Swaraj Party
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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 |
The Swaraj Party, established as the Congress-Khilafat Swaraj Party, was a political party formed in India on 1 January 1923 after the
It was inspired by the concept of Swaraj. In Hindi and many other languages of India, swaraj means "independence" or "self-rule." The two most important leaders were Chittaranjan Das, its president, and Motilal 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 the Bengal Legislative Council in 1923. The party disintegrated after the death of C. R. Das.[2]
Chauri Chaura
The Swaraj Party was formed on 1 January 1923 by Indian politicians and members of the
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
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 the Viceroy....
In December 1922, Chittaranjan Das, Narasimha Chintaman Kelkar and Motilal Nehru formed the Congress-Khilafat Swarajaya Party with Das as the president and Nehru as one of the secretaries. Other prominent leaders included Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Subhas Chandra Bose of Bengal, Vithalbhai Patel and 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 the 1923 Indian general election, Swarajist members(45/145) were elected to the councils. Vithalbhai Patel became the president of the Central 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
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 spin khadi cloth and do social service as a prerequisite for office. This was opposed by Gandhi's supporters, men like Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad, who became known as the No Changers as opposed to the Swarajist Changers. 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 the
Between 1929 and 1937, the Indian National Congress would declare the independence of India and launch the
Madras Province Swarajya Party
The Madras Province Swarajya Party was established in 1923.
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 the
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
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 to Civil Disobedience Movement
|
|||||
1934 | 98 | 29 |
See also
- Free Press of India
- Indian Nationalism
- K.M. Munshi
- Abdul Hameed Khan
References
- ISBN 978-81-8475-183-3.
- ^ Misra, Chitta Ranjan (2012). "Bengal Pact, 1923". In Islam, 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, retrieved 2024-03-04
- ISBN 978-81-7156-144-5.