Swaraj Party
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(December 2009) |
Swaraj Party | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Chittaranjan Das |
| Secretary | Motilal Nehru |
| Founder | Chittaranjan Das,Motilal Nehru |
| Founded | 1 January 1923 |
| Dissolved | 1935 |
| Split from | Indian National Congress |
| Merged into | Indian National Congress |
| Colours | Sandal |
TheSwaraj Party,established as theCongress-Khilafat Swaraj Party,was a political party formed in India on 1 January 1923 after theGayaannual conference in December 1922 of the National Congress, that sought greater self-government andpolitical freedomfor the Indian people from theBritish Raj.
It was inspired by the concept ofSwaraj.InHindiand many otherlanguages of India,swarajmeans "independence" or "self-rule." The two most important leaders wereChittaranjan Das,its president, andMotilal Nehru,its secretary.
Das and Nehru thought of contesting elections to enter the legislative council with a view to obstructing a foreign government. Many candidates of the Swaraj Party were elected to the central legislative assembly and provincial legislative council in the 1923 elections. In these legislatures, they strongly opposed the unjust government policies.[1]
As a result of the Bengal Partition, the Swaraj Party won the most seats during elections to theBengal Legislative Councilin 1923. The party disintegrated after the death of C. R. Das.[2]
Chauri Chaura
[edit]The Swaraj Party was formed on 1 January 1923 by Indian politicians and members of theIndian National Congresswho had opposedMahatma's suspension of allcivil resistanceon 12 February 1922 in response to theChauri Chaura tragedy,where policemen were killed by a mob of protestors. Gandhi felt responsible for the killings, reproached himself for not emphasizing non-violence more firmly, and feared that the entireNon-Cooperation Movementcould degenerate[3]into an orgy of violence between the British-controlled army and police and mobs of freedom-fighters, alienating and hurting millions of common Indians. He went on a fast-unto-death to convince all Indians to stop civil resistance. The Congress and other nationalist groups disavowed all activities of disobedience.
However, many Indians felt that the Non-Cooperation Movement should not have been suspended over an isolated incident of violence, and that its astonishing success was actually close to breaking the back of British rule in India. These people became disillusioned with Gandhi's political judgments and instincts.
Council entry
[edit]Gandhi and most of the Congress party rejected the provincial and central legislative councils created by the British to offer some participation for Indians. They argued that the councils were rigged with un-elected allies of the British, and too un-democratic and simply "rubber stamps" of theViceroy....
In December 1922,Chittaranjan Das,Narasimha Chintaman KelkarandMotilal Nehruformed the Congress-Khilafat Swarajaya Party with Das as the president and Nehru as one of the secretaries. Other prominent leaders includedHuseyn Shaheed SuhrawardyandSubhas Chandra BoseofBengal,Vithalbhai Pateland other Congress leaders who were becoming dissatisfied with the Congress. The other group was the 'No-Changers', who had accepted Gandhi's decision to withdraw the movement.
Now both the Swarajists and the No-Changers were engaged in a fierce political struggle, but both were determined to avoid the disastrous experience of the 1907 split at Surat. On the advice of Gandhi, the two groups decided to remain in the Congress but to work in their separate ways. There was no basic difference between the two.
In the1923 Indian general election,Swarajist members(45/145) were elected to the councils. Vithalbhai Patel became the president of theCentral Legislative Assembly.
At a meeting on 30 December 1923, the general council of the party demanded the establishment of fully responsible government for India. They demanded that the government start by releasing political prisoners, suspending all repressive laws and orders, and convening a round table conference to negotiate the principles of a constitution for India.[4]
However, the legislatures had very limited powers, and apart from some heated parliamentary debates, and procedural stand-offs with the British authorities, the core mission of obstructing British rule failed.
With the death of Chittaranjan Das in 1925, and with Motilal Nehru's return to the Congress the following year, the Swaraj Party was greatly weakened.
Pro-Changers and No-Changers, and the Simon Commission
[edit]After his release from prison in 1924, Gandhi sought to bring back the Swarajists to the Congress and re-unite the party. Gandhi's supporters were in a vast majority in the Congress, and the Congress still remained India's largest political party, but Gandhi felt it necessary to heal the divide with the Swarajists, so as to heal the nation's wounds over the 1922 suspension.
The Swarajists sought more representation in the Congress offices, and an end to the mandatory requirement for Congressmen to spinkhadicloth and do social service as a prerequisite for office. This was opposed by Gandhi's supporters, men likeVallabhbhai Patel,Jawaharlal NehruandRajendra Prasad,who became known as theNo Changersas opposed to the SwarajistChangers.Gandhi relaxed the rules on spinning and named some Swarajists to important positions in the Congress Party. He also encouraged the Congress to support those Swarajists elected to the councils, so as not to embarrass them and leave them rudderless before the British authorities.
When theSimon Commissionarrived in India in 1928, millions of Indians were infuriated with the idea of an all-British committee writing proposals for Indian constitutional reforms without any Indian member or consultations with the Indian people. The Congress created a committee to write Indian proposals for constitutional reforms, headed by now Congress President Motilal Nehru. The death ofLala Lajpat Rai,beaten by police inPunjabfurther infuriated India. People rallied around the Nehru Report and old political divisions and wounds were forgotten, andVithalbhai Pateland all Swarajist councillors resigned in protest.
Between 1929 and 1937, the Indian National Congress would declare the independence of India and launch theSalt Satyagraha.In this tumultuous period, the Swaraj Party was defunct as its members quietly dissolved into the Congress fold.
Madras Province Swarajya Party
[edit]The Madras Province Swarajya Party was established in 1923.S. SatyamurtiandS. Srinivasa Iyengarled the party. The party contested in all provincial elections between 1923 and 1934 with the exception of the 1930 election which it did not participate officially due to theCivil Disobedience Movement,though some of the members of the party contested for office as independents. The party emerged as the single largest party in the 1926 and 1934 Assembly elections but refused to form the provincial government under the existing dyarchy system. In 1934, the Madras Province Swarajya Party merged with the All India Swarajya Party which subsequently merged with theIndian National Congresswhen it contested the 1935 elections to theImperial Legislative Councilunder theGovernment of India Act 1935.
From 1935 onward, the Swarajya Party ceased to exist and was succeeded by the Indian National Congress in the elections to the Imperial Legislative Council as well as theMadras Legislative Council.
| Presidents of the Madras Province Swarajya Party | Term start | Term end |
|---|---|---|
| S. Srinivasa Iyengar | 1923 | 1930 |
| Sathyamurthy | 1930 | 1935 |
Performance of the Madras Provincial Swarajya Party
[edit]| Elections | Seats in Madras Assembly | Assembly Seats won | Total number of Council seats | Members nominated to the council | Result | Party President |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1923 | 98 | 20 | 29 | |||
| 1926 | 98 | 41 | 34 | S. Srinivasa Iyengar | ||
| 1930 | Did not participate in the elections due toCivil Disobedience Movement | |||||
| 1934 | 98 | 29 | ||||
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^Chandra, Bipan (2000).India's Struggle for Independence.Penguin Books Limited. pp. 249–251.ISBN978-81-8475-183-3.
- ^Misra, Chitta Ranjan (2012)."Bengal Pact, 1923".InIslam, Sirajul;Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.).Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh(Second ed.).Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
- ^"Conclusion",Obsession,University of Chicago Press, pp. 235–244,retrieved2024-03-04
- ^Bakshi, Shiri Ram (1995) [First published 1989].Swaraj Party and Gandhi.New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. pp. 3–5.ISBN978-81-7156-144-5.