Violence or Non-Violence? Gandhi and Popular Movements in India, 1915-1950

Module title	Violence or Non-Violence? Gandhi and Popular Movements in India, 1915-1950
Module code	HIH3453
Academic year	2025/6
Credits	60
Module staff	Dr Gajendra Singh (Convenor)

Duration: Term	1	2	3
Duration: Weeks	10	10

Number students taking module (anticipated)	16

Module description

This module will explore India's struggle for independence; the longest and most sustained anticolonial movement in history. It will examine the ideology and leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, and the equally important social, revolutionary and peasant-based movements of the period. You will be introduced to the influence of British constitutional initiatives, caste associations, political factions and prominent nationalist leaders in the independence movement. We will also discuss the part played by disparate, unorganized and, at times, violent popular and cultural movements in undermining colonial rule.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module will examine the role played by the ideology and leadership of Mahatma Gandhi in India's struggle for independence. It will, in addition, explore the neglected but equally important part played by social, revolutionary and peasant-based movements in this period. Students will be introduced to new perspectives in historical writing which have contested the validity of 'official' accounts of recent Indian history – whether written from a colonialist or nationalist perspective. A study of the historiography will be combined with an analysis of various sources that can be used to produce neo-colonialist, neo-nationalist and postcolonial histories of the Indian independence movement

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

1. evaluate the different complex themes in the cultural, social and political histories of the Indian independence movement.
2. make close specialist evaluation of the key developments within the period, developed through independent study and seminar work.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

3. analyse the key developments within the nationalist movements in colonial India, and the differences between colonialist, nationalist and postcolonial history-writing.
4. focus on and comprehend complex issues.
5. understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible manner.
6. follow the intellectual development of anti-colonial nationalism and the social and cultural movements that acted as its counterpart across the period.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

7. Develop independent and autonomous study and group work, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
8. digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
9. present complex arguments orally

Syllabus plan

While the exact content of the module may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that topics will include all or some of the following:

Gandhi in South Africa
Gandhi on Film: Popular Representations of the Gandhi Myth
The First World War in India: Collaboration and Revolution
Colonial Violence and the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre
Gandhi and the Early Satyagrahas
Khilafat and Pan-Islamism
Non-Cooperation and Chauri Chaura
Gandhi and Women
Gandhi and the Untouchables
The Impact of the Great Depression
Civil Disobedience
Adivasis
Princely States
Jawaharlal Nehru
Subhas Chandra Bose
Big Business and Trade Unions
Revolutionary Nationalisms
Communism
Kisan Sabhas
Regional Studies (UP, Punjab, Bengal, Gujarat, South India)
Quit India
Communalism
Partition
Gandhi’s Legacy
Historiography of the Subaltern
The Freedom Struggle in Literature and Art

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
80	520	0

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled learning and teaching activities	80	40 x 2-hour seminars
Guided independent study	400	Reading and preparation for seminars
Guided independent study	120	Reading, research and preparation for assessments

Formative assessment

Form of assessment	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Seminar discussion	Ongoing through course.	1-7, 9	Verbal from tutor and fellow students.
Written work	500-1000 words	1-6, 8, 9	Verbal and written

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Coursework	Written exams	Practical exams
70	0	30

Details of summative assessment

Form of assessment	% of credit	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Portfolio	70	Portfolio of THREE or FOUR pieces of written work, totaling 8000 words. At least one of these pieces will require students to engage with primary source material in a sustained and detailed manner.	1-6, 8-9	Oral and written
Individual Presentation	30	Individual, oral presentation. 20 minutes, + 10 minutes leading discussion, + supporting materials [equivalent total word count: 3000 words]	1-7	Oral and written

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Original form of assessment	Form of re-assessment	ILOs re-assessed	Timescale for re-assessment
Portfolio Assignment (8,000 words)	Portfolio Assignment (8,000 words)	1-6, 8-9	Referral / Deferral period
Individual presentation - Individual, oral presentation. 20 minutes, + 10 minutes leading discussion, + supporting materials [equivalent total word count: 3000 words]	Written transcript (2000 words + 1000 word supporting materials)	1-7	Referral / Deferral period

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of an 8,000 word portfolio of source work, as in the original assessment, but replaces the individual presentation with a written script that could be delivered in such a presentation and which is the equivalent of a 20 minute presentation plus supporting materials (3,000 words).

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885-1947, (New Delhi: Macmillan, 1983).
Sumit Sarkar, Modern Times, 1880s-1950, (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2014).
Crispin Bates, Subalterns and Raj, A History of South Asia Since 1600, (London: Routledge, 2007).
Ayesha Jalal and Sugata Bose, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, (London: Routledge, 1998).
Judith Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994 2^nd edn.).
Judith Brown and Anthony Parel (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Bipan Chandra, History of Modern India, (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2009).
R.C. Mazumdar, History of the Freedom Movement in India, Vols. 1-3, (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1961-1972).
William Gould, Religion and Conflict in Modern South Asia, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, Resistance and the State in India, 1850-1950, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

South Asia Archive, http://www.southasiaarchive.com
The 1947 Partition Archive, http://www.1947partitionarchive.org
Cinemas of India, http://www.cinemasofindia.com
Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire, http://www.colonialfilm.org.uk
The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), Vols. 1-98, (New Delhi: Publications Division, Government of India, 1999), http://www.gandhiserve.org/e/cwmg/cwmg.htm

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

Films – Gandhi (1982); The Making of the Mahatma (1996); Lage Rao Munna Bhai (Carry on, Munna) (2006); Gandhi My Father (2007); Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar (2000); Hey Ram (2000).

Novels – Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, (London: 1981); Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World, (1916); Rudyard Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills, (1890); Premchand, Deliverance and Other Stories; Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable (London: Penguin, 1st published 1935); R. K. Narayan, A Malgudi Omnibus (three novels: Swami and Friends; The Bachelor of Arts and The English Teacher), (London: Vintage, 1999); Saadat Hasan Manto, Mottled Dawn (Penguin, 1998).

Key words search

South Asia; India; History; Violence; Anti-Colonial Nationalism; Postcolonialism; Colonialism

Credit value	60
Module ECTS	30
Module pre-requisites	None
Module co-requisites	None
NQF level (module)	6
Available as distance learning?	No
Origin date	20/02/2025
Last revision date	07/03/2025