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

176 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE At the time of the All-Parties Conference in Lucknow in August, a new development took place. While the settlement of the communal question made by the Nehru Committee was welcome to the younger Nationalists, the recommendation regarding a dominion form of government, coming as it did after the Madras Congress resolution on independence, was quite unacceptable to them. Their intention, therefore, was to oppose the adoption of the Report at the All-Parties Conference at Lucknow. Such a step would have given great satisfaction and delight to the enemies of the Congress, would have weakened the forces working for national unity and would have increased the prestige of the Simon Commission instead of destroying it. A private meeting of members of the Congress Left Wing was therefore held at Lucknow to decide our course of action and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and I suggested that instead of dividing the House and thereby wrecking the All-Parties Conference, we should content our- selves by voicing our protest at the Conference and then proceed to organise an Independence League in order to carry on an active propaganda in the country in favour of independence. This suggestion was accepted by the meet- ing of Left-Wingers and following it, Pandit J. L. Nehru and I made our position clear at the All-Parties Conference on the question of independence, but refrained from dividing the House. After the Conference, we started organising branches of the Independence League all over the country and in November, at a meeting held at Delhi, the Indepen- dence League was formally inaugurated. The ‘Independence Movement’ started at Lucknow was contemporaneous with another movement—viz., the Students’ Movement. When the boycott of the Simon Commission was launched in February, students all over Bengal and parti- cularly in Calcutta, took an active part in it. Disciplinary action was taken against many of them by the College authori- ties and the students then began to feel the want of an organi- sation of their own for fighting for their interests. Out of this experience the Students’ Movement in Bengal was born.¹ ¹ Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and the writer were among the few public men who encouraged the students at the time to organise themselves.