Role of Women in the Indian Independence Movement

By Alex Jubb

The current exhibition in the cases in the Harry Fairhurst corridor at the University of York Library tells the story of the road to Indian independence. The exhibition uses books and archives from the university’s collections and themes include the relationship between coloniser and colonised, and Indian literature.  Highlights include a telegram from Gandhi, and books that belonged to former Prime Minister Clement Attlee. The exhibition will remain in the cases until the end of March 2018.

Alex Jubb worked on the India project as an intern in 2017 and has written several blogs (Aug 2017#1)(Aug 2017#2)(Jan 2018) (Feb 2018) about the collection and the history of the Independence movement. Here he examines the role women played in the Indian Independence.

Role of women in the Indian Independence Movement

An often-untold story of the Indian independence movement is that of the role of influential Indian women; whilst stories of Gandhi, the nationalist writer Raja Rao and other important male political and cultural figureheads are commonplace, members of the opposite gender are rarely taught about in the history of Indian independence. Indian women were not only working to gain independence for their nation, but were seeking enfranchisement and political representation in the local, national, and international spheres. It is clear that one of the most important aspects of the movement for independence from a historical point of view is that it saw mass participation by women; women who had till then been confined to the domestic sphere. 

Crucial figures of the Quit India Movement. Image courtesy of  Quirkybyte.
https://www.quirkybyte.com/blog/2016/08/6-unsung-heroines-independence/

Women were involved in diverse nationalist activities, both within and outside the home. Within the home women held classes to educate other women and contributed significantly to nationalist literature in the form of articles, poems and propaganda material. Moreover, shelter and nursing care were also provided to nationalist leaders who were in hiding from the British authorities. Furthermore, and most importantly, when the nationalist leadership were in jail, the women took over the leadership roles and provided guidance to the movement. The JB Morrell Library at the University of York holds many important works written by leading female members of the Indian nationalist movement, in addition to works from Indian women from every class in society.

Anans and Hutheesing's 1949 work. © amazon.co.uk

Female nationalist authors did not let up in their campaign for further empowerment following the granting of independence. The Bride’s Book of Beauty, written by Mulk Raj Anand and Krishna Nehru Hutheesing, was published in Bombay in 1947. The work served almost as an anthological manual on ‘feminine sensibilities, formulas of female beauty, and female social experience’. One critic described the work as the manifestation of ‘Anand’s affinities with Marxist utopian notions of egalitarian civilisation and women’s empowerment’. The authors developed a perception of Indian female beauty that was adorned with poetry, prose, folktales and myths. [There is a copy in the exhibition]. It was clear that Anand and Hutheesing saw independence as a springboard with which to further the rights of Indian women. Using the very same myths and folklore that were crucial to creating a nationalist fervour prior to independence in 1947 was essential to Anand and Hutheesing’s writings.

Nanda's seminal work. ©amazon.co.uk

Savitri Devi Nanda was the author of ‘The City of Two Gateways: The Autobiography of an Indian Girl’; Nanda writes every detail of her early life in a typical Hindu aristocratic family of the pre-partition Punjab. This is an important work that brings to life the beliefs of many young Indian women both before and after partition. For example, Nanda writes that one night her father took her to Lahore to put her in a school; neither her mother nor her grandmother was in favour of educating her. It was this thirst for freedom and knowledge that was encountered in the young female nationalists and marked a distinct difference and a remarkable gulf between this generation and the previous generations before them. Where Nanda excels is in describing her sense of loss or separation; this stemmed directly from her strong awareness that she was an active participant to the exciting events of the national struggle for freedom.

Indian Nationalism by Alex Jubb

The current exhibition to be found in the cases in the Harry Fairhurst corridor at the University of York Library tells the story of the road to Indian independence. The exhibition uses books and archives from the university’s collections and themes include the relationship between coloniser and colonised, and Indian literature.  Highlights include a telegram from Gandhi, and books that belonged to former Prime Minister Clement Attlee. The exhibition will remain in the cases until the end of March 2018.

Alex Jubb worked on the India project as an intern in 2017 and has written several blogs (Aug 2017#1)(Aug 2017#2)(Jan 2018) about the collection and the history of the Independence movement. Here he examines the theme of Indian literature in more depth.

Indian Nationalism

Image: Commemorative Postage Stamp (1967), India Security Press.
http://www.istampgallery.com/quit-india-movement/ 

The movement to free India from British rule manifested itself through a variety of different mediums. Indian poets, writers and artists provided the inspiration to many ordinary Indians to develop sympathies towards the nationalist cause, particularly as the twentieth century progressed. It became obvious to political commentators of the early twentieth century that there was very little in the way of a unifying identity amongst the peoples of India. In addition to the many political and economic works published to aid the nationalist cause, both inside and outside India, scholars that have studied the causes of Indian independence in 1947 believed that by the 1920s and 1930s, literature had come to occupy a central role in the Indian nationalist movement.

Image sourced from India Online
http://bit.ly/2C41OUg

Raja Rao, an Indian novelist who participated in the Quit India Movement of 1942, was the prime mover in the formation of a cultural organisation, Sri Vidya Samiti, devoted to reviving the values of ancient Indian civilisation. Although deemed a failure by many, his nationalist beliefs were clearly reflected in his first two books; ‘Kanthapura’, an account of the impact of Gandhi’s teaching on peaceful resistance against the British, was followed by ‘The Serpent and the Rope’; the serpent being illusion and the rope being the reality of independence. Rao borrowed the style and structure form Indian vernacular tales and epic fold stories. Rao’s winning of both the third and second highest civilian awards in India following independence signified the impact Rao had on Indian nationalist thinking. According to Ulna Anjaria, a modern day historian of pre-independence India and Pakistan, ‘Indian writers of literature began to imagine cultural unity through their fictional and poetic works’. It is clear that she was correct in her assumption.

Whilst words on a page inspired many Indians to strive for independence, the role played by artists skilled enough to conjure up great nationalist imagery in their works can surely not be understated. Indian artists sought to maintain an ‘Indianness’ representative of their newly independent nation. It became clear that, as Rebecca Brown describes, an ‘emergence of a self-conscience Indian modernism’. Post-independence art showed the influence of Western styles, but was often inspired by Indian themes and images. One particular group, the Progressive Artists’ Group, was established shortly after independence and was intended to establish new ways of expressing India in the post-colonial era. Most of the major artists of India in the 1950s were associate with the group, and the Indian ethos was further cemented by these influential artists and painters.

© Susleriel, 2009. Image: CC-BY-SA

Moreover, a further aspect of Indian culture that the newly independent nation states sought to use to break from their colonial past was architecture. Shortly after independence in 1947, India employed Le Corbusier (a Swiss-French pioneer of modern architecture) to design Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab. The American architect Louis Kahn was invited to design the capitol complex at Dhaka (the modern-day capital of Bangladesh). Indian architects developed a revivalist style of bold architectural gestures, anchored in India’s past, particularly as they planned the Ashok Hotel and the Vigyan Bhavan Conference Centre in New Delhi. Seeking alternative visions after independence through foreign expertise, meaning anything not made by British hands, became a main priority for the new leaders of both India and Pakistan.

Independence was not simply brought about by the work of politicians, economics and those in power in Britain, India and Pakistan; the works of cultural leaders meant just as much to Indian nationalists across the continent. The works of many of these individuals can be found within the Library at the University of York. These works contributed to the cementing of a strong, unified Indian identity both before independence and in the following decades. Nationalist works, for many ordinary Indians, mean just as much in the modern era as they did at the turn of 1947.

The Anniversary of Gandhi's Assassination

By Alex Jubb

There is scarcely a name more recognisable in the history of India than that of Mahatma Gandhi.

Image used courtesy of biography.com, under a Creative Commons Attribution only licence.

Gandhi, the leader of the Indian independence movement against British rule and ‘father of India’, famously led Indians in challenging British rule wherever possible and he was a crucial component of the Indian movement for independence. However, independence came at a price; January 30 of this year marks the seventieth anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination by the right-wing Hindu nationalist Nathuram Vinayak Godse.

The Borthwick Archives holds two original pieces of correspondence from the man himself. The first, a 1931 telegram and letter between Irwin and Gandhi about the selection of Dr Ansari for the Round Table Conference. The second was another letter between Irwin and Gandhi, this time from 1934. The Round Table Conferences were a series of conferences organised by the British Government to discuss constitutional reforms in India. They emerged as a result of the continued demand for Indian self-rule and the fervent belief by many British politicians that India needed to move towards dominion status.

The opening of the first plenary session of the Round Table Conference. Image used courtesy of The Hindu Archives, courtesy of a Creative Commons Attribution only licence.

Telegram from Gandhi to Irwin about the selection of Dr Ansari for the Round Table Conference. July 1931. Borthwick Archives: HALIFAX/A4/410/2/51.

Dr Ansari was a fellow Indian nationalist and former president of the Indian National Congress; Ansari was a close follower of Gandhi’s teachings and, unsurprisingly, the letter comprises of Gandhi's attempts to persuade Irwin of the positive impact Ansari could have on the Conference proceedings. Gandhi’s correspondent was the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, from 1926 to 1931. In his final year as Viceroy, Irwin invited Gandhi to Britain to have a series of meetings together. By the time of the Second Round Table Conference, a settlement between Gandhi and Irwin (imaginatively titled the Gandhi-Irwin Pact) was reached that meant Gandhi was appointed as the sole representative of the Congress to the Conference. Gandhi himself claimed that this Congress alone represented political India. However, Gandhi could not reach agreements in areas such as Muslim representation and safeguards, and the fact that Untouchables were Hindus and should be treated as such. Whilst he returned to India empty handed following the Conference, his work in Britain led him to resolve many of the issues with the 1932 Poona Pact; a Pact stating that the treatment of untouchables as a minority separate from the rest of the Hindu community was entirely 

unjust.

It was to be the pre-premiership Clement Attlee that was one of the main British proponents of Indian independence after the Round Table Conferences had concluded. Attlee was an individual with close ties to the University of York, as shown in recent research undertaken in conjunction with the Borthwick archives. Whilst the three round-table conferences between 1930 and 1932 achieved little in reality, Attlee continued their initial work as a member of a new joint committee on India. Attlee's interest in Indian independence began in earnest following the Simon Commission of 1927; a group of British MPs under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon and assisted by Attlee himself. Attlee toured India with the Commission in 1927 and 1928 in order to study and report back on India's constitutional progress for introducing the constitutional reforms that had been promised by the British government. 

Clement Attlee. Image used courtesy of The Robinson Library, courtesy of a Creative Commons Attribution only licence.

Attlee’s donation of works to the University contained many important primary and secondary sources detailing the history of Indian independence. Attlee donated works such as a biography of Gandhi from 1958, numerous histories of the Indian nationalist movements, and publications from Socialists and Communist groups in both Britain and India. Attlee’s devotion to the Indian cause can clearly be seen through the scope of his donations to the new University of York in the early 1960s. Attlee became the Labour party expert on India in the 1930s, and during the Second World War he was given charge of Indian affairs. It really was to be no surprise that Prime Minister Attlee orchestrated the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.