Old NCERT Summary (Bipan Chandra) Nationalist Movement- 1 - History for UPSC CSE

The Partition of Bengal

In 1905 Lord Curzon issued an order dividing the province of Bengal into two parts. The new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam had a population of about 31 million, while the remaining part of Bengal had a population of about 54 million, of whom roughly 18 million were Bengalis and 36 million were non-Bengalis (mainly Biharis and Oriyas). The official reason given was that the existing province was too large to be administered efficiently by a single provincial government. However, many Indian nationalists interpreted the step as having political motives: to check the growth of nationalism in Bengal, then regarded as the nerve centre of the movement.

• The nationalists viewed the partition not merely as an administrative measure but as a deliberate attempt to divide Bengalis territorially and on religious lines. In the new Eastern province Muslims would be numerically predominant while the Western province would have a larger Hindu population, which nationalists believed was intended to weaken the united Bengali polity.
• Leaders and public opinion argued that administrative objectives could have been achieved in other ways - for example, by separating the Hindi-speaking areas of Bihar and the Oriya-speaking areas of Orissa from Bengal - rather than by dividing the Bengali-speaking region itself.
• The decision was taken in disregard of public feeling. For a people with a strong cultural identity and political sensitivity, the partition was a great insult and provoked intense protest across social groups in Bengal.

The Anti-partition Movement

The Anti-Partition agitation brought together different strands of Bengal's national leadership. Initially moderate leaders took the lead; later, militant and revolutionary nationalists assumed prominence. The movement began formally on 7 August 1905 when a massive demonstration was organised at the Town Hall in Calcutta. From that meeting delegates were sent out to mobilise the province.

• The partition came into effect on 16 October 1905. The leaders of the protest declared that day a day of national mourning throughout Bengal. It was observed by fasting, hartals in Calcutta, processions, and other forms of mass protest.
• Large crowds sang Bande Mataram and other patriotic songs. Rabindranath Tagore composed the song Amar Sonar Bangla on this occasion; the song later became the national anthem of Bangladesh (1971).
• The festival ceremony of Raksha Bandhan was adapted as a political symbol: Hindus and Muslims tied rakhis on one another's wrists to demonstrate the unity of the two communities of Bengal and the indivisibility of the province.
• On the same day a large public meeting was addressed by Ananda Mohan Bose, who laid the foundation stone of a proposed Federation Hall as a symbol of Bengal's unity; over 50,000 people attended.

Swadeshi and Boycott

Leaders recognised that demonstrations and resolutions alone would not force the government to reverse its decision. What was needed was organised mass action that could visibly affect British economic and political interests. The twin strategies adopted were Swadeshi (use of indigenous goods) and Boycott (refusal to use or purchase British goods and institutions).

• Mass meetings across Bengal proclaimed and pledged adherence to Swadeshi and to the boycott of British goods. Public burning of foreign cloth and picketing of shops selling imported goods became common methods of protest.
• Swadeshi carried an economic and cultural meaning: it emphasised self-reliance (Atmasakti), national dignity and confidence. Economically this meant fostering indigenous industry and enterprise: new textile mills, soap and match factories, handloom organisations, national banks, and insurance companies were started.
• Prominent industrial and cultural initiatives included Acharya P. C. Ray organising Bengal Chemical and Swadeshi stores; Rabindranath Tagore also helped open a Swadeshi store.
• The movement stimulated cultural renewal. There was a flowering of nationalist literature, journalism and music. Poets such as Rabindranath Tagore, Rajanikanta Sen, Syed Abu Mohammed and Mukunda Das wrote patriotic songs and poems that remained popular.
• Educational nationalism was another important outcome. Nationalists criticised the colonial education system as denationalising and inadequate; they set up alternative institutions. On 15 August 1906 a National Council of Education was established and a National College was started in Calcutta with Aurobindo Ghosh as principal.

Role of Students, Women, Muslims and The Masses

The Anti-Partition and Swadeshi movement widened political participation beyond the usual elite. Its social composition and the government's reaction determined much of the course of the agitation.

• Students played a prominent part: they organised picketing of foreign shops, propagated Swadeshi, and led demonstrations. The colonial government attempted to suppress student activism by threatening withdrawal of grants-in-aid, disaffiliation of institutions, denial of scholarships, and exclusion from government employment.
• Many students were fined, expelled, arrested or physically punished by police and school authorities, but they continued to participate actively in the movement.
• Women from the urban middle classes, hitherto largely home-centred, joined picketing and processions and began to play an active political role in public life.
• Many prominent Muslims supported the Swadeshi movement (for example, Abdul Rasul, Liaquat Hussain and others), and some Muslim intellectuals associated with radical groups (notably Maulana Abul Kalam Azad) were drawn into the wider nationalist movement. But other Muslims, especially some members of the elite such as the Nawab of Dhaka, either remained neutral or supported partition on the ground that East Bengal would provide greater Muslim representation and unity. Government persuasion and offers of patronage, including financial assistance, influenced parts of the Muslim elite.
• Administrators publicly suggested that partition would "invest the Mohammedans in Eastern Bengal with a unity which they have not enjoyed since the days of the old Mussalman Viceroys and Kings" - a statement used by nationalists to argue that official policy deliberately encouraged communal division.

All-india Aspect of The Movement

The cry of Swadeshi and Swaraj spread beyond Bengal. Supportive activities and solidarity movements were organised in Bombay, Madras and north India. Leaders in other provinces responded and sought to connect the Bengal struggle to larger national objectives. Bal Gangadhar Tilak was especially important in taking the Swadeshi movement to western and central India; he saw in it an opportunity to mobilise popular sentiment against British rule.

Growth of Militancy

As the anti-partition agitation developed, leadership began to pass from moderates to militant nationalists such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh. Several interrelated factors explain this shift.

• The moderate strategy of petitions and constitutional protest failed to reverse the partition. Even officials expected to be sympathetic, such as the Liberal Secretary of State John Morley, treated partition as settled policy, disappointing moderate expectations.
• Official policies and administrative practices in East Bengal - restrictions on public meetings, censorship and press controls, bans on songs such as Bande Mataram in public processions, and punitive measures against students and activists - generated anger and alienation.
• Between 1906 and 1909 more than 550 political cases were tried in Bengal courts. Numerous nationalist newspapers were prosecuted and press freedom was substantially curtailed. In several towns military police were deployed and clashes with the people occurred.
• Notorious repressive incidents included the police assault on peaceful delegates of the Bengal Provincial Conference at Barisal (April 1906), forcible dispersal of meetings, and the deportation of leaders. Several prominent leaders were deported or imprisoned: deportations in 1907 and 1908 affected leaders such as Krishna Kumar Mitra, Ashwini Kumar Dutt, and others; Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh were deported after disturbances in the Punjab.
• Arrests and long sentences of leading militants (for example, Tilak was sentenced to six years' imprisonment in 1908) weakened the organised leadership of the movement and pushed some activists towards more radical approaches.
• In response to repression many militant leaders advocated passive resistance in addition to Swadeshi and boycott: refusal to cooperate with government institutions, boycotting government service, courts, government schools and municipal bodies, to make the functioning of colonial administration difficult.
• Militant nationalists transformed the aim of the agitation from reversing partition to contesting the legitimacy of colonial rule itself, making India's independence the central political demand and urging self-sacrifice as a political virtue.
• Despite their ability to arouse people, militant leaders failed to build a lasting mass organisation or to reach the rural peasantry. Their social base remained largely urban - lower and middle classes and some zamindars - and they lacked sustained organisational mechanisms for mass mobilisation; consequently, after severe repression they were driven into a political impasse by 1908.

Growth of Revolutionary Nationalism

When constitutional and moderate methods seemed ineffective and when organised militant leadership was weakened by repression, some younger activists turned to revolutionary methods. Their argument was that force would be required to overthrow British rule.

• Revolutionary groups argued that the remedy for oppression lay with the people themselves. Publications such as Yugantar urged that "force must be stopped by force" and that direct action was necessary.
• The revolutionary movement in Bengal drew inspiration from foreign examples (for instance, Irish and Russian revolutionary methods) and from earlier indigenous actions. Examples of early revolutionary activity include the Chapekar brothers who assassinated unpopular British officials in Poona in 1897, and the formation of the secret society Abhinav Bharat by V. D. Savarkar (around 1904).
• Newspapers and journals such as Sandhya, Yugantar and Kaal (or Kaalin Maharashtra) carried revolutionary propaganda. Violent incidents followed: attempts on the lives of government officials, and the famous case of Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki who threw a bomb at a carriage they believed carried the judge Kingsford at Muzaffarpur (April 1908); Prafulla Chaki died by his own hand and Khudiram Bose was arrested and later hanged.
• Several secret revolutionary societies emerged. The Anushilan Samiti (with a very active Dhaka section) became a prominent organisation. Revolutionary activists also attempted high-profile attacks, for example the bomb attack on the Viceroy Lord Hardinge during a state procession in Delhi (in which the Viceroy was wounded).
• Revolutionary links extended abroad. Centres of activism developed in London and continental Europe where expatriate Indians such as V. D. Savarkar, Sri Krishna Varma, Har Dayal, Madame Bhikaji Cama and Ajit Singh organised propaganda and support for revolutionary schemes.
• Although terrorism could not build a broad mass movement and was not a sustainable political strategy, it had important effects: it revived pride and confidence, inspired many by acts of heroism, and strengthened the emotional basis of nationalism even among those who did not agree with violent methods.

Conclusion

The Anti-Partition and Swadeshi movement (1905-1908) marked a decisive phase in modern Indian nationalism. It broadened political participation, introduced new techniques of mass mobilisation, stimulated economic and cultural self-reliance, and sharpened the political demand from provincial redress to national independence. Repressive measures by the colonial state produced both militant constitutionalism and revolutionary activism. Though the immediate objective of reversing partition was achieved only later, the movement's legacy-mass politics, cultural mobilisation and a sharper critique of colonial rule-shaped subsequent phases of the national struggle.