ABSTRACT
The British administration in India by its policies provoked the students. They in a fit of anger and revenge took the path of agitation and protest. To a large extent, the discontent came from the college and university students. At the time, when western education was introduced in India, the motive of the British government was to solve the problem of finding a cheap agency for carrying on the subordinate work of administration in its various departments. The educational institutions fulfilled the purpose for which they were devised. At the days of education the students experienced anarchy and at the end of their education, they looked up to the government for employment. The growth of educational facilities, and the increase in the number of educated men resulted in their emergence against the British. The students’ unrest may be traced since 1835 but it became so popular and got momentum with the lunching of non-cooperation movement during 1920-22. This paper tries to account the emergence of the students of Tamilnadu in the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920-22.
The British administration in India by its policies provoked the students. They in a fit of anger and revenge took the path of agitation and protest. To a large extent, the discontent came from the college and university students. At the time, when western education was introduced in India, the motive of the British government was to solve the problem of finding a cheap agency for carrying on the subordinate work of administration in its various departments. The educational institutions fulfilled the purpose for which they were devised. At the days of education the students experienced anarchy and at the end of their education, they looked up to the government for employment. The growth of educational facilities, and the increase in the number of educated men resulted in their emergence against the British. The students’ unrest may be traced since 1835 but it became so popular and intense with the lunching of non-violent non-cooperation movement during 1920-22.
To start with the students of Madras under the banner of Madras Youth League, an association of Law students, indulged in various anti-British programmes as well as propagated swadeshi temperance and boycott ideologies. The political emergence of the intellectual community especially the teachers and students during the Non-cooperation Movement, 1920-1922 was significant one. The enrolment to higher education in 1920-1921 was 60,000 and number of students enrolled in schools were 11,725,000. The University of Madras and Annamalai University, Chidambaram were spear heading in knowledge imparting. Centres of education were becoming breading centres of nationalistic fervor and patriotic sense. The British exploitative policy and suppressive measures provoked the student community all over India including Tamil Nadu. During the days of Non-cooperation Movement in the form of enforcing discipline and curtailing of their political participation an absolute authority was enforced on them.
With the launching of the Non-Cooperation Movement, Gandhi said that the students and professors should imbibe the spirit of freedom and that they should stand by the Congress. He added that if emergency arise, they should cheerfully abandon their occupation and careers. Consequently, the students began to be vanguard of the non-violent non-cooperation struggle and took the task of awakening and vitalizing the Indian masses for the sacred duty of liberating India. The students responded to the call of Gandhi and plunged in to the political struggle waged by Gandhi.
Gandhi visited Madras to seek the support of the public. He addressed a meeting held at Marina beach. His address evoked nationalistic fervor among the audience. It was attended by more than 1500 including 400 students. Gandhi exhorted the audience that the ‘non-violence’ could be only a remedy to all Indian problems and they should participate in all of the non-cooperation programmes including swadeshi, boycott and temperance propagations. Making use of the opportunity some of the members of the League of Youth, Madras wanted to get clarified their doubts. They met Gandhi face to face at a meeting held at the Khilafat Office at Madras. In this meeting, many top leaders like V.S. Srinivasa Sastri, G.A. Natesan, Yakub Hasan and Rajagopalacahri were present. Gandhi explaned his programme very cogently. At the close of his talk K. Santhanam, a law graduate and a member of the Youth League, asked Gandhi whether he actually expected a large number of students, lawyers and government servants to boycott schools, courts and offices. Gandhi replied thus: “If there is sufficient response, the British will come down and we shall succeed in achieving our ends”.
Gandhi called on the teachers to ‘nationalize’ their students. Consequently, the teachers helped their students in organizing anti British demonstrations. Teachers themselves also volunteered for Congress programmes. Under the stewardship of teachers, the students in Madras organized ‘Tamil Tondar Padai’ (Army of devotees with the objects of training young and energetic workers to canvass for causes of the Congress). It is said that the ‘devotees’ subjected the fortress of bureaucracy. In support of ‘national education’ many teachers resigned their jobs. Five teachers of Madras and Tirunelveli discarded their job. But the Congress came to rescue them. The Congress Working Committee allotted special loans of Tamil Nadu for khadi and national education. With the Congress fund the salaries of the national school teachers who had renounced their position in favour of Congress and other expenditure incurred for the propaganda works were met. The government counter acted with undue severity. Consequently, more than ten teachers were arrested and two dismissed by October 1921.
The students felt that meetings and rallies were the best weapon of propagating the non-cooperation ideologies. The students of Kumbakonam College, SPGK School, Kumbakonam, paraded the streets by reciting patriotic songs. They explained the rural public the advantages of using of swadeshi articles and discarding of foreign made. On 2 September 1920, the students of Hindu College, Tirunelveli abstained from their classes and picketed the foreign cloth shops. Almost all the students of Loyola College, Madras, about 500 in number organized a meeting in order to explain the non-cooperation programmes among the public. Police force interfered and lathi charged the student agitations.
On 15 September, the students of Trichinopoly, conducted a mass rally followed by a meeting. A student leader delivered a speech on Gandhian Satyagraha. On 17 September a temperance march was organized by the students of Presidency College, Madras. By the third week of September 20 students from Meenakshi College, Chidambaram proceeded to a nearby toddy shop and picketed it. Meanwhile, the Calcutta Congress which was held in September, 1920 called for the creation of Student Volunteer Corps in all the Provinces in India. Such Corps were constituted at Madras, Vaniyampadi, Trichinopoly and Cuddalore. Enrollment of volunteers and carrying out propagation on swadeshi, boycott and temperance were the main tasks of the Corps.
In 24 September, 1920, the students of the Islamiah College, Vaniyampadi constituted a Corp. The strength was raised within a month by enrolling about 200 men and women students for the purpose of propaganda among the rural classes. They also arranged for street corner and indoor political meetings. One was presided by Shaukat Ali. These young men wore khadi uniform with crescent badges. A part of this Corps was disbanded as suggested by Shaukat Ali. It was decided to retain it permanently to gear up social service and intensify political propaganda. He wanted to keep the torch against British injustice burning. On 18 October, 1920, Madras city students organized a procession to kindle the spirit of nationalism in the minds of students. The newspaper Desabaktan extended its support to the programme and pointed out that the success of any movement in the world mainly depended upon the active efforts of students.
On 24 November, 1920, a meeting of the students of Madras was held at the Soundarya Mahal under the chairmanship of C. Rajagopalachari to consider the question of the boycott of government and aided schools and colleges. The students of the Pachaiyappa’s College and the Presidency College presented themselves in large numbers at the meetings. On 18 December, 1920, the Madras Christian College students organized a procession marching on the main streets shouting Bande Mataram (hail to motherland) and Gandhi Ki Jai (Victory to Gandhi).
In a student’s conference held in Madras city, Mrs. Sarojini Naidu exhorted the students that in pursuance of the order of the Congress all students above eighteen years should leave the government schools and that those under should be volunteers. In December, 1920, a special session of the Trichinopoly St. Joseph’s College Students’ Association was held. Many students left the college to lend support to the Non-Cooperation Movement. No statistics is available to prove the number of students who left St. Joseph’s College on this ground. Some showed their readiness to discontinue their studies. Students like Sadasivam, Thigarajan, Krishnaswami, Venkataraman and Muhammed Usman left their college studies.
In December, 1920 the Muslim women students of a local school at Vaniyambadi also conducted a political propaganda meeting. In a meeting of the students held at Triplicane beach in the middle of December, 1920, R. Chinnaswamy, one of the speakers, observed that the call for Indian freedom had come to the students and urged them to pledge themselves to work until the dawn of freedom. Appan Nair another speaker held that the students of India could win swaraj single handed. Hameed Khan, the Chairman in his concluding remarks appealed to the parents not to prevent their boys from their sacred duty of boycotting schools and colleges. Agitation was also noticeable among the students in Vellore, Kumbakonam, Salem, Coimbatore and Cuddalore.
The students of Loyola College and Pachaiyappa’s College, Madras, had been the vanguard of swadeshi and prohibition demonstrations in 1920’s. They organized processions and door-to-door propaganda to infuse swadeshi sense among the common public. The Loyola College students with the assistance of their teachers, setup a swadeshi stall in front of the college. They sold swadeshi writing material, Gandhi caps and Bande Matram badges. During August-December, 1920 the students of City Colleges, Madras; National College, Trichinopoly; Hindu College, Tinnelvelly; Government College, Coimbatore and Kumbakonam organized intensive political meetings, picketing of foreign cloth and toddy shops and propagation of Swadeshi. They did not bother about governmental suppression and their future. The political impulse of the students was created by teachers as well as local leaders. Teachers such as Deivasigamani of University of Madras, David Mathew of St. Joseph College of Trichinopoly, and Ramakrishna Iyer of Pachaiyappa’s College, Madras trained the minds of the students against the ‘satanic government’. It is known that one Rajamanickam teacher, Cuddalore renounced his position in favour of Non-Cooperation Movement.
To sum up, the students’ participation in the political activities in support of the Non-Cooperation Movement was intensive, which sometimes culminated into violent which resulted in arrest and suspension of them. During1920, the students arrest was less but it swelled to 28 including 2 women. Despite the on stringent measures taken by the Madras Presidency Government, the student of Tamil Nadu continued to fight against the suppressive and exploitative British. When the Non- Cooperation Movement was suspended in February, 1922, the students’ activities got slackened.
– K. Palaniyammal
Ph.D Scholar (External), Department of History, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar.
References
1. P.C. Bomford, The Histories of the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movements, Deep Publication, Delhi, 1974.
2. Collected Works of Gandhi, Vol. XVIII.
3. New India, 30 January 1920.
4. New India, 4 November 1920.
5. K.P.S. Menan, Reminisces, Madras Christian College Magazine, March 1937.
6. Fortnightly Report, 2 September 1920.
7. K. Santhanam, ‘How I First Met Mahatma Gandhi’ Bhavan’s Journal XX, 1969.
8. Home Political File 185/1920.
9. Under Secretary’s Secret Safe. File 326/1920.
10. Reports on the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement, Madras 1920-21.
11 The Hindu, 1 September 1920.
12. Swadeshmitran, 4 September, 1920.
13. Fortnightly Report, 2 October 1920.
14. Reports on the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movements, Madras 1920-21.
15. Under Secretary’s Secret Safe. File 699/30, 1920.
16. Fortnightly Report, 30 December 1920.
17. Report of Education Department, Madras, 1921.
18. The Hindu, 26 December 1920.
19. T. Sundararaj, History of Trichirappalli, Sundar Publications, Tiruchirappalli, 2003.
20. The Hindu, 28 December 1920.
21. Under Secretary’s Secret Safe. File 699/30, 1920.
22. V.Sankaran Nair, The Role Students in the Indian Freedom Movement with Reference to Madras Presidency. Mittal Publisher, Delhi, 1979.