द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

THE SWARAJIST REVOLT 109 —called the Wood-Winterton¹ Agreement but the Tory Cabinet did not give effect to it. Mr. Sastri therefore had to return disappointed. After his return to India, the Recipro- city Bill was introduced in the Assembly by Dr. H. S. Gour. The above picture of India in 1923 would not be complete without reference to some of the communal dissensions which appeared in 1923 and which were to assume a more ugly shape in the years to come. Punjab was the scene of most of the troubles in 1923. Early in the year there was a Hindu-Moslem riot at Multan and this was followed by a similar riot in Amritsar, near the scene of the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in 1919. About this time, Mr. (now Sir) Mian Fazli Hussain became a minister in the Punjab and his extreme partiality for Moslems in the matter of appointments to public services caused considerable heart-burning among Sikhs and Hindus. Later in the year, a movement was started among Indian Moslems in opposition to the Indian National Congress—called 'Tanzeem' and 'Tabligh'—which aimed at organising the Moslems as a strong and virile community. This movement gained adherents for some time but before long it fell into disfavour and was replaced by communal or sectarian organisations of a different kind. While the above movement was going on among the Moslems, the Hindus were not altogether idle. Their communal organi- sation—called the Hindu Mahasabha—sought to strengthen itself by deciding at its annual meeting in August to admit the depressed classes to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by high-caste Hindus. Corresponding to the 'Tanzeem' and 'Tabligh' movement among the Moslems, a 'Sangathan' move- ment was started among the Hindus. Further, in order to reclaim those Hindus who for some reason had left the Hindu fold in the past, the 'Suddhi' (or Purification) movement was started. By performing the Suddhi ceremony, it was made possible for a non-Hindu to become a Hindu. The apostle of this movement was Swami Shraddhananda,² a highly- ¹ The Hon. Edward Wood, better known as Lord Irwin and now as Lord Halifax was the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies—while Lord Winterton was the Under-Secretary of State for India. ² Swami Shraddhananda was subsequently murdered by a Moslem fanatic probably out of his resentment at the Suddhi movement.