The Swadeshi movement sprang out of the anti-partition movement, which was established in response to Lord Curzon’s plan to divide Bengal into two provinces.
Moderates launched the Anti-Partition Campaign to put pressure on the government to stop the unjust partition of Bengal from taking place.
The ideas were promoted through journals like Hitabadi, Sanjibani, and Bengalee, which wrote petitions to the government and held public gatherings.
The split sparked protests in Bengal when the commitment to boycott foreign goods was made for the first time.
Swadeshi Movement Proclamation
A gigantic meeting was conducted in August 1905 at Calcutta Townhall, when the Swadeshi Movement was formally proclaimed.
1. The notion was spread that items like Manchester textiles and Liverpool salt should be boycotted.
2. The people of Bengal demonstrated strong opposition to the division by chanting “Vande Mataram” when it was enacted.
3. Amar Sonar Bangla was also written by Rabindranath Tagore.
4. As a symbol of unity, people tied rakhis in each other’s hands.
Although the movement was confined mostly to Bengal, it spread to a few different parts of India:
- In Poona and Bombay under Bal Gangadhar Tilak
- In Punjab under Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh
- In Delhi under Syed Haider Raza
- In Madras under Chidambaram Pillai.
Economic Aspects of the Swadeshi Movement
In terms of economics, Swadeshi displays a nationalist-protectionist stance against foreign capital, as well as a desire to promote indigenous goods and encourage customers to use them even if they are more expensive than — or of lower quality than — imported goods.
In other words, the Swadeshi sends out a patriotic call to people with cash and enterprise to pioneer indigenous enterprises, even if it means making a small or no profit in the beginning. Swadeshi, on the other hand, is not exhausted by the economic imperative alone.
Swadeshi concepts, which arose during the vibrant Swadeshi era and had their origins in a nationalist protectionist policy, looked beyond it and focused on everything Indian in all directions. Though Swadeshi began as an economic movement, it quickly evolved into a comprehensive social, economic, political, and cultural ideology as a result of the interpretations given by such Indian thinkers as Bipin Pal, Aurobindo, Brahmabandhab, Rabindranath, Satis Chandra Mukherjee, and others during the Swadeshi movement.
Swadeshi, therefore, evolved into a full-fledged philosophy, representing the political aspirations, economic demands, and cultural traditions of the Indian people in opposition to the British Power’s political dominance and imperialist economic strategy in India.
Political Aspects of the Swadeshi Movement
The Hindu Mela tradition of holding periodic exhibitions of swadeshi products was revived by the Industrial Association from 1893 onwards, and its 1895 exhibition is reported to have attracted 20,000 visitors. Since 1901, such industrial exhibitions became a regular part of the annual Congress sessions. At the height of the swadeshi movement in 1906, Jogeshchandra Chaudhury organized the Congress exhibition at Calcutta, and Lord Minto was invited to 14 inaugurate it.
The nationalists under the leadership of Tilak were trying to radicalize the ideology and programs of Congress at the risk of a hitter encounter with the right-wing elements while the latter was engaged in making use of the industrial exhibition, a part of the Congress session, to find favour with the Viceroy who had used the inaugural function to praise and pat ’honest swadeshi, implying mere promotion of indigenous industries as opposed to political swadeshi based on the boycott movement.
The Radical Nationalists vehemently opposed the holding of the exhibition under 15 official patronage and they called for its boycott. Lord Minto’s homily on honest swadeshi created a convulsion in the Radical Nationalist press and platform. On the ideological plane, the Minto sermon was attacked by the exponents of the new thought pushing forward the rift and basic differences between the two schools of politics as to the interpretation and application of swadeshi.
Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, stormy-petrel of the swadeshi movement, In an article on ’Homest swadeshi or the Vice-Roy’s hypocrisy’ published in his evening daily, the “Sandhye” of the 24th December 1906, exposed the concept of honest swadeshi, its ideological meaning, and its mendicant slant. He wrote: ‘’Honest swadeshi was explained by His Excellency as swadeshi dissociated from politics, the swadeshi which buys the cheapest thing in the open market, without discrimination between indigenous and foreign”. He described these words as mere ’’humbuggism and hypocrisy”.
Brahmabandhab eloquently described how the British utilised a discriminatory tariff strategy to destroy Indian commerce and indigenous businesses. The British did not hesitate to levy a fifty per cent ad valorem duty on Indian manufactured goods shipped to England, as well as a fifty-pound penalty on anyone buying or selling Indian items in their country.
Defenders of free trade around the world set tariffs and punitive laws to defend national markets from unfavourable economic competition. “When everything is swept away by force and violence, these hypocritical firing his pose as honest and innocent, and “we are told this is honest swadeshi,” they say.
Minto’s homily on the open market and honest swadeshi implied for the United Kingdom a policy of obtaining raw materials at the cheapest price on the open market and selling finished products in India at non-competitive pricing. Brahmabandhab said that a policy of protective tariff duty in the national economic interest was the universal policy followed by Great Britain, France, Germany and other European nations.
Cultural Aspects of Swadeshi Movement
The concept of swadeshi in the sense of promotion and encouragement of indigenous industries was a legacy of the Moderates tradition of thinking. The Radical Nationalists infused the flesh of boycott and the blood of politics in the body of the swadeshi to movement and thus helped/revolutionize the concept of swadeshi. They went a step further and gave a more expansive interpretation to swadeshi, covering within its broad sweep almost every aspect of Indian culture, tradition, and attitude.
While explaining their notion of swadeshi, the Radical Nationalists gravely questioned the Moderates’ long-held belief in the superiority of western civilisation, culture, and society. Radical Nationalists saw western technology and culture, as well as its strong nationalism and utilitarianism, as an assault on India’s traditional culture and society. They were adamantly opposed to everything Western and zealously defended everything Indian.
They witnessed a direct confrontation of two opposing value systems in the Swadeshi movement. They were ecstatic to be supporting the cause of India’s old civilization and culture.
The anti-partition swadeshi movement began with economic swadeshi, but the movement’s concept quickly expanded beyond its economic basis and covered everything.” “The question of partition itself receded into the background,” Valentine Chirol observed “The issue was not whether Bengal should be an unpartitioned province or two partitioned provinces under British rule, but whether British rule itself was to endure in Bengal, or for that matter, 50 anywhere in India, as previously successfully veiled and now openly raised. Bengal’s Radial Nationalists waged a huge battle in the domain of ideas against British rule. To them, British dominion meant not just economic and political dominance, but also a broad/western influence.
They understood and interpreted swadeshi in the broad perspective of containing British rule in economics and political spheres as well as a challenge to the Inroad of western influence in the Indian society and culture.
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