(a) Discuss the policies and programmes of the early nationalists (moderates). To what extent they were able to fulfil the…

The evolution of modern India reflects a continuous contestation between state power, popular aspirations, and institutional governance, spanning from colonial constitutionalism to post-colonial geopolitical and ecological challenges.

Policies, Programmes, and Aspirations under the Moderates

The early nationalists (1885–1905), led by Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, and Surendranath Banerjea, adopted constitutional agitation within the legal framework. Their methods rested on the "3Ps"—prayer, petition, and protest—utilising political associations and the vernacular press (such as Amrita Bazar Patrika and The Bengalee) to build public opinion and present memorandums to British authorities.

Their most enduring programme was the economic critique of colonialism. Through the "Drain Theory" pioneered by Naoroji in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India and corroborated by R.C. Dutt’s Economic History of India, they exposed the exploitative mechanism of revenue collection, unilateral capital transfers, and de-industrialisation. On constitutional matters, they demanded administrative Indianisation, reduction of military expenditure, expansion of the legislative councils, and separation of executive from judiciary.

Their success in fulfilling popular aspirations was mixed. On the one hand, they succeeded in fostering a pan-Indian political consciousness, demystifying the benevolent image of the British Raj, and securing modest institutional gains like the Indian Councils Act of 1892. On the other hand, their elitist social base and belief in British justice prevented mass mobilisation. They failed to offer immediate material relief to peasants and industrial workers suffering from recurrent famines and agrarian distress, leading to an inevitable radicalisation of the national movement under the Extremists.

The McMahon Line and India-China Relations in the 1950s and 1960s

The boundary contention stemmed from the 1914 Simla Convention, which delineated the McMahon Line between British India and Tibet. While independent India recognised it as a legitimate customary boundary, the People's Republic of China (PRC) rejected it as an imperialist imposition, considering Tibet sovereign Chinese territory.

Throughout the 1950s, India pursued a policy of accommodation. The 1954 Panchsheel Agreement and the 1955 Bandung Conference cultivated an era of bonhomie (Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai), but left the frontier ill-defined. Chinese cartographic claims over NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh) and Aksai Chin soon created friction.

By 1959, relations deteriorated following the Tibetan uprising, the grant of asylum to the Dalai Lama, and violent skirmishes at Longju and the Kongka Pass. Diplomatic letters between Jawaharlal Nehru and Premier Zhou Enlai revealed deep impasses; Zhou sought a package deal swapping Aksai Chin for the McMahon Line, which Indian public opinion and parliament resisted.

Despite cautious diplomatic assessments by figures like K.M. Panikkar, India pursued the "Forward Policy" to establish defensive posts in disputed areas, overseen by Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon. This culminated in the disastrous 1962 Sino-Indian War. The conflict shattered the non-aligned solidarity of Asia-Africa, exposed India’s military vulnerabilities, and caused a long-standing freeze in bilateral ties that redirected Indian strategic planning toward militarisation and diplomatic realpolitik.

Popular Movements and the Post-Colonial Environmental Crisis

Post-colonial popular movements demonstrated that India’s environmental crisis was structurally intertwined with state-sponsored developmentalism. The Chipko Movement (1970s) in the Uttarakhand Himalayas revealed how commercial forestry deprived local hill communities of biomass and subsistence, turning ecological degradation into a survival crisis.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan similarly exposed the human and ecological costs of large dams, challenging state claims of public interest by highlighting displacement, inadequate rehabilitation, and biodiversity destruction. In central India, movements in Jharkhand articulated indigenous resistance against open-cast mining and industrial corridors that eroded tribal customary rights over jal, jangal, jameen (water, forest, land).

These movements revealed the core nature of India's environmental crisis:

1. It was an outcome of state-led "growthism" that commodified natural resources at the expense of ecological limits.
2. It highlighted the friction between "subaltern environmentalism" (the environmentalism of the poor defending their livelihoods) and state-backed elite conservation.
3. It exposed a severe democratic deficit in resource governance, where local communities were excluded from ecological decision-making.

A comprehensive reading of state-society relations requires balancing state sovereignty and economic planning with decentralized, ecologically sustainable, and participatory institutions that protect both regional frontiers and subaltern livelihoods.