Modern India and the Freedom Movement

What the official syllabus says

GPSC Preliminary Examination, General Studies, under the heading History and Culture:

• The arrival of Europeans in India and their struggle for supremacy, Company rule in India, Establishment and expansion of British rule in India, Indian war of Independence - 1857 in India and Gujarat, Religious and social reform movements in India and Gujarat in the 19th century, India's freedom movement, Indian Revolutionaries in India and abroad.
• National leaders and their contributions in various fields
• Post-Independence India and Gujarat

Topics in detail

This page covers the all-India story from the coming of the Europeans to the years after Independence. Gujarat's part in each stage (1857, reform, Gandhi's satyagrahas, Mahagujarat) is on Gujarat: History.

Europeans in India

• Arrival of the Portuguese (Vasco da Gama, 1498), Dutch, English and French; their trading settlements
• Anglo-French rivalry: the Carnatic wars; the English East India Company's rise
• The English factory at Surat and the shift of the Company's base to Bombay

Company rule and British expansion

• Battle of Plassey (1757) and Battle of Buxar (1764); diwani of Bengal
• Anglo-Mysore, Anglo-Maratha and Anglo-Sikh wars
• Subsidiary alliance (Wellesley) and the doctrine of lapse (Dalhousie)
• Regulating Act 1773, Pitt's India Act 1784, Charter Acts (1813, 1833, 1853)
• Land revenue systems: Permanent Settlement, Ryotwari, Mahalwari; drain of wealth and deindustrialisation
• Western education: Macaulay's minute (1835), Wood's Despatch (1854); railways, posts and telegraph

The Revolt of 1857

• Causes: political, economic, social, religious and military
• Centres and leaders: Delhi (Bahadur Shah Zafar), Kanpur (Nana Saheb, Tatya Tope), Lucknow (Begum Hazrat Mahal), Jhansi (Rani Lakshmibai), Bihar (Kunwar Singh)
• Events of 1857 in Gujarat (see the Gujarat history page)
• Causes of failure; consequences: Government of India Act 1858, Queen's Proclamation

Religious and social reform movements of the 19th century

• Raja Rammohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj; abolition of sati (1829)
• Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and the Widow Remarriage Act (1856)
• Prarthana Samaj, Arya Samaj (Swami Dayanand Saraswati, born at Tankara in Saurashtra), Ramakrishna Mission (Swami Vivekananda), Theosophical Society
• Jyotiba Phule and the Satyashodhak Samaj; Aligarh movement (Sir Syed Ahmad Khan); reform among Sikhs and Parsis
• Reform movements in Gujarat (see the Gujarat history page)

India's freedom movement

• Rise of nationalism; early associations; founding of the Indian National Congress (1885)
• Moderates and extremists; partition of Bengal (1905) and the Swadeshi movement; Surat split (1907)
• Muslim League (1906); Morley-Minto reforms (1909); Home Rule Leagues; Lucknow Pact (1916)
• Gandhian phase: Champaran, Kheda and Ahmedabad (1917-18); Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh (1919); Non-Cooperation and Khilafat
• Swaraj Party; Simon Commission; Nehru Report; Purna Swaraj (Lahore, 1929)
• Civil Disobedience and the Dandi March (1930); Round Table Conferences; Gandhi-Irwin Pact; Poona Pact
• Government of India Act 1935; provincial ministries (1937); Quit India (1942)
• Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army; Cripps Mission, Cabinet Mission, Mountbatten Plan; Independence and Partition (1947)

Indian revolutionaries in India and abroad

• Early revolutionaries in Maharashtra and Bengal: Chapekar brothers, Anushilan Samiti, Jugantar, Khudiram Bose
• Abroad: India House in London (Shyamji Krishna Varma), Madam Bhikaiji Cama, V. D. Savarkar, the Ghadar Party (Lala Har Dayal), Berlin Committee
• Second phase: Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad), Kakori case, Chittagong armoury raid (Surya Sen)

National leaders and their contributions in various fields

• Political leaders: Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, B. R. Ambedkar, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
• Contributions beyond politics: social reform, education, journalism, economic thought (drain theory), constitution-making
• Women in the freedom movement: Sarojini Naidu, Annie Besant, Kasturba Gandhi, Aruna Asaf Ali, Usha Mehta (Congress Radio)

Post-Independence India

• Integration of princely states (Sardar Patel, V. P. Menon): Junagadh, Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir
• Making of the Constitution; first general elections (1951-52)
• Reorganisation of states on linguistic lines (States Reorganisation Act 1956; Bombay State divided in 1960)
• Planning and the mixed economy; Green Revolution; wars of 1962, 1965 and 1971; the Emergency (1975-77)
• Economic reforms of 1991; Panchayati Raj amendments (1992)

Overlaps

Mains General Studies-I (A) History covers modern Indian history from the middle of the 18th century and the freedom struggle in more depth.