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Choose three examples to show the contribution of culture to the growth of nationalism in Europe.
Language: Language played a very important role. After the Russian occupation, the Polish language was forced out of schools, and the Russian language was imposed everywhere. The Clergy in Poland began using language as a weapon of national resistance. Polish was used for Church gatherings and all religious instructions. The use of Polish came to be seen as a symbol of struggle against Russian dominance. Romanticism: It was a cultural movement which sought to develop a particular form of nationalist sentiment. Romantic artists and poets generally criticised the glorification of reason and science, and focussed instead on emotions, intuition and mystic feelings. They tried to portray a common cultural past as the basis of a nation. Folk poetry, folk dance, folk songs: The true spirit of the nation was popularised through the above means. So collecting and recording these forms of folk culture was an essential part of nation-building.
Explain what is meant by the 1848 revolution of the liberals. What were the political, social and economic ideas supported by the liberals?
In the year 1848, parallel to the revolts of the poor, another revolution was underway. Led by the educated middle classes, the unemployed, the starving peasants and workers in many European countries experienced this revolution of the liberals. Events of February 1848 in France had brought about the abdication of the monarch and a republic based on universal male suffrage had been proclaimed. In other parts of Europe where independent nation-states did not yet exist – such as Germany, Italy, Poland, the Austro-Hungarian Empire – men and women of the liberal middle classes combined their demands for constitutionalism with national unification. They took advantage of the growing popular unrest to push their demands for the creation of a nation-state on parliamentary principles – a constitution, freedom of the press and freedom of association. The issue of extending political rights to women was a controversial one within the liberal movement, in which large numbers of women had participated actively over the years. Women had formed their own political associations, founded newspapers and had taken part in political meetings and demonstrations.
What changes did Napoleon introduce to make the administrative system more efficient in the territories ruled by him?
The Civil Code of 1804 – usually known as the Napoleonic Code – did away with all the privileges based on birth, established equality before the law and secured the right to property. This Code was exported to the regions under French control. In the Dutch Republic, in Switzerland, in Italy and Germany, Napoleon simplified the administrative divisions, abolished the feudal system and freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues. In the towns too, guild restrictions were removed. Transport and communication systems were improved. Peasants, artisans, workers and new businessmen enjoyed new-found freedom. Businessmen and small-scale producers of goods, in particular, began to realise that uniform law, standardised weights and measures, and a common national currency would facilitate the movement and exchange of goods and capital from one region to another.
Briefly trace the process of German unification.
Nationalist sentiments were often mobilised by conservatives for promoting state power and achieving political domination over Europe. This can be observed in the process by which Germany and Italy came to be unified as nation-states. Middle-class Germans tried to unite the different regions of German Confederation, but their plans were not materialised due to actions of large landowners called Junkers of Prussia. Three wars over seven years with Austria, Denmark and France ended in a Prussian victory. In Jan 1871, Prussian King William I was proclaimed German emperor. Importance was given to modernising the currency, banking, legal and judicial systems in Germany.
Who were Marianne and Germania? What was the importance of the way in which they were portrayed?
Female allegories were invented by artists in the nineteenth century to represent the nation. Marianne, a popular Christian name – underlined the idea of a people’s nation. Her characteristics were drawn from those of Liberty and the Republic – the red cap, the tricolour, the cockade. Statues of Marianne were erected in public squares to remind the public of the national symbol of unity and to persuade them to identify with it. The image of Marianne was marked on coins and stamps. Germania became the allegory of the German nation. In visual representations, Germania wears a crown of oak leaves, as the German oak stands for heroism.
What steps did the French revolutionaries take to create a sense of collective identity among the French people?
The ideas of ‘La Patrie’ (the fatherland) and ‘Le Citoyen’ (the citizen) emphasised the notion of a united community enjoying equal rights under a constitution. A new French flag, the tricolour, was chosen to replace the former royal standard. New hymns were composed, oaths taken and martyrs commemorated, all in the name of the nation. A centralised administrative system was put in place, and it formulated uniform laws for all citizens within its territory. Internal customs duties and dues were abolished, and a uniform system of weights and measures was adopted. Regional dialects were discouraged and French, as it was spoken and written in Paris, became the common language of the nation. The revolutionaries further declared that it was the mission and the destiny of the French nation to liberate the peoples of Europe from despotism. In other words, to help other peoples of Europe to become nations.
The role of women in nationalist struggles
Women of the liberal middle classes combined their demands for constitutionalism with national unification. They took advantage of the growing popular unrest to push their demands for the creation of a nation-state on parliamentary principles – a constitution, freedom of the press and freedom of association. Women had formed their own political associations, founded newspapers and taken part in political meetings and demonstrations.
Frankfurt parliament
It was an all-German National assembly formed by middle-class professionals, businessmen and prosperous artisans belonging to different German regions. It was convened on 18 May 1848. It was disbanded on 31 May 1849 as it lost support.
The Greek war of independence
Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the fifteenth century. The growth of revolutionary nationalism in Europe sparked off a struggle for independence amongst the Greeks, which began in 1821. Poets and artists lauded Greece as the cradle of European civilisation and mobilised public opinion to support its struggle against a Muslim empire. Nationalists in Greece got support from other Greeks living in exile and also from many West Europeans, who had sympathies for ancient Greek culture. Finally, the Treaty of Constantinople of 1832 recognised Greece as an independent nation.
Count Camillo de Cavour
Answer: Led the movement to unify Italy He was neither a revolutionary nor a democrat. Through a tactful diplomatic alliance engineered by Cavour, Sardini-Piedmont succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859.
Write a note on: a. Guiseppe Mazzini
During the 1830s, Giuseppe Mazzini had sought to put together a coherent programme for the unitary Italian Republic. He had also formed a secret society called ‘Young Italy’ for the dissemination of his goals.
Why did political leaders differ sharply over the question of separate electorates?
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who organised the Dalits into the Depressed Classes Association in 1930, clashed with Mahatma Gandhi at the second Round Table Conference by demanding separate electorates for Dalits. When the British government conceded Ambedkar’s demand, Gandhiji began a fast unto death. He believed that separate electorates for Dalits would slow down the process of their integration into society. Ambedkar ultimately accepted Gandhiji’s position, and the result was the Poona Pact of September 1932. Muhammad Ali Jinnah was willing to give up the demand for separate electorates if Muslims were assured reserved seats in the Central Assembly and representation in proportion to the population in the Muslim-dominated provinces (Bengal and Punjab). Negotiations over the question of representation continued, but all hope of resolving the issue at the All Parties Conference in 1928 disappeared when M.R. Jayakar of the Hindu Mahasabha strongly opposed efforts at compromise.
Imagine you are a woman participating in the Civil Disobedience Movement. Explain what the experience meant to your life.
Students are advised to put themselves in the shoes of women and share the experience.
Discuss the Salt March to make clear why it was an effective symbol of resistance against colonialism.
Mahatma Gandhi found in salt a powerful symbol that could unite the nation. On 31 January 1930, he sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands. Some of these were of general interest; others were specific demands of different classes, from industrialists to peasants. The idea was to make the demands wide-ranging so that all classes within Indian society could identify with them and everyone could be brought together in a united campaign. The most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax. Salt was something consumed by the rich and the poor alike, and it was one of the essential food items. Mahatma Gandhi revealed the tax on salt and the government monopoly over its production, the most oppressive face of British rule. Mahatma Gandhi started his famous salt march accompanied by 78 of his trusted volunteers. The march was over 240 miles, from Gandhiji’s ashram in Sabarmati to the Gujarati coastal town of Dandi. The volunteers walked for 24 days, about 10 miles a day. Thousands came to hear Mahatma Gandhi wherever he stopped, and he told them what he meant by Swaraj and urged them to peacefully defy the British. On 6 April, he reached Dandi and ceremonially violated the law, manufacturing salt by boiling seawater. Thousands in different parts of the country broke the salt law, manufactured salt and demonstrated in front of government salt factories. As the movement spread, foreign clothes were boycotted, and liquor shops were picketed. Peasants refused to pay revenue and chowkidar taxes, village officials resigned, and in many places, forest people violated forest laws – going into Reserved Forests to collect wood and graze cattle.
List all the different social groups which joined the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1921. Then choose any three and write about their hopes and struggles to show why they joined the movement.
Below is the list of different social groups that joined the Non-Cooperation Movement and their struggles. Middle-class Participation in Cities Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and colleges, headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal practices. The council elections were boycotted in most provinces, except Madras, where the Justice Party, the party of the non-Brahmans, felt that entering the council was one way of gaining some power – something that usually only Brahmans had access to. The effects of non-cooperation on the economic front were more dramatic. Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops were picketed, and foreign cloth was burnt in huge bonfires. The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore. In many places, merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance foreign trade. As the boycott movement spread and people began discarding imported clothes and wearing only Indian ones, the production of Indian textile mills and handlooms increased. But this movement in the cities gradually slowed down for various reasons. Khadi cloth was often more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth, and poor people could not afford to buy it. Similarly, the boycott of British institutions posed a problem. For the movement to be successful, alternative Indian institutions had to be set up so that they could be used in place of the British ones. These were slow to come up. So students and teachers began trickling back to government schools, and lawyers joined back work in courts. Peasants and Tribals In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra – a sanyasi who had earlier been to Fiji as an indentured labourer. The movement there was against talukdars and landlords who demanded exorbitantly high rents and a variety of other cesses from peasants. Peasants had to do begar and work at landlords’ farms without payment. As tenants, they had no security of tenure, being regularly evicted so that they could acquire no right over the leased land. The peasant movement demanded a reduction of revenue, the abolition of begar and a social boycott of oppressive landlords. In many places, ‘nai-dhobi bandhs’ were organised by panchayats to deprive landlords of the services of barbers and washermen. Tribal peasants interpreted the message of Mahatma Gandhi and the idea of swaraj in yet another way. In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, for instance, a militant guerrilla movement spread in the early 1920s – not a form of struggle that Congress could approve. In other forest regions, the colonial government had closed large forest areas, preventing people from entering the forests to graze their cattle or to collect fuelwood and fruits. This enraged the hill people. Not only were their livelihoods affected, but they felt that their traditional rights were being denied. When the government began forcing them to contribute begar for road building, the hill people revolted. Workers in the Plantations Workers, too, had their own understanding of Mahatma Gandhi and the notion of Swaraj. For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space in which they were enclosed, and it meant retaining a link with the village from which they had come. Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission, and in fact, they were rarely given such permission. When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations and headed home. They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming and everyone would be given land in their own villages. They, however, never reached their destination. Stranded on the way by a railway and steamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally beaten up.
Compare the images of Bharat Mata in this chapter with the image of Germania in Chapter 1.
Germania: Symbol of Germany The image was painted by Philip Veit in 1848. Carrying a sword in one hand and flag in another hand Germania is wearing a crown of oak leaves, as the German oak stands for heroism. Bharat Mata: Symbol of India Painted by Abanindranath Tagore in 1905 Bharat is standing with a Trishul, standing beside a lion and elephant, symbols of power and authority.
Write a newspaper report on a) The Jallianwala Bagh massacre
On 13 April, the infamous Jallianwalla Bagh incident took place. On that day, a large crowd was gathered in the enclosed ground of Jallianwalla Bagh. Some came to protest against the government’s new repressive measures. Others had come to attend the annual Baisakhi fair. Being from outside the city, many villagers were unaware of the martial law that had been imposed. Dyer entered the area, blocked the exit points, and opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. His objective, as he declared later, was to ‘produce a moral effect’ in the minds of satyagrahis. The incident brought a feeling of terror and awe among people. b) The Simon Commission Answer: When the Simon Commission arrived in India in 1928, it was greeted with the slogan ‘Go back, Simon’. All parties, including the Congress and the Muslim League, participated in the demonstrations. In an effort to win them over, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, announced in October 1929 a vague offer of ‘dominion status’ for India in an unspecified future and a Round Table Conference to discuss a future constitution. This did not satisfy the Congress leaders.
What is meant by the idea of Satyagraha?
The idea of Satyagraha emphasised the power of truth and the need to search for truth. It suggested that if the cause was true, if the struggle was against injustice, then physical force was not necessary to fight the oppressor. Without seeking vengeance or being aggressive, a satyagrahi could win the battle through nonviolence. This could be done by appealing to the conscience of the oppressor. People – including the oppressors – had to be persuaded to see the truth instead of being forced to accept the truth through the use of violence. Through this struggle, the truth was bound to triumph ultimately. Mahatma Gandhi believed that this dharma of non-violence could unite all Indians.
Why Gandhiji decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement?
In February 1922, Mahatma Gandhi decided to withdraw the Non-Cooperation Movement. He felt the movement was turning violent in many places and satyagrahis needed to be properly trained before they would be ready for mass struggles.
Why were Indians outraged by the Rowlatt Act?
Rowlatt Act was introduced in 1919. This act was hurriedly passed through the Imperial Legislative Council, although it was completely opposed by Indian members. It had given the government enormous powers to repress political activities. It allowed the detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.
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