The First Stage Debate

Three perspectives were put forward on what the nationalists should work on immediately after the end of the Civil Disobedience Movement. The first two were traditional responses, while the third one represented the rise of a strong leftist trend within the Congress. The three perspectives were as follows.

1. There should be constructive work on Gandhian lines. 2.There should be a constitutional struggle and participation in elections to the Central Legislature (due in 1934) as advocated by M.A. Ansari, Asaf Ali, Bhulabhai Desai, S. Satyamurthy and B.C. Roy among others. They

argued that:

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● in a period of political apathy, elections and council work could be utilised to keep up the political interest and morale of the people;

● participation in elections and council work did not amount to faith in constitutional politics;

● another political front would help build up Congress and prepare the masses for the next phase;

● this approach would give the Congress a certain amount of prestige and confidence, and a strong presence in councils would serve as an equivalent to the movement.

3. A strong leftist trend within the Congress, represented by Nehru, was critical of both constructive work and council entry in place of the suspended civil disobedience movement as that would sidetrack political mass action and divert attention from the main issue of the struggle against colonialism. Instead, this section favoured resumption and continuation of non-constitutionalist mass struggle because the situation was still revolutionary owing to continued economic crisis and the readiness of the masses to fight.