Swadeshi Movement (1905-1911)

Background

• The movement had its roots in the anti-partition movement which was started to oppose Lord Curzon’s decision of dividing the province of Bengal.
• The Anti-Partition Campaign was launched by Moderates to exert pressure on the government to prevent the unjust partition of Bengal from being implemented.
  • The petitions were written to the government, public meetings were held and the ideas were spread through newspapers such as Hitabadi, Sanjibani and Bengalee.
• The partition led to protest meetings in Bengal under which the pledge to boycott foreign goods was first taken

Swadeshi Movement Proclamation

• The formal proclamation of the Swadeshi movement was made on August 7, 1905 with the passing of the ‘Boycott’ resolution in a meeting at the Calcutta town hall which brought about the unification of the hitherto dispersed leadership

• The message was propagated to boycott goods such as Manchester cloth and Liverpool salt

• On the day the partition was put into effect i.e. October 16, 1905, a hartal was called in Calcutta and a day of mourning was declared. People fasted and no fire was lit in the cooking hearth.

• People paraded the streets singing Bande Mataram. The people of Bengal tied rakhis on each others’ wrist as a symbol of solidarity

• Rabindranath Tagore also composed Amar Sonar Bangla

• Although the movement was confined majorly to Bengal, it spread to a few different parts of India:

• In Poona and Bombay under Bal Gangadhar Tilak
• In Punjab under Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh
• In Delhi under Syed Haider Raza
• In Madras under Chidambaram Pillai

• This peculiar form of mass protest of ‘swadeshi and boycott’ attained popularity among the new members of the Congress, who were more impatient than the moderates to see a positive response to their efforts

Congress Reaction

• The Indian National Congress (INC) in a meeting in 1905 resolved to condemn the partition of Bengal and support the anti-partition and Swadeshi Movement.
• The radical nationalists wanted the movement to be taken outside Bengal and go beyond just the boycott of foreign goods.
  • However, the moderates, dominating the Congress, were unwilling to go that far.
• In the 1906 Congress Session held at Calcutta, the INC under the presidentship of Dadabhai Naoroji declared self-government or Swaraj as the goal of INC

Swadeshi Movement Effect

1. This was a comprehensive movement that lasted 6 years.
2. The swadeshi movement assumed its radical and mass form after 1905 following the contested spatial partition of Bengal.
3. In 1907, swadeshi was officially incorporated within the conceptual and ideological framework of the Indian National Congress in the avowed objective of swadeshi swaraj.
4. Although this was regarded as a cultural movement celebrating the rich harvest of history – the rich traditions like folk music, paintings, the culture of Bengal was highlighted. But very soon, it got integrated with the political upheavals that followed after the partition of Bengal. Krishna Kumar Mitra, in his newspaper, ‘Sanjivani’ highlighted the prospects of national education and ‘Economic Swadeshi’.
5. Very soon, this movement started gaining momentum with the help of the entire Bengali middle-class intelligentsia.
6. After the partition of Bengal, the Swadeshi movement got a big boost, because of the integration of the boycott movement with the Swadeshi movement.
7. Tilak called this movement “Bahishkar Yoga“ and most of the Bengali intelligentsia that was initially not in favour of the boycott movement got integrated with the Swadeshi movement.
8. This was primary learning for the national movement. According to Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Lala Lajpat Rai, it was training in ‘self-determination’, ‘self-help’, and ‘self-reliance’.
9. Initially the idea of swadeshi figured in the writings of early nationalists such as Dadabhai Nauroji, M.G.Ranade and Bipin Chandra Pal, who came in defence of the national economy against the colonial economy.
10. In fact, the Swadeshi movement can be called as a nursery of the further course that the Indian National Movement was to take. The programmes and ideas that were practised during the Swadeshi movement became the hallmark of the Gandhian movement as well.
11. Surendranath Bannerjee said that it is a ‘protectionist movement’. And that it ‘generates the material prosperity of the masses’.
12. Very soon, the Swadeshi movement spread to different parts of India, like Bihar, U.P., C.P., Bombay and Madras.
13. Radicalism also became a part of the Swadeshi movement after the partition of Bengal. After the partition of Bengal, industrial strikes became the hallmark of the Swadeshi movement.
14. There were strikes carried out in various cotton and jute factories of Bengal. Railway workers also went on strike. The Burnpur mill also went on strike.
15. But, the context of the anti-partition movement made it a very aggressive movement

Participation of People

• Students: School and college students were the most active participants of the movement.
  • Student participation was visible in Bengal, Poona (Maharashtra), Guntur (Andhra Pradesh), Madras and Salem (Tamil Nadu).
  • The police adopted a repressive attitude towards the students. The students found guilty were fined, expelled, beaten, arrested and disqualified for government jobs and scholarships.
• Women: Traditionally home-centered women too took active part in the movement.
• Stand of Muslims: Some of the muslims participated, however, most of the upper and middle class muslims stayed away.
  • They supported the partition on the belief that it would provide them a Muslim-majority East Bengal

Problems with Swadeshi Movement

• But the problem with the Swadeshi movement was that it was not properly directed and it failed to unite the Hindus and Muslims because of the work of Nawab Salimullah of Dhaka and the establishment of the Muslim league.
• The demand of separate electorates became an issue to seek political mileage for the Muslims. Thus, the Swadeshi movement lacked having a large mass-base. The grievances of the peasants were not at all taken into consideration- such as lack of uniformity of the land revenue system, rights of the tenants, prevention of land grabbing, were not taken up by the Swadeshi movement, and thus the peasants did not become a part of the Swadeshi movement

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