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

72 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE prisonment.' At this Conference, a resolution was passed calling upon all Moslems to give up service under the Govern- ment, whether in a civil or in a military capacity and this constituted a breach of the law. After the conviction of the Ali brothers and their associates, Mahatma Gandhi came forward to take up the challenge. The same resolution was signed and published by forty-six Congress leaders, and it was repeated from a thousand platforms all over India. But the Government did not make a single arrest and took no notice of this defiance on the part of the Congress. In September, the Indian Legislative Assembly—the Central Parliament set up under the New Constitution—passed a resolution urging an examination and revision of the con- stitution earlier than 1929. No immediate reply to this came from the side of the Government but the following year, the Secretary of State for India, Lord Peel, in a dispatch on the subject dated November 3rd, 1922, stated that it was too early to contemplate a revision of the constitution. From the above narrative it might appear as if throughout 1921 Mahatma Gandhi was riding on the crest of a wave and had no obstacles to encounter. This impression is not alto- gether correct. No doubt there was a tremendous volume of mass opinion on his side—but so far as the intelligentsia were concerned, there were certain elements opposed to him. In the first place, the Indian Liberals were everywhere arrayed against him and in most provinces, they had accepted office as Ministers. This co-operation on the part of the Liberals was the direct result of the efforts of Mr. Montagu, the Secretary of State for India and as long as he remained in office—that is, till March 1922—they were enthusiastically in support of the Constitution. After his resignation from the British Cabinet, reaction set in and Liberal leaders began to feel that it was becoming increasingly difficult for them to continue their co-operation. In April 1922, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru resigned from the Executive Council of the Viceroy and in May 1923, Mr. Chintamani, Liberal leader of the United Provinces, resigned the office of Minister of Education in that province. Gradually the Liberals all turned against the Government and by 1927 the change was so great