Agree to Disagree

Both sides, however, wanted to avoid a 1907-type split and kept in touch with Gandhi who was in jail. Both sides also

realised the significance of putting up a united front to get a mass movement to force the government to introduce reforms, and both sides accepted the necessity of Gandhi’s leadership of a united nationalist front. Keeping these factors in mind, a compromise was reached at a meeting in Delhi in September 1923.

The Swarajists were allowed to contest elections as a group within the Congress. The Swarajists accepted the Congress programme with only one difference—that they would join legislative councils. The elections to the newly constituted Central Legislative Assembly and to provincial assemblies were to be held in November 1923.

The Swarajist Manifesto for Elections Released in October 1923, the Swarajist manifesto took a strong anti-imperialist line. The points put forward were as follows.

● The guiding motive of the British in governing India lay in selfish interests of their own country;

● The so-called reforms were only a blind to further the said interests under the pretence of granting a responsible government, the real objective being to continue exploitation of the unlimited resources of the country by keeping Indians permanently in a subservient position to Britain;

● The Swarajists would present the nationalist demand of self-government in councils;

● If this demand was rejected, they would adopt a policy of uniform, continuous and consistent obstruction within the councils to make governance through councils impossible;

● Councils would thus be wrecked from within by creating deadlocks on every measure.