Modern India and the Indian National Movement

What the official syllabus says

UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination, General Studies Paper I:

History of India and Indian National Movement.

This page covers the period from the coming of the European companies to independence, with the integration of the country after 1947.

Topics in detail

European companies and British expansion

• Portuguese, Dutch, English (East India Company, 1600) and French companies; the Carnatic wars
• Battles of Plassey (1757) and Buxar (1764); grant of the Diwani of Bengal (1765)
• Anglo-Mysore, Anglo-Maratha and Anglo-Sikh wars
• Subsidiary Alliance (Wellesley) and Doctrine of Lapse (Dalhousie)

Economic impact of British rule

• Land revenue systems: Permanent Settlement (1793), Ryotwari, Mahalwari
• Commercialisation of agriculture, famines, deindustrialisation
• The drain of wealth theory (Dadabhai Naoroji, R. C. Dutt)
• Railways, posts and telegraph, modern industry and the rise of an Indian capitalist class

Constitutional and administrative development

• Regulating Act 1773, Pitt's India Act 1784, Charter Acts of 1813, 1833 and 1853
• Government of India Act 1858; Indian Councils Acts of 1861, 1892 and 1909 (Morley-Minto reforms, separate electorates)
• Government of India Act 1919 (Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, dyarchy in the provinces)
• Government of India Act 1935 (provincial autonomy, proposed federation)
• Civil services, police, judiciary and education policy (Wood's Despatch, 1854)

Social and religious reform

• Raja Ram Mohan Roy and the Brahmo Samaj; abolition of sati (1829)
• Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act (1856)
• Dayananda Saraswati and the Arya Samaj (1875); Swami Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna Mission (1897)
• Jyotiba Phule and the Satyashodhak Samaj (1873); Savitribai Phule and women's education
• Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and the Aligarh movement; the Theosophical Society; Sree Narayana Guru; E. V. Ramasamy (Periyar) and the Self-Respect movement

Revolt of 1857 and popular movements

• Causes, centres and leaders of the 1857 revolt: Delhi (Bahadur Shah Zafar), Kanpur (Nana Saheb), Jhansi (Rani Lakshmibai), Lucknow (Begum Hazrat Mahal), Bihar (Kunwar Singh)
• Consequences: the end of Company rule and the Queen's Proclamation (1858)
• Tribal revolts: Santhal rebellion (1855 to 1856), Birsa Munda's Ulgulan
• Peasant movements: Indigo revolt (1859 to 1860), Deccan riots (1875), Moplah uprising

Early nationalism (1885 to 1918)

• Pre-Congress associations; founding of the Indian National Congress (1885) and its early sessions
• Moderates: methods and achievements; economic critique of colonialism
• Partition of Bengal (1905) and the Swadeshi and Boycott movement; the Surat split (1907)
• All-India Muslim League (1906); Home Rule Leagues (1916); Lucknow Pact (1916)
• Revolutionary nationalism: Anushilan Samiti, Ghadar Party (1913), and later the HSRA, Bhagat Singh and the Chittagong armoury raid (1930)

The Gandhian phase (1917 to 1947)

• Champaran (1917), Kheda (1918) and the Ahmedabad mill strike (1918)
• Rowlatt Act and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (13 April 1919)
• Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements (1920 to 1922) and Chauri Chaura
• Swaraj Party, Simon Commission (1927 to 1928), Nehru Report (1928), Lahore Congress and Purna Swaraj (1929)
• Civil Disobedience: the Dandi march (1930), Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931), Round Table Conferences, Communal Award and Poona Pact (1932)
• Provincial elections of 1937 and Congress ministries
• Cripps Mission (1942), Quit India movement (1942), Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army
• Shimla Conference (1945), Cabinet Mission (1946), Mountbatten Plan and the Indian Independence Act (1947)

Other strands of the freedom struggle

• Women in the national movement
• Workers' and peasants' movements: AITUC (1920), the All India Kisan Sabha (1936)
• B. R. Ambedkar and the movements of the depressed classes
• Princely states and the Praja Mandal movements; the press and nationalist literature

After independence

• Integration of the princely states (Sardar Patel, V. P. Menon)
• Reorganisation of states on linguistic lines (States Reorganisation Act, 1956)

A short timeline

Overlaps

Modern history from the middle of the 18th century is part of Mains General Studies I, which also covers post-independence consolidation. The constitutional Acts lead into Indian Polity and Governance.