Test Essay

India's Freedom Struggle 1905-1918

by Sanderson Beck

India's Boycott 1905-07

Viceroy Curzon’s division of the large province of Bengal was announced in July 1905. Eastern Bengal and Assam would have 18 million Muslims and 12 million Hindus. Western Bengal would have 42 million Hindus to 9 million Muslims, but those speaking Bengali were outnumbered by the Biharis and Oriyas. The secret motivation of Lord Curzon seems to have been to divide the Bengali movement that he considered seditious. This technique of divide and rule increased the conflicts between Hindus and Muslims in Bengal. The plan was approved by the Secretary of State without consulting the Parliament. The Bengal Legislative Council strongly denounced the plan on July 8, and the Indian press in Bengal and other provinces condemned the proposal. Curzon won over Dacca nawab Salimullah with a low-interest loan and with the prospect of Dacca becoming the new capital. The weekly Sanjivani in Calcutta suggested a boycott of British goods on July 13, and a public meeting at Bagerhat adopted it three days later. The boycott idea spread as two thousand public meetings were organized in the cities and in hundreds of villages. In the town of Barisal students and even teachers went to school barefoot and were threatened with expulsion.

During the Durga Puja national festival in Bengal on September 28 about 50,000 people gathered in the Kali temple at Kalighat despite a heavy rain. They vowed not to purchase or use foreign articles or to employ foreigners. The two Chief Secretaries of Bengal and Eastern Bengal and Assam issued circulars ordering teachers to discipline protesting students. The partition of Bengal went into effect on October 16. On that day after bathing in the sacred Ganga River more than 50,000 people attended a meeting to lay a foundation for Federation Hall in Calcutta. At a meeting in the house of ailing Ananda-mohan Bose 70,000 rupees were collected for the Swadeshi movement. An...