Since the decade of 1920s, the national movement acquired various ideological strands and thereby expanded its social base. Discuss.

The Indian national movement was undoubtedly one of the biggest mass movements modern societies have ever seen. However, it was the post-1920s that saw an evolution of INM and it led to a spectrum of ideas from left to right expanding its social phase which was largely educated middle-class.

The views of the various ideological strands are as follows:

1. Gandhism: Ideas based on non-violence, truth appealed to common masses and more so women.

2. Communism: Led by M N Roy and other leaders, it focussed on freedom of labour and peasants sought to include them in the movement.

3. Socialism: A new crop of leaders within Congress like S.C Bose, Jawahar Lal Nehru sought to broaden the idea of an equal society with the role for almost all classes.

4. The revolutionary idea with traits of socialism: Bhagat Singh (HSRA) brought more youths

5. Capitalism: The emergence of the indigenous capitalist class sought their restrained role in national movement through support to Congress.

6. Islamist nationalism: New youth disenchanted with the British rule and treatment to Khalifa supported nationalism and broadening INM as seen in Muslims huge participation in NCM. But later on, it developed into an idea of a separate nation led by Jinnah.

7. Communalism: British 'divide and rule' yielded results with communalism dividing the movement and weakening it from time to time.

8. The idea of marginalised liberation: It developed in parallel with INM where both British and Indian elite were considered exploiter, thus a united movement by marginalised as well gaining concession from the government was approached.

It will be accurate to say that these strands did not behave exclusively in their capacities, rather they complemented and supplemented each other one way and another. It resulted in the social base to stand out as togetherness of different masses.