List all the different social groups which joined the Non-Cooperation Movement of 1921. Then choose any three and write about their hopes and struggles to show why they joined the movement.
Different social groups which joined the non-Cooperation Movement of 1921 are given below:
(i) Middle class people: Teachers and students, merchants and traders and Lawyers.
(ii) Countryside peasants
(iii) Tribal peasants
(iv) Plantation workers in Assam
(v) Nai and Dhobi.
1. Middle class people:
(i) Teachers and students: Thousands of students left government-controlled schools and college students in large member joined the movement. Headmasters and teachers resigned from the colleges established by the government. New educational institutes such as jamia Milia Islamia and Kashi Vidyapitha were established.
(ii) Merchants and traders: Merchants and traders refused to trade in foreign goods or finance foreign trade. They joined the movement because the boycott of foreign goods would make the sale of their textiles and handlooms go up.
(iii) Lawyers: Lawyers gave up their legal practice.
2. Country side peasants:
Though the people In the country side interpreted the idea of ‘Swaraj’ in their own way but they participated in the movement on large scale. In Awadh, peasants were led by Baba Ramchandra, a sanyasi. The movement here was against talukdars and landlords who demanded high rents from peasants, and a number of other cesses. Peasants demanded reduction of revenue, abolition of beggar and social boycott of oppressive landlords. As the movement spread in 1921, the houses of talukdars and merchants were attacked, bazaars were looted and grain hoards were taken over. In several places, local leaders told peasants that Gandhiji had declared that no taxes were to be paid and land was to be redistributed among the poor.
3. Tribal peasants:
Most of the tribal people were dependent on forest for their livelihood but under the new forest policy, government had put many restrictions on the people like:
● Closing large forest area for the tribal people,
● Forcing the local people to contribute beggar,
● Preventing people to enter forest to graze their cattle, or to collect fuelwood and fruits.
4. Plantation workers in Assam: For plantation workers in Assam, freedom meant the right to move freely in and out of the confined space in which they were enclosed. It also meant retaining a link with the village from which they had come.
● Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission.
● When they heard of the Non-Cooperation Movement, thousands of workers defied the authorities, left plantations and head home.
● They believed that Gandhi Raj was coming and everyone would be given land in their own villages.
5. Nai and dhobi: the movement in the country side had different angle. In many places Nai-dhobi bandhs were organized by the Panchayats to deprive the landlords of the services of barbers, cobblers, washer men etc.