Here is your Essay on the Home Rule Leagues

At the same time, many Indian leaders saw clearly that the government was not likely t9 give any real concessions unless popular pressure was brought to bear upon it. Hence, a real mass political movement was necessary. Some other factors were leading the nationalist movement in the same direction.

The World War involving mutual struggle between the imperialist powers of Europe destroyed the myth of the racial superiority of western nations over the Asian peoples.

Moreover, the War led to increased misery among the poorer classes of Indians. For them the War had meant heavy) taxation and soaring prices of the daily necessities of life. They were getting ready to join any militant movement of protest.

Consequently the war years were years of intense nationalist political agitation. Bui this mass agitation could not be carried out under the leadership the Indian National Congress, which had become, under moderate leadership, a passive and inert political organisation with no political work among the people to its credit.

Therefore, two Home Rule Leagues were started in 1915-16, one under the leadership Lokamanya Tilak and the other under the leadership of Annie Besant, an English admirer of Indian culture and the Indian people, and S. Subramaniya Iyer.

The two Home Rule Leagues worked in cooperation and carried out intense propaganda all over the country in favour of the demand for the grant of Home Rule or self- government to India after the War. It was during this agitation that Tilak gave the popular slogan: “Home Rule is my birthright, and I will have it.”

The two Leagues made rapid progress and the cry of Home Rule resounded throughout the length and breadth of India. Many moderate nationalists, who were dissatisfied with the Congress inactivity, joined the Home Rule agitation.

The Home Rule Leagues soon attracted the government’s anger. In June 1917, Annie Besant was arrested. Popular protest forced the government to release her in September 1917.

I he war period also witnessed the growth of the revolutionary movement. The terrorist groups spread from Bengal and Maharashtra to whole of northern India.

Moreover, many Indians began to plan a violent rebellion to overthrow British rule. Indian revolutionaries in the United States of America and Canada had established the Ghadar (Rebellion) Party in 1913.

Most of the Members of the party were Punjabi Sikh peasants and ex-soldiers, in search of livelihood, and who faced the brunt of racial and economic discrimination. Lala Har Dayal, Mohammed Barkatullah, Bhagwan Singh, Ram Chandra and Sohan Singh Bhakna were some of the prominent leaders of the Ghadar Party.

The party was built around the weekly paper the Ghadar, which carried the caption on the masthead: Angrezi Raj Ka Dushman (An Enemy of British Rule). “Wanted brave soldiers”, the Ghadar declared “to stir up Rebellion in India. Pay-death; Price martyrdom Pension liberty; Field of Battle India.”

The ideology of the party was strongly secular. In the words of Sohan Singh Bhakna, who later became a major peasant leader of Punjab: “We were not Sikhs or Punjabis? Our religion was patriotism.”

“The party had active members in other countries such as Mexico, Japan, China, Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, Thailand, Indo-China, and East and South Africa”.

The Ghadar Party was pledged to wage revolutionary war against the British in India. As soon as the First World War broke out in 1914, the Ghadarites decided to send arms and men to India to start an uprising with the help of soldiers and local revolutionaries. Several thousand men volunteered to go back to India.

Millions of dollars were contributed to pay for their expenses. Many gave their lifelong savings and sold lands and other property.

The Ghadarites also contacted Indian soldiers in the Far East, Southeast Asia and all over India and persuaded several regiments to rebel. Finally, 21 February 1915 was fixed as the date for an armed revolt in the Punjab. Unfortunately, the authorities came to know of these plans and took immediate action.

The rebellious regiments were disbanded and their leaders were either imprisoned or hanged. For example, 12 men of the 23rd Cavalry were executed. The leaders and members of the Ghadar Party in the Punjab were arrested on a mass scale and tried.

Forty-two of them were hanged, 114 were transported for life and 93 were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Many of them, after their release, founded the Kirti and Communist movements in the Punjab.

Some of the prominent Ghadar leaders were: Baba Gurmukh Singh, Kartar Singh Saraba, Sohan Singh Bhakna, Rahmat Ali Shah, Bhai Parmanand and Mohammad Barkatullah.

Inspired by the Ghadar Party, 700 men of the 5th Light Infantry at Singapore revolted under the leadership of Jamadar Chisti Khan and Subedar Dundey Khan.

They were crushed after a bitter battle in which many died. Thirty-seven others were publicly executed, while 41 were transported for life.

Other revolutionaries were active in India and abroad. In 1915, during an unsuccessful revolutionary attempt, Jatin Mukerjea popularly known as ‘Bagha Jatin’ gave his life fighting with the police at Balasore.

Rash Bihari Bose, Raja Mahendra Pratap, Lala Hardayal, Abdul Rahim, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi, Champakaraman Pillai, Sardar Singh Rana and Madame Cama were some of the prominent Indians who carried on revolutionary activities and propaganda outside India, where they gathered the support of socialists and other anti-imperialists.