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

During 1918, however, various factors combined to diffuse the energies that had concentrated in Notes
the agitation for Home Rule. The movement, instead of going forward after its great advance in
1917, gradually dissolved. For one, the Moderates who had joined the movement after Besant’s
arrest were pacified by the promise of reforms and by Besant’s release. They were also put off by
the talk of civil disobedience and did not attend the Congress from September 1918 onwards. The
publication of the scheme of Government reforms in July 1918 further divided the nationalist
ranks. Some wanted to accept it outright and others to reject it outright, whlie many felt that,
though inadequate, they should be given a trial. Annie Besant herself indulged in a lot of vacillation
on this question as well as on the question of passive resistance. At times she would disavow
passive resistance, and at other times, under pressure from her younger followers, would advocate
it. Similarly, she initially, along with Tilak, considered the reforms unworthy of Britain to offer
and India to accept, but later argued in favour of acceptance. Tilak was more consistent in his
approach, but given Besant’s vacillations, and the change in the Moderate stance, there was little
that he could do to sustain the movement on his own. Also, towards the end of the year, he
decided to go to England to pursue the libel case that he had filed against Valentine Chirol, the
author of Indian Unrest, and was away for many critical months. With Annie Besant unable to give
a firm lead, and Tilak away in England, the movement was left leaderless.
The tremendous achievement of the Home Rule Movement and its legacy was that it created a
generation of ardent nationalists who formed the backbone of the national movement in the
coming years when, under the leadership of the Mahatma, it entered its truly mass phase. The
Home Rule Leagues also created organizational links between town and country which were to
prove invaluable in later years. And further, by popularizing the idea of Home Rule or self-
government, and making it a commonplace thing, it generated a widespread pro-nationalist
atmosphere in the country.
By the end of the First World War, in 1918, the new generation of nationalists aroused to political
awareness and impatient with the pace of change, were looking for a means of expressing themselves
through effective political action. The leaders of the Home Rule League, who themselves were
responsible for bringing them to this point, were unable to show the way forward. The stage was
thus set for the entry of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a man who had already made a name for
himself wilth his leadership of the struggle of Indians in South Africa and by leading the struggles
of Indian peasants and workers in Champaran, Ahmedabad and Kheda. And in March 1919,
when he gave a call for a Satyagrah to protest against the obnoxious ‘Rowlatt’ Act, he was the
rallying point for almost all those who had been awakened to politics by the Home Rule Movement.

9.3 Moderates and Extremists
The national leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji, P.M. Mehta, D.E. Wacha, W.C. Bannerjee, S.N. Banerjee
who dominated the Congress policies during this period were staunch believers in liberalism and
‘moderate’ politics and came to be labelled as Moderates to distinguish them from the neonationalists
of the early 20th century who were referred to as Extremists. The Moderate leaders explained their
political outlook as a happy combination of liberalism and moderation. Believers in the spirit of
liberalism, they worked to procure for Indians freedom from race and creed prejudices, equality
between man and man, equality before law, extension of civil liberties, extension of representative
institutions etc. As to their methods, M.G. Ranade explained, “Moderation implies the conditions
of never vainly aspiring after the impossible or after too remote ideals, but fairness. Thus the
Moderate leaders were convinced believers in the policy of gradualism and constitutionalism.
During this period the Congress was dominated by the affluent middle class intelligentsia, men of
legal, medical, engineering, literary pursuits and journalists. The ideas and methods of this middle
class held the field and governed the character of the national struggle. The educated middle class
was enamoured of titles and services under the state and by its training and culture had isolated
itself from the masses. The delegates to the Congress sessions were mostly drawn from the cities
and had hardly any real contact with the masses. Sir Pherozeshah Mehta once explained: “The
Congress was indeed not the voice of the masses, but it was the duty of their compatriots to
interpret their grievances and offer suggestions for their redress.”

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