Modern India and the Indian National Movement · UPPCS (Uttar Pradesh)

What the official syllabus says

UPPCS Preliminary Examination, Paper I: General Studies-I:

History of India and Indian National Movement.
History of India & Indian National Movement: In History emphasis should be on broad understanding social, economic and political aspects of Indian History. In the Indian National Movement, the candidates are expected to have synoptic view of nature and character of the freedom movement, growth of nationalism and attainment of Independence.
Note: Candidates are expected to have general awareness about the above subjects with special reference to Uttar Pradesh.

Topics in detail

The syllabus asks for a synoptic view of the nature and character of the freedom movement, the growth of nationalism and the attainment of Independence. Learn the phases of the movement in order, the aims and methods of each, and the role of the United Provinces (present Uttar Pradesh), which was a major centre of the struggle.

The British conquest

Coming of the Portuguese, Dutch, English and French; the Carnatic wars
Bengal: battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764); the Treaty of Allahabad (1765) and the diwani
Expansion: Anglo-Mysore, Anglo-Maratha and Anglo-Sikh wars; Wellesley's subsidiary alliance (Awadh's cession of territory in 1801); Dalhousie's doctrine of lapse; annexation of Awadh (1856)

Economic impact of British rule

Land revenue settlements: Permanent Settlement, Ryotwari, Mahalwari (in the North-Western Provinces)
Commercialisation of agriculture, famines, decline of handicrafts (deindustrialisation)
The drain of wealth theory (Dadabhai Naoroji, R.C. Dutt)
Railways, posts and telegraph, modern industry

Constitutional and administrative development

Regulating Act 1773, Pitt's India Act 1784, Charter Acts 1813, 1833, 1853
Government of India Act 1858; Indian Councils Acts 1861, 1892, 1909 (Morley-Minto)
Government of India Act 1919 (Montagu-Chelmsford, dyarchy), Government of India Act 1935
Civil services, police, judiciary; education (Wood's Despatch 1854, universities of 1857, Hunter Commission); the press and press laws

Social and religious reform

Raja Rammohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj; Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar; abolition of sati (1829), widow remarriage (1856)
Arya Samaj (Swami Dayanand Saraswati), Ramakrishna Mission (Swami Vivekananda), Theosophical Society, Prarthana Samaj
Muslim reform: the Aligarh movement (Sir Syed Ahmad Khan; Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, 1875), the Deoband school (1866)
Movements of lower castes and for women's education (Jyotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule)

The Revolt of 1857

Causes: political, economic, social-religious and military
Centres and leaders: Meerut (10 May 1857), Delhi (Bahadur Shah Zafar), Kanpur (Nana Saheb, Tantia Tope), Lucknow (Begum Hazrat Mahal), Jhansi (Rani Lakshmibai), Bareilly (Khan Bahadur Khan), Faizabad (Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah), Jagdishpur (Kunwar Singh)
Reasons for failure; nature of the revolt; consequences and the Queen's Proclamation

Growth of nationalism, 1858 to 1918

Early political associations; foundation of the Indian National Congress (1885); sessions in the United Provinces, among them Allahabad (1888, 1892) and Lucknow (1916)
Moderates and their methods; Extremists (Lal-Bal-Pal) and their methods
Partition of Bengal (1905), the Swadeshi and Boycott movement, the Surat split (1907)
All-India Muslim League (1906); revolutionary activity in India and abroad (Ghadar Party)
Home Rule Leagues (Tilak, Annie Besant); the Lucknow Pact (1916) between the Congress and the League

The Gandhian era, 1917 to 1947

Gandhi's early satyagrahas: Champaran, Kheda, Ahmedabad
Rowlatt Act, Jallianwala Bagh (1919), Khilafat and Non-Cooperation Movement; Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur, February 1922) and the withdrawal of the movement
Swaraj Party; Simon Commission (1928) and the protests (Lucknow); Nehru Report
Lahore Congress (1929) and Purna Swaraj; Civil Disobedience Movement and the Dandi March (1930); Round Table Conferences; Gandhi-Irwin Pact; Communal Award and Poona Pact (1932)
Provincial elections of 1937 and Congress ministries (the United Provinces ministry under Govind Ballabh Pant)
Second World War: August Offer, individual satyagraha (1940), Cripps Mission (1942), Quit India Movement (1942) and parallel government at Ballia
Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army; INA trials; Royal Indian Navy revolt (1946)
Cabinet Mission (1946), the Constituent Assembly, Interim Government, Mountbatten Plan, Indian Independence Act 1947 and Partition

Other streams of the movement

Revolutionaries: Hindustan Republican Association (1924) and the Kakori train action (1925; Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Rajendra Lahiri, Roshan Singh); Hindustan Socialist Republican Association; Bhagat Singh; Chandrashekhar Azad (Alfred Park, Allahabad, 1931)
Peasant movements: the Kisan Sabha of the United Provinces (1918), the Awadh Kisan Sabha (Baba Ramchandra, 1920), the Eka movement (Madari Pasi); All India Kisan Sabha (1936)
Labour movement: AITUC (1920); Left within the Congress: Congress Socialist Party (1934)
Tribal and caste movements; role of women in the struggle; the press and nationalist newspapers

Overlaps

The freedom struggle is a full topic of Mains General Studies I, and the contribution of Uttar Pradesh to the struggles before and after 1857 and the state's freedom fighters are in Mains General Studies V. See also Uttar Pradesh: History and Culture.