Secretary of State in 1916India should be gradually offered self-government keeping with

the rate of diffusion of education and resolution of religious differences. Again there was no
definite timetable for devolution. But enough safeguard to protect Indians against they
tyranny of their own rule!

Now the ultimate goal of transplanting British parliamentary institutions was being espoused
by the radical section of nationalists which was inching the moderates out. In 1916 Congress
and Muslim League together for the first time drew a common constitutional programme at
Lucknow. Home Rule League and Annie Besants internment further radicalised Indian
politics.

Montague in Aug 1917 in House of Commons made a historic declaration that the policy of
the British in India henceforth will have an overall objective of gradual development of
institutions of self-government for the progressive realisation of responsible government in
India as an integral part of the British. Again there was an indefinite timetable which could be
easily manipulated and declaration didnt propose independence of India.

Did Montagu Chelmsford reforms really sought to introduce representative and responsible
government in India?

An examination of its provisions:

1. GOI 1919 provided for Bicameral legislature at the Centre- a council of states and
legislative assembly. The Legislative assembly will have elected majority but no
control over ministries.
2. Viceroy will have a sweeping Veto
3. The electorate was enlarged both at the centre and at the provinces
4. The principle of separate electorate was extended to Sikhs along with retaining them
for Muslims. Communal reservation was extended to non-Brahmans in Madras and
the Depressed Classes were offered nominated seats in legislatures at all levels
5. Dyarchy at the provincial level. This meant that certain functions of the provincial
government were to be transferred to the ministers responsible to Legislative
assemblies and others would be reserved for bureaucratic control. The departments
that were transferred carried less political weight and got little political funding. Ex-
health, education. Vital departments like police, law and order retained.
6. Provincial governors had veto and certificate powers
7. Revenue resources divided as central and provinces with important sources like land
being retained with Centre
8. Provincial executive councils had provision of parity in the representation between
Europeans and Indians. But means little with huge veto of Governor.

It has been called as beginning of parliamentary democracy in India and thereby beginning of
decolonisation by a few but these were more of measures of the British to safeguard the
essential positions they held and at the same time mobilise an influential section in the
Indians to their support and favour. It is also said since electorate was widened it made
Indian leaders operate in a democratic way, reaching out to more masses. This doesnt hold
merit.
The reforms failed to satisfy the Indians who had now moved beyond the idea of a self-
government within the British empire. The new goal was Swaraj. The arrival of Gandhi was
marked by mass upsurges. Gandhian philosophy critiqued the Western civil society and the
mass movement he engineered had an altogether different logic, he wanted to liberate Indian
politics of the constricted arena of constitutionalism itself.

The arrival of Gandhi to the nationalist movement has been described as a movement
representing the classes changing to movement representing the masses.

Until his arrival the nationalist politics was participated by a limited group of Western
educated professionals whose new skills enabled them to take advantage of the opportunities
opened by the British rule like seats in district boards, administrative positions etc. They
belonged to certain castes and economic and linguistic groups. They were mainly drawn from
Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. Low has called these classes as the underlings of the British
rulers who were marginally if at all interested in any far reaching socio-economic change.
Their concern was creation of a nw elite society and culture influences by ideas and ideals of
British society.

Bhadralok of Bengal, lower castes Hindus, Muslims, peasants etc stayed away. The colonial
government took comfort in the fact that Congress was being run as a closed shop of
Microscopic Minority

Earliest Congress was modest in its goals and their organisation was based on personality
networks woven around prominent leaders. Following Surat Split the Moderates were noticed
by their complete lack of activity. Extremist measures too had borne no fruit and Tilak was
jailed.

Gandhi arrived at this time when both the varieties of politics had reached an impasse.
Further the socio-economic environment in India was shaped in the backdrop of the World
War.

1. There was an enormous rise in defence expenditure leading to huge national debt.
Heavy war loans and rising taxes were now borne by trade and industry as land
revenue was settled. The burden of this new taxation fell on common people by way
of indirect taxes like custom duties, income taxes, super taxes on companies, HUF
etc.
2. Further there was massive price rise partly due to increase in taxes and partly because
of the war
3. 2 successive crop failures meant shortage of food. The British government diverted
this too for the export to the army. There was near famine like condition in India.
4. Forced recruitment to army
5. All sections of rural society were affected by the economic impact of the war. Poor
peasantry was bearing the brunt of high inflation and shortage of food, Rich peasantry
was hit by lack of export of commercial crop, high inflation and crisis of market. This
period saw a very sharp increase in the number of peasant proprietors being
dispossessed of their land which passed into the hands of non-cultivating classes.
 The mounting economic distress of the peasantry found expression in the
organised peasant movement of Kisan Sabha in UP which began in 1918.
6. small traders were deeply impacted by exchange rate fluctuations and high taxes
7. As a result of industrialisation there was an expansion of industrial working class.
This period saw a decline in their real wages. Census Figures show that between 1911
and 1921 workers in organised industries increased by about 6 lakhs. This working
class was hit the hardest by inflation and there were strikes in every industrial centre
in India.

The hardships faced by every section of society provided the necessary social mobilisation
for an impending mass upsurge. The youth were completely disillusioned, having seen the
ugly face of the British. In this climate of moral despondency Gandhi emerged on the
political scene. He had no vested interest in status-quo and therefore welcomed the shift from
classes to masses. He had a clear vision of the pluralist nature of society but was dedicated to
the idea of a united India. In the age of moral vacuum and physical despondency he promised
a political programme that was spiritually noble.

Gandhi was fully aware of Indian pluralism and took care not to alienate any of the
communities or classes. Earlier political leaders wanted a hegemony of a national ideology
built on ideas borrowed from the West. Gandhi argued that ideology must be rooted in Indian
civilisation. He agreed that popular loyalties in India were determined not by class but
religion. He successfully used religious idiom to mobilise the masses. But this was not
revivalism. He didnt refer to the religious history but to religious morality. His goal was
moral.

He adopted Swaraj as a political goal. He never defined it and in Nehrus words it was
delightfully vague and hence could unite different communities under his umbrella type
leadership. Inclusivism became his style of politics which was based on the plurality and
diversity of India.

He critiqued modern civilisation. In Hind Swaraj Gandhi offered a civilizational concept of

Indian nation. Indians constituted a nation or praja since pre-Islamic days and Indias
civilisation was at the fountainhead of Indian nationality as it had an immense assimilative
power of absorbing people of different creeds and they all made India their home. The ethos
of our civilisation tended to elevate the moral being in us all. He held Industrial capitalism
responsible for conflict of interests as it divorced economic activities from moral concerns.

His remedy was reverting to village based self-sufficient economy of ancient times. Gandhi
said the faith in parliamentary democracy was not the will of the people but of specific
interests and a few politicians. It represented will of the political parties. He said
representative democracy constricted moral autonomy of parliamentarians in the name of
party discipline. He felt it was essential to evolve an Indian alternative to Western liberal
political structures. He postulated the concept of popular sovereignty where each individual
controls or restrains his/her own self. This was Gandhis Self-Rule.
He said to dismiss such a Swaraj as a dream is to believe what has not occurred in history
will not occur at all and it is to argue disbelief in the dignity of man.

His technique to achieve it was Satyagrahadefined as truth force or soul force. It meant
civil disobedience based on the premise of moral superiority of the protestor. Inherent is the
belief that the protestor can bring a change of heart in the aggressor by a show of moral
strength. Ahimsa was the cardinal principle of it all.

In this way Gandhi questioned the moral legitimacy of the Raj which was based on
superiority of the West and modernity.

Parekh has said that by way of providing an ideology to confront imperialism Gandhi
overlooked many of modern civilisations great achievements.

His methods provided immense manoeuvrability. Failures could be explained in terms of

loftiness of ideals or imperfections in the human agency.

The Home Rule League movementwith a goal of promoting Home rule in India and an
educative programme to arouse in the Indian masses a sense of national pridecouldnt bring
in mass politics. Maras, Maharashtra and Karnataka the nonbrahmins didnt extend it support.

Gandhi effectively claimed for himself a centrist position in the contested and divided space
of Indian politics. This he did because he neither alienated the moderate and extermists and
he tactfully combined goal of moderates with the means of extremists. Adopted moderate
Goal of Swaraj but never defined it and hence no group was alienated.

Many Voices of A Nation

Dalit and Non Brahmin

They too expressed their dissent for the Congress version of nationalism. Untouchables
started to refer to themselves as Dalits or Opressed from around 1930s. The term more
appropriately signified their socio-economic position in Hindu India.

Varna Scheme has little relevance with subsequent social realities providing merely a
fundamental template within which social ranks were conceptualised across regions. For
actual social organisation, jatis vaguely referred to as castes were of importance. They were
occupational groups which number more than three thousand in modern India which were
emerging side by side with Varnas as a result of and on the basis of professional
specialisation. Iravati karve considers them as castes and other larger groups as caste
clusters. Exclusiveness was maintained in the jati by rules of endogamy and commensality
restrictions. Each caste is ascribed a ritual rank which located its members in an elaborate
hierarchy encompassing the entire society. Members of each caste prescribed a moral code of
conduct or Dharma the performance of which is the Karma. Karma becomes the basis of
location in caste hierarchy in next life. What determined the rank?

Structural anthropologist Dumont asserts that this ranking system is essentially religious as in
Indian society Sacred encompasses the secular. Hence Brahmin priest is higher than
Kshatriya etc. Social rank is determined by purity-pollution principle; those who embody
pure at the highest level. But social historians point that ritual rank has never been
unconnected with power structure. Many factors like nature of work and distance from centre
of power determined ritual rank.

Gail Omvedt has described such a social organisation as caste-feudal society marked by
caste/class confusion. Beteille points that it was not exactly a class system in disguise. It was
not a dichotomous system, rather a system of gradation with a great deal of ambiguity in the
middle. In this region various peasant castes competed for superiority of status.