Transformations in Asia WHAP/Napp

“Gandhi began life with every advantage. His family was wealthy enough to send him to England for his education. After his studies he lived in South Africa and practiced law for the small Indian community there. During World War I he returned to India and was one of many Western-educated Hindu intellectuals who joined the Indian National Congress.

Gandhi had some unusual political ideas. Unlike many radical political thinkers of his time, he denounced the popular ideals of power, struggle, and combat. Instead, inspired by both Hindu and Christian concepts, he preached the saintly virtues ahimsa (nonviolence) and satyagraha (the search for truth). He refused to countenance violence among his followers, and he called off several demonstrations when they turned violent.

Gandhi had an affinity for the poor that was unusual even among socialist politicians. In 1921 he gave up the Western-style suits worn by lawyers and the fine raiment of wealthy Indians and henceforth wore simple peasant garb: a length of homespun cloth below his waist and a shawl to cover his torso. He spoke for the farmers and the outcasts, whom he called harijan, ‘children of God.’ He attracted ever-larger numbers of followers among the poor and illiterate, who soon began to revere him; and he transformed the cause of Indian independence from an elite movement of the educated into a mass movement with a quasi-religious aura.

Gandhi was a brilliant political tactician and a master of public relations gestures. In 1929, for instance, he led a few followers on an 80-mile (129-kilometer) walk, camped on a beach, and gather salt from the sea in a blatant and well-publicized actof civil disregard for the government’s monopoly on salt. But he discovered that unleashing the power of popular participation was one thing and controlling its direction was quite another. Within days of his ‘Walk to the Sea,’ demonstrations of support broke out all over India. In which the police killed a hundred demonstrators and arrested over sixty thousand.” ~The Earth and Its Peoples

Main Points of Passage:

Notes:
  1. Civil War in China
  1. In 1911, the imperial dynasty of the Qing had been overthrown
  2. A Chinese Republic, governed by the Nationalist (Kuomintang) Party
  3. Sun Yat-sen (Sun Yixian), a nationalist leader, was president
  4. Republic quickly disintegrated and military officers continued to govern Beijing until the early 1920s while the rest of China slipped into anarchy
  5. Chinese Communist Party (CCP), founded by radicals at Beijing University in 1921, also became a major force
  6. An external threat came from Japan, whose imperial ambitions grew
  7. May 4, 1919, thousands of students came to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to protest against the military government
  8. Cause of May Fourth Movement was government’s willingness to allow Japan to annex Shantung Province, Germany’s former concession in China
  9. Nationalists and Communists drove warlords from power but then battled one another for control of China (Civil War)
  10. When Sun Yat-sen died, leadership of Kuomintang left to Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), a Western-educated officer – farther to the right of Sun
  11. Chiang Kai-shek turned against the Communists
  12. Chiang proclaimed allegiance to Sun’s Three People’s Principles (nationalism, democracy, people’s livelihood or socialism) but not fully
  13. But Mao kept CCP alive, leading it on Long March (1934-1935), to north
  14. Mao’s strategymake communism appealing to China’s vast peasant masses, rather than concentrating on small industrial working class in cities
  15. In 1937, Japanese invaded mainland Chinathree-way conflict: Nationalists, CCP, and JapaneseBut communist victory in 1949
  1. From Militarism to Defeat to Democracy: Japan
  1. 1920s, power of Diet (Japanese Parliament) increased
  2. Universal male suffrage and a bill of rights was granted in 1925
  3. But upper-class retained its oligarchical outlook and nationalism ran high
  4. Most of Japan’s industrial might concentrated in hands of a small number of corporate conglomerates called zaibatsu
  5. And imperial aggression and Great Depression derailed democratization
  6. Right-wing nationalist Kita Ikki“Asia for the Asians,” calling for expulsion of Britain and France from Southeast and South Asia
  7. 1931, Japan seized Manchuria from China, turning it into puppet kingdom, Manchukuo, ruled by Henry Pu-yi, China’s last emperor before 1911
I.Shortly afterward, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations
J. By 1941, Hideki Tojo, had gained control of the parliamentary government
K. The military was able to dominate the young emperor, Hirohito
L. Japanese began a full-scale war in Asia in 1937
M. “Rape of Nanjing” in December 1937 included the massacre of 200,000 to 300,000 noncombatants, including women and children
N. Southeast AsiaJapan attempted to drive out French and British, Japanese empire referred to as Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere
O. Japan was eventually defeated in the Second World War, U.S.A. occupied Japan from 1945-1952 a democratic constitution and women’s suffrage
III. India
  1. Indian National Congress (later the Congress Party, founded in 1885)
  2. In 1919, at Amritsar, British troops fired on unarmed protestors, killing 379 and wounding 1,137
  3. Mohandas K. GandhiMahatma of “Great Soul” preached policy of nonviolent resistance to British authority
  4. Based partly on Hindu religious principles, this policy was called satyagraha, or “hold to truth”
  5. When British imposed a tax on salt in India, Gandhi led 50,000 people on a 200-mile march to sea, began to make salt illegally by drying out seawater
  6. Civil disobedience (breaking an unjust law/facing consequences) and boycotts (refusing to buy a product such as British cloth in protest
  7. Jawaharlal Nehru was a political leader of Congress, and Gandhi’s partner
  8. In 1937, Gandhi and Nehru began “Quit India” campaign, trying to convince the British to leave altogether
I.The advent of World War II delayed the British withdrawal, but India would gain its freedom in 1947, soon after the war
J. But although during World War I, with the Lucknow Pact of 1916, Muslims and Hindus had pledged to work together for greater autonomy from the British, they began to go separate ways during the 1920s
K. By 1930, a Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had formed
L. The Muslim League called for the creation of a separate Muslim state called Pakistan, or “land of the pure”
M. British agreed to partition the subcontinent into a Muslim-dominated Pakistan in the subcontinent’s northwest corner and a Hindu-dominated India
N. But rioting and violence often ensued

Complete the Review Quilt Below (Place Key Points in Each Box):

Chinese Communist Party: / Sun Yat-Sen: / Chiang Kai-shek: / Civil War in China:
1911 in China: / 1949 in China: / Japan in the 1930s: / Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere:
“Rape of Nanjing”: / U.S. Occupation of Japan: / Mohandas K. Gandhi: / Satyagragha:
Salt March: / Boycott of British Cloth: / Muhammad Ali Jinnah: / Partition of Subcontinent:

Questions:

  1. Gandhi and Nehru opposed the partition of India because
(A)It would leave Hindu India surrounded by Muslim states.
(B)It would deprive India of some of its most valuable land.
(C)They mistrusted Muhammad Ali and the Muslim League.
(D)They believed that India could be a successful multicultural state.
(E)All of the above.
  1. Mohandas Gandhi was assassinated by
(A)A Muslim extremist.
(B)A Hindu extremist.
(C)A British nationalist.
(D)A disgruntled follower.
(E)A Brahmin.
  1. India and Pakistan soon went to war over
(A)Bangladesh.
(B)Bengal.
(C)Kashmir.
(D)The Punjab.
(E)The Indus River Valley.
  1. The nonalignment movement failed because
(A)Of a lack of vision or leadership among member states.
(B)Too few states attended the Bandung Conference to achieve consensus.
(C)Many nonaligned states needed and accepted aid from either the United States or Soviet Union.
(D)Many new states were afraid to alienate the United States.
(E)All of the above. /
  1. As a result of the Cultural Revolution in China,
(A)The educated elite were persecuted, and China was deprived of their talent.
(B)Peasant farmers killed so many sparrows that the ecological balance was thrown off.
(C)Student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square were crushed by government troops.
(D)The nation achieved industrialization within a generation.
(E)The Red Guard was discredited.
  1. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated because
(A)She pursued aggressive birth control policies.
(B)She permitted an attack on Sikh extremists at the sacred Golden Temple.
(C)She refused to consider the partition of Kashmir.
(D)She insisted that untouchables be fully integrated into Indian society.
(E)She suspended the constitution for two years and ruled without being elected.
  1. Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser gained great international prestige when
(A)He negotiated a peace settlement with Israel.
(B)He succeeded in retaking the Suez Canal from the British.
(C)He aligned Egypt with the United States.
(D)He aligned Egypt with the Soviet Union.
(E)He reclaimed the Sinai Peninsula from Israel.