1. Haiti, earlier known as Saint-Domingue was the richest French colony in the Caribbean Sea.
2. The storming of the Bastille was followed by armed defiance of the royal governor.
3. Vincent Oge, who had lobbied with the Parisian assembly for colonial reforms.
4. He was led to revolt at the end of 1790. But the rebellion was suppressed and he was hanged.
5. In the late 1790s, Toussaint L Ouverture, gained control of several areas.
6. Napoleon sent a fleet of 12,000 troops to seize control from Toussaint L Ouverture s forces.
7. Napoleons forces were defeated by the Dessalines, even though Toussaint was killed.
8. Saint Domingue became the independent black state of Haiti in 1804.

1. The UK imposed its US settlements on the NavigationActs, the Sugar Tax Stamp Act, the Townshend Act, the tea tax, and The Intolerable Acts.
2. So representatives of the colonies appealed for the intolerated laws to be removed.
3. They sent a request to the King of England, George III, with an olive branch. But the demand was rejected.
Course:
1. The British army was led by William Howe while the American forces were led by George Washington.
2. The Battle of Saratoga, the British General Burgoyne was forced to surrender.
3. Finally, the British forces surrendered to the American forces at York Town.
Results:
1. In England Lord North resigned as Prime Minister.
2. A peace treaty was signed between the Great Britain and America at Paris.
3. George Washington became the first president of the United States of America.

1. Germany handed over Alsace and Lorraine to France.
2. The coal mines in the Saar Valley were to be ceded to France.
3. All German colonies became mandated territories under the League of Nations.
4. Germany was disarmed and was forced to give up practically all of its submarines. and battleships.
5. Germany was forbidden to have any airplanes, either military or naval.
6. Its army was to be limited to 100,000.
7. The union of Austria and Germany was forbidden.
8. Germany was to acknowledge and respect the Independence of Austria.
9. Germany and its allies were held responsible for the loss and damage suffered during the war.

1. The great powers of Europe had come to be arrayed in two opposing camps.
2. They are called the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy) and the Triple Entente (Britain; France and Russia).
3. The UK supported France in a Moroccan dispute between Germany and France.
4. Austria-Hungary suddenly announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it's protectorate.
5. The two wars that took part in the Balkans led the countries to the First World War.
6. Austria-Hungary Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Principle, a Serbian country.
Results:
1. The Peace Conference opened in Paris.
2. The peace treaty was signed with Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
3. Separate treaties were drawn up and signed by the Allies with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey
4. The League 0f nations was formed for world peace.

(i) Portugal led the way first in exploration, discovering the Canaries, Madeira and the Azores.
(ii) Sailors sent out by Prince Henry, the Navigator reached Guinea Coast of Africa.
(iii) Later Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope. In 1492 Columbus came to a land of America.
(iv) Vasco da Gama reached the island of Mozambique.
(v) Later, he reached part of India and opened avenues for direct trade.
(vi) Cabral sailed to India, following the route of Vasco da Gama, and reached Kozhikode.
(vii) These new maritime discoveries, led t< ; >the direct trade of Europeans to the countries of the East.

(i) Even in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Florence had produced Dante and Petrarch, the two great poets of the Italian language.
(ii) Dante s Divine Comedy is a summation of medieval culture.
(iii) Its dominant theme is the salvation of mankind through reason and divine grace.
(iv) It abounds with many other themes such as human love, love of country, interest in natural phenomena.
(v) Petrarch produced works both in Latin and Italian.
(vi) An early humanist, he is considered to be the father of Italian Renaissance literature.
(vii) Boccaccio, also a Florentine, produced Decameron, a collection of 100 stories.
(viii) Niccolo Machiavellis The Prince became famous because of its relevance as a political guide for the rulers.
(ix) In his view, the supreme obligation of the ruler was to maintain the power and safety of the country over which he ruled.

1. The Napoleonic rule, for the first time, provided Italy with a sense of unity through uniform administration.
2. The several secret societies such as the like the Corporanari, who were insisting on free and patriotic ideas, became more spread.
3. Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi were the three central figures of the unification of ltaly.
4. Parma, Modena and Tuscany were merged with the Kingdom of Piedmont- Sardinia through plebiscites.
5. Plebiscites held in Sicily, Naples and Papal States led to their merger with Piedmont-Sardinia.
6. At the end of the war with Austria, Italy acquired Lombardy under the Zurich pact.
7. During the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, Italy had allied itself with Prussia and was rewarded with Venetia.
8. In 1871, Italy took advantage of the Franco-Prussian War to annex Rome as the French forces withdrew.

1. Etienne-Gabriel Morally, the Utopian thinker, proposed a communistic organisation of society.
2. The term "Utopian Socialism" was first used by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
3. Utopian Socialists recommended the establishment of model communities.
4. Saint-Simon suggested that scientists take the place of priests in the social order.
5. Fourier believed that social conditions were the primary cause of human misery.
6. Robert Owen had developed a theory of Utopian Socialism based on social equality and cooperation.
7. Proudhon wanted to replace nation-state with federations of autonomous communes.
8. Louis Blanc argued that socialism cannot be achieved without state power.

1. In 1918 a Society for the Study of Marxism was formed in Peking University.
2. Among the students who attended was a young assistant librarian by the name of Mao Tse-tung.
3. In China, Kuomintang government became notorious for its corruption and gangsterism.
4. Mao knew that the Kuomintang grip on the towns was too strong. So concentrated his energies on organizing the peasantry.
5. He retreated into the wild mountains on the border between the provinces of Kiangsi and Hunan.
6. Later, Mao wanted to move out of Human for safer territory.
7. Therefore, the Communist anny set out on what came to be known as the Long March in 1934.
8. As a result of the Long Maffih, Mao became the ruler of the people in china.

The terms imposed upon Germany at the end of First World War were harsh.
1. Stripped off its colonies, the size of the German anyway drastically reduced.
2. Germany was forced to cede Alsace and Lorraine to France.
3. Germany agree to the temporary occupation by French troops of the Saar valley.
4. Gennanywas also compelled to hand over to Poland large parts of the industrial area of Silesia.
5. Further Germany was to pay an impossible sum in reparation.
6. Austria was not allowed to unite with Germany.
7. Such bad Features later led to the political success of the Nazi Party in Germany.

1) Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in the coastal town of Porbandar in 1869. When he returned to India in 1915 he had a record of fighting against inequalities imposed by the racist government of South Africa.
2) Gandhi certainly wanted to be of help to forces of nationalism in India. He was in touch with leaders India as he had come into contact, with Congress leaders while mobilizing support for the South African Indian cause earlier. Impressed by activities and ideas of Gopala Krishna Gokhale, he acknowledged him as his political Guru.
3) On his return to India, following Gokhale's advice, Gandhi, who was away from India for over two decades, spent a year travelling all over the country acquainting himself with the situation.
4) He established his Sabarmati Ashram at Ahmedabad but did not take active part in political movements including the Home Rule movement.
5) Champaran Movement (1917): It was not difficult for Gandhi to convince the committee of the difficulties of the poor peasants. The report was accepted and implemented resulting in the release of the indigo cultivators of the bondage of European planters who gradually had to withdraw from Champaran itself.
6) Gandhi's call for protest on the issues of Khilafat, and Rowlatt Act and as a response the British government's repressive measures leading to the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre prompted the Congress to launch non-cooperation movement.
7) The Congress boycotted the Sirmon Commission and the first Round Table Conference and intensified the struggle by launching civil disobedience movement, in the wake of fruitless outcome of Second Round Table Conference.
8) Gandhi's Dandi March and Rajaji's Salt March to Vedaranyam in Tamilnadu succeeded in mobilizing the masses 'for the nationalist cause.

1) The Khilafat Conference, at the instance of Gandhi, decided to launch the non-cooperation movement from 31 August 1920.
2) Earlier an all party meet at Allahabad had decided on a programme of boycott of government educational institutions and their law courts.
3) The Congress met in a special session at Calcutta in September 1920 and resolved to accept Gandhi's proposal on non-cooperation with the colonial state till such time as Khilafat and Punjab grievances were redressed and self-government established.
4) Non-cooperation movement included boycott of schools, colleges, courts, government offices, legislatures, foreign goods, return of government conferred titles and awards.
5) Alternatively, national schools, panchayats were to be set up' and swadeshi goods manufactured and used. The struggle at a later stage was to include no tax campaign and, mass civil disobedience, etc.
6) A regular Congress session held at Nagpur in 1920 endorsed the earlier resolutions. Another important resolution at Nagpur was to recognize and set up linguistic Provincial Congress Committees which drew a large number of workers into the movement.
7) In order to broad base the Congress, the workers were to reach out to the villages and enroll the villagers in the Congress on a nominal fee of four annas (25 paise). The overall character of the Congress underwent change and an atmosphere where a large majority of the masses could develop a sense of belonging to the nation and the national struggle developed.
8) But it also led to some conservatives who were opposed to mass participation in the struggle to leave the Congress.
9) Thus the Congress under Gandhi was shedding its elitist character, becoming a mass organization and in a real sense 'National'.

1) Tilak Home RuleLeague was set up at the Bombay Provincial conference held at Belgaum in April 1916. It League was to work in Maharashtra (including Bombay city), Karnataka, the Central Provinces and Berar.
2) Tilak's League was organised into six branches and Annie Besant's League was given the rest of India.
3) Tilak popularised the demand for Home Rule through his lectures.
4) The popularity of his League was confined to Maharashtra and Karnataka but claimed a membership of 14,000 in April 1917 and 32,000 by early 1918.
5) On 23 July 1916 on his 60th birthday Tilak was arrested for propagating the idea of Home Rule.
Besant's Home Rule League
1) Finding no signs from the Congress, Besant herself inaugurated the Home Rule League at Madras in September 1916.
2) Its branches were established at Kanpur, Allahabad, Benaras, Mathura, Calicut and Ahmednagar.
3) She made an extensive tour and spread the idea of Home Rule. She declared that "the price of India's loyalty is India's Freedom". 
4) Moderate congressmen who were dissatisfied with the inactivity of the Congress joined the Home Rule League.
5) The popularity of the Le-ague can be gauged from the fact that Jawaharlal Nehru, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, B. Chakravarti and Jitendralal Banerji, Satyamurti and Khaliquzzaman were taking up the membership of the League.
6) As Besant's Home Rule Movement became very popular in Madras, the Government of Madras decided to suppress it. Students were barred from attending its meetings. 

1) Swadeshi movement in Tamil Nadu, notably in Tirunelveli district, generated a lot of attention and support.
2) While the Swadeshi movement in Tamil Nadu had an all India flavour, with collective anger against the British rule remaining the common thread, it was also underpinned by Tamil - pride and consciousness.
3) There was a deep divide in the Tamilnadu congress between the moderates and the extremists.
Development of Vernacular Oratory.
1) Initially, the movement was more of a reaction to the partition of Bengal and regular meetings were held to protest the partition.
2) The speakers, in such meetings, spoke mostly in the vernacular language to an audience that included students, lawyers, and labourers at that time.
3) The shift from English oratory to vernacular oratory was a significant development of this time; which had a huge impact on the mass politics in Tamil Nadu
4) Swadeshi meetings at the Marina beach in Madras were a regular sight. The Moore Market complex in Madras was another venue utilised for such gatherings. During the period (1905-1907) there are police reports calling students dangerous and their activities as seditious.
V.O.C and Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNC)
1) The Swadeshi movement in Tamil Nadu came to national attention in 1906 when V.O.Chidambaram mooted the idea of launching a swadeshi shipping venture in opposition to the monopoly of the British in navigation through the coast.
2) In 1906, V.O.C registered a joint stock company called The Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNC) with a capital of Rs 10 Lakh, divided into 40,000 shares of Rs.25 each. Shares were open only to Indians, Ceylonese and other Asian nationals. V.O.C purchased two steamships, S.S. Gallia and S.S. Lawoe.
The Coral Mill Strike
1) After attending the session of the Indian National Congress at Surat, V.O.C on his return decided to work on building a political organisation.
2) While looking for an able orator, he came across Subramania Siva, a swadeshi preacher. From February to March 1907, both the leaders addressed meetings almost on a daily basis at the beach in Tuticorin, educating the people about swadeshi and the boycott campaign.
3) The meetings were attended by thousands of people. These public gatherings were closely monitored by the administration.
4) In 1908, the abject working and living conditions of the Coral Mill workers attracted the attention of V.O.C and Siva
5) In the next few days, both the leaders addressed the mill workers. In March 1908, the workers of the Coral Cotton Mills, inspired by the address went on strike. It was one of the earliest organised labour agitations in India
Subramania Bharati: Poet and Nationalist
1) The growth of newspapers, both in English and Tamil language, aided the swadeshi movement in Tamil Nadu. G. Subramaniam was one of the first among the leaders to use newspapers to spread the nationalist message across a larger audience.
2) Subramaniam, along with five others, founded The Hindu (in English) and Swadesamitran (which was the first ever Tamil daily).
3) Subramania Bharati became the sub-editor of Swadesamitran around the time (1904) when Indian nationalism was looking for a fresh direction. Bharati was also editing Chakravartini, a Tamil monthly devoted to the cause of Indian women.

The major objectives and demands of INC were
Constitutional
Opportunity for participation in the government was one of the major demands of the Indian National Congress. It demanded Indian representation in the government.
Economic
High land revenue was one of the major factors that contributed to the oppression of the peasants. It demanded reduction in the land revenue and protection of peasants against exploitation of the zamindars. The Congress also advocated the imposition of heavy tax on the imported goods for the benefit of swadeshi goods.
Administrative
Higher officials who had responsibility of administration in India were selected through civil services examinations conducted in Britain. This meant that educated Indians who could not afford to go to London had no opportunity to get high administrative jobs. Therefore, Indianisation of services through simultaneous Indian Civil Services Examinations in England and India was a major demand of the Congress.
Judicial
Because of the partial treatment against the Indian political activists by English judges it demanded the complete separation of the Executive and the Judiciary.
Contributions of Early Nationalists (1885-1915)
1) The early nationalists in the INC came from the elite sections of the society. Lawyers, college and university teachers, doctors, journalists and such others represented the Congress. However, they came from different regions of the country and this made INC a truly a national political organisation.
2) These leaders of the INC adopted the constitutional methods of presenting petitions, prayers and memorandums and thereby earned the moniker of "Moderates".
3) It was also the time some sort of an understanding about colonialism was evolving in India There was no ready-made anti-colonial understanding available for reference in the late nineteenth century when the INC was formed.
4) It was the early nationalists who helped the formulation of the idea of we as a nation. The were developing the indigenous anti-colonial ideology and a strategy on their own which helped future mass leaders like M. K Gandhi.
5) From the late 1890s there were growing differences within the INC Leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai were advocating radical appro ache instead of merely writing petitions, prayers and memorandums.
6) These advocates of radical methods came to be called the "extremists" as against those who were identified as moderates. Their objective became clear in 1897 when Tilak raised the clarion call "Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it".
7) Tilak and his militant followers were now requesting Swaraj -instead of economic or administrative reforms that the moderates were requesting through their petitions and prayers.
8) Though they criticised each other, it would be wrong to place them in the opposing poles. Both moderates and militants, with their own methods, were significant elements of the larger Indian nationalist movement.
9) In fact, they contributed towards the making of the swadeshi movement. The partition of Bengal in 1905, by the colonial government, which you will be studying in the next lesson, was vehemently opposed by the Indians.
10) The swadeshi movement of 1905, directly opposed the British rule and encouraged the ideas of swadeshi enterprise, national education, self-help and use of Indian languages.
11) The method of mass mobilisation and boycott of British goods and institutions suggested by the radicals was also accepted by the Moderates.

1) The British destroyed the traditional basis of Indian land system. In the pre-British days, the land revenue was realised by sharing the actual crop with the cultivators.
2)  The British fixed the land revenue in cash without any regard to various contingencies, such as failure of crops, fall in prices and droughts or floods. Moreover, the practice of sale in settlement of debt encouraged money lenders to advance money to landholders and resorting to every kind of trickery to rob them of their property.
3) There were also two other major implications of the new land settlements introduced by the East India Company. They institutionalised the commodification of land and commercialisation of agriculture in India.
4) As mentioned earlier, there was no private property in land in pre-British era Now, land became a commodity that could be transferred either by way of buying and selling or by way of the administration taking over land from holders, in lieu of default on payment of tax/rent.
5) Land taken over in such cases was auctioned off to another bidder. This created a new class of absentee landlords who lived in the cities and extracted revenue from the lands without actually living on the lands.
6) In the traditional agricultural set-up, the villagers produced largely for their consumption among themselves. After the new land settlements, agricultural produce was predominantly for the market.
7) The commodification of land and commercialisation of agriculture did not improve the lives and conditions of the peasants. Instead, this created discontent among the peasantry and made them restive. These peasants later on turned against the imperialists and their collaborators.
Laissez Faire Policy and De-industrialization: Impact on Indian Artisans
1) The policy of the Company in the wake of industrial Revolution in England resulted in the de-industrialization of India This continued until the beginning of the World War 1. The British Government pursued a policy of free trade or laissez faire.
2) Raw materials like cotton, jute and silks from India were taken to Britain. The finished products made from those raw materials were then transported back to the Indian markets.
3) Mass production with the help of technological advancement enabled them to flood the Indian market with their goods. It was available at a comparatively cheaper price than the Indian handloom cloth.
4) Prior to the arrival of the British, India was known for its handloom products and handicrafts. It commanded a good world market.
5) However, as a result of the colonia policy, gradually Indian hand loom products and handicrafts lost there market, domestic as well as international. Import of English articles into India threw the weavers, the cotton dressers, the carpenters, the blacksmiths and the shoemakers out of employment.
6) India became a procurement area for the raw material and the farmers were forced to produce industrial crops like indigo and other cash crops like cotton for use in British factories. Due to this shift, subsistence agriculture, which was the mainstay for several hundred years, suffered leading to food scarcity.

1) India followed the example of the USSR in planning for development through five year plans. The Planning Commission was set up in 1950 to formulate plans for developing the economy.
2) Each Plan assesses the performance of the economy and the resources available for future development.
3) Targets are set in accordance with the priorities of the government. Resources are allocated to various sectors, like agriculture, industry, power, social sectors and technology, and a growth target is also set for the economy as a whole.
4) One of the primary objectives of planning was to build a self-sufficient economy.
5) The First Five Year Plan covered the period 1951-56. Till now there have been twelve Five Year Plans in addition to three one year plans between 1966 and 1969.
6) Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-2017) was the last plan. In 2015, the Planning Commission was wound up and replaced by the Niti Ayog
7) The First Plan (1951-56) focused on developing agriculture, especially increasing agricultural production. The allocation for Agriculture and Irrigation accounted for 31% of the total outlay.
8) After this, the emphasis shifted to industry, and the share of agriculture in total outlay hovered between 20 and 24%. By the Eleventh Plan it had come down to less than 20%.
9) The Second Plan (1956-61), commonly referred to as the Mahalanobis Plan, stressed the development of heavy industry for achieving economic growth.
10) The share of industry in Plan outlay was only 6% in the First Plan, and increased to about 24% after the Second Plan. But the share has been declining since the Sixth Plan, perhaps because the major investments in the public sector had been completed.
11) The allocation for power development was very low in the first four plans and this created a huge shortage of power in the country.
12) The first two Plans had set fairly modest targets of growth at about 4%, which economists described as the "Hindu rate of growth". These growth rates were achieved so that the first two Plans were considered to have been successful.

Under the Constitution of India, agriculture was a 'state subject', that is, each state had to pass laws relating to land reforms individually.
Thus, while the basic form of land reforms was common among all the states, there was no uniformity in the specific terms of land reform legislation among the states.
Abolition of Zamindari was part of the manifesto of the Indian National Congress Party even before Independence.
1) The government passed two amendments to the Constitution for abolition of zamindari system,
2) The First Amendment in 1951 and the Fourth Amendment in 1955, which removed the 'right to property' from the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution and preempted the right of zamindars to question the expropriation of their land or the value of the compensation.
3) Finally, zamindari abolition was completed by 1956, and was possibly the most successful of the land reforms. About 30 lakh tenants and sharecroppers gained ownership of 62 lakh hectares of land. The total compensation actually paid to the zamindars amounted to Rs.16,420 lakhs
4) In sum, however, the reform only achieved a very small part of the original objective.
5) Many zamindars were able to evict their tenants and take over their land claiming that this land was under their 'personal cultivation'.
6) Thus, while the institution of zamindari was dismantled, many landowners continued in possession of vast tracts of land.
(b) Tenancy reform - Most large landowners in India tended to belong to the upper castes - Brahmin and non-Brahmin.
1) It was common for them to lease out the land to tenants. Usually these tenancy arrangements continued for long periods of time.
2) The rents received by the landowners generally amounted to about 50% or more of the produce from the land, which was very high.
3) Tenancy was a customary practice and agreements were rarely recorded.
4) Tenancy reform legislation was passed in the states regulating the rent at one-fourth to one third of the produce. But this could never be implemented successfully. The agricultural sector had a surplus of labour whereas land was a resource in short supply.
5) Price controls did not work in a situation when the demand exceeded the supply. All that happened was that rent rates were pushed under the table without any official record.
6) Tenancy agreements were made orally, and were recorded. The tenant thus always had to live with the uncertainty that their land could be resumed by the landlord any time.
7) When tenancy reform laws were announced many landowners claimed to have taken back their land for 'personal cultivation' and that tenants were only being employed as labour to work the land.
8) Tenancy reform was bound to be ineffectual in the absence of a comprehensive and enforceable land ceiling programme.
(c) Land Ceiling:
1) Laws were passed after the 1950s to enforce Land ceiling it.
2) Until 1972, there was a ceiling on the extent of land that a 'landholder' could own.
3)  After 1972, the unit was changed to a 'family'. This meant that the landowners could claim that each member of the family owned a part of the land which would be much less than the prescribed limit under the ceiling.
4) Deciding the extent of land under land ceiling was a complex exercise, since land was not of uniform quality.
5) Distinctions had to be made between irrigated and unirrigated dry land, single crop and double crop producing land.
6)  As all these issues were being debated in the policy forums, the landowners had plenty of time to manipulate the land records and create fictitious and fraudulent partition ot the land among relatives or trusts.
7) Further, many categories of land were not subject to ceilings. These included orchards, horticultural land, grazing land, land belonging to religious and charitable trusts, and sugarcane plantations.
8) These exemptions were also used to evade the land ceiling acts.
9) But the end results were disappointing, since the land thus surrendered was usually. unproductive land.

1) The founding principles of independent India's foreign policy were, in fact, formulated at least three decades before independence. It evolved in the course of the freedom struggle and was rooted in its conviction against any form of colonialism. Jawaharlal Nehru was its prime architect.
2) India's foreign policy was based on certain basic principles. They are anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, anti-apartheid or anti-racism, non-alignment with the super powers, Afro- Asian Unity, non-aggression, non-interference in other's internal affairs, mutual respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the promotion of world peace and security. The commitment to peace between nations was not placed in a vacuum; it was placed with an equally emphatic commitment to justice.
3) The context in which India's foreign policy was formulated was further complicated by the two contesting power blocs that dominated the world in the post-war scenario: the US and the USSR. Independent India responded to this with non-alignment as its foreign policy .doctrine. Before we go into the details of non-alignment, it will be useful to look at India's relationship with China since independence. China was liberated by its people from Japanese colonial expansionism in 1949, just two years after India's Independence. Nehru laid a lot of importance on friendship with China, with whom India shared a long border
4) India was the first to recognize the new People's Republic of China on January 1, 1950. The shared experience of suffering at the hands of colonial powers and its consequences - poverty and underdevelopment - in Nehru's perception was force enough to get the two nations to join hands to give Asia its due place in the world. Nehru pressed for representation for Communist China in the UN Security Council.
5) Tibet, in 1950, India was unhappy that it had not been taken into confidence. In 1954, India and China signed a treaty in which India recognized China's rights over Tibet and the two countries placed their relationship within a set of principles, widely known since then as the principles of Panch Sheel.
6) Meanwhile, Nehru took special efforts to project China and Chou En-lai at the Bandung Conference, held in April 1955. In 1959, the Dalai Lama, fled Tibet along with thousands of refugees after a revolt by the Buddhists was crushed by the Chinese government. The Dalai Lama was given asylum in India and it made the Chinese unhappy. Soon after, in October 1959, the Chinese opened fire on an Indian patrol near the Kongka pass in Ladakh, killing five Indian policemen and capturing a dozen others. Though talks were held at various levels including with Chou En-lai, not much headway was made.
7) Then came the 1962 war with China. On 8 September 1962, Chinese forces attacked the Thagla ridge and dislodged Indian troops. All the goodwill and attempts to forge an Asian bloc in the world came to a stop. India took a long time to recover from the blow to its self-respect, and perhaps it was only the victory over Pakistan in the Bangladesh war, in which China and the US were also supporting Pakistan, that restored the sen.se of selfworth.
8) India's contribution to the world, however, was not restricted to its relationship with China and the Panch Sheel. It was most pronounced and lasting in the form of non-alignment and its concretisation at the Bandung Conference.
9) In March 1947, Nehru organised the Asian Relations Conference, attended by more than twenty countries. The theme of the conference was Asian independence and assertion on the world stage. Another such conference was held in December 1948 in specific response to the Dutch attempt to re-colonize Indonesia. The de-colonization initiative was carried forward further at the Asian leaders' conference in Colombo in 1954, culminating in the Afro- Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955. The Bandung Conference set the stage for the meeting of nations at Belgrade and the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement.
10) The architect of independent India's foreign policy, indeed, was Jawaharlal Nehru and the high point of it was reached in 1961 then he stood with Nasser of Egypt and Tito of Yugoslavia to call for nuclear disarmament and peace. The importance of non-alignment and its essence in such a world is best explained from what Nehru had to say about it.

1) The adoption of the. Constitution on November 26, 1949 was only the beginning of a bold new experiment by the infant nation.
2) There were a host of other challenges that the nation and its leaders faced and they had to be addressed even while the Constituent Assembly met and started its job of drafting independent India's constitution.
3) Among them was the integration of the Indian States or the Princely States.
4) The task of integrating the Princely States into the Indian Union was achieved with such speed that by August 15, 1947, except Kashmir, Junagadh and Hyderabad, all had agreed to sign an Instrument of Accession with India, acknowledging its central authority over Defence, External Affairs and Communications.
5) The task of integrating these states, with one or the other Provinces of the Indian Union was accomplished with ease. The resolution passed at the All India States People's Conference (December 1945 and April 1947) that states refusing to join the Constituent Assembly would be treated as hostile WflS enough to get the rulers to sign the Instrument of Accession in most cases.
6) There was the offer of a generous privy purse to the princes. The rapid unification of India was ably handled and achieved by Sardar Vallabhai Patel, who as Home Minister in the Interim Cabinet was also entrusted with the Status Ministry for this purpose. The People's Movements exerted pressure on the princes to accede to the Indian union.
7)  The long, militant struggle that went on in the Travancore State for Responsible Government culminating in the Punnapra- Vayalar armed struggle against the Diwan, Sir CP, Ramaswamy, the Praja Mandal as well as some tribal agitations that took place in the Orissa region - Nilagiri, Dhenkanal and Talcher - and the movement against the Maharaja of Mysore 'conducted by the Indian National Congress all played a major role in the integration of Princely States.
8)  on December 9, 1946. Rajendra Prasad was elected chairman of the House.
9) The Objectives Resolution is indeed the most concise introduction to the spirit and the contents of the Constitution of India. The importance of this resolution can be understood if we see the Preamble to the Constitution and the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy enshrined in it and as adopted on November 26, 1949.
10) Yet, there was the problem .posed by the recalcitrant ruler of Hyderabad, with the Nizam declaring his kingdom as independent. The ruler of Junagadh wanted to join Pakistan, much against the wishes of the people.
11) Similarly, the Hindu ruler of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, declared that Kashmir would remain independent while the people of the State under the leadership of the National Conference had waged a "Quit Kashmir" agitation against the Maharaja. It must be stressed here that the movement in Kashmir as well as the other Princely States were also against the decadent practice of feudal land and social relations that prevailed there.
12) "The police action" executed in Hyderabad within 48 hours after the Nizam declared his intentions demonstrated that India meant business. It was the popular anger against the Nizam and his militia, known as the Razakkars, that was manifest in the Telengana people's movement led by the communists there which provided the legitimacy to "the police action".
13) Though Patel had been negotiating with the Maharaja of Kashmir since 1946, Hari Singh was opposed to accession. However, in a few months after independence - in October 1947 - marauders from Pakistan raided Kashmir and there was no way that Maharaja Hari Singh could resist this attack on his own. Before India went to his rescue the Instrument of Accession was signed by him at the instance of Patel.
14) Thus Kashmir too became an integral part of the Iridian Union. This process and the commitment of the leaders of independent India to the concerns of the people of Kashmir led the Constituent Assembly to provide for autonomous status to the State of Janunu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution.

In April 1944, when the Congress leaders were in jail, C.Rajagopalachari put out a proposal to resolve the issue. It contained the following:
1)  A post-war commission to be formed to demarcate the contiguous districts where the Muslims were in absolute majority and a plebiscite of the adult population there to ascertain whether they would prefer Pakistan;
2) In case of a partition there would be a mutual agreement to run certain essential services, like defence or communication;
3) The border districts could choose to join either of the two sovereign states;
4) The implementation of the scheme would wait till after full transfer of power. After his release from prison, Gandhi, in July 1944, proposed talks with Jinnah based on what came to be the 'Rajaji formula'. The talks did not go anywhere.
Wavell Plan:
1) In June 1945 Lord Wavell moved to negotiate and called for the Simla conference.
2) The rest of the Congress leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and the Congress president, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad were released from jail for this.
3) Wavell convinced Churchill for a Congress-Muslim League coalition government as a way to deal with the post-war political crisis.
4) The Viceroy's proposal before the leaders of all political formations and most prominently the Congress and the Muslim League was setting up of an Executive Council, exclusively with Indians along with himself and the commander-in-chief; equal number of representatives in the council for the caste Hindus and the Muslims and separate representation for the Scheduled Castes; and start of discussions for a new constitution.
5) The proposal displeased everyone. The Simla Conference held between June 25 and July 14-1945 ended without resolution.
6) The talks broke down on the right of the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League to nominate members to the Viceroy's Council.
7) The Muslim League insisted on its exclusive right to nominate Muslim members to the Council.
8) Its demand was that the Congress nominees shall only be caste Hindus and that the Indian National Congress should not nominate a Muslim or a member from the Scheduled Caste.
9) This was seen as a means to further the divide on communal lines and deny the Congress the status of representing the Indian people.
10) Lord Wavell found a council without Muslim League representation as unworkable and thus abandoned the Simla talks.
11) The years between the Lahore resolution of 1940 and the Simla Conference in 1945 marked the consolidation of a Muslim national identity and the emergence of Jinnah as its sole spokesperson.
12) It was at a convention of Muslim League Legislators in Delhi in April 1946, that Pakistan was defined as a 'sovereign independent state.
13) For the first time the League also declared its composition in geographical terms as 'the region consisting of the Muslim majority provinces of Bengal and Assam in the Northeast and the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan in the Northwest.
14) The Congress president Maulana Abul Kalam Azad rejected this idea and held that the Congress stood for a united India with complete independence.
15) All these were developments after the Simla conference of June-July 1945 and after Churchill was voted out and replaced by a Labour Party government headed by Clement Attlee.
16) Times had changed in a substantial sense. British Prime Minister, Attlee had declared the certainty of independence to India with only the terms left to be decided.

1) The outbreak of Second World War and Britain's decision to involve India in the War without consulting Congress ministries in provinces, provoked the leaders of Indian National Congress and Gandhi.
2) The Congress ministers resigned in protest.
3) Gandhi launched the individual Satyagraha in October 1940 to keep up the morale of the Congress.
4) The election of Subash Chandra Bose as Congress President upset Gandhi this led to Bose's resignation.
5) The Cripps Mission's proposal of March 1942 bore no fruit.
6) Gandhi decided to embark on the Quit India Movement in August 1942.
Congress Meet at Wardha
1) The Working Committee of the Indian National Congress met at Wardha on July 14, 1942 to launch a mass civil disobedience movement.
2) C.Rajagopalachari and Bhulabhai Desai had reservations against launching a movement
3) Nehru, though not want a movement then bound himself with the majority's decision in the Working Committee.
'Do or Die':
1) The Cripps mission had turned both Gandhi and Nehru sour with the British than any time in the past.
2) Gandhi in a press interview said: 'Leave India to God. If that is too much, then leave her anarchy.
3) The Mahatma called upon the people to 'Do or Die' and called the movement he launched from there as a 'fight to the finish'.
Quit India
1) All the leaders of the Indian National Congress, including Gandhi, were arrested early in the morning on August 9, 1942 by the colonial government.
2) The immediate response by Indian people against the arrest was hartals, in which people from almost all the towns where clashed, often violently, with the police.
3) Industrial workers such as Tata Steel Plant, textile workers in Ahmedabad and across India went on strike.
Brutal Repression:
1) The colonial government responded with brutal repression.
2) police resorted to firing, The army was called in to suppress the protest. Totally 57 battalions were called in as a whole. Aircrafts were used.
3) It spread in its second phase into the villages.
4) A sixty-point increase in prices of food-grains recorded between April and August 1942 had laid the seeds of resentment. . ,
5) The leaders of the Congress, who had managed to escape arrest on August 9 organised the youth into guerrilla actions.
Outbreak of Violence:
1) Beginning late September 1942, the movement took the shape of attacks and destruction of communication facilities such as telegraph lines, railway stations and tracks and setting fire to government offices.
2) This spread across the country and was most intense in Eastern United Provinces, Bihar, Maharashtra and in Bengal.
3)The rebels even set up ·'national governments' in pockets they liberated from the colonial administration.
4) Gandhi's 21 day fast in jail, beginning February 10, 1943, marked a turning point and gave the movement (and even the violence in a limited sense) a great push. Spread and Intensity of the Movement
5) By the end of 1943, the number of persons arrested across India stood at 91,836.
6) The police shot dead 1060 persons during the same period.
7) 208 police outposts, 332 railway stations and 945 post offices were destroyed or damaged very badly.
8) At least 205 policemen defected and joined the rebels.
9) Collective fines were imposed on all the people in a village where public property was destroyed.
Clandestine Radio:
1) Yet another prominent feature of the Quit India movement was the use of Radio by the rebels.
2) The press being censored, the rebels set up a clandestine radio broadcast system from Bombay.
3) The transmitter was shifted from one place to 'another in and around the city. Usha Mehta was the force behind the clandestine radio operations and its broadcast was heard as far away as Madras.
4) The Quit India movement was the most powerful onslaught against the colonial state hitherto.
5) The movement included the Congress, the Socialists, and the Forward Bloc.
6) The movement witnessed unprecedented unity of the people and sent a message that the colonial rulers could not ignore.
Release of Gandhi
1) Gandhi's release from prison, on In health grounds, on May 6, 1944 led to the revival of the Constructive Programme.
2) Congress committees began activities in its garb and the ban on the Congress imposed in the wake of the Quit India movement was thus overcome.
3) The colonial state, meanwhile, put forward a plan for negotiation.
4) Lord Archibald Wavell, who had replaced Linlithgow as Viceroy in October 1943, had begun to work towards another round of negotiation.
The message was clear: The British had no option but to negotiate!

Separate Electorates and the Spread of Communalism
1) The institution of separate electorate was the principle technique adopted by the Government of British India for fostering and spreading communalism. The people were split into separate constituencies so that they voted communally, thought communally, judged the representatives communally and expressed their grievances communally.
2) That the British did this with ulterior motive was evident from a note sent by one of the British officers to Lady Minto: 'I must send your Excellency a line to say that a very big thing has happened today. A work of statesmanship, that will affect Indian History for many a long year. It is nothing less than pulling of 62 million people from joining the ranks of seditious opposition.
3) The announcement of separate electorates and the incorporation of the principle of "divide and rule" into a formal constitutional arrangement made the estrangement between Hindus and Muslims total.
Communalism in United Provinces (UP)
1) The suspension of the non-cooperation movement in 1922 and the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924 left the Muslims in a state of frustration.
2) In the aftermath of Non-Co-operation movement, the alliance between the Khilafatists and the Congress crumbled.
3) There was a fresh spate of communal violence, as Hindus and Muslims, in the context of self-governing institutions created under the Act of 1919, began to stake their political claims and in the process vied with each other to acquire power and position.
4) 1920s was a trying period for the Congress. This time the communal tension in the United Province was not only due to the zeal of Hindu and Muslim religious leaders, but was fuelled by the political rivalries of the Swarajists and Liberals.

1) The Indian National Congress, in contrast to the violent actions of revolutionaries, mobilised the masses for non-violent struggles. The Congress under the leadership of Gandhi gave priority to the problems of peasants.
2) In the context of great agrarian distress, deepened by world-wide economic depression, the Congress mobilised the peasantry. The Congress adopted a no-rent and no-tax campaign as a part of its civil disobedience programme. Under the pressure of Great Depression, socio-economic demands were sharply articulated in its Karachi Session of the Indian National Congress.
3) The freedom struggle was taking a new shape. Peasants organised themselves into Kisan Sabhas and industrial workers were organized by the trade unions, made their presence felt in a big way in the freedom struggle. The Indian National Congress had become a mass party during the 1930s. The Congress leadership, which was now taking a left turn under Nehru's leadership, began to talk about an egalitarian society based on social and economic justice.
4) The Karachi session held in March 1931, presided over by Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, adopted a resolution on Fundamental Rights and Duties and provided an insight into what the economic policy of an independent India. In some ways, it was the manifesto of the Indian National Congress for independent India. These rights and the social and economic programmes were derived from a firm conviction that political freedom and economic freedom were inseparable.
5) Even a cursory look at the fundamental rights solution will tell you that all the basic rights that the British denied to the Indians found a prominent place in the Resolution. The colonial government curtailed civil liberties and freedom by passing draconian acts and ordinances. Gandhian ideals and Nehru's socialist vision also found a place in the list of rights that the Indian National Congress promised to ensure in free India.

1) Bhagat Singh was born to Kishan Singh (father) and Vidyavati Kaur (mother) on 28 September 1907 in Jaranwala, Lyallpur district, Punjab, now a part of Pakistan. His father was a liberal and his family was a family of freedom fighters.
2) The Jallianwala Bagh massacre happened when Bhagat Singh was 14 years. Early in his youth, he was associated with the Naujawan Bharat Sabha and the Hindustan Republican Association.
3) The latter organisation was founded by Sachin Sanyal and Jogesh Chatterji. It was reorganised subsequently in September 1928 as the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (H.S.R.A) by Bhagat Singh and his comrades.
4) Socialist ideals and the October Revolution in Russia of 1917 were large influences on these revolutionaries. Bhagat Singh was one of the leaders of the H.S.R.A along with Chandrashekhar Azad, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar.
Bhagat Singh's Bomb Throwing
1) The image that comes to our mind at the very mention of Bhagat Singh's name is that of the bomb he threw in the Central Legislative Assembly on April 8, 1929. The bombs did not kill anybody. It was intended as a demonstrative action, an act of protest against the draconian laws of the British. They chose the day on which the Trade Disputes Bill, an anti-labour legislation was introduced in the assembly.
Lahore Conspiracy Case
1) Bhagat Singh along with Rajguru, Sukhdev, Jatindra Nath Das and 21 others were arrested and tried for the murder of Saunders (the case was known as the Second Lahore Conspiracy Case).
2) Jatindra Nath Das died in the jail after 64 days of hunger strike against the discriminatory practices and poor conditions in jail. The verdict in the bomb throwing case had been suspended until the trial of Lahore Conspiracy trials was over. It was in this case that Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death on 7 October 1930.
3) A letter from them to the Governor of Punjab shows their courage and their optimism over the future of India even while facing death for the cause of freedom of their country. It says, 'the days of capitalism and imperialism are numbered. The war neither began with us nor is going to end with our lives. According to the verdict of your court we had waged a war and we are therefore war prisoners. And we claim to be treated as such i.e.. we claim to be shot dead instead of being hanged.
4) Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged early in the morning of March 23, 1931 in the Lahore Jail. They faced the gallows with courage, shouting Inquilab Zindabad and Down with British Imperialism until their last breath.
5) The history of freedom struggle is incomplete without the revolutionary strand of nationalism and the ultimate sacrifice of these revolutionaries.