Gujarat: Modern History and the Freedom Struggle

What the official syllabus says

GPSC Main Examination, Paper IV: General Studies-I, (A) History.

• Modern Indian history including Gujarat from about the middle of the 18th century until Independence - significant events, personalities, issues.
• The freedom struggle - its various stages and important contributors/contributions from different parts of the country.

This page covers Gujarat in these two lines: from the coming of British power to Independence and the integration of the princely states.

Topics in detail

Gujarat in this period was a patchwork of British districts and hundreds of princely states, and it became the home base of Gandhi's movement. Learn the main events by place and year.

British power in Gujarat

• The English at Surat and the shift of trade to Bombay
• Treaty of Bassein (1802) and the subsidiary alliance with the Gaekwads
• British control of Ahmedabad and other districts from 1817-18, as Peshwa rule ended in the Third Anglo-Maratha War
• Walker Settlement (1807) with the chiefs of Kathiawar; the Kathiawar Agency; the many princely states of Saurashtra and Kachchh

1857 and tribal resistance

• The revolt of 1857 in Gujarat: risings in the Panchmahals, Okhamandal and elsewhere
• The Wagher uprising of Okhamandal (1857-59)
• The Naikda risings in the Panchmahals (Joria Bhagat)
• Govind Guru's Samp Sabha and the Mangadh massacre (17 November 1913)

Early nationalism

• Gujarat Sabha, Ahmedabad (1884)
• Congress sessions at Ahmedabad (1902), Surat (1907, the split) and Haripura (1938, Subhas Chandra Bose)
• Gujarati leaders of the early Congress: Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta
• Shyamji Krishna Varma of Mandvi (Kachchh): India House and The Indian Sociologist in London
• Madam Bhikaiji Cama and the flag at Stuttgart (1907)

Gandhi and Gujarat

• Kochrab Ashram (1915) and Sabarmati Ashram (1917); Navajivan; Gujarat Vidyapith (1920)
• Ahmedabad mill strike (1918) and Anasuya Sarabhai; the Kheda satyagraha (1918)
• Borsad satyagraha (1923-24) and the Bardoli satyagraha (1928); Vallabhbhai Patel becomes 'Sardar'
• The Dandi March (12 March to 6 April 1930), Dharasana, Viramgam and Dholera salt satyagrahas
• Rajkot satyagraha (1938-39) and the praja mandal movements in the princely states
• Quit India in Gujarat: student protests in Ahmedabad, Vinod Kinariwala; Usha Mehta's underground Congress Radio

Personalities

• Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Kasturba Gandhi
• Ravishankar Maharaj, Indulal Yagnik, Kalyanji and Kunvarji Mehta, Mohanlal Pandya, Darbar Gopaldas Desai
• Writers in the movement: Jhaverchand Meghani, K. M. Munshi

Integration of the princely states

• Sardar Patel and V. P. Menon; the offer of Bhavnagar's ruler to join India
• Junagadh's accession to Pakistan, the Arzi Hukumat of Samaldas Gandhi, and the plebiscite (1948)
• United State of Kathiawar (Saurashtra, 1948); Kachchh as a centrally administered state; Baroda's merger with Bombay (1949)

Satyagrahas and movements in Gujarat

Overlaps

• Prelims General Studies: 1857 in India and Gujarat, India's freedom movement, post-Independence Gujarat.
• Gandhi's ideas are on Gandhian Thought and Its Relevance.