Methods Adopted During The Swadeshi Movement 1905
1. The boycott of foreign goods
• It was the most visible success on a practical and popular level among the various forms of struggle proposed by the movement.
• Boycotts and public burnings of foreign cloth, as well as picketing of shops selling foreign goods, became commonplace in Bengal's rural areas as well as many of the country's major cities and towns.
• Women would not wear foreign bangles or use foreign utensils, washer men would not wash foreign clothes, and priests would not accept foreign sugar offerings.
2. Mass mobilisation
• Public meetings and processions arose as major methods of mass mobilisation and forms of popular expression at the same time.
• Numerous meetings and processions held at the district, taluqa, and village levels, as well as in cities and towns, attested to the depth of Swadeshi sentiment while also serving as vehicles for its spread.
• Later stages of the national movement would see these forms maintain their dominance.
3. Corps of volunteers (samitis)
• The Swadesh Bandhab Samiti in Barisal, founded by Ashwini Kumar Dutt, a schoolteacher, was the most well-known of all the volunteer organisations.
• Dutt was able to generate an unprecedented mass following among the predominantly Muslim peasantry of the region thanks to the activities of this Samiti, whose 159 branches reached out to the farthest reaches of the district.
• The samitis spread the Swadeshi message through magic lantern lectures and Swadeshi songs, provided physical and moral training to members, assisted during famines and epidemics, organised schools, provided Swadeshi craft training, and held arbitration courts.
• According to reports, the Barisal Samiti had settled 523 disputes through 89 arbitration committees by August 1906. Despite having their deepest roots in Barisal, the samitis had spread to other parts of Bengal. Their activities, as well as their growing popularity among the rural masses, alarmed British officials.
4. Traditional festivals and melas
• It used creatively during the Swadeshi period to reach out to the masses.
• Tilak popularised the Ganapati and Shivaji festivals, which became a vehicle for Swadeshi propaganda not only in Western India but also in Bengal.
• Traditional folk theatre forms like jatras were widely used in disseminating the Swadeshi message in an understandable form to large segments of the population, many of whom were being exposed to modern political ideas for the first time.
5. Method of self-reliance
• It is necessary component of the anti-government struggle.
• In various fields, self-reliance meant reasserting national dignity, honour, and confidence. Furthermore, self-help and constructive work at the village level were envisioned as a means of bringing about village social and economic regeneration and reaching out to the rural masses.
• In practise, this meant social reform and campaigns against ills like caste oppression, early marriage, the dowry system, alcohol consumption, and so on. Swadeshi, or national education, was a major pillar of the self-reliance programme.
• The Bengal National College was established in the style of Tagore's Shantiniketan, with Aurobindo as its principal. Within a short period of time, dozens of national schools sprang up all over the country.
• The National Council of Education was founded in August 1906. This is how the Council, which was made up of nearly all of the country's notables at the time, defined its goals.
• From primary to university level, to organise a system of literary, scientific, and technical education on national lines and under national control. The vernacular was to be the primary medium of instruction in order to reach as many people as possible.
• The Bengal Technical Institute was established for technical education, and funds were raised to send students to Japan for advanced study.
6. Self-sufficiency
• It also entailed making an effort to establish Swadeshi or indigenous businesses.
• Swadeshi textile mills, soap and match factories, tanneries, banks, insurance companies, shops, and other businesses sprang up during this time.
• While many of these businesses failed because their founders were more concerned with patriotism than with business acumen, others, such as Acharya P.C. Ray's Bengal Chemicals Factory, became successful and well-known.
7. Use of cultural and art:
• Rabindranath Tagore, Rajani Kanta Sen, Dwijendralal Ray, Mukunda Das, Syed Abu Mohammed, and others composed songs at the time that later became the moving spirit for nationalists of all hues, terrorists, Gandhians, and Communists, and are still popular today.
• Amar Sonar Bangla, written at the time by Rabindranath Tagore, would later inspire Bangladesh's liberation struggle and be adopted as the country's national anthem in 1971.
• Bengali folk music popular among Hindu and Muslim villagers (Palligeet and Jan Gàn) evoked collections of India fairy tales such as Thakurmar Jhuli (Grandmother's tales) written by Daksinaranjan Mitra Majumdar, which continues to delight Bengali children today.
• In terms of art, this was the time when Abanindranath Tagore defied Victorian naturism's hegemony over Indian painting and looked to the rich indigenous traditions of Mughal, Rajput, and Ajanta paintings for inspiration.
• Nandalal Bose, a major figure in Indian art, was the first person to receive a scholarship from the Indian Society of Oriental Art, which was founded in 1907.
• Jagdish Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chandra Ray, and others in science pioneered ground breaking research that was lauded around the world.
THE EXTREMIST INFLUENCE OVER THE SWADESHI MOVEMENT
• However, after 1905, the Extremists gained a stronghold over the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal. At the grassroots level, several new forms of mobilisation and struggle techniques have emerged. Mendicancy, petitioning, and memorials were all on the decline.
• On a theoretical, propagandistic, and programmatic level, militant nationalists proposed several novel ideas.
• Political independence was to be achieved by expanding the boycott into a full-scale movement of non-cooperation and passive resistance, transforming the movement into a mass movement.
• Apart from boycotting foreign goods, the extended boycott technique included boycotting government schools and colleges, courts, titles, and government services, as well as organising strikes.
• The goal was to "make administration under current conditions impossible" by "an organised refusal to do anything that would aid either British Commerce in the exploitation of the country or British officialdom in its administration."
• While some foresight saw the enormous potential of large-scale peaceful resistance—- the Chowkidar, the constable, the deputy, the munsif, and the clerk, not to mention the sepoy, all resign their respective functions, feringhee rule in the country may come to an end in a flash.
• There will be no need for powder and shot, and no sepoys will need to be trained... Others, such as Aurobindo Ghosh (who has been linked to revolutionary terrorists) kept the possibility of violent resistance open if British repression was increased.