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Unit 9: Establishment of the Indian National Congress: Home Rule Movement, Moderates and Extremists

from the Central Provinces and Berar in November 1916, most of the branches, at Arundale’s Notes
instance, held meetings and sent resolutions of protest to the Viceroy and the Secretary of State.
Tilak’s externment from Punjab and Delhi in February 1917 elicited a similar response.
Many Moderate Congressmen, who were dissatisfied with the inactivity into which the Congress
had lapsed, joined the Home Rule agitation. Members of Gokhale’s Servants of India Society,
though not permitted to become members of the League, were encouraged to add their weight to
the demand for Home Rule by undertaking lecture tours and publishing pamphlets. Many other
Moderate nationalists joined the Home Rule Leaguers in U.P. in touring the surrounding towns
and villages in preparation for the Lucknow session of the Congress in December 1916. Their
meetings were usually organized in the local Bar libraries, and attended by students, professionals,
businessmen and, if it was a market day, by agriculturists. Speaking in Hindi, they contrasted
India’s current poverty with her glorious past, and also explained the main features of European
independence movements. The participation of Moderates was hardly surprising, since the Home
Rule Leagues were after all only implementing the programme of political propaganda and
education that they had been advocating for so long.
Congress-Home Rule League Settlement
The Lucknow session of the Congress in December 1916 presented the Home Rule Leaguers with
the long-awaited opportunity of demonstrating their strength. Tilak’s Home Rule League established
a tradition that was to become an essential part of later Congress annual sessions — a special train,
known variously as the ‘Congress Special’ and the ‘Home Rule Special,’ was organized to carry
delegates from Western India to Lucknow. Arundale asked every member of the League to get
himself elected as a delegate to the Lucknow session—the idea being quite simply to flood the
Congress with Home Rule Leaguers.
Tilak and his men were welcomed back into the Congress by the Moderate president, Ambika
Charan Mazumdar: ‘After nearly 10 years of painful separation and wanderings through the
wilderness of misunderstandings and the mazes of unpleasant controversies . . . both the wings of
the Indian Nationalist party have come to realize the fact that united they stand, but divided they
fall, and brothers have at last met brothers . . .
The Lucknow Congress was significant also for the famous Congress League Pact, popularly
know as the Lucknow Pact. Both Tilak and Annie Besant had played a leading role in bringing
about this agreement between the Congress and the League, much against the wishes of many
important leaders, including Madan Mohan Malaviya. Answering the criticism that the Pact had
acceded too much to the Muslim League, Lokamanya Tilak said: ‘It has been said, gentlemen, by
some that we Hindus have yielded too much to our Mohammedan brethern. I am sure I represent
the sense of the Hindu community all over India when I say that we could not have yielded too
much. I would not care if the rights of self-government are granted to the Mohammedan community
only. I would not care if they are granted to the Rajputs. I would not care if they are granted to the
lower and the lowest classes of the Hindu population provided the British Government consider
them more fit than the educated classes of India for exercising those rights. I would not care if
those rights are granted to any section of the Indian community .. . When we have to fight against
a third party — it is a very important thing that we stand on this platform united, united in race,
united in religion, united as regards all different shades of political creed.
Faced with such a stand by one who was considered the most orthodox of Hindus and the greatest
scholar of the ancient religious texts, the opposition stood little chance of success, and faded away.
And though the acceptance of the principle of separate electorates for Muslims was certainly a
most controversial decision, it cannot be denied that the Pact was motivated by a sincere desire to
allay minority fears about majority domination.
The Lucknow Congress also demanded a further dose of constitutional reforms as a step towards
self-government. Though this did not go as far as the Home Rule Leaguers wished, they accepted
it in the interests of Congress unity. Another very significant proposal made by Tilak — that the
Congress should appoint a small and cohesive Working Committee that would carry on the day
to day affairs of the Congress and be responsible for implementing the resolutions passed at the

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