The Indian Army after the Great War. The consequences of the swadeshi movement. Move of the capitol to New Delhi. Congress rejects the reformed government proposed by the Simon Commission. Round table conferences to try to reconcile differences. Salt Satyagraha led by Gandhi to try to obtain concessions.

1. New Capitol
New Government
New Resistance
Purna Swaraj

2. Questions
• Demobilized soldiers?
– Worries about mutiny in remaining amry
– Worries about adequacy of army
• Economic value of India?

3. Awarding Veterans
• Debate between Home (pro) and Finance (anti)
about general rewards
• Remission of land payments to central government in
areas of significant recruitment
• Distribute 420,000 acres of land among 5,902 VCOs
and Indian Other Ranks (IORs).
• Jangi inaam (war reward) to demobilized officers
and followers.
• Two hundred honorary commissions as King's
Commissioned Officers to select VCOs

4. Organization of the Army
1895 Presidency army replaced by four commands
1908 Four commands become two Armies
1920 Go back to four commands
Three troop types
Field Army – main fighting force
Covering Troops – minor frontier skirmishes; temporary use
pending general mobilization
Internal Security Troops – Deal with internal unrest, protect
railways

5. A Leaner Army
British Units Indian Units
1914 75,366 158,908
1923 57.080 140,052
Field Army
Infantry Cavalry
1914 9 Divisions 8 Brigades
1923 4 Divisions 5 Brigades

6. Jallianwala Bagh Revisited
“Are you going to keep your hold upon India by
terrorism, racial humiliation and subordination, and
frightfulness, or are you going to rest it upon the
goodwill, and the growing goodwill, of the people of
your Indian Empire? I believe that to be the whole
question at issue". Montagu
Vote against the treatment of Dyer dominated by
Unionists including most of the Ulster members

7. Brig. Gen. Surtees
There are vast areas in Africa and the Pacific, where the sole
British representative is the one white man. It is up to him
to keep the native race more or less in order, to look after
administration, to see to justice, and, as far as possible, to
stamp out violence and vice. In the most favourable
circumstances this official is allowed a small armed native
guard, but in the case of any serious upheaval, he and his
police would be scattered like chaff, but for one thing. That
one thing is British prestige. Once you destroy that British
prestige, then the Empire will collapse like a house of cards,
and with it all that trade which feeds, clothes, and gives
employment to our people.

8. Shortcomings of Swadeshi
Gandhi position Practice
Khadi Costs 30% to 40% more than mill cloth
National schools Many inadequate; students return to
Government schools
Arbitration Arbitration courts disappear and
lawyers return to usual practice

9. Yarn

10. Cloth

11. Textile Production by Sector, 1937-38

12. Shortcomings of Gandhi’s Vision of
India
• Hindu-Muslim unity
– Gains Muslim support because of backing Khilafat
– Communal conflicts continue
• Non-cooperation campaign
– Violence among supporters leads to fast

13. Shortcomings of Swadeshi
Madras Presidency
• Anti-Non-Cooperative Society
• Justice Party
– Fostered by British?
– In Office 1920-26; 1930-37
– Advocates communal representation
– Opposes home rule

14. Caste Politics, Madras Presidency, 1912

15. Newspapers –Bombay Presidency
1921
Major topics
 Appeal to the public to agitate for the repeal of the Rowlatt Act
 Comments on letters from Gandhi to the press
 Comments by Tilak on non-Brahmin representation on council
 Calls for the Press Act to be repealed
 Bombay’s government’s attitude to non-cooperation and their
warnings of revolution in India
 Extracts from Gandhi’s letters on a wide range of topics
 Reports on interviews between the Viceroy and Gandhi
Anglo-Gujarati Gujarati 19,000
Gujarati Navijan 23,000

16. New Delhi
• Announced as new capital in 1911
• Move away from Calcutta and the discontent over the
Bengal partition
“Delhi is … intimately associated in the minds of the Hindus with
sacred legends which go back even beyond the dawn of history. . . .
To the Mohammedans it would be a source of unbounded
gratification to see the ancient capital of the Moguls restored to its
proud position as the seat of the Empire.”
Viceroy Hardinge
A new capital would be taken as “an unfaltering determination to
maintain British rule in India.” Secretary of State Crewe

17. 1911 Delhi durbar
Celebrates coronation of George V as Emperor and
movement of capitol to Delhi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxvFBdgCfrY&t=8s

18. What Style of Architecture
• Imperial Mughal (Fatehpur Sikri)
• Classic Edwardian Imperial
• Final choice: European classical with Indic decoration
• Havell’s arguments for preserving native skills
– Advocated by Thomas Hardy, G. B. Shaw, Coomaraswamy

19. Consideration
“It must be remembered that it is not a British
administration that is building the new city, as was the
case when Calcutta was built, but a British Indian
administration that is charged with the task.”
Viceroy Hardinge
Choose Herbert Baker, based on his work in South
Africa
Delhi must not be Indian, nor English, nor Roman, but it
must be Imperial”
Baker would retain the chajja (wide cornice), jaali (lattice
screen) and chattri (canopied turret) for the climate

20. Secretariat

21. New Delhi, Parliament, Lutyens and Baker, 1921-1927
Chausath Yogini Temple, 11th C.
Mitawali, Madhya Pradesh

22. Viceroy’s House (Rashtrapati Bhavan)

23. Viceroy’s House
340 rooms, 200,000 ft2
Buckingham Palace 775 rooms, 829,000 ft2
Biltmore 250 rooms, 179,000 ft2
White House 132 rooms, 55,000 ft2

24. Building New Delhi
• Sujan Singh and his son,
Sobha, were main
contractors for some
buildings and partly
involved in others.
• Became wealthy through
land purchases
• Grandson Khushwant
Singh (1915-2014)
became writer
Train to Pakistan
Khushwant and his love of the Delhi his
father helped build, 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78S
eVA_iaMs

25. 1928 Simon Commission
• Need for a Parliamentary commission
• Challenge critics in India to make proposals
– There is no Muslim organization to represent all Muslims
– There is no Hindu organization to represent all Hindus
• Further inability of India to participate
~300 million people; 70 million in Native states
– Of 230 million in British India, 220 million have never
heard of the commission
– 200 million have not heard of the Montagu-Chelms
reforms (government structure from 1919 to 1928)

26. Nehru Report
“The status and position of India should be no less than
the self-governing dominions of Canada, etc.”
 Reject a gradual path to “responsible government.”
 Reject perpetual control by an English Parliament
which represents and electorate with no interest in
India

27. Nehru Report
• Bill of Rights.
• No state religion; men and women shall have equal rights as citizens.
• Federal form of government with residuary powers vested in the center
• Supreme Court
• Suggest that the provinces should be linguistically determined.
• No separate electorates for any community or weightage for minorities.
Reservation of minority seats in provinces having a minorities of at least
10%, in proportion to the size of the community.
• The language of the Union shall be Indian, which may be written either in
Devanagari (Hindi/Sanskrit), Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali or
Tamil in character. The use of the English language shall be permitted

28. Jinnah’s 14 Points Include:
• Federal government with residual powers to
provinces
• Full religious liberty
• Separate elections by communal group
• One third Muslim in Central Legislature and cabinet
• Representation of minorities in all provinces
• Three quarters of any group can reject a bill

30. Salt Satyagraha
• 1878 Set monopoly on salt; uniform tax
• 1923 salt tax doubled
• March 2, 1930 Gandhi writes to Viceroy Irwin
– Notes tax system’s effect was to “crush the life out of the
people”
– Alerts him to upcoming civil disobediance
• Aim
– “My ambition is no less to convert the British people
through non-violence, and thus make them see the wrong
they have done to India.”

31. Salt March
Archival footage of the salt march with narrative
from Doodarshan, the public service broadcaster
of India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWl6Jn2CfUE

33. Salt March and More
Archival footage of the continued protests after
the arrest of Gandhi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He_eIhlAw_8

34. First Round Table Conference
November 1930 to January 1931
• Three political parties, multiple Indian factions other
than Congress
– All-India Federation with internal sovereignty of Princely
states
– Representative government on provincial level
– Separate electorate
for Untouchables

35. Gandhi-Irwin Pact
• Gandhi agrees to participate after some of his
conditions are met
– Withdraw ordinances and prosecutions that restrict
Congress
– Release non-violent political prisoners
– Allow peaceful picketing
– Restore confiscated properties of the satyagrahis
– Permit coastal dwellers to freely collect or manufacture
salt [But not the tax on salt for others]
• Strongly opposed by Churchill

36. I am against these conversations and
agreements between Lord Irwin and Mr.
Ghandi. Gandhi stands for the expulsion of
Britain from India. Gandhi stands for the
permanent exclusion of British trade from
India. Gandhi stands for the substitution of
Brahmin domination for British rule in India.
You will never be able to come to terms with
Gandhi. ...

37. These Brahmins who mouth and patter the
principles of Western Liberalism, and pose as
philosophic and democratic politicians, are the same
Brahmins who deny the primary rights of existence
to nearly sixty millions of their own fellow
countrymen whom they call “untouchable”, and
whom they have by thousands of years of oppression
actually taught to accept this sad position ...
Side by side with this Brahmin theocracy and the
immense Hindu population - angelic and
untouchable castes alike - there dwell in India
seventy millions of Moslems

38. Second Round Table Conference
September to November, 1931
• Overshadowed by the fall of Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour
government and fiscal crisis
• No agreement on Muslim representation
• Rejection of claim that Congress represented Indian political
opinion
MacDonald
Gandhi
Ambedkar

39. Third Round Table Conference
11-12/1932
• Not attended by Labour or Congress
• Parties agreed with most of what would form the
1935 Government of India Act

40. 1935 Government of India Act
• Passed by British Parliament; Opposed by Congress
and the Muslim League
• All India Federation of British India and Princely
States
• Remove dyarchy of provincial legislatures
– Direct elections; female suffrage
• Reduce powers of the provincial legislatures
• Bicameral India Parliament
– Council of State; Assembly