The Freedom Struggle: Stages and Contributors

What the official syllabus says

UPSC Civil Services (Main) Examination, Paper II: General Studies I.

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

Topics in detail

The line asks for two things: the stages of the movement, and contributors from different parts of the country. Learn the national story stage by stage, then make sure every region, and women, peasants, workers and tribal people, have their place in your notes.

Rise of Indian nationalism

• Causes: political and administrative unity, modern education, the press, economic critique of colonial rule
• Early associations: the British Indian Association, Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, Indian Association, Madras Mahajan Sabha, Bombay Presidency Association
• Foundation of the Indian National Congress (1885) and the debate on its origins

The Moderate phase (1885–1905)

• Leaders: Dadabhai Naoroji, Surendranath Banerjea, Pherozeshah Mehta, Gopal Krishna Gokhale
• Methods and demands; the economic critique of imperialism; assessment

The Swadeshi movement and the rise of the Extremists

• The Partition of Bengal (1905) and the Swadeshi and Boycott movement
• Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Aurobindo Ghosh
• The Surat split (1907); the founding of the Muslim League (1906)
• The Morley–Minto Reforms (1909) and separate electorates; the annulment of the partition (1911)

Revolutionary nationalism

• First phase: Anushilan Samiti, Jugantar, Abhinav Bharat, India House in London
• The Ghadar movement and revolutionaries abroad
• Second phase: the Hindustan Republican Association and the Kakori case (1925); the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad); the Chittagong armoury raid (Surya Sen, 1930)

The First World War years

• The Home Rule Leagues (Tilak and Annie Besant, 1916)
• The Lucknow Pact (1916)
• The Montagu Declaration (1917) and the Government of India Act, 1919 (dyarchy)

The Gandhian phase

• Gandhi’s early satyagrahas: Champaran (1917), Ahmedabad mill strike and Kheda (1918)
• The Rowlatt Act satyagraha and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (1919)
• The Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements (1920–22) and Chauri Chaura
• The Swarajists and the No-Changers; constructive programme
• The Simon Commission (1927–28), the Nehru Report (1928), the Lahore session and Purna Swaraj (1929)
• The Civil Disobedience movement: the Dandi March (1930), the Gandhi–Irwin Pact (1931), the Round Table Conferences, the Communal Award and the Poona Pact (1932)
• The Government of India Act, 1935; the 1937 elections and Congress ministries
• The Second World War: the August Offer (1940), individual satyagraha, the Cripps Mission (1942)
• The Quit India movement (1942) and parallel governments

The road to independence and partition

• Subhas Chandra Bose, the Azad Hind government and the Indian National Army; the INA trials
• The Royal Indian Navy mutiny (1946)
• The Wavell Plan and the Simla Conference (1945); the Cabinet Mission Plan (1946)
• The Lahore Resolution (1940), Direct Action Day (1946) and communal violence
• The Mountbatten Plan (3 June 1947) and the Indian Independence Act, 1947

Contributors from different parts of the country

• North and North-West: Lala Lajpat Rai, the Akali movement, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgars
• West: Tilak, Gokhale, Vallabhbhai Patel and the Bardoli satyagraha (1928)
• East: Chittaranjan Das, Subhas Chandra Bose, Matangini Hazra, the Tamluk national government
• South: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai, Subramania Bharati, C. Rajagopalachari and the Vedaranyam salt march, the Vaikom and Guruvayur satyagrahas, Alluri Sitarama Raju
• North-East: Rani Gaidinliu, Kanaklata Barua, Gopinath Bordoloi
• Women in the movement: Sarojini Naidu, Kasturba Gandhi, Aruna Asaf Ali, Usha Mehta, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay
• Peasant, worker and tribal movements: the Eka movement, the Moplah rebellion (1921), the All India Kisan Sabha (1936), the AITUC (1920), Tebhaga and Telangana
• The Left within the national movement: the Congress Socialist Party (1934), Jawaharlal Nehru’s socialist ideas, the Communist movement
• B.R. Ambedkar and the depressed classes’ movement; the Mahad satyagraha (1927)
• People’s movements in the princely states and the All India States People’s Conference (1927)

Overlaps

• Prelims General Studies Paper I asks about the national movement in objective form.
• Gandhian values and the lives of leaders are also used as material in General Studies IV (Ethics).