Violence of the British oppression and how Gandhi answered to it

Résumé du document

Concerning the study of the nationalist movement in India several series of studies followed one another. It seems however in a general way that the study of the nationalist movement in India suffered from an often excessive attention carried to Gandhi leading to neglect the importance of the other actors.

This fact in then deeply directed the university searches in the direction of a reconsideration of the role of the other actors. There are developed for example the Subordinates Studies who aimed in re value the role played by the local populations in this movement towards the independence. The thesis of Printhwindra Mukherjee (The intellectual roots of the movement of independence of India (on 1893-1918) for example also joins this will to rethink the Indian nationalize movement Indian by returning on its intellectual roots and by bringing to light personalities having played a role determining in the process of independence but the importance of which was hiden by the focusing the personality of Gandhi. An analysis of the link between violence of the British oppression and answer provided by Gandhi to this violence is the opportunity to rethink the role of the local populations in the independence But especially this way of rethinking the role of the local populations ensues from a new consideration of the importance of the violence in the Indian traditional society , in the heart of our comment.

Our study will concern the period going from 1829 to 1930s. Indeed, we shall hold the date of 1829 because it is the date of the beginning of the campaign anti Thug who corresponds to an evident demonstration of the violence of the British oppression. We shall stop our study in 1930s with in particular the Salt March because it is not a question here of being interested in the independence but indeed in the events having led to it.

Extraits

[...] Gandhi, Robert Delège, Que sais-je? Colonial Justice in British India: White violence and the Rule of Law (Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society), Elizabeth Kolsky, Cambridge University Press La violence coloniale: enjeu d'une description et choix d'écriture, Raphaëlle Branche, Tracés. Revue de Sciences Humaines, Numéro 19, 2010. [...]

[...] From this kind of designation of groups as potentially criminals measures of police management were organized from 1850 till 1870. The objective was to identify certain individuals by means of registers of house, employment, civil status, fingerprints. In the region of Punjab for example the police was very fast interested in the case of these groups by setting up a shape of radical treatment: the internment of whole groups of persons with surveillance, control, discipline, and even the separation of the children of the parents. [...]

[...] Gandhi took advantage of this context to return to the head of the Congress but also to publish a weekly newspaper Satyagraha which conveyed his thought, not recognized officially and thus perceived as illegal. Demonstrations and acts of violence took place everywhere. The city of Amritsar in the Punjab encountered also an insurrectionary situation. When on April 10th the population demanded the liberation of independent leaders the police fired and killed several demonstrators. The British resorted then to general Dyer. On April 12th the general ordered to his soldiers to fire relentlessly on a demonstration man, women and children participated in this demonstration which was illegally held on the place of Jallianwala Bagh. [...]

[...] Foucault shows how the political power introduces constantly the balance of power by means of " a silent war into the institutions, into the language, and even in the bodies of the individuals. So, the colonial world represents a perfect example of these links between war and political power. Finally, an other importan specificity is the complexity of the reality of the colonial violence which cannot be defined as a simple opposition between dominant and dominated. Year 1919 and massacre of Amnitsar represents a determining example of institutionalized violence. This year is undoubtedly a watershed year in the Indian history. [...]

[...] The assessment stated 379 deaths and 200 wounded persons . But being afraid of an increase of the violence Gandhi proclaimed the end of the disobedience civil and recognized even its appeal to Satyagraha as an error. This episode in the history of Raj Britannique marked the break between the Indian elites and the British colonists as well as a major bend in the history of the nationalist movement. Another idea here is the one according to which next to these moments of spectacular repression as the massacre of Jlianwala Bagh there was during the colonial period another type of violence which is a daily and not institutionalized violence. [...]