Aspirant Academy

History

Key Points at a Glance

Indian National Movement: Stages, Streams, Contributors

Paper I · Unit 1 Section 1 of 11 0 PYQs 33 min
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Key Points at a Glance

  1. Indian National Congress (INC) Founded

    • Founded 28 December 1885 in Bombay by A.O. Hume (retired ICS officer)
    • W.C. Bonnerjee was its first president; 72 delegates attended the first session
    • Followed a moderate, petition-based approach — known as the "Three Ps"
    • Three Ps: Prayers, Petitions, Protests

  2. Moderate Phase (1885–1905)

    • Dominated by English-educated lawyers and professionals
    • Dadabhai Naoroji: Drain of Wealth theory; first Indian elected to British Parliament (1892); three-time INC president
    • Gopal Krishna Gokhale: Gandhi's political guru; founded Servants of India Society (1905)
    • Surendranath Banerjee and Pherozeshah Mehta also led; all believed in constitutional methods and British justice

  3. Extremist Phase (1905–1920) — Bal-Pal-Lal

    • Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Maharashtra): "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it"; Ganapati Festival (1893), Shivaji Festival (1895); editor of Kesari
    • Bipin Chandra Pal (Bengal): pioneer of "passive resistance"
    • Lala Lajpat Rai (Punjab): "Punjab Kesari"; died from lathi blows after Simon Commission protest, 30 October 1928

  4. Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–22)

    • Gandhi's first mass movement — Indians returned British titles, students left government schools
    • Lawyers boycotted courts; people boycotted elections
    • Called off by Gandhi after the Chauri Chaura incident (4 February 1922, Gorakhpur) — 22 policemen killed when a police station was burnt

  5. Civil Disobedience Movement (1930–34)

    • Began with Gandhi's Dandi March (12 March–5 April 1930): 240-mile march from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi (Gujarat coast) to defy the Salt Law
    • Gandhi arrested on 5 May 1930; movement spread nationwide
    • Suspended by the Gandhi-Irwin Pact (5 March 1931); relaunched January 1932 after Round Table Conference failed

  6. Quit India Movement (1942)

    • Launched 8 August 1942 at the Bombay session of the Congress — Gandhi's "Do or Die" (Karo Ya Maro) call
    • Aruna Asaf Ali hoisted the Congress flag at Gowalia Tank Maidan when leaders were arrested — earned the title "Heroine of the 1942 Movement"
    • Bharat Ratna awarded posthumously (1997)
    • British arrested nearly 1 lakh people within weeks

  7. Revolutionary Stream

    • Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru executed 23 March 1931 for assassination of British officer Saunders — avenging Lala Lajpat Rai's death
    • Chandrashekhar Azad died 27 February 1931 at Alfred Park, Allahabad — shot himself rather than surrender
    • Subhas Chandra Bose founded the Indian National Army (INA/Azad Hind Fauj) in 1943 with slogans "Jai Hind" and "Delhi Chalo"

  8. Women in the National Movement

    • Sarojini Naidu: first Indian woman INC president (1925); "Nightingale of India"
    • Kasturba Gandhi: led satyagrahas in Gandhi's absence; died in detention (22 February 1944)
    • Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit: first woman to preside over UN General Assembly (1953)
    • Annie Besant: founded Home Rule League (1916); INC president 1917 — first woman president

  9. Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945)

    • Two-time INC President: Haripura (1938) and Tripuri (1939); resigned after conflict with Gandhi
    • Formed Forward Bloc (1939); escaped house arrest, reached Germany (1941), then Japan (1943)
    • Revived INA; launched "Azad Hind" government in Singapore (21 October 1943)
    • Died in a plane crash in Taiwan (18 August 1945)

  10. Partition and Independence

    • Indian Independence Act passed by British Parliament on 18 July 1947
    • India became independent on 15 August 1947 with Jawaharlal Nehru as Prime Minister
    • Pakistan (West Pakistan + East Pakistan) came into being simultaneously
    • Partition caused one of history's largest migrations — approximately 14–17 million displaced and an estimated 1–2 million deaths

  11. Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (13 April 1919)

    • Brigadier General Dyer ordered firing on an unarmed gathering at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar — without warning
    • Official figures: 379 killed, 1,200 wounded; INC estimate: 1,000+ killed
    • Tagore returned his knighthood in protest; Gandhi committed fully to non-cooperation
    • Turning point that brought Gandhi to the forefront of the national movement

  12. Khilafat Movement (1919–24)

    • Led by Ali Brothers — Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali — to protest British interference with the Ottoman Caliphate
    • Indian Muslims revered the Ottoman Khalifa as the spiritual head of Islam
    • Gandhi merged the Khilafat issue with the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920) to achieve unprecedented Hindu-Muslim unity
    • One of the few moments of genuine communal solidarity in the independence movement