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

138 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE communal strife also helped to bring to the fore, people who generally fought shy of politics and who were averse to doing anything which involved suffering and sacrifice. In Bengal the Left Wing was at a disadvantage for some time, because a large number of Congressmen belonging to that group were in prison either under Regulation III of 1818 or under the Bengal Ordinance. From the middle of 1925 onwards there was a gradual watering down of the original Swarajist policy of undiluted opposition. In June, Pandit Motilal Nehru accepted a seat on the Skeen Committee appointed by the Government to report on the Indianisation of the Army. Not long after this, Mr. S. B. Tambe,¹ a prominent member of the Swaraj Party of the Central Provinces, accepted an appointment as a member of the Governor's Executive Council and this step was approved of by Mr. N. C. Kelkar and other prominent Maharashtrian Swarajist leaders. About this time the Indian Legislative Assembly was given the right of electing its own President and Mr. Vithalbhai J. Patel, one of the most thorough-going obstructionists in the Swaraj Party, stood as a candidate and was duly elected to this office. Though the acceptance of that office involved a certain amount of co- operation with the Government, Mr. Patel performed his functions with remarkable ability and conspicuous success—so much so that though he always acted within the limits of the Constitution and with scrupulous fairness, he came to be dreaded by the Treasury Benches for his independent and impartial rulings. The popularity which the Swaraj Party gained during the period of its existence, was due in no small measure to his work as President. Working with a wretched Constitution and without any parliamentary precedents to back him, Mr. Patel was, nevertheless, able to maintain the rights and privileges of the members of the House of which he became the custodian and gave to the Opposition Party and its leader the status they would be entitled to in a free country enjoying a democratic Constitution. In September 1925, the report of the Reforms Enquiry ¹ Mr. Tambe later on became the Acting Governor of the Central Pro- vinces when the Governor went home on leave for some months.