Home Rule League Movement

At a Glance

• What it is The aggressive-politics response to the First World War, 1915-19
• Leagues Tilak’s (April 1916, Poona); Besant’s (September 1916, Madras)
• Aim Self-government within the British Empire
• Result Petered out by 1919; a bridge to the Gandhian phase
• Exam link UPSC Prelims, Modern History: Revolutionary Activities and the First World War

Where Does It Fit?

This is the sixth topic of the category on revolutionary activities and the First World War. The previous topic assessed the decline of revolutionary activity. This topic covers the open, constitutional-but-aggressive response to the war. The next topic covers the Lucknow session of 1916, to which the leagues contributed. Previous topic: Decline of the First Phase of Revolutionary Activity.

How Did Indians Respond to the First World War?

In the First World War (1914-19) Britain allied with France, Russia, the USA, Italy and Japan against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. The period saw the maturing of Indian nationalism. The nationalist response to British participation was threefold: (i) the Moderates supported the empire as a matter of duty; (ii) the Extremists, including Tilak, who was released in June 1914, supported the war effort in the mistaken belief that Britain would repay India’s loyalty with self-government; and (iii) the revolutionaries decided to use the opportunity to wage war on British rule and liberate the country. The Indian supporters of the British war effort failed to see that the imperialist powers were fighting to safeguard their own colonies and markets.

The revolutionary side is told in Revolutionary Activities Abroad. To revolutionaries striving for immediate and complete independence the war seemed a heaven-sent opportunity: it drained India of troops, the number of white soldiers going down at one point to only 15,000, and raised the possibility of financial and military help from Germany and Turkey.

Why Was the Home Rule Movement Started?

The Home Rule Movement was the Indian response to the war in a less charged but more effective way than the romantic Ghadr adventure of Indians abroad. Prominent leaders, Tilak, Annie Besant, G.S. Khaparde, Sir S. Subramania Iyer, Joseph Baptista and Mohammad Ali Jinnah among others, decided that a national alliance was needed that would work throughout the year, unlike the Congress with its annual sessions, with the main objective of demanding self-government or home rule for all of India within the British Commonwealth. It was to be an All India Home Rule League on the lines of the Irish Home Rule League. In the end two leagues were launched, one by Tilak and the other by Annie Besant, both aiming at a new trend of aggressive politics.

The Morley-Minto reforms are in Morley-Minto Reforms, 1909, and the Formation of the Muslim League, and Besant’s background in The Theosophical Movement.

How Did the Two Leagues Begin?

Both Tilak and Besant realised that the sanction of a Moderate-dominated Congress and the full cooperation of the Extremists were essential. Having failed to bring about a Moderate-Extremist rapprochement at the 1914 Congress session, they decided to revive political activity on their own. By early 1915 Annie Besant had launched a campaign to demand self-government for India after the war on the lines of the white colonies, through her newspapers New India and Commonweal and through public meetings and conferences. At the 1915 Congress session the efforts of Tilak and Besant met with some success: it was decided that the Extremists be admitted to the Congress. Besant failed to get the Congress to approve her scheme of leagues, but the Congress committed itself to a programme of educative propaganda and to a revival of local-level Congress committees. Besant had laid the condition that if the Congress did not implement its commitments she would set up her own league, which she finally did. Tilak and Besant set up separate leagues to avoid friction, since some followers of each were not at ease with the other, but they coordinated their work by confining it to specific areas.

What Was the Programme and Who Joined?

The League campaign aimed to convey to the common man the message of home rule as self-government. It carried a much wider appeal than earlier mobilisations and drew in the hitherto politically backward regions of Gujarat and Sindh. The means were political education and discussion through public meetings, libraries and reading rooms with books on national politics, conferences, classes for students on politics, propaganda through newspapers, pamphlets, posters, illustrated postcards, plays and religious songs, fundraising, social work and participation in local government. The Russian Revolution of 1917 added to the campaign’s advantage.

The agitation was later joined by Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabhai Desai, Chittaranjan Das, K.M. Munshi, B. Chakravarti, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Tej Bahadur Sapru and Lala Lajpat Rai. Some became heads of local branches of Besant’s league, and Jinnah led the Bombay division. Many Moderate Congressmen disillusioned with Congress inactivity, and some members of Gokhale’s Servants of India Society, also joined. But Anglo-Indians, most Muslims and non-brahmins from the south stayed away, feeling that home rule would mean the rule of the Hindu majority, and that mainly of the high castes. The Servants of India Society is in Servants of India Society and the Social Service League.

How Did the Government React?

The government came down with severe repression, especially in Madras, where students were prohibited from attending political meetings. A case was instituted against Tilak but was rescinded by the high court, and he was barred from entering Punjab and Delhi. In June 1917 Annie Besant and her associates B.P. Wadia and George Arundale were arrested, which brought nationwide protest. In a dramatic gesture Sir S. Subramania Aiyar renounced his knighthood, and Tilak advocated a programme of passive resistance. The repression hardened the attitude of the agitators. Montagu, the Secretary of State, remarked that the Government of India, by interning Mrs Besant, was like Shiva, who cut his wife into fifty-two pieces and found fifty-two wives. Besant was released in September 1917.

Why Did the Agitation Fade by 1919?

The agitation proved short-lived; by 1919 it had petered out.

In 1920 Gandhi accepted the presidentship of the All India Home Rule League and changed its name to Swarajya Sabha, and within a year the league joined the Indian National Congress.

What Were the Positive Gains?

The Home Rule Movement marked a transition between the deliberative and rather inactive nature of the Congress till then and the Gandhian phase that was to come.

• From elite to masses It shifted the emphasis from the educated elite to the masses and permanently deflected the movement from the course mapped by the Moderates
• Town and country It created an organisational link between town and country, crucial when the movement entered its mass phase
• New generation It created a generation of ardent nationalists
• Gandhian politics It prepared the masses for politics of the Gandhian style
• Official response The August 1917 declaration of Montagu and the Montford reforms were influenced by it
• Reunion The efforts of Tilak and Besant for Moderate-Extremist reunion at Lucknow (1916) revived the Congress
• Urgency It lent a new dimension and sense of urgency to the national movement

As an analytical point, the Home Rule leagues sit between the Moderates’ petitions and Gandhi’s mass movements. They kept to the constitutional goal of self-government, but their year-round organisation and their wide propaganda anticipated the methods and reach of Gandhi, whose emergence is told in later categories. The Lucknow reunion is in Lucknow Session of 1916 and the Lucknow Pact.

Why Is This Topic Important?

• Core topic The two leagues, their areas and causes are standard Prelims facts
• Transition The movement as a bridge to the Gandhian phase is a Mains theme
• Link to Lucknow It helped the Congress reunion of 1916

What Came Next?

The next topic covers the Lucknow session of 1916 and the Lucknow Pact. Next topic: Lucknow Session of 1916 and the Lucknow Pact.

Key People and Terms

• Home rule Self-government within the British Empire
• Indian Home Rule League Tilak’s league of April 1916
• All-India Home Rule League Besant’s league of September 1916
• New India Besant’s newspaper
• Commonweal Besant’s other journal
• Swarajya Sabha The name given to the League by Gandhi in 1920

Exam Corner

Mains Angle

Questions ask for the causes, work and significance of the Home Rule Movement. These points add depth.

• Year-round organisation Unlike the annual Congress
• Wider reach Gujarat, Sindh and new classes
• Bridge Between Moderate politics and Gandhian mass politics