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

84 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE elected President of the ensuing session of the Congress which was to meet at Ahmedabad in the last week of December. His half-written speech, which was a vindication of the prin- ciples and methods of the non-co-operation movement, was sent to the Congress and the presidential chair was filled, in his absence, by Hakim Ajmal Khan, the outstanding leader of Delhi. There was great enthusiasm at the Ahmeda- bad Congress and the main resolution was one which called upon the whole country to adopt a policy of individual and mass civil disobedience. Every man and woman was exhorted to join the National Volunteer Corps, defy the emergency ordinances and court imprisonment. The Congress further appointed the Mahatma as the Dictator for the whole country, following the precedent of the Bengal Congress Committee, who had appointed the Deshbandhu as the Dictator for the province. There was an interesting episode at the Ahmedabad Con- gress. Moulana Hasrat Mohani, an influential Moslem leader of the United Provinces, moved a resolution to the effect that the goal of the Indian National Congress should be defined in the constitution as the establishment of a republic (the United States of India). So impassioned was his eloquence and so responsive was the audience, that one felt as if the resolution would be carried by a large majority. But the Mahatma rose to oppose the resolution and with great sobriety argued against the proposition, with the result that it was thrown out by the house. The proposition was, however, to be brought up over and over again at subsequent Congresses till it was accepted at the Lahore Congress in 1929, the mover on that occasion being none other than the Mahatma himself. With the dissolution of the Congress, the year 1921 came to an end. Nothing of a startling character happened on or before December 31st. The promised Swaraj did not come. A few months earlier, at the conference with the ex-revolu- tionaries of Bengal, the Mahatma had said, that he was so sure of getting Swaraj before the end of the year that he could not conceive of himself as living beyond December 31st, without having won Swaraj. He had further said that pro-