Short notes on the role of intellectuals in national movements

National movements often started as unorganized and sporadic protests of a small number of people, but slowly they became mass movements. Every strata of society has had some role in the progress of national movements. It was the leaders and intellectuals who first spearheaded the movements.

They organized the masses. The enlightened the masses about the need to become free. People followed them because they were expressing the need of the time. Slowly parties and groups emerged as instruments of national movements. Peasants, workers and women also organized their movements to lead to national liberation.

In diverse ways and at different times, increasing numbers of the various peoples became convinced that the dream of independence would be realized and that then all would be well. Hence they became more and more involved and participated in what became national struggles.

In the process, they became ever more aware of their grievances. As they became aware, they became more vocal and their protests multiplied. And as they grieved, protested and participated in the struggles for freedom, they became nationally conscious and increasingly nationalist in outlook and approach.

Asians and Africans were taught by Westerners – by Christian missionaries and optimistic intellectuals – to hope. Increasingly though still small numbers, were educated in the West and at home became expectant. From the 1920s especially, their own leaders, through the press and later the radio, through embryo political parties, mutual aid societies, and trade unions, taught them to believe that their future of freedom, justice, and abundance would be achieved through their nations.

Asians and Africans heard of the pronouncements of -the United Nations and other international bodies, of “fundamental human rights”, the “dignity and worth of the human person”, and of “fundamental freedoms for all” regardless of race and religion.

They believed these pronouncements, and saw no reason why these should not apply to themselves. The motivations of the leaders of the nationalist movements were as varied as their peoples and their own individual personalities. They hoped and they feared and they were ambitious for themselves as well as for their peoples.

Some of them (Sukarno of Indonesia) undoubtedly sought personal power and the emoluments that at times accompany high office – fine houses, big cars, beautiful women. Some of them (Nehru of India, Nyerere of Tanzania, and Senghor of Senegal), through not immune to private ambition, were high- minded idealists who put country above private gain.

As they are for all men, motivations were mixed and changing. But it is also true that many of them had painful experiences that drove them further and along their nationalist roads. When many of them began their political lives, they were mild reformers, willing, if only reforms were granted and evolution toward self- government seemed likely, to work within the colonial systems.

But as they advocated and worked for reforms, they suffered threats against their livelihoods and their lives, they were forced into exile, they were imprisoned or sent to detention camps, and on occasion they were beaten and tortured beyond endurance. Some were executed, and they became martyrs, and, thus, powerful symbols for their nation.

Those who lived, protested ever more, and the more they protested the more they suffered. They also became the prominent leaders of nationalist parties of their respective countries. Some also arose from peasant or workers movements, organized protest, strikes etc. and gave fillip to national movements.

Their arrests created nationalist fervours among the masses, led to further strengthening of parties and groups as national movements in themselves. To choose at random, Gandhi, Nehru, and Tilak were jailed in India, and Banda, Bourguiba, Kaunda, Kenyatta, Nelson Mandela, Sani Njumah and Sithole in various parts of Africa.

All of them turned more nationalist after their imprisonment and they became heroes to increasing numbers of their countrymen. No amount of punishment, no imperial repression actually bunted national feeling; rather it exacerbated it.