Q1.
Form groups to analyse, compare and discuss the various elements or demands contained in the above resolution.
Answer
How to run the exercise. Split the extract into its sentences and give one to each group. Each group answers three questions about its sentence: what is being claimed? what is it based on? who is it addressed to? Then put the four sentences back together in order and see the argument they build.
| Element in the resolution | The claim | Why it is placed there |
|---|---|---|
| “the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people” | Freedom is not a favour to be granted; it belongs to Indians as it belongs to everyone | It is put first because everything else rests on it. And ‘as of any other people’ answers the racial argument the chapter describes on p. 40 — that Indians belonged to ‘inferior races’ unfit to rule themselves |
| “to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil and have the necessities of life, so that they may have full opportunities of growth” | Freedom is defined to include an economic and human minimum, not just a flag and a parliament | This is the drain of wealth, the famines and the ruin of Indian industry turned into a demand. Freedom that left people hungry would not count |
| “if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them the people have a further right to alter it or to abolish it” | A government that fails this test loses its claim to obedience | The moral licence for what comes next. Civil disobedience is not lawlessness; it is the exercise of a right the resolution has just stated |
| “has not only deprived… but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually” | The charge sheet — four counts, in that order | Note ‘the masses’: this is the Congress of 1929, not of 1885. And ‘culturally and spiritually’ echoes the older Nationalist argument about English education and national self-respect |
| “India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or complete independence” | The conclusion, stated without any qualification | Everything above exists to make this sentence unavoidable. There is no ‘within the Empire’, no ‘in due course’ |
What to compare it with (the second half of the exercise):
| Demand | Year | What it asked for |
|---|---|---|
| Congress at its founding | 1885 | ‘Unswerving allegiance to the British Crown’; greater Indian participation, civil rights, some reforms |
| Swaraj at Calcutta | 1906 | Self-rule — deliberately undefined, anywhere from autonomy inside the Empire to full independence |
| Home Rule Movement | 1916 | Self-government within the British Empire — “a practical first step” |
| Motilal Nehru Report | 1928 | Dominion status: full internal autonomy, but Britain keeps defence and foreign policy and the Crown stays head of state |
| Lahore resolution | 1929 | Purna Swaraj — sever the British connection entirely |
The point the comparison makes: the demand escalated because the British refused each smaller version of it. The chapter is explicit — the Simon Commission came “without a single Indian member”, and it was “the realisation that Britain was not ready to grant India such a status” that pushed Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose and the younger leaders to Purna Swaraj. Note also that the demand was not new: Nationalists had voiced it two decades earlier, Aurobindo in 1908, Maulana Hasrat Mohani in 1921 and V.D. Savarkar in 1925. What was new in 1929 was that the whole Congress adopted it.
Discuss in your group: the sentence about the right “to alter or to abolish” a government closely echoes the language of the American Declaration of Independence of 1776. Why might Indian leaders in 1929 have wanted to use the vocabulary Britain’s own former colonies had used against it?