All-India Muslim League

Flag of All India Muslim League

The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was established on December 30, 1906, at the time of British colonial rule to protect the interests of Muslims. Later it became the main vehicle through which the demand for a separate homeland for the Muslims was put forth. The Indian National Congress (INC) was perceived by some Muslims as an essentially Hindu organization where Muslim interests would not be safeguarded.

Formed in the year 1885, the INC did not have any agenda of separate religious identity. Some of its annual sessions were presided over by eminent Muslims like Badruddin Tyabji (1844–1906) and Rahimtulla M. Sayani (1847– 1902).

Certain trends emerged in the late 19th century that convinced a sizable group of Muslims to chart out a separate course. The rise of communalism in the Muslim community began with a revivalist tendency, with Muslims looking to the history of Arabs as well as the Delhi sultanate and the Moghul rule of India with pride and glory.

Although the conditions of the Muslims were not the same all over the British Empire, there was a general backwardness in commerce and education. The British policy of "divide and rule" encouraged certain sections of the Muslim population to remain away from mainstream politics.

The INC, although secular in outlook, was not able to contain the spread of communalism among Hindus and Muslims alike. The rise of Hindu militancy, the cow protection movement, the use of religious symbols, and so on alienated the Muslims. Syed Ahmed Khan's (1817–98) ideology and political activities provided a backdrop for the separatist tendency among the Muslims. He exhorted that the interests of Hindus and Muslims were divergent.

Khan advocated loyalty to the British Empire. The viceroy Lord Curzon (1899–1905) partitioned the province of Bengal in October 1905, creating a Muslim majority province in the eastern wing. The INC's opposition and the consequent swadeshi (indigenous) movement convinced some Muslim elites that the congress was against the interests of the Muslim community. 

A pro-partition campaign was begun by the nawab of Dhaka, Khwaja Salimullah Khan (1871–1915), who had been promised a huge amount of interest-free loans by Curzon. He would be influential in the new state. The nawab began to form associations, safeguarding the interests of the Bengali Muslims. He was also thinking in terms of an all-India body. In his Shahbag residence he hosted 2,000 Muslims between December 27 and 30, 1906.

At the All India Muslim League Working Committee, Lahore session, March 1940

Sultan Muhammad Shah, the Aga Khan III (1877– 1957), who had led a delegation in October 1906 to Viceroy Lord Minto (1845–1914) for a separate electorate for the Muslims, was also with Salimullah Khan. Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk (1837–1907) of the Aligarh movement also was present in Dhaka. On December 30 the AIML was formed.

The chairperson of the Dhaka conclave, Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk (1841–1917), declared that the league would remain loyal to the British and would work for the interests of the Muslims. The constitution of the league, the Green Book, was drafted by Maulana Muhammad Ali Jouhar (1878–1931).

The headquarters of the league was set up in Aligarh (Lucknow from 1910), and Aga Khan was elected the first president. Thus, a separate all-India platform was created to voice the grievances of the Muslims and contain the growing influence of the Congress Party. The AIML had a membership of 400, and a branch was set up in London two years afterward by Syed Ameer Ali (1849–1928).

The league was dominated by landed aristocracy and civil servants of the United Provinces. In its initial years it passed pious resolutions. The leadership had remained loyal to the British Empire, and the Government of India Act of 1909 granted separate electorates to the Muslims.

A sizable number of Muslim intellectuals advocated a course of agitation in light of the annulment of the partition of Bengal in 1911. Two years afterward the league demanded self-government in its constitution. There was also change in leadership of the league after the resignation of President Aga Khan in 1913. Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948), the eminent lawyer from Bombay (now Mumbai), joined the league.

Driving Out the British

Hailed as the ambassador of "Hindu-Muslim unity," Jinnah was an active member of the INC. He still believed in cooperation between the two communities to drive out the British. He became the president of the AIML in 1916 when it met in Lucknow. He was also president between 1920 and 1930 and again from 1937 to 1947.

Jinnah was instrumental in the Lucknow Pact of 1916 between the congress and the league, which assigned 30 percent of provincial council seats to Muslims. But there was a gradual parting of the ways between the INC and the AIML. The appearance of Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) on the Indian scene further increased the distance, as Jinnah did not like Gandhi's noncooperation movement.

The short-lived hope of rapprochement between the two parties occurred in the wake of the coming of the Simon Commission. The congress accepted the league's demand for one-third representation in the central legislature. But the Hindu Mahasabha, established in 1915, rejected the demand at the All Parties Conference of 1928. The conference also asked Motilal Nehru (1861–1931) to prepare a constitution for a free India.

The Nehru Report spelled out a dominion status for India. The report was opposed by the radical wing of the INC, which was led by Motilal's son Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964). The league also rejected the Nehru Report as it did not concede to all the league's demands. Jinnah called it a parting of the ways, and the relations between the league and the congress began to sour.

The league demanded separate electorates and reservation of seats for the Muslims. From the 1920s on the league itself was not a mass-based party. In 1928 in the presidency of Bombay it had only 71 members. In Bengal and the Punjab, the two Muslim majority provinces, the unionists and the Praja Krushsk Party, respectively, were powerful.

League membership also did not increase substantially. In 1922 it had a membership of 1,093, and after five years it increased only to 1,330. Even in the historic 1930 session, when the demand for a separate Muslim state was made by President Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), it lacked a quorum, with only 75 members present.

After coming back from London, Jinnah again took the mantle of leadership of the league. The British had agreed to give major power to elected provincial legislatures per the 1935 Government of India Act. The INC was victorious in general constituencies but did not perform well in Muslim constituencies.

Many Muslims had subscribed to the INC's ideal of secularism. It seemed that the two-nation theory, exhorting that the Hindus and Muslims form two different nations, did not appeal to all the Muslims. The Muslims were considered a nation with a common language, history, and religion according to the two-nation theory.

In 1933 a group of Cambridge students led by Choudhary Rahmat Ali (1897–1951) had coined the term Pakistan (land of the pure), taking letters from Muslim majority areas: Punjab P, Afghania (North-West Frontier Province) A, Kashmir K, Indus-Sind IS, and Baluchistan TAN. The league did not achieve its dream of a separate homeland for the Muslims until 1947.

It had been an elite organization without a mass base, and Jinnah took measures to popularize it. The membership fees were reduced, committees were formed at district and provincial levels, socioeconomic content was put in the party manifesto, and a vigorous anti-congress campaign was launched. The scenario changed completely for the league when in the famous Lahore session the Pakistan Resolution was adopted on March 23, 1940.

Jinnah reiterated the two-nation theory highlighting the social, political, economic, and cultural differences of the two communities. The resolution envisaged an independent Muslim state consisting of Sindh, the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, and Bengal. The efforts of Jinnah after the debacle in the 1937 election paid dividends as 100,000 joined the league in the same year.

There was no turning back for the league after the Pakistan Resolution. The league followed a policy of cooperation with the British government and did not support the Quit India movement of August 1942. The league was determined to have a separate Muslim state, whereas the congress was opposed to the idea of partition.

Reconciliation was not possible, and talks between Gandhi and Jinnah for a united India in September 1944 failed. After the end of World War II, Great Britain did not have the economic or political resources to hold the British Empire in India. It decided to leave India finally and ordered elections to central and provincial legislatures.

The league won all 30 seats reserved for Muslims with 86 percent of the votes in the elections of December 1945 for the center. The congress captured all the general seats with 91 percent of the votes. In the provincial elections of February 1946, the league won 440 seats reserved for Muslims out of a total of 495 with 75 percent of the votes.

Flush with success, the Muslim members gathered in April for the Delhi convention and demanded a sovereign state and two constitution-making bodies. Jinnah addressed the gathering, saying that Pakistan should be established without delay.

It would consist of the Muslim majority areas of Bengal and Assam in the east and the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sind, and Baluchistan in the west. The British government had dispatched a cabinet mission in March to transfer power. The league accepted the plan of the cabinet mission, but the league working committee in July withdrew its earlier acceptance and called for a Direct Action Day on August 16.

The league joined the interim government in October but decided not to attend the Constituent Assembly. In January 1947 the Muslim League launched a "direct action" against the non–Muslim League government of Khizr Hayat Tiwana (1900–75) of the Punjab.

Partition was inevitable, and the new viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten (1900–79), began to talk with leaders from the league as well as the congress to work out a compromise formula. On June 3, 1947, it was announced that India and Pakistan would be granted independence.

The Indian Independence Act was passed by the British parliament in July, and the deadline was set for midnight on August 14–15. The demand of the league for a separate state was realized when the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was born on August 14.

On August 15 Jinnah was sworn in as the first governor-general of Pakistan, and Liaqat Ali Khan (1895–1951) became the prime minister. The new nation had 60 million Muslims in East Bengal, West Punjab, Sind, the North-West Frontier Province, and Baluchistan.

After independence the league did not remain a major political force for long, and dissent resulted in many splinter groups. The Pakistan Muslim League had no connection with the original league. In India the Indian Union Muslim League was set up in March 1948 with a stronghold in the southern province of Kerala.

The two-nation theory received a severe jolt when East Pakistan seceded after a liberation struggle against the oppressive regime of the west. A new state, Bangladesh, emerged in December 1971. In the early 21st century more Muslims resided in India (175 million) than in Pakistan (159 million).

Bhim Rao Ambedkar

Bhim Rao Ambedkar

Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar was the most important leader of the oppressed untouchable minority in the history of India. He acquired the honorific name Babasaheb. Fighting for his people, he angered Mohandas K. Gandhi, the revered leader of the Indian nationalist movement, as well as many Hindu traditionalists.

When India became an independent country, he served in its cabinet and drafted its constitution. Near the end of his life, he became a Buddhist and encouraged other untouchables to do likewise; he had lost hope of justice for his people within Hinduism.

In Hinduism most people belonged to four hierarchical castes, but a large minority were excluded from the caste system and were regarded as beneath it. They did jobs that other Hindus rejected as ritually unclean and were not allowed to pray in temples or to draw water from communal wells.

Nearly all of them were desperately poor. In English these people often are called untouchables, or pariahs. Gandhi, wishing to improve their status, called them harijans, or children of God. To underscore their miserable condition, untouchables preferred to be called dalits, a name that means oppressed.

B. R. Ambedkar was born to an untouchable family as its 14th child. At the time of his birth his father was a soldier. Untouchables were divided into numerous hereditary subgroups, or jatis. Ambedkar belonged to the Mahar jati. Despite the disadvantages of poverty, family responsibilities, and untouchable status, he acquired an advanced education.

In 1912 he earned a B.A. degree from Elphinstone College at Bombay University. The ruler of a princely state then financed his education in the United States and Britain. In 1916 Columbia University awarded him a Ph.D. in economics. He continued his studies at the London School of Economics. In 1921 it awarded him a second doctorate. He studied law at Gray's Inn and in 1923 was called to the bar in Britain. He also studied briefly at a German university.

In India he practiced law, taught, edited newspapers, and entered politics. Although he was elected to the Bombay legislature, his real political career was as the leader of the formerly passive untouchable community.

Ambedkar's nonviolent protests mobilized tens of thousands of dalits for the right to draw water from wells and public tanks and to pray in temples. Although Gandhi saw himself as a friend of the untouchables, he got along poorly with Ambedkar. They quarreled at the Round Table Conferences on India's future held in London.

When Britain decided to grant India extensive political autonomy, its government grappled with the problem of the diversity within the Indian population. In 1932 Britain offered separate electorates to the untouchables, so that this oppressed minority would control the selection of its representatives. The Indian National Congress strongly opposed any separate electorates.

Gandhi began a fast to put pressure on Ambedkar to reject the special electorates for his people. Reluctantly, he did so. The Indian National Congress offered Ambedkar concessions in what was known as the Poona Pact. The number of seats reserved for untouchable candidates was increased, but the entire electorate, not just untouchables, would vote on the candidates for these seats.

In 1936 Ambedkar organized the Independent Labour Party. In contrast with Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, Ambedkar and his party supported the British government in India during World War II.

In 1942 he became a member of the viceroy's executive council. In the same year he organized a new political party, the Scheduled Castes' Federation.

When India became independent, Ambedkar joined the new government that the Indian National Congress dominated. From 1947 to 1951, he was a member of the cabinet. More important, he chaired the committee that drafted the national constitution and was its principal author.

In the final years of his life, Ambedkar turned to Buddhism, a religion with Indian roots that rejected the Hindu caste system and the concept of untouchability. He formally converted to Buddhism in October 1956. Hundreds of thousands of untouchables joined him in leaving Hinduism for Buddhism. A few weeks after his conversion ceremony, Ambedkar died.

Amritsar Massacre

Amritsar Massacre

The Amritsar massacre (April 13, 1919) helped many moderate Indian nationalists become fiercely anti-British. The Rowlatt Acts, enacted by the British government, had outraged politically minded Indians.

Extending wartime emergency legislation, the Rowlatt Acts gave the British viceroy in India the authority to silence the press, make arrests without a warrant, and imprison without trial. The Indian members of the viceroy's legislative assembly opposed this legislation, and several of them resigned (including Mohammad Ali Jinnah, later the founder of Pakistan).

To protest the Rowlatt Acts, Mohandas K. Gandhi called for a national hartal, a day of prayer and fasting, that on April 6 closed most shops and businesses in the northwestern province of the Punjab. The British administration in the Punjab, headed by Sir Michael O'Dwyer, was notoriously stern, and the province had long seethed with unrest.

In Lahore there were large anti-British demonstrations and a railroad strike. On April 10, on O'Dwyer's order, British officials in Amritsar arrested Dr. Saif-ud-Din Kitchlew, a Muslim lawyer, and Dr. Satyapal, a Hindu who had served as a medical officer in the British army. They were leaders of the Amritsar nationalist movement.

In the angry reaction against these arrests, violence broke out resulting in destruction of property and looting in Amritsar. Five British civilians and 10 Indians were killed. A school superintendent, Marcella Sherwood, was trapped by a mob, badly beaten, and left for dead. This mistreatment of a British woman outraged officials.

The villain in the story of the Amritsar massacre was Reginald E. H. "Rex" Dyer. Dyer was a colonel who held the temporary rank of brigadier general while commanding an infantry brigade in the Punjab. Born in India, he was competent in several Indian languages, including Hindi and Punjabi. Before the Amritsar massacre, he had not had a reputation of being more racist than other British officers.

In fact, early in 1919 he had resigned from the officers' club that served his brigade because he objected to the exclusion of Indians who held commissions as officers. He appears to have been lacking in self-confidence while at the same time being stubborn and rash. He did not always obey orders. Unfortunately, he was stationed near Amritsar.

Apparently, Dyer acted on his own initiative in moving his brigade to Amritsar on April 11. On the next day he reissued an earlier government order that banned any meetings or gatherings.

Amritsar Massacre painting

He did not continue the previous policy of slowly extending British military and police control over one part of the city after another. He preferred to parade large forces through Amritsar as a demonstration of strength and then withdraw them.

Despite the proclamations against meetings, thousands of Indians flocked to the Jallianwala Bagh on April 13, most of them in support of the imprisoned Kitchlew and Satyapal. Some arrived after the police had closed a nearby fair held in honor of the Sikh new year. By late afternoon a huge throng was present, a rather quiet crowd and not an angry mob.

Estimates vary, but there certainly were more than 10,000 people. The Bagh was a trap for them. Enclosed by the walls of surrounding buildings, it had only a few narrow openings for entrance or exit, some of them locked.

Dyer made no attempt to prevent the meeting at the Jallianwala Bagh or to disperse it peacefully. He decided to make an example of those who had violated the British prohibition of large gatherings.

For this purpose he assembled a small force of 90 men that included no British soldiers. Instead he chose Baluchis, Gurkhas, and Pathans, "native" soldiers but ones who lacked sympathy for local Indians.

He brought with him two armored cars equipped with machine guns. He later said that he did not use them because the entrances to the Bagh were too narrow. Even without the machine guns, the carnage was great. Without any warning Dyer's soldiers fired on the crowd for 10 to 15 minutes.

There was only one exit available for the thousands. In desperation many of those in the Bagh jumped into a deep well. After his troops had fired 1,650 rounds, Dyer ordered an end to the slaughter because he feared that his men would run out of ammunition and not be able to protect their withdrawal.

Nobody knows how many people were killed. An official estimate made by the British authorities says 379. An Indian investigation says 530. The wounded numbered over 1,000.

After the facts of the massacre became known, Dyer was dismissed. He returned to Britain, where a special commission of investigation censured him in 1920. Despite the official censure, some in Britain saw Dyer as a hero who took decisive action to prevent a rebellion that might have shaken British rule throughout the subcontinent.

For many members of the upper and middle classes and military officers, Dyer was a victim of the government's need to appease Indian nationalists. Dyer died of natural causes in 1927. An embittered Indian assassinated O'Dwyer in 1940.

Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose abandoned an intended career in the Indian civil service to support Mohandas K. Gandhi and the Indian National Congress (INC) in the cause of Indian independence from Great Britain. However, he later found Gandhi's nonviolent movement too moderate, attacked Gandhi for negotiating with the British authorities, and organized a Socialist Independence of India League in 1928.

He also became a labor leader, organized strikes, and was elected president of the All India Trade Union Congress (1929–31). When Gandhi suspended his satyagraha (truth, force, nonviolent protest) campaign against the British in 1933, Bose and the left-wing members of the INC called for Gandhi's suspension from the organization and its reorganization.

A showdown between Gandhi and Bose in 1937 resulted in the first contested election for president of the INC, which Bose won in 1938. He became an open admirer of Adolf Hitler and took on the title Netaji, which means leader in Hindi, in emulation of the German Nazi leader.


His policies so severely fractured the INC that it could not function, compelling him to resign. He broke off relations with the INC and Gandhi as a result and formed the Forward Bloc Party. Whereas Gandhi and the INC advocated noncooperation with the British government when World War II broke out, Bose sponsored terrorism, sabotage, and assassination.

His party was banned, and he fled India, arriving in Berlin via Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. He was welcomed by Hitler, who provided him with a radio facility to broadcast anti-British propaganda to India.

Bose arrived in Japan in mid-1943 in a German Uboat. He proceeded to Japanese-occupied Malaya and helped organize the "Indian National Army," which consisted of 40,000 soldiers from among the 45,000 Indian prisoners of war captured in Malaya and Singapore.

However, command and control of that army remained in Japanese hands. In October 1943 Bose announced the creation of a Provisional Government of Free India and assumed the titles of head of state, prime minister, and minister of war and foreign affairs.

The people he supposedly controlled were the 2 million ethnic Indians who were living in Japanese-occupied Malaya and Singapore. However, the Japanese initially put Bose on the Andaman Islands. In November 1943 Bose and other Japanese puppets met in Tokyo in the Greater East Asia Conference.

This conference marked the high point of Japan's "New Order" in Asia and the Greater East Asia CoProsperity Sphere it created and controlled. Bose's "government" was moved to Rangoon in Burma in 1944 as the Japanese-controlled Indian army advanced across the Indian border. It was turned back and surrendered in Rangoon in May 1945.

Bose escaped with his Japanese patrons, fleeing to Indochina, and when Japanese forces collapsed there he left Saigon for Taiwan on the last Japanese plane, which crashed on landing. Captured officers who served under Bose were tried and convicted but were given suspended sentences.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

Mohandas K. Gandhi

The Indian leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who dominated the Indian political scene for three decades, became an internationally acclaimed person for his nonviolent path of struggle to achieve Indian independence from British colonial rule.

Through ahimsa (nonviolence) and satyagraha (true force, nonviolent protest), he led one of the largest mass movements in world history. Gandhi dedicated his life to the quest for truth and justice. He was called the mahatma (noble soul).

In his varied career he led the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, conducted passive resistance against the British, and dedicated his life to the uplift of millions of Indians. Gandhi had been criticized and vilified but remained true to his convictions and led a life of austerity and simplicity. He was born in Porbandar, Gujarat, India, on October 2, 1869, to Karamchand and Putlibai.


Gandhi was greatly influenced by the honesty and integrity of his father, who served as prime minister in the state of Rajkot. Putlibai's religious nature created a lasting impression on Gandhi. He married at the age of 13 to Kasturbai, a noble lady of high moral character.

Gandhi was also deeply moved by the saga of honesty, sacrifice, and dedication in Hindu mythology. After finishing his schooling he went to the Inner Temple in London in November 1888. He came back to India after three years and left for South Africa in 1893 to take up a legal career.

Gandhi's 20-year stay in South Africa was instrumental in the blossoming of his philosophy and his course of action against injustice. Humiliating experiences and the racial arrogance of the whites there made him determined to fight against apartheid. The official discrimination against nonwhites caused him to help the minority community of Indians. His creed was one of peaceful coexistence of all communities, regardless of color or religion.

Gandhi charted out a course of action of passive resistance against the government by demonstrations. He was deeply influenced by the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita, Jainism, the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the literature of U.S. author Henry David Thoreau (1817–62), English writer John Ruskin (1819–1900), and Russian Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910).

In a campaign of passive resistance, nonviolence was the driving force, and noncooperation was the action itself. Gandhi organized campaigns and demonstrations against humiliating laws applied to nonwhites. He set up the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 to redress the grievances of Indian immigrants.

Gandhi became a prominent figure and was engaged in civil rights issues. He was in India twice for short visits and acquainted the editors of newspapers and Indian National Congress (INC) leaders with the conditions in South Africa. Gandhi journeyed on trains and was appalled by the condition of common Indians.

On his return to South Africa he changed his lifestyle to one of utter simplicity and also undertook to fast. Gandhi did not see the British as the enemy and was prepared to help them in case of need. At the time of the Boer War, he organized the Indian ambulance corps.

Gandhi was a prolific writer, and he wrote Hind Sawraj (Self-government of India) and published a journal, Indian Opinion, in 1904. He began to experiment with many novel ideas in the community firm that he set up in Phoenix. In 1910 he established another cooperative colony (Tolstoy Farm) for Indians near Durban.

Gandhi organized a satyagraha against the obnoxious laws of the Transvaal government, which required the registration of Indians. Gandhi was jailed several times during the agitation. General Jan Christiaan Smuts at last conceded to many of Gandhi's demands and brought about reforms. Gandhi decided to return to India.

Great Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, two days before Gandhi reached London. He organized a medical corps in August 1914. After his return to India the next year, he urged the people to support the British in their time of crisis. The colonial government rewarded him with a medal, and he earned the sobriquet "recruiting agent of the government."

Gandhi traveled the length and breadth of India. He took up the cause of indigo cultivators in Champaran and workers in Ahmedabad mills. He was emerging as a mass leader and gave a new direction to the Indian freedom movement under the congress. It became an umbrella organization that drew support from all classes of the population.

The Congress Party underwent a thorough revamping due to Gandhi's organizational skill. The Gandhian era in the Indian nationalist struggle began in 1919. After the draconian Rowlatt Act, which empowered the authorities to arrest and detain without trial, was passed, Gandhi called for a general strike in April 1919.

The government suppressed the agitation, and the brutality of colonial masters was evident after the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre of April 13. A large number of Muslims joined the congress after Gandhi's support of the Khilafat movement, which fought to preserve the authority of the Ottoman sultan.

With the noncooperation movement under Gandhi's leadership, a new phase of struggle against the British Raj began. A special session of the AICC met in Calcutta in September 1920 to start the movement with a boycott of educational institutions, law courts, elections, and legislatures.

There was to be the promotion of Hindu-Muslim unity, along with use of homespun garments of khaddar. The goal was the attainment of swaraj, or self-government. The December annual session held in Nagpur endorsed the idea. A large number of students, women, peasants, and workers from different parts of the country participated.

Demonstrations and strikes greeted the November 1921 visit of the prince of Wales. Noncooperation and Khilafat went hand in hand under Gandhi, who had renounced the title of kaiser-i-hind that had been conferred on him by the British. Following a policy of repression, the government banned the Khilafat and congress.

After police fired on demonstrations on February 5, 1922, at Chauri Chaura in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh, the police station was attacked, resulting in the death of 22 police personnel. Gandhi was stunned by this path of violence and suspended the noncooperation movement. He was steadfast in his commitment to nonviolent methods. Freedom through violence was not on his agenda.

People in general and INC leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) and Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) were annoyed by the decision, and some congressmen, like Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), launched a program of council entry through the newly formed Swaraj Party of 1923. Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 and given six years' imprisonment for treason in an Ahmedabad court.

Gandhi was not only interested in swaraj, but also in the social and economic emancipation of the people. He was a crusader for economic and social reforms. His emphasis on swadeshi meant the use of hand-made goods from his home country rather than foreign machine-made goods.

People were mobilized to boycott foreign goods. Handicraft was emphasized in education also. The hand weaving of dresses and the development of handicrafts, Gandhi hoped, would be a panacea for India's poverty, economic backwardness, and unemployment.

Gandhi's economic philosophy was also part of his strategy against colonial rule, as the boycott of foreign goods would adversely affect British industry. Gandhi was not opposed to industrial revolution per se, but he desired to create a framework, keeping in mind the economic condition of India under alien rule.

Gandhi was back on the political scene in 1930 with his movement of civil disobedience. He launched the salt satyagraha with his famous Dandi March in March 1930. He and his followers covered a distance of 241 miles to the Arabian Sea to make salt.

These civil disobedience movements witnessed participation in large numbers by tribal people, peasants, and women. Gandhi was arrested in May, but the British government agreed to negotiations. The movement was suspended by the pact signed between Gandhi and Viceroy of India Lord Irwin (1881–1959) in March 1931.

He also was the INC delegate to the Second Round Table held in London, but the British government refused to grant self-government to the Indians. Gandhi was jailed again, and the civil disobedience movement was withdrawn by him in May 1934.

Gandhi devoted himself to social and economic reconstruction work. Indian politics began to change at the time of World War II. Gandhi had a difference of opinion with Subhas Bose, who parted from the congress. The British were not in a mood to give independence, and Gandhi launched another movement.

With the call of "Do or Die," the Quit India Movement was launched on August 8, 1942, and spread throughout the country. The British could not hold to the empire after the war due to domestic difficulties and offered India independence. India experienced unprecedented communal violence, and Gandhi toured the riot-affected area in support of Hindu-Muslim unity.

The demand for the creation of Pakistan had been raised, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) was relentless in his pursuit of the two-nation theory. Talks between Jinnah and Gandhi failed. Partition was inevitable.

Gandhi's insistence that Pakistan should get its due share of monetary assets angered Hindu fundamentalists. A fanatic named Nathuram Godse (1910–49) assassinated him on January 30, 1948, while he was on his way to evening prayers.

India Act (1935)

India Act (1935)

The first Government of India Act (1858, after the Sepoy Rising of 1857) abolished the British East India Company and put India under British government administration. A second act in 1909 introduced the concept of elected government.

Still, Indian troops served in World War I because Britain, not India, declared India at war with Germany. In 1917 Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu promised that India's government would gradually permit increased Indian participation in the administration of India, with the goal of eventual self-rule.

Then the war ended. Although a third Government of India Act in 1919 gave local control of "nation building" areas such as education, it retained law and order and finance for Parliament-appointed governors and officials responsible to them.

This system of power sharing was called dyarchy. Britain's harsh measures against alleged political extremists and the Punjab disturbances of 1919, including a massacre of 400 at Amritsar, led to the creation of a national Indian movement against British control. A nationalist leader, Mohandas K. Gandhi, rose to the fore.

Gandhi led a movement of noncooperation against Britain in 1920–22 and a civil disobedience effort in 1930–31. In 1942 he called for the British to "Quit India." He led the first negotiations for independence in 1930 at the Round Table Conferences in London.

Motilal Nehru, father of Jawaharlal Nehru, was also active in the movement for Indian self-government. He chaired a committee of the All Parties Conference that included Muslims. It issued the "Nehru Report" of 1928 that called for a dominion constitution for India written by Indians.

When the all-British Simon Commission visited India in 1927–28, it generated protests that the Indian police repressed violently, leading to the death of Punjabi leader Lalal Lajpat Raj and rallying a new generation of Indian nationalist leaders.

Its report in 1930 rejected dyarchy and determined that local autonomy was in order. It proposed the retention of communal electorates for Muslims and Hindus until tensions calmed. The British government drafted legislation to provide the reforms. The Round Table Conferences decided that

Britain would unite the princely states with the provinces directly under its administration and eventually give the combined government of India dominion status. The congress and the Muslims split over details, leaving the decisions to the British.

The Government of India Act provided autonomy to the 11 Indian provinces it created. It separated Aden and Burma from India, increased the pool of eligible voters from 7 million to 35 million, and created two new provinces—Sind, split from Bombay, and Orissa, split from Bihar.

Provincial assemblies included more elected Indian representatives. The governor, often British, retained the rights of intervention in emergencies. The first elections under the act occurred in 1937.

The act was the longest bill the British parliament ever passed. Parliament did not trust Indians, particularly Indian politicians, and wanted to be sure there was no room for interpretation or adjustment.

Theoretically, it provided self-government in all areas but defense and foreign affairs. In practice, it reserved extensive powers for British intervention in Indian affairs through the British-appointed viceroy and provincial governors who were responsible to the secretary of state for India.

The act also had provisions for the formation of a federal government, but because half the states never agreed to its terms, a federation never occurred. It also failed to address the religious problem.

Hindus were two-thirds of India's population, leading to concerns by the minority Muslims that they would be treated unfairly. When the Hindu-dominated Congress Party won eight of the 11 provincial elections in 1937 the Muslims led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah began demanding a separate state, Pakistan.

Althought the British parliament thought it was realistic to federate states of widely diverging size, sophistication, and structure, it did not happen. The princes failed to recognize that they could control the federation if they united in support of it. Instead, they pursued their own interests with the restult that the federation never received the requisite majority.

The act failed to attract significant support from moderates, in large part because they did not trust the British. The Hindu electorate preferred the Congress Party, and the Congress Party wanted dominion status equal to that granted to the white dominions, which included control over foreign as well as internal affairs.

The first viceroy after the act was passed was Lord Linlithgow. He was intelligent, honest, hardworking, serious, and committed to the success of the act. He was also stolid, unimaginative, legalistic, and unable to deal with people other than those in his own circle. Under pressure he turned to administrative details while becoming rigid on strategy. He struggled unsuccessfully to deal with Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah. Compromise between the four men was impossible.

Indian provinces enjoyed self-rule after 1937 for two years, until the onset of the war. Linlithgow tried and failed to get the princes to accept the federation, but neither the British government nor the princes supported him. In 1939, when Britain and Germany declared war, India was automatically included.

His failure to consult with Indian leaders, while constitutionally correct, offended Indian public opinion. The congress ministers, who were not consulted, resigned, while Muslim leaders in provinces where they had a majority cooperated with Britain in war. Thus, chances for Indian unity died.

Government of India Act (1919)

World War I was important for India's nationalist movement. Indians of all persuasions overwhelmingly supported Great Britain and the Allied cause during the war. Nearly 800,000 Indian soldiers plus 500,000 noncombatants served in Europe and the Middle East.

Communal relations between Hindus and Muslims took several turns between the passage of the India Councils Act in 1909 and 1919. The reunion of Bengal in 1911 (which canceled its partition into two provinces) pleased the Hindus but antagonized the Muslims.

The All-India Muslim League began to attract younger and bolder leaders, most notably a brilliant lawyer named Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1946). Similarly Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) and Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1967) emerged as leaders of the Indian National Congress.

Many in India's Muslim minority became concerned with the ultimate fate of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, which fought in the opposing Central Powers camp. World War I also aroused both the congress and the league to demand significant constitutional reforms from Britain. In 1916 they concluded a Congress League Scheme of Reforms, known as the Lucknow Pact.

It made wide-ranging demands for greater self-government, equality of Indians with other races throughout the British Empire and Commonwealth (in response to racial discrimination in South Africa and Canada), and greater opportunities for Indians in the armed forces of India.

In response, the new secretary of state for India, Edwin Montagu, officially announced the British government's commitment to "the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of responsible government in India" in August 1917.

He then toured India, met with Indian leaders, and together with Viceroy Lord Chelmsford drafted a Report for Indian Constitutional Reform in 1918, popularly called the Montagu Chelmsford Report. A modified version of the report was embodied in the Government of India Act of 1919.

It introduced partial self-government to India's nine provinces in a system called dyarchy, whereby elected representatives controlled the departments of agriculture, sanitation, education, and so on, while the British-appointed governor and his advisers retained control of finance, the police, prisons, and relief.

This was intended as a step toward complete responsible government. The viceroy, however, retained control of the central government, and the role of the mostly elected bicameral legislature remained advisory. The electorate was expanded, and separate electorates (Muslims elected their own representatives) were kept in place, on Muslim insistence.

The Government of India Act was a significant advance in India's freedom movement. Others included a separate Indian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, in the same manner as the self-governing dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa). India also became a member of the League of Nations.

But these advances did not satisfy Indian nationalists, who were inflamed by the continuation of wartime laws that abridged civil freedoms, and acts of peaceful and violent resistance continued. Hindu-Muslim accord continued during the Khalifat movement, when Indians supported the Ottoman emperor's religious leadership as caliph of Islam.

The cooperation collapsed when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established a republic in Turkey and abolished the caliphate in 1923 and also due to increasing competition between the two communal groups for power in a future independent India.

India Councils Act of 1909 (Morley - Minto Reforms)

Lord Minto

During the late 19th century British-educated Indians began to demand a role in their government, which later developed into the independence movement. In 1885 an Englishman founded the Indian National Congress, although most of its members were highcaste Hindus. The congress met annually to promote the goal of greater participation of Indians in government.

By the early 20th century a radical wing had developed in the congress that was not content with the slow pace of reform. They were energized by the partition of the huge province of Bengal into two in 1905: East Bengal (including Assam) with a Muslim majority, and West Bengal (including Bihar and Orissa) with a Hindu majority.

A storm of protest against the partition ensued and included an economic boycott of British goods and acts of terrorism. The congress was split over this issue, and a radical wing split off to form the New Party.



The new viceroy, Lord Minto (1845– 1914), on the one hand acted to repress the unrest, while on the other he worked to enact reforms with the secretary of state for India of the newly elected Liberal government in Great Britain, John (later Lord) Morley (1838–1923).

The partition of Bengal was a catalyst for Muslim political consciousness. Since the decline and fall of the Muslim Mughal dynasty, Indian Muslims had fallen behind Hindus in attaining a modern education and adjusting to new conditions. Unlike Hindus, Indian Muslims were encouraged by the formation of East Bengal.

Realizing that constitutional reforms were in the works and that they would be a minority in a representative government, Western-educated Muslims led by Aga Khan organized the All-India Muslim League in 1905 and lobbied Minto for a "fair share" for the Muslim community in any representative system. Like the congress, the league also met in annual conventions to formulate goals.

John Morley

In 1909 the British parliament passed the Indian Councils Act. It increased membership of legislative councils in both the central and provincial governments (all appointed up to then) to make elected members the majority in the provincial legislatures.

Importantly, educated men who paid a certain sum of taxes were allowed to vote for the first time in Indian history. Some seats were reserved for Muslim candidates, and only Muslims could vote for them. Moreover, the elected members were also empowered to question officials; to debate legislation, including the budget; and to introduce laws.

However, the viceroy and the governors still had total control and could veto any laws that were passed. The first elections were held in 1910 and elected 135 Indian representatives, who took their seats at various legislatures throughout India.

This act and other measures gradually restored calm to India. The act is important because it established representative responsible government as the goal for India and introduced the elective principle to a nonwhite possession of Great Britain.

Indian National Congress (1885 - 1947)

First Indian National Congress 1885

The Indian National Congress (INC) was a leader of the Indian freedom movement against British colonial rule. One of the success stories of the nationalist struggle in Asia, the congress was established in 1885.

A political consciousness was arising in the latter part of the 19th century among Indian intelligentsia, and various people emerged to raise their voices against foreign rule. The sincere endeavor of Allan Octavian Hume (1829–1912), along with the efforts of Indian leaders, resulted in the emergence of the INC on December 25, 1885.

From its first meeting, held in the city of Bombay (now Mumbai), the INC worked relentlessly to end alien rule in India. In its initial phases the INC was very modest in its demands, such as expansion of legislative councils and an increase in governmental grants to indigenous industries. It even pledged loyalty to the British Empire. It increased sentiments of national unity and rose above religious, caste, and regional divisions.


Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917), the president of the INC in its second and ninth sessions, argued that the British government was responsible for poverty in India. The true character of the British Empire was revealed by various demands by the congress. A base also was created for the Congress Party, from which later leaders could work for the cause of Indian independence.

But a gradual disillusionment developed against the moderate leadership. A rift occurred, and the radical, or extremist, phase (1905–19) began in the history of the INC. The new generation was drawn from the lower middle class in urban areas.

It was more radical in nature and sometimes took recourse to Hindu religious symbols like the Ganapati Festival, which became mass based under Bal Gangadhar Tilak's direction. The terrorist movement of Bengal invoked the name of the goddess Kali. The extremist brand of politics was aggressive in nature, and it was indigenous, with no attachment to Western ideals.

The goal of the extremists was swaraj (self-rule), and their efforts were imbued with swadeshi (indigenous) sentiment directed against foreign goods, dress, and education. The Punjab group was led by Lajpat Rai; the Bengal one was represented by Aurobindo (1872–1950) and Pal.

The administration (1899–1905) of Viceroy Lord George Nathaniel Curzon (1859– 1925) decided to partition the province of Bengal in October 1905, leading to the antipartition movement, which engulfed most of the country. Goods from British factories were boycotted, and the use of swadeshi was advocated.

A split occurred between the moderates and extremists at the Surat session of 1907, and the moderate leader, Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915), did not endorse Tilak as president for the 1908 session. The split harmed the INC and the nationalist movement. There was also a rise of communalism in Indian politics and a sizable section of the Muslims did not adhere to the congress ideology. The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was established on December 30, 1906.

The INC and the AIML would chart out separate courses, resulting in a vivisection of the country 41 years later. The congress was revived in the Lucknow session of 1916, where both the extremists and the moderates realized that the split was not serving the cause of the nationalist movement. In the same year the Lucknow Pact, which brought Hindu-Muslim rapprochement for the time being, was signed between the congress and the league.

Meanwhile, World War I had broken out, and Great Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914. The INC supported the British war efforts in the hope that India would be suitably rewarded in its path toward self-government. But this hope was dashed. The ideals of self-determination presented by U.S. president Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference were not applied to colonies in Asia. Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) was emerging as a mass leader in India and gave a new direction to the Indian freedom movement under the INC.

General Strike

Gandhi called for a general strike in April 1919, after the draconian Rowlatt Act that empowered the authorities to arrest and detain without trial, was enacted. A large numbers of Muslims began to participate in the activities of the INC.

The INC became an umbrella organization drawing support from all classes of the population. The revamping of the internal organization of the congress was retained with some modifications in independent India. The Pradesh (Provincial) Congress Committee (PCC) was formed at the state level, with 10 to 15 members belonging to the working committees. At the apex was the All-India Congress Committee (AICC), composed of state leaders from the PCC. The Congress Working Committee, consisting of senior party leaders, was in charge of important decisions.

The president of the INC was the national leader, presiding over annual sessions generally held in the month of December. These sessions spelled out the party programs and discussed measures to be taken in the ongoing struggle against British rule. Gandhi's emphasis on ahimsa (nonviolence) and satyagraha (nonviolent protest) became successful in shaking the foundation of the British Empire.

The INC entered a new phase in its struggle against the British raj between 1919 and 1922. The noncooperation movement, with its technique of non-violent struggle, was launched. At a special session of the AICC held in Calcutta in September 1920, it was decided to initiate noncooperation with the British government by boycotting educational institutions, law courts, and legislatures.

The use of hand spinning for producing khadi (cloth) was emphasized. A violent mob, after a police firing on February 5, 1922, at Chauri Chaura, attacked the police station, resulting in the deaths of 22 police personnel. Gandhi was aghast at this violent path, and the Congress Working Committee meeting at Bardoli suspended the noncooperation movement seven days afterward.

Although Congress leaders like Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) as well as a large section of the populace were stunned by the Working Committee resolution, they abided by the decision. Gandhi was arrested in March 1922 and given six years' imprisonment for treason.

The INC was opposed to the formation of the Simon Commission in 1927–28, which was constituted to look into the constitutional reforms and appointed a committee headed by Motilal Nehru to prepare a constitution for a free India.

Dominion status for India was the main feature of the Nehru Report. The All-Party Conference, convened in Calcutta in December 1928, did not agree with the report. Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948), the leader of the AIML, also was against the report because his demands were not met.

The radical wing of the congress, led by Motilal's son Jawaharlal, also was opposed to the report. It was decided to launch civil disobedience for the cause of purna swaraj (complete independence). The congress passed the resolution for complete independence in the historic Lahore session of 1929.

The following year the civil disobedience movement started when Gandhi launched the salt satyagraha with his famous Dandi March in March 1930. Gandhi was arrested in May, and altogether 90,000 people were put behind bars.

The British realized the need for congress participation and initiated a dialogue. As a result Lord Irwin (1881–1959), the viceroy, signed a pact with Gandhi in March 1931 by which the civil disobedience movement was suspended, and the congress agreed to join the Round Table Conference. In the Karachi session of the INC, talks with the British were endorsed.

The session was important as the congress passed resolutions on basic fundamental rights and launched key economic programs. The British did not accept the congress demand of complete independence, and Gandhi was arrested in January 1932 after returning to India.

The congress took part in the elections of 1937 per the provisions of the Government of India Act of 1935 and performed very well in the general constituencies. At the time of World War II it sympathized with the victims of Nazism and fascism. The blitzkrieg by Japan in Southeast Asia had brought the war to India's doorstep. The AICC passed the famous resolution of "Quit India" on August 8, 1942, and Nehru said that it was a "fight to finish."

With a motto to "do or die," the Quit India movement began and was suppressed with the utmost force. The postwar scene was marked by devastating economic consequence of the war, the spread of communalism and communal riots, Jinnah's indomitable quest for control of Pakistan, and the congress's desire for a compromise.

Great Britain finally decided to leave India, which it could not hold with diminished resources, and ordered elections to central and provincial legislatures. The congress captured all the general seats in the center and obtained a majority in all the provinces except Sind, the Punjab, and Bengal.

Between 1945 and 1947 there were serious revolts by peasants and workers. The league was determined in its demand for partition of the country. In September 1946 an interim government was formed by the congress.

The British prime minister, Clement Attlee (1883–1967), had declared that the British would quit India. A compromise formula was finally worked out by the viceroy Lord (Louis) Mountbatten (1900–79) in his talks with the leaders of the congress and the league. It was announced in June 1947 that India and Pakistan would be independent from British colonial rule on August 15, 1947.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Mohammad Ali Jinnah was an Indian politician who helped found the country of Pakistan, which he governed as its first governor-general from 1947.

Born into a prosperous Muslim merchant family in British India, Jinnah determined early in life that he wished to be a lawyer, and he studied in Britain and at the University of Bombay to that end. In Britain he was part of the successful campaign for the election of Dadabhai Naoroji, who became the first Indian to sit in the House of Commons. Jinnah divided his time between politics and the law.

He was a moderate in religion; his views were rooted in Indian nationalism and the need for independence. However, as part of an educated elite in India he did not despise British political and social institutions but respected and admired the positive aspects of these, and aimed to retain them in an independent India in the future. He first served in an elected political office as part of the Indian National Congress of 1906.


By the early 20th century, political thought in India was becoming divided between Hindus and Muslims. Muslims were starting to fear domination by Hindus, who were the majority. The All-India Muslim League was established in 1906, but Jinnah did not join until 1913, when he had been reassured that it was dedicated to a unified struggle for independence.

Jinnah established a reputation as an upholder of Hindu-Muslim unity. He was instrumental in forging the 1916 Lucknow Pact, which led to joint action by the congress and the league. However, the political rise of Mohandas K. Gandhi, who came to dominate Indian nationalism, led Muslim politicians to feel overshadowed. Jinnah withdrew from the congress and emerged as leader of the Muslim League. However, he committed to constitutional change at a time when Muslim-Hindu riots were starting to flare.

Jinnah spent the years between 1930 and 1935 in London but returned in 1935 when the British parliament passed the Government of India Act. He believed that the league should play an important role in a future coalition government. However, elections in 1937 were dominated by the congress, with the league winning only in provinces where Muslims were a majority.

After this point relations between Hindus and Muslims broke down almost completely. Fearful of the continued violence and the possible systematic exclusion of Muslim voices from the governance of a future independent India, Jinnah endorsed an idea that had first surfaced in 1930: the concept of a Muslim homeland with its own state on the Indian subcontinent. This state was to be known as Pakistan.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah is the father of Pakistan and was its wise helmsman. He served as the first governor of Pakistan until his death in 1948.

Khilafat Movement

Khilafat Movement

The institution of the khalifa, the leader or representative of the Muslim community after the death of the prophet Muhammad, had been associated with the Turkish Ottoman Empire since the 16th century. At the time of World War I, the Ottoman emperor and khalifa headed the largest independent Islamic political entity in the world.

When Great Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire in November 1914, it promised the Muslim subjects of the British Empire in India that the conflict would not involve attacking the Muslim holy places in Arabia. In return, the British asked for the loyalty of their Muslim subjects to British war efforts. During the course of the war, it became evident that the Ottoman Empire would be dismembered.

Consequently, the khilafat question came to be of increasing importance to Muslims in India. On March 20, 1919, at a public meeting of 15,000 Muslims from Bombay, a Khilafat committee was formed. By November 1919 following widespread public demonstrations in support of the Khilafat movement, an All-India Khilafat Conference assembled in Delhi.


The conference protested the placing of former lands of the Ottoman Empire, such as Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, under non-Muslim mandates on the grounds that dividing the Ottoman Empire and depriving its sovereign of his spiritual and political authority was an attack on Islam.

The conference also called for a Muslim boycott of European goods if the peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire was unjust and jeopardized the khilafat. The efforts of the conference were supported by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who had at the time launched a movement of noncooperation with the British, and by the Indian National Congress.

The leaders of the Khilafat movement were Maulana Muhammad Ali and his brother Maulana Shaukat Ali. Maulana Muhammad Ali was chosen to lead the Muslim delegation that traveled to England in 1919 to represent Muslim interests to the British, and the Ali brothers pioneered the Khilafat Manifesto, which they presented on March 17, 1920, to British prime minister Lloyd George.

Meanwhile, the terms of the Treaty of Sevres were published in May, whereby the Arab lands were to become independent of the Ottoman Empire. Syria, Mesopotamia, and Palestine became French and British mandates, and the Straits were internationalized. When the Turkish government signed the treaty on August 20, 1920, the delegation was left with no option but to return to India.

However, when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk rejected the Treaty of Sèvres and began resisting Allied occupation in Anatolia, Khilafat leaders avidly supported his cause. It was only when Mustafa Kemal wrested a new treaty of peace from the European powers in 1922, established the republic of Turkey, and himself abolished the Khilafat in 1924 that the Khilafat movement in India came to an end.

While the movement did not succeed in its goal of protecting the sovereignty of the Ottoman khalifa, it came to represent in the history of India both a moment of Hindu-Muslim cooperation against colonial rule and the eventual articulation of a distinct Indian Muslim identity.

Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu

Sarojini Naidu was born on February 13, 1879, to Aghornath Chattopadhyaya and Varada Sundari in the city of Hyderabad, India. She began studying at the King's College of England in 1895. Her childhood love for poetry resulted in the publication of collections of poems including The Golden Threshold (1905), The Birds of Time (1912), and The Broken Wing (1917), written in English but with an Indian ethos.

Her poetry earned her the name of "India's Nightingale." A strong believer in the philosophy of Brahmo Samaj, Sarojini took the bold step of getting married to Govindarajulu Naidu outside her caste at the age of 19 per the Brahmo Marriage Act (1872). A powerful orator, she gave speeches on themes like the emancipation of women, youth welfare, and nationalism.

Sarojini Naidu plunged into the nationalist movement in 1903 and came into contact with leaders who were fighting for an India free of British colonial rule. Mohandas K. Gandhi and Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866–1915) influenced her political career.


At the behest of Gokhale she devoted herself to the cause of Indian nationalism. Naidu met Gandhi in 1914 and became his disciple. During her tour to Great Britain with Gandhi, she criticized colonial rule openly among the British intelligentsia.

Naidu and Gandhi opposed the British government's Rowlatt Act, enacted in March 1919 to counter Indian protests. She also supported the Indian Home Rule League. Naidu also worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. She became influential in the Indian National Congress (INC) and was elected its delegate to the East African Indian Congress in January 1924.

She was elected president of the INC in the Kanpur session of 1925 and was the first woman to become its president. She went to the United States in October 1928 as an emissary of Gandhi, preaching his doctrine of nonviolence. Naidu joined the second civil disobedience movement that had begun in March 1930.

She was arrested and released in January of the next year. She went to London along with Gandhi to participate in the Round Table Conference. During the Quit India movement of August 1942 she was imprisoned for 21 months.

After India's independence on August 15, 1947, Naidu was appointed the governor of Uttar Pradesh. She died on March 2, 1949.