UPSC Mains Daily Questions » Daily Answer Writing Challenge-31st August

Daily Answer Writing Challenge-31st August

Q1. What were the responses of the nationalist leaders towards World War I? Did their opinions  change during World War II? Elaborate. (250 Words, 15 Marks) 

Answer: 

When the First World War broke out, the British Government appealed to the Indian leaders to  join hands with them, although the leaders agreed but they expected the British should extend  democracy to India. When the war was over, the British Government did not fulfill its promises.  This led to a change in the views of nationalist leaders in the Second World War. 

The response of the nationalist leaders towards World War I  

  •  Political Unrest: During the war years, political unrest was growing within India and Leaders  such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Besant launched the Home Rule League in 1916.
  • Political moderates such as Surendranath Banerjee and Bhupendranath Basu, pledged their  whole-hearted support to the Allies. 
  • All India Muslim League, Madras Provincial Congress, Hindus of Punjab and the Parsee  community of Bombay supported the Allies and fund-raising was organized.
  • Mahatma Gandhi thought that England’s need should not be turned into our opportunity, and  he argued that we should send our men to France and Mesopotamia. 
  •  Moderate and extremist groups within the Congress submerged their differences in order to  stand as a unified front and argued their enormous services to the British Empire during the  war. 
  •  Lucknow Pact of 1916 was an alliance between Muslim League and Congress, which led to  some sort of consensus over the issue of devolution of political power. 

Response of Revolutionaries 

  • The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 gave a new lease of life to the nationalist movement  since Britain’s difficulty was seen as India’s opportunity by the revolutionaries.
  • This opportunity was seized, in different ways and with varying success, by the Ghadar  revolutionaries based in North America. 
  • The Ghadarites attempted a violent overthrow of British rule. After the outbreak of World War  1. 
  •  Ghadarites conducted revolutionary activities in central Punjab and organized uprisings.  This way the Ghadar party proved to be the stepping stone for future Indian revolutionary  movements. 

Nationalist leaders views during World War II 

  •  On 1 September 1939, the 2nd World War broke out. The British Government without consulting  the people of India involved the country in the war. The Congress vehemently opposed it.
  • As a mark of protest the Congress Ministries resigned in all the seven Provinces on 12 December  1939 
  • The Indian National Congress, led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel  and Maulana Azad, denounced Nazi Germany but would not fight it or anyone else until India  was independent. 
  • Congress launched the Quit India Movement in August 1942, refusing to cooperate in any way  with the government until independence was granted. 
  • In Singapore, Bose formed the Azad Hind Fauj (Indian National Army or INA) to conduct a  military campaign for the liberation of India. 

Unfulfilled promises by the British in World War I made Indians not trust the British anymore, this  led to Indian nationalists changing their strategies. After World War II, movements like quit India  launched by the Indian leaders eventually culminated in India’s independence in 1947, Two years  after the end of the second world war.