{"id":379,"date":"2020-06-22T08:54:01","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T08:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/?p=379"},"modified":"2020-06-22T08:56:59","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T08:56:59","slug":"home-rule-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/2020\/06\/22\/home-rule-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Rule Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The First World War broke out in August 1914. The Allied powers claimed that they were fighting the war for freedom and democracy. At the beginning of the war, some of the Indian nationalists took the British statesmen on their word. They offered the utmost support to the government\u2019s war efforts. Their hope was that grateful Britain would soon reward India\u2019s loyalty. These hopes were later shattered to pieces. The Congress was still divided between the moderates like Gopal Krishna Gokhale and the extremists like Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Surendra Nath Banerjee feared that the long delay by the government in introducing reforms would weaken the moderates\u2019 hold upon the people. This came true. Annie Besant gave new hope to the country. \u201cThe moment of England\u2019s difficulty is the moment of India\u2019s opportunity.\u201d She started the Home Rule League to be later supported fully by Tilak. It aimed at self-government for India within the British Commonwealth. She was more Indian than most Indians, a woman of profound courage and determination. The movement soon made a great impact upon the people. The newspaper, New India, <\/em>edited by her from Madras, was eagerly awaited by the people and read with great enthusiasm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Annie Besant was Irish by birth. She came to\nIndia in 1893. She founded the Central Hindu College in Benaras. It later\nbecame a full-fledged university. She loved our motherland passionately. She\nworked hard with utmost zeal and devotion for social and educational uplift of\npeople, but gradually came to realise that until the nation was free, much\ncould not be achieved. That made her take a plunge into politics. She\nchampioned the cause of building up India into a mighty self-governing\ncommunity. For this, she started the publication of a weekly review captioned The\nCommonweal  <\/em>on January  2,\n1914 with its cardinal programme of \u201creligious liberty, national education,\nsocial reform and political reform.\u201d She went to England with a view to forming\nan Indian party in Parliament but had no success. Her visit, however, aroused\nsympathy for India as she made many speeches there to support the cause of\nIndian freedom. She declared that the \u201cprice of India\u2019s loyalty is India\u2019s\nfreedom.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On her return to India, she started a daily\nnewspaper New India  <\/em>on July 14,\n1915\u2014July 14 being the historic date of the fall of Bastille. Two months later,\nshe placed before the nation her concept of self-rule in a speech at Bombay\n(now Mumbai) : \u201cI mean by self-government that the country shall have a\ngovernment by councils, elected by the people, and responsible to the House.\u201d\nOn September 28, 1915, Besant made a formal declaration that she would start\nthe Home Rule League with \u201cHome Rule for India\u201d as its objective. She also\ndeclared that the League would be an auxiliary body to the Indian National\nCongress. The moderates did not like an idea of establishing another separate\norganisation for an objective for which the Congress stood. They thought that\nthis would weaken the cause both organi\u00adsa\u00adtionally and emotionally. Finding\nlack of support from them, she herself formally inaugurated the Home Rule\nLeague at Madras (now Chennai) in September 1916. It soon gained a big\nmomentum. Its branches were established at Bombay, Kanpur, Allahabad, Benaras,\nMathura, Calicut and Ahmednagar. She carried on her campaign through the medium\nof New India  <\/em>and The\nCommonweal.  <\/em>She also made an\nextensive tour of the country. She made very stirring speeches. She also\ndistributed large quantities of literature about her Movement. This was bound\nto make an impact upon the nation. She won not only many adherents to her\ncause, but also captured the hearts of her opponents. Many eminent leaders like\nMotilal Nehru and Tej Bahadur Sapru thus joined her Home Rule Movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tilak, who had great admiration for Besant, took\na fancy to her idea of Home Rule. In fact, he wanted to reorganise the\nNationalist Party immediately after his release from jail in 1914 with a view\nto making it a dynamic force on the national scene. He desired to cooperate\nwith the Congress and go along with it if possible, but could also work on his\nown  outside the Congress. Finding that\nthe moderate leaders of the Congress were not enthusiastic about the Home Rule\nMovement to be started by Besant, he undertook an initiative on his own. He\ncalled a conference of nationalists at Poona (now Pune) in December 1915 where\nhe got full support for his ideas. He implemented them later and established\nthe Indian Home Rule League at Poona in April 1916. Its objective was to attain\nself-government within the British empire by constitutional means. Joseph\nBaptista and N. C. Kelkar were appointed the President and the Secretary of the\nLeague, respectively. Tilak did not formally accept any office in the\norganisation, but he was its guiding spirit. Through his writings in the Mahratta\n<\/em> and Kesari, <\/em>Tilak made the\nconcept of Home Rule the popular catchword. This earned for him the title Lokmanya,  i.e.<\/em>, respected by the people. He also made\nan extensive tour of the country. He advised the people to become fearless and\nimbibe the spirit of patriotism. Though the Home Rule Movements of Tilak and\nBesant functioned separately, they worked in close cooperation with each other.\nThere was, however, informal understanding between them with regard to the\nsphere of their work. Tilak worked actively in Maharashtra and Central\nProvinces leaving the rest of the country to Besant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the Home Rule Movement started spreading\nlike wildfire, the government decided to crush it. In July 1916, the\nauthorities instituted a case against Tilak for certain speeches he made from\nthe platform of the Home Rule League. They asked him to furnish a personal bond\nof Rs. 20,000 with two sureties of Rs. 10,000 each for ensuring good\nbehaviour for a year. Tilak appealed to the Bombay High Court. It set aside the\norder. A security of Rs. 2,000 was also obtained from the New India, <\/em>the\ndaily published by Besant. That was later forfeited and a new security of\nRs. 10,000 was levied. Besant appealed to the Privy Council against this\norder which rejected her appeal. This compelled her to sell her two Presses\nwhere the New India  <\/em>and Commonweal\n<\/em>were printed. These papers reappeared barely three days later under another\neditor. If the authorities hoped to crush the movement, they were proved to\nhave mistaken. The movement gained new momentum every day. On January 17, 1917,\nthe Home Member of the Government of India wrote in a secret report : \u201cThe\nposition is one of great difficulty. Moderate leaders can command no support\namong the local classes who are being led at the heels of Tilak and Besant.\u201d\nHe, therefore, recommended to the Secretary of State for India to grant the\nreform proposals sent to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Various provincial governments now decided to\nban the entry of Tilak and Besant in their provinces. The Madras government\nwarned the people against the extravagant demands of the Home Rule League and\nissued orders for the internment of Besant. A storm of resentment and anger\nswept the whole nation. There were protests abroad also. The result was that\nthe moderates lost their hold over the Congress. Besant was elected the\nPresident of the Indian National Congress at Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1917. In\nher presidential address she thundered, \u201cIndia demands Home Rule for
\ntwo reasons: one essential and vital, the other less important but weighty.\nFirst, because freedom is the birthright of every nation; secondly, because her\nmost important interests are now made subservient to the interests of the\nBritish empire without her consent and her resources are not utilised for her\ngreatest needs. It is enough only to mention the money spent on her Army, not for\nlocal defence but for Imperial purposes, as compared with that spent on primary\neducation.\u201d Her address bore a striking contrast to the presidential address of\nthe former Congress leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Indian Home Rule League of Tilak had 14,000\nmembers on its rolls at the end of the first year of its birth. At the annual\nsession of the League at Nasik, he explained how his organisation was totally\ndifferent from the Indian National Congress. He told that the Congress was only\na deliberative body which passed a few pious resolutions from time to time. But\nhis Home Rule League was totally revolutionary. It worked zealously for\nachievement of its goal. He, therefore, did not want his Home Rule League to\nhave a long and arduous existence but would like to wind it up at the earliest\nonce the Home Rule was granted to India by the British government. The workers\nof the Home Rule League were, therefore, very active. They did their utmost to\ncarry the message of the League to the remotest corner of the country. The\nlocal governments soon became apprehensive of their activities and sent anxious\nreports to the Viceroy. They apprised the Secretary of the State for India of\nthe situation, \u201cMrs. Besant, Tilak and others are fomenting with great\nvigour the agitation for immediate Home Rule and in the absence of any definite\nannouncement by Government of India as to their policy in the matter, it is\nattracting many of those who hitherto have held less advanced views. The\nagitation is having mischievous effect on public feeling throughout the\ncountry.\u201d Perhaps, the warning reached the right ears of E. S. Montague who\nmade his historic announcement on August 20, 1917 declaring responsible\ngovernment as the goal of British policy in India. There could be no doubt\nabout it that this declaration of the British government was the result of the\nexertions made by the Home Rule Leaguers. \n\nThe influence of the Home Rule Movement was not confined to the\nboundaries of India. Sir Subrahmaniya Aiyar, retired Judge of Madras High\nCourt, wrote a letter to President Wilson of America on June 24, 1917, the\npublication of which caused a furore in the British Parliament. Montague\ndenounced the letter as \u201cdisgraceful\u201d over which Aiyar renounced his titles of\nKCIE and Diwan Bahadur. The letter, however, had wonderful impact in the United\nStates, where a Home Rule League came to be established in New York. It started\na monthly journal called Young India. \n<\/em>Many national leaders from India like Lala Lajpat Rai and K. D.\nSastri visited America and made extensive tours there to enlighten the public opinion\nand win support for the cause of India\u2019s freedom. In 1918, Tilak wrote to\nClemenceau, President of the Peace Conference, requesting him to solve the\nIndian problem so that India might become a leading power in Asia and a\npowerful steward of the League of Nations in the East for maintenance and\npromotion of peace in the world. A Home Rule League for India was also established\nin London. Besant sent a stirring message to its British members, \u201cHelp us to\nbecome a free Commonwealth under the British Crown and we will bring our\nmanpower to secure the world peace. Our people have died in your war for\nfreedom. Will you consent that the children of our dead shall remain a subject\nrace ?\u201d The activities of the Home Rule Leaguers soon brought the results.\nThe Labour Party Conference at Nottingham passed a unanimous resolution in 1918\nin favour of the Home Rule for India. The Home Rule Movement thus marked a\nturning point in our freedom struggle. It focussed the public attention on the\npoint whether the country could win its freedom with the guidance of the armchair\npoliticians or that they would have to exert fully and devote all their\ncapabilities and energy to serve the motherland to break the shackles of our\nslavery. The new ideal soon became a torch bearer to all our patriots and\nhelped to bring  freedom nearer to our\ndoors.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The First World War broke out in August 1914. The Allied powers claimed that they were fighting the war for freedom and democracy. At the beginning of the war, some of the Indian nationalists took the British statesmen on their word. They offered the utmost support to the government\u2019s war efforts. Their hope was that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379\/revisions\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.competitionreview.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}