History of Indian Independence

Throughout history, any attempt the concluding reasoning by a new change of government of regime in any society has been the result of warfare and violence, that was the norm back then. Nowadays a change in government without violence is called a democracy, The Republic of India is the world’s largest democracy however unlike previous changes in government it obtained its independence via nonviolent methods. Since 1613 India had been never fully been a sovereign state due to western influence. That was cemented at the end of the 7-year war when the British eliminated French influence in India and established the British East India company as the most important political force on the Indian subcontinent Following the end of the 7-year war in 1763 the British.

By 1803 at the height of its rule in India the British East India company had a private army twice the size of the British army.

The company rule in India began in 1765 and lasted until 1858 following the Indian Sepoy Rebellion. The rebellion began on May 10th in the form of mutiny. Although violence was a factor, it lead to the dissolution of the East India company and forced the British to reorganize the army, financial system, and the administration in India through the passage of the government of India act in 1858. From that day on the Indians were administered directly by the British government in the new British Raj. One of the earliest examples of the indigenous people of India’s desire to dictate their way of living was when Queen Victoria issued a proclamation on November 1st, 1858 granting allegedly the same rights as other British territories. However Indian soldiers began noticing that this proclamation wasn’t being followed through because they started noticing the presence of missionaries try to convert Indians from being Hindus and Muslims into Christians. One of the everlasting evidence of the Indian peoples’ fight for independence via nonviolent acts is the fact as of March 18, 2019, India is the largest society that practices Hinduism as a religion. Another example of their attempt to gain their independence via nonviolent means is their refusal and how fed up they felt with having to pay a tax on their own natural resources. This is perfectly exemplified via this statement; The Salt Tax was also protesting by eminent people like Dadabhai Naoroji.

On August 14th, 1894 he thundered in the House of Commons: “Then the Salt Tax, the cruelest Revenue imposed in any civilized country provided Rs.8,600,000/- and that with the opium form the bulk of the revenue in India which was drawn from the wretchedness of the people… It mattered not what the State received was called – Tax Rant Revenue or by any other name they liked – The simple fact of the matter was that out of a certain annual nation production the state took a certain portion, now it would not also matter much about the portion taken by the state if that portion as in this country returned to people themselves from whom it was raised but the misfortune and the evil was that much of this portion did not return to the people and that the whole system of revenue and the economic condition of the people became unnatural and oppressive with dangers to the rulers so long as a system, so long must the people go on living wretch lives there was a constant draining away of India’s resources and she could never, therefore, be a prosperous country not only that but in time India must perish a with it perish the British empire.” On April 6th, 1930 the person most credited for leading India’s nonviolent for independence reaches Dandi an Indian city on the Arabian. That is when he waited into the seashore and picked up a handful of salt proclaiming that with the hand full of salt he was proclaiming the end of the British empire.

The police arrived and wrapped all of them up. With that one nonviolent act, he single handedly initiated the end of British rule in India without one gunshot being fired. The last example of India’s nonviolent movement for independence involved the greatest stroke of luck, in 1942 the United Kingdom’s heartland was being decimated by Nazi Germany due to WW2 and then at the same time that that was taking place. Lastly, nonviolence was the Quit India movement and it was basically India’s revolutionary leaders continued to get locked up. This was part of the August movement of August of 1942. They kept basically annoying the British government by constantly getting arrested by protests demanding an end to the British rule of India. This was successful because great Britain was in the midst of WW2. Therefore the British realized that India was ungovernable in the long run due to the cost of WW2 and the question postwar became hot to exit gracefully and peacefully.

On August 15, 1947, the country became an independent nation within the British Commonwealth. Concurrently the Muslim majority northwest and east of British India was separated into the dominion of Pakistan by the partition of India. The history of the Republic of India begins on 26th of January 1950. India national congress leader, Jawaharlal Nehru became the first prime minister of India but the leader most associated with the independent struggle; Mahatma Gandhi accepted no office. Sadly Gandhi died via an act of violence on January 30th, 1948. The new constitution of 1950 made India a democratic country which it still is to this day. Violence can kill the body but it can’t kill the spirit.

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