Home Rule Movement The Home Rule Movement was the Indian response to the First World War and represented the emergence of a new trend of aggressive politics. Tilak released on 16 June 1914. He helped the British War effort believing that Government would repay their help by agreeing to Indian demand of self rule. Further to create public pressure on Britishers for this, this movement was started. Annie Besant and Bal Gangadhar Tilak were the pioneers of this new trend. However, congress did not support this, so two home rule leagues were formed.

Tilak after his released concentrated all his effort on securing the readmission of himself and other extremists into the Indian National Congress. Mrs. Annie Besant pressurized the congress to admit the extremists. With her continuous efforts, the re-entry of extremists was secured in December 1915 and the re-entry of extremists into congress was done in Lucknow Session of Congress in 1916. The Home Rule Movement had borrowed the term “Home Rule” from a similar movement in Ireland. Main objective of the league was to attain home-rule for Indian within the British Empire, on the lines of the autonomous colonies of Australia, New Zealand etc.

Idea of Home Rule league was mooted by Annie Besant Idea of Home Rule league was mooted by Annie Besant. Through her newspapers New India and The Commonweal , She took up the demand of Self rule on the lines of White colonies after the war. However it was Tilak who started the Home Rule league in April 1916 and 5 months later in September 1916 Mrs. Annie Besant started the home Rule league. Tilak launched Home Rule league at Bombay Provincial Conference at Belgium in 1916 under the Presidentship of Joseph Baotista. Its area of activity was Maharashtra (Except Bombay), C.P. and Berar and Karnataka. Annie Besant and S. Subramaniya Aiyer established their league in Sep. 1916. Their area of activity, included all India except that of Tilak’s home rule league. Her chief associates were Arundale, C.P. Ramaswammy Aiyer and B.P. Wadia.

Annie Besant league was joined by : Jawaharlal Nehru in : Allahabad B. Chakravarthy and J. Banerjee in : Calcutta Khaliq-us-Saman in : Lucknow. It was during this movement Tilak gave popular slogan “Sawraj is my birth right and I shall have it.” It was during this movement Tilak was given the title of “Lokmanya”. Tilak linked demand for Sawraj with formation of linguistic states and education through vernacular.

Government arrested Mrs Government arrested Mrs. Besant in June 1917 which led to nation wide protest. Sir S Subramaniya Aiyer renounced his knighthood in protest. Faced with growing agitation, the government in Britain decided to adopt a soft line and she was released in September 1917. After Montague’s declaration (August 1917) also known as August Declaration. Mrs. Besant finally dropped her league but Tilak continued his movement.

Lucknow Pact The Lucknow Session of Congress was held in 1916. It is the only session which was attended by Congress and Muslim League jointly. It was an important step forward in achieving Hindu- Muslim unity as Muslims were dissatisfied with the treatment to Turkey by British and with the annulment of partition of Bengal. It is memorable for two important developments: The first was the readmission of the extremists. The second was the bond of alliance between the Congress and the Muslim League. Tilak’s Home rule League organized a special train “Congress Special” or “Home rule Special” for carrying delegates to Lucknow. This tradition became essential part of later Congress Sessions.

The Muslim League and the Congress reunited and the League agreed to present joint constitutional demands with the Congress to the Government. The Congress accepted the league’s demand of separate electorates. The agreement which is known as Lucknow Pact has resulted largely due to Tilak’s efforts. It was criticized by Madam Mohan Malvia. Joint demands Government should declare that it would confer self government to Indians at an early date. More power to legislative councils Half the members of the viceroy's executive council should be Indians.

It was Tilak who was first to suggest formation of a small cohesive Congress working committee in Lucknow (1916) to carry on day to day work and implementation of resolutions it was turned down by moderates .later it was formed in 1920in Nagpur session at Gandhi ji’s behest. Negative fallouts Acceptance of separate electorates meant to validate the belief that the Muslims represented a separate community. Its acceptance later lent credence to the two nation theory. While the leaders of the two groups came together, no efforts to bring people of two communities together. The Congress-League survived till the suspension of the Non- cooperation Movement in February 1922.

Montague Declaration (1917) On August 20, 1917, Montague (Secretary of State of India) made a historic Declaration in the House of ‘Commons defining the goal of British Policies in India. He defined the goal as “increasing association of Indians in every branch of administration, and the gradual development of self-governing institutions with a view to the progressive realization of Responsible government in India as an integral part of the British Empire. Shortly thereafter, Montague visited India in November 1917, to ascertain the views of all shades of political opinion in India. Based on these discussions a detailed Report on Indian Constitutional reforms was prepared, which was published in July 1918. This report in turn formed the basis of the Montague-Chelmsford Reforms or the Government of India Act, 1919. The moderates welcomed it as a Magna Carta of India while others criticized it as falling far short of the legitimate expectations of India. Tilak characterized the Montague Declaration as a sunless dawn. The division of opinion over this report led to second split in INC in 1918. This time moderates led by Surendranath Banerjee walking out and started a new party called the National Liberal League in 1918 which later on known as All India Liberal Federation.

Government of India Act of 1919 The Government of India Act of 1919 came into force in 1921. This Act is also known as Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms (Montagu was the Secretary of State for India and Lord Chelmsford was the Viceroy of India).

Features of the Act 1. Introduction of Diarchy i.e. rule of two- executive councilors and popular ministers- was introduced. The governor was to be the executive head in province. It divided the provincial subjects into two parts—transferred and reserved. The transferred subjects were to be administered by the governor with the aid of ministers. The ministers were responsible to the legislative Council. The reserved subjects, on the other hand, were to be administered by the governor and his executive council. The executive councilors were not being responsible to the legislative Council. This dual scheme of governance was known as ‘diarchy’—a term derived from the Greek word di-arche which means double rule. In case of failure of constitutional machinery in the province, the governor could take over the administration of “transferred “subjects too. However, this experiment was largely unsuccessful.

2. It introduced, for the first time, bicameralism and direct elections in the country. Thus, the Indian Legislative Council was replaced by a bicameral legislature consisting of an Upper House (Council of State) and a Lower House (Legislative Assembly). The majority of members of both the Houses were chosen by direct election. 3. It required that the three of the six members of the Viceroy’s executive Council (other than the commander-in-chief) were to be Indian. 4. It extended the principle of communal representation by providing separate electorates for Sikhs, Indian Christians, Anglo-Indians and Europeans. 5. It granted franchise to a limited number of people on the basis of property, tax or education.

6. It created a new office of the High Commissioner for India in London and transferred to him some of the functions hitherto performed by the Secretary of State for India. 7. It provided for the establishment of a public service commission. Hence, a Central Public Service Commission was set up in 1926 for recruiting civil servants. 8. It separated, for the first time, provincial budgets from the Central budget and authorized the provincial legislatures to enact their budgets. 9. It provided for the appointment of a statutory commission to inquire into and report on its working after ten years of its coming into force.