A few facts about India and Gandhi

I) British India

– In 1900 India was the most treasured part of the British empire, often called “the jewel in the crown”.

– Britain had ruled over India since the 18^th Century.

– in 1887 Queen Victoria was made Empress of India, and British monarchs continued to hold this title up to 1947.

– Two-thirds of the people in India were Hindus. Most of the rest were Muslims.

– In addition to religious and social divisions, India had great problems of poverty and lack of education. It was a country of poor peasants using primitive farming methods. Diseases and famine were common.

II) British rule

- The British rulers tried to tackle some of these problems: a railway system was built to link the country, schools and hospitals were built, and the English language was enforced as it was the only way in which the Indians, who spoke different languages, could communicate.

- But the British gained enormously from this British rule: indeed India supplied raw materials such as cotton and bought British made goods. Very little industry was developed in case it competed with British industry. All the top jobs in the army and civil service were held by British people.

- In 1885 a group of educated Indians formed the Congress Party in order to press for more power. The first World War helped them in so far as Britain promised more self-government to the Indians if they came to fight in Europe. As a result, the Government of India Act ( 1919) allowed the Indians to have a national Parliament and local parliaments which dealt with health, education and agriculture; however, the decisions of those parliaments could be blocked by the viceroy , and the British kept control of finance and law.

- Demonstrations were held against the Act : at Amritsar in North India in 1919, 375 Indians were killed by the troops of General Dyer; the latter was dismissed soon afterwards, which gave a great boost to the demand for independence. It brought to the forefront a new and remarkable leader of the Indian people. Bullet marks, visible on a preserved wall, at present-day Jallianwala Bagh ®

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III) Gandhi

- Gandhi was born in 1869 and went to Britain to train as a lawyer. In 1893 he went to South Africa to work for the Indians who lived there: he started to implement his ideas of non-violent protest.

- In 1915 he answered a request to come to India to help the Congress Party: although he refused to be the leader of the Party, he was its main force and guide for the next 33 years.

- He was a deeply religious man; he was a vegetarian and wore only loincloth. He believed that violence only caused more violence, that truth and right would always win in the end. His methods were sit-ins, strikes, marches and boycotts. He and his followers never fought back.

- Gandhi always worked with both Hindus and Muslims. He was called Mahatma, which means the Holy one, was greatly respected by all Indians and his beliefs and peaceful protests gained massive support.

- A new Act gave more and more power to Indians at local and national levels. But the Muslims began to demand a separate country for themselves and formed the separate Muslim League to achieve this.

- During World War II a campaign of opposition to the British was organized under a new slogan: “Quit India”. This led to the arrest of most of the Congress leaders.

- Finally India’s independence was proclaimed in 1947 and there was a subsequent partition of the country : India ( Hindus) and Pakistan (Muslims). This meant many painful shifts of population and a lot of resentment on both sides.

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- Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 by a Hindu fanatic. The Martyr's Column at the Gandhi Smriti, (the spot where Gandhi was assassinated.