Collective Belongingness

📌 Meaning

  • When people from different regions and communities develop a shared sense of identity, the nationalist movement spreads.
  • National identity often represented through figures, symbols, and cultural elements.

🎵 Fiction, Folklore, and Songs

  • 1870s – Vande Mataram written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay as a patriotic song.
  • Featured in his novel Anandamath.
  • Extensively sung during Bengal’s Swadeshi Movement.
  • Rabindranath Tagore painted Bharat Mata.
  • Late 19th century – Nationalists collected folk tales & songs from villages to revive cultural pride.
  • Natesa Sastri published The Folklore of Southern India (4 volumes) → regarded folklore as national literature.

📜 Redefinition of History

  • By late 19th century → Belief grew that rewriting Indian history was necessary to inspire pride.
  • Focus on India’s ancient achievements and cultural glory.

🚩 Icons and Symbols

  • Nationalist leaders realised that symbols unite people & generate nationalism.
  • Swadeshi Movement (Bengal) → Designed tricolour flag with:
    • 8 lotuses = 8 provinces of British India.
    • Crescent moon = Unity of Hindus & Muslims.
  • 1921 – Gandhi designed Swaraj Flag:
    • 3 colours.
    • Spinning wheel (charkha) at centre symbolising self-reliance.

⚖ Positive & Negative Aspects of the National Struggle

Positive:

  • United multiple groups/classes in a common struggle for freedom.
  • Emergence of India as a nation with many voices demanding independence.

Negative:

  • Different groups joined to address specific, personal issues.
  • Freedom from colonial rule meant different things to different communities.
  • At times, conflicts between groups weakened unity.

✊ Quit India Movement (1942)

📜 Background

  • Sept 1939 – WWII began; India declared British ally without Indian consent.
  • 10 Aug 1940 – August Offer by Viceroy to get Indian cooperation in war.
  • 11 March 1942 – PM Winston Churchill announced sending of Cripps Mission (headed by Sir Stafford Cripps) to resolve constitutional crisis.

❌ Failure of Cripps Mission

  • British proposals failed to meet Indian demands → No immediate transfer of power.
  • Led to frustration among leaders.

🚩 Launch of Quit India Movement

  • 1942 – Gandhi drafted Quit India Resolution.
  • Call to action: “Do or Die”.
  • Demanded end of British rule in India immediately.

✅ Board Exam Possible Question:
Q: “Freedom Struggle of India is different from freedom struggles of other countries.” Why?
Answer:

  • India’s freedom struggle was largely non-violent, led by Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha.
  • Mass participation across all sections – peasants, workers, women, students, business class.
  • Combined political, economic, and social aims (e.g., Swaraj, social reforms, communal unity).
  • It was not just a political war but a moral and cultural awakening.