GS1 PYQ (Mains Answer Writing): National Movement in 1920s | History for UPSC CSE PDF Download

Since the decade of the 1920s, the national movement acquired various ideological strands and thereby expanded its social base. Discuss. (GS 1 UPSC MAINS )

By the end of 1920, political activities had started intensifying. Opposition to Rowlatt Act, Khilafat Movement, and Non-Cooperation Movement, as well as the issues of farmers, laborers , religious groups and deprived sections of society, were making a place in the political sky. This led to the inclusion of many ideologies and new social classes in the national movement.

• Rise of the left wing was the most important feature of this decade. 
• The communist party of India was established in 1925 and the main leader of it was M N Roy. 
• The process of the disparate groups of workers in various parts of the country emerging as an organized, self-conscious, all India class is inextricably linked with the growth of the Indian national movement and left parties were facilitators of this process. 
• Left ideology stressed the need to combine nationalism and anti-imperialism with social justice and simultaneously raised the question of internal class oppression by capitalists and landlords. 
• Another right wing organisation like RSS was also founded in 1925 by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, which asserted Hindu identity in the form of hindutva. 
• It was the second important right wing organisation after Hindu Mahasabha and they weaved the concept of Indian independence around religion. 
• Various socio-religious movements also took place during the 1920s that made the Indian national movement more inclusive. 
• The Akali movement , also called the Gurdwara Reform Movement, was a campaign to bring reform in the gurdwaras during the early 1920s. 
• The movement led to the introduction of the Sikh Gurdwara Bill in 1925, which placed all the historical Sikh shrines in India under the control of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). 
• It was only during the Akali movement that the pro-British feudal leadership of the Sikhs was replaced by educated middle-class nationalists and the rural and urban classes united on a common platform during the two-pronged Akali struggle. 
• The Akali Movement also awakened the people of the princely states of Punjab to political consciousness and political activity hence helped to expand the Social and political base of national movement. 
• In 1923, the Congress decided to take active steps towards the eradication of untouchability. The basic strategy it adopted was to educate and mobilize opinion among caste Hindus on the question. 
• The struggle against untouchability and for the social and economic uplift of the depressed classes continued all over India in this decade as a part of the Gandhian constructive programme. 
• The nationalist challenge in this respect came to be symbolized by two famous struggles in Kerala. Vaikom and Guruvayur Temple Satyagraha. 
• Leaders of these movements were K Kelappan , E.V. Ramaswami Naicker (popularly known as Periyar later) , E.M.S. Namboodiripad etc. 
• The temple entry campaign used all the techniques developed by the Indian people in the course of the nationalist struggle. 
• Its organizers succeeded in building the broadest possible unity, imparting mass education, and mobilizing the people on a very wide scale on the question of untouchability and further align them with freedom struggle. 
• Peasant discontent against established authority was a familiar feature of the nineteenth century. 
• But in the second and third decades of the twentieth century, the movements that emerged out of this discontent were deeply influenced by national movement. 
• The national movement also took inspiration from these peasant movements and expanded its Social base. 
• The KisanSabha and Eka movements in Avadh in U.P., the Mappila rebellion in Malabar and the Bardoli Satyagraha in Gujarat are examples of these kind of movements.

Conclusion
The rising tide of nationalism and democracy inevitably began to overflow from the political to the religious and social fields affecting the downtrodden castes and classes and change the public opinion to issues which affected the internal structure of Indian society. By these movements of different sections of the society, raised their voices and the national movement of freedom struggle acquired various ideological strands and thereby expanded its social base.

Topics - Rise of Modern Nationalism