Moderates and Extremists (Spectrum Digest, Ch 7)

The Moderate phase (1885 to 1905)

• Leaders: Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, Surendranath Banerjee, Badruddin Tyabji, Dinshaw Wacha, W. C. Bonnerjee.
• Beliefs: faith in British justice and "British character"; the goal was reform within the empire, not independence.
• Methods (the "Three Ps"): petitions, prayers and protests; constitutional agitation, resolutions, memoranda and the education of opinion in India and Britain.
• Demands: a larger and elected role in legislative councils, Indianisation of the services (simultaneous ICS examinations in India), reduction of military expenditure, separation of the judiciary from the executive, and protection of civil rights.
• Economic critique: their lasting achievement was the systematic economic critique of colonialism (the drain theory), which exposed the costs of British rule, see economic impact.

Moderate achievements were modest in concrete reform but laid the organisational and intellectual foundations of the movement.

Causes of Extremism

• Disillusionment with the meagre results of moderate methods.
• The economic misery exposed by famines and plague at the turn of the century.
• The reactionary policies of Lord Curzon, above all the Partition of Bengal (1905).
• A new self-confidence drawing on Indian culture and history, and international events (the Japanese defeat of Russia in 1905 showed an Asian power could beat a European one).

The Extremists (Assertive Nationalists)

• Leaders: the trio Lal-Bal-Pal (Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal) and Aurobindo Ghosh.
• Tilak's slogan: "Swaraj is my birthright and I shall have it." He used the Ganpati and Shivaji festivals to spread nationalism and founded the newspapers Kesari (Marathi) and Maratha (English).
• Goal: swaraj (self-rule), by self-reliance, swadeshi, boycott and national education.
• Methods: passive resistance, boycott of foreign goods and institutions, and a readiness for sacrifice and confrontation.

The Surat Split, 1907

At the Surat session (1907) the Congress split between Moderates and Extremists over the pace and methods of agitation and the presidency. The Extremists were marginalised, and the British seized the moment to repress them (Tilak was tried and imprisoned in Mandalay, 1908 to 1914). The two wings reunited at the Lucknow session in 1916.

Revolutionary nationalism

A parallel, militant stream arose where constitutional methods seemed futile:

• Bengal: the Anushilan Samiti and Jugantar; the Alipore Conspiracy case (1908); Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki (Muzaffarpur, 1908).
• Maharashtra and abroad: the Abhinav Bharat (Savarkar), India House in London (Shyamji Krishna Varma), and the Ghadar Party (1913, San Francisco; Lala Har Dayal, Sohan Singh Bhakna).
• Later phase (1920s to 1930s): the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA); the Kakori conspiracy (1925); Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru (the Lahore conspiracy and the Assembly bomb, 1929); Chandrashekhar Azad; and Surya Sen's Chittagong armoury raid (1930).

The Morley-Minto Reforms, 1909

The Indian Councils Act 1909 (Morley-Minto Reforms) enlarged the legislative councils and gave Indians a larger, partly elected presence, but its most consequential and divisive feature was the introduction of separate electorates for Muslims (communal representation), which institutionalised the communal principle in Indian politics.

The security and human-rights angle

The state response to Extremism and revolutionary activity (sedition prosecutions, the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai in 1907, repressive press and explosives laws, and the use of conspiracy trials) shows the colonial security apparatus turning the law into an instrument against dissent. The separate electorates of 1909 were the first major legal step towards the communal politics that ended in Partition.

Common traps

• "Swaraj is my birthright" is Tilak, not Gandhi.
• The Surat Split was 1907; reunion at Lucknow in 1916.
• Separate electorates came with the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909.
• The Ghadar Party (1913) was founded in San Francisco.

Authored practice

1. The introduction of separate electorates for Muslims is associated with which reform? (a) Indian Councils Act 1892 (b) Morley-Minto Reforms 1909 (c) Government of India Act 1919 (d) Government of India Act 1935. Answer: (b) Morley-Minto Reforms 1909. Authored practice, not a verbatim PYQ.
2. The Congress split into Moderates and Extremists at which session? (Answer: Surat, 1907.) Authored practice, not a verbatim PYQ.