'Colonial Rule and the Nationalist Challenge in India, 1919-47' is one of the eight Paper 1 depth studies. You study two of them, so only work through these lessons if India is one of your chosen options.
Sign up to access the complete lesson and track your progress!
Unlock This CourseFrom 1858 India was ruled directly by the British Crown. This rule is known as the Raj. India then covered a much bigger area than the modern country and was home to about 300 million people.
By 1914 two political parties spoke for Indians. The Indian National Congress, founded in 1885, was open to all but most of its members were Hindus. The Muslim League, founded in 1906, was set up to protect the interests of Muslims, who were a minority in India. Before the war both were small groups of educated men who mostly asked politely for a bigger share in government.
Key terms:
When Britain went to war in August 1914, the viceroy, Lord Hardinge, announced that India was at war too. No Indian leader was asked. Even so, Congress, the Muslim League and the princes backed Britain. Many nationalists hoped that loyalty in wartime would be rewarded with a bigger say afterwards.
About 1.3 million Indians served as soldiers and labourers, more than a million of them overseas. Indian troops reached the Western Front in autumn 1914. They also fought in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), East Africa and Palestine. More than 74,000 died. In 1914 Khudadad Khan became the first Indian soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest medal for bravery.
India paid for its own troops and, in 1917, gave Britain a gift of £100 million towards the cost of the war. It also sent huge amounts of food, cloth for uniforms, jute for sandbags, and animals such as horses and mules.
Paying for all this fell on ordinary Indians, most of whom were poor farmers.
Not everyone lost. Some Indian factory owners did well, because the army needed cloth and steel. But for most people the war meant higher costs and grief.
By 1917 the British government knew it had to offer India something in return. On 20 August 1917 Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, made a statement known as the Montagu Declaration. He said that British policy was 'the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire'.
This was the first time Britain had said that self-government was the goal. But look at the wording. It was 'gradual', it gave no date, and Britain would decide how fast to go.
Hopes were also raised from outside India. The American President Woodrow Wilson spoke of the right of peoples to choose their own government. Indians asked why this should not apply to them.
Two leagues were set up in 1916 to demand home rule, one led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and one by Annie Besant, a British woman who had made India her home. They used meetings, newspapers and pamphlets to reach far more people than Congress had before. When the British locked Besant up in 1917 there were protests across India. She was freed and chosen as president of Congress that December.
In December 1916 Congress and the Muslim League agreed to work together and to ask Britain jointly for self-government. In return, Congress accepted separate electorates: seats on councils kept for Muslims and voted for only by Muslims. A young lawyer, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, helped to bring the two sides together. Britain now faced a united demand.
Mohandas Gandhi also came home from South Africa in 1915. You will meet him properly in Gandhi: Aims, Methods and Satyagraha.
By the end of the war in November 1918, nationalism had changed. It had spread from a small educated group to a much wider movement, Hindus and Muslims were working together, and the demand was now for home rule, not small reforms. India had given men and money, and it expected a real reward.
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history book)
For ordinary Indians the war was a crushing burden. Villages were stripped of their young men, often by recruiters who bullied families into giving up their sons. Taxes climbed and the price of food and cloth soared, so the poor went hungry while their rulers demanded ever more. Then, in 1918, influenza swept through a weakened people and killed millions. India had been drained of men, money and food for a distant war that was never its own.
What impression does the author give about the impact of the First World War on India? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
The author gives the impression that the war was a disaster for India, bringing suffering and nothing else. This is shown by the author's choice of words. The war is called a 'crushing burden', which suggests a weight too heavy to carry. Villages were 'stripped' of men and India was 'drained', words that make India sound like something being emptied for another country's benefit. The phrase 'a distant war that was never its own' suggests the suffering was unfair. The author has also chosen to include only harm: bullying recruiters, soaring prices, hunger and influenza. Nothing is said about the many Indian leaders who supported the war, the factory owners who did well from it, or the promise of self-government made in 1917. By leaving these out, the author makes the impact seem completely negative.
What lifts it to the top level: it names one clear impression, then explains how the author's loaded words and the choice to include only suffering create it, instead of just repeating the extract.
Hunt for the strongest verbs first. Here 'stripped', 'soared' and 'drained' all point the same way. Quote each in a word or two, say what it suggests, then finish with one thing the author has left out, such as the Indian leaders who backed the war.