364 FROM PLASSEY TO PARTITION AND

AFTER
which increasingly came under
prompted Dorabji Tata to ofter communidesperst aleteadership.
Indo-European political organisation of the CapitalisesThe
communism. was stopped through the
It proposal red N
governiment came idown nnatterivoentnaliiostns of
Thakurdas and thus an open rift with the
Although in 1929, the

battle Case, stillheavheily againg t.

communists in the Meerut
the Indian capitalists
Conspiracy
their
to win
All India Trade Union Congress (which agai nstbeen only hope
under the sober influence Gandhi.
of
had Communi s
formed inm
Thus for various reasons, by the
community had
beginnirig
been
of 1930
all
1%
the Indian business
gress. And the Congress too was sensitive to
interests. So when Gandhi announced
drawn towards
their
his 11 point
s
the Comecio
conditions
and
nsÁ
Irwin, it contained three. specific capitalist demandssa ultimatum n
exchange rate of 1s 4d, protection tor cotton industry and
tion of coastal shipping for the Indian companies (see
rupeeSterling
But as the Civil Disobedience movement started, the 6.te4, chaptbusineessr
sponse once again was mixed. The traders and marketeers Wete
more enthusiastic: they contributed funds and participatedin the
boycott movement. It was, indeed, the cloth merchants, particulaty
the importers, who contributed most to the success of the bowes
movement by refusing to indent foreign goods for specific period:
The mill owners, on the other hand, were nervous and offered litde
concrete support, while some Bombay industrialists like the Tatas
who depended on government orders, remained skeptical. But com
plete neutrality would have been suicidal; so the FICCI supported the
principles of the movement and condemned police brutalities.
The practicalities of the boycott movement also resulted in clastes
of interests between the Congress and the mill owners. Gandhi s
idea of boycott was to replace foreign cloth with khadi; although be
waswilling toaccept some amount of profiteering by the Indian m
Owners, but this had to be contained within limits. So the Congres
in 1928 devised certain rules, and the mills that agreed to abide by
nem were classified as swadeshi mills, not to be Butthe
boycotreuod
rules were too stringent for the mill owners and therefore they had
to be relaxed in 1930 and lengthy berween
negotiations followed
the Congress and the Ahmedabad and Bombay mill owners. Inthe
end, by March 1931, only eight mills still refused to acceptthe
byplethe
dge of
rules,swadeshi; others signed the pledge, but rarely
117 And
caredtogo
OWnershadfor
whatever enthusiasm the mill