Question Discussion & Solution

The correct answer is Non-Cooperation Movement.

Key Points

• Swaraj Party was formed following the failure of the Non-Cooperation Movement.
• Non-Cooperation Movement:
  • The movement of Non-cooperation was launched on 4 September 1920 by Mahatma Gandhi with the aim of self-governance and obtaining full independence (Purna Swaraj) as the Indian National Congress (INC) withdrew its support for British reforms following the Rowlatt Act of 21 March 1919, and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 13 April 1919.
  • The Rowlatt Act of March 1919, which suspended the rights of political prisoners in sedition trials, was seen as a "political awakening" by Indians and as a "threat" by the British.
  • Although it was never invoked and declared void just a few years later, the act motivated Gandhi to conceive the idea of satyagraha (truth), which he saw as synonymous with independence.
• Swaraj Party:
  • Swaraj Party, an Indian political party established in late 1922–early 1923 by members of the Indian National Congress (Congress Party), notably Motilal Nehru, one of the most prominent lawyers in northern India (and the father of political leader Jawaharlal Nehru), and Chitta Ranjan Das, a nationalist politician from Bengal.
  • The party’s name is taken from the term swaraj, meaning “self-rule,” which was broadly applied to the movement to gain independence from British rule.
  • The party’s primary goal was to contest the elections to the new Central Legislative Assembly in 1923 and, once in office, to disrupt official policy and derail the Raj (British government in India) by antigovernment agitation within the council chambers.
  • Though the noncooperation approach of Mohandas K. Gandhi had remained the primary strategy of the Congress, in reality, those Congress leaders who were less-orthodox Hindu or who were more secular-minded in outlook chose the alternative tactic of partially cooperating with political reforms being instituted by the British after World War I.

Additional Information

• Civil Disobedience Movement:
  • Mohandas Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement of 1930-1931—launched by the Salt March—is a critical case for understanding civil resistance.
  • Although by itself it failed to bring Indian independence, it seriously undermined British authority and united India’s population in a movement for independence under the leadership of the Indian National Congress (INC).
  • It further signalled a new stage in the struggle for Indian swaraj (self-rule) and facilitated the downfall of the British Empire in India.
  • Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha drew upon a traditional South Asian cultural practice – the “Padyatra” (a long spiritual march) that became a model of strategic action for many social movements in the decades to come.
• Rowlatt Bill Satyagraha:
  • Rowlatt Acts, (February 1919), legislation passed by the Imperial Legislative Council, the legislature of British India. 
  • The acts allowed certain political cases to be tried without juries and permitted the internment of suspects without trial.
  • Their object was to replace the repressive provisions of the wartime Defence of India Act (1915) with a permanent law.
  • They were based on the report of Justice S.A.T. Rowlatt’s committee of 1918.
  • The Rowlatt Acts were much resented by an aroused Indian public.
  • All nonofficial Indian members of the council (i.e., those who were not officials in the colonial government) voted against the acts.
  • Mahatma Gandhi organized a protest movement that led directly to the Massacre of Amritsar (April 1919) and subsequently to his noncooperation movement (1920–22).
• Champaran Satyagraha:
  • The Champaran Satyagraha was the combination of elements of extra-constitutional struggle as well as the employment of moral force against an adversary, an exemplar of the rule of law; and the use of compromise as a gambit.
  • It is marked as India’s First Civil Disobedience Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi to protest against the injustice meted out to tenant farmers in the Champaran district of Bihar.
  • Champaran district was part of a permanent settlement area that consisted of the large zamindari estates under rich and influential landlords.
  • Most of the villages were leased out by the zamindars to thikadars of whom the most influential were European Indigo Planters.
  • Though the planters were temporary tenure holders, they not only extracted rent from the peasants but also exercised civil and criminal jurisdiction.