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

298 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE It was refreshing and heartening to find in the Working Committee, at least one man who could think boldly and have the courage to call a spade a spade. But though Mr. Nariman was brilliant in his analysis, he was weak in action. His suggestion for summoning the All-India Congress Committee to end the existing stalemate was not taken seriously by the General Secretary, Pandit Nehru and when the latter was clapped in prison in January 1934, for making an alleged seditious speech in Calcutta, no silver lining was visible in the dark horizon. It was left to Dr. M. A. Ansari, the Moslem leader of Delhi, to tackle the situation. During his visit to England in 1933 he had been pained and humiliated by the arrogance of the Conservative politicians and their assertion that the Congress was down and out. That feeling was heightened on finding on his return to India that the Congress was in a state of suspended animation. After appealing to the Mahatma to bring the Congress back to life once again, he along with Dr. B. C. Roy of Calcutta, summoned a con- ference of Congressmen of their way of thinking at Delhi in March 1934. By that time, civil disobedience was as dead as a door-nail, but the Congress could not function because of the Ordinances and the Ordinances would not be withdrawn by the Government till civil disobedience was unconditionally withdrawn. The only way out of the mess was for the Congress leaders to eat the humble pie, call off the civil- disobedience campaign and thereby secure the withdrawal or suspension of the Ordinances. The Delhi Conference pre- pared the ground for that by resolving to revive the All-India Swaraj Party to contest the elections to the Legislatures.¹ The next month a larger Conference was summoned to pursue the same topic and Ranchi (in Bihar) was chosen as the venue, because the Mahatma would be there at the time. The Conference confirmed the decision arrived at at Delhi to revive the All-India Swaraj Party and the prime-movers, Drs. Ansari and Roy, were able to secure the support of the ¹ Before the Delhi Conference, another Conference, called the Democratic Swarajya Party Conference, had been held at Bombay at the instance of Mr. N. C. Kelkar of Poona and Mr. Jamnadas Mehta of Bombay for popularising the idea of fighting the next elections. This Conference had large support from all parts of Maharashtra.