Differing Strands within the Movement

Differing Strands within the Non-Cooperation Movement — How Did Various Groups Participate?

The Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement was officially launched in January 1921. A wide array of social groups joined this movement, each bringing its own specific hopes and aspirations. While all responded to the call of swaraj^?, the term carried different meanings for different people -- from students and lawyers in the cities, to peasants in the countryside, to plantation workers in Assam.

2.1 The Movement in the Towns

The movement initially gained traction among the urban middle class. Thousands of students walked out of government-controlled schools and colleges. Headmasters and teachers resigned from their posts, and lawyers abandoned their legal practices. The council elections were boycotted across most provinces, with the notable exception of Madras, where the Justice Party^? -- representing non-Brahman communities -- saw council participation as an opportunity to gain political power that had traditionally been monopolised by Brahmans.

Economic Impact of the Boycott

The economic dimension of non-cooperation proved especially dramatic. Foreign goods were boycotted, liquor shops were picketed^?, and imported cloth was burnt in massive bonfires. The impact on trade was measurable: imports of foreign cloth fell by nearly half between 1921 and 1922, with values dropping from approximately Rs 102 crore to Rs 57 crore. Merchants and traders in many areas refused to deal in foreign goods or finance foreign trade. As people discarded imported clothing in favour of Indian-made garments, the production of Indian textile mills and handlooms surged.

Foreign Cloth Import Decline (1921-1922)

However, the urban movement gradually lost momentum for several practical reasons. Khadi^? cloth was considerably more expensive than mass-produced mill cloth, making it unaffordable for poorer sections of society. The boycott of British educational and legal institutions also posed difficulties -- alternative Indian institutions were slow to emerge, which meant students and teachers gradually drifted back to government schools, and lawyers returned to government courts.

2.2 Rebellion in the Countryside

From the cities, the Non-Cooperation Movement spread into rural India, absorbing and transforming the peasant and tribal struggles that had been developing independently since the war years.

The Awadh Peasant Movement

In Awadh, the peasant movement was led by Baba Ramchandra^? -- a sanyasi who had earlier worked as an indentured labourer in Fiji. The movement targeted the exploitative practices of talukdars and landlords who extracted excessively high rents and various additional cesses from their tenants. Peasants were compelled to perform begar^? -- unpaid labour on the landlords' farms. As tenants, they had no security of tenure and faced regular eviction, which prevented them from acquiring any rights over the land they cultivated.

The peasant movement demanded three key changes: reduction of revenue, abolition of begar, and the social boycott of oppressive landlords. In many localities, panchayats organised nai-dhobi bandhs -- denying landlords the services of barbers and washermen as a form of collective social protest.

In June 1920, Jawaharlal Nehru began visiting villages in Awadh to understand the grievances of the rural population. By October, the Oudh Kisan Sabha was established with Nehru, Baba Ramchandra, and other leaders at its helm. Within a single month, over 300 branches had been set up across the region. When the Non-Cooperation Movement began the following year, the Congress attempted to integrate the Awadh peasant struggle into the broader national movement.

The Gudem Hills Tribal Revolt

Tribal communities interpreted Gandhi's message and the idea of swaraj in their own distinctive way. In the Gudem Hills of Andhra Pradesh, a militant guerrilla movement erupted in the early 1920s -- a form of struggle that the Congress could not endorse.

The roots of the rebellion lay in the colonial government's forest policies. Large forest areas had been closed off, preventing hill people from grazing cattle or collecting firewood and forest produce -- activities essential to their livelihoods and connected to their traditional rights. When the government further compelled them to provide unpaid labour for road construction, resentment turned to open revolt.

The movement was led by Alluri Sitaram Raju^?, a charismatic figure who was believed to possess special powers including astrological prediction, healing, and invulnerability to bullets. While Raju spoke admiringly of Gandhi and encouraged people to wear khadi and abandon alcohol, he simultaneously declared that India could only be freed through force rather than non-violence. The Gudem rebels attacked police stations, targeted British officials, and waged guerrilla warfare in pursuit of swaraj. Raju was eventually captured and executed in 1924, becoming a folk hero in the popular memory of the region.

2.3 Swaraj in the Plantations

Plantation workers in Assam developed their own understanding of swaraj that was deeply personal and concrete. For them, freedom meant the right to move freely -- to leave the confined space of the tea gardens and to maintain their connection with the villages they had originally come from.

Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859^?, plantation workers were legally prohibited from leaving the tea gardens without permission, and such permission was seldom granted. When news of the Non-Cooperation Movement reached these workers, thousands defied the authorities and abandoned the plantations, heading home to their villages. They believed that "Gandhi Raj" was imminent and that everyone would soon receive land in their own villages.

These workers, however, never reached their destinations. A railway and steamer strike left them stranded along the way, where police caught up with them and subjected them to brutal beatings.

How Different Groups Understood Swaraj