Extremist Phase & Swadeshi Movement 1905–1917 — Complete UPSC Notes

1. From Moderates to Extremists: The Shift

1.1 Why the shift was inevitable

• Twenty years of Moderate prayer-petition-protest had produced exactly one half-measure — the Indian Councils Act 1892.
• The Curzon viceroyalty (1899–1905) made it brutally clear that constitutional methods produced contempt, not concessions.
• A new generation educated in Indian universities (rather than London Inns of Court) had grown up reading not Mill and Burke but Mazzini, Garibaldi, the American revolutionaries, and the rising nationalisms of Egypt, Persia, China and Japan.

1.2 The international context

• 1896–97 Ethiopian victory at Adwa over Italy — the first African defeat of a European army in a generation.
• 1899–1902 Boer War — British army humiliated in South Africa.
• 1905 Russian Revolution — the autocracy made to grant a Duma after general strike.
• 27–28 May 1905 Battle of Tsushima — Japan smashed the Russian fleet. The first Asian power to defeat a European one. The psychological impact in India was enormous. Sri Aurobindo, Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai all referenced it explicitly.

1.3 The recession & the famines

• The famines of 1896–97 (5 million dead) and 1899–1900 (1 million dead).
• Plague epidemic from 1896 — harsh sanitary measures (raid of homes by British soldiers in Poona) led to the Chapekar assassinations of June 1897 and Tilak's trial.

1.4 The early Extremist trio

• Bal Gangadhar Tilak — revived Ganapati festival (1893) and Shivaji festival (1895) as mass-mobilisation devices long before 1905.
• Bipin Chandra Pal — Brahmo Samaj background, journalist, public orator; founded New India (1902) and edited Bande Mataram (1906).
• Lala Lajpat Rai — Arya Samaj, Punjab; agitated against the Punjab Colonisation Act 1906 and Canal Tax.

2. Partition of Bengal, 16 October 1905

2.1 The administrative cover-story

Bengal Presidency at the start of 1905 was a vast province of 78 million people stretching from Chittagong to Bihar and Orissa. The official justification for partition was "administrative convenience" — the province was too large for effective administration.

2.2 The real political motive

• Curzon's Risley Papers (3 Dec 1904 minute by H.H. Risley, Home Secretary) admitted candidly: "Bengal united is a power; Bengal divided will pull in several different ways… one of our main objects is to split up and thereby weaken a solid body of opponents to our rule."
• The plan was to split off a new province of Eastern Bengal & Assam with Muslim majority (18 million Muslims, 12 million Hindus) under Dacca, leaving the rest (Western Bengal + Bihar + Orissa, with Bengali Hindus a minority) under Calcutta.
• Object: weaken Bengali Hindu professional class — the spinal column of early nationalism — and cultivate a Muslim landlord-political base in East Bengal as a counterweight.

2.3 The notification

• Announced 19 July 1905; took effect 16 October 1905.
• 16 October 1905 observed across Bengal as a "Day of Mourning" — shops shut, fires kept burning, people fasted, sang Bande Mataram, and tied rakhi on each other's wrists in a symbol of unity (idea suggested by Rabindranath Tagore).

2.4 Tagore's contribution

• Composed "Amar Sonar Bangla" in 1905 (later, in 1971, the national anthem of Bangladesh).
• Led the rakhi bandhan ceremony, walking through the streets of Calcutta on 16 October 1905 tying rakhi on Hindus and Muslims alike.

2.5 The first reactions

• Surendranath Banerjea organised a massive public meeting at the Calcutta Town Hall on 7 August 1905 — the formal launch of Swadeshi and Boycott.
• The leadership at this point was mainly Moderate (Banerjea, K.K. Mitra, P.M. Bose) but the methods being adopted — mass mobilisation, boycott of British goods — were Extremist.

3. The Swadeshi Movement — Methods & Programme

3.1 Six pillars of the Swadeshi programme

1. Swadeshi (use of indigenous goods) — promotion of Indian-made cloth, soap, matchsticks, sugar.
2. Boycott of British goods — especially Manchester cloth and Liverpool salt.
3. National education — founding of Bengal National College (15 Aug 1906) under Aurobindo Ghosh as principal; National Council of Education set up 15 March 1906.
4. Indigenous industry — mills, banks, insurance, shops — the Indian-owned cotton mill founded by P.M. Bose, the Bengal Chemicals founded by Acharya P.C. Ray (1901).
5. Cultural revival — Tagore songs, Abanindranath's "Bharat Mata" painting (1905), folk theatre, jatra.
6. Self-reliance & mass mobilisation — atmashakti as Tagore called it.

3.2 Forms of struggle

• Public meetings & processions on a scale never seen before.
• Volunteer corps (samitis) — Anushilan Samiti, Swadesh Bandhab Samiti (Ashwini Kumar Dutt in Barisal, 1905), Atmonnati Samiti.
• Use of festivals — Ganapati, Shivaji, Kali puja — as political platforms.
• Use of folk songs & jatra — Mukunda Das's patriotic jatra performances toured villages.
• Pickets at shops selling British cloth.
• Bonfires of British cloth — the most visible symbol.

3.3 Reach & participation

• Students — the most active participants; thousands left government schools and colleges.
• Women — for the first time on a mass scale; processions of women in Calcutta picketing shops.
• Lower middle class & peasants in East Bengal — especially through Ashwini Kumar Dutt's Swadesh Bandhab Samiti.
• Muslim participation — significant in early phase (Abul Kalam Azad joined revolutionary work in this period); but the Government cultivated separate Muslim political mobilisation (Aga Khan deputation 1 Oct 1906, AIML founded 30 Dec 1906).

3.4 Industrial & economic impact

• British cotton imports to India fell from Rs 25.6 crore (1904–05) to Rs 21 crore (1907–08).
• Indian cloth output rose; new mills founded at Calcutta, Cawnpore, Bombay.
• Bengal Chemical & Pharmaceutical Works (1901, P.C. Ray); Indian Iron & Steel Co. plans; TISCO (1907) launched at Sakchi (later Jamshedpur).

4. The Boycott Movement

4.1 The formal launch

At the Calcutta Town Hall meeting of 7 August 1905, presided over by Surendranath Banerjea, a resolution was passed calling for boycott of British goods until the partition was rescinded.

4.2 Scope of the boycott

• Boycott of British goods — Lancashire cloth, Liverpool salt, soap, sugar, even leather shoes.
• Boycott of British institutions — government schools, government courts, government services.
• Boycott of British titles & honours.
• Refusal to participate in official functions; social ostracism of those who broke the boycott.

4.3 The Calcutta Congress 1906 endorsement

The 22nd session of the INC at Calcutta in December 1906, with Dadabhai Naoroji as president, formally adopted Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education and Self-government (Swaraj) as objectives of the Congress. Naoroji's presidential speech contained the now-famous line: "Self-government or Swaraj like that of the United Kingdom or the Colonies… is the only and chief remedy."

5. Lal-Bal-Pal and Aurobindo: The Four Pillars

5.1 Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920)

• "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it." — spoken at Sholapur, 1916 (sometimes dated to 1907).
• Founded the Deccan Education Society (1884), Kesari (Marathi, 1881) and Mahratta (English, 1881).
• Revived Ganapati festival (1893) and Shivaji festival (1895) as mass political devices.
• Tried twice for sedition — 1897 (18 months) and 1908 (6 years' transportation to Mandalay).
• Gita Rahasya — composed in Mandalay; published 1915 — karma-yoga philosophical defence of activism.
• After release in 1914, founded the Indian Home Rule League (28 April 1916).

5.2 Bipin Chandra Pal (1858–1932)

• Brahmo Samaj background; powerful public orator known as the "father of revolutionary thought".
• Edited New India (1902, weekly) and Bande Mataram (1906, daily, with Aurobindo as co-editor).
• Imprisoned in 1907 for refusing to give evidence in the Bande Mataram sedition case (6 months).
• Toured South India in 1907 delivering the famous "New Spirit" lectures at Madras.

5.3 Lala Lajpat Rai (1865–1928)

• Arya Samaj background; lawyer, Punjab; founded the Punjab National Bank (1894).
• Agitated against Punjab Colonisation Act 1906 and increased canal water rates — deported without trial to Mandalay (May–Nov 1907) along with Sardar Ajit Singh.
• Wrote Unhappy India (1928) in response to Katherine Mayo's Mother India (1927).
• Led the protest against the Simon Commission at Lahore on 30 October 1928; lathi-charged by police; died 17 November 1928.

5.4 Sri Aurobindo Ghosh (1872–1950)

• Cambridge-educated; ICS examination passer (failed riding test deliberately).
• Wrote the "New Lamps for Old" articles (1893–94) in Indu Prakash — the earliest sustained Indian critique of Moderate politics.
• Principal of Bengal National College (1906); editor of Bande Mataram; "Doctrine of Passive Resistance" articles (1907) prefigure satyagraha.
• Arrested in the Alipore Bomb Case (May 1908), acquitted (May 1909) after defence by C.R. Das.
• Withdrew from active politics in 1910; moved to French Pondicherry; turned to spiritual philosophy; founded the Aurobindo Ashram (1926).

6. Extremist Ideology & Political Philosophy

6.1 The four objectives (after 1906)

Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education — collectively the "Four Resolutions" of the 1906 Calcutta Congress.

6.2 The core ideas

• Hatred of foreign rule as a moral evil, not merely an inefficient administration.
• Swaraj as the goal — ranging from Tilak's "self-government within the empire" to Aurobindo's "complete national independence" (the latter explicitly demanded in his 1907 Bande Mataram articles).
• Self-reliance (atmashakti) — do not beg, build.
• Mass mobilisation — politics must be carried to the village.
• Passive resistance (Aurobindo's term) — boycott, non-cooperation, parallel institutions — the direct ancestor of Gandhi's satyagraha.
• Revival of Hindu cultural symbols — this was both a strength (mass appeal) and a weakness (alienating Muslim opinion). Aurobindo's "Sanatan Dharma" speech at Uttarpara (May 1909) is the high-water mark.
• Willingness to suffer — imprisonment as a badge of honour. Tilak's six years in Mandalay (1908–14) made him a national hero.

6.3 The Moderate-Extremist contrast

7. Government Repression & the Carlyle Circular

7.1 The Carlyle Circular, 10 October 1905

Issued by R.W. Carlyle, Chief Secretary, Government of Bengal — threatened to withdraw grants and recognition from any school whose students participated in political activities. The first major repressive measure of the Swadeshi era.

7.2 Other repressive measures

• Pedlars Act 1905 — required licences for itinerant hawkers (used against Swadeshi pedlars).
• Lyon Circular, June 1907 — banned political meetings in schools and colleges.
• Risley Circular, October 1907 — banned the cry of "Bande Mataram" in public places.
• Seditious Meetings Act, 1 November 1907 — empowered the government to ban political meetings in disturbed areas.
• Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act 1908 — targeted the press; used to confiscate Yugantar, Bande Mataram, Sandhya.
• Explosive Substances Act 1908 — in response to the Muzaffarpur bomb.
• Criminal Law Amendment Act 1908 — declared "unlawful associations".
• Indian Press Act 1910 — sweeping powers of confiscation against any "objectionable" matter; over 1000 papers prosecuted in its first decade.
• Punjab Colonisation Bill 1906 — provoked the Punjab agrarian agitation led by Lajpat Rai & Ajit Singh.
• Deportation of Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh to Mandalay (May 1907 under Regulation III of 1818, without trial).
• Trial of Tilak 1908 — six years' transportation to Mandalay.

8. The Surat Split, December 1907

8.1 Build-up

• The 1906 Calcutta session (Naoroji presiding) had papered over Moderate-Extremist differences.
• For the 1907 session, the Extremists wanted Lala Lajpat Rai as president and the venue at Nagpur (Tilak's home turf).
• The Moderates moved the session to Surat (Gujarat, Mehta's home turf) and proposed Rash Behari Ghosh as president.

8.2 The split, 26 December 1907

• The pandal at Surat erupted in chaos. A shoe was thrown (commonly attributed to a delegate, hitting Pherozeshah Mehta or Surendranath Banerjea — accounts differ).
• The session was adjourned in disarray. Rash Behari Ghosh formally presided the Moderate "rump" session a few days later (3 Jan 1908) which adopted a constitution that effectively excluded Extremists.
• The Congress split into two camps and remained so until the 1916 Lucknow session.

8.3 Consequences of the split

• Moderates monopolised the Congress 1907–1916 but lost mass relevance.
• Extremists driven underground or into revolutionary terrorism — the Muzaffarpur bomb (April 1908) and the Alipore Bomb Case (1908–09) followed within months.
• British exploited the split — the Morley-Minto reforms (1909) were designed to give the now-pliant Moderates just enough to keep them quiet.
• Communal politics filled the vacuum — AIML had been founded in Dec 1906; separate electorates came in 1909.

9. Morley-Minto Reforms 1909

9.1 Background

• John Morley — Liberal, Secretary of State for India 1905–10; admirer of Burke and a self-styled friend of India.
• Lord Minto — Viceroy 1905–10.
• The reforms were a calculated mixture of concession (to Moderates) and division (Muslims by separate electorates).

9.2 Provisions of the Indian Councils Act, 25 May 1909

• Imperial Legislative Council expanded to 60 additional members (from 16); official majority retained at the centre.
• Provincial councils got non-official majorities, but the "elected" members were chosen by very restricted electorates.
• Right to discuss the budget, move resolutions, ask supplementary questions, divide the council — new powers.
• Indians in Executive Councils — S.P. Sinha appointed Law Member of the Viceroy's Executive Council in 1909 — the first Indian.
• Separate electorates for Muslims — Muslims voted only for Muslim candidates in Muslim-only constituencies. This was the toxic bequest.
• Additional reserved seats for landlords, chambers of commerce, universities, presidency corporations.

9.3 Critique

• "Communal Award" effectively began in 1909 — the Hindu-Muslim political fracture was institutionalised by the colonial state itself.
• Morley himself wrote: "If it could be said that this chapter of reforms led directly or necessarily up to the establishment of a parliamentary system in India, I, for one, would have nothing at all to do with it."
• The reforms gave Indians influence without responsibility — the Congress was bound to be dissatisfied.

10. Annulment of Partition 1911 & Delhi Durbar

10.1 The decision

The combined pressure of six years of Swadeshi, revolutionary violence (Alipore bomb 1908, attempt on Viceroy Hardinge in Delhi 23 December 1912 by Rash Behari Bose) and the change of government in London forced the British to climb down.

10.2 The Delhi Durbar, 12 December 1911

• King George V personally announced the annulment of the Partition of Bengal.
• Bihar & Orissa carved out as a separate province.
• Assam restored as a separate Chief Commissioner's province.
• Transfer of capital from Calcutta to Delhi announced — took effect 1912.

10.3 Political significance

• The annulment was a major moral victory for Indian nationalism — the first major British retreat under nationalist pressure.
• It demonstrated that mass agitation worked where prayer-petition had not.
• Muslim leaders, who had been promised East Bengal as a "Muslim majority province" in 1905, felt betrayed — this is a contributing thread to the eventual radicalisation of the Muslim League.

11. Revolutionary Terrorism in Bengal

11.1 The intellectual climate

By 1906–07 sections of Bengal's educated youth had concluded that constitutional Swadeshi was insufficient. They turned to "the cult of the bomb" — selective assassinations of British officials and informers, modelled on Russian narodniks and Irish Fenians, with the moral framework supplied by Bankimchandra's Anandamath (1882) and the Bhagavad Gita.

11.2 Anushilan Samiti

• Founded in 1902 at Calcutta by Promotha Mitter, Jatindranath Banerjee and Barindra Kumar Ghosh (Aurobindo's brother), with Aurobindo himself as ideological mentor.
• Originally a physical-culture society; turned to political action by 1906.
• Dhaka Anushilan Samiti — founded 1906 by Pulin Behari Das — the larger and more active wing.
• Membership swelled across Bengal — estimated 500 branches by 1910.

11.3 Jugantar

• Broke away from Anushilan in 1906 under Barindra Ghosh, Bhupendranath Datta, Aurobindo Ghosh.
• Named after the Bengali weekly Yugantar ("New Era").
• Operated a bomb factory at the Maniktala Garden in Calcutta.

11.4 The Muzaffarpur Bomb, 30 April 1908

• Target: District Magistrate Douglas Kingsford of Muzaffarpur (formerly Calcutta Presidency Magistrate, hated for sentencing nationalist youth).
• Assassins: Khudiram Bose (18) and Prafulla Chaki (19).
• They threw a bomb at what they thought was Kingsford's carriage; killed instead Mrs and Miss Kennedy, wife and daughter of a barrister.
• Prafulla shot himself to avoid arrest; Khudiram was caught, tried, hanged at Muzaffarpur jail on 11 August 1908 aged 18 — the youngest revolutionary martyr.
• Khudiram's hanging electrified Bengal; Khudiram Khadi was woven in Bengal villages for decades.

11.5 The Alipore Bomb Case 1908–09

• Police raid on Maniktala Garden on 2 May 1908; arrest of 36 revolutionaries including Aurobindo and Barindra Ghosh.
• Defence led by Chittaranjan Das — his courtroom defence of Aurobindo (six days, August 1909) made his political reputation. C.R. Das famously declared Aurobindo would be remembered as "the poet of patriotism, the prophet of nationalism, and the lover of humanity".
• Aurobindo acquitted (6 May 1909); Barindra and others sentenced to transportation to the Andamans.
• Approver Naren Goswami shot dead in jail by fellow accused Kanailal Dutta and Satyen Bose — both hanged.

11.6 Other major Bengal actions

• Curzon Wyllie assassination — 1 July 1909, London — by Madanlal Dhingra (India House); hanged 17 August 1909.
• Jackson murder — 21 December 1909, Nashik — by Anant Laxman Kanhere (Abhinav Bharat).
• Delhi-Lahore Conspiracy/Hardinge bomb — 23 December 1912 — bomb on Viceroy Hardinge during his entry procession into Delhi for shifting of the capital. Thrown by Basanta Kumar Biswas under the direction of Rash Behari Bose and Sachindra Nath Sanyal. Hardinge injured but survived.
• Stevens murder — 1907, Dacca — by Anushilan.

12. Revolutionary Terrorism in Maharashtra & Punjab

12.1 Maharashtra — the precursors

• Chapekar Brothers (Damodar, Balkrishna, Vasudev) — on 22 June 1897 assassinated W.C. Rand (Plague Commissioner of Poona) and Lt. Ayerst in Poona. Damodar Chapekar hanged 18 April 1898 — the first revolutionary martyr of modern India.
• Tilak's Kesari editorials of June 1897 led to his first sedition trial — 18 months rigorous imprisonment.

12.2 Abhinav Bharat Society

• Founded by V.D. Savarkar & Ganesh Savarkar in 1904 at Nashik — modelled on Mazzini's Young Italy.
• Savarkar's translation into Marathi of Mazzini's biography (1907) became a manual of revolutionary politics.
• Members involved in Jackson murder (21 Dec 1909) and trial of 1910.

12.3 Punjab

• Ajit Singh's "Indian Patriots' Association" (1907) — agitation among soldiers and peasants against the Colonisation Bill.
• Ajit Singh deported May–Nov 1907 with Lajpat Rai; later escaped to Iran, then France, returned to India in 1947, died 15 August 1947.
• Punjab would later become the cradle of the Ghadar movement (1913–15) and the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (1928, Bhagat Singh).

12.4 The Damascus Conspiracy & the Madras-Bombay axis

• V.V.S. Aiyar in South India trained activists at Pondicherry after escaping from India House London.
• Madras–Pondicherry circuit sheltered Aurobindo, Subramania Bharati, V.V.S. Aiyar from 1910 onwards.

13. India House & Revolutionaries Abroad

13.1 India House, London — 1905

• Founded by Shyamji Krishna Varma in 1905 at 65 Cromwell Avenue, Highgate, North London — a hostel and political centre for Indian students.
• Earlier (Jan 1905) Shyamji had founded the Indian Home Rule Society in London and the monthly journal The Indian Sociologist (1905–14).
• The famous "Herbert Spencer Indian Lectureship" funded by Shyamji at Oxford.

13.2 Key India House figures

• V.D. Savarkar (joined 1906); wrote The Indian War of Independence 1857 (1909, banned).
• Madanlal Dhingra — shot Sir Curzon Wyllie at the Imperial Institute, London, on 1 July 1909; hanged 17 August 1909 at Pentonville prison.
• Madame Bhikaji Cama — unfurled an early version of the Indian tricolour at the Second Socialist International Congress at Stuttgart on 22 August 1907.
• V.V.S. Aiyar, Senapati Bapat, Hardayal, Virendranath Chattopadhyaya.

13.3 Closure of India House

After the Dhingra assassination, Scotland Yard closed in on India House. Shyamji moved to Paris (1907); Savarkar was arrested in March 1910 (made his famous escape attempt at Marseilles port on 8 July 1910 by swimming through a porthole; recaptured); transported to Andaman cellular jail for 50 years (released 1924).

13.4 Paris, Berlin and Geneva centres

• Paris Indian Society (Madame Cama, S.R. Rana).
• Berlin Committee / Indian Independence Committee (1914) — Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, Bhupendranath Datta, Champakaraman Pillai — sought German support during WWI.
• Geneva — Shyamji's later years; Indian Sociologist printed there till 1914.

14. The Ghadar Movement 1913–15

14.1 Background — the Indian diaspora on the US Pacific Coast

• Punjabi farmers had been emigrating to British Columbia (Canada), Washington, Oregon and California since 1904 — mostly Sikhs.
• White-supremacist riots in Bellingham (Sep 1907) and Vancouver, anti-Asian immigration laws and "continuous journey" rules (1908) radicalised the community.

14.2 Founding of Ghadar Party

• Founded 1 November 1913 at Astoria (Oregon); HQ at Yugantar Ashram, San Francisco.
• Founding officers: Sohan Singh Bhakna (President), Lala Hardayal (General Secretary), Pandit Kanshi Ram (Treasurer).
• Original name: Hindi Association of the Pacific Coast; quickly became known as Ghadar Party after the name of its newspaper.
• Newspaper Ghadar (Urdu — from 1 Nov 1913; Punjabi Gurmukhi — 9 Dec 1913; Hindi — later) — circulated free to Indians worldwide.

14.3 The Komagata Maru episode

• Japanese steamship Komagata Maru chartered by Sikh businessman Baba Gurdit Singh with 376 passengers (340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, 12 Hindus) sailed from Hong Kong to test Canada's "continuous journey" rule.
• Reached Vancouver 23 May 1914; refused entry; held in harbour for 2 months under guard.
• Forced to return; reached Budge Budge near Calcutta on 29 September 1914; police clash, 22 passengers killed, many arrested.
• The episode became the symbolic spark for Ghadar to launch an armed uprising in India.

14.4 Lahore Conspiracy & collapse of the Ghadar uprising

• Hundreds of Ghadarites sailed back to India between Aug 1914 and Feb 1915 aiming to spark mutiny in the Indian army.
• Planned uprising for 21 February 1915 at Lahore, Ferozepur, Rawalpindi cantonments — betrayed by approver Kirpal Singh.
• British struck pre-emptively; Lahore Conspiracy Case: 291 accused, 42 hanged (including Kartar Singh Sarabha at age 19 on 16 Nov 1915), 114 transported for life.
• Defence of India Act 1915 used to detain hundreds without trial.

14.5 Significance

• First Indian revolutionary movement to be genuinely secular in composition and outlook — Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims acted as a single body.
• First to seek to combine diaspora resources, foreign-power assistance and mutiny within the Indian army.
• Kartar Singh Sarabha became Bhagat Singh's hero; Sarabha's photograph was always in Bhagat Singh's pocket.
• The post-1947 Ghadar Memorial at San Francisco and the Komagata Maru Memorial at Budge Budge (2014) commemorate the movement.

15. WWI & the Hindu-German Conspiracy

15.1 Why WWI mattered

The outbreak of WWI in August 1914 transformed Indian politics. Both Moderates and Extremists initially supported the British war effort, hoping that Indian loyalty would be rewarded with self-government afterwards. Over 1.3 million Indians served overseas; over 74,000 were killed.

15.2 The Hindu-German Conspiracy (Zimmerman Plan)

• Berlin Committee (1914) under Virendranath Chattopadhyaya and Bhupendranath Datta worked with German Foreign Office.
• German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann co-ordinated plans to supply arms to Ghadarites and to Indian revolutionaries via Java, the Far East and the Hejaz.
• Annie Larsen / Maverick / Henry S. expedition — arms shipments to India in 1915–17 mostly intercepted.
• Christmas Day Plot, 25 December 1915 at Batavia (Dutch East Indies) — planned by Rash Behari Bose, M.N. Roy — to land arms at Karachi; failed.
• Hindu Conspiracy Trial at San Francisco 1917–18 — longest US trial of its time; convictions of Hardayal (in absentia), Ram Chandra, and others.

15.3 Rash Behari Bose & M.N. Roy

• Rash Behari Bose escaped to Japan in 1915 disguised as a relative of Rabindranath Tagore; later founded the Indian Independence League in Tokyo (1942) and handed over leadership of the Indian National Army to Subhas Chandra Bose in 1943.
• M.N. Roy escaped via Indonesia to Mexico (1917), founded the Mexican Communist Party (1919), then went on to Moscow as Lenin's confidant at the Second Comintern Congress (1920).

15.4 Internal mutinies

• Singapore Mutiny, 15 February 1915 — 5th Light Infantry mutinied; suppressed by 25 February; 47 mutineers publicly shot.

15.5 Defence of India Act, 19 March 1915

Modelled on the British Defence of the Realm Act — gave the government sweeping powers of detention without trial and special tribunals to handle revolutionary cases. Used against Ghadarites and Annie Besant. Its provisions formed the template for the post-war Rowlatt Act 1919.

16. Home Rule Leagues 1916: Tilak & Besant

16.1 Tilak's release and the Lucknow Congress 1916

• Tilak released from Mandalay on 16 June 1914.
• Lucknow Congress in December 1916 saw the formal re-unification of the Moderates and Extremists under Ambika Charan Mazumdar's presidency.

16.2 Indian Home Rule League (Tilak)

• Founded 28 April 1916 at Belgaum; headquartered at Pune.
• Sphere: Maharashtra (excluding Bombay city), Karnataka, Central Provinces, Berar.
• Demanded self-government within the British empire.
• Six branches; 32,000 members by 1917.
• Slogan: "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it."

16.3 Home Rule League (Annie Besant)

• Annie Besant — Irish-born theosophist; came to India 1893; became Theosophical Society President 1907.
• Started newspapers New India (daily) and Commonweal (weekly) in 1914.
• Founded her Home Rule League on 1 September 1916 at Madras.
• Sphere: rest of India (Bombay city, Bengal, Bihar, UP, CP, Punjab, Madras Presidency).
• 200 branches; 27,000 members by 1917.
• Lieutenants: George Arundale, B.P. Wadia, C.P. Ramaswami Iyer, Jamnadas Dwarkadas, and the young Jawaharlal Nehru (joined Allahabad branch June 1916).

16.4 Repression & Besant's internment

• Government of Madras interned Besant, Arundale and Wadia at Ootacamund from 15 June 1917.
• Massive nation-wide protests; even the Moderate INC came on board.
• Besant released 17 September 1917; elected President of INC at Calcutta session December 1917 — the first woman president of the Congress.

16.5 Significance

• The Home Rule agitation revived political life across India between 1915 and 1918.
• It supplied Gandhi with the all-India organisation he stepped into in 1919.
• It forced the British to make the August Declaration of 1917.
• It politicised a whole new generation — Jawaharlal Nehru's first political work was as Secretary of the Allahabad branch of Besant's League.

17. Lucknow Pact, December 1916

17.1 Background

The Lucknow Congress and the Lucknow League sessions met simultaneously in December 1916. The pact was the joint Congress-League agreement on constitutional reform demands — the only formal compact between the two organisations until the eve of independence.

17.2 Key Negotiators

• For Congress: Tilak (Extremist wing) and Pherozeshah Mehta's surviving Moderates (Mehta died 1915).
• For League: Mohammad Ali Jinnah (then a Congress moderate, "Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity" — Sarojini Naidu's phrase).
• Drafted at the Bombay meeting of 22–23 October 1916; ratified at Lucknow December 1916.

17.3 Provisions

• Constitutional demand: self-government for India to be the immediate political objective; four-fifths of provincial and central legislatures elected on as broad a franchise as possible.
• Separate electorates for Muslims — CONGRESS for the first time formally accepted them.
• Weightage for Muslims in legislatures — one-third reservation in the Imperial Legislative Council and weightage in minority provinces (Madras, Bombay, CP, Bihar, UP).
• Communal veto: no Bill or resolution affecting a community to pass if three-fourths of that community's members in council opposed it.
• Half the members of the Viceroy's Executive Council to be Indian; the Secretary of State's Council to be abolished.

17.4 Significance

• Hindu-Muslim unity moment — the high point of cooperation.
• Reunification of INC — Moderates and Extremists in one Congress for the first time since 1907.
• Forced British response — the August Declaration 1917 came less than a year later.

17.5 The cost

• Congress's formal acceptance of separate electorates proved historically catastrophic. Once Congress had conceded the principle, it could never afterwards persuasively reject it. The line from Lucknow 1916 to Pakistan 1947 is not direct but it is continuous.
• Maulana Azad later called the Pact "a great mistake"; the constituent assembly debates of 1948–49 saw repeated regret on this score.

18. August Declaration 1917 & Aftermath

18.1 The Declaration of 20 August 1917

Secretary of State E.S. Montagu rose in the House of Commons on 20 August 1917 to read the famous declaration:

18.2 Significance

• The phrase "responsible government" — ministers accountable to the legislature — was a fundamental change from 1909.
• For the first time the British committed to an end-state (self-government), even if "gradual" and "progressive".
• Vindicated the strategy of pressure-plus-loyalty pursued by the Home Rule Leagues during the war.

18.3 The Montagu-Chelmsford visit, Nov 1917–Apr 1918

Montagu and Viceroy Chelmsford toured India consulting Indian opinion. The product was the Montagu-Chelmsford Report (July 1918) and the Government of India Act 1919, which introduced dyarchy in the provinces. (See Topic 07 §11 for full treatment of Mont-Ford reforms.)

18.4 The end of the Extremist phase

• By December 1917 the Extremists had achieved their three main goals: reunification of the Congress (Lucknow 1916), Hindu-Muslim political pact (Lucknow Pact), and British commitment to "responsible government" (August Declaration).
• Tilak died on 1 August 1920 just as Gandhi was launching the non-cooperation movement.
• The leadership of the freedom struggle now passed to Gandhi — the Extremist methods of boycott, passive resistance and mass mobilisation, with the Gandhian addition of organised non-violence, became the template.

19. Assessment of the Extremists

19.1 Achievements

1. Transformed politics from elite petition to mass movement — Swadeshi was the first multi-class, multi-region, multi-method national agitation.
2. Forced the first British retreat — the annulment of the Partition (1911) demonstrated that pressure works.
3. Articulated Swaraj as the goal — not "reform" but "self-government".
4. Built parallel institutions — the National Council of Education (1906), Bengal Chemicals (1901), TISCO (1907), Punjab National Bank (1894), Bengal National College (1906).
5. Pioneered passive resistance — Aurobindo's Doctrine of Passive Resistance (1907) is the direct ancestor of satyagraha.
6. Politicised culture — Tagore songs, Abanindranath's "Bharat Mata", Bharati's Tamil verses, Iqbal's "Saare Jahan Se Achchha" (1904).
7. Created the all-India revolutionary network — Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab, India House London, Paris, Berlin, San Francisco.
8. Gave the movement its martyr-canon — Khudiram, Madanlal Dhingra, Kartar Singh Sarabha, the Chapekars — that fed mass imagination for decades.

19.2 Limitations

1. Hindu-religious imagery alienated Muslims — the use of Kali, Shivaji, "Bande Mataram" had mass mobilising power but contributed to the rise of the Muslim League (Dec 1906).
2. Failed to evolve a sustained mass organisation — Swadeshi peaked by 1908; subsequent decline was sharp.
3. Surat Split was a strategic disaster — nine years of fragmented Congress.
4. Revolutionary terrorism produced individual heroism but little structural change — bombs scared the British but did not shake them.
5. Did not reach industrial workers and peasants as a class — that awaited Gandhi (Champaran 1917, Ahmedabad mill strike 1918, Kheda 1918).

19.3 The Bipan Chandra verdict

The Extremist phase was the "second stage" of the Indian national movement — building on the foundation of the Moderates and laying the foundation for Gandhi. Without the Extremists, there would have been no mass movement for Gandhi to organise; without Gandhi, the Extremists' methods would have remained Bengal-centric and limited.

20. Continuity to the Gandhian Phase

20.1 What Gandhi inherited from the Extremists

• The four resolutions of 1906 — Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education — became the structural template of Gandhi's non-cooperation programme (1920–22).
• Passive resistance — Aurobindo's Bengali concept reincarnated as Gandhi's satyagraha.
• Mass mobilisation through festivals and processions — Tilak's Ganapati became Gandhi's prayer meetings and Salt March.
• Boycott of British goods — the bonfires of foreign cloth from 1905 anticipated the bonfires of 1921 and 1930.
• National Education — Bengal National College (1906) and Gokhale's Servants of India Society (1905) anticipated Gandhi's Gujarat Vidyapith (1920) and Jamia Millia Islamia (1920).
• The all-India platform — reunified at Lucknow 1916, ready for Gandhi to step into.

20.2 The personnel bridge

• Lala Lajpat Rai — led the Punjab in non-cooperation; died after the Simon Commission lathi-charge (Nov 1928).
• C.R. Das — defended Aurobindo (1909), broke from Gandhi to found the Swaraj Party (1923).
• Madan Mohan Malaviya — Moderate-Extremist bridge; INC President 4 times.
• Bipin Chandra Pal — continued public life till 1932.
• Subhas Bose & Bhagat Singh — the next generation that absorbed the Extremist and revolutionary legacies and combined them with mass politics and socialism.

20.3 The toxic bequest — separate electorates

• Morley-Minto 1909 introduced them.
• Lucknow Pact 1916 entrenched them with Congress endorsement.
• Government of India Act 1919 expanded them.
• Communal Award 1932 extended them to Depressed Classes (modified by Poona Pact).
• Government of India Act 1935 made them the framework of provincial politics.
• The line from 1909 separate electorates to Pakistan 1947 is the deepest structural wound of the period.

20.4 Long-view significance

The years 1905–1917 are when Indian politics changed register — from an elite-conversation to a mass-mobilisation. The mass-mobilisation template is what made it possible for Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Bose to lead the freedom struggle to independence in 1947, and for the Republic founded in 1950 to function as a continental democracy.

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