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India’s Struggle for Independence: Indian Freedom Movement

Last updated on April 8, 2024 by ClearIAS Team

In the  6-part framework to study modern Indian History , we have so far covered:

• India in 1750 .
• British Expansion .
• The changes introduced by the British .
• Popular Uprisings and Revolts against the British
• Socio-religious movements in India .

In this article (6th part), we discuss the emergence of Indian nationalism and India’s struggle for independence.

Table of Contents

Indian Nationalism

India has been unified under many empires in its history like the Mauryan Empire and Mughal empire. A sense of oneness has been there for ages – even though most of the centralised administration in India didn’t last long.

With the end of Mughal rule, India broke into hundreds of princely states.  The British – which were instrumental in the fall of the Mughal Empire – held control over the princely states and created the British Indian Empire .

However, most Indians were extremely dissatisfied with the exploitative foreign rule.

The educated Indians realised that the British always gave priority to their colonial interests and treated India only as a market.

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They advocated for the political independence of India.

Foundation of Indian National Congress (INC) in 1885

The late nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of many political organisations in British India.

Indian National Congress (also known as Congress Party) founded in 1885 was the most prominent one.

Initially, its aim was to create a platform for civic and political dialogue between Indians and the British Raj and thus obtain a greater share of government for educated Indians.

Later, under the leaders like Mahatma Gandhi , Jawarhal Nehru , Subhas Chandra Bose , and Sardar Vallabhai Patel , the Congress party played a central role in organising mass movements against the British.

Partition of Bengal (1905)

Indian nationalism was gaining in strength and Bengal was the nerve centre of Indian nationalism in the early 1900s.

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Lord Curzon, the Viceroy (1899-1905), attempted to ‘dethrone Calcutta’ from its position as the centre from which the Congress Party manipulated throughout Bengal, and indeed, the whole of India.

The decision to partition Bengal into two was in the air from December 1903.

Congress party – from 1903 to mid-1905 – tried moderate techniques of petitions, memoranda, speeches, public meetings and press campaigns. The objective was to turn to public opinion in India and England against the partition.

However, Viceroy Curzon 1905 formally announced the British Government’s decision for the partition of Bengal on 19 July 1905. The partition took effect on 16 October 1905.

The partition was meant to foster another kind of division – on the basis of religion. The aim was to place Muslim communalists as a counter to the Congress. Curzon promised to make Dacca the new capital.

This resulted in a lot of discontent among the Indians. Many considered this as a policy of ‘Divide and Rule’ by the British.

This triggered a self-sufficiency movement popularly known as the Swadeshi movement.

Also read: Dr. Rajendra Prasad: Architect of the Indian Republic

The Swadeshi Movement (1905-1908)

From conservative moderation to political extremism, from terrorism to incipient socialism, from petitioning and public speeches to passive resistance and boycott, all had their origins in the movement.

Swadeshi is a conjunction of two Sanskrit words: swa (“self”) and desh (“country”).

The movement popularised the use and consumption of indigenous products. Indians started ditching British goods for Indian products.

Women, students, and a large section of the urban and rural population of Bengal and other parts of India became actively involved in politics for the first time with Swadeshi Movement.

The message of Swadeshi and the boycott of foreign goods soon spread to the rest of the country.

The militant nationalists led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo Ghosh were in favour of extending the movement to the rest of India and carrying it beyond the programme of just Swadeshi and boycott to a full-fledged political mass struggle. For them, the aim was Swaraj.

In 1906, the Indian National Congress at its Calcutta Session presided over by Dadabhai Naoroji, declared that the goal of the Indian National Congress was ‘self-government or Swaraj like that of the United Kingdom or the Colonies.

There were differences in the ideologies of the congressmen who were popularly known by the names Moderates and the Extremists. They had differences of opinion regarding the pace of the movement and the techniques of struggle to be adopted. This came to a head in the 1907 Surat session of the Congress where the party split (the two factions re-joined later).

This period also saw a breakthrough in Indian art, literature, music, science and industry.

It was, perhaps, in the cultural sphere that the impact of the Swadeshi Movement was most marked. The songs composed at that time by Rabindranath Tagore, Rajani Kanta Sen etc became the moving spirit for nationalists of all hues.

In art, this was the period when Abanindranath Tagore broke the domination of Victorian naturalism over Indian art and sought inspiration from the rich indigenous traditions of Mughal, Rajput and Ajanta paintings.

In science, Jagdish Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chandra Ray, and others pioneered original research that was praised the world over.

The Swadeshi period also saw the creative use of traditional popular festivals and melas as a means of reaching out to the masses. The Ganapati and Shivaji festivals, popularized by Tilak, became a medium for Swadeshi propaganda not only in Western India but also in Bengal.

Another important aspect of the Swadeshi Movement was the great emphasis given to self-reliance or ‘Atmasakti’in various fields meant the re-asserting of national dignity, honour and confidence.

Self-reliance also meant an effort to set up Swadeshi or indigenous enterprises. The period saw a mushrooming of Swadeshi textile mills, soap and match factories etc.

One of the major features of the programme of self-reliance was Swadeshi or National Education. In 1906, the National Council of Education was established. The vernacular medium was given stress from the primary to university level.

Corps of volunteers (or samitis as they were called) were another major form of mass mobilization widely used by the Swadeshi Movement. The Swadesh Bandhab Samiti set up by Ashwini Kumar Dutt was the most well-known volunteer organization of them all.

Reasons for the failure of the Swadeshi Movement

• The main drawback of the Swadeshi Movement was that it was not able to garner the support of the mass. The British use of communalism to turn the Muslims against the Swadeshi Movement was to a large extent responsible for this.
• During the Swadeshi phase, the peasantry was not organized around peasant demands. The movement was able to mobilize the peasantry only in a limited way.
• By mid-1908 repression took the form of controls and bans on public meetings, processions and the press.
• The internal squabbles, and especially, the split in the Congress (1907), the apex all-India organization, weakened the movement.
• The Swadeshi Movement lacked an effective organization and party structure.
• Lastly, the movement declined because of the very logic of mass movements itself — they cannot be sustained endlessly.

However, the movement made a major contribution in taking the idea of nationalism, in a truly creative fashion, to many sections of the people. The peasant participation in the Swadeshi Movement even though less, marked the very beginnings of modern mass politics in India.

Also read: Ghadar Party

The Split in the Congress (1907)

The main public leaders of the two wings, Tilak (of the Extremists) and Gokhale (of the Moderates) were aware of the dangers of disunity in the nationalist ranks.

A split was avoided in 1906 by choosing Dadabhai Naoroji as president of INC in the Calcutta session. Also, four compromise resolutions on the Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education, and Self-Government demands were passed. However, the hope of a united Congress was short-lived.

The Extremists wanted to extend the Swadeshi and the Boycott Movement from Bengal to the rest of the country but the Moderators opposed it.

The Extremists were fumed by the rumours that the Moderates wanted to scuttle the four Calcutta resolutions. This created friction among them which led to the split at the Congress session was held on 26 December 1907 at Surat, on the banks of the river Tapti.

The Indian National Congress split in December 1907. By 1907, the Moderate nationalists had exhausted their historical role. They failed to meet the demands of the new stage of the national movement and even failed to attract the younger generation.

Almost at the same time, revolutionary terrorism made its appearance in Bengal.

Britain’s policy towards  INC

• The British had been suspicious of the National Congress from its inception but they were not overtly hostile either.
• In 1888 Viceroy Dufferin ridiculed INC as representing only the elite — ‘a microscopic minority’.
• Lord Curzon said: “The Congress is tottering to its fall, and one of my greatest ambitions while in India is to assist it to a peaceful demise.”
• The intimidating policies of the British towards INC changed once the Swadeshi and Boycott Movement began. The strengthening of the militant nationalist trend alarmed the British.
• A new policy, known as the policy of the carrot and the stick was invoked. It was three-pronged. It was described as a policy of r epression-conciliation-suppression .
• The Extremists were repressed, though mildly in the first stage. The purpose is to frighten the Moderates. The British also tried to pacify Moderates through some concessions and promises if they disassociated themselves from the Extremists. However, the British always wanted to suppress Extremists.

Minto-Morley constitutional reforms (1909)

The Government of India which was headed by Lord Minto as Viceroy and John Morley as the Secretary of State offered fresh reforms in the Legislative Councils. They began discussions with Moderates within Indian National Congress regarding this. However, when the decision was taken, not just Moderates but the country as a whole were disappointed.

Major Provisions:

• The Indian Councils Act of 1909 increased the number of elected members (but most of them were still indirectly elected) in the Imperial Legislative Council and the provincial legislative councils.
• An Indian was to be appointed a member of the Governor-General’s Executive Council.
• The Act permitted members to introduce resolutions; it also increased their power to ask questions.
• Voting on separate budget items was allowed.

The real purpose of the Morley-Minto Reforms was to divide the nationalist ranks and encourage the growth of Muslim communalism. For the latter, they introduced the system of separate electorates under which Muslims could only vote for Muslim candidates in constituencies specially reserved for them.

The Ghadar Movement (1914)

The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 gave impetus to the nationalist feelings of Indians. The Home Rule League by Lokmanya Tilak and Annie Besant were formed during First World War.

At the same time, a revolutionary movement gained popularity – The Ghadar Movement. (Note: The word Ghadar means ‘revolt’)

The Ghadar Movement was an international political movement founded by expatriate Indians to overthrow British rule in India.

The early membership was composed mostly of Punjabi Indians who lived and worked on the West Coast of the United States and Canada. The movement later spread to India and Indian diasporic communities around the world.

The main leader initially was Bhagwan Singh, a Sikh priest who had worked in Hong Kong and the Malay States.

Later Har Dayal took leadership and played a crucial role in the Ghadar movement. He issued a Yugantar Circular praising the attack on the Viceroy. He urged Indians in the USA not to fight against the US but use their freedom in the US to fight the British.

The Ghadar militants toured extensively, visiting mills and farms where most of the Punjabi immigrant labour worked. The Yugantar Ashram became the home and headquarters and refuge of these political workers.

Komagatamaru Incident

• The Komagata Maru incident involved the Japanese steamship Komagata Maru, on which a group of people from British India attempted to immigrate to Canada in April 1914. Most of the ship passengers were denied entry and forced to return to Calcutta (present-day Kolkata). There, the Indian Imperial Police attempted to arrest the group leaders. A riot ensued, and they were fired upon by the police, resulting in the deaths of 22 people.
• British Government passed orders that no passenger be allowed to disembark anywhere on the way — not even at the places from where they had joined the ship — but only at Calcutta.
• It triggered off a wave of resentment and anger among the Indian community and became the occasion for anti-British mobilization.
• A number of Ghadar leaders, like Barkatullah and Tarak Nath Das, used the inflammatory passions surrounding the  Komagata Maru incident as a rallying point and successfully brought many disaffected Indians in North America into the party’s fold.

Ghadar’s weakness

• Ghadar leaders completely underestimated the extent of preparation needed at every level — organizational, ideological, strategic, tactical, and financial — that was necessary before an armed revolt could be organized.
• An almost non-existent organizational structure; the Ghadar Movement was sustained more by the enthusiasm of the militants than by their effective organization.
• The movement failed to generate an effective and sustained leadership that was capable of integrating the various aspects of the movement. Har Dayal’s ideas did not form a structured vision but remained a shifting amalgam of various theories that attracted him from time to time.
• Lacking a mass base, despite the remarkable heroism of the individual revolutionaries who operated in small secret groups, the movement could not withstand suppression by the strong colonial state.
• The Ghadar Movement came to an abrupt end with the arrest of Har Dayal.

The Home Rule Movement (1916-1918)

The Home Rule Movement under the leadership of Annie Besant and Bal Gangadhar Tilak was an important political movement that set the stage for India’s struggle for independence.

Annie Besant, who was a proponent of Free Thought, Radicalism, Fabianism and Theosophy, had come to India in 1893 to work for the Theosophical Society.

In 1914, she decided to enlarge the sphere of her activities. She started a movement for Home Rule on the lines of the Irish Home Rule League.

She realized that she needs the cooperation of both Moderates and Extremists. In the annual session of the Congress 1915, it was decided that the Extremists be allowed to rejoin the Congress along with the Moderates.

Tilak set up the Home Rule League in the Bombay Province.

The two leagues worked in different areas.

Tilak promoted the Home Rule campaign which linked the question of Swaraj with the demand for the formation of linguistic states and education in the vernacular medium.

Members of Gokhale’s Servants of India Society, though not permitted to become members of the League, encouraged the demand for Home Rule by undertaking lecture tours and publishing pamphlets.

During the Lucknow session of the Congress in December 1916, the famous Congress-League Pact was declared. Both Tilak and Annie Besant had played a role in bringing about this agreement between the Congress and the League, much against the wishes of many important leaders, including Madan Mohan Malaviya. This pact is popularly known as the Lucknow Pact where separate electorates for Muslims were accepted.

The turning point in the home rule movement came with the decision of the Government of Madras in 1917 to place Mrs Besant and her associates, B.P. Wadia and George Arundale, under arrest.

Montague Declaration was introduced by the British government as a sign of a conciliatory effort. Henceforth, Home Rule or self-government movement was not treated as a seditious activity. However, this did not mean that the British were ready to grant self-government.

In 1920 All India Home Rule League changed its name to Swarajya Sabha.

The main achievement of the Home Rule Movement was that it created a generation of ardent nationalists who formed the backbone of the national movement. In the later years, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi , the Indian freedom struggle entered its truly mass phase.

Champaran movement in Bihar (1917)

Mahatma Gandhi, after his struggle against apartheid in South Africa (racial discrimination against blacks) for almost twenty years, returned to India in 1915.  On Gokhale’s advice, he spent a year travelling around British India to understand the problems of Indians.

He initially maintained a distance from political affairs, including the Home Rule Movement that was gathering momentum at this time.

Mahatma Gandhi began his experiments with Satyagraha against the oppressive European indigo planters at Champaran in Bihar in 1917.

Champaran issue had actually begun in the early 19th century when European planters made agreements with Indian farmers that forced them to cultivate indigo on the 3/20th of their holdings (known as the Tinkathia system).

Resistance kept surfacing within planters and cultivators, because of the exploitation measures adopted by the British behind the indigo cultivation.

In 1908 Raj Kumar Shukla, a local man persuaded Gandhiji to come to Champaran to investigate the problem. Gandhi reached Champaran but faced resistance from the Commissioner who ordered him to immediately leave the district. Gandhiji refused. He preferred to take the punishment for his defiance of the law. This step was unusual because even Home Rule leaders used to obey the Government.

The British Indian government didn’t want to create a controversy and ordered the local Government to retreat. They allowed Gandhiji to proceed with his enquiry and even nominated him as one of the enquiry members of the Government.

Meanwhile, Gandhiji started investigating the grievances of peasants along with Brij Kishore, Rajendra Prasad and other members of the Bihar intelligentsia. J.B. Kripalani toured the villages and recorded the statements of peasants.

Gandhiji had little difficulty in convincing the Commission that the Tinkathia system needed to be abolished and that the peasants should be compensated for the illegal enhancement of their dues. The Commission founder planters guilty of exploitation.

The commission of enquiry decided to make refunds to the peasants. Gandhi asked for 50%. But the representative of planters offered to refund to the extent of 25%. In order to break the deadlock, Gandhiji agreed to a 25 per cent refund to the farmers. For Gandhi, it was not the money but the principles that were of utmost importance. In his belief, the submission of British landlords was more significant than the percentage of refunds.

Ahmedabad Satyagraha in Gujarat (1918)

In Ahmedabad, a dispute was brewing between workers and mill owners over the question of a ‘plague bonus’.

The employers wanted to withdraw the bonus once the epidemic had passed but the workers insisted it stay.

The British Collector asked Gandhiji to work out a compromise. Gandhiji persuaded the mill owners and the workers to agree to arbitration.

The workers demanded a 50% wage hike while the mill owners offered only a twenty per cent wage hike. They threatened to dismiss all workers who did not accept it.

Gandhiji advised the workers to go on strike. He himself started fasting for workers.

Gandhiji was peculiar in that workers should get at least a thirty-five per cent increase in wages.

Finally, the strike was withdrawn after mill owners agreed to a thirty-five per cent increase the workers had demanded.

Anasuya Behn was one of the main lieutenants of Gandhiji in this struggle.

Kheda Satyagraha in Gujarat (1918)

The Kheda district of Gujarat was on the verge of famine owing to the failure of the crops.

The yield had been so low that the cultivators were unable to pay the revenue. But the government insisted that the cultivators should pay the tax.

Gandhi saw the justice of the cause of the cultivators. Enquiries by members of the Servants of India Society and Vithalbhai Patel too confirmed the genuineness of the peasants’ case.

Gandhiji advised the withholding of tax payments, and asked the peasants to ‘fight unto death against such a spirit of vindictiveness and tyranny’.

The peasants of Kheda, already deprived because of plague, high prices and drought, were showing signs of weakness when Gandhiji came to know that the Government had issued secret instructions directing that revenue should be recovered only from those peasants who could pay.

The Government said that if well-to-do cultivators paid up the poorer section would be granted suspension. This was agreed to and the campaign ended.

The Kheda Satyagraha marked the beginning of an awakening among the peasants of Gujarat, the beginning of their true political education. In addition, it gave the educated public workers the chance to establish contact with the actual life of the peasants.

Rowlatt Satyagraha (1919)

During the First World War of 1914-18, the British instituted censorship of the press and permitted detention without trial.

The Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act of 1919, popularly known as the Rowlatt Act, was passed by the Imperial Legislative Council in Delhi on 18 March 1919, indefinitely extending the emergency measures of preventive indefinite detention, incarceration without trial and judicial review enacted in the Defence of India Act 1915 during the First World War.

It was enacted in light of a perceived threat from revolutionary nationalists to organisations of re-engaging in similar conspiracies as during the war which the Government felt the lapse of the Defence of India Act would enable.

This act was passed on the recommendations of the Sedition Committee chaired by Sir Sidney Rowlatt.

Gandhiji launched Satyagraha against the inhuman Rowlatt Act.

The protests were particularly intense in the Punjab Gandhiji was detained while proceeding there.

Jallianwala Bagh massacre (1919)

The passage of the Rowlatt Act in 1919 resulted in large-scale political unrest throughout India.

A large peaceful crowd had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab to protest against the arrest of pro-Indian independence leaders Dr. Saifuddin Kitchlew and Dr. Satya Pal.

In response to the public gathering, the British Brigadier-General R. E. H. Dyer surrounded the Bagh with his soldiers.

General Dyer ordered his troops to open fire on the nationalist meeting killing hundreds. The brutality at Jallianwala Bagh stunned the entire nation.

This event caused many moderate Indians to abandon their previous loyalty to the British and become nationalists distrustful of British rule.

Non-cooperation Movement (1920)

Gandhiji called for a campaign of “non-cooperation” with British rule. Indians who wished colonialism to end were asked to stop attending schools, colleges, and law courts. They were asked to not pay taxes. In sum, they were asked to adhere to a “renunciation of all voluntary association with the British Government”.

Gandhiji said that if non-cooperation was effectively carried out India would win swaraj within a year.

When Congress met for its annual session at Nagpur, C.R. Das moved the main resolution on non-cooperation. Many groups of revolutionary terrorists, especially in Bengal, also pledged support to the movement.

The goal of the Congress, by this time, changed from the attainment of self-government by constitutional means to the attainment of Swaraj by peaceful means.

Khilafat Movement (1919-24)

The Khilafat movement was a political protest campaign launched by Muslims of British India to restore the caliph of the Ottoman Caliphate, who was considered the leader of the Muslims.

To further broaden the Indian freedom struggle, Gandhiji joined hands with the Khilafat Movement.

The movement collapsed by late 1922 when Turkey gained a more favourable diplomatic position and moved towards Nationalism. By 1924, Turkey abolished the role of the caliph.

However, the tremendous participation of Muslims in the Non-Cooperation Movement and the maintenance of communal unity, despite the Malabar developments, was in itself no mean achievement.

Chauri Chaura incident (1922)

On 4 February 1922, at Chauri Chaura (a place in modern Uttar Pradesh), the British police opened fire at a large group of people who were participating in the Non-cooperation movement.

In retaliation, the demonstrators attacked and set fire to a police station, killing all of its occupants. The incident led to the death of three civilians and 22 policemen.

Mahatma Gandhi, who was strictly against violence, halted the non-cooperation movement on the national level on 12 February 1922, as a direct result of the Chauri Chaura incident.

In spite of Gandhi’s decision, 19 arrested demonstrators were sentenced to death and 14 to imprisonment for life by the British colonial authorities.

Motilal Nehru, C.R. Das, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose, and many others recorded their disagreement on Gandhiji’s views.

Bardoli Satyagraha in Gujarat (1928)

In January 1926, the officer charged with the duty of reassessment of the land revenue demand of the taluq had recommended a 30% increase over the existing assessment.

The Congress leaders were quick to protest against the increase and set up the Bardoli Inquiry Committee to go into the issue.

In July 1927, the Government reduced the enhancement to 21.97 per cent. But the concessions were too meagre and came too late to satisfy anybody.

The constitutionalist leaders now began to advise the peasants to resist by paying only the current amount and withholding the enhanced amount.

Gradually as the limitations of constitutional leadership became more apparent, Vallabhbhai Patel was invited to lead the campaign.

The government ignored Vallabhai’s request which resulted in the start of Bardoli Satyagraha.

The no-tax movement was launched in Bardoli taluq of Surat district in Gujarat in 1928.

The main mobilization was done through extensive propaganda via meetings, speeches, pamphlets, and door-to-door persuasion. Special emphasis was placed on the mobilization of women and many women activists were recruited for the purpose.

Members of the Bombay Legislative Council like K.M. Munshi and Lalji Naranji, the representatives of the Indian Merchants Chamber, resigned their seats.

The government was forced to conduct an inquiry. The inquiry was done by a judicial officer, Broomfield, and a revenue officer, Maxwell. They came to the conclusion that the increase had been unjustified. The government later reduced the enhancement to 6.03 per cent.

The boycott of the Simon Commission (1927)

On 8 November 1927, an all-white, Simon Commission was appointed to recommend whether India was ready for further constitutional reforms.

Indian National Congress boycott Simon Commission because no Indian was present in the commission. There were protests in many places.

In Lahore, Lala Lajpat Rai, the hero of the extremist days and the most revered leader of Punjab was hit. He succumbed to the injuries in November 1928.

Bhagat Singh and his comrades sought to avenge the death of Lala Lajpat Rai. They killed the white police official, Saunders, in December 1928.

Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Bose emerged as the leaders during the Simon Commission boycott movement.

Nehru Report (1928) and the attempt to draft the Indian Constitution

Britain did not acknowledge the right of Indians to frame their own constitution.

British policy, until almost the end of the Raj, was that the timing and nature of Indian constitutional development were to be decided exclusively by the British Parliament, but it was assumed that Indians would be consulted as appropriate.

In December 1927, at its Madras session, the Indian National Congress took two major decisions in response to the setting up the Simon Commission: first, it decided to not cooperate with the Commission; second, it set up an All Parties Conference to draft a Constitution for India.

The committee of the All Parties Conference to draft the Constitution was chaired by Motilal Nehru  with his son  Jawaharlal Nehru acting as a secretary. There were nine other members in this committee.

The report submitted by the committee in 1928 was called the Nehru Report – which was actually a memorandum to appeal for dominion status and a federal set-up of government for the constitution of India.

The Nehru Report also rejected the principle of separate communal electorates on which previous constitutional reforms had been based. Seats would be reserved for Muslims at the Centre and in provinces in which they were in a minority, but not in those where they had a numerical majority.

The Nehru Report also recommended universal adult suffrage, equal rights for women, freedom to form unions, and dissociation of the state from religion in any form.

However, Jinnah withdrew his support to the report and proposed his ‘Fourteen Points’ which were basically a reiteration of his objections to the Nehru Report.

Young and radical nationalists led by Jawaharlal Nehru had objections to the Nehru Report of Motilal Nehru. Their slogan was ‘Complete Independence.’

Purna Swaraj or Complete Independence Campaign (1929)

In the Lahore session in 1929, Jawaharlal Nehru was made the President of INC. He declared ‘Purna Swaraj’ or Complete Independence as the only honourable goal Indians could strive for.

On the banks of the river Ravi, at midnight on 31 December 1929, the tricolour flag of Indian independence was hosted.

The first task that the Congress set itself in the new year was that of organizing all over the country public meetings at which the Independence Pledge would be read out and collectively affirmed on 26 January.

Civil Disobedience Movement and Dandi March (1930)

The Lahore Session of Congress (1929) authorized the Working Committee to launch a programme of civil disobedience including non-payment of taxes.

Gandhi’s ultimatum to Lord Irwin, stating the minimum demands in the form of 11 points, had been ignored, and there was now only one way out: civil disobedience. Gandhi selected salt as his main tool of disobedience.

In every Indian household, salt was indispensable; yet people were forbidden from making salt even for domestic use, compelling them to buy it from shops at a high price. The state monopoly over salt was deeply unpopular. By making salt his target, Gandhiji hoped to mobilise a wider discontent against British rule.

Gandhi, along with a band of seventy-eight members of the Sabarmati Ashram started to march from Ahmedabad to the coast at Dandi. There he broke the salt laws by collecting salt from the beach.

On 6 April 1930, by picking up a handful of salt, Gandhi inaugurated the Civil Disobedience Movement – a movement that was to remain unsurpassed in the history of the Indian national movement for the country-wide mass participation it unleashed.

Like other parts of India, the civil disobedience movement was also launched in North-West Frontier Province (Khyber–Pakhtoonkhwa). The local Congress sought help from the Khudai Khidmatgars, the most popular socio-political organization in the province.

Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgars, popularly known as the Red Shirts,  played an extremely active role in the Civil Disobedience Movement.

The city came under the control of the masses for at least a week and the soldiers of the Garhwali regiment refused to fire at the unarmed crowds of Peshwar demonstrations.

Nehru’s arrest on 14th April was followed by public protests in Madras, Calcutta and Karachi.

The Salt March was notable for at least three reasons:

• It was this event that first brought Mahatma Gandhi to world attention.
• It was the first nationalist activity in which women participated in large numbers. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay had persuaded Gandhi for this issue.
• It was the Salt March that forced upon the British the realisation that their Raj would not last forever, and that they would have to devolve some power to the Indians.

Gandhi-Irwin Pact (1931) and the Round Table Conferences (1930-32)

British convened a series of “Round Table Conferences” in London to discuss constitutional reforms in India.

The first meeting was held in November 1930. However, without the pre-eminent political leader in India, it was an exercise in futility.

Gandhi was released from jail in January 1931. In the following month, he had several long meetings with the Viceroy. These culminated in what was called the “Gandhi-Irwin Pact’.

The terms of the agreement included the immediate release of all political prisoners not convicted for violence, the remission of all fines not yet collected, the return of confiscated lands not yet sold to third parties, and lenient treatment for those government employees who had resigned. The Government also conceded the right to make salt for consumption to villages along the coast. They also gave the right to peaceful and non-aggressive picketing.

The Congress’s demand for a public inquiry into police excesses was not accepted, but Gandhiji’s insistent request for an inquiry was recorded in the agreement.

Congress, on its part, agreed to discontinue the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).

A second Round Table Conference was held in London in the latter part of 1931. Here, Gandhiji represented the Congress. Gandhi opposed the demand for separate electorates for “lower castes”. For him, separate electorates to the “Untouchables” will ensure their bondage in perpetuity. He thought this would prevent their integration into mainstream society and permanently segregate them from other caste Hindus.

But Ambedkar was in favour of separate electorates for depressed classes. He believed it is the only path for a community so handicapped to succeed in the struggle for life against the organised tyranny of higher castes.

During the second Round Table Conference in London, Winston Churchill, leader of the right wing, strongly objected to the British Government negotiating on terms of equality with the ‘seditious fakir’. He demanded a strong government in India.

The discussions with Gandhi failed as the British Government refused to concede the basic Indian demand for freedom. Gandhiji resumed Civil Disobedience after reaching back

The government launched its strike against the national movement by arresting Gandhi. British government promulgated ordinances that gave the authorities unlimited power – the ‘Civil Martial Law.’ Civil liberties no longer existed and the authorities could seize people and property at will.

In 1934 the inevitable decision to withdraw Civil Disobedience Movement was taken by Gandhi.

However, many political activists were not in favour of stopping the movement. They included Jawaharlal Nehru who was critical of Gandhiji’s decisions regarding the timing of the withdrawal of CDM.

The support that the movement had garnered from the poor and the illiterate, both in the town and in the country, was remarkable indeed.

Nevertheless, the participation of Muslims in the Civil Disobedience Movement was certainly nowhere near that of the Non-cooperation movement 1920-22.

For Indian women, the movement was the most liberating experience to date and can truly be said to have marked their entry into the public space.

The Communal Award (1932)

After the Third Round Table Conference, in November 1932, the then Prime Minister of Britain Ramsay McDonald gave an order which is known as the Communal Award.

It was part of Britain’s policy of ‘Divide and Rule.

The award granted separate electorates in British India for the Forward Caste, Lower Caste, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians, Europeans and Untouchables (Dalits) etc.

The Congress Party was unhappy at the extension of communal representation but became particularly outraged at the British offer of separate-electorate seats for “depressed classes”.

Gandhi viewed the McDonald Award as a nefarious British plot to wean more than 50 million Hindus away from their higher-caste brothers and sisters.

The idea of a separate electorate for Muslims had been accepted by Congress as far back as 1916 as a part of the compromise with the Muslim League. Hence, Congress took the position it was opposed to separate electorates but not in favour of changing the Award without the consent of the minorities.

Gandhi demanded that the representatives of the Depressed Classes should be elected if possible by the universal, common franchise. At the same time, he did not object to the demand for a larger number of reserved seats for the Depressed Classes. He went on a fast unto death on 20 September 1932 to enforce his demand.

In the end, political leaders succeeded in bringing an agreement, known as the Poona Pact.

In this pact, the idea of separate electorates for the Depressed Classes was abandoned but the seats reserved for them in the provincial legislatures and Central Legislature were increased.

After being released from prison Gandhiji shifted to Satyagraha Ashram at Wardha after abandoning Sabarmati Ashram at Ahmedabad for he had vowed in 1930 not to return to Sabarmati till Swaraj was won.

Government of India Act (1935)

The growing demand for constitutional reforms in India led the British Parliament to enact the Government of India Act 1935.

The Act promised some form of representative government.

The Act provided the establishment of an All-India Federation based on the union of British Indian provinces and the Princely States.

Defence and foreign affairs would remain outside the control of the federal legislature, while the Viceroy would retain special control over other subjects.

Governors, appointed by the British Government, retained special powers. They could veto legislative and administrative measures, especially those concerning minorities, the rights of civil servants, law and order, and British business interests.

The Governor also had the power to take over and indefinitely run the administration of a province.

The Act of 1935 was condemned and unanimously rejected by Congress. The Congress demanded the convening of a Constituent Assembly elected on the basis of adult franchise to frame a constitution for an independent India.

Resignation of Congress ministries (1939)

Congress won the elections to the provincial assemblies held in February 1937. Its election manifesto reaffirmed its total rejection of the 1935 Act.

One of the first acts of the Congress Government was to release thousands of political prisoners and to cancel deportation orders on political workers.

The difference between the Congress provinces and the non-Congress provinces of Bengal and Punjab was most apparent in this realm. In the latter, especially in Bengal, civil liberties continued to be curbed and they never released prisoners.

However, Congress could not attempt a complete overhaul of the agrarian structure by completely eliminating the Zamindari system .

Later the Second World War broke out. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru promised Congress support to the war effort if the British, in return, promised to grant India independence once hostilities ended. The offer was refused. Gandhi withdrew support to the British in War.

The Congress ministries resigned in October and November 1939, in protest against Viceroy Lord Linlithgow’s action of declaring India to be belligerent in the Second World War without consulting the Indian people.

The resignations brought the Left and the Right in Congress closer because of a common policy on the question of participation in the war.

Crisis at Tripuri (1939)

Subhas Bose had been a unanimous choice as the President of Congress in 1938. In 1939, he decided to stand again — this time as the spokesperson of militant politics and radical groups.

However, with the blessings of Gandhiji, Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad, J.B. Kripalani other leaders put up Pattabhi Sitaramayya as a candidate for the post.

Bose accused Patel and other top leaders of Congress as ‘rightists’. He openly accused them of working for a compromise with the Government on the question of the federation. Bose had, therefore, appealed to Congressmen to vote for a leftist and ‘a genuine anti-federationist.’

Nevertheless, in reality, the difference between ‘right’ and ‘left’ was not very vivid within the Congress and most Congressmen were anti-federationist.

Subhas Bose won the election on 29 January on the popularity of his militant politics but only by a narrow margin – 1580 votes against 1377.

But the election of Bose brought the brewing crisis to a head at the Tripuri session of the Congress.

Gandhiji declared that Sitaramayya’s defeat was ‘more mine than his.

Bose argued in his presidential address at Tripuri for a programme of immediately giving the British Government a six-month ultimatum to grant the national demand for independence and of launch a mass civil disobedience movement if it failed to do so.

Subhas Bose believed that the Congress was strong enough to bunch an immediate struggle and that the masses were ready for such a struggle.

However, Gandhi’s perceptions were very different. Gandhi believed the time was not yet ripe for an ultimatum because neither Congress nor the masses were yet ready for struggle.

The internal strife reached its climax at the Tripuri session of the Congress, held from 8 to 12 March 1939.

Bose had completely misjudged his support and the meaning of his majority in the presidential election. Congressmen had voted for him not because they wanted to have him as the supreme leader of the national movement – but mainly because of his policies and militant politics. They were not willing to reject Gandhi’s leadership or his views.

Bose resigned from the presidency. This led to the election of Rajendra Prasad in his place.

Subsequently, Subhas Bose and his followers formed the Forward Bloc as a new party within Congress.

As Bose planned a protest against an AICC resolution, the Working Committee removed Bose from the presidentship of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee and debarred him from holding any Congress office for three years.

Individual Satyagraha (1940)

Gandhiji decided to initiate a limited satyagraha on an individual basis by a few selected individuals in every locality. The demand of a satyagrahi was for the freedom of speech to preach against participation in the War.

The satyagrahi would beforehand inform the district magistrate of the time and place where he or she was going to make the anti-war speech. If the Government did not arrest a satyagrahi, he or she would not only repeat the performance but move into the villages and start a trek towards Delhi, thus participating in a movement that came to be known as the ‘Delhi Chalo’ (onwards to Delhi) movement.

Vinoba Bhave was to be the first satyagrahi on 17 October 1940 and Jawaharlal Nehru the second.

Individual Satyagraha served a dual purpose — (1) it gave expression to the Indian people’s strong political feelings, (2) it gave the British Government another opportunity to peacefully accept the Indian demands.

Cripps Mission (1942)

The Cripps Mission was a failed attempt in late March 1942 by the British government to secure full Indian cooperation and support for their efforts in World War II.

The mission was headed by a senior minister Sir Stafford Cripps, traditionally sympathetic to Indian self-rule.

However, he was also a member of the coalition War Cabinet led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had long been the leader of the movement to block Indian independence.

Churchill was persuaded to send Sir Stafford Cripps, to India to try and forge a compromise with Gandhiji and the Congress.

The Declaration promised India Dominion Status and a constitution-making body after the War. He proposed that the Constitutional Assembly members would be elected by the provincial assemblies and nominated by the rulers in the case of the princely states.

At that time, the demand for a separate nation for Muslims – Pakistan – also got momentum.

The Pakistan demand was accommodated by the provision that any province which was not prepared to accept the new constitution would have the right to sign a separate agreement with Britain regarding its future status.

Talks broke down, when, Congress objected to the provision for Dominion Status rather than full independence.

Congress insisted that if it was to help the British defend India from the Axis powers, then the Viceroy had first to appoint an Indian as the Defence Member of his Executive Council.

After the failure of the Cripps Mission, Mahatma Gandhi decided to launch the “Quit India” campaign also known as the ‘August Revolution’.

Quit India Movement (1942)

The Quit India Movement was launched at the Bombay session of the All India Congress Committee by  Mahatma Gandhi  on 8 August 1942, during World War II, demanding an end to British rule in India.

In this struggle, the common people of the country demonstrated unparalleled heroism and militancy.

However, the repression that they faced was the most brutal that had ever been used against the national movement.

At the historic August meeting at Gowalia Tank in Bombay, Gandhiji was particular about complete freedom and no more piece-meal approach from the British.

He proclaimed: ‘Do or Die’ – which meant either free India or die in the attempt.

Gandhi asked government servants to openly declare their allegiance to congress and not to resign.

In the meantime, underground networks were consolidated in various parts of the country. The prominent members of underground activities were Achyut Patwardhan, Aruna Asaf Ali, Ram Manohar Lohia, and Sucheta Kripalani.

The pattern of activity of the underground movement was that of organizing the disruption of communications by blowing up bridges, cutting telegraph and telephone wires, and derailing trains.

Congress Radio operated clandestinely from different locations in Bombay city, whose broadcast could be heard as far as Madras. Usha Mehta was an important member of the small group that ran the Congress Radio.

A significant feature of the Quit India Movement was the emergence of what came to be known as parallel governments in some parts of the country. Satara (Maharashtra) emerged as the base of the longest-lasting and most effective parallel government.

A significant feature of peasant activity was its total concentration on attacking symbols of British authority and a total lack of any incidents of anti-zamindar violence.

In February 1943, Gandhiji declared the fast in Aga Khan Palace where he was held in detention, as this was his answer to the Government which had been constantly exhorting him to condemn the violence of the people in the Quit India Movement. Gandhiji not only refused to condemn the people’s resort to violence but unequivocally held the Government responsible for it.

The resignation of the three Indian members of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, M.S. Aney, N.R. Sarkar and H.P. Mody, who never wished Gandhi to suffer, made a severe blow to the British.

Finally, the Congress leaders were released to participate in the Simla Conference in June 1945. That marked the end of the phase of confrontation that had existed since August 1942.

Simla Conference (1945) and the Wavell Plan

The Simla Conference of 1945 was a meeting between the Viceroy of India (Lord Wavell) and the major political leaders of British India at the Viceregal Lodge in Simla.

Wavell proposed a separate representation of Muslims within a united India. Talks, however, stalled on the issue of the selection of Muslim representatives. The All-India Muslim League claimed to be the sole representative of Indian Muslims. The Indian National Congress opposed this claim as the Congress had more Muslims in its support than the Muslim League.

This scuttled the conference, and perhaps the last viable opportunity for a united, independent India.

On 14 June 1945 Lord Wavell announced a plan for a new Executive Council in which all members except the Viceroy and the Commander in Chief would be Indians. This executive council was to be a temporary measure until a new permanent constitution could be agreed upon and come into force.

RIN Mutiny (1946)

The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) revolt started in February 1946 at Mumbai when the naval ratings on HMIS Talwar protested against the poor quality of food and racial discrimination by British officers.

From the initial flashpoint in Mumbai, the revolt spread and found support throughout India, from Karachi to Kolkata, and ultimately came to involve over 20,000 sailors in 78 ships and shore establishments.

Karachi was a major centre, second only to Bombay. Sympathetic strikes took place in military establishments in Madras, Vishakhapatnam, Calcutta, Delhi, Cochin, Jamnagar, the Andamans, Bahrain and Aden.

A revolt in the armed forces, even if soon suppressed, had a great liberating effect on the minds of people.

The naval mutiny proved to be the last nail in the coffin of British colonial aspirations in India.

India was seen to be on the brink of a revolution. The mutiny witnessed the demoralization of British officials and the changing loyalties of Indian officials.

However, communal unity evident in the RIN revolt was limited despite the Congress, League and Communist flags being jointly hoisted on the ships’ masts. Muslim ratings went to the League to seek advice on future action for Pakistan.

The  Indian National Congress  and the  Muslim League  condemned the mutiny, while the  Communist Party of India  was the only party that supported the rebellion.

The mutiny was suppressed by British troops and Royal Navy warships.

The revolt was called off following a meeting between the President of the Naval Central Strike Committee (NCSC), M. S. Khan, and Sardar Vallabhai Patel who had been sent to Bombay to settle the crisis.

Mountbatten Plan (1947)

The legislature representatives of the Indian National Congress, the Muslim League, and the Sikh community came to an agreement with Lord Mountbatten on what has come to be known as the 3 June Plan or Mountbatten Plan. This plan was the last plan for independence.

The plan announced by the Viceroy Mountbatten on 3 June 1947 included these principles:

• The principle of the partition of British India was accepted by the British Government.
• Successor governments would be given dominion status.
• Autonomy and sovereignty to both countries.
• The successor governments could make their own constitution
• The Princely States were given the right to join either Pakistan or India, based on two major factors: Geographical contiguity and the people’s wishes.

The Mountbatten plan led to the enactment of the India Independence Act of 1947.

India Independence Act (1947)

The Indian Independence Act of 1947 passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom divided British India into two new independent dominions; the Dominion of India ( later to become the Republic of India ) and the Dominion of Pakistan ( later to become the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ).

This Act received Royal Assent on 18 July 1947.

India and Pakistan became independent on August 15th, 1947.

India continues to celebrate August 15th as her Independence day, while Pakistan chose to celebrate August 14th as her Independence day as per their cabinet decisions.

Learn more about India’s Struggle for Independence

Hope you liked the mega article on the Indian freedom struggle.

This article on India’s struggle for independence is the 6th part of the article series on Modern Indian History. Click the link to read the  6-part framework to study modern Indian History . This is an easy-to-learn approach to mastering the history of modern India as a story.

Apart from the 6-part approach, we have also published many other articles on  Indian History , which can be accessed from the  ClearIAS Study materials  section.

If you loved this article, please subscribe to ClearIAS and share this post with your friends.

Books referred to prepare this article on India’s Struggle for Independence

• NCERT Books Class 6-12
• History Of Modern India by Bipan Chandra
• India’s struggle for independence by Bipan Chandra
• Modern Indian History by Sonali Bansal and Snehil Tripathi

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Reader Interactions

February 6, 2022 at 9:52 am

Pls allowed to download in pdf form

February 7, 2022 at 11:38 am

@Zizoo – There is a ‘Print PDF’ button that you can use to download the article as a PDF.

July 29, 2023 at 1:02 pm

“India’s Struggle for Independence” on ClearIAS is a comprehensive and enlightening read. The blog beautifully captures the essence of India’s journey towards freedom, providing valuable historical context and key insights. It’s an essential resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of India’s rich and inspiring struggle for independence.

December 5, 2023 at 1:49 am

Please provide download option

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267 Freedom Essay Topics & Examples

Need freedom topics for an essay or research paper? Don’t know how to start writing your essay? The concept of freedom is very exciting and worth studying!

📃 Freedom Essay: How to Start Writing

📝 how to write a freedom essay: useful tips, 🏆 freedom essay examples & topic ideas, 🥇 most interesting freedom topics to write about, 🎓 simple topics about freedom, 📌 writing prompts on freedom, 🔎 good research topics about freedom, ❓ research questions about freedom.

The field of study includes personal freedom, freedom of the press, speech, expression, and much more. In this article, we’ve collected a list of great writing ideas and topics about freedom, as well as freedom essay examples and writing tips.

Freedom essays are common essay assignments that discuss acute topics of today’s global society. However, many students find it difficult to choose the right topic for their essay on freedom or do not know how to write the paper.

We have developed some useful tips for writing an excellent paper. But first, you need to choose a good essay topic. Below are some examples of freedom essay topics.

Freedom Essay Topics

• American (Indian, Taiwanese, Scottish) independence
• Freedom and homelessness essay
• The true value of freedom in modern society
• How slavery affects personal freedom
• The problem of human rights and freedoms
• American citizens’ rights and freedoms
• The benefits and disadvantages of unlimited freedom
• The changing definition of freedom

Once you have selected the issue you want to discuss (feel free to get inspiration from the ones we have suggested!), you can start working on your essay. Here are 10 useful tips for writing an outstanding paper:

• Remember that freedom essay titles should state the question you want to discuss clearly. Do not choose a vague and non-descriptive title for your paper.
• Work on the outline of your paper before writing it. Think of what sections you should include and what arguments you want to present. Remember that the essay should be well organized to keep the reader interested. For a short essay, you can include an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
• Do preliminary research. Ask your professor about the sources you can use (for example, course books, peer-reviewed articles, and governmental websites). Avoid using Wikipedia and other similar sources, as they often have unverified information.
• A freedom essay introduction is a significant part of your paper. It outlines the questions you want to discuss in the essay and helps the reader understand your work’s purpose. Remember to state the thesis of your essay at the end of this section.
• A paper on freedom allows you to be personal. It should not focus on the definition of this concept. Make your essay unique by including your perspective on the issue, discussing your experience, and finding examples from your life.
• At the same time, help your reader to understand what freedom is from the perspective of your essay. Include a clear explanation or a definition with examples.
• Check out freedom essay examples online to develop a structure for your paper, analyze the relevance of the topics you want to discuss and find possible freedom essay ideas. Avoid copying the works you will find online.
• Support your claims with evidence. For instance, you can cite the Bill of Rights or the United States Constitution. Make sure that the sources you use are reliable.
• To make your essay outstanding, make sure that you use correct grammar. Grammatical mistakes may make your paper look unprofessional or unreliable. Restructure a sentence if you think that it does not sound right. Check your paper several times before sending it to your professor.
• A short concluding paragraph is a must. Include the summary of all arguments presented in the paper and rephrase the main findings.

Do not forget to find a free sample in our collection and get the best ideas for your essay!

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• Jean-Paul Sartre’s Views on Freedom For example, to Sartre, a prisoner of war is free, existentially, but this freedom does not exist in the physical realm.
• Freedom in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” Literature Analysis In Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the main character, Nora is not an intellectual, and spends no time scouring books or libraries or trying to make sense of her situation.
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• Fighting for the Right to Choose: Students Should Have the Freedom to Pick the Courses They Want Consequently, students should be allowed to pick the subjects which they are going to study together with the main one. Thus, students should be allowed to choose the subjects they need in accordance with their […]
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• Power and Freedom in America Although it is already a given that freedom just like the concept love is not easy to define and the quest to define it can be exhaustive but at the end of the day what […]
• Freedom in Antebellum America: Civil War and Abolishment of Slavery The American Civil War, which led to the abolishment of slavery, was one of the most important events in the history of the United States.
• “Gladiator” by Ridley Scott: Freedom and Affection This desire to be free becomes the main motive of the film, as the plot follows Maximus, now enslaved, who tries to avenge his family and the emperor and regain his liberty.
• Personal Freedom in A Doll’s House, A Room of One’s Own, and Diary of a Madman In Chapter Three of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, the protagonist attempts to make sense of the nonsensical elements of female history, namely, how it could be that “in Athena’s city, where women […]
• Four Freedoms by President Roosevelt Throughout the discussion we shall elaborate the four freedoms in a broader way for better understating; we shall also describe the several measures that were put in place in order to ensure the four freedoms […]
• Satre human freedom Sartre continues to explain that freedom is the central factor in human beings and it is permanently connected to the “for-itself” or consciousness. In the end, Sartre’s definition of freedom is that it is the […]
• Freedom and the Role of Civilization The achievements demonstrated by Marx and Freud play a significant role in the field of sociology and philosophy indeed; Marx believed in the power of labor and recognized the individual as an integral part of […]
• Women and Freedom in “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin She is best known for her recurrent theme on the status of women in societal affairs, the challenges and problems facing them as well as repression and gender bias.”The story of an hour” is rhetorically […]
• Nelson Mandela “Freedom in Africa” For example, the struggle for freedom in South Africa is one of the best examples of freedom in Africa so far.
• Review of “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” From the youth, Mandela started to handle the unfairness of isolation and racial relations in South Africa. In Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, Chadwick’s masterful screen memoir of Nelson Mandela passes on the anguish as […]
• Is the Good Life Found in Freedom? Example of Malala Yousafzai The story of Malala has shown that freedom is crucial for personal happiness and the ability to live a good life.
• Freedom of Speech in China and Political Reform Although the constitution of China has the provision of the freedom of speech, association, press and even demonstration, the freedom is not there in reality since the constitution forbids the undertaking of anything that is […]
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• Chapters 4-6 of ”From Slavery to Freedom” by Franklin & Higginbotham At the same time, the portion of American-born slaves was on the increase and contributed to the multiracial nature of the population.
• Freedom of Expression in the Classroom The NEA Code of Ethics establishes a link between this Freedom and a teacher’s responsibilities by requiring instructors to encourage “independent activity in the pursuit of learning,” provide “access to diverse points of view,” and […]
• Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus An annotated version of “Protecting Freedom of Expression on the Campus” by Derek Bok in The Boston Globe.*and these stars are where I have a question or opinion on a statement* For several years, universities […]
• Freedom, Equality & Solidarity by Lucy Parsons In the lecture and article ‘The Principles of Anarchism’ she outlines her vision of Anarchy as the answer to the labor question and how powerful governments and companies worked for hand in hand to stifle […]
• Art and Freedom. History and Relationship The implication of this term is that genus art is composed of two species, the fine arts, and the useful arts. This, according to Cavell, is the beauty of art.
• Human Freedom: Liberalism vs Anarchism It is impoverished because liberals have failed to show the connection between their policies and the values of the community. More fundamentally, however, a policy formulated in such a way that it is disconnected from […]
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• The meaning of freedom today In order to come up with an agreeable and logical definition of freedom as it is in the contemporary society, people have critically analyzed the input of these philosophers and their definition of freedom in […]
• Concept of Individual Freedom Rousseau and Mill were political philosophers with interest in understanding what entailed individual freedom. This paper compares Rousseau’s idea of individual freedom with Mill’s idea.
• Predetermination and Freedom of Choice We assume that every happens because of a specific reason and that the effects of that event can be traced back to the cause.
• Freedom and Social Justice Through Technology These two remarkable minds have made significant contributions to the debates on technology and how it relates to liberty and social justice.
• Balancing Freedom of Speech and Responsibility in Online Commenting The article made me perceive the position of absolute freedom of speech in the Internet media from a dual perspective. This desire for quick attention is the creation of information noise, distracting from the user […]
• The Effect of Emotional Freedom Techniques on Nurses’ Stress The objectives for each of the three criteria are clearly stated, with the author explaining the aims to the reader well throughout the content in the article’s title, abstract, and introduction.
• The Freedom Summer Project and Black Studies The purpose of this essay is to discuss to which degree the story of the Freedom Summer project illustrates the concepts of politics outlined in Karenga’s book Introduction to black studies.
• Democracy: The Influence of Freedom Democracy is the basis of the political systems of the modern civilized world. Accordingly, the democracy of Athens was direct that is, without the choice of representatives, in contrast to how it is generated nowadays.
• Freedom of Speech as a Basic Human Right Restricting or penalizing freedom of expression is thus a negative issue because it confines the population of truth, as well as rationality, questioning, and the ability of people to think independently and express their thoughts.
• Kantian Ethics and Causal Law for Freedom The theory’s main features are autonomy of the will, categorical imperative, rational beings and thinking capacity, and human dignity. The theory emphasizes not on the actions and the doers but the consequences of their effects […]
• Principles in M. L. King’s Quest for African American Freedom The concept of a nonviolent approach to the struggles for African American freedom was a key strategy in King’s quest for the liberation of his communities from racial and social oppressions.
• Technology Revolutionizing Ethical Aspects of Academic Freedom As part of the solution, the trends in technology are proposed as a potential solution that can provide the necessary support to improve the freedom of expression as one of the ethical issues that affect […]
• The Journey Freedom Tour 2022 Performance Analysis Arnel Pineda at age 55 keeps rocking and hitting the high notes and bringing the entire band very successfully all through their live concert tour.
• Freedom of Speech and Propaganda in School Setting One of the practical solutions to the problem is the development and implementation of a comprehensive policy for balanced free speech in the classroom.
• Twitter and Violations of Freedom of Speech and Censorship The sort of organization that examines restrictions and the opportunities and challenges it encounters in doing so is the center of a widely acknowledged way of thinking about whether it is acceptable to restrict speech.
• Freedom of the Press and National Security Similarly, it concerns the freedom of the press of the media, which are protected in the United States of America by the First Amendment.
• The Views on the Freedom from Fear in the Historical Perspective In this text, fear is considered in the classical sense, corresponding to the interpretation of psychology, that is, as a manifestation of acute anxiety for the inviolability of one’s life.
• Freedom of Speech in Social Networks The recent case of blocking the accounts of former US President Donald Trump on Twitter and Facebook is explained by the violation of the rules and conditions of social platforms.
• Emotion and Freedom in 20th-Century Feminist Literature The author notes that the second layer of the story can be found in the antagonism between the “narrator, author, and the unreliable protagonist”.
• Analysis of UK’s Freedom of Information Act 2000 To preserve potentially disruptive data that must not be released to the public, the FOIA integrates several provisions that allow the officials to decline the request for information without suffering possible consequences.
• Fight for Freedom, Love Has No Labels, and Ad Council: Key Statement The most important part of the message, to me, is the fact that the freedoms mentioned in the PSA are not available to every American citizen, despite America being the land of freedom.
• Teachers’ Freedom of Speech in Learning Institutions The judiciary system has not clearly defined the limits of the First Amendment in learning institutions, and it’s a public concern, especially from the teachers.
• Is There Press Freedom in Modern China? There is a large body of literature in the field of freedom of the press investigations, media freedom in China, and press freedom and human rights studies.
• Freedom of the Press in the Context of UAE It gives the people the ability to understand the insight of the government and other crucial activities happening within the country.
• Freedom of the Press in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) According to oztunc & Pierre, the UAE is ranked 119 in the global press freedom data, classifying the country as one of the most suppressive regarding the liberty of expression.
• Mill’s Thesis on the Individual Freedom The sphere of personal freedom is an area of human life that relates to the individual directly. The principle of state intervention is that individuals, separately or collectively, may have the right to interfere in […]
• Privacy and Freedom of Speech of Companies and Consumers At the same time, in Europe, personal data may be collected following the law and only with the consent of the individuals.
• Expansion of Freedom and Slavery in British America The settlement in the city of New Plymouth was founded by the second, and it laid the foundation for the colonies of New England.
• Power, Property, and Freedom: Bitcoin Discourse In the modern world, all people have the right to freedom and property, but not all have the power to decide who may have this freedom and property.
• Religious Freedom Policy Evaluation Ahmed et al.claim that the creation of the ecosystem can facilitate the change as the members of the community share their experiences and learn how to respond to various situations.
• The Concepts of Freedom and the Great Depression Furthermore, blacks were elected to construct the constitution, and black delegates fought for the rights of freedpeople and all Americans. African-Americans gained the freedom to vote, work, and be elected to government offices during Black […]
• Freedom of Choices for Women in Marriage in “The Story of an Hour” The story describes the sentiments and feelings of Louisa Mallard when she learns the news about her husband. The readers can see the sudden reaction of the person to the demise of her significant other.
• Freedom of Speech in Shouting Fire: Stories From the Edge of Free Speech Even though the First Amendment explicitly prohibits any laws regarding the freedom of speech, Congress continues to make exceptions from it.
• Personal Freedom: The Importance in Modern Society To show my family and friends how important they are to me, I try contacting them more often in the way they prefer.
• Economic Freedom and Its Recent Statements Economic freedom is an important indicator and benchmark for the level of income of companies or individual citizens of a country.
• The Freedom Concept in Plato’s “Republic” This situation shows that the concept of democracy and the freedom that correlates with it refers to a flawed narrative that liberty is the same as equality.
• Freedom of Speech as the Most Appreciated Liberty In the present-day world, the progress of society largely depends on the possibility for people to exercise their fundamental rights. From this perspective, freedom of speech is the key to everyone’s well-being, and, in my […]
• The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom In the introductory part of the book, the author discusses his main theses concerning the link between the development of networks and shifts in the economy and society.
• Freedom of Association for Radical Organizations This assertion is the primary and fundamental argument in the debate on this topic – radical groups should not use freedom of association to harm other people potentially.
• Freedom of Expression on the Internet Randall describes the challenges regarding the freedom of speech raised by the Internet, such as anonymity and poor adaptation of mass communication to the cyber environment.
• Black Sexual Freedom and Manhood in “For Colored Girls” Movie Despite the representation of Black sexual freedoms in men and women and Black manhood as a current social achievement, For Colored Girls shows the realities of inequality and injustice, proving womanism’s importance in America.
• Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom Review He criticizes that in spite of the perceived knowledge he was getting as a slave, this very light in the form of knowledge “had penetrated the moral dungeon”.
• The Essence of Freedom of Contract The legal roots of the notion of freedom of contract are manifested in the ideals of liberalism and theoretical capitalism, where the former values individual freedom and the latter values marker efficiency and effectiveness.
• Why Defamation Laws Must Prioritize Freedom of Speech The body of the essay will involve providing information on the nature of defamation laws in the USA and the UK, the implementation of such laws in the two countries, and the reason why the […]
• Pettit’s Conception of Freedom as Anti-Power According to Savery and Haugaard, the main idea that Pettit highlights in this theory is the notion that the contrary to freedom is never interference as many people claim, but it is slavery and the […]
• Domination in the Discussion of Freedom For this reason, the principle of anti-power should be considered as the position that will provide a better understanding of the needs of the target population and the desirable foreign policy to be chosen.
• Freedom or Security: Homeland Issues In many ways, the author sheds light on the overreactions or inadequate responses of the US government, which led to such catastrophes as 9/11 or the war in Iraq.
• War on Terror: Propaganda and Freedom of the Press in the US There was the launching of the “Center for Media and Democracy”, CMD, in the year 1993 in order to create what was the only public interest at that period. There was expansive use of propaganda […]
• The Freedom of Expression and the Freedom of Press It is evident that the evolution of standards that the court has adopted to evaluate the freedom of expression leaves a lot to be desired. The court has attempted to define the role of the […]
• Information and Communication Technology & Economic Freedom in Islamic Middle Eastern Countries This is a unique article as it gives importance to the role ecommerce plays in the life of the educationists and students and urges that the administrators are given training to handle their students in […]
• The Path to Freedom of Black People During the Antebellum Period In conclusion, the life of free blacks in 19th century America was riddled with hindrances that were meant to keep them at the bottom of society.
• Civil Rights Movement: Fights for Freedom The Civil Rights Movement introduced the concept of black and white unification in the face of inequality. Music-related to justice and equality became the soundtrack of the social and cultural revolution taking place during the […]
• Voices of Freedom: Lincoln, M. L. King, Kirkaldy He was named after his grandfather Abraham Lincoln, the one man that was popular for owning wide tracks of land and a great farmer of the time.
• Freedom: Malcolm X’s vs. Anna Quindlen’s Views However, in reality, we only have the freedom to think whatever we like, and only as long as we know that this freedom is restricted to thought only.
• Net Neutrality: Freedom of Internet Access In the principle of Net neutrality, every entity is entitled access and interaction with other internet users at the same cost of access.
• The Golden Age of Youth and Freedom However, it is interesting to compare it to the story which took place at the dawn of the cultural and sexual revolution in Chinese society.
• Academic Freedom: A Refuge of Intellectual Individualism Also known as intellectual, scientific or individual freedom, academic freedom is defined as the freedom of professionals and students to question and to propose new thoughts and unpopular suggestions to the government without jeopardizing their […]
• The Literature From Slavery to Freedom Its main theme is slavery but it also exhibits other themes like the fight by Afro-Americans for freedom, the search for the identity of black Americans and the appreciation of the uniqueness of African American […]
• John Stuart Mill on Freedom in Today’s Perspective The basic concept behind this rose because it was frustrating in many cases in the context of the penal system and legislation and it was viewed that anything less than a capital punishment would not […]
• Conformity Versus Freedom at University To the author, this is objectionable on the grounds that such a regimen infringes on the freedom of young adults and that there is much to learn outside the classroom that is invaluable later in […]
• US Citizens and Freedom As an example of freedom and obtaining freedom in the US, the best possible subject would be the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, particularly during 1963-64, as this would serve as the conceptual and […]
• Value of Copyright Protection in Relation to Freedom of Speech The phrase, freedom of expression is often used to mean the acts of seeking, getting, and transfer of information and ideas in addition to verbal speech regardless of the model used. It is therefore important […]
• Social Factors in the US History: Respect for Human Rights, Racial Equality, and Religious Freedom The very first years of the existence of the country were marked by the initiatives of people to provide as much freedom in all aspects of social life as possible.
• Freedom of Speech and the Internet On the one hand, the freedom of expression on the internet allowed the general public to be informed about the true nature of the certain events, regardless of geographical locations and restrictions.
• Freedom Definition Revision: Components of Freedom That which creates, sustains, and maintains life in harmony with the natural cycles of this planet, doing no harm to the ecology or people of the Earth- is right.
• Freedom of Information Act in the US History According to the legislation of the United States, official authorities are obliged to disclose information, which is under control of the US government, if it is requested by the public.
• Media Freedom in the Olympic Era The Chinese government is heavily involved in the affairs of the media of that country. In the past, it was the responsibility of government to fund media houses however; today that funding is crapped off.
• Managing the Internet-Balancing Freedom and Regulations The explosive growth in the usage of Internet forms the basis of new digital age. Aim of the paper is to explore the general role of internet and its relationship with the society.
• Ways Liberals Define Freedom Liberals are identified by the way they value the freedom of individuals, freedom of markets, and democratic freedoms. The term freedom is characterized by Liberals as they use it within the context of the relationship […]
• Balance of Media Censorship and Press Freedom Government censorship means the prevention of the circulation of information already produced by the official government There are justifications for the suppression of communication such as fear that it will harm individuals in the society […]
• Boredom and Freedom: Different Views and Links Boredom is a condition characterized by low levels of arousal as well as wandering attention and is normally a result of the regular performance of monotonous routines.
• The Idea of American Freedom Such implications were made by the anti-slavery group on each occasion that the issue of slavery was drawn in the Congress, and reverberated wherever the institution of slavery was subjected to attack within the South.
• Liberal Definition of Freedom Its origins lie in the rejection of the authoritarian structures of the feudalistic order in Europe and the coercive tendencies and effects of that order through the imposition of moral absolutes.
• Newt Gingrich Against Freedom of Speech According to the constitution, the First Amendment is part of the United States Bill of rights that was put in place due to the advocation of the anti-federalists who wanted the powers of the federal […]
• Freedom is One of the Most Valuable Things to Man Political philosophers have many theories in response to this and it is necessary to analyze some of the main arguments and concepts to get a clearer idea of how to be more precise about the […]
• The Enlightment: The Science of Freedom In America, enlightment resulted to the formation of the American Revolution in the form of resistance of Britain imperialism. In the United States of America, enlightment took a more significant form as demonstrated by the […]
• Determinism and Freedom in the movie ‘Donnie Darko’ The term determinism states, the all the processes in the world are determined beforehand, and only chosen may see or determine the future.
• Spinoza’ Thoughts on Human Freedom The human being was once considered of as the Great Amphibian, or the one who can exclusively live in the two worlds, a creature of the physical world and also an inhabitant of the spiritual, […]
• Political Freedom According to Machiavelli and Locke In this chapter, he explains that “It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than […]
• Freedom From Domination: German Scientists’ View He made the greatest ever attempt to unify the country, as Western Europe was divided into lots of feudal courts, and the unification of Germany led to the creation of single national mentality and appearing […]
• The Freedom of Speech: Communication Law in US By focusing on the on goings in Guatemala, the NYT may have, no doubt earned the ire of the Bush administration, but it is also necessary that the American people are made aware of the […]
• Freedom of Speech and Expression in Music Musicians are responsible and accountable for fans and their actions because in the modern world music and lyrics become a tool of propaganda that has a great impact on the circulation of ideas and social […]
• American Vision and Values of Political Freedom The significance of the individual and the sanctity of life were all central to the conceptions of Plato, Aristotle, or Cicero.
• Democracy and Freedom in Pakistan Pakistan lies in a region that has been a subject of worldwide attention and political tensions since 9/11. US influence in politics, foreign and internal policies of Pakistan has always been prominent.
• Spanish-American War: The Price of Freedom He was also the only person in the history of the United States to have attained the rank of Admiral of the Navy, the most senior rank in the United States Navy.
• Male Dominance as Impeding Female Sexual Freedom Therefore, there is a need to further influence society to respect and protect female sexuality through the production of educative materials on women’s free will.
• Interrelation and Interdependence of Freedom, Responsibility, and Accountability Too much responsibility and too little freedom make a person unhappy. There must be a balance between freedom and responsibility for human happiness.
• African American History: The Struggle for Freedom The history of the Jacksons Rainbow coalition shows the rise of the support of the African American politicians in the Democratic party.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Definition of Freedom The case of Nicola Sacco can be seen as the starting point of the introduction of Roosevelt’s definition of freedom as liberty for all American citizens.
• Freedom of Speech and International Relations The freedom of speech or the freedom of expression is a civil right legally protected by many constitutions, including that of the United States, in the First Amendment.
• Canada in Freedom House Organization’s Rating The Freedom in the World Reports are most notable because of their contribution to the knowledge about the state of civil and political liberties in different countries, ranking them from 1 to 7.
• Philosophy of Freedom in “Ethics” by Spinoza Thus, the mind that is capable of understanding love to God is free because it has the power to control lust.
• Slavery Abolition and Newfound Freedom in the US One of the biggest achievements of Reconstruction was the acquisition of the right to vote by Black People. Still, Black Americans were no longer forced to tolerate inhumane living conditions, the lack of self-autonomy, and […]
• Japanese-American Internment: Illusion of Freedom The purpose of this paper is to analyze the internment of Japanese-Americans in Idaho as well as events that happened prior in order to understand how such a violation of civil rights came to pass […]
• The Existence of Freedom This paper assumes that it is the cognizance of the presence of choices for our actions that validates the existence of free will since, even if some extenuating circumstances and influences can impact what choice […]
• Philosophy, Ethics, Religion, Freedom in Current Events The court solely deals with acts of gross human rights abuses and the signatory countries have a statute that allows the accused leaders to be arrested in the member countries.
• Mill’s Power over Body vs. Foucault’s Freedom John Stuart Mill’s view of sovereignty over the mind and the body focuses on the tendency of human beings to exercise liberalism to fulfill their self-interest.
• Rousseau’s vs. Confucius’ Freedom Concept Similarly, the sovereignty of a distinctive group expresses the wholeness of its free will, but not a part of the group.
• The Importance of Freedom of Speech In a bid to nurture the freedom of speech, the United States provides safety to the ethical considerations of free conversations.
• Slavery and Freedom: The American Paradox Jefferson believed that the landless laborers posed a threat to the nation because they were not independent. He believed that if Englishmen ruled over the world, they would be able to extend the effects of […]
• Freedom in the Workplace of American Society In the workplace, it is vital to implement freedom-oriented policies that would address the needs of each employee for the successful performance of the company which significantly depends on the operation of every participant of […]
• 19th-Century Marxism with Emphasis on Freedom As the paper reveals through various concepts and theories by Marx, it was the responsibility of the socialists and scientists to transform the society through promoting ideologies of class-consciousness and social action as a way […]
• Political Necessity to Safeguard Freedom He determined that the existence of the declared principles on which the fundamental structure of equality is based, as well as the institutions that monitor their observance, is the critical prerequisite for social justice and […]
• Aveo’s Acquisition of Freedom Aged Care Portfolio The mode of acquisition points to the possibility that Freedom used the White Knight defense mechanism when it approached the Aveo group.
• Aveo Group’s Acquisition of Freedom Aged Care Pty Ltd The annual report of AVEO Group indicated that the company acquired Freedom Aged Care based on its net book value. It implies that the Aveo Group is likely to achieve its strategic objectives through the […]
• Freedom Hospital Geriatric Patient Analysis The importance of statistics in clinical research can be explained by a multitude of factors; in clinical management, it is used for monitoring the patients’ conditions, the quality of health care provided, and other indicators.
• Hegel and Marx on Civil Society and Human Freedom First of all, the paper will divide the concepts of freedom and civil society in some of the notions that contribute to their definitions.
• Individual Freedom: Exclusionary Rule The exclusionary rule was first introduced by the US Supreme Court in 1914 in the case of Weeks v.the United States and was meant for the application in the federal courts only, but later it […]
• History of American Conceptions and Practices of Freedom The government institutions and political regimes have been accused of allowing amarginalisation’ to excel in the acquisition and roles assigned to the citizens of the US on the basis of social identities.
• Canada’s Freedom of Speech and Its Ineffectiveness In the developed societies of the modern world, it is one of the major premises that freedom of expression is the pivotal character of liberal democracy.
• Freedom and Liberty in American Historical Documents The 1920s and the 1930s saw particularly ardent debates on these issues since it was the time of the First World War and the development of the American sense of identity at the same time.
• Anglo-American Relations, Freedom and Nationalism Thus, in his reflection on the nature of the interrelations between two powerful empires, which arose at the end of the 19th century, the writer argues that the striving of the British Empire and the […]
• American Student Rights and Freedom of Speech As the speech was rather vulgar for the educational setting, the court decided that the rights of adults in public places cannot be identic to those the students have in school.
• Freedom of Speech in Modern Media At the same time, the bigoted approach to the principles of freedom of speech in the context of the real world, such as killing or silencing journalists, makes the process of promoting the same values […]
• Singapore’s Economic Freedom and People’s Welfare Business freedom is the ability to start, operating and closing a business having in mind the necessary regulations put by the government.
• “Advancing Freedom in Iraq” by Steven Groves The aim of the article is to describe the current situation in Iraq and to persuade the reader in the positive role of the U.S.authorities in the promoting of the democracy in the country.
• Freedom: Definition, Meaning and Threats The existence of freedom in the world has been one of the most controversial topics in the world. As a result, he suggests indirectly that freedom is found in the ability to think rationally.
• Expression on the Internet: Vidding, Copyright and Freedom It can be defined as the practice of creating new videos by combining the elements of already-existing clips. This is one of the reasons why this practice may fall under the category of fair use.
• Doha Debate and Turkey’s Media Freedom He argued that the Turkish model was a work in progress that could be emulated by the Arab countries not only because of the freedom that the government gave to the press, but also the […]
• Mandela’s Leadership: Long Walk to Freedom The current paper analyses the effectiveness of leadership with reference to Nelson Mandela, the late former president of South Africa, as depicted in the movie, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
• The Pursuit of Freedom in the 19th Century Britain The ambition to improve one’s life was easily inflated by the upper grade that focused on dominating the system at the expense of the suffering majority.
• The Story of American Freedom The unique nature of the United States traces its history to the formation of political institutions between 1776 and 1789, the American Revolution between 1776 and 1783 and the declaration of independence in 1776. Additionally, […]
• Military Logistics in Operation “Iraqi Freedom” It was also very easy for the planners to identify the right amount of fuel needed for distribution in the farms, unlike other classes of supply which had a lot of challenges. The soldiers lacked […]
• The Freedom of Information Act
• The United States Role in the World Freedom
• Fighting Terrorism: “Iraqi Freedom” and “Enduring Freedom”
• Freedom of Speech: Julian Assange and ‘WikiLeaks’ Case
• Do Urban Environments Promote Freedom?
• Claiming the Freedom to Shape Politics
• US Progress in Freedom, Equality and Power Since Civil War
• Thomas Jefferson’s Views on Freedom of Religion
• Religious Freedom and Labor Law
• Gilded Age and Progressive Era Freedom Challenges
• Philosophical Approach to Freedom and Determinism
• The Life of a Freedom Fighter in Post WWII Palestine
• Fighting for Freedom of American Identity in Literature
• “Human Freedom and the Self” by Roderick Chisholm
• Philosophy of Freedom in “The Apology“
• Philosophy in the Freedom of Will by Harry Frankfurt
• Advertising and Freedom of Speech
• How the Law Limits Academic Freedom?
• The Issue of American Freedom in Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”
• The Jewish Freedom Fighter Recollection
• Kuwait’s Opposition and the Freedom of Expression
• Abraham Lincoln: A Legacy of Freedom
• Freedom of Speech and Expression
• Multicultural Education: Freedom or Oppression
• “The Freedom of the Streets: Work, Citizenship, and Sexuality in a Gilded Age City” by Sharon Wood
• Information Freedom in Government
• Dr.Knightly’s Problems in Academic Freedom
• Mill on Liberty and Freedom
• Texas Women University Academic Freedom
• Freedom of speech in the Balkans
• “Freedom Riders”: A Documentary Revealing Personal Stories That Reflect Individual Ideology
• Media Freedom in Japan
• Rivalry and Central Planning by Don Lavoie: Study Analysis
• Review of “Freedom Writers”
• Freedom Degree in Colonial America
• What Is ‘Liberal Representative Democracy’ and Does the Model Provide an Appropriate Combination of Freedom and Equality?
• Is the Contemporary City a Space of Control or Freedom?
• Native Americans Transition From Freedom to Isolation
• “The Weight of the Word” by Chris Berg

✍️ Freedom Essay Topics for College

• What Does Freedom Entail in the US?
• Leila Khaled: Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?
• Environmentalism and Economic Freedom
• Colonial Women’s Freedom in Society
• The S.E.C. and the Freedom of Information Act
• African Americans: A Journey Towards Freedom
• Freedom of the Press
• Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Black Freedom Movement
• Freedom of Women to Choose Abortion
• Human Freedom as Contextual Deliberation
• The Required Freedom and Democracy in Afghanistan
• PRISM Program: Freedom v. Order
• Human rights and freedoms
• Controversies Over Freedom of Speech and Internet Postings
• Gender and the Black Freedom Movement
• Culture and the Black Freedom Struggle
• Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right and the UN Declaration of Human Rights
• Hegel’s Ideas on Action, Morality, Ethics and Freedom
• The Ideas of Freedom and Slavery in Relation to the American Revolution
• Psychological Freedom
• The Freedom Concept
• Free Exercise Clause: Freedom and Equality
• Television Effects & Freedoms
• Government’s control versus Freedom of Speech and Thoughts
• Freedom of Speech: Exploring Proper Limits
• Freedom of the Will
• Women in Early America: Struggle, Survival, and Freedom in a New World
• Benefits of Post 9/11 Security Measures Fails to Outway Harm on Personal Freedom and Privacy
• Civil Liberties: Freedom of the Media
• Human Freedom and Personal Identity
• Freedom of Religion in the U.S
• Freedom of Speech, Religion and Religious Tolerance
• Why Free Speech Is An Important Freedom
• The meaning of the word “freedom” in the context of the 1850s!
• American History: Freedom and Progress
• The Free Exercise Thereof: Freedom of Religion in the First Amendment
• Twilight: Freedom of Choices by the Main Character
• Frank Kermode: Timelessness and Freedom of Expression
• What Is the Relationship Between Personal Freedom and Democracy?
• How Does Religion Limit Human Freedom?
• What Is the Relationship Between Economic Freedom and Fluctuations in Welfare?
• How Effectively the Constitution Protects Freedom?
• Why Should Myanmar Have Similar Freedom of Speech Protections to the United States?
• Should Economics Educators Care About Students’ Academic Freedom?
• Why Freedom and Equality Is an Artificial Creation Created?
• How the Attitudes and Freedom of Expression Changed for African Americans Over the Years?
• What Are the Limits of Freedom of Speech?
• How Far Should the Right to Freedom of Speech Extend?
• Is There a Possible Relationship Between Human Rights and Freedom of Expression and Opinion?
• How Technology Expanded Freedom in the Society?
• Why Did Jefferson Argue That Religious Freedom Is Needed?
• How the Civil War Sculpted How Americans Viewed Their Nation and Freedom?
• Should Society Limit the Freedom of Individuals?
• Why Should Parents Give Their Children Freedom?
• Was Operation Iraqi Freedom a Legitimate and Just War?
• Could Increasing Political Freedom Be the Key To Reducing Threats?
• How Does Financial Freedom Help in Life?
• What Are Human Rights and Freedoms in Modern Society?
• How the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom Affects the Canadian Politics?
• Why Should Schools Allow Religious Freedom?
• Does Internet Censorship Threaten Free Speech?
• How Did the American Civil War Lead To the Defeat of Slavery and Attainment of Freedom by African Americans?
• Why Are Men Willing To Give Up Their Freedom?
• How Did the Economic Development of the Gilded Age Affect American Freedom?
• Should Artists Have Total Freedom of Expression?
• How Does Democracy, Economic Freedom, and Taxation Affect the Residents of the European Union?
• What Restrictions Should There Be, if Any, on the Freedom of the Press?
• How To Achieving Early Retirement With Financial Freedom?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Chicago freedom movement (1965–1967).

The Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. , James Bevel , and Al Raby, was created to challenge systemic racial segregation and discrimination in Chicago and its suburbs. The movement, which included rallies, protest marches, boycotts, and other forms of non-violent direct action, addressed a variety of issues facing black Chicago residents, including segregated housing, educational deficiencies, income, employment, and health disparities based on racism and black community development. The Chicago Freedom Movement, the most ambitious civil rights campaign in the northern United States, lasted from mid-1965 to early 1967 and is credited with inspiring the Fair Housing Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1968.

The Chicago Campaign began in July 1965 when local civil rights groups invited Dr. King to lead demonstrations against segregation in education and housing as well as employment discrimination. Chicago activist Albert Raby, leader of the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO), asked the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to join them in a nonviolent campaign to achieve fair or open housing in the city. Community organizers pointed to Chicago’s history as one of the most racially segregated cities in the nation. Through lending discrimination and, in some instances, outright violence and intimidation, African Americans were kept out of the vast majority of predominately or all-white middle class neighborhoods in the city. Activists hoped that by changing the laws and practices to allow “open housing,” the ability of black homeowners to purchase homes in any area they could financially afford, blacks would gain access to improved housing, better schools, and greater job opportunities.

On January 7, 1966, King and the SCLC announced plans for a Chicago Freedom Movement, a campaign that marked the expansion of their civil rights activities from the South to northern cites. King and his family moved to a Chicago slum at the end of January to bring attention to housing conditions of tens of thousands of black Chicago residents while CCCO organized mass nonviolent protests in the city.

To target racial demonstration in housing and employment, SCLC launched Operation Breadbasket and placed it under the leadership of twenty-five-year-old SCLC organizer, Rev. Jesse Jackson . Operation Breadbasket targeted companies and corporations working in African American neighborhoods that nonetheless refused to hire black employees. The parallel campaigns gained momentum through boycotts, demonstrations, marches, and the race riots that erupted on Chicago’s predominately black West Side in July 1966. On August 5, 1966, during a march at Marquette Park, an all-white Chicago neighborhood, to promote open housing, black and white demonstrators were met with intense racially-fueled hostility. Bottles and bricks were thrown at them. Dr. King, leader of the march, was struck by a rock. King admitted in a post-march interview that he had seen many anti-civil rights demonstrations in the South but none that was as hostile and violent as the one he experienced in Marquette Park.

King faced the challenge of mobilizing Chicago’s diverse African American community of nearly one million people. He cautioned against further violence and worked to counter the mounting resistance of working class whites who were fearful of the impact of open housing on their neighborhoods. By August, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley sought a way to end the demonstrations. After negotiating with King and various housing boards, an agreement was announced on August 26, 1966, in which the Chicago Housing Authority promised to build public housing in predominately white areas, and the Mortgage Bankers Association agreed to make mortgages available, regardless of race or neighborhood. After the agreement was announced, some SCLC staff stayed behind to assist with the housing programs and voter registration. Dr. King stayed in Chicago until January 1967, while Jackson settled permanently in the city to lead the Chicago branch of Operation Breadbasket. In 1968 the U.S. Congress passed the 1968 Fair Housing Act, as the most direct result of the Chicago Freedom Movement.

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“Chicago Freedom Movement: Martin Luther King Jr. and The Global Freedom Struggle,”  The King Encyclopedia , https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/chicago-campaign ; “Chicago Freedom Movement,” PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/story/12_chicago.html; “Chicago Freedom Movement,” The Encyclopedia of Chicago , http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/293.html .

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After the 1960s the civil rights movement confronted new issues and forged new alliances. The new stage of struggle also saw more active coalition-building with other groups affected by discrimination and inequality. Blacks and Jews had worked together in the early postwar decades to secure anti-discrimination measures. After 1968, Blacks and Latinos and Asian Americans sometimes joined together in campaigns for substantive equal treatment and better life chances. Campuses saw “Third World Coalitions” surge in the 1970s over shared demands for ethnic studies programs and affirmative action or open admissions, for example. Mainstream civil rights groups and feminist groups supported one another’s lawsuits to end discriminatory employment and open institutions to all. Black and Puerto Rican activists built coalitions with white feminists to end the practice of sterilization abuse, which targeted women of color, and to seek a broad range of reproductive rights, including quality child care and maternal and child health care. Poor black women in the welfare rights movement, for their part, sometimes found stronger allies among liberal white women and progressive Catholics than among mainstream male-led civil rights groups fearful of being associated with unmarried mothers seeking better public assistance.

Even with the legislative victories of the 1960s, many obstacles to equality remained, especially in employment and housing. Still, efforts to promote equity and inclusion throughout American society faced daunting road blocks, and it was clear as early as the mid-1960s that they would not be removed easily. Two and a half centuries of slavery and another hundred years of pervasive discrimination had left deep imprints on all American institutions. Every industry that employed African Americans had developed its own variant of entrenched occupational segregation. The housing markets of every major metropolitan area bore the marks of decades of restrictive covenants and real estate red-lining, and of postwar white flight to homogenous suburbs. School systems, honoring those dividing lines and funded by unequal property taxes, systematically underserved black children. In the North as well as the South, they left black youth ill-prepared for an emerging labor market that demanded ever-higher levels of education to achieve economic security. Rather, as the mechanization of southern cotton picking and demise of sharecropping led millions of migrants to head to the cities of the North and West from the 1940s through the 1960s, hopes of good jobs met the reality of vast structural unemployment due to automation and later de-industrialization, and declining urban tax bases due to suburbanization.

Economic equality lagged behind social and political equality, especially in the nation's cities. All these influences conspired, by the late twentieth century, to produce unprecedented levels of concentrated poverty in the nation’s inner cities, poverty from which escape was well-nigh impossible for most residents. The cumulative result caught the notice of growing numbers of social scientists by centuries end, who documented a vast “wealth gap” between blacks and whites. Afflicting higher earners along with the poor, it came from having been systematically cut off over generations from being able to buy homes in neighborhoods where home values appreciated. That “asset poverty,” as it came to be called, made “ self-help ,” strong as that tradition was in black history, a steep and slippery climb. Combined with harsh drug laws passed after the 1970s, all these forms of structural inequality contributed to After the 1960s a rising movement mounted a political challenge to efforts aimed at expanding equality. surging black incarceration rates that put the United States on par with some of the most repressive nations of the world in the proportion of its citizenry that lived behind bars.

The cultural impact of the civil rights movement was not fully realized until after the 1960s. The quest for self-determination and communal development that followed the legislative victories of the mid-1960s sparked tremendous cultural and intellectual creativity. The Black Arts movement produced a renaissance in literature, theater, art, music and dance. Black history became one of the most dynamic fields of U.S. history, led by scholars such as John Hope Franklin (1915-2009). Self-fashioning changed as natural “Afro” hair styles came into vogue, along with African-derived dress styles such as the dashiki and Kente cloth. In countless cities around the country, community organizers set to work, often with initial funding from Great Society programs, to alleviate poverty, fight hopelessness, and generate the power and resources for community development.

Seen in the light of all this activity, the 2008 presidential election, which surprised so many in both the U.S. and the wider world, becomes more explicable. The ongoing, if usually unheralded, activism after the mid-1960s altered American institutions and culture profoundly, even if the outcomes fell far short of the egalitarian visions those who worked so hard to produce change. Their efforts to open and transform workplaces, schools, politics, and communities had, bit by bit, opened a pathway for Barack Obama to reach the pinnacle of power, even as it was his own prodigious talent that carried him up that path to the Oval Office. His candidacy stirred deep wells of black pride and aspiration and elicited unprecedented turnout from millions of hitherto discouraged first-time voters. At the same time, tens of millions of white Americans were by then yearning for the “change” and “hope” that candidate Obama promised. They, too, worried about their and their children’s prospects in the new low-wage service-based economy, struggled to get decent health care, and sought better relations between the U.S. and the wider world. The inauguration seemed a time of widely shared national elation. Yet, when the new President set to work to bring the promised change in the form of policies such as national health care reform, he met determined resistance from the conservative movement, which now dominated the Republican Party. Indeed, by 2010, the nation faced stormy clashes as the two streams of post-1968 civil rights history met in Washington: an accomplished and enduring civil rights struggle, now joined to a wider reinvigorated liberalism, and a potent conservative power base determined to fight any equalization of the nation’s racial practices and economic policies.

Guiding Student Discussion

The post-1968 civil rights story is one of the most important—and therefore sometimes the most difficult—discussions to have with students. It involves core values and lived experience about which many adults, let alone teenagers, are not especially reflective. White students can get defensive, while black students sometimes assume they know more than they actually do about how we got to where we are. Abstract assertion on the instructor’s part (like what I’ve just done, due to space limitations) is least likely to work well in conveying the issues. Fortunately, there are excellent materials easily available for experiential learning, the kind most likely to succeed and leave a lasting imprint. There are powerful primary sources , for example, with which to bring these themes to life and enable students to engage in activities such as role play debates that build empathy and circumvent defensiveness. Films also work well. Try, for example, segments of the Eyes on the Prize II series; or At the River I Stand , about the Memphis strike; An Unlikely Friendship , about class, schooling, and community power; or Chisholm ‘72: Unbought and Unbossed , about Shirley Chisholm’s race for the presidency.

Help students see that racism is not simply a matter of individual behavior or belief. The biggest challenge is to get beyond the notion that racism is simply an individual attitudinal or ethical failing. This notion is promoted by popular culture and official ideology alike, and a big barrier to understanding. Students cannot make sense of the post-1968 history if they remain stuck in this conceptual rut. So the trick is to find ways to get them thinking in social-structural and situational terms, without losing sight of human agency. Encountering a dramatic fight over northern segregation can help, such as Dr. King’s experience in Cicero, Illinois , or exploring the housing sub plot of Lorraine Hansberry’s widely assigned Raisin in the Sun . The core conceptual task is to understand the difference between formal legal equality and substantive equal treatment. You can make a start on this by exposing the fiction that the racial divide of the North resulted from innocent de facto , as opposed to de jure , segregation. In fact, northern segregation was also created and sustained by Help students understand that racial inequality in both the North and the South was deliberately instigated and maintained. intentional policy, if in a less in-your-face manner than its southern sibling, as you can show with exercises to help students understand practices such as real estate steering , bank red-lining of black communities, school boundary gerrymandering, and white flight from racially changing neighborhoods. Once students grasp the intentional agency that produced racial inequality, they can better appreciate why the civil rights movement saw race-conscious remedies as vital, among them metropolitan busing and taxation plans, affirmative action in employment and education, and scatter-site public housing.

The achievements of the civil rights movement allowed differences among African Americans to be more freely expressed. As students reckon with the structural determinants of racial inequality, they will be better equipped to recognize the diversity among African Americans that has been such a driving feature of post-1968 history. Differences derived from class position, gender, color , political orientation and more always existed, but the civil rights victories of the 1960s freed them to be expressed more openly than ever before. Since then, we’ve seen many kinds of public clashes: black radicals arguing against black liberals; black mayors opposing strikes of city workers; black feminists challenging male domination in movement organizations; black conservatives challenging black civil rights figures; black female employees charging black male supervisors with sexual harassment; and black lesbians and gays confronting black ministers who promote homophobia.

Help students understand that the "black community" is as diverse and complex as the "white community." All students need to appreciate such intra-group differences to make sense of their world. When they speak of blacks or whites in unitary terms (as presumably all sharing the experiences and views), challenge them with contrary cases from the more complex reality until it becomes second nature to specify who exactly they are talking about when they venture generalizations. At the same time, exercises that help to explain why it is that race remains the prime determinant in how Americans vote will help students balance diversity and change with how much “race [still] matters,” in the apt phrase of Princeton philosopher Cornell West .

Scholars Debate

Because of the relative recency of these events, the books that first set the terms of debate were heavily influenced by media representations. Scholars took their cues from press coverage and from their own political inclinations, while few of the early cohort were African Americans themselves because blacks were still so poorly represented in research institutions. Accounts in this mode by Allen Matusow and Todd Gitlin established the conventional wisdom still found in most textbooks. They tell a tale of decline after the mid-1960s with Black Power—sometimes rendered as an “identity politics” break from “universalism”—featured as the culprit. It seems almost willful in its alleged destruction of a purported liberal coalition.

Over the last two decades especially, a rich literature has emerged that has undermined this interpretation among most scholars of this history, if not in the general public. First, the declension story misses the vast extent of ongoing activism after the late 1960s. It thus understates the great advances that came from black nationalism , among them the explosion of black history and African American studies. But above all, the declension story misreads the sources and dynamics of radicalization because it all but ignores the ways in which New Deal policies and labor movement practices, which benefitted many blacks along with most whites, also entrenched racial inequality in America in ways that snowballed over the decades after the 1930s. Both historians and social scientists have together revealed what has come to be called America’s “two-track welfare state”: a bifurcated structure that from the outset disproportionately benefitted white men and disadvantaged most people of color and women of all backgrounds. Ostensibly neutral policies such as wage and hour laws and Social Security thus excluded agricultural workers and domestic servants, while Federal Housing Administration mortgage insurance was unavailable in predominantly black or transitional neighborhoods. So-called “identity politics,” then, have their roots in these structures: prompted by the inequities they created, such organizing has aimed to promote, ultimately, a genuinely inclusive universalism.

One school of interpretation that synthesizes well these varied discoveries of recent scholarship is “the long civil rights movement” framework, summarized by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall in a presidential address under that title to the Organization of American Historians. As the phrase suggests, this framework draws attention to the deep earlier roots of the struggles of the 1960s in the civil rights unionism and expansive black activism of the New Deal era and World War II, as it also carries the story up to the present, well beyond the mid-1960s closure of conventional wisdom. The long movement literature draws attention to how racial inequality was built into the workings of the U.S. labor market and social policy, and highlights enduring conservative resistance to social democracy and racial inclusion alike. Two historians, Sundiata Cha-Jua and Clarence Lang, have criticized the long civil rights movement framework, arguing that it understates rupture over time, the distinctiveness of the South, and the clashes among different streams of black politics. Yet at the time of this writing, growing numbers of scholars seem to be embracing and refining the long civil rights movement approach, because they find in it a strong conceptual handle for the complex story of an evolving and internally varied movement that stretches back at least until the late 1930s and far beyond the 1960s. Indeed, that framework, better than any other, explains both the election of Barack Obama and the tough challenges he faced in governing a starkly polarized nation that had yet to take to heart Dr. King’s admonition that “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.”

Nancy MacLean was a Fellow at the National Humanities Center in 2008-09. She holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is currently Peter B. Ritzma Professor of History and African American Studies at Northwestern University. MacLean is the author of Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (1994); Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (2006); The American Women’s Movement, 1945-2000: A Brief History with Documents (2008); and, with Donald T. Critchlow, Debating the Conservative Movement: 1945 to the Present (2009).

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To cite this essay: MacLean, Nancy. “The Civil Rights Movement: 1968—2008.” Freedom’s Story, TeacherServe©. National Humanities Center. DATE YOU ACCESSED ESSAY. <https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/freedom/1917beyond/essays/crm2008.htm>

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The Indian Freedom Movement Essay Example

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Armed Forces , Freedom , War , World , India , Army , Democracy , England

Words: 1200

Published: 06/02/2021

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Introduction

The Indian Freedom movement, is epochal and has probably set a tone for resistance movements across the world. The passivity and non-violence principles including those of paining self in form of going without food for days has set a trend in resistance movements. Truth, honesty, simplicity and dedication were the hallmark of the Indian independence movement. It is strongly believed across the world and definitely in India that it was the dedication of Mahatma Gandhi and the other freedom fighters that led to the freedom of the nation.

There were many others who contributed to the freedom struggle across the nation – Tipu Sultan, Jhansi Laxmi Bhai, Subash Chandra Bose, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Chandra Sekhar Azad and many more whose names have been etched permanently in history. The struggle for freedom was a mass movement, everyone across all the sections of the society participated in this movement. Governance became difficult. The complete governance system broke down. The rulers no longer trusted their own native employees in the police force and the armed forces. Their allegiance to the Throne was questionable. The rulers were no longer in a position to be sure of their orders being diligently executed. All this was created as a result of the pressure exerted by the leadership of Congress, Mahatma Gandhi and other stalwart leaders.

The belief in the Indian sub-continent is that the freedom was earned and rightfully so due to the long and sustained passive freedom struggle. The police batons were quietly borne, blood was shed but not a single stone was thrown. There were macabre incidents like the Jalianwala Bagh, where ruthless General Dyer ordered incessant firing on thousands of innocents. Hundreds died, many more perished, yet there was no retaliation. How much can a perpetrator inflict on innocents? Would it be a repeat of the gas chambers or something close to it? The rulers were human too and they relented and that is what is being believed.

The freedom struggle was far more than mere political struggle, it transformed into a social struggle too. What started as a mere trade relationship, got entrenched too deeply into the internal affairs of the country. By the 1920s the national movement became heated and aggressive. Moderation was not looked kindly to. Gandhiji offered alternate thoughts on the struggle – Non-cooperation movement, Civil Disobedience movement and the Quit India movement. It was during this time that the Muslim League formed out of fear that a free India would have Hindus at the helm of affairs and that they would neglect the welfare of the Muslims. Indian sepoys participated in the World War II in support of the British Army. Did the Second World War influence Indian Independence?

The II World War completed destroyed the economies of the warring countries. The British forces were so completely destroyed and the war had such a ravaging effect on the British that they were barely able to maintain the armed forces. This made them ineffective in their ability to maintain power in the colonies and put down the resistance movements and freedom struggle. This pushed British towards leaving their colonies.

The Cripps mission of 1942 was a clever ploy by Chruchill to buy more time and assuage the anti-colonial feelings in the United States. There was a feeling of a sense of loss of imperialism. The administrators were no longer motivated to create newer ways of maintaining command and control. The Viceroy Wavell said that the town was lost to opponents and the countryside had slipped away like the proverbial sand from the fingers. And finally Wavell reported to the masters back home that India had become “ungovernable.” It is also said Gandhi had no idea of how to bring about Indian independence. In 1927 Madras Congress Session, Nehru and Subash Chandra Bose brought a resolution declaring complete Indian independence, this was later modified to appease Gandhiji requesting a dominion status in the following plenary session in 1928 in Calcutta. So the question that raises its ugly head is whether Gandhiji can be fully credited of brining freedom to the nation. Subash Chandra Bose said, “I began to heap question upon questionThe reply to the first question satisfied meHis reply to the second question was disappointing and his reply to the third question was no betterMy reason told me clearlythat there was a deplorable lack of clarity in the plan which the Mahatma had formulated and that he himself had no clear idea of the successive stages of the campaign which would bring India to her cherished goal of freedom..”

The British Prime Minister Clement Atlee when granting the independence went on record saying that the Gandhiji’s non-violence movement had next to zero impact on the British. Is it Hitler that should be credited for the Indian Independence. So did India earn their freedom or was it given to them?

It was reported that Subash Chandra Bose had died in 1945, and many did not believe it. Bose had collaborated with the Germans and the Japanese against the British army using his own Indian Nationalist Army or the INA. At the end of the war, three officers of INA General Shah Nawaz Khan (Muslim), Colonel Prem Sehgal (Hindu) and Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon (Sikh) werer tried at the Red Fort in New Delhi for waging a war against the King Emperor. While Nehru publicly defended these three, there was a reported secret pact between Nehru, Gandhi, Mohd. Ali Jinnah and Moulana Abul Kalam Azad to hand over Subash Chandra Bose to the Britishers if he ever entered into India!

The trial being public only ensured the three major communities – Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims got together that generated unprecedented sympathy for them and also seeded the Naval Mutiny. Riots broke out all over the country. Britishers were forced to shout “Jai Hind!” The mutiny led to uprising unknown before. The soldiers rebelled against their masters. In midst of all this the main stream political leaders including Gandhi were only concerned about their hold on the masses “to see themselves being upstaged by a bunch of young upstarts with romantic patriotism in their eyes was unnerving,” and even the fact that the religion was no longer a matter of concern for an ordinary Indian was forgotten without any machination, a golden opportunity was lost. So the question remains did India get its freedom or was it given to them?

Bibliography

Hopkins, P J Cain and A G. 2002. British Imperialism 1688-2000. Harlow: Pearson Education. India Abroad (India). 1997. Netaji and Gandhi, 2 Titans of the Independence Struggle. New Delhi. India Folks. 2009. How did India get Independence? – A Brief History. 12 March. Accessed October 8, 2014. http://www.indiafolks.com/history-and-culture/how-did-india-got-independence-brief-history/. Kumar, Susmit. 2012. Hitler, NOT Gandhi, Should Be Given Credit for the Independence of India in 1947. 2012. Accessed October 8, 2014. http://www.susmitkumar.net/index.php/hitler-not-gandhi-was-the-reason-for-the-1947-indian-independence. Raj, James L. 1997. Making and unmaking of British India. Abacus.

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Essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle

Students are often asked to write an essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle

The birth of a leader.

Mahatma Gandhi was born in India in 1869. He studied law in England before returning to India. He later moved to South Africa, where he first used nonviolent resistance.

Gandhi’s Philosophy

Gandhi believed in ‘Satyagraha’, or truth-force. He thought peaceful protests were the best way to resist unfair laws. This was a new idea in the fight for freedom.

Gandhi and India’s Freedom Struggle

Gandhi returned to India in 1915. He led the Indian National Congress, guiding India towards independence. He organized nonviolent protests against British rule.

Legacy of Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s nonviolent methods inspired many, and India gained independence in 1947. His ideas continue to influence people worldwide.

250 Words Essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle

Introduction.

Mahatma Gandhi, fondly referred to as the ‘Father of the Nation,’ played an instrumental role in India’s struggle for independence. He employed non-violent civil disobedience methods, setting a unique paradigm for freedom struggles worldwide.

Non-Violent Approach

Gandhi’s primary weapon in the struggle was non-violence or ‘Ahimsa.’ His philosophy was grounded in the belief that moral superiority could not be achieved through violent means. This approach resonated with the masses and enabled widespread participation, thereby intensifying the struggle against the British Raj.

Mass Mobilization

Gandhi’s leadership was marked by his ability to mobilize the masses. His simple lifestyle and empathetic nature helped him connect with the common people. He initiated campaigns like the Non-Cooperation Movement, Civil Disobedience Movement, and Quit India Movement, which saw mass participation unprecedented in the history of the Indian freedom struggle.

Championing Swaraj

Gandhi’s concept of ‘Swaraj’ or self-rule was not just political independence but also economic and social self-reliance. He advocated for the boycott of British goods and promoted indigenous industries, enhancing India’s economic independence and providing a blueprint for post-colonial economic development.

Mahatma Gandhi’s role in India’s freedom struggle was transformative. His non-violent approach, ability to mobilize the masses, and vision for Swaraj were instrumental in shaping the course of India’s freedom struggle. His philosophies have left an indelible mark on India’s ethos and continue to inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the globe.

500 Words Essay on Role of Mahatma Gandhi in Freedom Struggle

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, famously known as Mahatma Gandhi, played a pivotal role in the Indian freedom struggle against British rule. His unique approach of ‘Satyagraha’ (insistence on truth) and ‘Ahimsa’ (non-violence) left an indelible mark on the world and significantly contributed to India’s independence.

Advent of Satyagraha

Gandhi’s principle of Satyagraha was a revolutionary method in the fight for freedom. It was a non-violent resistance against the oppressor, where the oppressed demonstrated their moral superiority. The first significant application of Satyagraha was in South Africa, where Gandhi led the Indian community against racial discrimination. This laid the foundation for his future endeavors in India.

Non-Cooperation Movement

Returning to India in 1915, Gandhi transformed the Indian National Congress from an elitist party into a mass movement. The Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-1922) was the first large-scale initiative against British rule under his leadership. Gandhi called for a complete boycott of British goods and services, which included schools, courts, and government services. The movement stirred the nation, uniting Indians across regions, religions, and classes. Despite its abrupt end due to the Chauri Chaura incident, the movement marked the beginning of a nationwide struggle for freedom.

Civil Disobedience Movement

The Civil Disobedience Movement, initiated with the Dandi March in 1930, was another milestone in India’s struggle for freedom. Gandhi and his followers marched about 240 miles from Sabarmati Ashram to the coastal village of Dandi, where they made salt, defying the British salt laws. This act was a symbolic defiance of the British monopoly and a peaceful protest against their oppressive regime.

Quit India Movement

In 1942, Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement, demanding an end to British rule in India. His call for ‘Do or Die’ resonated with the masses, leading to widespread protests across the country. The movement was a significant blow to the British, shaking the foundations of their rule in India.

Gandhi’s Philosophy and Its Impact

Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and truth was not merely a strategy for the freedom struggle, but a way of life. His principles of simplicity, self-reliance, and communal harmony continue to inspire millions around the world. His innovative methods of civil resistance have influenced numerous freedom struggles globally, including the civil rights movement in the U.S. led by Martin Luther King Jr.

Mahatma Gandhi’s role in the Indian freedom struggle was monumental. His non-violent resistance against British rule united the diverse Indian population and instilled in them a sense of national pride. His principles and methods, though criticized by some, proved to be effective in achieving India’s independence. Gandhi’s legacy continues to influence and inspire movements for civil rights and social change worldwide, making him a global icon for peace and justice.

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• Essay on My Favourite Leader Jawaharlal Nehru
• Essay on My Favourite Freedom Fighter

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Course: US history   >   Unit 8

Introduction to the civil rights movement.

• African American veterans and the Civil Rights Movement
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
• Emmett Till
• The Montgomery Bus Boycott
• "Massive Resistance" and the Little Rock Nine
• The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
• SNCC and CORE

Black Power

• The Civil Rights Movement
• The Civil Rights Movement is an umbrella term for the many varieties of activism that sought to secure full political, social, and economic rights for African Americans in the period from 1946 to 1968.
• Civil rights activism involved a diversity of approaches, from bringing lawsuits in court, to lobbying the federal government, to mass direct action, to black power.
• The efforts of civil rights activists resulted in many substantial victories, but also met with the fierce opposition of white supremacists .

The emergence of the Civil Rights Movement

Civil rights and the supreme court, nonviolent protest and civil disobedience, the unfinished business of the civil rights movement, what do you think.

• See Richard S. Newman, The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
• See C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955).
• See Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
• See Daniel Kryder, Divided Arsenal: Race and the American State during World War II (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and Stephen Tuck,  Fog of War: The Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
• See Michael J. Klarman, Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
• See Peniel E. Joseph, Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt, 2006).
• See Michael Eric Dyson, The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016).
• See Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2010).
• See Tavis Smiley, ed., The Covenant with Black America: Ten Years Later (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, Inc., 2016).

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• Freedom Fighters Essay

Introduction

The freedom of a country depends on its citizens. Individuals who selflessly sacrifice their lives so that their country and countrymen can be free are identified as freedom fighters. Every country has a few brave hearts who willingly give up their lives for their countrymen. Freedom fighters did not only fight for their country but for everyone who suffered in silence, lost their family and freedom, and even their rights to live for themselves. People of the country look up to the freedom fighters with respect for their patriotism and the love they had for their motherland. These people provide examples by which other citizens aim to live by.

For ordinary people, sacrificing their lives is a big deal but freedom fighters selflessly make this unimaginable sacrifice for their country without thinking of any repercussion. The amount of pain and hardships that they have to endure to achieve their goal cannot be described in mere words. The entire country remains forever indebted to them for their struggles.

The Influence Left by the Freedom Fighters

One can't stress enough the importance of the deeds of the freedom fighters. On every Independence Day, the country remembers the thousands who once struggled so that their countrymen could be free. Their sacrifices are never forgotten by their countrymen. 

If we delve into history, we see most freedom fighters joined the freedom struggle without prior formal training in war or related fields. They went to wars and protests knowing very well that they may get killed by the opposite power. The freedom fighters were not just people who fought with arms against the tyrants but they were people who joined protests through literature, legal advocates, people who contributed money to the freedom struggle, and so on. Most of the brave hearts led the fight against foreign powers. They made their fellow people realize their rights and pointed out all the existing social injustice and crimes committed by the ones in power. 

The most important effect that the freedom fighters left on the people of the society are that they inspired others to understand their rights and stand up against the people in power. They inspired others to join their struggle. It was because of the freedom fighters that the countrymen united with a bond of Nationalism and patriotic feelings. 

Freedom fighters are considered to be the propelling force behind the success of the freedom struggle. They are the reason why we can now prosper in a free country.

Some Noteworthy Indian Freedom Fighters

India had been under British rule for 200 years approximately. There were a lot of brave hearts who laid down their lives for the freedom of India. Within the limited scope of this essay, we will discuss the contributions made by only a few freedom fighters.

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi is known as the father of the nation. Mahatma Gandhi, the reason behind the Dandi march, led the path to freedom following the principles of ahimsa or non-violence. He prioritised ‘ swadeshi ’ and ‘non-cooperation’ to expedite the freedom movement. 

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was an excellent leader. He travelled to other countries to form alliances and formed Indian National Army (INA) or Azad Hind Fauj which eventually helped our nation prosper. He was successful in freeing a portion of the Indian Territory from British rule.

Bhagat Singh

The fearless patriot was hanged to death at a very young age after being convicted in several cases of dissent against the then British empire. He was indeed a true patriot and we still remember him as Shaheed Bhagat Sing. 

Conclusion  

Freedom fighters are the reason we live in a free country. We must honour their sacrifices and aim to live together in harmony and peace ensuring social justice. 

The motivation for today’s youth is alive in the stories of freedom fighters. The struggles of their lives show the difference in life and the dept of the value they believe in and fought for. We as a citizen of India should respect and honor the sacrifice by creating a peaceful environment in the country.

FAQs on Freedom Fighters Essay

1. What is freedom means to the people living in a country?

Freedom means to live freely without any restrictions to their values. Freedom means people can live according to their opinions, people can work according to their capabilities, there won’t be any discrimination against them by any third party. Freedom means that no one is heading any individual, or controlling them according to their needs. It also means that people can freely live their lives in their own country without any disturbance from any third party.

2. How do freedom fighters affect the independence of our country?

Our country had a huge population at the time of British rule. But then also our country was under British rule for many years. The people of our country are huge in numbers so they need leaders who lead them. These leaders of that time are the freedom fighters, who lead people to come in the majority and revolt against the British empire. Freedom fighters played the most important role to give our people the causes for the revolt.

3. How freedom fighters were brought up to become leaders at that time?

Freedom fighters had their will and the passion to fight for the country. Looking back to the days when our country was under British rule, everybody who fought for the country was not trained professionally to be a freedom fighter. They fought and made us and our country the proudest country of all. Only freedom fighters are the reason behind the freedom struggle that our ancestors faced.

4. Describe the role of Mahatma Gandhi as a freedom fighter.

Mahatma Gandhi was the backbone of the freedom fighters. He was the leader who fought on his will without any hand war. His principle of non-violence helped this country from scratch.

He believed in himself and fought against the British empire. He also owned the honor of The Father of the Nation. The father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, was the reason behind the Dandi march and other struggles.

5. What was the agenda of being independent at the time of British rule?

The agenda of becoming independent at the time of British rule was to live freely in our country without any discrimination. Our people were tortured by the British empire to the max. Our children were not allowed to attain an education. Even we in our own country were not able to live the way we want.

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Indian Freedom Fighter Struggle Essay - 100, 200, 500 Words

India is a democratic and liberal country. Citizens are expected to uphold their fundamental rights and perform their essential responsibilities. However, this country was not always like this. It was ruled by the Britishers for more than 200 years. India is a free country today because of the countless sacrifices made by the freedom fighters. It was because of their struggle, hard work and determination which made the Britishers leave India. Here are a few sample essays on ‘Indian Freedom Struggle’.

100 Words Essay on Indian Freedom Struggle

We know a lot about India's freedom struggle through books and movies. It's important to recognize the hard work and dedication that gave way to earning India's freedom. For hundreds of years, India and its men and women were colonized and ruled by the Britishers. Before that, India was divided into many princely states. Following the arrival of the Britishers, every Indian citizen, irrespective of class, caste and religion, came together to fight against the oppression. Freedom fighters such as Bhagat Singh, Rani Laxmi Bai, Mahatma Gandhi were some of the leaders who fought on the front lines. After years of struggle, India finally became independent on 15 August 1947.

200 Words Essay on Indian Freedom Struggle

The Indian freedom struggle was a long and arduous journey that lasted for nearly 2 centuries. It was a movement that brought together people from all walks of life, united in their desire for freedom from British colonial rule. The struggle for independence was a defining moment in India's history and had a profound impact on shaping the country's political and social landscape.

Causes Of Indian Freedom Struggle

The Indian freedom struggle was driven by a number of factors, including economic exploitation, political repression, and cultural oppression. The British East India Company, which controlled India's economy, had a monopoly on trade and imposed high taxes on Indian farmers and merchants, leading to widespread poverty and economic hardship.

In addition, British colonial rule was characterized by political repression and the denial of basic rights and freedoms to the Indian people. The British government imposed a number of laws, including the Indian Penal Code and the Indian Arms Act, which restricted the rights of Indians and curtailed their ability to organize and protest.

Moreover, the British colonial authorities imposed their culture and language on India, leading to a loss of national identity and cultural heritage among Indians. This cultural oppression was a major factor in the growth of Indian nationalism sentiment, which was a driving force behind the freedom struggle.

Indian Freedom Struggle Essay 500 Words

The struggle for Indian independence was a lengthy one that lasted close to 200 years. People from various walks of life joined the movement because they shared a goal to be free from British colonial authority. The fight for independence marked a turning point in Indian history and significantly influenced the political and social climate of the nation. Economic exploitation, political tyranny, and cultural oppression were some of the elements that fueled the Indian freedom struggle, and significant personalities and events were crucial to the country's march toward independence. The Indian freedom struggle is an inspiring reminder of the power of unity and determination in the face of oppression and injustice.

Key Events and Leaders

The Indian freedom struggle was a long and complex process that involved a number of key events and leaders. Some of the key events that shaped the struggle for independence include the Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny, which was the first major uprising against British rule; the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1920-22, led by Mahatma Gandhi, which aimed to achieve independence through non-violent civil disobedience; and the Quit India Movement of 1942, which sought to force the British to leave India.

Story Of Bhagat Singh

Bhagat Singh was an Indian freedom fighter who played a significant role in the Indian freedom struggle against British colonial rule. He was born in 1907 in a small village in Punjab, India, and from a young age, he was deeply influenced by the idea of freedom and the plight of the Indian people under British rule.

In 1928, Bhagat Singh and his fellow HRA members were involved in a bombing in the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi. The bombing was intended to be a symbolic act of protest against British rule and was not intended to cause harm to anyone. However, Bhagat Singh and his associates were arrested and charged with murder. During his trial, Bhagat Singh became a popular figure among the Indian people, and his speeches and writings were widely read and admired. He used his platform to call for freedom and justice for the Indian people and to denounce British colonial rule. Despite the widespread public support for Bhagat Singh, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.

He was hanged on March 23, 1931, at the young age of 24. His execution sparked widespread protests and demonstrations across India, and he became a symbol of the struggle for freedom and justice. Bhagat Singh's life and legacy continue to inspire people in India and around the world. He is remembered as a hero of the Indian freedom struggle and as a symbol of resistance against oppression and injustice. His selflessness, fearlessness, and commitment to the cause of freedom are a source of inspiration for many.

In conclusion, Bhagat Singh's story is an inspiring reminder of the power of one person to make a difference and change the course of history. He was a young man who was deeply moved by the plight of his people and was willing to sacrifice his own life for the cause of freedom. He continues to be a symbol of resistance and a source of inspiration for many.

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Civil Rights Movement

By: History.com Editors

Updated: January 22, 2024 | Original: October 27, 2009

The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War officially abolished slavery , but it didn’t end discrimination against Black people—they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, Black Americans, along with many other Americans, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades.

Jim Crow Laws

During Reconstruction , Black people took on leadership roles like never before. They held public office and sought legislative changes for equality and the right to vote.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution gave Black people equal protection under the law. In 1870, the 15th Amendment granted Black American men the right to vote. Still, many white Americans, especially those in the South, were unhappy that people they’d once enslaved were now on a more-or-less equal playing field.

To marginalize Black people, keep them separate from white people and erase the progress they’d made during Reconstruction, “ Jim Crow ” laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th century. Black people couldn’t use the same public facilities as white people, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools. Interracial marriage was illegal, and most Black people couldn’t vote because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests.

Jim Crow laws weren’t adopted in northern states; however, Black people still experienced discrimination at their jobs or when they tried to buy a house or get an education. To make matters worse, laws were passed in some states to limit voting rights for Black Americans.

Moreover, southern segregation gained ground in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Plessy v. Ferguson that facilities for Black and white people could be “separate but equal."

World War II and Civil Rights

Prior to World War II , most Black people worked as low-wage farmers, factory workers, domestics or servants. By the early 1940s, war-related work was booming, but most Black Americans weren’t given better-paying jobs. They were also discouraged from joining the military.

After thousands of Black people threatened to march on Washington to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. It opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.

Black men and women served heroically in World War II, despite suffering segregation and discrimination during their deployment. The Tuskegee Airmen broke the racial barrier to become the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps and earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Yet many Black veterans were met with prejudice and scorn upon returning home. This was a stark contrast to why America had entered the war to begin with—to defend freedom and democracy in the world.

As the Cold War began, President Harry Truman initiated a civil rights agenda, and in 1948 issued Executive Order 9981 to end discrimination in the military. These events helped set the stage for grass-roots initiatives to enact racial equality legislation and incite the civil rights movement.

On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old woman named Rosa Parks found a seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus after work. Segregation laws at the time stated Black passengers must sit in designated seats at the back of the bus, and Parks complied.

When a white man got on the bus and couldn’t find a seat in the white section at the front of the bus, the bus driver instructed Parks and three other Black passengers to give up their seats. Parks refused and was arrested.

As word of her arrest ignited outrage and support, Parks unwittingly became the “mother of the modern-day civil rights movement.” Black community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr ., a role which would place him front and center in the fight for civil rights.

Parks’ courage incited the MIA to stage a boycott of the Montgomery bus system . The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. On November 14, 1956, the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating was unconstitutional. 

Little Rock Nine

In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the United States Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education . In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas asked for volunteers from all-Black high schools to attend the formerly segregated school.

On September 4, 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine , arrived at Central High School to begin classes but were instead met by the Arkansas National Guard (on order of Governor Orval Faubus) and a screaming, threatening mob. The Little Rock Nine tried again a couple of weeks later and made it inside, but had to be removed for their safety when violence ensued.

Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and ordered federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine to and from classes at Central High. Still, the students faced continual harassment and prejudice.

Their efforts, however, brought much-needed attention to the issue of desegregation and fueled protests on both sides of the issue.

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Even though all Americans had gained the right to vote, many southern states made it difficult for Black citizens. They often required prospective voters of color to take literacy tests that were confusing, misleading and nearly impossible to pass.

Wanting to show a commitment to the civil rights movement and minimize racial tensions in the South, the Eisenhower administration pressured Congress to consider new civil rights legislation.

On September 9, 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law, the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting. It also created a commission to investigate voter fraud.

Sit-In at Woolworth's Lunch Counter

Despite making some gains, Black Americans still experienced blatant prejudice in their daily lives. On February 1, 1960, four college students took a stand against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina when they refused to leave a Woolworth’s lunch counter without being served.

Over the next several days, hundreds of people joined their cause in what became known as the Greensboro sit-ins. After some were arrested and charged with trespassing, protesters launched a boycott of all segregated lunch counters until the owners caved and the original four students were finally served at the Woolworth’s lunch counter where they’d first stood their ground.

Their efforts spearheaded peaceful sit-ins and demonstrations in dozens of cities and helped launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to encourage all students to get involved in the civil rights movement. It also caught the eye of young college graduate Stokely Carmichael , who joined the SNCC during the Freedom Summer of 1964 to register Black voters in Mississippi. In 1966, Carmichael became the chair of the SNCC, giving his famous speech in which he originated the phrase "Black power.”

Freedom Riders

On May 4, 1961, 13 “ Freedom Riders ”—seven Black and six white activists–mounted a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C. , embarking on a bus tour of the American south to protest segregated bus terminals. They were testing the 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that declared the segregation of interstate transportation facilities unconstitutional.

Facing violence from both police officers and white protesters, the Freedom Rides drew international attention. On Mother’s Day 1961, the bus reached Anniston, Alabama, where a mob mounted the bus and threw a bomb into it. The Freedom Riders escaped the burning bus but were badly beaten. Photos of the bus engulfed in flames were widely circulated, and the group could not find a bus driver to take them further. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (brother to President John F. Kennedy ) negotiated with Alabama Governor John Patterson to find a suitable driver, and the Freedom Riders resumed their journey under police escort on May 20. But the officers left the group once they reached Montgomery, where a white mob brutally attacked the bus. Attorney General Kennedy responded to the riders—and a call from Martin Luther King Jr.—by sending federal marshals to Montgomery.

On May 24, 1961, a group of Freedom Riders reached Jackson, Mississippi. Though met with hundreds of supporters, the group was arrested for trespassing in a “whites-only” facility and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP ) brought the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the convictions. Hundreds of new Freedom Riders were drawn to the cause, and the rides continued.

In the fall of 1961, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals

March on Washington

Arguably one of the most famous events of the civil rights movement took place on August 28, 1963: the March on Washington . It was organized and attended by civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph , Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.

More than 200,000 people of all races congregated in Washington, D. C. for the peaceful march with the main purpose of forcing civil rights legislation and establishing job equality for everyone. The highlight of the march was King’s speech in which he continually stated, “I have a dream…”

King’s “ I Have a Dream” speech galvanized the national civil rights movement and became a slogan for equality and freedom.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 —legislation initiated by President John F. Kennedy before his assassination —into law on July 2 of that year.

King and other civil rights activists witnessed the signing. The law guaranteed equal employment for all, limited the use of voter literacy tests and allowed federal authorities to ensure public facilities were integrated.

Bloody Sunday

On March 7, 1965, the civil rights movement in Alabama took an especially violent turn as 600 peaceful demonstrators participated in the Selma to Montgomery march to protest the killing of Black civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by a white police officer and to encourage legislation to enforce the 15th amendment.

As the protesters neared the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were blocked by Alabama state and local police sent by Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, a vocal opponent of desegregation. Refusing to stand down, protesters moved forward and were viciously beaten and teargassed by police and dozens of protesters were hospitalized.

The entire incident was televised and became known as “ Bloody Sunday .” Some activists wanted to retaliate with violence, but King pushed for nonviolent protests and eventually gained federal protection for another march.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, he took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 several steps further. The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions. 

It also allowed the attorney general to contest state and local poll taxes. As a result, poll taxes were later declared unconstitutional in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections in 1966.

Part of the Act was walked back decades later, in 2013, when a Supreme Court decision ruled that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional, holding that the constraints placed on certain states and federal review of states' voting procedures were outdated.

Civil Rights Leaders Assassinated

The civil rights movement had tragic consequences for two of its leaders in the late 1960s. On February 21, 1965, former Nation of Islam leader and Organization of Afro-American Unity founder Malcolm X was assassinated at a rally.

On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on his hotel room's balcony. Emotionally-charged looting and riots followed, putting even more pressure on the Johnson administration to push through additional civil rights laws.

Fair Housing Act of 1968

The Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968, just days after King’s assassination. It prevented housing discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion. It was also the last legislation enacted during the civil rights era.

The civil rights movement was an empowering yet precarious time for Black Americans. The efforts of civil rights activists and countless protesters of all races brought about legislation to end segregation, Black voter suppression and discriminatory employment and housing practices.

A Brief History of Jim Crow. Constitutional Rights Foundation. Civil Rights Act of 1957. Civil Rights Digital Library. Document for June 25th: Executive Order 8802: Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry. National Archives. Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-In. African American Odyssey. Little Rock School Desegregation (1957).  The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford . Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford . Rosa Marie Parks Biography. Rosa and Raymond Parks. Selma, Alabama, (Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965). BlackPast.org. The Civil Rights Movement (1919-1960s). National Humanities Center. The Little Rock Nine. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior: Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. Turning Point: World War II. Virginia Historical Society.

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• The Indian Freedom Movement

India’s independence from the British Raj can be said to be the most significant movement in its modern history. It is very important for us to know about this struggle and learn our lessons to what forms the basis of our country and even our constitution . Let us learn about Indian freedom movement.

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India’s freedom movement.

We all know the father of our nation and the leader of the Indian struggle for independence was Mahatma Gandi . It was his resilience and undeniable support of the masses he enjoyed that really made an impact in this struggle. He had a unique non-violent way to protest the British that was very effective. Let us look at some significant events that he led and which defined our struggle for independence .

Non-Cooperation Movement

It started on 1st August 1920 by Mahatma Gandhi. It was meant to be the largest civil disobedience movements of the time. People were encouraged to give up their titles and boycotting government elections , schools , colleges etc. The public also stayed away from participating in elections.

Civil Disobedience Movement

After the Non-Cooperation movement ended Gandhiji started a bigger movement, the civil disobedience movement. One of the main reasons for this movement was the monopoly the British had on salt in India. Indians were prohibited from collecting and manufacturing salt. Indians had to buy it from the British and also pay heavy tax when buying salt.

Gandhiji hence started his famous Dandi March, a 241-mile journey on foot to the salt mines in Gujarat. His one act of defiance started one of the biggest civil disobedience movements in the world.

Quit India Movement

This was one of the final straws that gave India its independence. During the World War II on the 8th of August 1942, Gandhiji and Indian National Congress launched the Quit India Movement. They had only one demand, that the British rule in India must end completely.

Although the movement itself was unsuccessful, since Winston Churchill refused to withdraw from India, it was effective in its own right. It caused the British to realize that their power in India was waning.

Some Other Significant Movements/Incidents

• Simon Commision: It was a commission to discuss the Indian Constitution. However the entire commission was made my of Englishmen, no Indian members were a part of it. Indian leaders protested with the “Simon Go Back” demonstrations
• Jallianwala Bagh massacre: This occurred on 13 April 1919. General Dyre opened fire on a crowd of unsuspecting villagers, without any notice or warning. 379 people were killed in cold blood.
• Rowlatt Act: The act allowed people to arrested only based on suspicion, without any actual proof.

Solved Examples for You

Q: Which incident caused Mahatma Gandhi to call off the Non-Cooperation movement?

• Rowlatt Act
• Dandi March
• Chauri-Chaura Riots
• None of the above

Ans: The correct answer is C. On 5 February in 1922, a group of people participating in the Non-cooperation movement were shot at by policemen. In retaliation, these protestors set fire to a police station in the area. The people inside the police station were killed as a result. Gandhiji was absolutely against violence and as a result of this incident he called off the Non-cooperation movement.

Q: Which of the following movements has its origins in Turkey?

• Non-cooperation movement
• Civil Disobedience movement
• Khilafat Movement

Ans; The correct option is D. After the world war, a Khilafa movement was started by Islam followers around the world, to encourage European powers not to dismember the Ottoman Empire. Indian Muslims to support this movement. They were upset about Britians policy and attitude towards Turkey.

Indian Muslims also started a Khilafat movement in India against the British. They even joined the Non-cooperation movement. It is the Khilafat movement which caused the Muslim population in India to become active participants in the Indian freedom movement.

Q: In which year was the Indian National Congress formed?

Ans: The correct answer is B. The Indian National Congress was actually formed by a retired British officer, A. O, Hume on the 28th December 1885. It was formed so that educated Indians could have a forum to have political discussions and debates. Then gradually the feeling of nationalism began to rise among Indians and this was reflected in the INC as well.

Then came the era of Gandhiji and his policies. The new leadership of the Congress which included Nehru, Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad etc were all followers of his policies.

Q: Which pact was an agreement to reserve electoral seats for depressed classes?

• Lucknow Pact
• Bombay Pact

Ans: The correct answer is A. The pact was an agreement between Dr Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi made on 24th September 1932. It was an agreement that the depressed classes (schedule caste, scheduled tribes) will have a separate and adequate representation in the new Indian government. It gave the depressed classes a quota of 148 electoral seats.

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Black Freedom Movement

The Black Freedom Movement is a distinct era in the African American struggle for civil and human rights that began in the mid-­1940s with a surge in public protest and ended in the mid-­1970s with a shift in emphasis toward electoral politics. It encompasses two of the most unique and enduring periods of black activism. The first is the civil rights movement, which resulted in the elimination of Jim Crow laws in the South and the upending of Jim Crow customs in the North. The second is the Black Power movement, which not only expanded on the gains of the civil rights movement but also elevated African American racial consciousness, forever changing what it meant to be black.

This essay may be found on page 22 of the printed volume.

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Essay On Freedom Struggle Of India | Indian Freedom Struggle Essay

Essay On Freedom Struggle Of India | Indian Freedom Struggle Essay Hello Friend, In this post “ Essay On Freedom Struggle Of India | Indian Freedom Struggle Essay “, We will read about the overview of the Indian Freedom Struggle as an Essay in detail. So…

Let’s Start…

Essay On Freedom Struggle Of India In 500+ Words

Introduction the indian freedom struggle has great importance in the history of india . the people of entire india fought a lot to get the country freedom from the slavery of the british..

For the sake of freedom, our great freedom fighters sacrificed their lives by laughing without worrying about their lives.

If, at that time, the countrymen had not raised their voice against the British, then perhaps even today the country would have been slavery to the British.

The Arrival Of British In India

Initially, the British came to India in the year 1600 with the objective of doing business under the name of East India Company .

Under the guise of silk, tea, and the cotton trade , he started spreading chaos in India and gradually made the country his slave.

And after that, the British took the rule of the entire country into their hands and started persecuting the Indians.

And due to this, gradually the demand for freedom started arising in the country.

The Revolt Of 1857

Fed up with the dictatorship of the British, the countrymen decided to end British rule.

And in the year 1857, the first freedom struggle was started by an Indian soldier Mangal Pandey .

This struggle was a great event against British rule.

This struggle was not accidental but a result of the discontent of the entire century. A great plan was made and implemented for this.

The revolt of 1857 which began with the revolt of military personnel in Meerut soon spread throughout India and posed a serious challenge to British rule.

Along with soldiers, common citizens, large princely states of the country also participated in this struggle.

Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi fought a glorious war against the British and led her forces.

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Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs , and all other brave sons of India fought against the British and resolved to remove British rule from the country.

This revolution was controlled by the British rule within 1 year which started in Meerut on 10 May 1857 and ended in Gwalior on 20 June 1858.

Indian Freedom Struggle During 1857-1947

The British rule gradually began to falter due to the revolution of 1857. One after the other, many movements were started against the British.

During that time, there were many such movements that played an important role in securing independence for India.

The Civil Disobedience Movement was also one of these major movements that were started against the British monopoly on salt.

It was started in 1930 under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi , which started with Gandhiji’s famous Dandi March.

Meanwhile, Bhagat Singh is hanged for his country at the age of just 23.

The death of Lala Lajpat Rai encouraged him to fight against the British.

Bhagat Singh avenged this by killing Officer John Sanders and he was also prosecuted for the Lahore Conspiracy.

And on the night of 23 March 1931, Bhagat Singh was hanged along with Sukhdev and Rajguru . After this, the Quit India Movement started in 1942.

This movement showed a ray of hope to the people of India, but despite difficult struggles, this movement was not so successful. But it shook the roots of British rule.

Similarly, many freedom fighters like Subhash Chandra Bose, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Chandrashekhar Azad, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, etc . struggled a lot to make the country independent.

Soon the British rulers signed an agreement and decided to leave India and India got independence on 15 August 1947 .

In this way, the country got independence after a stiff struggle of Indian soldiers as well as freedom fighters . And with this, many freedom fighters had sacrificed their lives.

Conclusion (Essay On Freedom Struggle Of India)

The history of the Indian freedom struggle is very vast.

Many such incidents like the Rowlatt Act, Simon Commission, Jallianwala Bagh massacre , etc  which played an important role in the independence of India.

All of us should also take inspiration from the struggle for independence and the spirit of dedication towards the country should always be kept in mind.

Thanks For Reading “ Essay On Freedom Struggle Of India | Indian Freedom Struggle Essay “.

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Essay on Indian Freedom Struggle – 100,200,500 Words

• Updated on  
• Aug 5, 2023

India was ruled by the Mughals and Britishers for many years. The British Raj lasted until August 1947. Post that, Bharat has to face the consequence of the divide-and-rule policy of the Britishers. This policy segregated the country into two parts: the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Freedom is an urge to rise up and fight against the odds to set yourself free. India has also fought courageously against the Britishers to earn Independence. Democracy and liberal feeling thriving in today’s India is the result of the Indian Freedom Struggle.

Table of Contents

• 1 What is the Indian Freedom Struggle?
• 2 Essay on Indian Freedom Struggle in 200 words
• 3.1 Major Events of the Indian Freedom Struggle

Also Read: Education and Study Abroad Journey of Mahatma Gandhi

Must Read: Significance of Independence Day

What is the Indian Freedom Struggle?

Indian Freedom Struggle was an inspiring journey for every citizen of India and it has been written in golden words in the history of India. The freedom we experience today is the courageous saga of sacrifices, relentless efforts, and unwavering determination of the freedom fighters of our land that induced the feeling of unity and strength among all the people of India. 

The Indian Freedom struggle led to a large-scale campaign which resulted in the end of British rule in India. Freedom was demanded by the Nationalists and the Congress party.

Initially, the leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Annie Besant, Dadahai Naoroji, and Gopal Krishna Gokhale raised their voices and put forward the feelings and aspirations of freedom of the Indian masses.

Mahatma Gandhi emerged as the face of the Indian Freedom Struggle and his weapon was “non-violence” which set India free from the hold of British rule.

Also Read: Revolt of 1857

Essay on Indian Freedom Struggle in 200 words

We all have heard and read a lot about India’s Freedom Struggle through books, movies, theatre, etc. Every Indian citizen experiences a feeling of pride and respect for all those freedom fighters who struggled for Indian independence . It was all initiated in the late 1800s and lasted till 1947. Later, India became a republic in 1950. Indian men and women were colonized and ruled by the Britishers. 

Despite the diversity of the country, the Indian Freedom Struggle was the result of unity. People belonging to different castes, languages, religions, and regions undividedly fought for India’s freedom selflessly. The unity eradicated the social barriers and eventually resulted in freedom for the country.

Freedom fighters like Uddham Singh, Veer Savarkar, Tantia Tope, Bhagat Singh, Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Rani Laxmi Bai and many others had devoted their lives to the motherland. 

Mahatma Gandhi introduced the concept of Satyagraha. He believed that passive resistance and civil disobedience are influential weapons to challenge the dominating Britishers. 

Acts like Quit India Movement, Non-Cooperation Movement , and Civil Disobedience Movement have united millions of Indians in a non-violent Indian Freedom struggle. 

The Indian freedom struggle not only resulted in eradicating British rule but also inspired the whole world. Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of civil disobedience and non-violence helped other freedom movements across the globe. 

Also Read: Indian National Movement

Essay on Indian Freedom Struggle in 500 words

The Indian Freedom struggle is literally a historic journey of Independence. The story of every freedom fighter of that time is so unique and inspiring that it induces a proud feeling among every citizen of India. The seeds of freedom were sown during the 19th century and it seemed like a never-ending war. During this period India witnessed many reform movements. The hard work, dedication and sacrifice of social reformers laid the groundwork for an awakened society. 

Everyone in the country followed an identical tune of independence. In 1885, the formation of INC (Indian National Congress) indicated the beginning of a collective political movement against Britishers. The country demanded “Swaraj” i.e. self-rule and it became a ringing call resonating in the heart and minds of the masses. 

Whenever we think about freedom and independence, Mahatma Gandhi will always strike us as an undisputed leader of the Indian Freedom Struggle. His philosophy of non-violence has inspired the whole world and is followed to date. He became the guiding leader who believed Satyagraha and civil disobedience as a potent weapon to fight against British authority.

Major Events of the Indian Freedom Struggle

From 1920-1922, Mahatma Gandhi led the first large-scale mass movement against the British Raj i.e. the Non-Cooperation Movement. People boycott British educational institutions, British goods, as well as Civil services etc. This movement was suspended by the Britishers, yet it brought the masses together in the Indian Freedom Struggle. 

Another key period in the Indian Freedom Struggle was the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930-1934). It all started with Mahatma Gandhi and his group of supporters marching to the Arabian Sea to make salt in protest of the British salt tax. People from many walks of life, including women and farmers, actively participated in this campaign.

The Quit India Movement (1942) was a turning point in India’s struggle for independence. It demanded that British authority in India be ended immediately. The British replied with persecution and brutality, but the Indian people’s tenacious spirit won over the Britishers. Several major leaders were imprisoned as a result of the campaign, and it acted as a wake-up call to the British that their rule in India was indefensible.

Many freedom fighters like Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose, Chandrashekhar Azad and many others fought and became martyrs in Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad, Subhash Chandra Bose, and countless others became martyrs in the fight for freedom. Their bravery and dedication would always inspire generations.

On 15 August 1947, India became independent after a really long fight and sacrifice. Today, we all live in a democratic society, liberal in terms of thoughts as well as actions. This freedom and democracy is the dedication, hard work, unity, and sacrifice of the freedom fighters.

Thus, after a long struggle the nation celebrated freedom, as the National flag was unfurled with Jawaharlal Nehru’s iconic speech “Tryst with Destiny.” His speech echoed India’s dreams and aspirations. 

In conclusion, the freedom journey of India is an epic transformation journey from early reform movements to Mahatma Gandhi’s guidance and sacrifice of countless fighters.

Also Read: Indian History for Competitive Exams

A. Bhagat Singh, Tantia Tope, Rani Laxmi Bai, Uddham Singh, Mahatma Gandhi and others are some of the most popular freedom fighters in India.

A. Mahatma Gandhi also known as the Father of Nation is the person behind our freedom. He guided the entire nation and believed in non-violence as the biggest weapon to fight the war of freedom.

So, that was all about an Essay on Indian Freedom Struggle. Do let us know how you celebrated this Independence Day in the comment section. For more such insightful blogs stay tuned to Leverage Edu .

Kajal Thareja

Hi, I am Kajal, a pharmacy graduate, currently pursuing management and is an experienced content writer. I have 2-years of writing experience in Ed-tech (digital marketing) company. I am passionate towards writing blogs and am on the path of discovering true potential professionally in the field of content marketing. I am engaged in writing creative content for students which is simple yet creative and engaging and leaves an impact on the reader's mind.

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Essay on Freedom

The freedom essay portrays the meaning of freedom, the Indian freedom struggle and its importance. Freedom is one of the essential values in our society. It sets us apart from other countries, and it has been our main goal since we were born. For some, freedom means different things. It is the opportunity to voice your opinion without fear. For others, it can be obtaining a higher level of education and knowledge than what is available to the general public. There are many different definitions of freedom, and no two people will have the same interpretation or experience of this word. However, one common idea that unites them is that freedom means having unrestricted rights and privileges.

Freedom is something that humans desire to have. We want to do what we please without any restrictions because it gives us a sense of power. It makes us feel like we are in control. However, freedom can be very challenging. When people are forced to face their challenges due to a lack of choices, they often develop coping mechanisms. An essay on freedom helps the little ones understand the value of freedom and write a better essay.

Indian Freedom Movement

The Indian freedom movement was a mass movement that led to the end of British rule in India and the establishment of an independent nation. The campaign was started by Indian nationalists demanding independence from Britain. This short essay on freedom in English is an excellent way to help kids learn about Indian independence.

India had an active freedom movement that started in the late 19th century. The Indian freedom movement was a significant movement to gain independence from the colonial rule. It started in the early 1800s and led to the Independence of India in 1947. The freedom movement was led by Indian nationalist leaders who wanted to free the country from British rule . These leaders wanted to create an independent and democratic state.

Bhagat Singh, Uddham Singh, Tantia Tope, Mahatma Gandhi and others are the most popular Indian leaders. Among them, Mahatma Gandhi started a nationwide Civil Disobedience Movement against the British Empire.

Importance of Freedom

Freedom is a fundamental human right and an essential element of individual liberty. The value of freedom is the intangible worth of making decisions without outside interference. From the perspective of people who enjoy freedom, there may be no good reason why others should not be free from control or domination.

Freedom is one of the most valuable things people can have. It allows them to do what they want and how they want. This is more valuable than many might think. It also has many benefits for those who have it and those around them.

Teach kids to write the freedom essay by perusing BYJU’S essay on freedom. You can also find more essays, poems, short stories, worksheets, etc., on the website.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are some of the renowned freedom fighters of india.

Bhagat Singh, Uddham Singh, Tantia Tope, Mahatma Gandhi and others are some of the most popular Indian freedom fighters.

When did the Indian freedom movement begin?

The Indian freedom movement began in the late 19th century.

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