50 Fun Facts About Indian Independence Movement

Gandhi's 24-day walk to the seaside village of Dandi in 1930 defied a British tax on which everyday commodity?

Salt was a British monopoly under an 1882 law that kept its collection and manufacture in government hands. Gandhi picked up a lump of salty mud at the shore, and over 60,000 Indians were jailed in the protests that followed.

Which silent film star met Gandhi at a house in East London during the Indian leader's 1931 visit?

Charlie Chaplin and Gandhi talked about modern technology, which Gandhi distrusted. The conversation helped inspire the factory satire Modern Times, and a memorial garden now marks the meeting place.

The last viceroy chose 15 August for India's independence because it marked which country's World War II surrender?

Japan had surrendered exactly two years earlier, when the viceroy was the Allied commander in South East Asia. He pulled the handover forward from a British deadline of June 1948.

Which Indian national holiday falls on 26 January because Congress declared complete independence on that date in 1930?

Republic Day marks the constitution taking effect in 1950, timed to that anniversary. Until the British left, Congress had kept 26 January as its own Independence Day.

Which American civil rights leader made a five-week tour of India in 1959 to study Gandhi's nonviolent methods?

Martin Luther King Jr. said he went to other countries as a tourist but came to India as a pilgrim. He had already borrowed Gandhi's tactics for the Montgomery bus boycott.

Which European country kept its colony of Goa until Indian troops seized it in 1961, long after the British left?

Portugal had ruled Goa for 451 years when Indian forces moved in. The air, sea and land operation that ended it lasted just over 36 hours.

Which British monarch stayed on as King of India for more than two years after independence in 1947?

George VI remained India's head of state until a new constitution took effect in 1950. He had already given up the grander title Emperor of India in June 1948.

Which honour was Gandhi nominated for five times between 1937 and 1948 without ever receiving it?

The Nobel Peace Prize went to nobody in 1948, the year Gandhi was assassinated days after his final nomination. The committee said there was no suitable living candidate.

In which country did Gandhi spend 21 years as a lawyer and activist before returning to India in 1915?

South Africa was meant to be a short stay: Gandhi sailed there in 1893 to handle one lawsuit for an Indian merchant. He came home a seasoned organiser of protest.

Which device sat at the centre of the Congress flag as a symbol of Gandhi's drive to make Indians self-reliant?

The spinning wheel, or charkha, stood for Indians making their own clothing. At independence it gave way to the Ashoka Chakra, a wheel from an ancient pillar that looks the same from both sides of a flag.

The 1857 rebels who reached Delhi rallied behind the 81-year-old last emperor of which dynasty?

The Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar became the revolt's symbolic leader. After the rebels lost Delhi, the British exiled him to Rangoon in Burma, ending the dynasty.

Which uncle of Prince Philip served as the last viceroy of India and oversaw its partition in 1947?

Lord Mountbatten stayed on after the handover as independent India's first governor-general, at the request of its new prime minister.

Which barrister, once praised as an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, became Pakistan's first governor-general?

Muhammad Ali Jinnah began in Congress and helped shape its 1916 pact with the Muslim League. He died about a year after Pakistan was born.

Which present-day country began as the eastern wing of Pakistan when British India was partitioned in 1947?

Bangladesh, whose name means country of Bengal, was first called East Bengal and then East Pakistan. It broke away in the Liberation War of 1971.

Which leader gave the Tryst with Destiny speech to India's Constituent Assembly towards midnight on 14 August 1947?

Jawaharlal Nehru spoke as the first prime minister, minutes before India became free. Between 1921 and 1945 the British had kept him in jail for more than nine years in all.

Rumours that grease on which new army item contained cow and pig fat helped spark the 1857 rebellion in India?

Rifle cartridges had to be opened with the mouth, so the rumour offended Hindu and Muslim soldiers alike. One historian finds little evidence that many greased rounds were ever issued.

In which Punjab city did troops fire on a crowd gathered in the walled garden of Jallianwala Bagh in 1919?

Amritsar was crowded for the annual Baisakhi fair, and a ban on public meetings had been announced only that morning. The firing went on for about ten minutes.

Which mass campaign did Gandhi launch in Bombay in August 1942, leading to the arrest of nearly all Congress leaders?

The Quit India Movement lost almost its entire leadership to prison without trial within hours of Gandhi's speech. Most stayed locked up, out of contact with their followers, for the rest of the war.

Which former Congress president slipped past British surveillance in 1941 and later led the Indian National Army?

Subhas Chandra Bose left home disguised as a Pathan and made his way to Berlin. In 1943 he crossed to Asia by submarine and rebuilt an army from Indian prisoners of war.

Which British prime minister announced in February 1947 that Britain would hand over power in India by June 1948?

Clement Attlee led the Labour government that gave India and Pakistan independence through an act of Parliament later that year. Winston Churchill had long led the opposition to Indian self-rule.

Which revolutionary, hanged in 1931 aged 23, had set off bombs inside Delhi's Central Legislative Assembly?

Bhagat Singh and an associate set off two weak homemade bombs among empty benches, a largely symbolic act. He was hanged for the earlier killing of a police officer and became a folk hero.

Which poet, author of Gitanjali, renounced his British knighthood in protest at the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre?

Rabindranath Tagore wrote to the viceroy that badges of honour now made his people's shame more glaring, and that he wished to stand beside them without one. He had been knighted in 1915.

Which British brigadier general ordered troops to fire on the unarmed crowd at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919?

Reginald Dyer was relieved of his command, yet a London newspaper called him the man who saved India and raised over £26,000 for him from sympathetic readers.

Which Congress leader, nicknamed the Iron Man of India, brought more than 500 princely states into the new nation?

Vallabhbhai Patel did it as the country's first home minister. His other title, Sardar, meaning chief, was first used by the women of Bardoli during a campaign he led there.

Which jurist, born into a caste treated as untouchable, chaired the committee that drafted India's constitution?

B. R. Ambedkar was named chairman two weeks after becoming free India's first law minister. In 1932 he had signed the Poona Pact, a compromise on how the lowest castes would vote.

Gandhi's first campaign in India, at Champaran in 1917, backed tenant farmers forced to grow which cash crop?

Indigo had to be planted on part of each tenant's land as a condition of the lease, for barely any payment. German synthetic dye had cut demand until the First World War stopped its supply.

At which Delhi landmark did the British put Indian National Army officers on trial in 1945, sparking mass protests?

The Red Fort trials backfired: the first three defendants were a Hindu, a Sikh and a Muslim, and rival parties protested side by side. Prime ministers now raise the flag there every Independence Day.

Which Russian novelist exchanged letters with Gandhi and gave his name to a farm commune Gandhi founded in 1910?

Leo Tolstoy and Gandhi corresponded for only a year, from October 1909 until the novelist's death. Gandhi called him the greatest apostle of non-violence of the age.

Which city lost its status as capital of British India when the 1911 royal durbar announced a move to Delhi?

Calcutta had become a less hospitable place for the British after mass protests against the 1905 partition of Bengal. The king-emperor announced the switch in person.

Which term for nonviolent protest did Gandhi adopt after a newspaper contest to replace the phrase passive resistance?

Satyagraha was Gandhi's reworking of the winning entry, sadagraha, sent in by a relative. It joins Sanskrit words for truth and holding firmly.

Which all-British panel, sent in 1928 to review India's constitution, was boycotted for having no Indian member?

The Simon Commission was kept all-British because the minister who set it up feared Indian and Labour members would side together. Protesters met it as soon as it landed in Bombay.

Which viceroy split the province of Bengal in two in 1905, provoking a mass boycott of British goods?

Lord Curzon separated a largely Muslim east from a largely Hindu west. The protests that followed were so persistent that the British reunited the province in 1911.

Which queen of Jhansi died fighting British forces in 1858 after her adopted son was denied the throne?

Rani Lakshmibai lost her kingdom to the doctrine of lapse, under which the British annexed states whose rulers died without a natural heir. She fell in battle at Gwalior.

Which poet, nicknamed the Nightingale of India, became the first Indian woman to serve as Congress president in 1925?

Sarojini Naidu was given the nickname by Gandhi for the colour and imagery of her verse. At independence she became governor of the United Provinces, the first Indian woman to head a state.

Which London-born theosophist launched a Home Rule League in 1916 and became the first woman to lead Congress?

Annie Besant modelled her demands for India on Irish nationalism. Released by the British in September 1917 to welcoming crowds, she was made Congress president that December.

On which remote island chain did the British build the Cellular Jail to hold Indian political prisoners?

The Andaman Islands prison took its name from its solitary cells, designed so that political prisoners and revolutionaries could not communicate with one another.

Which British lawyer, who had never been east of Paris, was given five weeks to draw the India-Pakistan border?

Cyril Radcliffe chaired both boundary committees set up for the partition. After seeing the mayhem on either side of his line, he refused his salary of 40,000 rupees.

At which town did a crowd burn a police station in 1922, prompting Gandhi to halt the non-cooperation campaign?

Chauri Chaura's demonstrators set the station alight in retaliation after police fired on them, killing the policemen inside. Gandhi stopped the nationwide campaign eight days later.

Which Hindu nationalist from Maharashtra shot Gandhi at a prayer meeting in New Delhi on 30 January 1948?

Nathuram Godse was seized on the spot by an American vice-consul who was in the crowd. Pleas for clemency from two of Gandhi's own sons were turned down, and he was hanged in 1949.

The Indian National Army drew its recruits from Indian troops captured when which British island fortress fell in 1942?

Singapore alone yielded nearly 45,000 Indian prisoners of war. Bitterness at unequal treatment and a sense of being abandoned by the British may have moved many to change sides.

Which retired British civil servant and noted ornithologist was the key founder of the Indian National Congress?

Allan Octavian Hume has been called the father of Indian ornithology. When he died in 1912, Congress mourned him as its own father and founder.

Which Parsi nationalist, elected to Britain's House of Commons in 1892, argued that British rule drained India's wealth?

Dadabhai Naoroji sat for the London seat of Finsbury Central as a Liberal until 1895. He is often remembered as the Grand Old Man of Indian nationalism.

Which nationalist, honoured as Lokmanya, turned the household worship of Ganesha into a grand public festival?

Bal Gangadhar Tilak used such festivals to carry national feeling beyond the educated elite. His honorific means accepted by the people as their leader.

Which 1919 law allowing detention without trial drew the protests that ended in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre?

The Rowlatt Act was named after the judge whose committee proposed it. It kept wartime emergency powers alive in peacetime and passed despite strong opposition from the council's Indian members.

Which Pashtun leader, nicknamed the Frontier Gandhi, founded a nonviolent movement known as the Red Shirts?

Abdul Ghaffar Khan strongly opposed partition and sided with Congress against the Muslim League. He died in Peshawar in 1988 and, by his own wish, was buried in Afghanistan.

In which city on the Ravi river did the 1929 Congress session make complete independence its goal?

Lahore saw the tricolour raised on the riverbank at midnight on New Year's Eve. Eighteen years later the city itself became part of Pakistan.

Which moderate Congress president, founder of the Servants of India Society, did Gandhi call his mentor and guide?

Gopal Krishna Gokhale urged Gandhi to come home in 1915 and died weeks after he arrived. Gandhi revered him but did not share his faith in Western institutions, and never joined the society.

Near which village outside Lucknow did revolutionaries stop a train in 1925 and loot government treasury bags?

Kakori gave its name to the conspiracy trial that followed. The raiders, led by Ram Prasad Bismil, pulled the emergency chain and took only the government's tax money, to pay for weapons.

Which Tamil statesman became the last governor-general of India in 1948, the only Indian ever to hold the post?

Chakravarti Rajagopalachari served until the office was abolished in 1950. Nine years later he founded the Swatantra Party to fight Congress at the polls.

Which revolutionary, cornered by police in an Allahabad park in 1931, shot himself with his last bullet?

Chandra Shekhar Azad had pledged never to be captured alive, and first gave covering fire so a comrade could escape. Azad, meaning free, was the name he once gave a magistrate.