THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT AND THE PARTITION OF INDIAscene at that time: Annie Besant, an Irish socialist who had come to India
in order to spread the message of Theosophy. On settling in Madras she
had become a kind of female Vivekananda, inspiring the Brahmin
intellectuals of the south. When she founded an Indian Home Rule
League on the Irish pattern, this movement spread like a wildfire and
eclipsed the National Congress for some time. Tilak founded his own
Home Rule League in western India and even Mohammad Ali Jinnah, a
brilliant Bombay lawyer who aspired to become a Muslim Gokhale,
joined that Home Rule League.
The Indian Muslims, who held the Turkish caliph in high regard, were
greatly agitated by the fact that their British overlords were presently
fighting the caliph. They were caught on the horns of a dilemma: before
the war they had looked to the British for protection of their minority
rights; now they came closer to the Indian nationalists. This was also
reflected by the political shift made by Jinnah, who now led the Muslim
League along nationalist lines. He found a political partner in Tilak and
together they concluded the Congress-League pact of 1916 (see pp. 254–5,
above). The sessions of the Congress and of the Muslim League were
arranged to be held in the same places in those war years so as to be
conducted on parallel lines.
During the war it seemed as if such harmony was destined to last for
ever. The Congress of 1917 was a unique manifestation of national
solidarity. The British rulers had contributed to this cohesion by arresting
and then releasing Annie Besant, who thus emerged as a national hero, was
promptly elected Congress president, and made the 1917 session a forum
for her home rule message. The initial solidarity of 1917 was soon eclipsed
by another split of the Congress. Tilak and the Bengal leader C.R.Das were
opposed to the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms and demanded an immediate
step towards provincial autonomy, whereas the more moderate Congress
politicians wanted to work the reforms. Finally Tilak and Das remained in
control of the Congress and the moderate wing left to form the National
Liberal Federation. But the debate about the merits or demerits of the
impending constitutional reform was suddenly interrupted by an altogether
different problem.
As the end of the war approached, the British were anxious to introduce
some emergency legislation, which would enable them to continue the
wartime repression of sedition, should this prove to be necessary. A
sedition committee chaired by Justice Rowlatt reported on this and
prepared drafts of such emergency legislation which, though promptly
enacted, was never applied due to the storm of protest it provoked in India.
The main principles of this legislation were summed up by the people in
the short formula: ‘No trial, no lawyer, no appeal.’ This, then, was the
reward for Indian loyalty during the war. The protest against the Rowlatt
Acts had to be articulated somehow and a new leader appeared on the