The Muslim League, founded in 1906, was originally mainly an organization of some Muslims who emphasized the bond of religion in place of the ” New Nationalism”. Its attitude was at first exclusive, but as its numbers grew, it imbibed the nationalistic spirit, which animated the country. In 1913 it adopted ” self-government within the Empire” as its goal. The war between Turkey and Britain aroused strong anti-British feelings among powerful sections of Muslims and paved the way for co-operation between them and the Congress. Both the Congress and the League field their sessions at Lucknow in 1916, and concluded the famous “Lucknow Pact” by which the Congress agreed to separate electorates and the two organizations jointly framed a constitutional scheme on the basis of Dominion Status.
The year 1916 which saw the union of the Moderate and Radical sections of the Congress, and the friendly co-operation between it and the Muslim League for the common cause of India, is also memorable for the inauguration of two Home Rule Leagues, one founded by Lokamanya Tilak in April of that year, and another by Annie Besant five months later. These two bodies co-operated in carrying on an intensive propaganda in favour of the “Congress- League Scheme” of political reforms.
The Non-Co-operation and Civil Disobedience Movement(1917-1934)
The War of 1914-1918, which brought about the rapprochement between the Congress and the Muslim League also furthered the Indian cause in other ways. Indian soldiers rendered splendid service to the Empire at critical moments of the war. In acknowledging it Lord Birkenhead truly remarked: “Without India the war would have been immensely prolonged, if indeed without her help it could have been brought to a victorious conclusion.” England felt bound to recompense this service by political reforms in India, particularly as one of the avowed objects of the war was to secure self-determination for subject peoples and to make the world safe for democracy. Besides, the lessons of the Russian Revolution and the collapse of the Tsarist regime probably had some effect on a section of British politicians. All these factors led to the famous announcement of 1917 and the constitution of 1919 to which reference has been made earlier.
The publication of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report created a split in the ranks of the Congress. It was considered in a special session of the Congress, and condemned as inadequate, disappointing and unsatisfactory. Thereupon most of the leaders of the Moderate Party left the Congress, and later founded the Indian Liberal Federation. Mahatma Gandhi was at first inclined to try to make the reforms work, and the Congress decided in favour of this in December, 1919. But he changed his views before a year was over. Under his inspiration the Congress adopted, in a special session held in Calcutta in September, 1920, the famous resolution on Non-co-operation which recommended the renunciation of Government titles and the boycotting of the Legislatures, law-courts and Government educational institutions leading up at a later date to the non-payment of taxes. Further, the object of the Indian National Congress was now defined as the attainment of Swarajya (self-rule) by all legitimate and peaceful means. This last phrase replaced the words “constitutional means”, and Swarajya was taken to imply “self-rule within the Empire, if possible; without, if necessary”.
The new policy was acclaimed with enthusiasm, and received overwhelming support from the masses. As a British writer has observed, Gandhiji “not only converted the nationalist movement into a revolutionary movement, but also made it popular”. The Congress gave up its old methods of constitutional agitation, and it was now broad-based on the willing support of the masses. This great change was helped by some contemporary events, two of which deserve special mention, viz. the atrocities in the Punjab and the Khilafat agitation.
In 1919 the Government passed a set of new coercive measures, known as the Rowlatt Acts from the name of the President of the Committee on whose report they were based. These sought to perpetuate the extraordinary repressive powers conferred on the Government during the way, for doing away with ordinary legal procedure and for authorising imprisonment without trial. Gandhiji organised a passive resistance movement in protest, and “a mighty wave of mass demonstrations, strikes, unrest and rioting spread over many parts of India”. The Government put down the movement with a heavy hand, the blackest stain on its record being in connection with a prohibited meeting of citizens at an enclosed place called Jalianwalla Bagh at Amritsar. Troops under General Dyer fired 1,600 rounds of ammunition into the unarmed crowd who had no means of exit. Even according to official estimates 379 persons were killed, and 1,200 wounded were left untended. Martial law was proclaimed in the Punjab; and the subsequent inquiries revealed a gruesome picture of shootings, hangings, bombing from the air and extremely severe sentences passed by the tribunals during the reign of terror.
The part played by Britain in the defeat of Turkey and the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire in the First World War offended the religious and historical sentiment of the Muslims, and caused them to adopt an aggressive anti-British attitude. The two brothers, Muhammad Ali and Shaukat Ali, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad organized a mass movement of the Muslims known as the Khilafat movement.
There was already widespread unrest among the industrial workers. The Bombay Mill strike affected more than 123,000 workers at the beginning of 1919 and there were no fewer than 200 strikes involving 15 lakhs of workers during the first six months of 1920. The atrocities in the Punjab stirred the whole country, and in the Khilafat movement Gandhiji saw “an opportunity of uniting Hindus and Mahomedans as would not arise in a hundred years.” He wholeheartedly espoused the Khilafat cause, and there was, as an official publication recorded, “unprecedented fraternisation between the Hindus and the Muslims”.
