldened by their successful defiance of the Government, non-cooperators became more and
more aggressive. The Congress Volunteer Corps emerged as a powerful parallel police, and the
sight of its members marching in formation and dressed in uniform was hardly one that warmed
the Government’s heart. The Congress had already granted permission to the PCCs to sanction
mass civil disobedience wherever they thought the people were ready and in some areas, such as
Midnapur district in Bengal, which had started a movement against Union Board Taxes and
Chirala-Pirala and Pedanandipadu taluqa in Guntur district of Andhra, no-tax movements were
already in the offing.
The Non-Cooperation Movement had other indirect effects as well. In the Avadh area of U.P.,
where kisan sabhas and a kisan movement had been gathering strength since 1918, Non-cooperation
propaganda, carried on among others by Jawaharlal Nehru, helped to fan the already existing
ferment, and soon it became difficult to distinguish between a Non- cooperation meeting and a
kisan meeting. In Malabar in Kerala, Non-cooperation and Khilafat propaganda helped to arouse
the Muslims tenants against their landlords, but the movement here, unfortunately, at times took
on a communal colour.
In Assam, labourers on tea plantations went on strike. When the fleeing workers were fired upon,
there were strikes on the steamer service, and on the Assam-Bengal Railway as well. J.M. Sengupta,
the Bengali nationalist leader, played a leading role in these developments. In Midnapur, a
cultivators’ strike against a White zamindari company was led by a Calcutta medical student.
Defiance of forest laws became popular in Andhra. Peasants and tribals in some of the Rajasthan
states began movements for securing better conditions of life. In Punjab, the Akali Movement for
wresting control of the gurdwaras from the corrupt mahants (priests) was a part of the general
movement of Non-cooperation, and the Akalis observed strict non-violence in the face of tremendous

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