Question

How non cooperation movement failed in towns countrysides in plantation?

Answer 1

The movement started with middle-class participation in the cities. Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and colleges, headmasters and teachers resigned, and lawyers gave up their legal practices. The council elections were boycotted in most provinces except Madras, where the Justice Party, the party of the non-Brahmans, felt that entering the council was one way of gaining some power – something that usually only Brahmans had access to. The effects of non-cooperation on the economic front were more dramatic. Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops picketed, and foreign cloth burnt in huge bonfires. The import of foreign cloth halved between 1921 and 1922, its value dropping from Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore. In many places merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance foreign trade. As the boycott movement spread, and people began discarding imported clothes and wearing only Indian ones, production of Indian textile mills and handlooms went up. India and the Contemporary World But this movement in the cities gradually slowed down for a variety of reasons. Khadi cloth was often more expensive than massproduced mill cloth and poor people could not afford to buy it. How then could they boycott mill cloth for too long? Similarly the boycott of British institutions posed a problem. For the movement to be successful, alternative Indian institutions had to be set up so that they could be used in place of the British ones. These were slow to come up. So students and teachers began trickling back to government schools and lawyers joined back work in government courts.
In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra – a sanyasi whohad earlier been to Fiji as an indentured labourer. The movementhere was against talukdars and landlords who demanded frompeasants exorbitantly high rents and a variety of other cesses. Peasantshad to do begar and work at landlords’ farms without any payment.As tenants they had no security of tenure, being regularly evicted sothat they could acquire no right over the leased land. The peasantmovement demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, andsocial boycott of oppressive landlords. In many places nai – dhobibandhs were organised by panchayats to deprive landlords of theservices of even barbers and washermen. In June 1920, JawaharlalNehru began going around the villages in Awadh, talking to thevillagers, and trying to understand their grievances. By October, theOudh Kisan Sabha was set up headed by Jawaharlal Nehru, BabaRamchandra and a few others. Within a month, over 300 brancheshad been set up in the villages around the region. So when the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the effort of theCongress was to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the widerstruggle. The peasant movement, however, developed in forms thatthe Congress leadership was unhappy with. As the movement spreadin 1921, the houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked,bazaars were looted, and grain hoards were taken over. In manyplaces local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared thatno taxes were to be paid and land was to be redistributed amongthe poor. The name of the Mahatma was being invoked to sanctionall action and aspirations.
Workers too had their own understanding of Mahatma Gandhi and the notion of swaraj. For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space in which they were enclosed, and it meant retaining a link with the village from which they had come. Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission, and in fact they were rarely given such permission. When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left the plantations and headed home. They believed that Gandhi Raj was Activity Find out about other participants in the National Movement who were captured and put to death by the British. Can you think of a similar example from the national movement in Indo-China (Chapter 2)? coming and everyone would be given land in their own villages. They, however, never reached their destination. Stranded on the way by a railway and steamer strike, they were caught by the police and brutally beaten up.
☺️hope it helps☺️

Answer 2

The Non-cooperation Movement was conceptualised as a non- violent, resistance of the British rule. However, it developed a violent streak.

The plantation workers in Assam worked under very strict rules and regulations. As per the Inland Immigration Act of 1859, the plantation workers were rarely allowed to leave the tea gardens without permission and were seldom allowed to go back homes.

Inspired by the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers disobeyed the British authorities and left the plantations to go back to their homes.

Their journey was disrupted due to railway and streamer strikes, were caught by the police and beaten up. The plantation workers had ascribed their own meaning to Swaraj different from that of the congress. They felt that Swaraj marked an era when their sufferings would end.

On 4th February, 1922 thousands of protesters gathered to picket a of the liquor shop at the local market in Chauri Chaura.

To threaten the protestors, the policemen fired in the air. However the agitated crowd began to pelt stones at the police. The sub inspector ordered fire on the crowd which 3 protestors were killed and several others got injured.

The agitated protestors retaliated in a violent manner and began attacking the police from all sides. The policemen got threatened by thousands of people and they locked themselves up in the police station.