Unit 9: India pgs: 782-799

1. Unit 9: Indiapgs: 782-799 By Andrew Bradley

2. Overview of India • Independence struggle • Gandhi’s innovations and leadership • Satyagraha • Gandhi leads Congress • Congress campaigns for independence • Hindu Muslim unity • Problems of new government in India • Democracy and challenges • Indira Gandhi • Economic and technological change • Family planning

3. People Jawaharlal Nehru: Nehru and his family helped implement the one party democratic system within India. This helped to be a new political aspect for India with the use of the democracy. Nehru had also advocated modern machinery and technology and he knew that it would come down to a large scale industry. • Gandhi: emerged as leader offering new political directions, new moral perspectives, and new programs of internal reform. He called India to find strength and courage within peasant roots. Gandhi did not create the independence movement in India, rather he gave it new organization and leadership with direction. He had organized peasant movements which he directed with their own local organization. He reconstituted the Congress into a mass organization with millions of dues-paying members.

4. People Continued Indira Gandhi: She became the prime minister of India. Had a reputation of a tough determined leader. Motto as “Down with Poverty”, followed socialist policies. Her political manipulations partially undermined India’s democratic system. In 1975 Indira almost lost all political power, and she had the president of India declare Emergency. She jailed the leaders of the opposition, curtailed freedom of speech and of the press.

5. Terms • Satyagraha- a Hindi expression meaning “truth force”, applied to Gandhi’s policy of nonviolent opposition to British rule in India. Demanding that the persecutors recognize the immortality of their own position and redress the suffering of the oppressed. • Ashima- non violence, in the face of attack • Swadeshi- “of one’s own country”, a Hindi word used as a slogan in the Indian boycott of foreign goods, part of the protest against Britain’s partition of Bengal in 1905

6. Terms Continued • Green Revolution- economically and technologically they had accomplished producing enough food to feed its growing population • Sati- an ancient Hindu custom that requires widows to be burned on the funeral pyre of their husbands, or soon afterward • Patrilineal- the tracing of ancestry, kinship, and inheritance through the male line. • Patrilocal- residence by a couple in or near the home of the male’s family or group

7. Events • Gandhi develops Satyagraha in South Africa, and he advanced methods of resistance from 1893- 1914. He encouraged satyagraha, ashima, and civil disobedience against unjust laws, with a willingness to suffer the legal consequences, including imprisonment. Also the establishment of headquarters and the creation of a publishing house for spreading the principles of his movement. • Gandhi worked with the abolition of untouchability, and saw the difference among people as a part of social reality but he fought the designation of about 15 percent of India’s Hindu population as outcastes. • He also worked with appropiate technology and demanded small scale, labor intensive, alternative technologies for economic and humanitarian reasons.

8. Events Continued • Independence • Pakistan • Subcontinent partitioned into Hindu majority India • Governed by the officially secular Congress Party • Hostile Indian territory • Tensions between remain and exploited by political leaders • Kashmir • Relations between India and Pakistan remained tense after partition and exploded in warfare in 1947 • This war divided Kashmir, with large rich sector held by India and small poor sector by Pakistan • Bangladesh • Pakistan and India fight again in 1971 • Triggered by break up of two wings of Pakistan and the formation of the new nation of Bangladesh in East Pakistan • India fought alongside new emerging nation

9. Events Continued • Democracy and Challenges • Congress generally respected constitutional process and democracy proposed by British rulers became a reality in India after Independence • Guerrillas began activities • Laissez-faire capitalism fared even less well • Viewed capitalism as excessively individualistic and materialistic • India’s democracy was dominated by one party, the Congress, and the party’s leadership was dominated by one family which was the Nehru dynasty • Legal changes, Hind Marriage Act 1955 • Economic Change • Position of poor, rural women was deteriorating as a result of increasing general prosperity in the new economic system and of increasing urbanization

10. Events Continued • Economic and Technological Change after Independence • Green revolution • New strains of wheat were introduced • Increased India’s productivity even faster than their population • White revolution • In dairy production and distribution • Cooperatives were formed throughout India • Enabled village farmers to pool and ship highly perishable products to urban markets

11. Events Continued • Industrialization • Consequential • Industrial productivity increased, but structure of workforce did not change • Urbanization increased • Industrial policy derived from Gandhi’s and Nehru’s conflicting philosophies • They stressed internal self sufficiency in production • Policies were increasingly challenged by new international political-economic wisdom • High tech innovation for both home and foreign markets increase productivity

12. Family Planning • During the 1970’s, Indira Gandhi at been at the head of India. She had been strict in the way she viewed family planning, and felt that there needed to be some type of policy. Unfortunately, many people that were poor and lived in rural areas were forcibly sterilized. Because of this there was great dissatisfaction within in India. However, the growth rate had been slowed. This law had been called the Population and Family Planning Policy which was implemented in 1976. The increasing population growth was always a concern, and education about the population problem became part of school curriculum under fifth five year plan. • Since the Family Planning Policy was presented in 1976, there had been a steady decrease in fertility rate . Their economic goal was to achieve globalization, and to grow their global economy. During the 1990’s people became somewhat more educated on the subject of increasing growth rate within India. Because of this knowledge, people began to respect the Family Planning Policy and remained to have less children. Because of the fact that the law became less strict, people began to abide by the policy as well.