The Freedom Struggle: Stages and Contributors

What the official syllabus says

General Studies-I (Paper III), Main Written Examination:

• The Freedom Struggle - its various stages and important contributors/contributions from different parts of the country.

Topics in detail

Two things are asked: the stages of the struggle, and contributors from different parts of the country, not only the best-known national leaders.

The Revolt of 1857

• Causes: political, economic, social and religious, military (the greased cartridges)
• Centres and leaders: Meerut and Delhi (Bahadur Shah Zafar), Kanpur (Nana Saheb, Tantia Tope), Lucknow (Begum Hazrat Mahal), Jhansi (Rani Lakshmibai), Bihar (Kunwar Singh)
• Why it failed; its nature (sepoy mutiny or war of independence); its results, including the Queen’s Proclamation (1858)

Early nationalism (1858–1905)

• Associations before the Congress: the British Indian Association, the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, the Indian Association, the Madras Mahajan Sabha
• Founding of the Indian National Congress (1885)
• The Moderates: methods, demands, economic critique of colonial rule (Dadabhai Naoroji, M.G. Ranade, G.K. Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, Surendranath Banerjea)

Swadeshi and the militant phase (1905–1918)

• The Partition of Bengal (1905) and the Swadeshi and Boycott movement
• The Extremists: Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Aurobindo Ghosh; the Surat split (1907)
• The All-India Muslim League (1906) and separate electorates under the Morley-Minto Reforms (1909)
• Revolutionary nationalism in Bengal, Maharashtra and Punjab; the Ghadar movement (1913)
• The Home Rule Leagues (Tilak, Annie Besant) and the Lucknow Pact (1916)

The Gandhian phase (1917–1947)

• Champaran (1917), Kheda and Ahmedabad (1918)
• The Rowlatt Satyagraha and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (1919)
• The Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements (1920–22) and Chauri Chaura
• The Swarajists, the Simon Commission (1928), the Nehru Report, the Lahore session and Purna Swaraj (1929)
• Civil Disobedience and the Dandi March (1930), the Gandhi-Irwin Pact, the Round Table Conferences, the Communal Award and the Poona Pact (1932)
• The Government of India Act, 1935, the 1937 elections and the Congress ministries
• The Second World War: the August Offer, Individual Satyagraha, the Cripps Mission (1942), the Quit India Movement (1942)

Other streams of the struggle

• The revolutionaries of the 1920s and 1930s: the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad), the Chittagong armoury raid (Surya Sen)
• The Left: the Congress Socialist Party, kisan sabhas, trade unions
• Subhas Chandra Bose, the Forward Bloc and the Indian National Army; the INA trials and the naval ratings’ revolt (1946)
• People’s movements in the princely states (praja mandals)
• Women in the struggle; the movement of the depressed classes and Dr B.R. Ambedkar; the role of the press and literature

Towards independence and partition

• The Wavell Plan and the Simla Conference (1945), the Cabinet Mission (1946), the Interim Government
• The Mountbatten Plan (3 June 1947) and the Indian Independence Act, 1947

Contributors from different parts of the country

• North: Lala Lajpat Rai, Bhagat Singh, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Jawaharlal Nehru
• East: Surendranath Banerjea, C.R. Das, Subhas Chandra Bose, Matangini Hazra
• West: Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
• South: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai, Subramania Bharati, C. Rajagopalachari, Alluri Sitarama Raju
• North-east: Rani Gaidinliu, U Tirot Sing, Kanaklata Barua
• Haryana: the Revolt of 1857 in Rewari, Jhajjar, Ballabhgarh and Hansi, and later leaders (see the Haryana page)

Overlaps

• The Preliminary Examination’s General Studies paper asks about the Indian National Movement: HCS Prelims: General Studies.
• The constitutional milestones (1909, 1919, 1935, 1947) are the historical background to the Constitution in HCS Mains: General Studies II.