The Making and Unmaking of Non-cooperation

The Non-cooperation Movement did not begin as a single, planned campaign. It grew out of a series of local struggles that Mahatma Gandhi led between 1917 and 1918, each of which taught him how to mobilise ordinary Indians. In Champaran (Bihar) in 1917, he fought for the rights of peasants forced by European planters to grow indigo, demanding security of tenure and the freedom to choose their own crops. In 1918, in his home state of Gujarat, he took up two more causes: first, he intervened in a labour dispute in Ahmedabad, asking for better working conditions for textile mill workers; second, he joined peasants in Kheda in demanding the remission of taxes after their harvest had failed.

These three initiatives — Champaran, Ahmedabad, and Kheda — marked Gandhi out as a nationalist with deep sympathy for the poor. But they were all localised struggles. The event that allowed him to build a much wider movement came in 1919, handed to him by the colonial rulers themselves.

The Rowlatt Act and the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

During the First World War (1914–18), the British had imposed censorship of the press and permitted detention without trial. After the war, a committee chaired by Sir Sidney Rowlatt recommended that these tough measures be continued. The government accepted the recommendation and passed what became known as the Rowlatt Act. In response, Gandhi called for a countrywide campaign against the Act.

The protests were intense. In towns across North and West India, life came to a standstill as shops shut down and schools closed in response to the bandh call. The Punjab saw particularly strong protests, because many men from the province had served on the British side during the war, expecting to be rewarded for their service. Instead, they were given the Rowlatt Act. Gandhi was detained while proceeding to the Punjab, and prominent local Congressmen were also arrested. The situation grew increasingly tense, reaching a bloody climax in Amritsar in April 1919, when a British Brigadier ordered his troops to open fire on a nationalist meeting. More than four hundred people were killed in what is known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

It was the Rowlatt satyagraha that made Gandhi a truly national leader.

The Call for Non-cooperation

Emboldened by the success of the Rowlatt satyagraha, Gandhi called for a campaign of "non-cooperation" with British rule. Indians who wished colonialism to end were asked to:

• Stop attending schools and colleges run by the government
• Stop attending law courts
• Not pay taxes

In sum, they were asked to adhere to a "renunciation of (all) voluntary association with the (British) Government." If non-cooperation was effectively carried out, Gandhi said, India would win swaraj within a year.

To further broaden the struggle, Gandhi joined hands with the Khilafat Movement. This was a movement of Indian Muslims, led by Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, that demanded:

• The Turkish Sultan (the Khalifa) must retain control over the Muslim sacred places in the former Ottoman empire
• The jazirat-ul-Arab (Arabia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine) must remain under Muslim sovereignty
• The Khalifa must be left with sufficient territory to defend the Islamic faith

The Congress supported the Khilafat Movement, and Gandhi sought to conjoin it with the Non-cooperation Movement.

Knitting a Popular Movement

Gandhi hoped that by coupling non-cooperation with Khilafat, India's two major religious communities — Hindus and Muslims — could collectively bring an end to colonial rule. These movements unleashed a surge of popular action that was altogether unprecedented in colonial India.

• Students stopped going to schools and colleges run by the government.
• Lawyers refused to attend court.
• The working class went on strike in many towns and cities. According to official figures, there were 396 strikes in 1921, involving 600,000 workers and a loss of seven million workdays.
• The countryside was seething with discontent too. Hill tribes in northern Andhra violated the forest laws. Farmers in Awadh did not pay taxes. Peasants in Kumaun refused to carry loads for colonial officials.

These protest movements were sometimes carried out in defiance of the local nationalist leadership. Peasants, workers, and others interpreted and acted upon the call to "non-cooperate" with colonial rule in ways that best suited their interests, rather than conforming to dictates laid down from above.

As Gandhi's American biographer Louis Fischer wrote: "Non-cooperation became the name of an epoch in the life of India and of Gandhiji. Non-cooperation was negative enough to be peaceful but positive enough to be effective. It entailed denial, renunciation, and self-discipline. It was training for self-rule."

As a consequence of the Non-cooperation Movement, the British Raj was shaken to its foundations for the first time since the Revolt of 1857.

The Chauri Chaura Incident and the Withdrawal of the Movement

Then, in February 1922, a group of peasants attacked and torched a police station in the hamlet of Chauri Chaura, in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand). Several constables perished in the fire. This act of violence prompted Gandhi to call off the movement altogether.

"No provocation," he insisted, "can possibly justify (the) brutal murder of men who had been rendered defenceless and who had virtually thrown themselves on the mercy of the mob."

During the Non-cooperation Movement, thousands of Indians were put in jail. Gandhi himself was arrested in March 1922 and charged with sedition. The judge who presided over his trial, Justice C.N. Broomfield, made a remarkable speech while pronouncing his sentence. He said it would be impossible to ignore that Gandhi was "in a different category from any person I have ever tried or am likely to try," and that "in the eyes of millions of your countrymen, you are a great patriot and a leader. Even those who differ from you in politics look upon you as a man of high ideals and of even saintly life." Since Gandhi had violated the law, the Bench was obliged to sentence him to six years' imprisonment, but the judge added: "If the course of events in India should make it possible for the Government to reduce the period and release you, no one will be better pleased than I."

A People's Leader

By 1922, Gandhi had transformed Indian nationalism, redeeming the promise he had made in his BHU speech of February 1916. It was no longer a movement of professionals and intellectuals; now, hundreds of thousands of peasants, workers, and artisans also participated in it.

Many of them venerated Gandhi, referring to him as their "Mahatma." They appreciated the fact that he dressed like them, lived like them, and spoke their language. Unlike other leaders, he did not stand apart from the common folk but empathised and even identified with them. This identification was strikingly reflected in his dress: while other nationalist leaders dressed formally, wearing a Western suit or an Indian bandgala, Gandhi went among the people in a simple dhoti or loincloth.

Meanwhile, he spent part of each day working on the charkha (spinning wheel) and encouraged other nationalists to do likewise. The act of spinning allowed Gandhi to break the boundaries that prevailed within the traditional caste system, between mental labour and manual labour. The charkha became the most abiding image of Indian nationalism. In 1921, during a tour of South India, Gandhi shaved his head and began wearing a loincloth in order to identify with the poor. His new appearance also came to symbolise asceticism and abstinence — qualities he celebrated in opposition to the consumerist culture of the modern world.

The Image of Gandhi Among the Peasants

The historian Shahid Amin has traced the image of Mahatma Gandhi among the peasants of eastern Uttar Pradesh, as conveyed by reports and rumours in the local press. When Gandhi travelled through the region in February 1921, he was received by adoring crowds everywhere. Local newspapers recorded many of the rumours that circulated at that time.

There were rumours of miraculous powers. For example:

• Sikandar Sahu from a village in Basti said on 15 February that he would believe in the Mahatmaji when the karah (boiling pan) full of sugar cane juice in his karkhana (where gur was produced) split into two. Immediately the karah actually split into two from the middle.
• A cultivator in Azamgarh said that he would believe in the Mahatmaji's authenticity if sesamum sprouted on his field planted with wheat. Next day all the wheat in that field became sesamum.

A Hindi newspaper in Gorakhpur reported the atmosphere during his speeches. At Bhatni, Gandhi addressed the local public and then the train started for Gorakhpur. There were not less than 15,000 to 20,000 people at Nunkhar, Deoria, Gauri Bazar, Chauri Chaura, and Kusmhi stations. At Kusmhi, despite the fact that the station was in the middle of a jungle, there were not less than 10,000 people. Some, overcome with their love, were seen to be crying. At Deoria, people wanted to give bhent (donations) to Gandhi, but he asked them to give these at Gorakhpur. At Chauri Chaura, one Marwari gentleman managed to hand over something to him. Then there was no stopping. A sheet was spread and currency notes and coins started raining. Outside the Gorakhpur station, the Mahatma was stood on a high carriage and people had a good darshan of him for a couple of minutes.

Wherever Gandhi went, rumours spread of his miraculous powers. In some places it was said that he had been sent by the King to redress the grievances of the farmers, and that he had the power to overrule all local officials. In other places it was claimed that Gandhi's power was superior to that of the English monarch, and that with his arrival the colonial rulers would flee the district. There were also stories reporting dire consequences for those who opposed him. Rumours spread of how villagers who criticised Gandhi found their houses mysteriously falling apart or their crops failing. For example:

• A gentleman from Gorakhpur city questioned the need to ply the charkha. His house caught fire.
• In April 1921, some people were gambling in a village of Uttar Pradesh. Someone told them to stop. Only one from amongst the group refused to stop and abused Gandhi. The next day his goat was bitten by four of his own dogs.

Known variously as "Gandhi baba," "Gandhi Maharaj," or simply as "Mahatma," Gandhi appeared to the Indian peasant as a saviour who would rescue them from high taxes and oppressive officials and restore dignity and autonomy to their lives.

Gandhi's appeal among the poor, and peasants in particular, was enhanced by his ascetic lifestyle and by his shrewd use of symbols such as the dhoti and the charkha. He was by caste a merchant and by profession a lawyer, but his simple lifestyle and love of working with his hands allowed him to empathise more fully with the labouring poor, and for them, in turn, to empathise with him. Where most other politicians talked down to them, Gandhi appeared not just to look like them, but to understand them and relate to their lives. …