Nationalist movement from 1905 to 1918
There are 3 phases in this period of nationalism. We will discuss those phases
1. Era of extremist nationalism
2. First phase of revolutionary activities
3. First World War and nationalist response
1 Era of extremist nationalism
Rise of extremist nationalism was evident from the last decade of 19th century. There were few reasons for the rise of this.
1. Recognition of true nature of British rule. –
British were ruling this country For their own economic interests. After many attempts and prayer petition few nationalists realised that British are not going to concede their demands. Idea of a national government will put India to the path of progress was more and more appealing. So people try to take those steps which may be more effective politically. Apart from these, British rule was no longer a progressive rule in India. Economic hardships during the last decade of 19 century exposed true character of colonial rule. A severe famine during 1896 to 1900 killed almost 90 Lac people. Indian council act of 1892 could not satisfy moderates, in 1897 natu brothers were deported without trial, Tilak and others were imprisoned on charges of sedition in 1899, number of Indian members in Calcutta Corporation were reduced, University act of 1904 try to install more government control over universities, and official secret act curbed the freedom of press.
2. Growth of education and self confidence and international influence
– Spread of western education, rise of unemployment and underemployment among newly educated masses made them realised that under development of Indian economy and poverty is a result of colonial rule. Leaders like tilak, arabinda Ghosh, bipinchandra understood that involvement of mass is required to get a nationalist government because mass is now ready to make ultimate sacrifice. On the other hand after 1868 without any external help Japan become an industrial power, defeat of Italian army by Ethiopians, defeat of Russia by Japanese, open the eyes of our nationalist leaders that Europeans are not invincible and the national movements worldwide in Ireland, Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Persia, China were also influenced our people.
3. Dissatisfaction with the achievements of moderates
– The young revolutionaries in Congress were dissatisfied with the achievements of moderates during the first 15 to 20 years. They strongly criticised the methods which yielded almost no result. 3 P’s that is prayer petition protest were known to be the process of moderates and described those as the political mendicancy.
4. Reactionary policies of Lord Curzon.-
Lord Curzon has no respect for Indians. He openly criticised Indians on various grounds . He introduced official secrets act, Indian universities act, Calcutta Corporation act, above all he introduced partition of Bengal. Such activities influenced young minds that British rule is not for India.
The partition of Bengal-
The British government decided to divide Bengal into eastern Bengal and western Bengal. Eastern Bengal to be merged with Assam and capital would be Dhaka. For the West Bengal it will be merged with Odisha and Bihar capital would be Kolkata. Official reason was such a large province was not feasible for one administer to rule. Lord Curzon assured Muslims that they are getting a Muslim majority province. The real motive behind it, was to make Bengali, a minority and to suppress the revolutionary activities.
Reaction to these activities of government, people of Bengal launched swadeshi and boycott movement.
Campaign under moderates:
Surendranath Banerjee, KK Mitra where the moderate leaders who sent petitions to government organised public meetings and propaganda through pamphlets and newspapers the object was to pressurise government so that they change the decision. Ignoring popular sentiment, government announced the partition of Bengal in July 1905. On October 16th 1905 was the effective date of partition. A day of mourning observed throughout the Bengal, people fasted, bathed in Ganga and walked barefoot in procession, sang vande mataram. Soon movement spread other parts of Bengal.
The Congress’s position-
The extremist nationalist and moderate nationalists in the Congress had different views regarding spread and ways of anti-partition movement in 1906 under the presidentship of dadabhai naoroji, it was decided goal of Indian National Congress was self-government or swarajya under British rule like Australia and Canada but this difference of opinion reach to its climax in 1907 when moderates and extremists part their ways and resulted into Congress split.
Extremists wanted to involve masses, spread the movement across the country and go beyond the boycott. extremists give a call for passive resistance and boycott of government schools, colleges, government service, courts, legislative councils etc in order to make administration impossible. Their program included boycott of foreign goods, public meeting, and processions, Corps of volunteers, use of festivals and melas, emphasis on self-reliance. Program of swadeshi or national production during this period of time, there were many national schools were opened. The Bengal National College inspired by tagore’s shantiniketan was set up with Arvind Ghosh as its principal soon national schools and colleges bring up in various parts of the country. In 1906 National Council of educational set up to organise a systematic educational, literary, scientific and technical on national lines and under national control.
So indigenous enterprise, many swadeshi enterprise came up they started making soap, match factories, tanneries, banks, insurance company, etc.
Extent of mass participation:
student came out of their schools they started picketing in front of shop selling foreign goods. Some Muslim leaders participated like barrister Abdul rasul, liyakat Hussain, gaj Navi Maulana Azad but most of the upper and middle class Muslim stayed away. Nawab of Dhaka Salim ullah supported the partition of Bengal. All India Muslim League was formed on 30th December1906.
In Bengal political assassination took place and government was forced to withdraw the partition in 1911 and they shifted the capital from Kolkata to Delhi.
Failure of extremist movement
1. there was severe government repression
2. they are not able to create an effective organisation or a party structure.
3. Movement was rendered leaderless Because most of the leaders were either arrested or deported by 1908
4. Internal difference of opinion among leaders harm the movement
5. Movement aroused the people but they could not tap the huge potential
6. Non-cooperation and passive resistance was not that effective
7. Movement largely remained confined to the upper and middle classes of society
Morley Minto reforms act 1909
In October 1906 a group of Muslims led by Agra Khan met viceroy Lord Minto and demanded Reservation for Muslim people both in government jobs and legislative assembly. British government found it a suitable option to be used against Congress. Muslim League was established. The then viceroy Lord Minto and Secretary of State for India John Morley agreed to introduce some reforms to placate Muslims and moderate leaders. This was known as Indian council act of 1909.
InIndians were allowed to participate in the election of various legislative councils though on the basis of class and community
2. For the first time separate electorates for Muslims for central council was introduced
3. Number of elected members in Imperial and provincial legislative councils where increased in provincial councils non-official majority was introduced
4. Elected members were to be indirectly elected. The local bodies were to elect Electoral College which in-turn would elect members of provincial legislatures who inturn would elect members of central legislature.
5. Muslims were given reservation in excess of their strength and qualification for Muslim voters why are lower than that of Hindu.
Revolutionary activities 1907
to 1917 
Methodology of revolutionary activities:
At that time, situation was not that right to start a violent mass struggle against government to overthrow it, instead revolutionaries in Bengal and in India followed the patterns of nihilist of Russians or Irish nationalist who followed a secret revolutionary activities against the British government the idea was to terrorise British officials British civilians so that they leave India. In this methodology they assassinated many unpopular officials, supporters and informers of British. They were believing in individual heroic action. They were able, to some extent, to remove the fear of British rule from the minds of mass
Extremist activities in Bengal :
Anusheelon and samiti was set up at Calcutta in 1902 they were practicing physical and moral training. In 1906 anusheelon samity started weekly yugantar and was spreading nationalist ideas among masses. Rasbihari Bose and Sachin sanyal organised secret society covering Punjab Delhi united province. In 1907 there were attempts to derail the train which was carrying Lieutenant governor.
In 1908 prafulla chaki and khudiram Bose through a bomb at carriage supposed to be carrying an unpopular judge Kingsford in muzaffarpur.
The whole anusheelan group was arrested, tried in alipur conspiracy case. Extremists assassinated a public prosecutor, a deputy Superintendent of police. Many political robbery took place. Rashbehari Bose and Sachin sanyal staged a spectacular bomb attack on viceroy Lord hardinge in Delhi. During First World War a party named yugantar arranged to import German arms and ammunition through sympathizers and revolutionaries abroad.
The Gadar party:
it was a revolutionary group organised around weekly newspaper the gather with his headquarter at San Francisco established in 1913.
Revolutionaries in Europe: the Berlin committee for Indian independence was established in 1915 by veerendranath, bhupendra datta, lala hardayal and with the help of German Foreign Office under zimmerman plan.
Mutiny in Singapore: Few scattered mutinies during phase. The most notable was Singapore on February 15, 1915 by Punjabi Muslim the 5th Light Infantry and 36th batellion.
First World War and nationalist response:
During First World War few prominent leaders staged various movements. Among them extremist leader tilak any basant were very important The Indian council act of 1909 could not satisfy or fulfill aspirations of educated Indians, they were demanding reforms as per Ireland. They were demanding home rule. Home rule is a rule by Indian people within British Empire that means foreign policy, defense, and important items will be taken care by British government apart from those all will be handed over to Indian people who will be elected and will manage those affairs. Few prominent leaders were BG tilak, annie basant, subramania iyer, Joseph baptista and Mohammed Ali jinnah.
Reasons for the movement
By early of 1915, Annie besant had launched a campaign for self-government in India after the war on the lines of White colonies. She campaigned through her newspapers new India and commonweal, public meetings, and conferences.
Tilak set up his Indian home rule League in April 1916. Tilak held his first home rule meeting at belgaum. Poona was the headquarter of his league. his league was restricted to Maharashtra excluding Bombay, Karnataka central province and Bihar. It had 6 branches and demanded formation of linguistic States and education in vernacular languages.
Set up her All India home rule in September 1916. In Madras and covered the rest of India including Bombay city it had 200 branches George Arundale as the organising secretary beside him BP wadiyan CP ramaswamy iyer was also members
Home rule League agitation
was later joined by motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, bulabhai Desai, chitranjan Das, saifuddin kichloo, madan Mohan Malviya, Mohammed Ali jinnah, lala lajpat Rai. Mohammed Ali jinnah headed the Bombay branch
Government’s Response: government came down heavily on agitators. Students were prohibited from attending political meetings. Cases loged against tilak, besant and her associates this led to nationwide protest. Montegu the then Secretary of State for India commented his famous mythological incident of Lord Shiva and sati while referring to the arrest of miss besant. Annie besant was released in September hey 1917.
After facing home rule League movement government decided 2 introduced montegu chemsford act or Indian council act 1919. So the attention of public move from home rule League to the council act. Lack of effective organization, communal riots, passive resistance, tilak had to go to abroad, gandhi’s fresh approach to the struggle for freedom phased out the movement.
Lucknow session of Indian National Congress 1916: moderate leaders by that time understood that extremist elements were necessary to effective functioning of the Congress. Both the section realised that split was not in interest of the country. Annie basant, Tilak had made vigorous efforts for reunion. Tilak declared that he supported a reform of administration and not an overthrow of government, he also denounced act of violence. Death of moderate leaders like gokhale and Pherozshah Mehta clear all barriers for extremists to be admitted
Lucknow pact between Congress and Muslim League:
Congress and Muslim League in 1916 signed a pact and the combinedly present demand to government
Muslim League was annoyed over British governments refusal to help Turkey, annulment of partition of Bengal and set up a aligarh University with powers to affiliate colleges all over India, and the suppression of British government to newspapers by Maulana Azad and Mohammed Ali.