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Journalism of Courage
— Dileep P Chandran
Amid US President Donald Trump’s tariff tirade, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a renewed push for ‘Swadeshi’, emphasising that every party, leader and citizen must work to promote indigenous goods if “we want India to become the third-largest economy”.
The Prime Minister’s Swadeshi call, rooted in the legacy of the national movement, harks back to the Swadeshi movement of 1905-1911. Born out of the anti-partition protests in Bengal in British India, the Swadeshi movement put economic pressure on England by boycotting British goods and promoting Swadeshi goods.
When partition unified a nation
On July 19, 1905, the then Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, announced the division of Bengal into two provinces – East Bengal and Assam (predominately Muslim) and the western province called Bengal (primarily Hindus).
Lord Curzon’s decision (first announced in December 1903) can be traced back to his conflict with the nationalist intelligentsia that began with his unpopular reforms in the Calcutta Corporation in 1899, followed by the amendments in the University Act of 1904 and the Official Secrets Act of 1904.
While apologists of Curzon’s regime claimed that the partition of Bengal aimed at administrative convenience, nationalist leaders called it a deliberate divide and rule policy. The political motive behind the bifurcation was to encourage Hindu-Muslim tensions and divide nationalist leaders of East and West Bengal, thereby weakening the growing opposition against the British rule in the province. It was evident in the words of Curzon:
“Calcutta is the centre from which the Congress party is manipulated throughout the whole of Bengal and indeed the whole of India.”
Nationalists, irrespective of their political affiliations, viewed partition as a blow to national unity and pride. The widespread protest in response to this unpopular strategy paved the way for a new phase in the Indian national movement.
The failure of moderates’ ‘mendicant policies’ (appealing to the British through prayers and petitions) to counter Curzon’s repressive reforms led to the search for a new technique to demand revocation of the Bengal partition. The idea of boycotting British goods was first proposed in Krishnakumar Mitra’s weekly Sanjivani on July 13, 1905, and later adopted by nationalist leaders at a public meeting in Calcutta Town Hall on August 7, 1905.
The movement began on partition day, October 16, with expressing mourning through the exchange of coloured wrist threads (rakhi bandhan), symbolising unity and brotherhood. The Swadeshi public also welcomed the emergence of Samitis or national volunteer organisations engaged in philanthropic work during famines and epidemics. These Samitis trained volunteers in social work, organised indigenous arbitration courts and schools, and spread the message of Swadeshi during festivals.
When the abrogation of the partition began to seem like a distant dream, the strategy of constructive Swadeshi – through the promotion of indigenous industries, national schools, and village organisations – was deemed insufficient.
Therefore, militant leaders like Aurobindo Ghose and Bipin Chandra Pal expanded the Swadeshi agenda and called for the boycott of British goods, educational institutions, courts, renunciation of titles, and relinquishment of government services. During this phase, Bengal, Maharashtra, and Punjab, under the leadership of the Lal-Bal-Pal triumvirate (Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, and Bipin Chandra Pal), emerged as epicentres of revolutionary politics.
The Swadeshi movement, which challenged the monopoly of the colonial economy, also contributed to the revival of the indigenous economy. For Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the movement was a revolt against the state of dependence in all branches of national life. Surendranath Banerjee described it as a “protectionist movement”.
The boycott initially achieved some success – imports of British goods began to decline, while labour strikes against the derogatory working conditions resulted in industrial unrest in the colonial economy. The formation of labour unions, beginning with the Printers’ Union, formed on October 21, 1905, further exposed labour exploitation under colonial rule.
The movement encouraged Indian industries and revived sectors like handloom, silk-weaving, and other indigenous artisan crafts. National banks and insurance companies were opened with Indian capital. As the movement spread to Madras, V O Chidambaram mooted a Swadeshi shipping venture to challenge the British monopoly in navigation and maritime trade. He registered the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNC) as a joint stock company in 1906.
There was also a surge in the national education movement. For instance, the Dawn Society founded by Satish Chandra Mukherjee initiated the National Council of Education on November 5, 1905. The call for national education also promoted technical training in the vernacular language. However, national education, with limited job prospects, and indigenous industries, facing capital shortages, struggled to sustain in the long-run.
Contrary to the expectation of the colonial administration that the protests against the partition would fade away soon, the Swadeshi movement expanded into a broader struggle for Swaraj, attracting young, educated youth. For the first time in the history of India, the movement attracted women, workers, peasants, and the marginalised to nationalist ideas. The period also witnessed the rapid growth of the vernacular press with a nationalistic tone.
Young nationalists in Bengal viewed the partition as a ‘national insult’. They were not satisfied with the mere call for self-reliance, like Rabindranath Tagore’s concept of atmashakti (self-strengthening), and appealed for revolutionary politics. Publications like Bipin Chandra Pal’s New India, Aurobindo Ghosh’s Bande Mataram, Brahmobandhab Upadhyay’s Sandhya and Yugantar called for a struggle for Swaraj, dismissing the peaceful movement of self-reliance as inadequate.
Political revolutionism soon spread to other provinces like Punjab, Maharashtra, and Madras, and provoked repressions by the colonial government. For instance, Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh were deported to Mandalay in 1907 following unrest in Punjab. Similarly, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and his associates like Khaparde and Munje extended the boycott and passive resistance in Maharashtra through radical journalism, especially using Tilak’s newspapers Kesari and Mahratta, and religio-political festivals like the Shivaji festival, culminating in the deportation of Tilak.
The Swadeshi era also witnessed a sudden growth of revolutionary groups and extremist activities. Individual revolutionaries began targeting oppressive British officials, as seen in the Muzaffarpur bomb attack in April 1908 by Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki, killing Pringle Kennedy’s wife and daughter, and the Barrah dacoity in June 1908 by Pulin Das of the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti.
Notably, the idea of Swadeshi can be traced back to M. G. Ranade’s lecture series of 1872, where he argued that goods produced in one’s own country should be preferred, regardless of the level of satisfaction they provide. Proponents of constructive Swadeshi, like Rabindranath Tagore, emphasised self-help (atma-shakti), and called for the revival of traditional Hindu samaj (community) to engage in constructive work at the village level.
The Swadeshi movement (1905-1911) laid the groundwork for many strategies adopted during the Gandhian phase of the national movement. Later, Mahatma Gandhi extended the idea of Swadeshi into the spiritual realm by linking it to a moral duty. He wrote, “I should use only things that are produced by my immediate neighbours and serve those industries by making them efficient and complete where they may be found wanting.”
However, there emerged differences among the leaders of the Swadeshi movement mainly at two levels. First, they could not agree over the political methods and goals, and resulted in the split between the moderates and extremists within the Indian National Congress at the Surat session in 1907. Second, there was a controversy associated with combining religious revivalism with political methods. The fusion of nationalism with Hindu symbols alienated minority communities from the national movement.
The colonial administration exploited these tensions and deliberately fostered communal divisions, as seen in the formation of the Muslim League in 1906 and the introduction of separate electorates for Muslims in the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909.
To sum up, the Swadeshi movement succeeded in mobilising the masses into nationalist politics and uniting diverse political forces but extremist tendencies that deviated from the declared goal could not be contained. The history of the national movement suggests that emotional responses to powerful forces need to be accompanied by adequate capital, inclusive participation, and well-defined strategies to achieve long-term success.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a renewed push for ‘Swadeshi’. How do you see it harking back to the Swadeshi movement of 1905-1911?
On July 19, 1905, the then Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, announced the division of Bengal into two provinces. What were the major factors behind this decision?
How did political agitation in response to the partition of Bengal paved the way for a new phase in the Indian national movement?
Compare the Swadeshi Movement with later Gandhian movements in terms of methods and mass participation.
For Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the Swadeshi movement was a revolt against the state of dependence in all branches of national life while Surendranath Banerjee described it as a “protectionist movement”. Comment.
Bipan Chandra, Modern India (2001)
Sumit Sarkar, Modern India (1885-1947)
Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal (1903-1908)
(Dileep P Chandran is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science in P M Government College, Chalakudy, Kerala.)
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