The Central Legislature in British India, 192147. Mohammad Rashiduzzaman

He said: “We have come here to do something which we have not been doing so far. Sir, we have come here to offer our co-operation, non-co-operators as we are, if you will care to co-operate with us; if you don’t, we shall, like men, stand upon their rights, continue to be non-co-operators.”¹¹ The reasons for not responding to the Swarajist pleading to the Assembly were never fully revealed; however, some would blame Lord Reading, the then Viceroy for the lack of creative imagination for constructive initiatives.¹² His biographer, however, revealed that the constitutional debate in 1924 was taken seriously by him.¹³ He wrote to Lord Oliver, the ← 15 | 16 → Secretary of State for India, explaining the need for some “cautious move” forward to “offer some inducement for goodwill and co-operation.”¹⁴ Lord Oliver seemed to be reluctant to concede any wider scheme of reforms.¹⁵ At this stage there was also some speculation about a “conference” between the Indian leaders and a few British statesmen to settle the questions of further constitutional advance.¹⁶ But eventually only a departmental enquiry popularly known as the Muddiman Enquiry was held into the working of the Reforms to explore the possibilities of further expansion within the precincts of the 1919 Act.¹⁷ It was a great disappointment for the Swarajists and Motilal refused to serve on the Committee but several Independent leaders like M. A. Jinnah and Sir Sivasawami Iyer were among the other members who agreed to work with the team. The Report of the Committee was, however, not unanimous and when it came up for the consideration of the Assembly in 1925, the Swarajists rejected it.¹⁸

      The frustration over the questions of further constitutional expansion led the Swarajists to stage a walk-out from all the legislative bodies on March 8, 1926. It was but a political demonstration marking the Swarajists’ impatience with the Government. But in September 1926, they had to go back to the legislatures to stop the Government from rushing certain important bills. In the Central Assembly, the Government introduced the Currency Bill which would fix the exchange ratio of Indian Rupees. It was a matter of national importance and the Swarajists went back to the Assembly to adopt a motion postponing the Bill’s further consideration till the next session.¹⁹ There were several other significant developments at this stage which brought defection among the Swarajists and indeed the key controversy was over the utility of the legislatures in British India. Lajpat Rai resigned from the Swaraj Party as a protest against its policy of “walk-out” from the legislatures since he held that it was more harmful to the Hindus than any other class or community.²⁰ He further argued that the “walk-out” of 40 to 50 Swarajists in the Assembly deprived only 4 or 6 Muslim constituencies of the services of their representatives, while the Hindu constituents’ loss of representation (from that walk-out) was about 6 or 7 times higher.²¹ The Swarajists who opposed such storming out of the legislative floor was known as the Responsive Co-operators who later formed an Independent Congress Party with a Central Board consisting of Pandit Malaviya, Lajpat Rai and Raja Narendra Nath for conducting elections.²² In the autumn of 1926, the Swarajist’ position was indeed unhappy; there was a mounting perception that they would possibly disappear at the future elections.²³ ← 16 | 17 →

      Much recorded in the British Indian Colonial history: the communal harmony achieved by the Khilafatists and Gandhi’s followers in 1920 and 1921 did not last long. The Hindus in general were doubtful of the extra-territorial patriotism that the Khilafat agitation implied.²⁴ There was a sort of rebellion in Malabar by the Muslim Khilafatists who were better known as Moplahs. The rebels defied law and order and terrorized the public. Rumors had it that the Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam in that area, which, across the spectrum, offended the Hindus and a plethora of resolutions were moved in the central and provincial legislatures calling upon the Government to restore law and order in Malabar. It was not too difficult for the Government to bring the situation under control but the incident contributed to the Hindu-Muslim discord especially in South India that evidently spilled in other parts of British India too.²⁵ In 1923, there were several riots in the Punjab and Bengal; one of the worst riots took place in Kohat where the entire Hindu population fled away in terror.²⁶ Such communal riots killing the Hindus as well as Muslims continued to increase in number and intensity in various places; the climax reached in 1926 in Calcutta where 40 riots took place in that year killing 197 and injuring 1,600 persons.²⁷ From 1923 to 1927, nearly 450 persons were killed and 5,000 injured in various communal riots.²⁸ The Hindu-Muslim tension outside had also its impact on the proceedings of the Central Legislature; from the late 1920s the number of questions asked by the Hindu and Muslim members eliciting information about communal riots escalated.

      By the end of 1926, the Hindu-Muslim bitterness was worse and the Committee appointed under Gandhi’s chairmanship in January 1925 to inquire into the communal questions did not produce any encouraging result.²⁹ Earlier in 1924, a scurrilous pamphlet called Rangilla Rasul (debauched prophet) written by a fanatical Hindu author created communal bitterness in Lahore as it was directed against Prophet Muhammad. The matter was discussed in the provincial legislatures and eventually the Central Legislature passed an enactment in 1926 in order to stop such publications inciting religious conflicts.³⁰ Another horrible incident in 1926 was the murder of Swami Shraddhanand, the leader of the Arya Samaj by a Muslim fanatic. In British India, the Arya Samaj was one of the foremost Hindu communal organizations which started a “shuddi,” and “sangathan” (reconversion to Hinduism of those who had become Muslim or Christian) movement. At this stage, the Muslims also retaliated with Tablig and Tanzim movement to keep the Muslims on the right track.³¹ Two outstanding leaders of the Assembly, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Lala Lajpat Rai were directly associated with the ← 17 | 18 → activities of Arya Samaj. They looked upon the legislatures as the key arena for serving the Hindu interests and, therefore, their followers never seriously thought of boycotting the legislative bodies. As a range of people anticipated it, the 1926 elections were dominated by the intense communal feeling that carried far reaching consequences in Colonial Indian politics.³² Pandit Malaviya and Lajpat Rai constantly harped upon Hindu interests as opposed to Muhammadan interests; it scared the Muslims in those days.³³ Religious fervor was roused at the elections;³⁴ as a result, the difference between Hindu and Muslim groupings in the newly elected legislatures was sharp in 1927. In the Central Legislature a Hindu communal group known as the Nationalists under Pandit Malaviya emerged:³⁵ on the other hand, there was as well a Muslim communal group known as the Central Muslim Party under Nawab Sir Zulfiquar Ali.³⁶

      Worthwhile to note at this stage was the failure of the Swarajists in wrecking the new legislatures as they apparently changed their political trajectory. The policy laid down at the Coconada (also spelled as Kakinada) session of the Congress in 1923 was remarkable in more than one way. It formally ended the Congress alliance with the Khilafatists; furthermore, it specified that the Swarajist members of the Central and Provincial Legislatures must shun the ordinary legislative business unless the Government accepted the party’s ultimatum for the release of all political prisoners, the repeal of all repressive laws and the convention of a Round Table Conference to frame a new Constitution for India.³⁷ Now this uncompromising attitude haunted the Swarajists while they entered the new legislatures in January 1924. Except in the Central Province (C.P.), no other provincial legislature had an absolute Swarajist majority; consequently an indiscriminate obstructionist policy was viable only in one province. More to the point, Bengal was the other Province where the Swarajist leader C. R. Das could find a working majority in alliance with other members to thwart the Government. Emphatic protest against the policy of not participating in the ordinary legislative business was made by the Swarajists even in those provinces where they were in a minority but soon they realized that such a “go-alone” policy would deprive them of all opportunities of influencing the administration on a range of issues.³⁸ The opposition to the negative policy of hindrance was sharply expressed by the South Indian politicians who wanted to co-operate in any action or policy which they believed to be clearly and entirely in the interests of India.³⁹ So the Swarajists had to modify their policy and they took part in the ordinary sessions and also sat in the Committees and some of them even wanted to accept offices.⁴⁰ ← 18 | 19 → V. J. Patel, the Deputy Leader of the Swaraj Party was elected President of the Assembly and Motilal, the leader of the Swaraj Party in the Central Assembly agreed