History Quiz: The Gandhian Era – I (Till Simon Commission) | 26 May, 2021

In line with the government policy contained in Montagu’s statement of August 1917, the government announced further constitutional reforms in July 1918, known as Montagu-Chelmsford or Mont-ford Reforms. Based on these, the Government of India Act, 1919 was enacted.

The main features of the Montford Reforms were as follows:

• The Act introduced dyarchy for the executive at the level of the provincial government.
• Subjects were divided into two lists: ‘reserved’ which included subjects such as law and order, finance, land revenue, irrigation, etc., and ‘transferred’ subjects such as education, health, local government, industry, agriculture, excise, etc.

• In case of failure of constitutional machinery in the province the governor could take over the administration of transferred subjects also.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

A bicameral arrangement was introduced. The lower house or Central Legislative Assembly would consist of 145 members (41 nominated and 104 elected— 52 General, 30 Muslims, 2 Sikhs, 20 Special) and the upper house or Council of State would have 60 members, of which 26 were to be nominated and 34 elected—20 General, 10 Muslims, 3 Europeans and 1 Sikh.

• The Council of State had tenure of 5 years and had only male members, while the Central Legislative Assembly had tenure of 3 years.

• The legislators could ask questions and supplementary, pass adjournment motions and vote a part of the budget, but 75 per cent of the budget was still not votable.
• Some Indians found their way into important committees including finance.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

Gandhi relied on sending petitions and memorials to the authorities in South Africa and in Britain hoping that once the authorities were informed of the plight of Indians, they would take sincere steps to redress their grievances as the Indians were, after all, British subjects.

To unite different sections of Indians, he set up the Natal Indian Congress and started a paper Indian Opinion.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

Gandhi was requested by Rajkumar Shukla, a local man, to look into the problems of the farmers in context of indigo planters of Champaran in Bihar.

The European planters had been forcing the peasants to grow indigo on 3/20 part of the total land (called tinkathia system).

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

In March 1918, Gandhi intervened in a dispute between cotton mill owners of Ahmedabad and the workers over the issue of discontinuation of the plague bonus.

• The relations between the workers and the mill owners worsened with the striking workers being arbitrarily dismissed and the mill owners deciding to bring in weavers from Bombay.
• The workers of the mill turned to Anusuya Sarabhai for help in fighting for justice.
• Anusuya Sarabhai was a social worker who was also the sister of Ambalal Sarabhai, one of the mill owners and the president of the Ahmedabad Mill Owners Association (founded in 1891 to develop the textile industry in Ahmedabad), for help in fighting for justice.
• Anusuya Behn went to Gandhi, who was respected by the mill owners and workers, and asked him to intervene and help resolve the impasse between the workers and the employers.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

On April 9, two nationalist leaders, Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr Satyapal, were arrested by the British officials without any provocation except that they had addressed protest meetings, and taken to some unknown destination.

• This caused resentment among the Indian protestors who came out in thousands on April 10 to show their solidarity with their leaders.
• On Baisakhi day, a large crowd of people mostly from neighboring villages, unaware of the prohibitory orders in the city, gathered in the Jallianwala Bagh, a popular place for public events, to celebrate the Baisakhi festival.

• Local leaders had also called for a protest meeting at the venue. It is not clear how many in the 20,000 odd people collected there were political protestors, but the majority were those who had collected for the festival.
• The troops surrounded the gathering under orders from General Dyer and blocked the only exit point and opened fire on the unarmed crowd.
• No warning was issued; no instruction to disperse was given. An unarmed gathering of men, women and children was fired upon as they tried to flee.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

The Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, ordered that a committee of inquiry be formed to investigate the matter.

• So, on October 14, 1919, the Government of India announced the formation of the Disorders Inquiry Committee, which came to be more widely and variously known as the Hunter Committee/Commission after the name of chairman, Lord William Hunter, former Solicitor-General for Scotland and Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland.
• The purpose of the commission was to “investigate the recent disturbances in Bombay, Delhi and Punjab, about their causes, and the measures taken to cope with them”.
• There were three Indians among the members, namely, Sir Chimanlal Harilal Setalvad, Vice-Chancellor of Bombay University and advocate of the Bombay High Court;
• Pandit Jagat Narayan, lawyer and Member of the Legislative Council of the United Provinces; and Sardar Sahibzada Sultan Ahmad Khan, lawyer from Gwalior State.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

September 1920, at a special session in Calcutta, the Congress approved a non-cooperation programme till the Punjab and Khilafat wrongs were removed and swaraj was established. The programme was to include—

• boycott of government schools and colleges;
• boycott of law courts and dispensation of justice through panchayats instead;
• boycott of legislative councils;
• boycott of foreign cloth and use of khadi instead; also practice of hand-spinning to be done;

• Renunciation of government honours and titles; the second phase could include mass civil disobedience including resignation from government service, and non-payment of taxes.
• During the movement, the participants were supposed to work for Hindu-Muslim unity and for removal of untouchability, all the time remaining non-violent.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

December 1920, at the Nagpur session of the Indian National Congress—

• Some important organisational changes were made: a congress working committee (CWC) of 15 members was set up to lead the Congress from now onwards;
• Provincial congress committees on linguistic basis were organised;
• ward committees were organised; and entry fee was reduced to four annas.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.

Montagu report of 1918 was made public; there was a divide in the Congress over it. The moderates welcomed it while the extremists opposed it.

• This led to a schism in the Congress with moderate leaders forming the “Indian National Liberal Federation” in 1919.
• The party (INLF) was founded by Surendra Nath Banarjea and some of its prominent leaders wereTej Bahadur Sapru,S. Srinivasa Sastri and M. R. Jayakar.

Source: Spectrum Modern India.