Indian National Movement – UPSC GS1

Indian nationalism was a product of both colonial exploitation and the new conditions created by colonial rule. Main factors: Economic exploitation: the drain of wealth, ruin of artisans, high land revenue and frequent famines made…

On 20 July 1905, Viceroy Lord Curzon announced the Partition of Bengal, which came into effect on 16 October 1905. The province of Bengal (with Bihar and Orissa) had about 78 million people. It was…

Alongside the constitutional and mass movements, a stream of revolutionary nationalists believed that British rule could be ended only through armed action – assassinations of oppressive officials, raids to collect arms and money, and attempts…

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (born 2 October 1869, Porbandar) trained as a lawyer in London and went to South Africa in 1893 to work on a legal case. After being thrown out of a first-class train…

After Gandhi's arrest in 1922, the Congress was divided on what to do next. The Swarajists ("pro-changers"), led by C.R. Das and Motilal Nehru, wanted to enter the legislative councils created by the 1919 Act…

The Government of India Act, 1935 (studied in detail in GS2) introduced provincial autonomy, ended dyarchy in the provinces, proposed an All-India Federation (which never came into being because princes did not join), and extended…

The last two years of British rule moved at great speed. The Second World War had exhausted Britain economically. The Labour Party under Clement Attlee, which won the British election in July 1945, was more…