Moderates & Extremists

Towards the end of the 19th century a major rise in national consciousness began to occur amongst a number of
Indians who sought changes for the country. One significant beginning was the formation of the Indian National
Congress in 1885. It marked the beginning of a long struggle leading to the Independence of India in 1947.

The INC however was divided along two trends – The Moderates and The Extremists. The early years of the
INC was dominated by a group of individuals known as the ‘Moderates’. These leaders mainly belonged to the
upper middle class of society and their liberal democratic ideology determined the programs and form of
struggle. The moderates did not believe in complete Independence for the country. The leaders of the early
Congress realized that their country still lacked some of the essential elements which constituted a nation, and
the people did not yet have sufficient unity among themselves. Thus, they looked upon British rule, which kept
them together and at the same time assured them an efficient and liberal government, as a necessity. Their
patriotism therefore demanded that they should loyally accept the British rule as a fact, for a sudden and
premature termination of that rule was likely to be harmful to India’s national interest. Early Congressmen
openly stated their belief that they were loyal because they were patriotic. Their desire for the perpetuation of
the British rule was because they hoped that their British rulers would train and enable them to govern
themselves. At political level the initial demands were very moderate because the immediate goal was neither
independence nor self-government. The principal political demand was reform of the central and local
legislative councils so as to give Indians greater power and to make these councils more representatives by
including some members selected by local bodies, chambers of commerce, universities etc.

However, a certain group within the Congress began to grow increasingly unhappy with the Moderates and
began to demand more radical change. Rather than having the British continue to rule while demanding for
certain administrative and economic changes, these individuals demanded complete freedom and stronger forms
of protest. This group came to be called the ‘Extremists’. In the following paragraphs we shall analyse the core
differences between the Moderates and Extremists, leading up to the Surat Split in 1907.

The reasons for the INC being divided between the moderates and extremists maybe broadly categorized into
three broad trends. The first view is that the nationalist movement was split by clashing ideologies. The second
presents it as an issue of class conflict, the moderates representing the big bourgeoisie while the extremists
represented the petty bourgeoisie. A third sees the split resulting from a struggle for power by contending local
factions. All these views contain some elements of truth but cannot be accepted as the sole explanation for the
split. One should try to analyse the complex interaction of these factors against a politically charged backdrop
culminating the Swadeshi movement at the wake of the partition of Bengal.

The fundamental differences between the moderates and the extremists were several. First, the moderates were
not prepared for any harsh confrontation. They gravely doubted the potential of the Indian masses for violence.
They saw no need to disrupt the existing system until the Indians could clearly ‘substitute another form of
order’. The extremists, on the other hand, were totally prepared for confrontation even if it meant civil
disobedience. They saw political fights as a means of developing inner strength.

The second point of clash between the moderates and extremists was the apparent complacency and the limited
approach of the former. Moderates like Suredranath Banerjee believed that they were making steady progress
and in the long run they would succeed in attaining Home Rule. They were entirely opposed to any variation in
methods of agitation, which opposed peaceful political protest. All the initial reforms according to them had
been possible through such means. They worked under the illusion that all would be well if the British could be
acquainted with the true state of affairs in India. They thought that it was only the bureaucracy which stood
between the people and their rights. So their aim was to educate Indian public opinion and making it conscious
of its rights. It also intended to inform British public about the problems faced by the Indians and remind it of its
duty towards India. To fulfill the latter aim, deputations of leading Indians were sent to Britain to present the
Indian viewpoint. In 1889, a British Committee of Indian National Congress was founded. To carry on its
propaganda, the Committee started its organ India, in 1890.

The moderates, however, had made a number of demands on the British but they were extremely cautious in
their demands. They did not want to annoy the government and incur the risk of suppression of their activities.
From 1885 to 1892, their main demand continued to be expansion and reform of the Legislative Councils, the
membership of the Councils for elected representatives of the people and also an increase in the powers of these
Councils. However, during the first twenty years (1885-1905) there was practically no change in the Congress
programme. The major demands were practically the same as those formulated at the first three or four sessions.
By 1905 the Congress put forth the demand for Swaraj or self-rule for Indians within the British Empire on the
model of the self-governing colonies like Australia or Canada. This demand was first referred to by G.K.
Gokhale in 1905 (at Banaras) and later explicitly stated by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1906 (at Calcutta).

The Extremist challenge went beyond a debate on methods and tactics to be adopted by the INC. They
challenged the very moral character of the nationalist struggle in the nation. Aurobindo Ghose, who presented
one of the earliest extremist attacks on the Congress, wrote in 1893, that it was the cowardice, selfishness and
weakness of the INC that was the greatest enemy of India. What the extremists sought to point out was that the
INC lacked patriotic spirit, they did not strike any roots among the populace, most Congress leaders were not
really making any sacrifices. They believed that politics was not something that should be pursued in one’s
spare time, but it required the complete commitment of one’s career and being to the political and cultural
regeneration of the nation. While Ghose and Lala Lajpat Rai had criticized the INC from the sidelines, Tilak had
constantly criticized the Congress as a regular participant and a member of the Poona Standing Congress
Committee- Tilak’s methods were varied- they included his Ganpati and Shivaji festival, his land-tax boycott
and also justification of violence.

The extremists had given a call for Swaraj, which they envisaged as self-government not under the guidance or
paramountcy of the British but by severing all British connections and wiping off all British influences. They
had tremendous sense of self-respect and wanted to keep their heads high, something they believed that would
not be possible if they had swaraj under the British. They thought that a trial of strength between the ruler and
the ruled was inevitable, and argued for building a new India of their dreams in which the British had no
contribution to make. They wanted to assert that their future lay entirely in their own-hands and they would be
free only if they were determined to be free.

The extremists considered all constitutional methods to be fruitless. They believed that moderate politics had
reached a dead end as most of their demands remained unfulfilled. For them passive resistance had a much
wider implication as it meant not only boycott of foreign goods but also foreign administration and jobs, schools
and courts so that a national system could be built up independent of the government. Bipinchandra Pal had
described such “passive resistance” as the refusal to render any voluntary or honorary service to the government.
Aurobindno Ghose had expanded this theory to suggest that only if the Indians refused to provide service to the
British in various spheres of administration could the Indians hope to destabilize the British rule in India.

Sekhar Bandyopadhyay has pointed out another significant difference between the two, which made it difficult
for them to reconcile. Both factions had argued that India should progress, however, their approach to this was
very different. The moderates had glorified the western ideas and concepts and believed that only by following
such ideas could India hope to progress. Thus, they constantly looked towards the British for guidance and such
advocacy of modernization through a western course naturally meant an advocacy of the continuation of the
British rule. The extremists, on the other hand, tried to define the Indian nation in terms of distinctly Indian
cultural idioms, which led them to religious revivalism invoking a glorious past. However, one should not view
this as religious bigotry but a political mechanism to instill a sense of pride in the minds of a select group of
Indians. Some of these leaders believed that complete rejection of the western paradigm of progress and
emphasis on Hindu mythology and history was the best means to reach the masses and mobilize them. However,
according to Bandyopadhyay, the veteran Congress leaders refused to accommodate these trends and ideas into
the INC policies and programmes and this is what led to their split in 1907.

In 1900 two instances occurred that provoked this dissent further. In Satara, at the Bombay provincial
conference, Gokuldas Parekh the President, threatened to resign if Tilak’s anti-Sandhurst Resolution was taken
up again. Tilak tried to persuade him by pointing out that in 1891, a rule was adopted by which any matter
which one-third of the members agreed to discuss would be taken up. Parekh refused to accept the petition, there
was an uproar from Tilak’s supporters and Parekh was forced to adjourn the conference till a compromise could
be reached. Later in the same year, there was controversy over the selection of president, clearly indicating that
the earlier harmony of the Congress had disappeared, giving way to factionalism.

It was with the Swadeshi movement that the Congress came to be firmly divided into the ‘moderates’ and
‘extremists’. However, it would be wrong to think of the two groups as organized groups with fixed ideologies
clashing with each other. These loose groups lacked cohesion, formal organization and discipline that
characterize party politics. They essentially came from the same social backgrounds and shared similar
communal interests.

Rajat Kanta Ray points out the gap between the aspirations of a culturally aware people and the hard realities of
the colonial state led to a sort of psychological tension in the minds of the individuals manifesting itself in
conflicting political ideologies emerging within the same class of people. While established political leaders
pursued opportunities offered under colonial rule, lack of access and deep feelings of subjugation drove many
less established politicians to seek more radical remedies. These different factions and political creeds now
began to find support bases- the moderates attracted the support of the Bengali entrepreneurs, businessmen, the
middle class investors with relatively large investments in Swadeshi enterprises, the lawyers and physicians with
large practices in Calcutta, well placed government servants, a section of students and teachers and finally those
sections among the propertied and landed classes whose income was enough to maintain them in comfort. The
extremists drew their support from the big nationalist zamindars, from sections of the prosperous professional
and service classes, who were all the lower middle classes of clerks, writers and employees of public offices and
mercantile firms in Calcutta, the small gentry of the muffasal towns, from priests, pundits and Brahmans, who
earned small livelihoods in traditional pursuits of their castes, from a large number of teachers and students and
from sections of labour employed in the railways, dockyards and the mills. Rajat Ray believes that the essential
difference between the extremists and moderates did not lie in their methods or objectives but the fact that they
represented different psychological moods. The moderates, for instance, represented the section of opinion that
was still willing to consider political concessions, while, the extremists represented the alienation of the people
from the existing structure of the authority.

What revealed the popularity of this growing trend of extremism within the Congress was Shivam Mahadeo
Paranjpe’s article in his newspaper, the Poona Kal. Here he raised issues about what tactics the Congress would
adopt and whether the Congress should be allowed to control the actions of its members. The generational and
regional differences came to the fore, when this article found support among the younger Congressmen and
mostly in Maharashtra. Paranjpe justified terrorism, which echoed sentiments voiced by Tilak in 1897 to
exonerate Shivaji’s killing of Afzal Khan. The Calcutta and Bombay Congress Committees condemned the
article.

Two issues gained urgency following this- the first was the adoption of a Congress Constitution and the second
was regarding the delegates who should be allowed to attend the annual Congress sessions. The need for a
Congress Constitution was felt by most members as the Congress needed to conduct its affairs in a more
systematic and efficient manner. A need was also felt for Congress literature that would present the nationalist
arguments in a more organized way. Also, there was a body of thought that felt people with no qualifications
should be kept out of the Congress sessions and for those who believed that Congress represented nothing more
than an annual three day festival, a written constitution providing a permanent organization and orderly
procedures seemed a logical solution.

The Moderates were not in agreement over the Constitution issue; they realized that once a democratic
constitution was adopted, they might lose their hold over the Congress as the rapidly growing younger
extremists were evidently in majority, especially in the Marathi speaking areas of Bombay. The dilemma faced
by the Moderates was that without a democratic Constitution the legitimacy of their leadership might be
questioned, and the adoption of this constitution would result in the extremists displacing them. Some
Moderates urged still for the adoption of the Constitution, which would specify that the Congress should work
by ‘Constitutional means’ and ‘on lines of general appreciation of British rule’ but others like Pherozeshah
Mehta refused to accept the new constitution, thereby, preventing it from becoming operative.

The extremists in Calcutta had managed to establish a working alliance with the Maratha extremists of Poona
and Nagpur led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The extremists in Calcutta held the Shivaji festival with much fanfare
in the summer of 1906, it was attended by Tilak, GS Khaparde and BS Moonje. The Calcutta Congress of 1906
witnessed several serious points of clash between the two groups; a split was avoided by choosing Dadabhai
Naoroji, who was respected by all the nationalists as a great patriot. Four resolutions were passed on Swadeshi,
boycott, national education and self-government. 1907 saw both sides fighting over the interpretation of these
and by the end of 1907 they had started to look upon each other as the main political enemy.

The Congress session at Surat was held in December 1907. The extremists wanted some guarantee that the four
resolutions would be passed. They opposed the duly elected president for the year and they had pressed for
Tilak to be appointed as the President. However, these demands were constantly rejected by the moderates. It
seemed that both sides had come prepared for a confrontation. Tensions ran high as Pherozshah Mehta omitted
the Calcutta resolutions from the agenda. The Extremists in return decided to oppose the nomination of Rash
Behari Ghosh as President unless their resolutions were retained. This constituted the immediate cause for the
split. Pandemonium broke out as soon as The Reception Committee declared Rash Behari Ghosh as the
President even as Tilak moved to oppose this- very soon violence broke out with a famous “Marathi Chappal”
hitting Surendranath Banerjea and Pherozshah Mehta. The congress was dissolved. It was following this
conference that the split in Congress seems to have become final.

Another factor that should be taken into account, while, analyzing the reasons for the split is the role of the
British policy- ‘the carrot and stick policy’. This three pronged policy can be understood in terms of repression-
conciliation-suppression. The extremists were to be mildly repressed in the first stage, so as to scare the
moderates, who would then be placated with some promises and concessions and hints were to be given that
further reforms would be made available if they disassociated themselves from the extremists. Once the
extremists were isolated, they could be suppressed with the full might of the state and the moderates in turn
could be isolated.

After the split, the government immediately launched a massive attack on the extremists. Their newspapers were
suppressed and Tilak was imprisoned for six years. Similarly, Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo were
subjected to repressive measures compelling them to leave the country or retire from politics. The extremist
movement, which was based a lot on the personalities of these leaders could not survive their arrest or
imprisonment and began to fizzle out. Moreover, the Moderates gave up all the radical measures adopted by
them, they spurned all attempts at unity from the extremists and kept them out of the Congress. This greatly
helped the British as the major threat to their regime had come from the Extremists and a disunited attack
launched by the INC was no threat at all to their authority. The unified action of the two was absolutely
necessary for the proper functioning of the organisation and growth of national movement. With the extremists
in the wilderness, the Moderates were to achieve little. For about a decade, the Moderates were not in a position
to show the kind of strength that was needed to seriously oppose the British. Finally, all attempts made by the
Congress to recreate a renovated and reincarnated Congress completely failed and it was only under Gandhi that
the INC could be revived and revitalized.

The Extremists in return decided to oppose the nomination of Rash Behari Ghosh as President unless their
resolutions were retained. This constituted the immediate cause for the split. Pandemonium broke out as soon as
The Reception Committee declared Rash Behari Ghosh as the President even as Tilak moved to oppose this-
very soon violence broke out with a famous “Marathi Chappal” hitting Surendranath Banerjea and Pherozshah
Mehta. The congress was dissolved.