Government Repression and Strategy

At a Glance

• What it is The government’s response to the Extremists after 1907
• Laws Five laws 1907-11, including the Seditious Meetings Act and Indian Press Act
• Tilak Tried for sedition; six years’ transportation to Mandalay
• Strategy Repression, conciliation, suppression; carrot and stick
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Modern History: Era of Militant Nationalism, 1905-1909

Where Does It Fit?

This is the ninth topic of the category on the era of militant nationalism. The previous topic compared the Moderates and Extremists. This topic describes how the government dealt with them after Surat. The next topic covers the reforms of 1909 and the formation of the Muslim League. Previous topic: Moderates and Extremists: A Comparison.

What Laws Did the Government Pass?

The government launched a massive attack on the Extremists. Between 1907 and 1911 five new laws were brought into force to check anti-government activity. The chapter names the Seditious Meetings Act of 1907, the Indian Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act of 1908, the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1908 and the Indian Press Act of 1910. The Explosive Substances Act of 1908 is usually counted as the fifth.

Why Was Tilak Tried?

Tilak, the main Extremist leader, was tried for sedition for what he wrote in his Kesari in 1908 about a bomb thrown by Bengal revolutionaries at Muzaffarpur, which killed two innocent European women. The chapter dates the trial to 1909, though it is usually dated to 1908. Tilak had written that such acts would inspire hatred against the rebels’ party and could not make British rule disappear, but that rulers with unrestricted power must remember there is a limit to the patience of humanity, and that if they used Russian methods, Indians too would be compelled to imitate Russian methods. In another article he wrote that the real means of stopping bombs was to begin granting the rights of swarajya to the people.

Tilak was judged guilty and sentenced to six years’ transportation and a fine of Rs 1,000, and was sent to the Mandalay jail in Burma for six years. John Morley, the Secretary of State, wrote that the mischief of trying and condemning Tilak would be greater than leaving him alone. Aurobindo and B.C. Pal retired from active politics, and Lajpat Rai left for abroad. The Extremists could not organise an effective alternative party to sustain the movement, and the Moderates were left without a popular base or support, since the youth rallied behind the Extremists. After 1908 the national movement as a whole declined for a time. In 1914 Tilak was released and picked up the threads of the movement. The revolutionary side of the response to the Muzaffarpur bomb is in a later category.

What Was the Government’s Strategy?

The British Indian government had been hostile to the Congress from the beginning, as in Evaluation of the Early Nationalists. Even after the Moderates, who dominated the Congress from the start, began distancing themselves from the militant trend visible from the last decade of the nineteenth century, government hostility did not stop. In the government’s view the Moderates still represented an anti-imperialist force of basically patriotic and liberal intellectuals.

With the coming of the Swadeshi and Boycott Movement and the emergence of militant nationalism on a big scale, the government changed its strategy towards the nationalists. The policy was to be of rallying them, in the words of John Morley, the Secretary of State, or of carrot and stick. It was a three-pronged approach of repression, conciliation and suppression.

Neither the Moderates nor the Extremists understood the purpose behind the strategy. The Surat split, in Surat Split, 1907, suggested that carrot and stick had brought rich dividends to the British Indian government. The concessions to the Moderates are told in Morley-Minto Reforms, 1909, and the Formation of the Muslim League.

As an analytical point, the strategy worked because it exploited an existing divide between two groups that each saw the other as a drag or a danger. The repression of 1907-10 also shows that the government feared the mass potential of the Extremists more than the petitions of the Moderates, which is a point worth stating in Mains answers on why the movement declined, as in Evaluation of the Swadeshi Movement.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Dates and laws The 1907-10 laws and Tilak’s sentence are standard Prelims facts
• Strategy The three-pronged policy is a Mains favourite
• Link to 1909 It leads to the reforms of 1909

What Came Next?

The next topic covers the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909 and the formation of the Muslim League. Next topic: Morley-Minto Reforms, 1909, and the Formation of the Muslim League.

Key People and Terms

• Seditious Meetings Act A 1907 law restricting public meetings
• Indian Press Act, 1910 A law restricting the press
• Transportation Sentence of exile to a distant place, here Mandalay in Burma
• Rallying the Moderates Morley’s phrase for winning over the Moderates
• Carrot and stick A policy of rewards and punishments
• Isolate To separate the Extremists from the Moderates

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask about the government’s policy towards the nationalists. These points add depth.

• Laws and trials Five laws and Tilak’s conviction
• Three-pronged policy Repression, conciliation, suppression
• Success The Surat split and the loss of leaders aided the plan