Gandhi and the Mass Movements (1917–1934)

Prerequisites: Early Nationalism: Moderates and Extremists · The Gandhian Era — overview

The Hook: Why Would an Empire Fear a Fistful of Salt?

The Core Concept

Gandhi returned to India on 9 January 1915, after two decades in South Africa where he had developed satyagraha — non-violent resistance grounded in truth and the willingness to suffer. His political mentor was Gopal Krishna Gokhale. He spent his first year travelling across India, and then tested his method in three local struggles before taking it national.

Stage 1 — Three experiments (1917–1918)

Champaran was Gandhi’s first civil disobedience in India: he refused an order to leave the district. Ahmedabad was his first hunger strike; Kheda his first non-cooperation (refusal to pay revenue).

Stage 2 — Rowlatt Act and Jallianwala Bagh (1919)

• The Rowlatt Act (Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act, March 1919), based on the Sedition Committee chaired by Justice S.A.T. Rowlatt, allowed detention without trial and trial without juries. Gandhi formed a Satyagraha Sabha and called a nationwide hartal on 6 April 1919 — the first all-India mass protest.
• On 13 April 1919 (Baisakhi), troops under Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer fired on an unarmed crowd at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, gathered partly to protest the arrest of Dr Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal.
• The government appointed the Hunter Committee (Disorders Inquiry Committee, October 1919). The Congress ran its own inquiry. Rabindranath Tagore renounced his knighthood.

Stage 3 — Khilafat and Non-Cooperation (1919–1922)

The defeated Ottoman Sultan was also the Khalifa; the harsh terms imposed on Turkey after the First World War angered Indian Muslims. The Khilafat Committee (Ali brothers — Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali — Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Hasrat Mohani) joined hands with Gandhi.

• The movement was launched on 1 August 1920 — the day Bal Gangadhar Tilak died.
• The Congress adopted Non-Cooperation at the special session in Calcutta (September 1920), presided by Lala Lajpat Rai; the regular Nagpur session (December 1920) ratified it and changed the Congress constitution — linguistic Provincial Congress Committees, a Working Committee, and a four-anna membership fee.
• Programme: surrender of titles; boycott of government schools, courts, legislative councils (elections of November 1920) and foreign cloth; later, non-payment of taxes. Constructive side: national schools such as Jamia Millia Islamia, Kashi Vidyapith and Gujarat Vidyapith; khadi and the charkha; the Tilak Swaraj Fund; Hindu–Muslim unity; removal of untouchability.
• Gandhi promised “Swaraj within a year.”
• On 5 February 1922, a crowd set fire to the police station at Chauri Chaura (Gorakhpur district), killing 22 policemen. The Congress Working Committee met at Bardoli on 12 February 1922 and withdrew the movement. Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 and sentenced to six years.

Stage 4 — The interlude (1922–1928)

• At the Gaya session (December 1922), the “pro-changers” led by C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru wanted to enter the councils and obstruct from within; the “no-changers” (Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, C. Rajagopalachari, M.A. Ansari) wanted constructive work. Das and Motilal formed the Swaraj Party (January 1923). In 1925, Vithalbhai Patel was elected President (Speaker) of the Central Legislative Assembly.
• The all-British Simon Commission (Indian Statutory Commission), appointed in November 1927, reached India in February 1928 and met “Simon Go Back” protests. Lala Lajpat Rai was injured in a police lathi-charge at Lahore in October 1928 and died in November 1928.
• The Nehru Report (August 1928), drafted by a committee chaired by Motilal Nehru, asked for dominion status; Jinnah responded with his Fourteen Points (1929). The Bardoli Satyagraha (1928) against a revenue hike earned Vallabhbhai Patel the title “Sardar”.

Stage 5 — Purna Swaraj and Civil Disobedience (1929–1934)

• Lahore session (December 1929), presided by Jawaharlal Nehru, declared Purna Swaraj (complete independence) the goal. 26 January 1930 was observed as Independence Day — the reason the Constitution came into force on 26 January 1950.
• Dandi March: 12 March–6 April 1930. Parallel salt satyagrahas: C. Rajagopalachari (Trichy to Vedaranyam), K. Kelappan (Payyanur, Malabar), Sarojini Naidu (raid on the Dharasana salt works, May 1930). In the North-West Frontier, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgars (“Red Shirts”) mobilised; in Peshawar, soldiers of the Garhwal Rifles refused to fire on protesters. In Manipur and the Naga hills, Rani Gaidinliu led resistance.
• First Round Table Conference (London, November 1930–January 1931): the Congress stayed away.
• Gandhi–Irwin Pact (5 March 1931): release of political prisoners not convicted of violence; right to make salt for consumption in coastal villages; right of peaceful picketing; return of confiscated property not yet sold. The Congress suspended the movement and agreed to attend the Second Round Table. Demands for an inquiry into police excesses and for commuting the death sentences on Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru (executed 23 March 1931) were not met.
• Karachi session (March 1931), presided by Vallabhbhai Patel, endorsed the pact and passed resolutions on Fundamental Rights and the National Economic Programme.
• Second Round Table Conference (September–December 1931): Gandhi attended as the sole representative of the Congress; it failed over the minorities question. Civil Disobedience resumed in January 1932 and met heavy repression under Viceroy Willingdon.
• Communal Award (16 August 1932) by Ramsay MacDonald extended separate electorates to the Depressed Classes. Gandhi fasted in Yerawada jail; the Poona Pact (24 September 1932) with B.R. Ambedkar replaced separate electorates with joint electorates and raised reserved seats for the Depressed Classes in provincial legislatures from 71 to 148.
• Third Round Table (November–December 1932): the Congress did not attend. Civil Disobedience was formally withdrawn in 1934.

graph LR
    A["Local satyagrahas 1917-18"] --> B["Rowlatt Satyagraha 1919"]
    B --> C["Non-Cooperation 1920-22"]
    C --> D["Truce: Swarajists 1922-28"]
    D --> E["Civil Disobedience 1930-31"]
    E --> F["Truce: Gandhi-Irwin Pact 1931"]
    F --> G["Civil Disobedience resumed 1932-34"]
    G --> H["Quit India 1942"]

The method behind the movements

Bipan Chandra’s widely used framework calls this the Struggle–Truce–Struggle (S–T–S’) strategy: a phase of mass struggle is followed by a truce in which the movement consolidates through constructive work, before a new and wider struggle. Withdrawing a movement was therefore not always a failure — it protected the movement from exhaustion and repression.

Memory Anchors

The first three, in order: “Champaran Arrives Key” → Champaran 1917 (first civil disobedience), Ahmedabad 1918 (first hunger strike), Kheda 1918 (first non-cooperation).

Who presided where:

One-line Mains hook: Gandhi made the freedom struggle a movement in which “the poorest Indian could participate on his own terms” — the charkha, salt and the hartal were tools that needed no education, money or office.

For Prelims

For Mains

• Dimensions: mass mobilisation (peasants, workers, women, tribals); techniques (satyagraha, hartal, boycott, constructive programme); Hindu–Muslim unity and its limits (Khilafat); caste (Poona Pact, Harijan campaign); regional diversity (Frontier, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, North-East); limits and critiques (sudden withdrawals, landlord and business interests).
• Keywords: satyagraha, ahimsa, swadeshi, constructive programme, Struggle–Truce–Struggle, hegemony, mass base, moral authority.
• Value-addition: Hind Swaraj (1909) as Gandhi’s critique of modern civilisation; Tagore’s renunciation of knighthood; the Karachi resolution as a precursor of Part III and Part IV of the Constitution; Gandhi’s journals Young India, Navajivan and Harijan.

Common Traps

In the News

• April 2017 — centenary of the Champaran Satyagraha.
• April 2019 — centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre; the then UK Prime Minister Theresa May expressed “deep regret” in the House of Commons, describing it as a shameful scar on British Indian history.

Practice

Prelims

Mains

Quick Revision

Key Takeaways

Related Topics

• The Gandhian Era — quick revision
• The Gandhian Era — practice questions
• Towards Independence and Partition
• Early Nationalism: Moderates and Extremists
• Socio-Religious Reform Movements