Evaluate the role of business classes in the ‘Civil Disobedience Movement’.

• During the First World War, Indian merchants and industrialists had made huge profits and become powerful.

• They wanted protection against imports of foreign goods, and a rupee-sterling foreign exchange ratio that would discourage imports.

• To organise business interests, they formed the Indian Industrial and Commercial Congress in 1920.

• They formed the Federation of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (FICCI) in 1927.

• Led by prominent industrialists like Purshottamdas Thakurdas and G. D. Birla, the industrialists attacked colonial control over the Indian economy, and supported the Civil Disobedience Movement when it was first launched.

• They gave financial assistance and refused to buy or sell imported goods.