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

· THE SLUMP 139 Committee better known as the Muddiman Committee, was placed before the Assembly. The Home member, Sir Alexander Muddiman, moved the acceptance of the Majority Report of the committee and as an amendment to that, the Swarajist leader, Pandit Motilal Nehru, put forward what has been called the 'National Demand'. The National Demand, as formulated by the Pandit, was the result of a compromise with non-Swarajist members of the Assembly and represented the Greatest Common Measure of agreement among the non-official members. The National Demand was to the effect that constitutional reforms practically amounting to the immediate grant of Dominion Status should be conceded by the British Parliament and that a Round Table Conference between British and Indian representatives should meet in order to discuss the ways and means for implementing those reforms. The reply given to the demand by the official spokesman in the Assembly at the time and later on by the Viceroy, amounted to a refusal. Before the end of the year, Lala Lajpat Rai, joined the Assembly as a Swarajist and was elected Deputy-Leader of the Party. About this time the Responsivist Party, headed by Mr. M. R. Jayakar and Mr. N. C. Kelkar, the erstwhile Swarajist leaders, was launched. It differed from the Swaraj Party on two main points. It advocated discriminate opposi- tion, as opposed to the Swarajist policy of indiscriminate opposition to the Government in the Legislatures. Further, it did not approve of the pro-Moslem attitude of the Swaraj Party or of the Indian National Congress and on the contrary, it allied itself more with the Hindu Mahasabha. The accen- tuation of Hindu-Moslem differences in 1925 and after, threw more Hindu Congressmen into the arms of the Hindu Maha- sabha and the politics of the Hindu-Mahasabha was, generally speaking, identical with that of the Responsivist Party. Both the Hindu Mahasabha and the Responsivist Party thought that the Moslem community by co-operating with the Government was able to strengthen its position and further its interests, to the detriment of Hindu interests—while the Indian National Congress through its policy of indiscriminate opposition was unable to do anything for the Hindus. This feeling was