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

THE CLOUDS GATHER 59 to the revival of hand-spinning and hand-weaving, removing of untouchability¹ among the Hindus and the collection of a fund of ten million rupees in memory of the late Lokamanya Tilak. (The idea of bringing back into use the ancient spinning-wheel in order to produce cloth as a cottage industry had struck Mr. Gandhi a year before). While the above resolu- tions were all of a useful or beneficial character, there was one resolution which must be regarded as a great blunder. That was the decision to wind up the British Branch of the Indian National Congress and stop publication of its organ, the paper India. With the carrying into effect of this resolu- tion, the only centre of propaganda which the Congress had outside India was shut down. The Nagpur Congress, like the Calcutta Congress, was a great triumph for Mr. Gandhi. It was his Constitution and his plan of work that was adopted there. The gathering was an unprecedented one, twenty thousand people attending the Congress. Public enthusiasm was at a very high pitch and among the distinguished visitors were two Labour members of the British Parliament, Mr. Ben Spoor and Col. Wedgwood. The Nagpur Congress was an important landmark in the history of the Indian Nationalist Movement. It stood for a complete break with the Moderates, but it did not represent a complete victory for the Extremists. The latter as we shall see subsequently, would have to work for many years before they could bring the Congress round to their point of view. Considered objectively, the plan which Mr. Gandhi placed before the Congress and the country was not something altogether new in the recent history of India. The fight which the people of Bengal had waged against the Govern- ment as a protest against the partition of their province in 1905 by the then Viceroy, Lord Curzon, had many features in common with the war of non-violent non-co-operation started in 1920 under the leadership of Mr. Gandhi. In 1905, Bengal had resorted to the boycott of British goods and of state-owned educational institutions and there had simul- taneously been a revival of national industries and a growth of national schools and colleges, free from state interference of ¹ This is explained later on.