Swaraj Party - Council Entry

Council Entry

Gandhi and most of the Congress party rejected the provincial and central legislative councils created by the British to offer some participation for Indians. They argued that the councils were rigged with un-elected allies of the British, and too un-democratic and simply "rubber stamps" of the Viceroy.

In December 1922, Chittaranjan Das, Narasimha Chintaman Kelkar and Motilal Nehru formed the Congress-Khilafat Swarajaya Party with Das as the president and Nehru as one of the secretaries. Other prominent leaders included Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Subhas Chandra Bose of Bengal, Vithalbhai Patel and other Congress leaders who were becoming dissatisfied with the Congress. The other group was the 'No-Changers', who had accepted Gandhi's decision to withdraw the movement.

Now both the Swarajists and the No-Changers were engaged in a fierce political struggle, but both were determined to avoid the disastrous experience of the 1907 split at Surat. On the advice of Gandhi, the two groups decided to remain in the Congress but to work in their separate ways. There was no basic difference between the two.

Swarajist members were elected to the councils. Vithalbhai Patel became the president of the Central Legislative Assembly. However, the legislatures had very limited powers, and apart from some heated parliamentary debates, and procedural stand-offs with the British authorities, the core mission of obstructing British rule failed.

With the death of Chittaranjan Das in 1925, and with Motilal Nehru's return to the Congress the following year, the Swaraj party was greatly weakened.