Why the Agitation Faded Out by 1919

The Home Rule agitation proved to be short-lived. By 1919, it had petered out. The reasons for the decline were as follows.

(i) There was a lack of effective organisation.

(ii) Communal riots were witnessed during 1917-18.

(iii) The Moderates who had joined the Congress after Annie Besant’s arrest were pacified by talk of reforms (contained in Montagu’s statement of August 1917 which held self-government as the long-term goal of the British rule in India) and Besant’s release.

(iv) Talk of passive resistance by the Extremists kept the Moderates away from activity from September 1918 onwards.

(v) The Montagu-Chelmsford reforms which became known in July 1918 further divided the nationalist ranks. Annie Besant herself was in two minds about the use of the league after the announcement of the reforms. Annie Besant

vacillated over her response to the reforms and the techniques of passive resistance.

(vi) Tilak had to go abroad (September 1918) in connection with a libel case against Valentine Chirol whose book, Indian Unrest, had featured Tilak as responsible for the agitational politics that had developed in India. With Besant unable to give a positive lead and Tilak away in England, the movement was left leaderless.

(vii) Gandhi’s fresh approach to the struggle for freedom was slowly but surely catching the imagination of the people, and the mass movement that was gathering momentum pushed the home rule movement onto the side lines till it petered out.

[In 1920, Gandhi accepted the presidentship of the All India Home Rule League, and changed the organisation’s name to Swarajya Sabha. Within a year, however, the league joined the Indian National Congress.]