Dear Krishnan, I am a professor of History and I am sending you this
information from my own notes. I hope, it will serve your requirement. The
write up is rather long but it is very informative and I hope Others also
will read it with great interest.
The Swadeshi Movement:
The Swadeshi and Boycott movements which started with a view to ending the
partition of Bengal of 1905, soon became powerful weapons of the struggle
for freedom. Swadeshi means `of one's own country`.
Everyone pledged to boycott the foreign clothes and adopt Swadeshi clothes
in their place. Thus, the movement against the partition of Bengal soon
became a Swadeshi movement. Wearing yellow turbans and red shirts, people
marched out of Government schools, colleges and offices in thousands,
shouting Vande Mataram, singing national songs, picketing shops or selling
Swadeshi goods. In Calcutta, most of the offices were kept closed and a
strike was observed in some jute mills, ironworks and railway workshops.
The port of Calcutta was paralyzed for some time. The movements of Swadeshi
and Boycott brought in participation by the common people in the
anti-British political activities. Thus, the partition of Bengal had
consequences quite contrary to the ones that the government had expected.
During the struggle for
freedom, it meant that people should used goods produced within the country.
This would help promote Indian industries and strengthen the nation. The
promotion of Swadeshi was accompanied by the advocacy of Boycott. People
were asked to boycott foreign goods. It was also an effective method of
developing patriotism. It was stressed that the boycott of foreign goods,
which were mostly British, would hurt Britain's economic interests and the
British government would be forced to accept Indian demands.
The ideas of Swadeshi and boycott, born of the popular feelings in 1905,
were not new. The Americans, the Irish and the Chinese had adopted them
before. Swadeshi, as a purely economic measure for the development of
Indian industry, had been preached much earlier by Gopalrao Deshmukh, G V
Joshi and M G Ranade of Maharashtra and Rajnarain Bose, Nabagopal Mitra and
the Tagore Family of Bengal. Similarly, Bholanath Chandra had recommended
boycott in the 1870's to bring economic pressure on the British public.
Tilak had led a full-fledged boycott campaign in 1896. It was realized that
Swadeshi and boycott were complementary. One would not succeed without the
other. These old concepts got a new impetus from the anti-partition
movement.
The seeds of Swadeshi had been sown in Bengal by Ashvinikumar Dutta and
Rabindranath Tagore. Ashwini Kumar Dutt founded the Barisal Swadesh
Bandhav, a voluntary organization. The spirit of Swadeshi wanted the people
to educate themselves on national lines. The scheme of national education
had been formulated by Satish Chandra Mukerjee, the editor of the Dawn in
1898. Rabindranath Tagore repeatedly called for 'Atma Shakti' i.e.
self-strength through Swadeshi and national education. Self-reliance in
various fields meant the re-asserting of national dignity, honour and
confidence. Further, self-help and constructive work at the village level
was envisaged as a means of bringing about the social and economic
regeneration of the villages and of reaching the rural masses. In actual
terms this meant social reform and campaigns against evils such as caste
oppression, early marriage, the dowry system, consumption of alcohol, etc.
Rabindranath Tagore made suggestions for mass contact through Melas and
Yatras, and the use of mother tongue in education and political work.
Through his Shanti Niketan Ashram, he experimented with new forms of
education. Taking a clue from Tagore's Shantiniketan, the Bengal National
College was setup in the vernacular medium with Aurobindo Ghosh as its
Principal. For technical education, the Bengal Technical Institute was set
up and An association was established in March 1904 by Jogendra Chandra
Ghosh to raise funds for sending students abroad (usually to Japan) to get
technical training. In August 1906, the National Council of Education was
established. It consisted of virtually all the distinguished persons of the
country at the time. Its objective was to organize a system of Education
Literary, Scientific and Technical - on National lines and under National
control from primary to university level. The chief medium of instruction
was to be the vernacular to enable the widest possible reach.
The message of Swadeshi and the boycott of foreign goods soon spread to the
rest of the country: Lokamanya Tilak took the movement to different parts of
India, especially Poona and Bombay; Ajit Singh and Lala Lajpat Rai spread
the Swadeshi message in Punjab and other parts of northern India; Syed
Haidar Raza led the movement in Delhi; Rawalpindi, Kangra, Jammu, Multan and
Hardwar witnessed active participation in the Swadeshi Movement; Chidambaram
Pillai took the movement to the Madras presidency, which was also galvanized
by Bipin Chandra Pal's extensive lecture tour.
The Extremists used the methods of Swadeshi and Boycott as the weapons
against the Partition of Bengal. The call for boycott of foreign goods and
use of Swadeshi was given at thousands of public meetings all over Bengal
and in most of the major cities and towns of India. Harkishan Lal and
Arya Samajists (College faction) were active in Swadeshi enterprises from
the 1890s. Swadeshi literally means 'of one's own country'. It implied
that people should use goods produced within India itself, as this would
promote Indian enterprise and industry and generate patriotism, thus
strengthening the nation. B.G. Tilak declared, "Our motto is self reliance
not mendicancy".
The Extremists established Samitis or Corps of national volunteers for mass
contact. These Samitis were engaged in a number of activities like physical
and moral training of members, social work during famines, epidemics, or
religious festivals, preaching the Swadeshi message through journals,
pamphlets, speeches, patriotic songs, plays, use of folk media like Jatras,
etc. They also took up the organization of festivals and Melas, of crafts,
schools, arbitration courts, and village societies and implementation of the
techniques of passive resistance.
The Passive resistance Movement was to mean not only boycott of British
goods and schools but of law-courts, municipalities and Legislative
Councils; in short, all association with the Government. By striking at the
root of British prestige, its enchantment was to be dispelled.
Administration was to be made impossible by an organized refusal to help
British commerce to exploit and British bureaucracy to oppress the Indian
people.
These twin techniques led to heightening of political activities all over
India. British cloth, sugar, and other goods were boycotted. Shops selling
foreign goods were picketed. In many places, public burning of foreign
cloth took place, which revealed the intensity of popular feelings over the
partition issue. School and college students played an important part in
this movement. The traditionally homecentred women of the urban middle
class too joined in processions and picketing. Women refused to use foreign
bangles and glass utensils, students refused to use foreign papers, all
classes refused to use foreign cloth, and so on. Bonfires of British goods
were made at different places.
Extremists wanted to extend the Swadeshi and the Boycott Movement from
Bengal to the rest of the country. They also wanted to gradually extend the
boycott from foreign goods to every form of association or cooperation with
the colonial Government. The Moderates wanted to confine the boycott part of
the movement to Bengal and were totally opposed to its extension to the
Government. The Bombay Moderates were against the idea of boycott as a
general political weapon, though they welcomed Swadeshi. Gokhale would
leave alone the word 'boycott' which implied 'a vindictive desire to injure
another' and 'which created unnecessary ill-will against ourselves'.
Surendranath Banerjea considered boycott a special measure for fighting an
immediate injustice. He hoped that it would cease to be used when the
partition was annulled. Lajpat Rai was more radical. The attention of the
British, he said, would only be forced to the grievances of Indians by
directly threatening their pockets. To Tilak, Pal and Aurobindo boycott had
many implications. It was an economic pressure on Manchester, a weapon of
political agitation against imperialism and a training in self-sufficiency
for the attainment of Swaraj.
There was a significant revival of handlooms, silk-weaving and other
traditional artisan crafts. There were fairly successful ventures in
porcelain, chrome tanning, matches, and cigarettes. A number of attempts
were made to promote modern industries. Swadeshi textile mills, match and
soap factories, potteries and tanneries sprouted up everywhere. Acharya P C
Ray set up his Bengal Chemicals Factory, which became famous in a very short
time. Over Rs. 1,800,000 were raised and the old cotton mill at Serampur
was purchased, extended and renamed as the Banga Lakshmi Cotton Mills in
August 1906. A swadeshi Weaving Company was formed at Poona.
Chidambaran Pillai started the 'Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company' at
Tuticorin on the east coast of the Madras Province in 19. The 'Tata Iron
and Steel Company' was founded in 1907. The entire capital of this Company,
which had refused all Government and foreign help, was subscribed by Indians
within three months. Tilak and Tagore helped to setup Swadeshi Cooperative
Stores. Many Zamindars and merchants joined hands with political leaders to
found banks, insurance companies and shops. For example, The Bengal
National Bank was started to finance Indian enterprise.
The contribution of the Swadeshi movement was most marked in the cultural
sphere. A new type of nationalist poetry, prose and journalism, surcharged
with passion and filled with idealism, was born. The patriotic songs
composed at that time by Rabindra Nath Tagore, Rajani Kant Sen, Durjendralal
Ray, Mukunda Das, Syed Abu Muhammad, and others later became the moving
spirit for nationalists of all views - revolutionary, Gandhian, or
Communists-and are still popular. Tagore's Amar Sonar Bangla later inspired
the liberation struggle of Bangladesh and was adopted as its National anthem
in 1971. Political journalism, which resulted from the Swadeshi and
national movements produced some classic testaments on freedom, liberty and
self-reliance.
The Swadeshi influence could be seen in Bengali folk music, popular among
the Hindu and Muslim villages (Paligeet and Jari Gan) and it evoked
collections of Indian fairy tales such as Thakumar Jhuli (Grand mother's
tales) written by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar, which delights Bengali
children even to this day.
In art, this was the period when Avanindranath Tagore and Ravindra Nath
Tagore broke the domination of Victorian naturalism over Indian art and
sought inspiration from the rich indigenous traditions of the Ajanta,
Rajput, and Mughal paintings. Nandlal Bose, who left a major imprint on
Indian art, was the first recipient of a scholarship offered by the Indian
Society of Oriental Art, founded in 1907.
In the field of science, Jagdish Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chandra Roy, and
others pioneered original research, which was acclaimed the world over.
Later on, Gandhiji used the weapon of Swadeshi and Boycott in the
Non-cooperation and the Civil Disobedience movements.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Krishnan Moothimoola" <moothimo...@gmail.com>
To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2009 6:45 PM
Subject: [AI] a brief account on swadeshi movement is required.
hai friends,
i would like to get a brief account on Swadeshi movement. It should be
consist of origin,development of the movement , the influence of the
movement on indian history and its contribution to the world etc. i
believe that the history teachers as well the students can able to help
me on this matter.at the same time i will be also pleased to have some
important books on the topic.
with best wishes,
krishnan m. moothimoola.
Krishnan M. Moothimoola Phone: 04936215008. Mobile: 919495547984. Email:
moothimo...@gmail.com
Home address: Ushas Near GHSS Meenangadi,Post Meenangadi, Wynad, Kerala,
India. Pin. 673591.
To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in
with the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes,
please visit the list home page at
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with
the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please
visit the list home page at
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
