issues in india 1919

Página 1

Issues in India 1919

Historiography

Political

·

British system of Government in India

·

The Viceroy (including executive

council) and provincial governors made up government of India

·

Princely state, indirectly controlled by

Viceroy

·

Not a democracy, a glaring contradiction

of British values

·

Paris Peace Conference: Wilsonian

self-determination

·

C. 130000 Indians fought and served for

Brit in WW1

·

Indian delegate at PPC was Tlak (main

leader of Congress wrote to Wilson, foes by ignoredà

bitterly shattered expectations

·

Anger at Britain, felt betrayed at PPC

·

The all-India Muslim League and Mohammad

Ali Jinnah

·

Formed in 1906, established by wealthy

and educated

·

Britain encouraged formation of Muslim

League to counter Congress

·

Communalism encouraged to quell nationalism

an unofficial policy of ‘divide and rule’

·

Communalism is a theory or system of government according to which each commune is

virtually an independent state and the nation is merely a federation of such

states.

·

The Rowlatt Act:

-

An extension of the

Defence of India Act

-

No civil rights,

martial law, gatherings illegal, can be arrested without charge

-

Extremely repressive

and caused huge outrage

-

Attempt by Britain to

prolong its War time powers

·

Montagu-Chelmsford

Reforms:

-

Produced the 1919 Government of India

Act- diarchy

-

Diarchy is ‘the technical term for

handing over the steering wheel and retaining control of the accelerator and

break’ Mason

-

Viceroy (+ executive Council) and

provincial governors

-

Provincial and Central Legislative

Assemblies, restricted voting rights (5 million from approximately 150million

population)

“politics touch the vital being of India almost at

every point”- Gandhi

View towards non-violence:

“I object to violence

because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it

does is permanent.”- Gandhi

Social

·

Differing communities: Hindus, Muslims,

Sikhs

·

Hindus 70%, Muslims 21%, Sikhs 1%, other

8%

·

Muslims at the time had a strong

relationship with Britiain

·

1916: Muslim League and Congress form an

alliance, through Jinnah that called for separate

·

Poverty, lack of education and disease

for majority of India

·

Uneducated population, only 20million

people literate

·

Disease due to West disease introduced

e.g. influenza

·

Poverty widespread

·

Britain dominated, controlled and owned

most of india

·

Britain owned industry, land,

communication

·

Indians owned local businesses

Economic

·

Economic opportunity + huge natural

resources lured Britain

·

Goal of imperialism was to increase

trade and to economically benefit Britain through exploitation of colonies

·

Whole admin of India was planned and

implemented to achieve objective

·

Massive trade imbalance between India

and Britain

·

E.g. textile trade, salt trade were

monopolised industries, created a huge deficit for India

·

British monopolises over communication,

transport and industries. This was hugely significant as it allowed British

to control people’s mindset and views through media and propaganda. Had the

ability to supress news.

Read page 41-47 in Ghandi Textbook