Constitutionalism to mass Satyagraha
Nation, Nationalism & the Nation-State
A nation is a historical, not natural or eternal, unit. Older bonds were kinship, locality, clan, caste, tribe, religion; modern nations are large, anonymous communities whose members never meet yet imagine one collective.
- Benedict Anderson → nations are “imagined communities”.
- Eric Hobsbawm → “invented traditions”: modern nationalism creates / reshapes tradition for political ends.
- Walker Connor → the nation is “intangible, psychological” — hence a shadowy, illusive idea.
Three definitions to carry into the exam
| Scholar | Basis of the nation | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Ernest Renan | Rejects race / biology / geography. Nation rests on will, memory, consciousness, shared historical experience — a “daily plebiscite” in spirit. | Too inclusive: many non-national groups share memory & will. |
| Joseph Stalin | Historically constituted, stable community with common language, territory, economic life & psychological make-up in a common culture. | Too narrow: many real nations lack one or more of these. |
| Ernest Gellner | Two bases — culture (shared culture) or will (mutual recognition). Decisive claim: nations are made by nationalism, not the reverse. | Industrial logic under-explains colonial nationalism. |
“Nations are not something eternal. They have begun; they will end. They will be replaced, in all probability, by a European confederation.”
Ernest Renan
Gellner — nationalism is “a political principle which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.” The nation should have its own representative state; political & national boundaries should match; sovereignty is claimed in the name of the people.
Theories of Nationalism
Spectrum: how old is the nation — ancient sentiment → modern construct. NON-MODERNIST ↔ EVOLUTIONIST ↔ MODERNIST ↔ CULTURAL. A.D. Smith’s ethno-symbolism bridges the antiquity claim and the modernist claim.
| Approach | Scholar | Core claim |
|---|---|---|
| Non-modernist | Naturalist | Nationalism is a natural, inherent human sentiment. Weakness: why did it surge only in modern times? |
| Perennialist | Nations endure across history; ancient tradition justifies present claims. Hobsbawm replies many such traditions are “invented”. | |
| Evolutionist — Anthony D. Smith | Modern nations grow from pre-existing ethnic ties, myths, memories & cultural continuity (ethno-symbolism). Not reducible to industrialisation. | |
| Modernist | Elie Kedourie | Nationalism is a doctrine invented in early 19th-century Europe — ideological, not structural. |
| Ernest Gellner | Nationalism is a child of industrial society: it needs standardised language, mass education, mobile labour, common culture — supplied by the state. Limit: weak for non-industrial colonies. | |
| Tom Nairn | Nationalism tracks uneven capitalist development (core vs periphery). In colonies it is a response to imperial domination — explains Asia/Africa better. | |
| Cultural | Herder, Humboldt | Nation = a cultural-linguistic community; language shapes thought; not a mere contract. Limit: can turn exclusionary / ethnic. |
“there is only one class in the state, the volk, and the King belongs to this class as well as the peasant.”
Johann Gottfried Herder
Assessment. No single theory fits all. In Europe → industrialisation & state-building; in colonies → imperial domination & uneven development; in India → anti-colonial struggle, civilisational memory, cultural reform, economic critique, the caste question and democratic politics together shaped nationalism.
Indian Nationalism — Colonial Denial & the Nationalist Reply
Colonial denial of Indian nationhood
Argument: India is fragmented by caste, religion, region, tribe, language; British rule is needed to hold it together; the Congress is only a thin middle-class agitation. Voiced by James Mill, Elphinstone, Elliot, Dowson, W.W. Hunter, H.H. Risley, V.A. Smith, Valentine Chirol — sharpest in:
“there is not and never was an India … no Indian nation, no ‘people of India’, of which we hear so much.”
John Strachey
“India is not a political name, but only a geographical expression like Europe or Africa … the territories of many nations and many languages.”
Sir John Robert Seeley
The nationalist reply — two registers
| “Nation-in-the-making” (modernist) | “Ancient unity” (cultural) | Synthesis |
|---|---|---|
| Surendranath Banerjea: India a “nation-in-the-making”, built by political education & reform. R.C. Majumdar: Congress later gave reality to unity. Tara Chand: nationhood a recent product of economic / political change. | Radha Kumud Mookerji: fundamental geographical & cultural unity since early times. Har Bilas Sarda, Lala Lajpat Rai: ancient nationhood. K.P. Jayaswal (Hindu Polity): ancient republics, parliaments, supremacy of law. | Tagore: assimilative civilisation, unity by absorption. Subhas Chandra Bose: “fundamental unity” amid diversity. Nehru: “unity in diversity”, held by invisible cultural threads. |
“fundamentally India has been a nation for the last 2,000 years.”
Lala Lajpat Rai
Distinctive features of Indian nationalism
Territorial, not ethnic/religious · Plural — accepts diversity · Anti-imperialist · Civil & non-coercive · Novel, not eternal-nation claim · Mass-based over time
Two-Nation Theory & Partition
Muhammad Ali Jinnah did not invent separatism but converted it into a political doctrine of self-determination — Muslims as a nation, not a minority. India’s constitutional answer: secular citizenship.
“Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies … they belong to two different civilisations.”
M.A. Jinnah, Lahore address
| Scholar | Reading of Jinnah / Lahore (1940) |
|---|---|
| Stanley Wolpert | Few alter history, fewer the map, hardly anyone creates a nation-state — Jinnah did all three. |
| Ayesha Jalal | Lahore Resolution as a bargaining counter — acceptable to majority-province Muslims, unacceptable to Congress. |
| Venkat Dhulipala | Pakistan imagined as a “New Medina” — an Islamic state, not merely a refuge. |
Rise of Indian Nationalism
Many tributaries → an organised national platform → mass politics. 1857 & popular revolts · Post-1857 agrarian unrest · Western education · Vernacular press · Political associations · Repressive measures → INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS, 1885 → Mass movement.
The Great Revolt of 1857
More than a military outbreak, less than modern nationalism — but a lasting memory of resistance. Participants: sepoys, dispossessed princes, landed aristocracy, artisans, peasants.
| Scholar | View of 1857 |
|---|---|
| John Seeley | A sepoy mutiny, without full popular / national character. |
| K. Datta | Mainly a military outbreak used by princes & landlords. |
| R.C. Majumdar | Neither first, nor national, nor a war of independence. |
| C.A. Bayly | Diverse motives; rebels had no modern idea of an Indian nation. |
| V.D. Savarkar | The nationalist reading: The Indian War of Independence, 1857. |
| S.N. Sen | Began as mutiny, ended as a war of independence. |
| Thomas Metcalf | “something more than a sepoy mutiny but something less than a national revolt.” |
| S.B. Chaudhari | “a real approach to the freedom movement of later age.” |
Post-1857 agrarian unrest
- Indigo Revolt, 1859–60 — resistance to forced indigo; Dinabandhu Mitra‘s Neel Darpan exposed it.
- Pabna Agrarian League, 1873 — against zamindari oppression → Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885.
- Deccan Riots, 1875 — attacks on moneylenders’ bonds → Deccan Agriculturists’ Relief Act, 1879.
Educated sympathisers: Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, R.C. Dutt, Surendranath Banerjea — rural grievance entered public debate.
Western education, press & associations
Macaulay & Charles Wood wanted a loyal clerical class; the new intelligentsia instead absorbed liberal ideas, then turned critical of racial exclusion & the economic drain. Vernacular press — Bengalee, Amrita Bazar Patrika, Kesari, Mahratta, The Hindu, Tribune — built public opinion (Rev. James Long on its reach via kathaks).
| Early associations | Maturing associations |
|---|---|
| British Indian Association, 1851; Bombay Association, 1852; Madras Native Association, 1852. | Indian Association, 1876 (S. Banerjea); Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, 1870 (M.G. Ranade); Bombay Presidency Association, 1885 (Pherozeshah Mehta, Badruddin Tyabji, K.T. Telang); Madras Mahajana Sabha, 1884. |
Indian National Congress, 1885
Dec 1885, Bombay · 72 delegates · President W.C. Bonnerjee · organised with A.O. Hume. Aims: legislative reform, Indian participation, political unity, removal of racial / religious / provincial prejudice. Early limits: petitions, narrow base.
| Historian | On the early Congress |
|---|---|
| Anil Seal | Local interests & elite competition. |
| C.A. Bayly | Local politics mattered more than the all-India Congress. |
| John R. McLane | Leaders held a sincere nationalist vision. |
| Bipan Chandra | The organised beginning of anti-colonial ideology. |
Intellectual Resistance to Colonialism
Bhikhu Parekh classifies Indian responses into four:
Traditionalists — defend inherited tradition · Modernists — adopt Western ideas/tech · Critical Traditionalists — indigenous core + select Western · Critical Modernists — indigenous culture + European rationality
- Anthony Giddens reads modernity as human transformation of the world + industrial / market economy + nation-state & mass democracy.
- Homi K. Bhabha — colonial mimicry: the colonised imitate, remaining “almost the same, but not quite”; slippage & ambivalence let imitation become resistance.
- Indian instances: Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (Western reason, orthodox life); M.G. Ranade — foreign ideas grow only when grafted on indigenous roots.
Rationalism, universalism & incipient nationalism
Rammohan Roy (monotheism, universal ethics) · Akshay Kumar Dutt (rationalism) · Derozio (questioning) · Dayanand Saraswati (Vedas through reason; an oppressive indigenous ruler preferable to a benevolent foreign one) · Lokhitwadi · Keshub Chandra Sen · Swami Vivekananda (spiritual nationalism, collective salvation).
Limits. Confined to the educated middle class; caste hierarchy & patriarchy persisted; the emotional pull of tradition capped reform; revivalist symbols sometimes excluded minorities.
Moderates → Extremists → Revolutionaries
The arc of strategy — petition → mass agitation → armed challenge → mass Satyagraha. MODERATE 1885–1905 → EXTREMIST / SWADESHI 1905– → REVOLUTIONARY armed action → GANDHIAN mass phase → Independence, 1947.
6.1 Moderate nationalism & constitutionalism (1885–1905)
Leaders: Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Surendranath Banerjea, M.G. Ranade, Pherozeshah Mehta. Method: the 3 P’s — petitions, prayers, memorials — plus speeches, resolutions, council work, appeals to British liberal opinion. Naoroji: the British are justice-loving; demands must be shown reasonable. Ranade: British rule as historical preparation. Gokhale: conditions not yet ripe for direct action.
| Defence | Achievement | Contemporary criticism |
|---|---|---|
| Bipan Chandra: Moderates laid the constitutional foundation; not mere submissiveness — they exposed colonial injustice. Shekhar Bandyopadhyay: fused Western constitutionalism with indigenous democratic imagination. | Built a political language; produced the drain theory; decolonised educated minds; prepared the militant & Gandhian phases. | Tilak: constitutional method before an alien bureaucracy is “political suicide”. Sri Aurobindo: it reflected “intellectual bankruptcy”. Nehru: it cannot work where there is no constitutional government. |
6.2 Extremist / militant nationalism & Swadeshi
Triggers: failure of moderate methods, Curzon‘s repression, economic distress, the Partition of Bengal (announced 19 Jul 1905, implemented 16 Oct 1905 — ostensibly efficiency, actually to split the bhadralok and divide Hindus & Muslims). Leaders: Bal Gangadhar Tilak (Maharashtra), Bipin Chandra Pal (Bengal), Lala Lajpat Rai (Punjab), Sri Aurobindo. Programme: Swaraj, boycott, Swadeshi, national education, passive resistance; Ganapati & Shivaji festivals as mobilisation.
“Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it.”
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Sri Aurobindo in New Lamps for Old dismissed moderate politics as “political mendicancy”.
Swadeshi — Sumit Sarkar’s four trends
Moderate · Constructive Swadeshi · Political extremism · Revolutionary nationalism
Institutions: Bengal Chemicals; Bengal National College, 1906; Satish Chandra Mukherjee‘s Dawn Society; Tagore‘s Shantiniketan. Idiom: Atma-Shakti (Tagore, Swadeshi Samaj, 1904), Sakta imagery, Vivekananda’s “alternative manliness”. Limits: weak Muslim & lower-caste (Rajbanshi, Namasudra) participation; costlier Swadeshi goods; social coercion in boycott; the Surat Split, 1907.
| Dimension | Moderates | Extremists |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Gradual reform, representation, later Home Rule. | Swaraj, demanded more directly. |
| View of British | Trusted British liberalism / goodwill. | Rejected benevolence; rule shown as exploitative. |
| Means | Petitions, prayers, memorials, constitutional agitation. | Boycott, Swadeshi, national education, passive resistance, mass mobilisation. |
| Signature | Naoroji — communicate reasonable demands. | Tilak — “Swaraj is my birthright…”. |
| Contribution | Drain theory, ideological critique. | Emotional, cultural & mass energy. |
Bipan Chandra: both phases were necessary predecessors of Gandhi’s struggle–truce–struggle strategy.
6.3 Revolutionary nationalism
Influences. Internal: Bankim Chandra‘s Anandamath / “Vande Mataram”, Vivekananda‘s Shakti, Tilak‘s Gita, Aurobindo. External: American, Irish & Italian struggles, Mazzini & Garibaldi, Japan’s 1905 win, the 1917 Russian Revolution.
| Region | Bodies & figures | Early actions |
|---|---|---|
| Maharashtra | Chapekar Brothers; V.D. Savarkar; Mitra Mela, 1900; Abhinav Bharat, 1904 (Mazzini’s Young Italy). | Assassinations; ideological groundwork. |
| Bengal | Anushilan Samiti; Jugantar; Pramathanath Mitra; Barindra Kumar Ghosh; Bhupendranath Datta. | Rangpur dacoity, 1906; Muzaffarpur attack (Khudiram Bose & Prafulla Chaki); Manicktala / Alipore case — C.R. Das defended Aurobindo, acquitted. |
Tilak: the bomb had changed Indian politics.
Ghadar & international links
Ghadar Movement (USA, 1913): Lala Hardayal‘s paper Ghadar; aim — overthrow British rule, a Panchayat-Raj / republican state; Barkatullah Khan built Asian branches; Raja Mahendra Pratap‘s Kabul provisional government. The Komagata Maru incident & WWI sharpened revolutionary feeling.
HRA → HSRA
| Body | Figures & goal | Landmark |
|---|---|---|
| HRA, 1924 | Sachindranath Sanyal, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan, Chandrashekhar Azad. Goal: Federated Republic of the United States of India; organise workers & peasants. | Manifesto The Revolutionary, 1 Jan 1925; Kakori, 1925 — four hanged. |
| HSRA, 1928 | Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Shiv Verma, Azad. Ideology: socialism, secularism, anti-communalism, classless society; Naujawan Bharat Sabha (Lahore). | Saunders, Dec 1928; Assembly bomb, 8 Apr 1929 (“make the deaf hear”, Inquilab Zindabad); Jatin Das’s 63-day fast; Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev hanged 23 Mar 1931. |
“Chaos is necessary to the birth of a new star.”
HRA manifesto, The Revolutionary, 1925
Chittagong & women revolutionaries
Chittagong Armoury Raid, 18 Apr 1930 — Surya Sen (“Master Da”) seized armouries, declared a provisional government; hanged 12 Jan 1934. Women: Pritilata Waddedar, Kalpana Dutt, Shanti Ghosh, Suniti Chaudhury — challenging gender roles, widening the movement’s moral appeal.
Assessment. Shattered the myth of British invincibility, inspired youth, kept complete independence alive in passive phases, linked nationalism with socialism & secularism, internationalised the struggle, produced martyrdom as political memory. Limits: secretive, urban middle-class, thin mass base; individual heroism could not replace mass movement.
“INA was to become a much more powerful enemy of the British empire in defeat than it had been during its … triumphal march on Delhi.”
Christopher Alan Bayly
First World War & Nationalist Politics
War impact: heavier taxation (super-tax, 1917), price rise, food exports, crop failures, falling real wages, strikes, forced recruitment. Nationalist miscalculation: many backed the war expecting self-government; the empire fought to preserve itself.
Home Rule Movement
Two leagues — Annie Besant‘s (Madras base, all-India reach; paper New India) & Tilak‘s (Marathi-speaking areas). Membership ~60,000 by 1917; Besant’s internment provoked wide protest; she became Congress President, 1917. Peter Robb: government was internally divided on handling it.
Lucknow Pact, 1916
Congress–League cooperation; Moderates & Extremists reunited. Congress accepted separate electorates; Muslim representation protected. The high point of Hindu–Muslim cooperation — but separate electorates later deepened communal logic.
Rowlatt Satyagraha & Jallianwala Bagh
Rowlatt Act, 1919 — detention without trial; Gandhi’s Satyagraha Sabha called the nationwide hartal of 6 Apr 1919. Jallianwala Bagh, 13 Apr 1919 — General Dyer‘s firing; official figures 379 killed, 1,200 injured; Tagore renounced his Knighthood. Effect: Gandhi emerges as all-India leader; nationalism turns mass-oriented.
Mahatma Gandhi & Mass Nationalism
South Africa (1893–1914): Pietermaritzburg humiliation → Natal Indian Congress, 1894; Indian Opinion, 1903; Phoenix Settlement; first Satyagraha, 1906 (Asiatic Registration Act). Influences: Tolstoy, Ruskin (Unto This Last), Thoreau (Civil Disobedience), Emerson, Carlyle, and Hindu–Jain–Buddhist–Bhakti traditions.
The Gandhian chain: ethical means → political end. SATYA — truth + AHIMSA — active non-violence → SATYAGRAHA — soul-force → SWARAJ — self-rule.
Hind Swaraj, 1909 — Editor–Reader dialogue; critique of modern civilisation; moral regeneration & non-cooperation. A.L. Basham: concepts rooted in Indian tradition, Western ideas only sharpened them. Thomas Pantham: integral democracy — freedom linked to ethical life. Anthony Parel: Swaraj fuses national independence, freedom from poverty, individual liberty & spiritual self-rule.
“Swaraj … without Swadeshi is a lifeless corpse; Swadeshi is the soul of Swaraj.”
M.K. Gandhi
Champaran · Kheda · Ahmedabad (1917–18)
| Struggle | Issue & result | Scholar note |
|---|---|---|
| Champaran, 1917 | Tinkathia indigo system; Raj Kumar Shukla invited Gandhi → Champaran Agrarian Act, 1918. | Jacques Pouchepadass: peasants were active agents. Judith Brown: Gandhi worked through local intermediaries. |
| Kheda, 1918 | Drought / plague; demand for revenue remission (Vallabhbhai Patel joins). | David Hardiman: no clear victor, but Gandhi gained a political base. |
| Ahmedabad, 1918 | Mill strike; arbitration → 35% rise; Gandhi’s first hunger strike. | Sumit Sarkar: success rested on personal ties, not easily repeatable. |
The three mass movements
| Movement | Form | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Cooperation 1920–22 (Nagpur) | Surrender titles; boycott schools, courts, foreign goods; khadi; Hindu–Muslim unity (Khilafat); anti-untouchability. | A.R. Desai: first mass basis. Anil Seal: “in many respects a debacle”. Withdrawn after Chauri Chaura, 1922. |
| Civil Disobedience 1930 | Dandi March (12 Mar–6 Apr 1930, 78 followers, 240 miles); salt as universal symbol; no-rent / no-revenue; Sholapur parallel government. | Bipan Chandra: tactical retreat at Gandhi–Irwin Pact, 5 Mar 1931. Judith Brown: strategic move to preserve unity. |
| Quit India 1942 | AICC, 8 Aug 1942; leaders jailed at once; sabotage, strikes, parallel governments — least controlled phase. | Francis Hutchins: unfinished revolution. Gyanendra Pandey: appropriation of Gandhian symbols. |
CDM & capital — the debate: R.J. Moore & Sumit Sarkar (business pressure), Claude Markovits (uneasy alliance), Basudev Chatterjee, David Hardiman (receptive, not a puppet), Anil Seal (bourgeoisie not monolithic).
Quit India regional patterns: Ballia & JP Narayan / Lohia underground (Bihar); Tamralipta Jatiya Sarkar & Matangini Hazra (Bengal); Satara Prati Sarkar with a bahujan base (Gail Omvedt). Madhushree Mukerjee: war policy & the Bengal famine deepened anger. Critics: Ambedkar, M.N. Roy, Hindu Mahasabha, Muslim League, Rajagopalachari.
“a post-dated cheque upon a falling bank”
M.K. Gandhi, on the Cripps offer
“Here is a mantra … The mantra is: ‘Do or Die’.”
M.K. Gandhi, Quit India, 1942
Satyagraha as Strategy
Satyagraha = Satya (truth) + Agraha (firm insistence) — truth-force, soul-force, love-force. Not passive submission: disciplined non-cooperation with injustice, joined to self-suffering, moral courage & openness to settlement. Gandhi read the colonial state as semi-authoritarian — resting on force and consent (titles, courts, councils, education, finance, opinion).
“Non-cooperation and Civil Disobedience are but different branches of the same tree called Satyagraha … It excludes all violence or hate.”
M.K. Gandhi, Young India, 1924
Struggle – Truce – Struggle: both phases expand the movement’s hold on the people. STRUGGLE — war of manoeuvre ↔ TRUCE — war of position → builds hegemony / consent → capture of state power.
Gramscian reading. Antonio Gramsci distinguished the war of manoeuvre (frontal assault) from the war of position (long fight for hegemony through institutions & consent) — “no state ruled by naked force alone.” Bipan Chandra reads the Congress strategy as exactly this: a counter-hegemonic, struggle–truce–struggle politics aimed at wresting state power. Gramsci himself wrote of Gandhi’s passive resistance as a war of position that “at certain moments becomes a war of movement.”
| Scholar | Verdict on Gandhian strategy |
|---|---|
| Bhikhu Parekh | “a radical tool to overcome social antagonism.” |
| Bipan Chandra | Gandhi had “deep insight into the psychology of the masses.” |
| Arnold Toynbee | Made it impossible for Britain to rule — yet possible to leave “without rancour and without dishonour.” |
| M.N. Roy & B.R. Ambedkar | Critics: Gandhian method restrained more radical social transformation. |
What UPSC has asked
Ten years of PSIR Mains questions, each with the flow snapshot and the model answer.
Open the PYQ Finder →How this is taught
The same ground, taught in the order the subject holds together, with the answer written in class.
The first session of Foundation 2027 is published in full.
Six programmes across three levels.