The new constitution was brought into operation in Jan-Feb 1921. The Duke of Connaught , (left)a son of Queen Victoria , was sent from Britain to Inaugurate the reforms.In accordance with the Congress resolution at Nagpur , his visit was boycotted by the people and placards were posted on the roadside carrying words as , "Boycott Connaught", "Remember Jallianwala", etc. The new Reforms could not be wrecked by the Non-Cooperators for the moderates who were elected did not resign their seatson account of the smallness of the number of voters, as Gandhi hoped. But it did not last long. Even after less than a year's experience the new organisation of the moderates , the liberal party, in their annual conference described the reforms as unsatisfactory and asked for full autonomy in the provinces and popular control over the centrol of the Government in all subjects excepts defense, foreign affairs etc.
Mr. Lloyd George , the prime Minister of Britain (right) revealed the real British policy in his famous speech in the Parliament on 2 Aug 1922. He made it quite clear that " Britain will in no circumstances relinquish her responsibility to India," and that " the British Civil Service must remain as the teel frame on which the whole structure of British administration in India must rest for ever."
The victory of the Swarajists at Delhi in Sept 1923, came not a moment too soon. The elections due to be held in Nov, a manifesto issued fro Allahabad on Oct 14, 1923 explaining the policy and programme of the Party.
The success of the Swarajya Party varried in different /provinces. It had captured the majority seats in C.P., but not in Madras and Punjab. In Bengal Swarajists formed the single largest party. but not absolute majority, In Bombay, U.P., and Assam, the swarajists were fairly strong, no member of the Swarajya Party was set up for election to the Legislative Council in Bihar and Orissa, but the Nationalists were returned in large number. Of the 105 members elected by the people, the Swarajistsnumbered48 and an Independent group led by jinnah won 24 members.without the support of them neither the Swarajists nor the Nationalists could form the Ministry.
The Swarajists with the support of the independents, on the basis of the common programme, formed the ministry. In the assembly the Swarajists Party won many motions.
In a speech to Parliament on August 2, 1922 Prime Minister Lloyd George praised the reforms in India and said they would not deprive the Civil Service in India of their privileges, asserting, “Britain will in no circumstances relinquish her responsibility in India.”8 The Indians found that the dyarchy reforms gave the governors more power than they had before. The All-India Congress Committee (AICC) met at Lakhnau in June 1922 and formed the Civil Disobedience Enquiry Committee. They reported that the country was not prepared for massive civil disobedience. During the Congress meeting at Gaya in December 1922 President C. R. Das made a plea for entering the Councils, but Rajagopalachari persuaded a large majority to continue the boycott. C. R. Das resigned and with Motilal Nehru and others formed the Swarajya party within the Congress. In the November 1923 elections the Swarajya party did much better than the Liberal party of the Moderates. They had 48 members in the Legislative Assembly and formed a majority coalition called the Nationalist party with the 24 Independents led by M. A. Jinnah. The Civil Marriage Act legalized marriage between different Hindu castes. However, the Government refused to modify the repressive laws. The Legislative Assembly rejected a doubling of the Salt Tax, but the Viceroy certified the measure. Viceroy Reading appointed the Lee Public Services Commission to encourage British civil servants while ostensibly planning to get more Indians into the Civil Service in 15 or 25 years.
In January 1924 the Labor party took office with Ramsay MacDonald as prime minister. Motilal Nehru proposed an amendment calling for a revision of the Government in India Act in order to establish fully responsible government in India with a Round Table Conference to protect the rights of minorities in a constitution for India. The Central Legislature would be dissolved and replaced by a newly elected Indian Legislature. The issue was discussed for three days in February, and the Assembly passed the amendment 76-48. On February 26 Secretary of State Olivier rejected the resolution to revise the constitution, but the Labor Government appointed a committee to look into the reforms. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald said that dominion status for India was the ideal of his Labor Government; but they were replaced by the Conservative party before the committee submitted its report.
Despite this setback, many believed that the Swarajya party had exposed the sham legislatures and the autocracy of the British and Indian bureaucracy. The Assembly reduced the duty on salt and abolished the excise duty on cotton and the import duty on sulfur. Resolutions were passed to improve labor conditions, protect Indian industries, remove racial distinctions in railways, impose a countervailing duty on South African coal, establish a military college for Indians (which did not open at Dehra Dun until 1934), protect trade unions, and relieve the poor by reducing railway fares and the price of postage stamps. Recruiting was taken away from the Secretary of State and given to the ministers for the Indian Educational Service, the Indian Agricultural Service, the Veterinary Service, and other Services.
The Women’s Indian Association was founded in 1923 and formed many branches, and they opened a Children’s Home in Madras. The next year a Birth Control League began in Bombay and was supported by the journal Navayuga (New Age). More than a thousand women attended the Indian National Congress in December 1924 at Belgaum, where Gandhi was president. The All-India Women’s Conference began meeting in 1926.
After recovering his health in 1924, Gandhi met with Motilal Nehru and C. R. Das in June, but they opposed his proposal to disqualify members of the Congress Executive Board for not fully subscribing to the non-cooperation program. Motilal doubted that spinning would bring them closer to swaraj. After C. R. Das died in June 1925, the General Council of the Swarajya party decided to cooperate with the Government. When the AICC met at Patna in September, Gandhi suggested that the Congress emphasize the political work of the Swarajya party even more than the constructive program. In December 1925 the Swarajist members walked out of the Councils in Uttar Pradesh, the Punjab, Assam, Bihar and Orissa, Madras, and Bombay. Swarajist members left the Bengal Council and the Central Provinces Council in March 1926. However, those following the “responsive cooperation” formulated by the late Tilak joined the Independent Congress party in September.
In Bengal revolutionaries committed robberies in 1923 to gain money. The Bengal Government revived the repressive laws and arrested more than eighty suspects to deter the “terrorists.” In the Punjab the Akali Sikhs used violence to make sure that the Sikhs controlled the Sikh temples (gurdwaras). They had been enraged when ruffians massacred about 130 Akalis in the gurdwara precincts in 1921. They formed the Central Gurdwara Management Committee and used passive resistance when the Punjab Government appointed non-Sikhs to a board of commissioners. More than five thousand Akalis were arrested, and some were beaten and had to be treated in a hospital. The Babbar (Lion) Akalis recruited radicals from the Ghadar party. When they used terrorism, the Punjab police infiltrated them. By the end of 1923 most were arrested, and some were hanged or imprisoned. When the British indicted the Sikh Maharaja of Nabha and forced him to abdicate, Akalis entered the state to protest. Police fired on one crowd, and thousands were arrested, including Jawaharlal Nehru who went as an observer and refused to leave. The disturbances ceased when a new gurdwara bill that the Akalis accepted became law in 1925. The Akalis claimed that a total of 400 were killed with 2,000 wounded and 30,000 arrested in the struggle. Master Tara Singh became the Akali leader.
Revolutionaries met at Kanpur in October 1924 and formed the Hindusthan Republican Association. They hoped to “establish a federated Republic of the United States of India by an organized and armed revolution.” Revolutionaries in the United Province led by Ramprasad Bismil robbed a train going from Kakori toward Alamnagar on August 9, 1925. The Kakori conspirators were caught. Ramprasad and three others were hanged; four were transported for life; and fifteen were sentenced to between five and fourteen years in prison.
Many Muslims did not agree with the Hindus on non-cooperation. The Hindu Mahasabha grew to counter the rivalry of the Muslims, and they were concerned that Muslim cooperation with the Government would disadvantage non-cooperating Hindus. Noting that proselytizing had increased the Muslims and Christians in India, in 1923 the Hindu Mahasabha reconverted 450,000 Malakana Rajputs from Islam to Hinduism. After the Khilafat movement fell apart, M. A. Jinnah revived the All-India Muslim League in 1924. They called for a federal constitution for India with minority representation.
Communal riots between Hindus and Muslims broke out in Calcutta in May 1923 and lasted for several days. The riots sporadically erupted in various towns and villages. The scurrilous attack on Muhammad in the book Rangila Rasul (The Gay Prophet) provoked riots in 1924, and the author was murdered in 1929. Muslims attacked fifteen Hindu temples in Gulburga in Nizam’s territory in 1924. The worst riot was at Kohat in the North-West Frontier Province in September 1924 that killed 36 Hindus and burned 473 houses and shops. Investigators could not agree on who started the violence, and the British government had allowed the looting. Gandhi was so upset that he went on a fast for 21 days. Three hundred people met a Delhi but could not resolve the conflicts. In April 1926 a riot in Calcutta killed 44 and injured 584 people. The Hindu proselytizer Swami Shraddhananda was assassinated by a Muslim fanatic at Delhi in December 1926. Between 1922 and 1927 an estimated 450 lives were lost as 5,000 people were injured in 112 communal riots.
During the late 1920s Gandhi wrote An Autobiography, which he subtitled “The Story of My Experiments with Truth.” This book is quite candid and humble in the way he examined his faults and his efforts to overcome them. In the preface he indicated that his goal was spiritual liberation (moksha). In his speeches he pointed out his five-point program on the fingers of his hand: equality for untouchables, spinning, no alcohol or opium, Hindu-Muslim friendship, and equality for women. They were all connected to the wrist, which stood for nonviolence. After he approved of killing stray dogs, Gandhi was accused of abandoning ahimsa. He was blamed for killing a maimed calf that was suffering from an incurable disease at his ashram; but he considered that action nonviolent because the unselfish purpose was to relieve the pain of the calf.
On November 8, 1927 Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin announced the forming of a commission led by John Simon composed of seven members of the British Parliament. In his announcement Viceroy Irwin explained that for the commission to be “unbiased and unprejudiced” no Indian members could be included. This ironic statement shows the deep-seated and unconscious prejudice that pervaded the British Government of India. Indian political leaders unanimously decided to boycott the commission. In December 1927 the Indian princes persuaded Secretary of State Birkenhead to appoint a committee led by Harcourt Butler, but their report upheld British paramountcy.
In 1928 Gandhi announced a satyagraha campaign led by Vallabhbhai Patel in Bardoli against a 22% increase in British-imposed taxes. Refusing to pay taxes, the people had their possessions confiscated, and some were driven off their land; but they remained nonviolent. The campaign lasted six months, and hundreds were arrested. Finally Vallabhbhai’s brother Vithalbhai Patel, President of the Central Legislative Assembly, brokered a compromise. The Government agreed to cancel the tax increase, release all prisoners, and return confiscated land and property, and the peasants promised to pay their taxes at the previous rate.
Amir Amanullah of Afghanistan toured Europe in the summer of 1928. When he tried to introduce social, legal, and educational reforms, conservatives led a rebellion that caused a civil war. Amanullah abdicated in May 1929. The Government of India did not intervene except to help British, Indian, and other foreigners to flee. After Bachai-i-Saqqao usurped power, eventually Muhammad Nadir Shah of the old ruling house restored order. He gradually implemented the reforms but was assassinated by a fanatic on November 8, 1933. His son Muhammad Zahir succeeded him and continued his father’s policy.
On February 3, 1928 the Simon Commission arrived in India to find huge demonstrations and a complete hartal in the major towns. Representatives of 29 major organizations met at Delhi on February 12. Differences between the Muslim League, the Hindu Mahasabha, and the Sikhs led to a small committee being formed in May with Motilal Nehru as chairman. They submitted a report on a new constitution that was considered by the All Parties Conference at Lakhnau in late August 1928. The Nehru Constitution was accepted. Because it called for reforming some provinces to help Muslims but proposed phasing out reserving seats for Muslim minorities after ten years, in Calcutta in December at a convention Jinnah proposed an amendment that Muslims should have one-third of the Central Legislature. When his amendments were defeated, Jinnah and the Sikhs withdrew. An All-India Muslim Conference met and unanimously demanded separate electorates under a federal system. At the Indian National Congress, also held in Calcutta, younger members led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Bose objected to abandoning the goal of independence. So Gandhi suggested the compromise that dominion status be accepted if the British Parliament approved the entire Nehru Constitution by the end of 1929. Otherwise the Congress planned to organize a nonviolent non-cooperation campaign for complete independence calling for tax refusal.
Jawaharlal Nehru had visited Europe and attended the Brussels Congress of Oppressed Nationalities in February 1927. He was elected to the executive committee of the League Against Imperialism. He and Subhas-chandra Bose organized the Independence for India League in August 1928, and in 1929 many youth and student organizations sprang up all over India. His father Motilal Nehru led the Congress Party in the Legislative Assembly; the Bengal Congress party won elections in May, as did Nationalist Muslims. In July the Congress Working Committee called upon Congressmen to resign their seats, but the AICC rescinded the decision. Jawaharlal Nehru was elected president of the next Congress and was also a devoted follower of Gandhi. The young Nehru then differed with Subhas Bose, who continued to lead the youths and the left wing.
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