Spectrum Test: The Emergence of Swarajists, Socialist Ideas - UPSC MCQ

• There was large-scale participation of young women, especially under Surya Sen. These women provided shelter carried messages and fought with guns in hand. 

• During this phase, prominent women revolutionaries in Bengal included Pritilata Waddedar, who died conducting a raid; Kalpana Dutt, arrested and tried along with Surya Sen and given a life sentence; Santi Ghosh and Suniti Chandheri, school girls of Comilla, who shot dead the district magistrate. (December 1931); and Bina Das who fired point-blank at the governor while receiving her degree at the convocation (February 1932).

Setting up of national schools and colleges was the work of no changers. Achievements of swarajists: 

(i) With coalition partners, they out-voted the government. 

(ii) They agitated through powerful speeches on self-government, civil liberties and industrialization 

(iii) Vithalbhai Patel was elected speaker of Central Legislative Assembly in 1925. 

(iv) A noteworthy achievement was the defeat of the Public Safety Bill in 1928 which was aimed at empowering the Government to deport undesirable and subversive foreigners (because the Government was alarmed by the spread of socialist and communist ideas and believed that a crucial role was being played by the British and other foreign activists being sent by the Comintern). 

(v) By their activities, they filled the political vacuum when the national movement was recouping its strength. 

(vi) The exposed the hollowness of the Montford scheme 

(vii) The demonstrated that the councils could be used creatively

To evaluate the correctness of the statements, let’s break them down:

1. Popularization of Khadi was an easy task since it was cheaper than the imported cloth: This statement is generally incorrect. The popularization of Khadi, which was promoted by Mahatma Gandhi as part of the Swadeshi movement, was not necessarily due to its cost-effectiveness compared to imported cloth. In fact, Khadi was often more expensive than imported cloth due to the manual methods of production and the lack of economies of scale. The movement was driven more by its symbolic value and as a means to foster self-reliance and national pride rather than purely economic reasons.

2. National education benefited both the urban lower middle classes and the rich peasants: This statement has some basis but needs clarification. National education during the colonial period, particularly with initiatives like the promotion of vernacular languages and the establishment of national schools, did aim to be inclusive. However, the benefits varied. The urban lower middle classes often had better access to such educational opportunities compared to rural areas. Rich peasants might have had the means to afford better education but were less directly targeted by specific national education policies aimed at the urban poor and marginalized communities.

Given this analysis:

1. Statement 1 is incorrect.
2. Statement 2 is somewhat accurate but needs contextual understanding.

Therefore, the most accurate choice based on the given options is:

2. Neither of them.

• Gandhi was initially opposed to the Swarajist proposal council entry. But after his release from prison of grounds in February 1924, he gradually moved tow reconciliation with the Swarajists. He felt public opposition to the programme council entry would be counter-productive. 

• In the November 1923 elections, the Swarajists had managed to win 42 out of 141 elected seats and a clear majority in Central Provinces' provincial assembly. 

• In legislatures, in cooperation with the Liberals and the independents like Jinnah and Malaviya, they won most.

• While campaigning about the social aspect of untouchability, no emphasis was laid on the landless and agricultural labourers' economic grievances comprising mostly the untouchables. 

• Constructive Work by No-Changers: The No-Changers devoted themselves to constructive work that connected them to the different sections of the masses. 

• Ashrams sprang up where young men and women worked among tribals and lower castes (especially in Kheda and Bardoli areas of Gujarat) and popularised charkha and khadi use. 

• National schools and colleges were set up where students were trained in a non-colonial ideological framework. 

• Significant work was done for Hindu-Muslim unity, removing untouchability, a boycott of foreign cloth and liquor, and flood relief. 

• The constructive workers served as the backbone of civil disobedience as active organizers.

• The trade union movement was led by All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) founded in 1920. Lala Lajpat Rai was its first president and Dewan Chaman Lal its general secretary. 

• Tilak was also one of the moving spirits. The major strikes during the 1920s included those in Kharagpur Railway Workshops, Tata Iron and Steel Works (Jamshedpur), Bombay Textile Mills (this involved 1,50,000 workers and went on for 5 months), and Buckingham Carnatic Mills.

• In 1928, there were several strikes involving 5 lakh workers. In 1923, the first May Day was celebrated in India in Madras.

• However, the sudden withdrawal of the Non-Cooperation Movement left many of them disillusioned; they began to question the basic strategy of nationalist leadership and its emphasis on nonviolence and began to look for alternatives. 

• But since these younger nationalists were not attracted to the parliamentary work of the Swarajists or the patient, undramatic, constructive work of the No-changers, they were drawn to the idea that violent methods alone would free India. 

• Thus, Revolutionary activity was revived.

• The revolutionary activity in this region was dominated by the Hindustan Republican Association/Army or HRA (later renamed Hindustan Socialist Republican Association or HSRA). 

• The HRA was founded in October 1924 in Kanpur by Ramprasad Bismil, Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee and Sachin Sanyal, to organize an armed revolution to overthrow the colonial government and establish in its place the Federal Republic of United States of India whose basic principle would be an adult franchise. 

• Under the leadership of Chandra Shekhar Azad, the name of HRA was changed to Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). 

• The participants included Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Bhagwaticharan Vohra from Punjab and Bejoy Kumar Sinha, Shiv Verma and Jaidev Kapur from the United Provinces. The HSRA decided to work under a collective leadership and adopted socialism as its official goal.

• Both are correct. What then was the need for individual heroic action? 

• Firstly, effective acquisition of new ideology is a prolonged and historical process, whereas the need of the time was a quick change in thinking. 

• Secondly, these young intellectuals faced the classic dilemma of how to mobilize people and recruit them. Here, they decided to opt for propaganda by deed, i.e., through individual heroic action and using courts as a forum for revolutionary propaganda.