Indian National Movement Test - 18

In 1940, in Lahore, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the man who founded Pakistan, gave a seminal speech, setting out the need for a separate state for Muslims on the subcontinent. Prior to the division of India in 1947, Hindus and Muslims had lived together across the country, but Jinnah described them as two separate nations. Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. Due to these reasons, he gave the concept of the two nations theory.

The clarion call 'Dilli Chalo' was given by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Netaji's call was significant. He urged the British-enslaved people of the country to go forward and capture the seat of power.

The Muslim League first demanded partition of India in 1940, after a league conference in Lahore, where Jinnah, in his speech, addressed the people and indicated that Hindus and Muslims belonged to two different religious philosophies. In Lahore, the Muslim League formally recommitted itself to creating an independent Muslim state, which would include Sindh, Punjab, Baluchistan, the Northwest Frontier Province, and Bengal, and which would be "wholly autonomous and sovereign". The resolution guaranteed protection for non-Muslim religions.

The Bhoodan Movement or Land Gift Movement, was a voluntary land reform movement in India, started by Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 1951 at Pochampally village, which is now in Telangana, India, and known as Bhoodan Pochampally. The mission of the movement was to persuade wealthy landowners to voluntarily give a percentage of their land to the landless people. The governments of various provinces passed Bhoodan Acts, which generally stipulated that the beneficiary had no right to sell the land or use it for a non-agricultural purpose, including forestry.

Sir Dadabhai Naoroji Dordi (4 September, 1825 – 30 June, 1917), known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political and social leader. He was a Liberal Party member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom House of Commons between 1892 and 1895, and the first Indian to be a British MP, notwithstanding the Anglo-Indian MP David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre, who was disenfranchised for corruption. In 2014, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg inaugurated the Dadabhai Naoroji Awards for services to UK-India relations.

The revolt of 1857 began on 10 May 1857 at Meerut, as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army. Sepoys in the Presidency of Bengal revolted against their British officers.British historians called it the Sepoy Mutiny, Indian historians named it the Revolt of 1857 or the First War of Indian Independence. Nana Saheb is regarded as one of the main leaders of the 1857 war of independence disappeared soon after his defeat at the hands of the British. According to the historians Nana Saheb could not be captured by the British in 1857. Nana Saheb, better known as Dhondupant was the adopted son of exiled last Peshwa- Baji Rao II.

Warren Hastings laid the foundation of civil service and Charles Cornwallis reformed, modernised, and rationalised it. Hence, Charles Cornwallis is known as the father of civil service in India. The All India and Central Services (Group A) were designated as Central Superior Services in 1924.

The Cripps Mission was an attempt (in late March 1942) by the British government to secure Indian cooperation and support for their efforts in World War II. The mission was headed by Sir Stafford Cripps, a senior left-wing politician and government minister in the War Cabinet of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The mission aimed at a compromise between Congress's demand for united India and Muslim League's demand for partitioned India, but the mission proved a failure.

Indians were dissatisfied with the Simon Commission because there was no Indian in that commission. So, the people greeted it with the slogan "Go Back Simon". The commission was boycotted by the Indian National Congress and most other Indian political parties.

The Salt March, also known as the Dandi March and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India, led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The 24-day march lasted from 12 March, 1930, to 6 April, 1930, as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly. Mahatma Gandhi started this march with 78 of his trusted volunteers. Walking ten miles a day for 24 days, the march spanned over 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, which was called Navsari.

Provincial elections were held in British India in the winter of 1936-37, as mandated by the Government of India Act, 1935. Elections were held in eleven provinces - Madras, Central Provinces, Bihar, Orissa, United Provinces, Bombay Presidency, Assam, NWFP, Bengal, Punjab, and Sindh. The final results of the elections were declared in February 1937. The Indian National Congress emerged in power in eight of the provinces. The All-India Muslim League failed to form the government in any province. The Congress ministries resigned in October and November 1939, in protest against Viceroy Lord Linlithgow's action of declaring India to be a belligerent in the Second World War without consulting the Indian people.

The Khilafat Movement or non-cooperation movement was launched by Mahatma Gandhi and the Ali brothers. The Khilfat Movement was launched to restore the ottoman Turkish emperor, Khalifa and strengthen the relationship between Muslims and Hindus of India, for a combined struggle for freedom. In 1920, Jinnah opposed the non-cooperation movement led by the Indian National Congress and resigned as a member. With time, the differences between the Muslim League and Congress widened. Jinnah became the first governor-general of Pakistan, which was formed on August 14, 1947.

In 'The Social Contract' (1762), Rousseau argues that laws are binding only when they are supported by the general will of the people. His famous idea, 'man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains', challenged the traditional order of society.

The Khilafat Movement was started by Ali brothers, Shaukat Ali and Mohammad Ali, in protest against the injustices done to Turkey after the first world war. Mainly, Mohammad Ali and Shaukat Ali began to protest. Then, even the Indian Muslims joined, Gandhi supported the movement to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity.

Manabendra Nath Roy (21^st March, 1887 – 26^th January, 1954), born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, was an Indian revolutionary, a radical activist, who played a vital role in the partition of Bengal Agitation and a political theorist, and a noted philosopher in the 20^th century. Roy was a founder of the Mexican Communist Party and the Communist Party of India. He was also a delegate to congresses of the Communist International and Russia's aide to China.

Chittaranjan Das (C. R. Das), popularly called Deshbandhu (Friend of the Nation), (5^th November, 1870 – 16^th June, 1925), was a leading Bengali politician, a prominent lawyer, an activist of the Indian National Movement and founder-leader of the Swaraj (Independence) Party in Bengal during British occupation in India. The Swaraj Party was formed by Motilal Nehru and Chittaranjan Das in order to fight British colonialism from within and give the people of India a responsible and responsive government by making the colonial state accountable.

Annie Besant (1^st October, 1847 – 20^th September, 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer, orator, and supporter of both Irish and Indian self-rule. She was a Victorian radical whose outspoken views included advocacy of women's rights and opposition to British imperial policies. The conflict between loyalty to national heritage and opposition to traditional patriarchy is the one that colonised women have commonly experienced.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (23^rd July, 1856 – 1^st August, 1920), born as Keshav Gangadhar Tilak, was an Indian nationalist, teacher, and an independence activist. Tilak reunited with his fellow nationalists and re-joined the Indian National Congress in 1916. He also helped found the All India Home Rule League in 1916-18, with G. S. Khaparde and Annie Besant. After years of trying to reunite the moderate and radical factions, he gave up and focused on the Home Rule League, which sought self-rule.