Click Here for Printed Study Notes for IAS Exams https://iasexamportal.com/study-kit UNIT 15 REVOLUTIONARY TRENDS, GHADAR PARTY AND HOME RULE LEAGUE Structure 15.0 Objectives ' 15.1 Introduction / 15.2 Revolutionary Trends I 15.2.1 Factors Leading to Revolutionary Trends 15.2.2 Early Activities 15.2.3 Decline of the Revolutionary Trend 15.3 The Ghadar Movement 15.3.1 Background of the Movement 15.3.2 Early Activities 15.3.3 Towards Organisation 15.3.4 Strategy and Action 15.4 Ghadar Movement : The Main Events 15.4.1 The Movement in the Last Phase 15.4.2 The Repression 15.4.3 Failure and Achievements 15.5 Home Rule Leagues 15.5.1 Events Leading to the Formation of Leagues 15.5.2 Two Leagues 15.5.3 Tilak's Home Rule League 15.5.4 Annie Besant's Home Rule League 15.5.5 Change in British Attitude 15.5.6 Decline of the Home Rule Leagues 1'5.6 Let Us Sum Up 15.7 Key Words 15.8 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises i ) 15.0 OBJECTIVES In the early years of the twentieth century a new dimension was added to the Indian National I Movement. This was the emergence of revolutionary terrorism as a political weapon. After reading this Unit you will be able to: identify the factors that contributed to the emergenceqofrevolutionary terrorism, 1 know about the early activities of revolutionaries and the causes of their decline. understand what was the strategy of the Ghadar Movement and its details, discuss the achievements of the Ghadar Movement, and know about the Home Rule Leagues and their contribution in the National Movement. 15.1 INTRODUCTION The first major attempt at a country-wide mass movement-the Swadeshi Movement-all but died out by 1907; the next major effort came after the First World War. In the intervening years, the national movement was to witness three different experiments in political action, all of which contributed in their own way to the furthering and deepening of national consciousness. The first experiment, that of revolutionary terrorism, synchronised with the end of the mass phase of the Swadeshi movement, the other two, the Ghadar and Home Rule Movements spanned the years of the First World War. Click Here for Printed Study Notes for IAS Exams https://iasexamportal.com/study-kit Radical Trends, Nationalism and Mahatma Candhl 15.3 REVOLUTIONARY TRENDS Revolutionary terrorism was the form of political action adopted by a generation of highly- motivated nationalist youth whose creative energies failed to find adequate room for expression within the existing political trends. 15.2.1 Factors Leading to Revolutionary Trends The Extremists' critique of Moderate politics had convinced them of the futility of trying to convert the British rulers by petitioning and reasonable argument. They had participated actively in the Swadeshi movement in the hope and belief that Extremist methods of agitation such as boycott, passive resistance, etc., would take the national movement out of its elitist groove. They expected that this movement would bring the British Government to its knees. As you have already studied in Unit-l 1, the Swadeshi movement was only partially successful in mobilising vast sections of the masses. It also could not secure the reversal of the partition of Bengal. This failure was however, almost inevitable. Firstly because it was the first major attempt at m$ss mobilisation. And secondly its methods were new and unfamiliar both to those who advocated them and to those who hesitated to adopt them. It led to a growing sense of impatience and frustration among the youth who began to feel that perhaps something even more dramatic was needed to arouse the people. The inability of the Extremist leadership to either adequately analyse the weaknesses of the movement or to suggest new ways out of the impasse further strengthened this trend. Some sections of the leadership, such as Aurobindo Ghosh, in fact supported the new trend. Those who did not quite agree, preferred to remain silent rather than come out in open criticism, perhaps out of a feeling that this would be playing into Government hands. Another factor that helped the growth of the trend of revolutionary terrorism was the brutal repression of the Swadeshi movement by the Government. For example the police made the unprovoked assault on the peaceful crowd at the Barisal Political Conference on 27tH April, 1906 which had led the nationalist paper Jugantar to give the call: "Force must be stopped by force". The Government's ability to repress was considerably enhanced by the split that took place in the Indian National Congress at Surat in 1907 between the Moderates and the Extremists, since it removed or at least reduced the danger of alienating the Moderates in the event of repression of the Extremists. Luring the Moderates with promises of constitutional reform, the government proceeded to launch an all-out attack on the Extremists; Tilak was sentenced to six years of exile in Burma, Aurobindo Ghosh was arrested in a revolutionary conspiracy case. During this period a whole generation of nationalist youth especially in Bengal, were: angered by repression convinced of the futility of the moderate path and impatient with the inability of the extremists to either extract immediate concessions from the government or to achieve a full scale mobilisation of themasses. This young generation turned to the path of individual heroic action or revolutionary terrorism, a path that had hen taken before them by the Irish nationalists and the Russian Nihilists. Though believing in the necessity, in the long-run, of an armed mass revolt by the people in order to overthrow imperialism, the daunting nature of this task as well as of attempts to subvert the loyalty of the army left them with only one choice for immediate action: assassination of individual British officials, especially the unpopular ones. This was done: in order to smke terror among officialdom; remove the fear and inertia of the people; and arouse their nationalist consciousness. 15.2.2 Early Activities . Though the trend of revolutionary terrorism acquired a real force only around 1907-8, there had been earlier examples as'well: As early as 1897 the Chapekar brothers of Poona-Damodar and Balkrishna-had assassinated two British officers. In Maharashtra again, by 1904, V.D. Savarkar and his brother Ganesh had organised the Mitramela and the Abhinav Bharat as secret societies. Click Here for Printed Study Notes for IAS Exams After 1905, many newspapers and individualshttps://iasexamportal.com/study-kit started advocating this form of political Revolutionary Trends, , action. In 1907, there was an attempt, though unsuccessful, on the life of the Lieutenant- Ghadar Party and Home Rule League Governor of Bengal. The real launching of the new.trend is, however, identified with the throwing of a bomb in April 1908, by Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki on a carriage in which they believed Kingsford, the unpopular district judge of Muzaffarpur, to be travelliqg. But unfortunately, the carriage was carrying two British ladies who were thus inadvertently killed. Prafulla Chaki shot himself dead'rather than be arrested, but Khudiram Bose was arrested and later hanged. The government also used the opportunity to involve Aurobindo Ghosh his brother Barin, and many others in a conspiracy case in which Aurobindo himself was acquitted but his brother and many others were sentenced to deportation and harsh prison terms. 15. Prafulla Chaki Fhation of Secret Societies and Revolutionary Activities: The repression by the British triggered off the formation of secret societies and a spate of assassinations and what were termed as 'swadeshi' dacoities to raise funds for buying anns, etc. In Bengal, which became the main centre of revolutionaries, the organisation of revolutionary activities was spearheaded by the Anushilan and Jugantar societies. In Maharashtra, Poona, Nasik and Bombay became centres of revolutionary activity. In Madras, Vanchi Aiyar of the Bharata Matha Association assassinated an official who was responsible for firing on a crowd that was protesting the arrest of the Extremist leader Chidambaram Pillai. In London, Madan Lal Dhingra killed Curzon Wylie, an Indian Office official and Rashbehari Bose organised a daring attempt on the life of the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, as he entered Delhi on 23rd December, 1912. Other revolutionaries, such as Shyamji Krishna Varma, Lala Har Dayal, V.D. Savarkar, Ajit Singh and Madame Cama established centres'in Europe from which they could continue to spread the revolutionary message and render assistance to comrades at home. In all, it was estimated that 186 revolutionaries were either killed or convicted in the years 1908-1918. Click Here for Printed Study Notes for IAS Exams Radical Trends, Nationalism https://iasexamportal.com/study-kit and Mahatma Caadhi 16. Khudiram Bose. ~. 15.2.3 Decline of the Revolutionary Trend Stem repression facilitated by a series of draconian laws and the lack of a popular responsc led to the gradual decline of this wave of revolutionary terrorism. Individual heroic action undoubtedly earned the revblutionaries a great deal of popular adulation and sympathy, and many of them such as Khudirarn Bose and Prafulla Chaki became folk heroes. By its very nature, however, this form +f political action could only be emulated by a few individuals, and not by the mass of people, who still awaited a movement that could accommodate their weaknesses and make effective use of their strengths. Check Your Progress 1 1 Give two important causes for the growth