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C H A P T E R
14
Nationalist Struggles in
India and Southeast Asia
World War I greatly accelerated the movement for self-government in India and
Southeast Asia. Before 1914 most nationalist movements of the area merely sought
participation in the colonial government; by the late 1920s many would be satisfied
only with independence. Because of India’s dominance and leadership in Asia’s struggle for independence, this chapter focuses on the subcontinent.
INDIA
INDIAN
CONTRIBUTIONS
TO WORLD WAR I
204
India during World War I
India was loyal to Great Britain throughout World War I because most Indians realized that the Allies were more liberal and democratic than the Central Powers. The
Indian press was nearly unanimous in supporting the British war effort. India contributed substantially to the Allied war cause: 800,000 soldiers went to Europe and
the Middle East, 500,000 noncombatant laborers worked in factories and mines in
Europe, and many Indians made monetary contributions and war loans. In return,
Great Britain appointed more Indians to high government positions, and an Indian
delegation participated in postwar peace negotiations.
In August 1917 the British government for the first time proclaimed its goal to
be self-government for India within the British Commonwealth, to be implemented
in stages. Toward its eventual realization, the British Parliament passed the Government
of India Act in 1919. By this act, an electorate of middle-class voters was permitted
to elect representatives to provincial assemblies in which the party with a majority
formed a government that controlled a number of departments of the provincial
administration. However, public security and the provincial budget remained under
the control of the British-appointed governor and his nonelected advisers. This system
of sharing power in the provinces between appointed officers and the elected Indian
representatives was called dyarchy. In the central government, a British-appointed
viceroy retained supreme power and appointed a cabinet of Britons and Indians
to assist him in the administration. The national assembly of elected Indian representatives could only advise the viceroy. At the insistence of Muslims, separate electorates, whereby Muslims and Hindus elected their separate representatives, were
continued. The act of 1919 was intended to remain in effect for 10 years, after which
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Chapter 14 Nationalist Struggles in India and Southeast Asia
there would be evaluation for changes. Indian moderates welcomed these reforms,
but radicals denounced them as inadequate. Because of the worldwide demand for
women’s suffrage and British women’s enfranchisement after World War I, Indian
women also won the right to vote on the same terms as men (based on literacy and
property qualifications, as in the Morley-Minto Reforms, but liberalized) in 1925.
In 1918 a government commission recommended legislation empowering provincial governments to jail suspected political subversives without trial and to try political
cases without a jury. When the recommendations were enacted into law, known as the
Rowlatt Act, Indian nationalists were outraged. The Indian National Congress launched
public meetings to protest the law. The protests turned violent in Punjab province, where
a mob murdered four Europeans in the city Amritsar. Shortly after this incident, about
10,000 people, without official permission, gathered in a large, enclosed square in
Amritsar for a meeting. Without warning, the British commanding general in the city
ordered troops to fire on the assembled crowd. The official estimate of casualties was
379 killed and over 1,200 wounded. The Amritsar Massacre crystallized anti-British feelings and became a rallying point for the Indian independence movement.
The Rise of Gandhi
Mohandas K. Gandhi was commonly called Mahatma (“Great Soul,” or “Holy One”) by
his followers. He was born in 1869 of prosperous, devout Hindu parents and studied
law in Britain. During the four years Gandhi lived in London his mind was opened to
Hindu scriptures as well as Christian, Buddhist, and Muslim teachings, and in addition
to works of nineteenth-century European writers such as Leo Tolstoy and Henry Thoreau.
After a brief, unsuccessful attempt to practice law in India, he took his family to South
Africa to represent some Indian clients. He quickly gained a reputation there as a
champion of Indian immigrant workers against white South African bigotry and discrimination. He perfected techniques of peaceful protest demonstrations and called his
nonviolent movement Satyagraha (truth force). He taught his followers the tactic of noncooperation to protest unjust laws. Gandhi returned to India in 1915 after organizing an
ambulance corps of Indian residents in Britain to serve with British troops at the front.
The immediate postwar years were disturbing ones in India. Severe economic
problems were associated with demobilization. There was also widespread dissatisfaction with the slow pace of political reform and outrage over the Rowlatt Act, considered humiliating to Indians, and the Amritsar Massacre during which many peaceful
protesters were shot down. Many Indian Muslims, already uneasy when the Ottoman
Empire joined the Central Powers against Britain in World War I, resented its dismantling at the Paris Peace Conference. They organized a pan-Islamic Khalifat movement to support the authority of the Ottoman emperor as the caliph (leader) of
Islam. The movement collapsed when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ended the Ottoman
Empire and created a secular Republic of Turkey (see Chapter 15).
In 1921 the Indian National Congress gave Gandhi sole executive authority. He
immediately declared Congress support for the Khalifat movement and launched a
campaign of civil disobedience against British rule. His ideas were simple. He argued
that since fewer than 200,000 Britons ruled 400 million Indians, the maintenance of
205
INDIA’S ELECTED
ASSEMBLIES GAIN
GREATER POWERS
M. K. GANDHI
DEVELOPS
NONVIOLENT TACTICS
GANDHI LEADS INDIAN
NATIONAL CONGRESS
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B
I O G R A P H Y
A New Weapon in the Struggle for Freedom
News was received that the Rowlatt Bill had
been published as an Act. That night I fell
asleep while thinking over the question. Towards the small hours of the morning I woke
up somewhat earlier than usual. I was still in
that twilight condition between sleep and consciousness when suddenly the idea broke upon
me—it was as if in a dream. Early in the morning I related the whole story to Rajagopalachari
[an Indian National Congress leader].
The idea came to me last night in a
dream that we should call upon the country
to observe a general hartal. Satyagraha is a
process of self-purification, and ours is a sacred fight, and it seems to me to be the fitness
of things that it should be commenced with
an act of self-purification. Let all the people
of India, therefore, suspend their business on
that day and observe the day as one of fasting
and prayer. The Musalmans [Muslims] may
not fast for more than one day; so the duration of the fast should be 24 hours. . . .
Rajagopalachari was at once taken
up with my suggestion. Other friends too
welcomed it. . . . I drafted a brief appeal. The
date of the hartal was first fixed on the 30th
March 1919, but was subsequently changed
to 6th April. . . . The whole of India from one
end to the other, towns as well as villages, observed a complete hartal on that day. It was a
most wonderful experience.*
…
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948), a Britisheducated lawyer, became a leader of the Indian
National Congress during World War I. He was
responsible for changing its direction into a mass
movement by such actions as the hartal described
here. A hartal is a strike with a moral purpose,
accompanied by fasting. Gandhi first employed it
as a protest against the British-imposed Rowlatt
Act, which cracked down on Indian protests. He
won worldwide respect for his saintly lifestyle but
was resented by some Indians for his moral scruples. He was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic
soon after India won independence.
*From The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mohandas
K. Gandhi. Copyright © 1927 by Viking Penguin Company.
Reprinted by permission of Navajian Trust.
British authority had to be based on Indian cooperation. Consequently, if Indians
withdrew their cooperation, British rule could not continue. Despite his uppermiddle-class upbringing, Gandhi also realized that the nationalist movement, previously mostly middle class, must be expanded to include the masses, transcend caste
lines, and unite Hindus and Muslims. Toward this end, he visited villages throughout India, traveling by foot or riding in fourth-class trains, dressed in simple homespun garb that he made. He preached his message in simple terms and taught
the goal of national unity and the tactics of nonviolence to ordinary people. He
persuaded the Indian National Congress to lower its membership dues to a nominal
sum to attract poor members and to publish its messages in Indian languages as well
as in English.
Women became politically active during this period. In 1926 the All-India
Women’s Conference was established; it later became an unofficial auxiliary of the
Congress. Thousands of women came out of the seclusion of their homes to join
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Chapter 14 Nationalist Struggles in India and Southeast Asia
A protest march organized by the Indian National Congress against the British in 1928.
Gandhi’s demonstrations. The most famous woman activist was Sarojini Naidu, a poet
dubbed “India’s nightingale.” Later she became India’s first woman provincial governor.
Gandhi was not only interested in driving out the British. He also crusaded in
favor of social reform to rid Hindu society of customs that oppressed and victimized
women and certain social classes. He spoke eloquently against child marriage, especially for women, the prohibition against widow remarriage, and, above all, the oppression of the untouchables. He spoke of independence as something one must deserve
and implied that Hindus did not deserve self-rule when they oppressed whole categories of their own people. He renamed the untouchables Harijans, which means
“children of God,” to signify their common humanity with other Indians. He founded
a journal named The Harijan, which published his writings, and often insisted that he
be quartered in the untouchable part of a town that he was visiting. In his ashram, or
retreat, he accepted Harijans and made sure that all castes shared in doing unpleasant
menial work, such as sweeping and cleaning toilets, that was the lot of the untouchables throughout Hindu India. He did not believe in legislating social change; rather,
he emphasized changing people’s hearts and minds.
Gandhi mobilized the masses in repeated Satyagraha movements against the
British. He organized peaceful demonstrations and strikes and told Indians to confront police brutality by “offering the other cheek.” Thus, when Indians rioted and
committed violent acts during demonstrations, a disappointed Gandhi would call off
his Satyagraha and go on a fast to atone for the violence. He also fasted to persuade
his British adversaries and his Indian followers to see their error and change their
ways as a result of their own moral awakening. Some Indians did not care about the
means used so long as they achieved their desired end, and they blamed Gandhi’s
moral scruples for delaying the attainment of Indian independence.
GANDHI CHAMPIONS
SOCIAL REFORMS
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THE SALT MARCH
GAINS INTERNATIONAL
ATTENTION
Gandhi and J. Nehru in 1938; both had discarded Western clothes in favor of Indian garb,
Gandhi for homespuns.
Gandhi’s Salt March of 1930 exemplified his method of protest. The government had a monopoly on the manufacture and sale of salt and taxed it for revenue.
Gandhi chose to protest the salt tax as a burden on the poor and as a symbol of
British laws that violated Indian civil rights. In March 1930 Gandhi led 78 followers
on the Great Salt March. In a well-publicized media event, they slowly walked 200
miles to the seacoast. Daily, thousands turned out to cheer them on, and some joined
the march. When he reached the coast, Gandhi waded into the water and drew out
a pitcherful, which he boiled to extract the salt. In so doing, he symbolically defied
the salt monopoly and the salt tax law. Indians responded with a general strike and
with Swadeshi, a movement to boycott British manufactured goods, especially British
woven cotton textiles, and to replace them with Indian homespun cotton cloth. The
boycott put many British laborers out of work, thus placing additional pressure on the
government to make concessions. Gandhi and 60,000 of his supporters were arrested,
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Chapter 14 Nationalist Struggles in India and Southeast Asia
but the civil disobedience campaign persisted. Finally the government capitulated.
Gandhi and his supporters were released from jail, the salt tax was reduced, and some
restrictive laws opposed by the Indian National Congress were rescinded.
The campaign showed Gandhi at his most brilliant. A humanitarian, he abhorred
violence; a political realist, he understood that his cause would most benefit by winning the sympathy of world public opinion. He further understood that democratic
Great Britain was sensitive to public opinion at home and abroad, and that the British
government could be forced to make concessions in response to public pressure.
In many ways, Gandhi was a traditionalist—for example, he loved Hindu customs and dreamed of an independent India true to its ancient heritage, one that
turned its back on modern technology and industrial society. Gandhi advocated reviving cottage industries not only to support the Swadeshi movement but also for their
intrinsic economic and social value. For several hours nearly every day, he spun and
wove his own cloth, which he wore exclusively after he gave up wearing Westernstyle clothing. Millions of Indians, of high station and low, also took up the weaving
of homespun cloth, so that the spinning wheel came to symbolize the Indian nationalist movement. At his insistence, the Indian National Congress required its members
to spend a portion of their day working at a handloom. Yet, even in his lifetime, some
of Gandhi’s ideas contradicted the modern trends and aspirations of millions of Indians. Demands of World War I had led to massive growth in India’s industries, from
textiles to iron and steel, and the pattern continued after the war.
The Hindu-Muslim Communal Problem
Gandhi advocated a policy of generosity toward Muslims. He welcomed all, especially
the Muslims, to join the Indian National Congress, which he sought to make into a body
that represented all Indian nationalists. Thus, he disapproved of separate electorates for
Muslims or any other minority or special-interest group. Instead, he suggested that Muslims be given a guaranteed number of representatives on the Congress ticket. In this
effort Gandhi failed, for several reasons. One was that militant Hindus in the Congress
foresaw victory in the elections and refused to set aside a percentage of seats for Muslim representatives. Another was that the Muslims were now largely represented by the
All-India Muslim League led by M. A. Jinnah. League leaders, many of whom were also
British-trained lawyers, objected to Gandhi’s nonconstitutional methods of protest and
did not share his rejection of Western values. Moreover, the League relied on separate
electorates to protect Muslim rights. Thus, any Muslim who joined the Congress was not
recognized by fellow Muslims as a representative of the Muslim community.
As a result, in the rancor that surfaced in the post-1919 election campaigns and
competition for power, the relative communal peace of the war years quickly evaporated. Congress Hindus sought to capture and hold the power their numbers guaranteed to them. On the other hand, Muslims feared the potential tyranny of Hindu
majority rule and demanded safeguards for their rights in any political negotiations.
From the late 1920s on, Great Britain stepped up the timetable for Indian independence in response to Indian demands. However, no proposal the British made was
acceptable to both the Indian National Congress and the All-India Muslim League,
209
GANDHI STRESSES
DIGNITY OF LABOR
HINDUS AND MUSLIMS
FAIL TO REACH ACCORD
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and neither accepted the other’s suggested solutions. Mutual hatred between Hindus
and Muslims (Muslim fear of Hindu numbers and Hindu fear of possible new Muslim
inroads by conversion) came to outweigh hatred for the foreign ruler. In the final
analysis, the inability of Indians to solve their communal problem delayed their attaining self-government.
THE INDIA ACT: LAST
STEP BEFORE FULL
SELF-GOVERNMENT
REFORMS IN DUTCH
EAST INDIES
The India Act of 1935
After several years of intensive consultations with the representatives of different interests, the British government concluded that India should become a federation of
princely states and self-governing provinces. The Government of India Act of 1935
enlarged the electorate to 18 percent of the population, which would elect representatives to both provincial and federal legislatures. Each province was to be entirely
self-governing; the party with a majority of elected representatives would form the
government. The British-appointed provincial governor became largely a figurehead,
except in emergencies, when he could veto actions by the elected government. At the
federal level, the British-appointed viceroy was advised by the Executive Council, chosen from the elected members of the federal legislature. He also had the power of
veto and emergency powers. At the Muslim League’s insistence, separate electorates
were retained for Muslims in all elections. In addition, the India Act provided that
other minorities and special-interest groups such as Christians, Harijans, women,
Europeans, laborers, and landlords would also have their own elected representatives
in every assembly, in seats reserved for them according to a quota system. The more
than 500 princely states were also given representation in the federal legislature based
on their size and population. This act attempted to ensure that all Indians received
representation and had a voice in the government. The federal form of government,
in which each province had broad rights, was an attempt to satisfy Muslim demands
that they should rule themselves in areas where they were a majority.
While the Indian National Congress criticized portions of the act as either insufficient or reactionary, it nevertheless set about to capture as much power as possible
in the elections that the act mandated. Although the Muslim League won majorities
in the few Muslim-dominated provinces in the provincial elections of 1936, the Indian
National Congress captured a majority in all the remaining provinces. Greatly encouraged by its effective organization and vote-getting power, Congress leader Jawaharlal
Nehru bragged, “There are only two parties in the country—the Congress and the
British.” Such statements only aggravated the fears of Muslims over their future in a
Hindu-dominated independent India. The India Act also separated Burma from India
and provided the Burmese with self-government comparable to that of the Indians.
NATIONALIST MOVEMENTS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
In the Dutch East Indies, a Muslim-rooted nationalist movement had been active
since the early twentieth century, but the Dutch government made only slow progress
in accommodation to it. The Dutch-created People’s Council, which began in 1918,
initially had only advisory power. After 1929 half of the Council members were
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Chapter 14 Nationalist Struggles in India and Southeast Asia
elected Indonesians, and all legislation needed its assent. These reforms did not satisfy either the National Indonesian Party, led by Sukarno, or the Indonesian Communist Party. These two parties vied for leadership in the independence movement.
In Indochina, French tactics of combining direct and indirect rule, cultivation
of the native elite, and local ethnic diversity all contributed to retard the nationalist
movement. Among all Indochinese, the Vietnamese offered the greatest resistance to
French rule. The failure of moderate Vietnamese nationalists to persuade the French
to make concessions opened the way for the more extreme elements. Ho Chi Minh
emerged during the interwar years as the most prominent nationalist leader. He went
to France as a young man. In 1921, after failing to gain concessions for Vietnam at
the Paris Peace Conference, Ho helped to organize the French Communist Party. In
1925 he surfaced in Canton, where he worked for Soviet advisers who were then
helping the KMT in China. It was not until 1930 that he drew together various
dissident Vietnamese groups in Hong Kong and formed the Communist Party of
Indochina. Although the French authorities crushed all peasant and nationalist revolts
in Vietnam, they failed to eliminate a growing nationalist movement.
In the Philippines, in contrast, a bicameral legislature of elected representatives
had taken over lawmaking since 1916. Only the governor-general, the vice governors,
and the judges of the supreme court were still appointed from Washington. In 1919
President Wilson promised complete independence, but it took the depression of
1930 to hasten its realization.
Since the Philippines was a U.S. possession, both Filipino products (notably sugar,
tobacco, and coconut oil) and Filipino immigrants could freely enter the United States.
During the depression, U.S. industry, in particular the sugar industry, and U.S. labor
unions agitated in favor of granting independence to the Philippines so that its cheap
products and labor could be shut out of the United States. Others supported Philippine
independence because of the cost of defending it. Thus, in 1934 the U.S. Congress
passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which immediately gave full self-government to the
Philippines, except for control of its foreign policy by Washington for 10 more years.
During that period Washington would also provide protection for the islands. Complete
independence was promised for July 4, 1944.
SUMMARY
Between the two world wars European imperialism was on the retreat and nationalism was on the rise throughout the colonial world in South and Southeast Asia. As
before, India led the way. As a result of Indian contributions in World War I, Britain
agreed to grant India self-government, which it proceeded to implement in the acts
of 1919 and 1935. Sharp disagreements emerged, however, over the timing and over
how Hindus and Muslims would share and divide power in a self-governing India.
Led by Mahatma Gandhi, who applied tactics of nonviolent protest that he had
earlier developed in South Africa to the Indian independence struggle, the Indian
National Congress developed grassroots support but increasingly represented only
Hindu aspirations. The prospect of a Hindu-dominated self-governing India led
Muslims to cling to separate electorates and to follow the All-India Muslim League
FRANCE CRUSHES
PROTESTS IN
INDOCHINA
PHILIPPINES MOVES
TOWARD
INDEPENDENCE
211
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and its president, M. A. Jinnah, as their champions. In elections held in accordance
with the India Act of 1935, the Congress won majorities in Hindu-populated states,
and the League won majorities in Muslim ones.
In comparison, the Dutch East Indies was far behind in its nationalist struggles. In
Indochina, likewise, French authoritarian rule continued supreme after successfully suppressing peasant revolts in 1930. In the same year, however, Ho Chi Minh organized the
Indochinese Communist Party in exile. The U.S.-ruled Philippines was the only colony
in Southeast Asia that made significant progress toward independence, as U.S. policy progressively associated Filipinos in the process of self-government. In 1934 the U.S. Congress passed an act that immediately granted autonomy to the Philippines, with full
independence to follow in 10 years.
SUGGESTED
SOURCES
Das, Durga. India from Curzon to Nehru and After. 1970. Written by India’s foremost journalist,
who was an eyewitness to many of the events.
Embree, Ainslie T. India’s Search for National Identity. 1981. A brief, readable, and objective
introduction.*
Faswell, Byron. Armies of the Raj from the Great Indian Mutiny to Independence: 1858–1947. 1989.
A good, colorful book.*
Gandhi. 1982. A sympathetic film portraying the powerful impact of the great Indian leader.
Gandhi, Mohandas K. The Story of My Experiment with Truth. Trans. Mahadev Desai. 1945. A
frank, personal account.*
Indochine. 1992. A film portraying French rule in Vietnam.
Jalal, Ayesha. The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League, and the Demand for Pakistan. 1985.
An authoritative work on the movement for a separate Muslim nation.
James, Lawrence. Raj, The Making and Unmaking of British India. 1997. A scholarly survey, well
written, enlightening, and entertaining.
Khanh, Huynh Kim. Vietnamese Communism, 1925–1945. 1986. A description of the origins and
development of Vietnamese communism and the role of the party in the anticolonial
struggle.*
Nehru, Jawaharlal. An Autobiography. 1989; first published in 1936. A reflective account of his
life and times written while in prison in 1934–1935.*
———. The Discovery of India. Ed. Robert I. Crane. 1960. India’s first postindependence prime
minister explains his country’s history and heritage.*
Wolpert, Stanley. Gandhi’s Passion: The Life and Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. 2002. A balanced,
lucid, and thoughtful book.*
———. Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny. 1996. An authoritative, analytic biography.
WEB
SOURCES
www.fordham.edu/halsall/india/indiasbook.html. Excellent site offering numerous links to history
of Indian subcontinent; see, for example, materials under Gandhi and the Muslim League.
www.ibiblio.org/gandhi/gandhi/default.htm. Website with many links to Gandhi materials,
including his writings.
*Paperback available.