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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes That the Bardoli resolution which announced the withdrawal also contained clauses which asked
peasants to pay up taxes and tenants to pay up rents, and assured zamindars that the Congress
had no intention of depriving them of their rights, is also no proof of hidden motives. The Congress
had at no stage during the movement sanctioned non-payment of rent or questioned the rights of
zamindars; the resolution was merely a reiteration of its position on this issue. Non-payment of
taxes was obviously to cease if the movement as a whole was being withdrawn.
There are also some indications that Gandhiji’s decision may have been prompted by the fact that
in many parts of the country, by the second half of 1921, the movement had shown clear signs of
being on the ebb. Students had started drifting back to schools and colleges, lawyers and litigants
to law courts, the commercial classes showed signs of weariness and worry at the accumulating
stocks of foreign cloth, attendance at meetings and rallies had dwindled, both in the urban and
rural areas. This does not mean that in some pockets, like Bardoli in Gujarat or Guntur in Andhra,
where intensive political work had been done, the masses were not ready to carry on the struggle.
But the mass enthusiasm that was evident all over the country in the first part of 1921 had,
perhaps, receded. The cadre and the active political workers were willing to carry on the fight but
a mass movement of such a nature required the active participation of the masses, and not only of
the highly motivated among them. However, at the present stage of research, it”is not possible to
argue this position with great force; we only wish to urge the possibility that this too was among
the factors that led to the decision to withdraw.
Gandhiji’s critics often fail to recognize that mass movements have an inherent tendency to ebb
after reaching a certain height, that the capacity of the masses to withstand repression, endure
suffering and make sacrifices is not unlimited, that a time comes when breathing space is required
to consolidate, recuperate, and gather strength for the next round of struggle, and that, therefore,
withdrawal or a shift to a phase of non-confrontation is an inherent part of a strategy of political
action that is based on the masses. Withdrawal is not tantamount to betrayal; it is an inevitable
part of the strategy itself.
Of course, whether or not the withdrawal was made at the correct time can always be a matter
open to debate. But perhaps Gandhiji had enough reasons to believe that the moment he chose
was the right one. The movement had already gone on for over a year, the Government was in no
mood for negotiations, and Chauri Chaura presented an opportunity to retreat with honour,
before the internal weaknesses of the movement became apparent enough to force a surrender or
make the retreat look like a rout.
Gandhiji had promised Swaraj within a year if his programme was adopted. But the year was long
over, the movement was withdrawn, and there was no sign of Swaraj or even of any tangible
concessions. Had it all been in vain? Was the movement a failure?
One could hardly answer in the affirmative. The Non-Cooperation Movement had in fact succeeded
on many counts. It certainly demonstrated that it commanded the support and sympathy of vast
sections of the Indian people. After Non-cooperation, the charge of representing a ‘microscopic
minority,’ made by the Viceroy, Dufferin, in 1888, could never again be hurled at the Indian
National Congress. Its reach among many sections of Indian peasants, workers, artisans,
shopkeepers, traders, professionals, white-collar employees, had been demonstrated. The spatial
spread of the movement was also nation-wide. Some areas were more active than others, but there
were few that showed no signs of activity at all.
The capacity of the ‘poor dumb millions’ of India to take part in modern nationalist politics was
also demonstrated. By their courage, sacrifice, and fortitude in the face of adversity and repression,
they dispelled the notion that the desire for national freedom was the preserve of the educated
and the rich and showed that it was an elemental urge common to all members of a subject nation.
They may not as yet have fully comprehended all its implications, understood all the arguments
put forth in its favour or observed all the discipline that the movement demanded for its successful
conduct. This was, after all, for many of them, first contact with the modern world of nationalist
politics and the modem ideology of nationalism. This was the first time that nationalists from the
towns, students from schools and colleges or even the educated and politically aware in the

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