The Partition of Bengal (1905), the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal; the economic and political aspects of Swadeshi Movement: Part II

Swadeshi Movement:

• The Swadeshi movement had its genesis in the anti-partition movement which started with the partition of Bengal by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, 1905 and continued up to 1911.
• It was the most successful of the pre-Gandhian movements. Its chief architects were Aurobindo Ghosh, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai.
• Strong sense of unity among Bengalis fostered by their regional independence, cultural development of 19th century, spread of western education and Hindu revivalist mood gave birth to a vehement resistance. selfstudyhistory.com
• Though affected in 1905, the partition proposals had come onto the public domain as early as 1903. Therefore, since 1903, there was prepared the ground for the launch of the Swadeshi movement.
• The agitation against the partition had started in 1903, but became stronger and more organised after the scheme was finally announced and implemented in 1905.
  • The initial aim was to secure the annulment of partition, but it soon enlarged into a more broad-based movement, known as the Swadeshi movement, touching upon wider political and social issues,

Between 1903 to mid-1905:

• In first phase (1903-1905), moderate way of petitions, memoranda, speeches, public meetings and press campaigns were held in full sway.
• The objective was to turn to public opinion in India and England against the partition proposals by preparing a foolproof case against them. The hope was that this would yield sufficient pressure to prevent this injustice from occurring.
• Surendra Nath Banerjee, Prithwish Chandra Ray and other leaders launched a powerful press campaign against the partition proposals through journals and newspapers like the Bengalee, Hitabadi and Sanjibani.
• The four leading newspapers of Calcutta- Bengalee, Amrita Bazaar Patrika, Indian Mirror and Hindu Patriot protested against this division of Bengal.
  • The Amrita Bazaar Patrika in its issue of 14^th December, 1903 called on the people of East Bengal to hold public meetings in every town and village to prepare petition for submission to the government, which was signed by lakhs of people.
  • Vernacular newspapers such as the Sanjibani and the Bangabashi expressed open hostility against this proposal.
• Vast protest meetings were held in the town hail of Calcutta, and numerous petitions, were sent to the Government of India and the Secretary of State.
• Even, the big zamindars who had hitherto been loyal to the Raj, joined forces with the Congress leaders.
• The Government of India however remained unmoved. Despite the widespread protest, voiced against the partition proposals, the decision to partition Bengal was announced on 19 July 1905.
  • It was obvious to the nationalists that their moderate methods were not working and that a different kind of strategy as needed.
  • Within days of the government announcement numerous spontaneous protest meetings were held at various places. It was in these meetings that the pledge to boycott foreign goods was first taken.

1905 onwards:

• The Bengalis adopted the boycott movement as the last resort after they had exhausted the armoury of constitutional agitation (between 1903 and 1905) known to them, namely vocal protests, appeals, petitions and Conferences to coerce the British to concede the unanimous national demand.
• The formal proclamation of the Swadeshi Movement was, made on the 7 August 1905, in meeting held at the Calcutta town hall.
  • The movement; hitherto sporadic and spontaneous, now had a focus and a leadership that was coming together.
  • At the 7 August meeting, the famous Boycott Resolution was passed.
    • Even Moderate leaders like Surendranath Banerjee toured the country urging the boycott of Manchester cloth and Liverpool salt.
  • On September 1, the Government announced that partition was to be effected on 16 October’ 1905.
  • The value of British cloth sold in some of the mofussil districts fell by five to fifteen times between September 1904 and September 1905.
  • The day partition took effect — 16 October 1905 — was declared a day of mourning throughout Bengal.
    • People fasted and no fires were lit at the cooking hearth.
    • In Calcutta a hartal was declared. People took out processions and band after band walked barefoot, bathed in the Ganges in morning and then paraded the streets singing Bande Mataram which, almost spontaneously, became the theme song of the movement.
    • People tied rakhis on each other’s hands as a symbol of the unity of the two halves of Bengal.
    • Later in the day Anandamohan Bose and Surendranath Banerjea addressed two huge mass meetings which drew crowds of about 50,000 people. These were, perhaps, the largest mass meetings ever to be held under the nationalist banner this far.
    • Within a few hours of the meetings, a sum of Rs. 50,000 was raised for the movement.
  • The character of the movement in terms both its goals and social base had begun to expand rapidly.
• The message of Swadeshi and the boycott of foreign goods soon spread to the rest of the country:
  • Lokamanya Tilak took the movement to different parts of India, especially Poona and Bombay;
  • Ajit Singh and Lala Lajpat Rai spread the Swadeshi message in Punjab and other parts of northern India.
  • Syed Haidar Raza led the movement in Delhi;
  • Rawalpindi, Kangra, Jammu, Multan and Haridwar witnessed active participation in the Swadeshi Movement;
  • Chidambaram Pillai took the movement to the Madras presidency, which was also galvanized by Bipin Chandra Pal’s extensive lecture tour.
• Attitude of Congress:
  • The Indian National Congress Banaras Session, 1905 (presided over by G.K. Gokhale) supported the Swadeshi and Boycott Movement for Bengal.
    • The militant nationalists led by Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo Ghosh were, however, in favour of extending the movement to the rest of India and carrying it beyond the programme of just Swadeshi and boycott to a full fledged political mass struggle.
    • The aim was now Swaraj and the abrogation of partition had become the ‘pettiest and narrowest of all political objects’.
    • The Moderates, by and large, were not as yet willing to go that far.
  • In 1906, however, the Indian National Congress at its Calcutta Session, presided over by Dadabhai Naoroji, took a major step forward.
    • Naoroji in his presidential address declared that the goal of the Indian National Congress was ‘self-government or Swaraj like that of the United Kingdom or the Colonies.’
    • The Congress with Dadabhai Naoroji as President, recognized Boycott as legitimate and accorded its most cordial support to Swadeshi Movement.
    • Another resolution asked the people to take up the question of national education for booth boys and girls.
  • The differences between the Moderates and the Extremists, especially regarding the pace of the movement and the techniques of struggle to be adopted, came to a head in the 1907 Surat session of the Congress where the party split with serious consequences for the Swadeshi Movement.
    • After the open split in Surat in 1907, Congress with under grip of the Moderates never reiterated of discussed the resolution passed in 1906. They looked up Bengal as local issue and ignored because it meant a direct confrontation with the government.
• In Bengal, however, after 1905, the Extremists acquired a dominant influence over the Swadeshi Movement.
  • Several new forms of mobilization and techniques of struggle now began to emerge at the popular level.
    • The trend of ‘mendicancy,’ petitioning and memorials was on the retreat.
    • The militant  nationalists put forward several fresh ideas at the theoretical, propagandistic and programmatic plane.
  • Political independence was to be achieved by converting the movement into a mass movement through the extension of boycott into a full-scale movement of non-cooperation and passive resistance.
    • The technique of ‘extended boycott’ was to include, apart from boycott of foreign goods, boycott of government schools and colleges courts, titles and government services and even the organization of strikes.
  • The aim was to ‘make the administration under present conditions impossible by an organized refusal to do anything which shall help either the British Commerce in the exploitation of the country or British officialdom in the administration of it.’

Form of struggle:

• This was boycott-cum-swadeshi movement.
• In the economic sense, Swadeshi would represent both a positive and a negative element.
  • The negative element of the economic swadeshi was the boycott and burning of foreign goods.
  • The positive element of economic swadeshi was the regeneration of indigenous goods.
• Boycott:
  • The boycott of foreign goods which met with the greatest visible success at the practical and popular level.
    • Though Manchester cloth was the chief target of attack, the movement was extended to other British manufacturers also, such as salt and sugar as well as luxury goods in general.
    • Boycott and public burning of foreign cloth, picketing of shops selling foreign goods, all became common in remote corners of Bengal as well as in many important towns and cities throughout the country.
    • Women refused to wear foreign bangles and use foreign utensils, washermen refused to wash foreign clothes and even priests declined offerings which contained foreign sugar.
    • Fines were inflicted on anyone found using foreign sugar or salt.
    • Foreign cigarettes were bought and burnt in the streets, Brahmins refused to assist any religious ceremonies in houses where European salt and sugar were used and Marwaris were warned of importing foreign articles.
    • The ideas of Swadeshi and economic boycott was kept alive and brought home to every door by articles in newspapers, processions, popular songs, enrolment of volunteers to keep vigilant watch and by occasion bonfires of foreign cloth, salt and sugar.
    • All these bonfires however affected the economy of the people. To burn ‘Manchester made goods’ bought at a high price literally affects the people but swept by national enthusiasm.
  • The original conception of Boycott was mainly an economic one. It had two distinct, but allied purposes in view.
    • The first was to bring pressure upon the British public by the pecuniary loss they would suffer by the boycott of British goods, particularly the Manchester cotton goods for which Bengal provided the richest market in India.
    • Secondly, it was regarded as essential for the revival of indigenous industry which being at its infant stage could never grow in the face of free competition with foreign countries which had highly developed industry.
  • Tilak described Swadeshi as Yoga of Bahiskar, a religious ritual of self punishment.
• Self-reliance or Atmasakti:
  • The great emphasis given to self-reliance or ‘Atmasakti’ as a necessary part of the struggle against the Government.
  • Self reliance in various fields meant the re-asserting of national dignity, honor and confidence.
  • Tagore gave a call for Rakhi Bandhan as a token for Hindu-Muslim unity and wrote articles under title Atma Shakti.
  • Further, self-help and constructive work at the village level was envisaged as a means of bringing about the social and economic regeneration of the villages and of reaching the rural masses.
    • In actual terms this meant social reform and campaigns against evils such as caste oppression, early marriage, the dowry system, consumption of alcohol, etc.
  • Self-reliance meant an effort to set up Swadeshi or indigenous enterprises.
    • The boycott of foreign goods led to the increase in demand of indigenous goods especially clothes which felt short of supply.
      • The mill-owners of Bombay and Ahmadabad came to its rescue.
      • The Boycott movement in Bengal supplied a momentum and driving force to the cotton mills in India and the opportunity thus presented was exploited by the mill-owners.
      • It was complained at that time that the Bombay mill-owners made a huge profit at the expense of what they regarded as ‘Bengali Sentimentalism’, for buying indigenous cloth at any sacrifice and there maybe some truth in it but this is not sure.
      • Bengal had to supplement the supply from Bombay mills by the coarse production of handlooms.
      • A song which became very popular all over the country urged upon the people to give the place of honour to the coarse cloth which is the gift of the Mother, too poor to offer a better one.
    • The period saw a mushrooming of Swadeshi textile mills, soap and match factories; – tanneries, banks, insurance companies, shops, etc.
    • While many of these enterprises, whose promoters were more endowed with patriotic zeal than with business acumen were unable to survive for long, some others such as Acharya P.C. Ray’s Bengal Chemicals Factory, became successful and famous.
    • Like the Boycott, the Swadeshi as a economic measure for the growth of Indian Industry was not an altogether novel idea in India.
      • It was preached by several eminent personalities in the 19^th century, Gopal Hari Deshmukh, better known as Lokahitawadi of Bombay, Swami Dayananda and Bholanath Chandra of Calcutta.
      • But the seeds sown by them did not germinate till the soil was rendered fertile by the grim resolve of a united people, exasperated beyond measure; to forge the twin weapons of Boycott and Swadeshi in order to undo the great wrong which was inflicted upon them by an arrogant Government.
  • National education:
    • One of the major planks of the programme of self-reliance was Swadeshi or national education.
    • Background:
      • Students in promoting the boycott and swadeshi movement drew upon them the wrath and violence of the British Raj.
        • Circulars were issued forbidding the students under threat of severe penalty to associate themselves in any way with the Boycott movement.
      • Scholars or colleges whose students disobeyed the order were not only threatened with the withdrawal of Government grants and even with disaffiliation, but their students were to be declared ineligible for Government Service.
      • The authorities of the educational institutions were asked to keep strict watch over their pupils, and if unable to control them, were to report the names to the Education Department for taking necessary disciplinary action.
      • All this produced a storm of indignation in the country and the Indian-owned Press denounced the circulars in the strongest language.
        • Anti-circular society was set up with the objective of rallying students through processions, picketing, collection of funds and creating awareness.
      • The students of some colleges in Rangpur defied the Government orders and when they were fined, the guardians refused to pay the fine and stabled a national school for the boys who were expelled.
        • Teachers were also asked to resign for not whipping the boys.
        • The action of the authorities led to a movement among the students to boycott the Calcutta University which they described as Golamkhana (House of manufacturing slaves).
    • The earliest use of the term national education was made by Prasanna Kumar Tagore in connection with Hindu College Pathshala in 1839. The effort to organise Tattvabodhini Pathshala in 1840 and Hindu Hitarthi Vidyalaya in 1846 also indicated desire for establishing national education, But real credit for popularising and organising national education goes to Satish Chandra Mukherjee and his Dawn Society.
      • Founder-editor of the Dawn magazine (1897–1913), an organ of Indian Nationalism, in 1902 Satish Chandra Mukherjee organised the “Dawn Society” of culture, to protest against the Report of the Indian Universities Commission, representing the inadequate university education imposed by the Government to fabricate clerks for the merchant offices.
    • Taking a cue from Tagore’s Shantiniketan, the Bengal National College was founded, with Aurobindo as the principal. Scores of national schools sprang up all over the country within a short period.
    • The scheme for National Council of Education was indebted to a letter from Sir George Birdwood, known for his valuable census of Indian crafts and industries, to Satish in 1898. Birdwood wrote that while India must look to the west for scientific culture, she must never surrender her spiritual culture.
    • In August 1906, the National Council of Education was established.
      • At a conference attended by a large number of eminent men of Bengal (like R N Tagore, Hirendranath Dutta, Satish Chandra Mukherjee etc.) held on 10^th November, 1905, it was decided to establish at once a National Council of Education (Jatiya Shiksha Parisad) in order to organize a system of education-literary, scientific and technical- on national lines and under national control. The number of national schools also grew apace with time.
      • By the donation of Subodh Chandra Mullick (for which he was give title of Raja) and zamindar Mymensingh, in 1906, Satish took a leading part in forming the National Council of Education.
      • The Council defined its objectives in this way. . . ‘to organize a system of Education Literary; Scientific and Technical — on National lines and under National control’ from the primary to the university level.
      • Under the aegis of the National Council of Education, a number of National Schools were founded at various places like Jadavpur Engineering College.
      • Taraknath Patil had set up the society for the Promotion of Technical education which founded Bengal Technical Institute.
      • But most of these schools and institutions failed to flourish due to hostile government. But Jadavpur Engineering College continued and transformed into University in 1956.
    • The chief medium of instruction was to be the vernacular to enable the widest possible reach.
    • For technical education, the Bengal Technical institute was set and funds were raise to send students to Japan for advanced learning.
  • It was, perhaps, in the cultural sphere that the impact of the Swadeshi Movement was most marked.
    • The songs composed at that time by Rabindranath Tagore, Dwijendralal Ray, Mukunda Das, Syed Abu Mohammad and others later became the moving spirit for nationalists of all hues.
      • Rabindranath Tagore, Rajnikant Sen, Dwijendralal Roy and Nabakrishna Chakraborty composed patriotic songs.
      • Rabindranath’s Amar Sonar Bangla, written at that time, was to later inspire the liberation struggle of Bangladesh and was adopted as the national anthem of the country in 1971.
      • The Swadeshi influence could be seen in Bengali folk music popular among Hindu and Muslim villagers.
    • In art, this was the period when Abanindranath Tagore broke the domination of Victorian naturalism over Indian art and sought inspiration from the rich indigenous traditions of Mughal, Rajput and Ajanta paintings.
      • Nandalal Bose, who left a major imprint on Indian art, was the first recipient of a scholarship offered by the Indian Society of Oriental Art founded in 1907.
  • In science,  Jagdish Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chandra Ray, and others pioneered original research that was praised the world over.
    • J N Tata founded Tata Iron ad Steel.
    • Prafulla Chandra Ray set up Bengal Chemicals Factory.
• Later on, the economic boycott receded into background with the passage of time and it developed into an idea of non-cooperation with the British in every field and the object aimed at a political regeneration of the country with the distant goal of absolute freedom looming large before the eyes of the more advanced section.
• Methods of mass mobilization:
  • Public meetings and processions emerged as major methods of mass mobilization and simultaneously as forms of popular expression.
  • Corps of volunteers (or samitis as they were called) were another major form of mass mobilization widely used by the Swadeshi Movement.
    • The Swadesh Bandhab Samiti set up by Ashwini Kumar Dutt, a school teacher, in Barisal was the most well known volunteer organization of them all.
      • Through the activities of this Samiti, whose 159 branches reached out to the remotest corners of the district, Dutt was able to generate an unparalleled mass following among the predominantly Muslim Peasantry of the region.
    • Works done by samitis:
      • took the Swadeshi message to the villages through magic lantern lectures and Swadeshi songs,
      • gave physical and moral training to the members,
      • did social work during famines and epidemics,
      • organized schools, training in Swadeshi craft and
      • arbitration courts.
    • The samitis stuck their deepest roots in Barisal, they had expanded to other parts of Bengal as well.
  • Creative use of traditional popular festivals and melas as a means of reaching out to the masses.
    • The Ganapati and Shivaji festivals, popularized by Tilak, became a medium for Swadeshi propaganda not only in Western India but also in Bengal.
    • Traditional folk theatre forms such as jatras i.e. extensively used in disseminating the Swadeshi message.
    • Ramsay Macdonald visiting Bengal during this period wrote that Bengal was creating India by song and worship.
• Social boycott:
  • It was an outcome of economic swadeshi movement. It was preached to go against the repressive measures of the Government. The social boycott was a very powerful weapon.
  • A man selling or buying foreign goods or in any way opposing swadeshi Movement and helping Government in putting it down would be subjected to various degrees of humiliation.

Repressive measures taken by the Government:

• The government came down with a heavy hand. Repression took the form of controls and bans on public meetings, processions and the press.
  • The case of the 1906 Barisal Conference, where the police forcibly dispersed the conference and brutally beat up a large number of the participants.
• Other than boycott and burning of foreign goods, people also resorted to ‘peaceful picketing’ which destined to become a normal feature in almost every type of political agitation in future.
  • All these gave the police a good opportunity to interfere.
• The volunteers were roughly handled and if they resisted the police a good opportunity to interfere.
  • The volunteers were roughly handled and if they resisted, the police beat them with lathis.
  • These ‘Regulation Lathis’, were freely used by the police in the first instance to drive away the picketers and to disperse crowds, whether rioters or peaceful.
• The uttering of Bande Mataram was an indisputable evidence of sympathy to movement and later it was made illegal to shout Bande Mataram in a public place.
• The official phrase, “mild lathi charge” to describe the assault of the police, was a misnomer. It was certainly not mild as the gaping wounds on the bodies loudly proclaimed.
• The  Government also issued instructions to the educational institutions to control their boys and prevent them from participating in the swadeshi movement.
  • Student participants were expelled from Government schools and colleges, debarred from Government service, fined and at times beaten up by the police.
• Rural markets were controlled, bans were put on processions and meetings, leaders were put into confinement without any trial and loyal Muslims were made to go against the recalcitrant Hindus.
• Between 1907 and 1908:
  • Major leaders in Bengal including Ashwini Kumar Dutt and Krishna Kumar Mitra were deported,
  • Tilak was given a sentence of six years imprisonment,
  • Ajit Singh and Lajpat Rai of Punjab were deported and
  • Chidambaram Pillai and Harisarvottam Rao from Madras and Andhra were arrested.
  • Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh retired from active politics.
• Almost with one stroke the entire movement was rendered leaderless.