Swaraj Party - Changers and No-Changers, and The Simon Commission

Changers and No-Changers, and The Simon Commission

After his release from prison in 1924, Gandhi sought to bring back the Swarajists to the Congress and re-unite the party. Gandhi's supporters were in a vast majority in the Congress, and the Congress still remained India's largest political party, but Gandhi felt it necessary to heal the divide with the Swarajists, so as to heal the nation's wounds over the 1922 suspension.

The Swarajists sought more representation in the Congress offices, and an end to the mandatory requirement for Congressmen to spin khadi cloth and do social service as a prerequisite for office. This was opposed by Gandhi's supporters, men like Vallabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajendra Prasad, who became known as the No Changers as opposed to the Swarajist Changers. Gandhi relaxed the rules on spinning and named some Swarajists to important positions in the Congress Party. He also encouraged the Congress to support those Swarajists elected to the councils, so as not to embarrass them and leave them rudderless before the British authorities.

When the Simon Commission arrived in India in 1928, millions of Indians were infuriated with the idea of an all-British committee writing proposals for Indian constitutional reforms without any Indian member or consultations with the Indian people. The Congress created a committee to write Indian proposals for constitutional reforms, headed by now Congress President Motilal Nehru. The death of Lala Lajpat Rai, beaten by police in Punjab further infuriated India. People rallied around the Nehru Report and old political divisions and wounds were forgotten, and Vithalbhai Patel and all Swarajist councillors resigned in protest.

Between 1929 and 1937, the Indian National Congress would declare the independence of India and launch the Salt Satyagraha. In this tumultuous period, the Swaraj Party was defunct as its members quietly dissolved into the Congress fold.

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