# Militant Nationalism, the Partition of Bengal & the Swadeshi Movement (1905-1911): Curzon, Lal-Bal-Pal, Boycott & Swaraj Source: https://tracknation.in/story/militant-nationalism-the-partition-of-bengal-the-swadeshi-movement-1905-1911-curzon-lal-bal-pal-boycott-swaraj (TrackNation β€” free UPSC notes with PYQs) > Lord Curzon's partition of Bengal (1905) β€” a deliberate attempt to split rising nationalism β€” triggered the Anti-Partition or Swadeshi Movement. Through Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education and passive resistance, and under militant leader ## The Partition of Bengal (1905) 🎯 **Exam priority: High-yield.** *Tier 1 β€” UPSC's bread-and-butter here; study this deepest and revise it most.* **Why this topic matters for UPSC.** Swadeshi and militant nationalism form a strong recurring block (~5 of 65 in Prelims) and feed directly into the Gandhian mass era. - The Partition of Bengal (1905), the Boycott, the Surat Split (1907) and the Lal-Bal-Pal trio are frequent. - Distinguishing Moderate from Extremist methods is a classic statement-based item. - Mains: the significance of the Swadeshi movement for later mass politics and the swaraj demand. By 1905 a trained leadership and a discontented public were ready for a higher stage of struggle. Curzon's partition of Bengal lit the fuse. ## The Partition of Bengal (1905) - On **20 July 1905, Lord Curzon ordered the partition of Bengal** into **Eastern Bengal & Assam** (31 million people) and the rest of **Bengal** (54 million). The official plea was that Bengal was "too big to be efficiently administered." - The real aim was political β€” to **split and weaken the rising nationalism** centred on Bengal. Home Secretary **Risley wrote (December 1904): "Bengal united is a power; Bengal divided will pull in several different ways."** Curzon himself wanted to "dethrone Calcutta" as the centre of Congress activity. Nationalists saw partition not as administration but as **a deliberate blow to Bengali language, culture and unity**, taken in utter disregard of public opinion. ## The Anti-Partition Movement Begins The protest was the work of the entire Bengal leadership β€” Moderates like Surendranath Banerjea and Krishna Kumar Mitra at first, militants later β€” and it produced unforgettable scenes of unity. ## The Anti-Partition Movement Begins - The movement was **formally launched on 7 August 1905** with a massive demonstration at the **Town Hall in Calcutta**, from which delegates fanned out across the province. - When partition **took effect on 16 October 1905**, it was observed as a **day of national mourning and fasting** β€” a hartal in Calcutta, people walking barefoot and bathing in the Ganga. **Rabindranath Tagore composed a song** for the day, and the cry of **"Bande Mataram"** became the national song of Bengal and soon the theme song of the movement. People tied **rakhis** on each other's wrists (a new use of Raksha Bandhan) to symbolise the unbreakable unity of Bengal, and the veteran **Anandamohan Bose laid the foundation of a "Federation Hall"** before a crowd of over **50,000**. ## Swadeshi, Boycott & Constructive Work Demonstrations alone could not move the rulers; the answer was positive, economic action β€” Swadeshi and Boycott. ## Swadeshi, Boycott & Constructive Work - **Swadeshi** (use of Indian goods) and the **Boycott** of British goods were proclaimed at mass meetings across Bengal. **Foreign cloth was publicly burnt** and shops selling it were **picketed**. Surendranath Banerjea recalled that Swadeshi "coloured the entire texture of our social and domestic life." - The movement **encouraged Indian industry** β€” textile mills, soap and match factories, handloom concerns, national banks and insurance companies; **Acharya P.C. Ray** founded his famous **Bengal Chemical Swadeshi Stores**. It also sparked a **cultural flowering** of patriotic poetry and song (Tagore, Rajani Kant Sen, Mukunda Das). - **National Education:** rejecting the "denationalising" colonial system, nationalists set up the **National Council of Education (15 August 1906)** and a **National College in Calcutta with Aurobindo Ghose as principal**. ## Students, Women, Muslims & the Masses The Swadeshi movement drew in new social groups, even as it failed to reach the deepest base of all β€” the peasantry. ## Students, Women, Muslims & the Masses - **Students** were "the main creators of the swadeshi spirit," leading the picketing; the government penalised their schools with withdrawal of grants, disaffiliation and bars from scholarships and service, and beat and expelled many β€” but they refused to be cowed. - **Women** of the urban middle classes, traditionally home-centred, now **joined processions and picketing** β€” and would remain active in the national movement thereafter. - Prominent **Muslims** like **Abdul Rasul, Liaquat Husain and Guznavi** joined; but many, led by the **Nawab of Dacca** (given a government loan of Rs 14 lakh), **supported partition** on the plea that East Bengal would have a Muslim majority β€” a communal attitude encouraged by Curzon, who said partition would "invest the Mohammedans of Eastern Bengal with a unity." Crucially, the movement **did not reach the peasantry**; it remained confined to the towns and the urban middle classes. ## All-India Spread & the Growth of Militancy As Moderate protest failed and repression mounted, leadership passed to the militants β€” Lal, Bal and Pal. ## All-India Spread & the Growth of Militancy - The cry of Swadeshi and Swaraj spread to Bombay, Madras and the north, with **Tilak** playing the leading role in carrying it across India. Leadership of the movement passed to militant nationalists β€” **Bal Gangadhar Tilak, one historian Pal and Aurobindo Ghose** (and Lala Lajpat Rai, the "Lal-Bal-Pal" trio). - This shift came because **Moderate methods failed** β€” even the Liberal Secretary of State **John Morley called partition "a settled fact"** β€” and because of **fierce government repression**: the police assault on the **Barisal Conference (April 1906)**, the banning of "Bande Mataram" in East Bengal, over **550 political cases (1906-09)**, and deportations β€” **Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh (1907)**, and **Krishna Kumar Mitra and Ashwini Kumar Dutt (December 1908)**. In **1908 Tilak was sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment**. - The militants added **passive resistance** to Swadeshi and Boycott β€” a boycott of government service, courts and schools β€” and made **independence, not just the reversal of partition, the central question**. Aurobindo declared, **"Political freedom is the lifebreath of a nation."** ## Annulment (1911) & Significance The partition was finally undone, but the movement's true legacy lay in the new spirit it created. ## Annulment (1911) & Significance - Sustained agitation forced the British to **annul the partition at the Delhi Durbar of 1911**, where **King George V reunited Bengal** β€” and the **capital was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi**. - The Swadeshi era gave India four enduring techniques β€” **Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education and passive resistance**. Yet it had clear **limits**: the militants aroused the people but built no lasting organisation, remained constitutionalists in practice, and **failed to reach the peasant masses**; the movement could not survive Tilak's arrest (1908) and the **Surat Split of 1907**. - Still, it marked, in one historian's words, "**a great revolutionary leap forward**." As Gandhi later observed, after the partition people saw that **"petitions must be backed up by force, and that they must be capable of suffering"** β€” the seed of the mass struggles to come. ## The Surat Split, the Muslim League & the Morley-Minto Reforms The Swadeshi years also reshaped the politics of the Congress itself β€” splitting it at Surat, and prompting the British to answer with both a new constitutional sop and a deliberate policy of communal division. ## The Surat Split, the Muslim League & the Morley-Minto Reforms - **The Surat Split (December 1907):** the Moderates wanted to confine the movement to Bengal and to Swadeshi-Boycott; the militants wanted to extend the mass struggle nationwide. The clash over the Congress presidency ended in an open split at the **Surat session of 1907**, where the Moderates, controlling the Congress machinery, **excluded the militants ("Extremists")**. The split weakened both wings β€” the Moderates lost touch with the youth, while the British exploited the rift through "Divide and Rule." (At the earlier **Calcutta session of 1906, Dadabhai Naoroji** had been chosen as a compromise president and electrified the ranks by declaring **Swaraj (self-government)** the goal of the movement.) - **The All-India Muslim League (1906):** encouraged by officials, the big Muslim nawabs and landlords founded the **All-India Muslim League at Dacca in December 1906**, under the **Aga Khan, the Nawab of Dacca (Salimullah) and Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk**. It was loyalist in outlook, supported the partition, and demanded special safeguards for Muslims β€” sowing seeds of separatism. - **The Morley-Minto Reforms (Indian Councils Act, 1909):** to placate the Moderates and isolate the militants, the government enlarged the legislative councils β€” but the elected members were mostly **indirectly elected**, seats were reserved for landlords and British capitalists, and the councils stayed **merely advisory** (of 68 Imperial Council members, 36 were officials). Most damagingly, the Act introduced **separate electorates for Muslims** β€” a "divide and rule" device that institutionalised communalism. Morley admitted the reforms were not meant to lead to "a parliamentary system in India." ## Why This Matters for UPSC ## Why This Matters for UPSC - **Prelims:** Partition of Bengal (**20 July 1905**, took effect 16 Oct 1905); movement launched 7 Aug 1905 (Town Hall); "Bande Mataram"; National Council of Education (1906) & National College (Aurobindo); **Lal-Bal-Pal**; Barisal Conference (1906); Tilak's 6-year sentence (1908); the deportations; **annulment at the 1911 Delhi Durbar** with the capital shifted to Delhi. - **Mains:** the partition of Bengal as a turning point from Moderate to militant nationalism; the methods and limits of the Swadeshi movement; why it failed to reach the peasantry yet marked a "revolutionary leap." ## Test Yourself: Practice Questions & PYQs The partition of Bengal and the Swadeshi movement is one of the most heavily tested topics in Modern History (the PYQs below are real, CSE 2014 and 2017). ## Practice Questions **Q1.** The Partition of Bengal ordered by Lord Curzon took effect on: - (a) 16 October 1905 - (b) 1 April 1906 - (c) 20 July 1905 - (d) 7 August 1905 **Answer: (a)** β€” Curzon ordered the partition on 20 July 1905; it took effect on 16 October 1905, observed as a day of national mourning. **Q2.** The four-fold programme of the Swadeshi movement consisted of Swadeshi, Boycott, ___ and passive resistance: - (a) National Education - (b) civil disobedience - (c) non-cooperation - (d) satyagraha **Answer: (a)** β€” The movement's constructive programme included National Education β€” the National Council of Education (1906) and the National College under Aurobindo Ghose β€” alongside Swadeshi, Boycott and passive resistance. **Q3.** The leading role in spreading the Swadeshi movement beyond Bengal to the rest of India was played by: - (a) Aurobindo Ghose - (b) one historian Pal - (c) Bal Gangadhar Tilak - (d) Surendranath Banerjea **Answer: (c)** β€” Tilak carried the Swadeshi and Swaraj cry to Bombay, Madras and northern India, seeing it as a new chapter in Indian nationalism. **Q4.** β€œPolitical freedom is the lifebreath of a nation” was declared by: - (a) one historian Pal - (b) Lala Lajpat Rai - (c) Rabindranath Tagore - (d) Aurobindo Ghose **Answer: (d)** β€” Aurobindo Ghose, a leading militant nationalist, made independence the central aim of the Swadeshi agitation. **Q5.** The split between the Moderates and the Extremists (militants) in the Congress took place at the session of: - (a) Lahore 1909 - (b) Lucknow 1916 - (c) Surat 1907 - (d) Calcutta 1906 **Answer: (c)** β€” The Surat Split of December 1907 saw the Moderates capture the Congress machinery and exclude the militant 'Extremists'. **Q6.** The Morley-Minto Reforms (Indian Councils Act, 1909) are best remembered for introducing: - (a) separate electorates for Muslims - (b) provincial autonomy - (c) universal adult franchise - (d) dyarchy **Answer: (a)** β€” The 1909 Act introduced separate electorates for Muslims β€” a 'divide and rule' device β€” while keeping the councils merely advisory. **Q7.** The All-India Muslim League was founded in 1906 at: - (a) Aligarh - (b) Lahore - (c) Lucknow - (d) Dacca **Answer: (d)** β€” The All-India Muslim League was founded at Dacca in December 1906 under the Aga Khan, the Nawab of Dacca and Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk. ### UPSC Previous Year Questions (PYQs) *These are genuine UPSC Civil Services Prelims questions (CSE 2014, 2017) on the partition's annulment and Lala Lajpat Rai.* **Q1.** The Partition of Bengal made by Lord Curzon in 1905 lasted until: (UPSC CSE 2014) - (a) King George V abrogated Curzon's Act at the Royal Durbar in Delhi in 1911 - (b) the First World War when Indian troops were needed by the British and the partition was ignored - (c) Gandhiji launched the Civil Disobedience Movement - (d) the Partition of India in 1947 when East Bengal became East Pakistan **Answer: (a)** β€” Sustained Swadeshi agitation forced the British to annul the partition; at the 1911 Delhi Durbar, King George V reunited Bengal (and shifted the capital from Calcutta to Delhi). So option (a) is correct. **Q2.** He wrote biographies of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Shivaji and Shrikrishna; stayed in America for some time; and was also elected to the Central Assembly. He was: (UPSC CSE 2017) - (a) one historian Pal - (b) Lala Lajpat Rai - (c) Motilal Nehru - (d) Aurobindo Ghosh **Answer: (b)** β€” These details fit Lala Lajpat Rai β€” the 'Lal' of Lal-Bal-Pal β€” who wrote such biographies, spent time in the USA, and was later elected to the Central Legislative Assembly. So option (b) is correct. ### Mains Practice Questions Use these to frame full-length answers. You don't have to answer one exactly β€” they show the angles UPSC tests, so let them guide which points you cover. - Why did Curzon partition Bengal in 1905, and why did nationalists see it as a challenge to nationalism? - Describe the four-fold programme of the Swadeshi movement and its constructive achievements. - Why did leadership pass from the Moderates to the militants (Lal-Bal-Pal) during the anti-partition agitation? - Assess the limits and the lasting significance of the Swadeshi movement.