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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes On 16 June 1914, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was released after serving a prison sentence of six years,
most of which he had spent in Mandalay in Burma. He returned to India very different to the one
he had been banished from. Aurobindo Ghose, the firebrand of the Swadeshi days, had taken
sanyas in Pondicherry, and Lala Lajpat Rai was away in the United States of America. The Indian
National Congress had yet to recover from the combined effects of the split at Surat in 1907, the
heavy government repression of the activists of the Swadeshi Movement, and the disillusionment
of the Moderates with the constitutional reforms of 1909.
Tilak initially concentrated all his attention on seeking readmission, for himself and other Extremists,
into the Indian National Congress. He was obviously convinced that the sanction of this body, that
had come to symbolize the Indian national movement, was a necessary pre-condition for the
success of any political action. To conciliate the Moderates and convince them of his bonafides, as
well as to stave off any possible government repression, he publicly declared: ‘I may state once for
all that we are trying in India, as the Irish Home-rulers have been doing in Ireland, for a reform
of the system of administration and not for the overthrow of Government; and I have no hesitation
in saying that the acts of violence which had been committed in the different parts of India are not
only repugnant to me, but have, in my opinion, only unfortunately retarded to a great extent, the
pace of our political progress. He Further assured the Government of his loyalty to the Crown and
urged all Indians to assist the British Government in its hour of crisis.
Many of the Moderate leaders of the Congress were also unhappy with the choice they had made
in 1907 at Surat, and also with the fact that the Congress had lapsed into almost total inactivity.
They were, therefore, quite sympathetic to Tilak’ s overtures. Further, they were under considerable
pressure from Mrs. Annie Besant, who had just joined the Indian National Congress and was keen
to arouse nationalist political activity, to admit the Extremists.
Annie Besant, already sixty-six in 1914, had begun her political career in England as a proponent
of free Thought, Radicalism, Fabianism and Theosophy, and had come to India in 1893 to work for
the Theosophical Society. Since 1907, she had been spreading the message of Theosophy from her
headquarters in Adyar, a suburb of Madras, and had gained a large number of followers, among
the educated members of many communities that had experienced no cultural revival of their
own. In 1914, she decided to enlarge the sphere of her activities to include the building of a
movement for Home Rule on the lines of the Irish Home Rule League. For this, she realized it was
necessary both to get the sanction of the Congress, as well as the active cooperation of the Extremists.
She devoted her energies, therefore, to persuading the Moderate leaders to open the doors of the
Congress to Tilak and his fellow-Extremists.
But the annual Congress session in December 1914 was to prove a disappointment — Pherozeshah
Mehta and his Bombay Moderate group succeeded, by winning over Gokhale and the Bengal
Moderates, in keeping out the Extremists. Tilak and Besant there upon decided to revive political
activity on their own, while maintaining their pressure on the Congress to re-admit the Extremist
group.
In early 1915, Annie Besant launched a campaign through her two papers, New India and
Commonweal, and organized public meetings and conferences to demand that India be granted
self-government on the lines of the White colonies after the War. From April 1915, her tone
became more peremptory and her stance more aggressive.
Meanwhile, Lokamanya began his political activities, but, not yet having gained admittance into the
Congress, was careful that he did not in any way alarm the Moderates or appear to be by-passing the
Congress. This is clear from the fact that at the meeting of his followers convened at Poona in May
1915, it was decided that their initial phase of action would be to set up an agency ‘to enlighten the
villagers regarding the objects and work of the Congress. The local associations that were set up in
many Maharashtra towns in August and September of that year also concentrated more on
emphasizing the need for unity in the Congress than on the stepping up of political activity. While
sometimes resorting to threats to pressurize the more conservative among the Moderates, Tilak still
hoped to persuade the majority to accept him because of his reasonableness and caution.

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