Before reading this article, I sincerely invite you to click "follow", not only to support us, but also to have a different sense of participation, thank you for your attention!
preface
The reunification of the Congress Party was a common cry of both extremists and moderates, as well as of the Self-Government League, to which Mrs. Tirak and Besant and other leaders of the national movement had made an indelible contribution.
The split of the Congress Party at the 1907 annual meeting in Surat, the suppression of Swadesi activists by the colonial authorities, and the dashing of the dream of moderate constitutional reform in 1909 all contributed to the decline of the Congress Party's development. Therefore, the Congress Party must achieve unity and cheer up.
Unification of the Congress Party
The call for the United Congress party originated first and foremost from the extremist Tirak and Madame Besante of the Self-Government League. From the beginning, Tirak devoted all his energies to returning to the Congress party, not only for himself but also for members of other extremists. He was well aware that the Congress Party was the only national bourgeois political organization in India and a strong backing for organizing any political activity, and therefore he always advocated turning the Congress Party into a national anti-colonial united front organization. The extremists were forced to leave the Congress because they could not accept the new creed laid down by the moderates. Today, the extremists led by Tirak have shifted to a bourgeois position, and the differences with the moderates are getting smaller and smaller, and there is no reason to stay outside the Congress and let the moderates dominate the Congress. Moreover, Tirak resented the rigidity of the moderate leaders, turning the Congress party into a pool of stagnant water, eager to reverse the situation once and for all.
Although Mrs. Besant had not been a member of the Congress party for a long time, she was enthusiastic about the Hindu nationalist movement and was quite popular among Hindu nationalists. At that time, Madame Besante was working on the self-government league movement. The establishment of an autonomous league requires the support of the Congress party, as well as close cooperation with the extremists. As a result, she put pressure on the moderates of the Congress Party and went to great lengths to persuade moderate leaders to open the doors of the Congress Party for Tirak and his companions.
At the annual Congress meeting in September 1914, the Bombay moderates, led by Mehtah, persuaded the Bengali moderates, led by Gookre, to shut out the extremists. This result disappointed Tilak and Madame Besante. Therefore, they decided to launch their own autonomy movement to put more pressure on the Congress party, hoping that the extremists would return to the Congress party.
Calls for the Congress party's reunification have also been echoed among moderates. In fact, many members of the moderates were not satisfied with the decision to split at the annual meeting of Surat in 1907. Given that the Congress party was almost a stagnant pool, they were very much in favor of Tilak and Mrs. Besante. At the annual Congress Party meetings, in the press, more and more moderates expressed their wishes. They believe that there is no reason for the moderates in the autonomy movement carried out by the extremists to disapprove, and that the extremists have abandoned the boycott strategy, and the reason for the Congress to split no longer exists. When Mrs. Besante came forward to mediate between the two factions on the reunification of the Congress Party, she was supported by a moderate majority. In addition, the deaths of senior moderate leaders Mehta and Guocre in 1915 removed the main obstacle to unification. The Congress Party also made corresponding amendments to its constitution, clearing the way for extremists to re-enter the Congress Party.
In December 1916, the Congress Party held its annual meeting in Lucknow, and the extremists and moderates were finally reunited. The annual meeting was attended by 2,310 delegates, and when Tirak appeared on the podium, thunderous applause accompanied by cheers filled the hall for a long time. In an emotional speech by Congress moderates Ambika Mazonda, Ventagine President of the Congress Party, he warmly welcomed Tirak and his extremist members back to the Congress: "After almost 10 years of painful separation and disassociation, nearly 10 years of misunderstanding and confusion, and almost 10 years of unpleasant controversy and confusion, the two wings of the Hindu nationalist party have finally realized that 'unity is the rule, the division is the collapse', and the brothers have finally come hand in hand." ”
At the Lucknow meeting, Tirak made an important proposal to create a small but cohesive working committee to deal with the day-to-day affairs of the Congress party, as well as to implement the bills passed at the annual meeting. With this proposal, Tirak hopes to transform the Congress from a deliberative group into a political group capable of leading a sustained revolutionary movement. Unfortunately, however, this proposal was rejected by moderates. Four years later, in 1920, Mahatma Gandhi reformed the Congress Party, fulfilling Tirak's wishes.
From the Congress Party's annual meeting in Lucknow, Tirak became the most popular leader of the Congress Party. The Congress Party declared its full approval of the activities of the Self-Government League, which contributed to the further development of the autonomy movement. As Tirak's ideas were accepted by the Congress Party, the distinction between extremists and moderates disappeared. Tirak led the Congress Party until his death in 1920, a period known as the "Tirak era".
The unification of the Congress Party was of great significance to the development of the Indian national movement. The reunified Congress Party regained its strength, regained its strength and re-established itself as the center of leading the national movement, preparing the organizational leadership conditions for the upsurge of the post-war national movement.
Congress cooperation with the Muslim League
The year 1916 was an epoch-making year in the history of the Indian national movement, which not only witnessed the reunification of the two factions of the Congress Party, but also achieved the first cooperation between the Congress Party and the Muslim League.
The establishment of cooperation between the Congress Party and the Muslim League is the result of long-term joint efforts between the two sides and is also the need for the development of the Indian national movement. First, from 1913 onwards, the new forces in the Muslim League gained the upper hand and the Muslim League's policy changed significantly. The new constitution adopted that year clearly stated that the goal of the MLA was to establish self-government in India through constitutional means suitable for India's national conditions. This marked a fundamental shift in the political direction of the Muslim League, which became a party with clear nationalist political goals.
This shift is mainly reflected in three aspects: (1) The vision of the Muslim League has gone beyond the scope of Islam and has begun to consider issues from the perspective of the Indian nation, with national interests taking precedence over religious interests. (2) The activities of the Muslim League are no longer limited to securing more seats and civil service opportunities for Muslims, but raise the political issue of the Indian people taking charge of their own destiny, with the interests of the whole taking precedence over sectarian interests. (3) The spearhead of the Muslim League was no longer to cooperate with the colonial authorities against the Congress Party, but to stand in line with the Congress Party and jointly put forward the demands of the Indian nation to the colonial authorities. The change in the political direction of the Muslim League is of great significance not only to the Muslim movement itself, but also to the development of the Indian national movement as a whole.
Second, from 1915 onwards, the Congress Party agreed to separate Muslim suffrage, removing major obstacles to cooperation between the two organizations. The main disagreement between the Congress Party and the Muslim League is the separate Muslim electoral system, and the Congress Party has previously taken a strong opposition position on this issue, leaving no room for negotiation.
In the overall interest of national autonomy, the Congress Party abandoned its previous hard-line stance, agreed for the first time to separate Muslim elections, and worked out the proportion of seats held by Muslims in the Legislative Assembly province-by-province. Provinces where Muslims are a minority have slightly more seats than the population; Muslim-majority provinces, on the other hand, have slightly less seats than the population. The change in the Congress Party's attitude towards the separate Muslim electoral system is of great significance, mainly reflected in two points: (1) Accepting the Muslim separate electoral system is conducive to winning the wholehearted support of Muslims for the autonomy movement and uniting Muslims in the common struggle against Britain. (2) This was the first time that the Congress Party and the Muslim League themselves had resolved their internal differences through consultations, which ruled out the possibility of intervention and provocation by the colonial authorities, and paved the way for cooperation between the two organizations.
The outbreak of World War I provided an opportunity for the Congress Party and the Muslim League to cooperate. In World War I, in order to get the British colonial rulers to fulfill their promise of post-war autonomy to India, the Congress Party and the Muslim League took the same position and actively supported the British in the war. The two organizations got closer together, and the two sides agreed that the annual meetings of the two organizations would be held at the same time and in the same city, so that the leaders of the two sides could attend each other and exchange views.
Against this backdrop, the Congress Party and the Muslim League are making strides on the path of cooperation. In December 1915, the two annual meetings of the Congress Party and the Muslim League were held simultaneously in Bombay, with the leaders of the two sides attending each other, and the slogan "Unity is Strength" resounded in both venues. At the annual meeting of the Muslim League, Congress leaders Sue Banerjee, Mrs. Besante, Mrs. Naidu and Gandhi sat on the podium alongside Muslim League leaders Jinnah and Mazhar Haq. It was the first time since the founding of the two organizations that a Congress leader had attended the annual meeting of the Muslim League, for which Mrs. Naidu hailed Jinnah as a "fearless fighter for unity."
At Jinnah's suggestion, the Muslim League decided to set up a committee to discuss with the Congress Party a political reform package aimed at achieving India's autonomy. The Congress Party was also in favour of the corresponding establishment of a committee to work with the Muslim League Council on a programme to present joint demands to the colonial authorities.
Congress Party-Muslim League Lucknow Agreement
In December 1916, the Congress Party and the Muslim League held their annual meeting in Lucknow at the same time. The president of the annual meeting of the Congress Party is Ambika Majumdar, and the chairman of the annual meeting of the Muslim League is Jinnah. At the same time, the two sides adopted a jointly developed programme of action, known as the Congress-Muslim League Lekknow Agreement, in which Tirak and Mrs. Besant played a major role in brokering the Congress Party and the Alliance Agreement. The agreement stipulates that after the end of the war, India shall obtain the self-governing status of the Dominion of the British Empire; There should be 4/5 of the elected members in the Legislative Council at all levels; Half of all levels of government officials should be appointed by Parliament; The Central Legislative Council may not interfere with the competence of the central government in foreign policy and leading the armed forces.
In the agreement, the Congress Party also accepted for the first time the principle of separate Muslim suffrage upheld by the Muslim League: 33% of the elected members of the Central Legislative Council should be Muslim; In Bangladesh and Punjab, where Muslims are the majority, Muslim voters can be slightly smaller than the proportion of the population; In a province with a Muslim minority, the proportion of Muslims in the province may correspondingly exceed the proportion of the Muslim population in that province.
The demands of the Lucknow Agreement were ignored by the colonial authorities, but they marked the beginning of cooperation between the Congress Party and the Muslim League, laying the foundation for Gandhi's support for the Caliphate and the active participation of the Muslim masses in the non-cooperation movement in the early post-war period. In his speech at the annual meeting, Jinnah spoke highly of the agreement, praising it as a symbol of the birth of a united India, on which India's future, its unity and shared ideals for constitutional freedoms depend to a large extent. Tirak also praised the agreement, which melted and dismantled divisions that were harmful to the nation and society, marking the growth of national consciousness. Now that India's voice of unity has issued an ultimatum to the British colonial bureaucrats to go away, their days are numbered.
The Congress Party's cooperation with the Muslim League in exchange for recognition of separate Muslim suffrage is laudable, but it has been used by some Islamist minds as a new basis for advocating for a Muslim political entity. Some sectarian Hindus also accused the agreement of making excessive concessions to Muslims and currying favor with Muslims at the expense of Hindus, and blamed Tirak and the Congress for this.
Tirak replied: "Gentlemen, some say that we Hindus make too many concessions to our Muslim brothers. But I am sure that we have not made concessions. I say this on behalf of Hindus across the country. I don't mind if the right to autonomy is given only to Muslim groups, or to the Rajputs. If the British government thinks that the lowest Hindus are better suited to enjoy these rights than the educated people in India, then I don't mind giving them the right to autonomy. I don't mind giving these rights to any segment of Indian society. When we have to fight third parties, it is very important that we unite regardless of race, religion or political creed. In the face of such a powerful aura of Tirak, those voices of opposition that were not dominant gradually disappeared.
However, due to complex historical and practical reasons, the contradictions between Hindus and Muslims have not been eliminated. The foundation of cooperation between the Congress Party and the Muslim League is relatively weak, the significance of cooperation is limited, and there are profound contradictions lurking behind the good desire for cooperation. The different reactions of different religious, political and social forces in India to the Lucknow Agreement provided the conditions for the intensification of Hindu sectarian contradictions and for the colonizers to sow religious conflicts and implement a "divide and rule" policy. Indian historian Majunda has some truth in saying that the Congress Party's actions in 1916 really laid the foundation stone for the emergence of Pakistan 30 years later.
Resources
Lin Chengjie: The Rise of the Indian National Independence Movement, pp. 432~437
Bal Gangadhar Tilak，his Writings and Speeches，Madras：Ganesh & Co.，1919，p.362.
Bipan Chandra，Mridula Mukherjee，Aditya Mukherjee，K.N.Panikkar，Sucheata Mahajan，India's Struggle for Independence，1857-1947，p.132
Lin Chengjie, A History of India during Colonial Rule, p. 223