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The
Indian National Congress (1885) and the Independence Movement |
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Precursors of the Congress
included voluntary associations with both British and
(English-educated, urban, male) Indian members
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A set of drawings of most of the
presidents
of the Indian National Congress |
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The gods of the Hindu pantheon
bless the
leaders of the Independence Movement, especially through the influence
of *Gandhi*
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Agricultural development is also
blessed,
liquor is depicted as a traditional demon-witch, and untouchability is
deplored |
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Bharat Mata, "Mother India," a new
nationalist
goddess of the Independence Movement (*Manushi
142*) |
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Sarojini Naidu, poet, activist,
and Congress
leader, was also a kind of symbolic mother figure |
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Gopal Krishna Gokhale, mentor of
both Gandhi
and Jinnah |
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At Gandhi's insistence Congress
supported
the Khilafat Movement, in alliance with Maulana Mohamed Ali |
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Rabindranath Tagore, poet, sage,
and educator,
who followed his own path |
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Starting with Bal Gangadhar Tilak
(1856-1920),
an increasingly militant strain in the Independence movement began to
develop |
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Militants were often sent to the
Andaman
Islands penal colony-- where in 1872 a prisoner named Sher Ali
assassinated
the Viceroy, Lord Mayo |
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The young Khudiram Bose, hanged in
1908
for an attempted bomb assassination of a British officer, was one of
the
first militant martyrs, but far from the last |
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There were also martyrs to the
fight against
communalism: patriots who died trying to stop Hindu-Muslim riots |
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Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose,
founder of
the Nazi-sponsored "Azad Hind Fauj" (Indian National Army), was a hero
to many Indians |
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Shivaji was envisioned as a
warrior-comrade
of Subhash Chandra Bose and the militant Chandra Shekhar Azad; he was
depicted as
blessed by the Goddess |
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Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
(1884-1966), inventor
of "Hindutva," and some of his allies
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Nehru was emblematically
superimposed on the map of India,
with Gandhi hovering over his right shoulder and Netaji over his left |
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