Editing Indian independence movement (section)

==First World War==
{{See also|Defence of India Act 1915}}
The initial response throughout India to Lord Hardinge's announcement was, for the most part, enthusiastic support. Indian princes volunteered their men, money, and personal service. Support from the Congress Party was primarily offered on the hopes that Britain would repay such loyal assistance with substantial political concessions—if not immediate independence or at least dominion status following the war, then surely its promise soon after the Allies achieved victory. Contrary to initial British fears of an Indian revolt, Indians contributed considerably to the British war effort by providing men and resources.  About 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, while both the Indian government and the princes sent large supplies of food, money, and ammunition. The major threat for the British Government in South Asia came from the armed tribes in North Western frontier and Afghanistan. The source of the second potential threat for the colonial government was the Indian Muslims whom the British believed shall sympathise with the Ottoman Empire.. Nationalism in Bengal, increasingly associated with the [[Ghadar Mutiny|unrest in Punjab]], was of significant ferocity to almost complete the paralysis of the regional administration. Meanwhile, [[Hindu-German Conspiracy|failed conspiracies]] were triggered by revolutionaries lack of preparedness to organise a nationalist revolt.<ref name=Gupta12>{{Harvnb|Gupta|1997|p=12}}</ref><ref name="Popplewell 1995 p=201">{{Harvnb|Popplewell|1995|p=201}}</ref>

None of the revolutionary conspiracies made a significant impact inside India. The prospect that subversive violence would have an effect on a popular war effort drew support from the Indian population for special measures against anti-colonial activities in the form of [[Defence of India Act 1915]].  There were no major mutinies occurring during wartime, yet conspiracies exacerbated profound fears of insurrection among British officials, preparing them to use extreme force to frighten Indians into submission.<ref>Lawrence James, ''Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India'' (2000) pp 439–518</ref>[[File:1915 Singapore Mutiny Memorial Tablet.jpg|thumb|250px|The [[1915 Singapore Mutiny]] memorial tablet at the entrance of the [[Victoria Memorial Hall]], [[Singapore]].|left]]

=== Hindu–German Conspiracy ===
{{Main|Hindu–German Conspiracy}}
The [[Hindu–German Conspiracy]], was a series of plans between 1914 and 1917 by Indian nationalist groups to attempt Pan-Indian rebellion against the [[British Raj]] during World War I, formulated between the [[Indian revolutionary underground]] and exiled or self-exiled nationalists who formed, in the United States, the [[Ghadar Party]], and in Germany, the [[Indian independence committee]], in the decade preceding the [[World War I|Great War]].<ref name="Plowman 84">{{Harvnb|Plowman|2003|p=84}}</ref><ref name=Hoover252>{{Harvnb|Hoover|1985|p=252}}</ref><ref name=GBrown300>{{Harvnb|Brown|1948|p=300}}</ref> The conspiracy was drawn up at the beginning of the war, with extensive support from the [[Auswärtiges Amt|German Foreign Office]], the German consulate in San Francisco, as well as some support from [[Ottoman Turkey]] and the [[Irish republicanism|Irish republican movement]]. The most prominent plan attempted to foment unrest and trigger a Pan-Indian mutiny in the [[British Indian Army]] from [[Punjab Province (British India)|Punjab]] to [[Singapore]]. This plot was planned to be executed in February 1915 with the aim of overthrowing British rule over the [[Indian subcontinent]]. The [[Ghadar Conspiracy|February mutiny]] was ultimately thwarted when British intelligence infiltrated the [[Ghadarite]] movement and arrested key figures. Mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed.

Other related events include the [[1915 Singapore Mutiny]], the [[Annie Larsen affair|Annie Larsen arms plot]], the [[Christmas Day Plot|Jugantar–German plot]], the [[Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition|German mission to Kabul]], the mutiny of the [[Connaught Rangers]] in India, as well as, by some accounts, the [[Black Tom explosion]] in 1916. Parts of the conspiracy included efforts to subvert the [[British Indian Army]] in the [[Middle Eastern theatre of World War I]].[[File:1915 Singapore Mutiny.jpg|thumb|250px|right|The public executions of convicted sepoy mutineers of the [[1915 Singapore Mutiny]] at [[Outram Road]], Singapore.]]

===Ghadar Mutiny===
{{Main|Ghadar Mutiny}}

The [[Ghadar Mutiny]] was a plan to initiate a pan-Indian [[mutiny]] in the [[British Indian Army]] in February 1915 to end the [[British Raj]] in India. The plot originated at the onset of [[World War I]], between the [[Ghadar Party]] in the United States, the [[Berlin Committee]] in Germany, the [[Indian revolutionary underground]] in British India and the German Foreign Office through the consulate in San Francisco. The incident derives its name from the North American [[Ghadar Party]], whose members of the [[Punjabi Sikh]] community in Canada and the United States were among the most prominent participants in the plan. It was the most prominent amongst a number of plans of the much larger [[Hindu–German Conspiracy|Hindu–German Mutiny]], formulated between 1914 and 1917 to initiate a Pan-Indian rebellion against the [[British Raj]] during World War I.<ref name="Plowman 84"/><ref name="Hoover252"/><ref name="GBrown300"/> The mutiny was planned to start in the key state of [[Punjab (British India)|Punjab]], followed by mutinies in Bengal and rest of India. Indian units [[1915 Singapore Mutiny|as far as Singapore]] were planned to participate in the rebellion. The plans were thwarted through a coordinated intelligence and police response. British intelligence infiltrated the Ghadarite movement in Canada and in India, and last-minute intelligence from a spy helping to crush the planned uprising in Punjab before it started. Key figures were arrested, mutinies in smaller units and garrisons within India were also crushed.

Intelligence about the threat of the mutiny led to a number of important war-time measures introduced in India, including the passages of [[Ingress into India Ordinance, 1914]], the Foreigners act 1914, and the [[Defence of India Act 1915]]. The conspiracy was followed by the [[First Lahore Conspiracy Trial]] and [[Benares Conspiracy Trial]] which saw death sentences awarded to a number of Indian revolutionaries, and exile to a number of others. After the end of the war, fear of a second Ghadarite uprising led to the recommendations of the [[Rowlatt Act]]s and thence the [[Jallianwala Bagh massacre]].[[Image:BaghaJatin13.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Bagha Jatin]] after the final battle, [[Balasore]], 1915.|left]]

===1st Christmas Day and 2nd Christmas Day plot===
{{Main|Christmas Day plot}}
The first [[Christmas Day plot]] was a conspiracy made by the Indian revolutionary movement in 1909: during the year-ending holidays, the Governor of Bengal organised at his residence a ball in the presence of the Viceroy, the Commander-in-Chief and all the high-ranking officers and officials of the Capital (Calcutta). The 10th Jat Regiment was in charge of the security. Indoctrinated by [[Jatindranath Mukherjee]], its soldiers decided to blow up the ballroom and take advantage of destroying the colonial Government. In keeping with his predecessor Otto (William Oskarovich) von Klemm, a friend of Lokamanya [[Tilak]], on 6 February 1910, M. Arsenyev, the Russian Consul-General, wrote to St Petersburg that it had been intended to "arouse in the country a general perturbation of minds and, thereby, afford the revolutionaries an opportunity to take the power in their hands."<ref name= Mukherjee>{{Harvnb|Mukherjee|2010|p=160}}</ref>  According to [[R. C. Majumdar]], "The police had suspected nothing and it is hard to say what the outcome would have been had the soldiers not been betrayed by one of their comrades who informed the authorities about the impending coup".<ref name= Majumdar-1975-281>{{Harvnb|Majumdar|1975|p=281}}</ref>

The second Christmas Day plot was to initiate an insurrection in [[Bengal]] in [[British India]] during World War I with German arms and support. Scheduled for Christmas Day, 1915, the plan was conceived and led by the [[Jugantar group]] under the Bengali Indian revolutionary Jatindranath Mukherjee, to be coordinated with simultaneous uprising in the British colony of Burma and Kingdom of [[Siam]] under direction of the [[Ghadar Party]], along with a German raid on the South Indian city of [[Madras]] and the British [[Cellular Jail|penal colony in Andaman Islands]]. The aim of the plot was to seize the Fort William, isolate Bengal and capture the capital city of [[Calcutta]], which was then to be used as a staging ground for a pan-Indian revolution. The Christmas Day plot was [[Hindu–German Conspiracy|one of]] the later plans for pan-Indian mutiny during the war that were coordinated between the Indian nationalist underground, the "[[Indian independence committee]]" set up by the Germans in Berlin, the Ghadar Party in North America, and the German Foreign office.<ref name=Hopkirk179>{{Harvnb|Hopkirk|1994|p=179}}</ref> The plot was ultimately thwarted after British intelligence uncovered the plot through German and Indian double agents in Europe and Southeast Asia.[[File:Indian,German and Turkish delegates of Niedermayer Mission.jpg|thumb|right|250px|[[Mahendra Pratap]] (centre), President of the [[Provisional Government of India]], at the head of [[Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition|the Mission]] with the German and Turkish delegates in Kabul, 1915. Seated to his right is [[Werner Otto von Hentig]].]]

===Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition===
{{Main|Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition}}

The [[Niedermayer–Hentig Expedition]] was a [[diplomatic mission]] to [[Emirate of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]] sent by the [[Central Powers]] in 1915–1916. The purpose was to encourage Afghanistan to declare full independence from the [[British Empire]], enter [[World War I]] on the side of the Central Powers, and attack [[British Raj|British India]]. The expedition was part of the [[Hindu–German Conspiracy]], a series of Indo-German efforts to provoke a nationalist revolution in India. Nominally headed by the exiled [[Princely state|Indian prince]] [[Raja Mahendra Pratap]], the expedition was a joint operation of [[German Empire|Germany]] and [[Ottoman Empire|Turkey]] and was led by the German Army officers [[Oskar Niedermayer]] and [[Werner Otto von Hentig]]. Other participants included members of an Indian nationalist organisation called the [[Berlin Committee]], including [[Maulavi Barkatullah]] and [[Chempakaraman Pillai]], while the Turks were represented by [[Kazim Bey]], a close confidante of [[Enver Pasha]].

Britain saw the expedition as a serious threat. Britain and its ally, the [[Russian Empire]], unsuccessfully attempted to intercept it in [[Persia]] during the summer of 1915. Britain waged a covert intelligence and diplomatic offensive, including personal interventions by the [[Governor-General of India|Viceroy]] [[Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst|Lord Hardinge]] and [[George V|King George V]], to maintain Afghan neutrality.

The mission failed in its main task of rallying Afghanistan, under Emir [[Habibullah Khan]], to the German and Turkish war effort, but it influenced other major events. In Afghanistan, the expedition triggered reforms and drove political turmoil that culminated in the assassination of the Emir in 1919, which in turn precipitated the [[Third Afghan War]]. It influenced the [[Kalmyk Project]] of nascent [[October Revolution|Bolshevik Russia]] to propagate socialist revolution in Asia, with one goal being the overthrow of the British Raj. Other consequences included the formation of the [[Rowlatt Committee]] to investigate [[Revolutionary movement for Indian independence|sedition in India]] as influenced by Germany and Bolshevism, and changes in the Raj's approach to the Indian independence movement immediately after World War I.

===Nationalist response to war===
In the aftermath of the First World War, high casualty rates, soaring inflation compounded by heavy taxation, a [[1918 flu pandemic in India|widespread influenza pandemic]] and the disruption of trade during the war escalated human suffering in India.

The pre-war nationalist movement revived moderate and extremist groups within the Congress submerged their differences in order to stand together as a unified front.  They argued that their enormous services to the British Empire during the war demanded a reward to demonstrate Indian capacity for self-rule. In 1916, Congress succeeded in forging the [[Lucknow Pact]], a temporary alliance with the All India Muslim League over the issues of devolution and the future of Islam in the region.<ref name=Wilkinson>{{citation |first=Steven Ian |last=Wilkinson |title=India, Consociational Theory, and Ethnic Violence |journal=Asian Survey |volume=40 |pages=767–791 |number=5 |date=September–October 2000 |jstor=3021176 |ref={{sfnref|Wilkinson, India, Consociational Theory and Ethnic Violence|2000}} |doi=10.2307/3021176}}</ref>

===British reforms===
The British themselves adopted a "carrot and stick" approach in recognition of India's support during the war and in response to renewed nationalist demands. In August 1917, [[Edwin Samuel Montagu|Edwin Montagu]], Secretary of state for India, made an historic announcement in Parliament that the British policy was for: "increasing association of Indians in every branch of the administration and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realisation of responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire." The means of achieving the proposed measures were later enshrined in the [[Government of India Act, 1919]], which introduced the principle of a dual-mode of administration, or diarchy, in which both elected Indian legislators and, appointed British officials shared power. The act also expanded the central and provincial legislatures and widened the franchise considerably. The diarchy set in motion certain real changes at the provincial level: a number of non-controversial or "transferred" portfolios, such as agriculture, local government, health, education, and public works, were handed over to Indians, while more sensitive matters such as finance, taxation, and maintaining law and order were retained by the provincial British administrators.<ref>James, ''Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India'' (2000) pp 459–60, 519–20</ref>[[File:Gandhi Kheda 1918.jpg|alt=Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the Kheda Satyagraha and Champaran Satyagraha.|thumb|Gandhi in 1918, at the time of the [[Kheda Satyagraha of 1918|Kheda Satyagraha]] and [[Champaran Satyagraha]].|left]]