History of India 1

HISTORY

Subject : History
(For under graduate student)

Paper No. : Paper - IV

History of Modern India

Topic No. & Title : Topic - 7

Nationalism

Unit No. & Title : Unit- 5

Swadeshi Movement

Lecture No. & Title : Lecture - 2

The Impact of Swadeshi
Movement

FAQs

1. What were the major trends in the Swadeshi

movement?
Professor Sumit Sarkar has identified three major
trends in the Swadeshi upsurge. One of these was
linked with moderate nationalism which interpreted
Swadeshi in a limited sense. An extension of the same
liberal spirit was the idea of atmasakti. Political
militancy in the way it was articulated in Aurobinda
History of India 2

Ghosh’s many writings merged into revolutionary

terrorism in the absence of adequate mass mobilization
which only could have laid down the foundation for an
armed revolt. The use of Hindu imagery by the
revolutionaries and the irritation that was caused by
the attempts of the samitis to enforce the boycott of
British goods became an important source of
estrangement between the bhadralok revolutionaries in
the samiti movement and the ordinary rural folks.

2. What was the nature of the activities of the

Swadeshi Samitis?
The samitis remained fairly open bodies engaged in a
variety of social activities, intended to establish
intimate contact with the people by circulating
nationalist literature, patriotic songs, plays and folk
theatre. Once the Swadeshi movement began to
decline, many of these open bodies became secret
organizations of the gentle folk. Some of the societies
were concerned with physical culture and became the
breeding ground for revolutionaries. The physical
culture movement was intended to cultivate the cult of
History of India 3

manliness among the protagonists of Swadeshi. The

samitis were also engaged in philanthropic activities
and even functioned as arbitration bodies.

3. Why did economic boycott fail?

The Boycott movement failed to gain momentum
mainly due to the absence of a mass base.
programme. There was some revival of handloom
industries but to produce Swadeshi substitutes for
imported goods from Britain, India needed industries
which would be able to compete in terms of prices with
imported items. The amount of capital that was needed
to make local industries competitive was not easily
forthcoming from trading classes who preferred to
trade in finished British goods than in risky industrial
investments. Most of the small industrial enterprisers
which grew during this phase failed to survive.

4. How did the Swadeshi movement encourage the

growth of a labour movement?
The swadeshi era experienced the earliest attempt by
the nationalist leaders to try their hands in mass
History of India 4

politics in the urban areas by setting up trade unions.

The leadership in this labour movement came from
swadeshi leaders like Ashwini Coomer Banerjee and
Prabhat Kusum Ray Chaudhury. In September 1905
the clerks of the Burn Company struck work. In July
1906 the striking clerks in the East Indian Railway
formed the Railway Men’s Union. Besides recurrent
strikes in the jute mills between 1905 and 1908, there
was an important strike at Jamalpur Railway Workshop
in 1908. The extremists in Madras organized labour
strikes at the port of Tuticorin in Thiruneliveli district
where the British India Steam Navigation Company’s
hostility to local shipping enterprises had created a
tense situation.

5. Did the Swadeshi movement remain an

essentially Bengali affair?
The Swadeshi Movement remained a predominantly
Bengali affair, although it sent its ripples to other
provinces like the Punjab and Maharashtra where the
extremists had a powerful presence. In north Indian
cities and towns the Bengali immigrants were often the
History of India 5

active message bearers of Swadeshi. In the Punjab

swadeshi became blended with a militant Hindu
consciousness generated by the activities of the Arya
Samaj. The Punjab extremists concentrated more on
constructive work than boycott. Among the Punjabi
extremist leaders Ajit Singh, established an
organization which had remarkable similarities with the
Bengal Samitis. In Maharashtra the major initiatives
were taken by Tilak’s followers.

6. How did the moderates interpret Boycott?

The anti-Partition movement encouraged the Congress
dissidents in provinces like the Punjab, Bengal and
Maharashtra to come together in the form of a political
challenge against the dominance of the moderates.
The Bengal moderates however, because of their local
compulsions, could not turn away from the boycott
agitation unleashed by the unnatural partition of their
province. The radical tendencies that the anti-Partition
mobilization produced, however, were never endorsed
by the moderates in Bombay. In the Calcutta session
of the Congress in 1906, the dissidents from Bengal
History of India 6

and Maharashtra tried to force the Congress leadership

to accept a comprehensive boycott resolution going
beyond its limited interpretation as boycott of foreign
goods. The resolutions which were passed in favour of
Boycott, Swadeshi, National Education and Swaraj
remained the rallying point for the extremists whereas
the moderates were anxious to revise the implications
of these resolutions at the first opportunity.

7. How did the anti-Partition agitation create new

alignments in the Congress?
The anti-Partition movement encouraged the Congress
dissidents in provinces like the Punjab, Bengal and
Maharashtra to come together in the form of a political
challenge against the dominance of the moderates.
The Bengal moderates however, because of their local
compulsions, could not turn their face away from the
boycott agitation unleashed by the unnatural partition
of their province. The radical tendencies that the anti-
Partition mobilization produced, however, were never
endorsed by the moderates in Bombay. Even the
extremist leaders from outside Bengal, including Lajpat
History of India 7

Rai and Tiak were not in favour of a head-on collision

with the Congress leadership. It was largely due to the
insistence of the extremist party in Bengal that Tilak
eventually came to espouse the militant demands,
interpreting boycott as an enlarged meaning of the
boycott of imperial institutions.

8. Why did the Congress split at Surat?

At the Calcutta session of the Congress in 1906, the
dissidents from Bengal and Maharashtra tried to force
the Congress leadership to accept a comprehensive
boycott resolution going beyond its limited
interpretation as boycott of foreign goods. While this
resolution was accepted, the extremist party did not
succeed in compelling the Congress to extend the
Boycott movement outside Bengal. The resolutions
which were passed in favour of boycott, swadeshi,
national education and swaraj, became the rallying
point for the extremists within the Congress. The
Bombay moderates however, committed as they were
to a very limited interpretation of boycott were anxious
to revise the implications of these resolutions at the
History of India 8

first opportunity. The division which became evident in

Calcutta session, ultimately led to a formal split in the
Congress in 1907. After the annual session was shifted
from Surat, an extremist stronghold to Poona, the
extremists made it a point to enforce a comprehensive
boycott resolution. Facing resistance they decided to
leave the Congress.

9. What were the earliest revolutionary societies in

Bengal?
The first revolutionary society was established at
Midnapur, by Gyanendranath Basu. Its foundation in
1902 was followed by Sarala Ghoshal's (Rabindranath
Tagore’s niece) attempt to establish a gymnasium in
Calcutta. The other two outfits were Atmonnati (self-
improvement) Samiti and Anushilan (cultivation of
strength) Samiti. Very little is known about the
Atmonnati Samiti, except that before it merged into
Aurobinda’s revolutionary group, it functioned as an
open organization. The Anushilan samiti was perhaps
the most important physical culture society which
began to undergo its transformation into a
History of India 9

revolutionary secret society with the induction of

Aurobinda Ghosh and his brother Barindra Kumar
Ghosh.

10. What was the long-term impact of the

revolutionary movement?
Although the Partition was annulled in 1911 the
revolutionary movement, acquired a more magnified
form. A time came when some of these revolutionaries
turned to methods of individual violence. The first act
of revolutionary violence took place at Muzaffarpur
railway station on 30th April, 1908 when Khudiram
Bose and Prafulla Chaki made an attempt on the life of
Kingsford, the Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta. This
was followed by the arrest of the entire Maniktala
group, which came as a major blow to Aurobinda's plan
for an armed revolution. After the collapse of the
Maniktala group terrorism of a more efficient variety
was developed in eastern Bengal under the leadership
of Dhaka Anushilan Samiti. Judging by the objectives
of revolutionary nationalism, the activities of the secret
societies failed even if it had an appeal to the popular
History of India 10

mind. In the end some of the revolutionaries turned to

Marxism in their seach for a solution.