-
Sepoy Mutiny
Rumors led to religious outrage, which led to 85 of 90 sepoys refusing to accept rifle cartridges. The soldiers who had disobeyed were jailed, which led to a rebellion from the sepoys the next day, May 10th, 1857. They marched to Delhi, where they took over the city, and soon the rebellion spread to northern and central India. -
Turning Point
As a result of the Sepoy Mutiny, the British Government took direct control of India. The term Raj refers to British Rule after India came under the British crown during the reign of Queen Victoria. A cabinet minister in London directed policy, and a British govenor-general in India carried out the government's orders. -
Governor-General turned into Viceroy
The British Governor-General appointed by the Queen in 1858 offcialy became the viceroy of India in 1877. -
Indian National Congress forms
The Indian National Congress was formed, one of the two founding nationalist groups. -
Partition of Bengal
The Bengal province was too large for administrative purposes, so the British divided it into two Hindu and Muslim sections. Keeping the religious groups apart made it hard for the people to plan a revolution and call for independence. -
Gandhi asks South Africans refuse to comply with the Transvaal Asiatic Registration Act
It was the passage of the Asiatic Registration Act in Transvaal in 1907 which convinced Gandhi that the method of protest, petition and prayer which he had sedulously pursued for nearly fourteen years had failed. It was at this juncture that he evolved a new technique, which came to be known as Passive Resistance; but as it ruled out both verbal and physical violence, it differed in important respects from the campaign waged on behalf of the women in England. -
Muslim Leage
The Muslim League was formed, one of the two founding nationalist groups. -
Gandhi burns Non-White Passbooks
This is a powerful scene depicted in the Gandhi film because it shows Gandhi's first act of Civil Disobedience, where Gandhi and his Muslim associate begin to take Non-white passbooks, documents Non-whites were lawfully-obligated to carry at all times, and burn them in front of a full police force. A simple act that brought down the world's attention to a small Indian lawyer in South Africa, who turned into the most famous and peaceful Civil Disobedience leader in Modern History. -
Repartition of Bengal
The British took back the 1905 order and divided the province in a different way. -
Gandhi and his followers create Satyagraha Ashram
Satyagraha" means insistence and adherence to truth, in a non-violent manner. Initially the term "passive resistance" was used to describe non-violent protest but Gandhi insisted that Satyagraha was more than that. Satyagraha was a way of life, an evolving technique to bring change without violence. "Ahimsa" (non-violence) to Gandhi was imperative as a search for truth involved fighting injustice. Fighting injustice required one to love fellow beings and this love demanded non-violence. -
World War I increases Nationalist Activity
Indian troops returned home from the war, expecting the British to keep their promise of creating law reforms that would eventually lead to Indian self-government if Indian soldiers enlisted in the war. Radical nationalists carried out violent acts to show their distaste of British rule and of being treated as second-class citizens. -
Rowlatt Acts
In the hopes to calm down and control Indian nationalism and anger, the British passed the Rowlatt Acts, laws that allowed the government to jail protesters without trail for as long as two years. To Western-educated Indians, denial of a trial by jury violated their individual rights. -
Armitsar Massacre
To protest the Rowlatt acts, around 10,000 Hindus and Muslims went to Armitsar, where they intended to host a festival where everyone went on a hunger strike and listened to political speeches. The British feared the alliance between the two religions and the British commander in Armitsar ordered the mass killings of all the people at the festival, believing the people were defying the ban of public meetings, a ban which was never made puclic. -
Mahatma Gandhi leads Indian Independence Movement
The Congress Party endorsed civil disobedience, the deliberate and public refusal to obey an unjust law, and non-violence as the means to achieve independence. This is when Gandhi launched his civil disobedience campaign to weaken the British Government's influence and power over the Indian people. -
Gandhi's Salt March
Gandhi organized a demonstration against the hated Salt Acts, which stated that Indians could buy salt from no one else but the government, as well as pay taxes. In protest to this, Gandhi and his followers marched 240 miles to the seacoast. They started creating their own salt by the coast, a peaceful, non-violent protest against the Salt Acts, which came to be known as the Salt March. -
Government of India Act
British Parliament enforced the Government of India Act, which provided self-government and limited democratic elections, but not total independence. -
Official Indian and Pakistani Independence
On the midnight of 14 August and 15 August 1947, India and Pakistan came into existence. The Constituent assembly then appointed Lord Mountbatten as the First Governor General of the Indian Dominion. In the Morning of August 15, 1947, a new cabinet headed by Jawahar Lal Nehru was sworn in. India paid a heavy price, thereafter in the form of thousands of lives that got burnt in the fire of partition. -
Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi's violent death came just months after the realization of his long fought-for goal - the independence of India from Great Britain. Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist while walking to his prayer meeting in the lawn of Birla House, New Delhi. Gandhi's death struck the whole world, shocking them to disbelief, which is why Gandhi's funeral was one for the ages. Thousands of people gathered to solemnly watch Gandhi's corpse bathed in a white robe and colorful flwoers.
