Independence Day 2023: The iconic mass movements that won India its freedom

India’s independence from British rule – or rather misrule – was achieved through perhaps the most iconic political movement in history.

In fact, the freedom struggle of India was not a single movement, but rather, a series of long and bitterly fought movements over a period spanning around two centuries.

Let us have a look at some of the mass movements that won us our precious freedom

Chuar rebellion

The Chuar insurrection, often referred to as the Jungle Mahal movement, was a series of peasant uprisings against the East India Company (EIC) between 1766 and 1816 by the tribal residents of the land surrounding the Jungle Mahal settlements in Midnapore, Bankura, and Birbhum. In the Chotanagpur regions of the Bengal Presidency (now West Bengal and Jharkhand), this was the first uprising against the East India Company (EIC).

Sannyasi rebellion

The Sannyasi insurrection, also known as the monk rebellion, occurred in Bengal, India, in the latter half of the 18th century. It was led by Pandit Bhabani Charan Pathak and involved Hindu sannyasis and sadhus in the area of the Murshidabad and Baikunthapur woods of Jalpaiguri. Since the British East India Company had been granted the authority to collect taxes following the Battle of Buxar in 1764, some historians classify it as an early conflict for India’s independence from foreign rule. However, other historians classify it as violent banditry in the wake of the Bengal famine of 1770, which resulted in the depopulation of the province.

Vellore mutiny

The Vellore Mutiny, which took place on July 10, 1806, was the first time that Indian sepoys violently rebelled against the East India Company on a wide scale, occurring fifty years before the Indian Rebellion of 1857. During the one-day long uprising in the Indian city of Vellore, mutineers gained control of the fort and murdered or injured 200 British soldiers. Arcot’s cavalry and artillery put an end to the revolt. Total mutineer fatalities were around 350; during the outbreak’s suppression, there were about 100 summary executions, followed by a smaller number of regular court-martials.

Santhal rebellion

The Santhal revolt was an uprising by the Santhal people in modern-day Jharkhand and West Bengal, Eastern India, against the British East India Company and the zamindari system. The East India Company declared martial law on November 10, 1855, which lasted until January 3, 1856, when it was suspended and the revolt was finally put down by the Presidency soldiers. It began on June 30, 1855. The four brothers who made up the insurrection were Sidhu, Kanhu, Chand, and Bhairav.

Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu, two Santal rebel leaders, gathered about 60,000 Santhals on June 30, 1855, and announced a revolt against the East India Company. For the duration of the uprising, Sidhu Murmu had amassed roughly ten thousand Santhals to rule a rival government.

After the announcement, the Santhals quickly armed themselves. The Zamindars, money lenders, and their agents were put to death in numerous communities. The management of the Company was unprepared for the open rebellion. A small group was initially dispatched to put down the rebellion, but when they were unsuccessful, the spirit of the uprising was further stoked. The Company management finally made a significant move when the law and order situation became out of control and sent in a sizable number of troops with assistance from the local zamindars and the nawab of Murshidabad to put an end to the rebellion. Sidhu and his brother Kanhu Murmu were the targets of a Rs. 10,000 prize offered by the East India Company.

Following this, there were other clashes, which led to numerous Santhal force casualties. The gunpowder weaponry used by the East India Company forces proved to be too advanced for the Santhals’ rudimentary weapons. The 40th Native Infantry, the 7th Native Infantry Regiment, and other troop detachments were ordered into battle. From July 1855 to January 1856, there were significant skirmishes in locations including Kahalgaon, Suri, Raghunathpur, and Munkatora.

Following the combat deaths of Sidhu and Kanhu, the uprising was eventually put down. During the uprising, the Nawab of Murshidabad provided war elephants that were used to destroy Santhal homes. In this incident, more than 15,000 people died, dozens of villages were devastated, and numerous people participated in the uprising.

Revolt of 1857

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a significant rebellion against the British East India Company’s control in India between 1857 and 1858. In the garrison town of Meerut, 64 km northeast of Delhi, sepoys of the Company’s army staged a mutiny on May 10, 1857, signalling the start of the uprising. After then, there were other mutinies and civil uprisings, primarily in central India and the upper Gangetic plain, though there were also instances of uprising further north and east.

Only the rebels’ loss in Gwalior on June 20, 1858, was able to put an end to the uprising, which constituted a military threat to British dominance in that area. The British declared the hostilities to have officially ended on July 8, 1859, but they had already offered amnesty to those rebels who had not committed murder on November 1 of that year. The First War of Independence, the Great Rebellion, the Revolt of 1857, the Sepoy Mutiny, the Indian Mutiny, and other names have all been used to refer to it.

Indigo revolt

The Indigo Revolt, which began in Bengal in 1859 and lasted for nearly a year, was a peasant movement and eventual insurrection of indigo farmers against the indigo planters. The busiest and most numerous organisations in charge of the peasants were the village headmen and substantial ryots. The “gomashta” or “diwan” of the Indigo factory, who were occasionally dissatisfied former workers of European planters, took the initiative to organise the peasants against the Indigo planters.

It became one of the most extraordinary peasant revolutions in Indian history when thousands of ryots in Bengal refused to cultivate indigo for the European planters in the summer of 1859. The insurrection, which started in the Nadia area and extended to other districts of Bengal in the 1860s, resulted in numerous violent attacks against indigo factories and landowners. After the Indigo commission was established in 1860 and proposed reforms to the system, which was by its very nature exploitative, the uprising came to an end.

Revolutionary movement

The violent underground revolutionary factions’ acts were a part of the Indian independence movement, which also included the revolutionary movement. This group includes those who support military revolution against the British monarchy, as opposed to Mahatma Gandhi’s largely nonviolent civil disobedience movement.

Bengal, Bombay, Bihar, the United Provinces, and Punjab were the main hubs for the revolutionary parties.

Non-cooperation movement

Mahatma Gandhi started the non-cooperation movement on September 4, 1920, in an effort to convince Indians to refuse to cooperate with the British government in exchange for self-governance.

The Rowlatt Act of 18 March 1919, which suspended the rights of political prisoners in sedition trials and was viewed as a “political awakening” by Indians and as a “threat” by the British, caused the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 13 April 1919 as a result of the Indian National Congress (INC) withdrawing its support for British reforms.

Salt Satyagraha

Mahatma Gandhi led the nonviolent civil disobedience known as the Salt March, sometimes referred to as the Salt Satyagraha, the Dandi March, and the Dandi Satyagraha, in colonial India. The 24-day march, which served as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and peaceful protest against the British salt monopoly, took place from March 12 to April 5, 1930. The Civil Disobedience Movement need a powerful inauguration to encourage more people to follow Gandhi’s example, which was another motivation for this march.

Quit India Movement

In an effort to abolish British control in India, Mahatma Gandhi started the Bharat Chhodo Andolan, popularly known as the Quit India Movement, during the All India Congress Committee meeting in Bombay on August 9, 1942, during World War II.

Gandhi’s Quit India movement, which he announced in Bombay on August 9, 1942, at the Gowalia Tank Maidan, was a call to Do or Die after the British failed to win Indian support for the British war effort with Cripps Mission. The movement was described as “by far the most serious rebellion since 1857” by Viceroy Linlithgow.

Royal Indian Navy Mutiny

The 1946 Naval Uprising, also known as the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny, was an uprising by Indian sailors, soldiers, police officers, and civilians against the British administration in India. From the original flashpoint in Bombay (now Mumbai), the insurrection grew and garnered support throughout British India, from Karachi to Calcutta (currently Kolkata), eventually involving more than 20,000 sailors in 78 ships and shore facilities.

The mutiny came to an end when the rebellious RIN sailors turned themselves in to British authorities. The Muslim League and the Indian National Congress persuaded Indian sailors to surrender and denounced the mutiny after comprehending the political and military repercussions of such disturbance on the eve of independence. The leaders of the Congress believed that if an armed revolution occurred and had unfavourable effects, their notion of a peaceful conclusion to a freedom struggle and orderly transfer of power would have been lost. The only national political party that supported the uprising was the Communist Party of India.