The Split in the Surat Congress, 1907

Background and Factors Leading to Surat Split:

• The all-India political alignments in 1906-7 could be best decribed as in a state of confusion.
  • The Bengal moderates cherished their connection with the Bombay group, but local politics imposed upon them a more radical course, as they wholeheartedly denounced the partition and supported boycott, swadeshi and national education. selfstudyhistory.com
  • These radical tendencies the Bombay leaders, like Pherozshah Mehta, Dinshaw Wacha or Gokhale, could not appreciate at all.
    • On the other hand, among the non-Bengali extremists, Lala Lajpat Rai was clearly in favour of restraint and wanted reconciliation between the moderates and the extremists.
    • Even Tilak was not all for a show-down; it was only Ajit Singh in Punjab who was staunchly against any compromise.
  • However, the real issue in all-India politics in 1906-7 was how far the radicalism generated by the swadeshi movement in Bengal was to be incorporated into the future politics of the Congress on an all-India theatre.
    • Already by the end of 1905 political unrest had been reported from many districts of the United Provinces, Punjab, Madras Presidency, Bombay Presidency and Central Provinces; widespread agrarian riots were reported from Rawalpindi and Lahore.
    • In Poona, plague and the interventionist prophylactic official measures had aroused political emotions that tended to radicalise public life— although still at an elite level—and sharpened the discord between Gokhale and Tilak.
• Benaras Session (1905):
  • In December 1905, at the Benaras session of the Indian National Congress presided over by Gokhale, the Moderate-Extremist differences came to the fore.
  • The Extremists wanted to extend the Boycott and Swadeshi Movement to regions outside Bengal and also to include all forms of associations or cooperation with colonial government (such as government service, law courts, legislative councils, etc.) within the boycott programme and thus start a nationwide mass movement.
    • The Extremists wanted a strong resolution supporting their programme at the Benaras session.
  • The Moderates, on the other hand, were not in favour of extending the movement beyond Bengal and were totally opposed to boycott of councils and similar associations.
    • They advocated strictly constitutional methods to protest against the partition of Bengal.
  • As a compromise, a relatively mild resolution condemning the partition of Bengal and the reactionary policies of Curzon and supporting the swadeshi and boycott programme in Bengal was passed. This succeeded in averting a split for the moment.
• Calcutta Session (1906):
  • At the Calcutta session, the Moderate enthusiasm had cooled a bit because of the popularity of the Extremists and the revolutionary terro­rists and because of communal riots.
  • The Bengal extremists got in touch with the Tilak group in Maharashtra and sought to give the Congress programme a new orientation at the Calcutta Congress of December 1906.
  • Matters nearly came to a head at the Calcutta Congress over the question of its Presidentship.
    • Here, the Extremists wanted either Tilak or Lajpat Rai as the president, while the Moderates proposed the name of Dadabhai Naoroji, who was widely respected by all the nationalists.
    • Finally, Dadabhai Naoroji was elected as the president and as a concession to the militants, the goal of the Indian National Congress was defined as ‘swarajya or self-government like the United Kingdom or the colonies’.
  • In spite of the opposition of Gokhale and the machinations of Mehta, they scored a resounding victory of extremists with the help of the Bengal moderates.
    • Four resolutions on the Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education, and Self-Government demands were passed and partition was condemned.
    • It was here that the Extremist Party was born with Tilak as the leader and their main goal was to keep in tact the four Calcutta resolutions, which the Bombay moderates were determined to revise at the next session of the Congress.
    • Throughout 1907 the two sides fought over differing interpretations of the four resolutions.
  • The word swaraj was mentioned for the first time, but its connotation was not spelt out, which left the field open for differing interpretations by the Moderates and the Extremists.
• The Extremists, emboldened by the proceedings at the Calcutta session, gave a call for wide passive resistance and boycott of schools, colleges, legislative councils, municipalities, law courts, etc.
• The Moderates, encouraged by the news that council reforms were on the anvil, decided to tone down the Calcutta programme.
• The two sides seemed to be heading for a showdown.
  • Extremists:
    • They thought that the people had been aroused and the battle for freedom had begun.
    • They felt the time had come for the big push to drive the British out and considered the Moderates to be a drag on the movement.
    • Most of them, led by Aurobindo Ghose, felt that the time had come to part company with the Moderates,  push them out of the leadership of the Congress, and split the organization if the Moderates could not be deposed.
  • Moderates:
    • They thought that it would be dangerous at that stage to associate with the Extremists whose anti-imperialist agitation, it was felt, would be ruthlessly suppressed by the mighty colonial rule.
    • The Moderates saw in the council reforms an opportunity to realise their dream of Indian participation in the administration.
    • Any hasty action by the Congress, the Moderates felt, under Extremist pressure was bound to annoy the Liberals in power in England then.
    • Most of the Moderates, led by Pherozeshah Mehta were no less willing to Part Company with the Extremists.
• Both sides had it wrong:
  • The Moderates did not realise that the council reforms were meant by the Government more to isolate the Extremists than to reward the Moderates.
  • The Extremists did not see that the Moderates were their natural outer defence line (in terms of civil liberties and so on) and that they did not possess the required strength to face the colonial state’s juggernaut.
  • Both sides did not realise that in a vast country like India ruled by a powerful imperialist country, only a broad-based nationalist movement could succeed.
  • It wasn’t as though the whole leadership was blind to the danger. The main public leaders of the two wings, Tilak (of the Extremists) and Gokhale (of the Moderates) were mature politicians who had a clear grasp of the dangers of disunity in the nationalist ranks. But both could not stop the split.

Split of Congress in Surat Session, December 1907:

• The Extremists wanted the 1907 session to be held in Poona (stronghold of Extremists) with Tilak or Lajpat Rai as the president and reiteration of the swaraj, swadeshi, boycott and national education resolutions.
• The Moderates, led by Gokhale and Firuz Shah Mehta, wanted the session at Surat in order to exclude Tilak from the presidency, since a leader from the host province could not be session president (Surat being in Tilak’s home province of Bombay).
• Lala Lajpat Rai, who had been deported, had by then returned from Mandalay ‘and the extremists proposed his name as the next Congress president, while the moderate candidate was Rash Behari Ghosh.
  • But Rai, who did not want a split, refused to accept the nomination and so the ultimate fight between the two contending groups boiled down to the question of either retention or rejection of the four Calcutta resolutions.
• The Extremists were excited by the rumours that the Moderates wanted to scuttle the four Calcutta resolutions. 
  • The Extremists wanted a guarantee that the four resolutions would be passed.
  • To force the Moderates to do so they decided to object to the duly elected President for the year, Rash Behari Ghose.
• The Moderates were deeply hurt by the ridicule and venom poured on them in mass meetings held at Surat on the previous three days.
• The delegates, thus, met in an atmosphere surcharged with excitement and anger. In no time, the delegates were shouting, coming to blows and hurling chairs at each other.
  • Some unknown person hurled a shoe at the dais which hit Pherozeshah Mehta and Surendranath Banerjea.
• Both sides adopted rigid positions, leaving no room for compromise. The split became inevitable after clash during the session.
• Tilak had seen the coming danger and made last minute efforts to avoid it. But he was helpless before his followers.
  • He viewed the split as a ‘catastrophe.’ He now tried to undo the damage.
  • He sent a virtual letter of regret to his opponents, accepted Rash Behari Ghose as the President of the Congress and offered his cooperation in working for Congress unity. But Pherozeshah Mehta and his colleagues would not relent asMehta sought to reconstitute the party by purging the extremist elements, a task which he accomplished at the following Allahabad Convention.
• The moderate leaders having captured the machinery of the Congress excluded the militant elements from it. Minto wrote to Morley: Congress collapse at Surat was a great triumph for us.

Aftermath and Effect of Split;

• After Surat Split, Congress was now dominated by the Moderates who lost no time in reiterating Congress commitment to the goal of self- government within the British Empire and to constitutional methods only to achieve this goal.
  • Next session of Congress in Banaras and Allahabad were called Mehta Congress due to hegemony of Firozshah Mehta and was attended only by the moderates, who reiterated their loyalty to the Raj. The Bengal model of politics was finally rejected.
• The Extremists founded the Liberal Party and called themselves Neo-Nationalist.
• The Government launched a massive attack on the Extremists.
  • Between 1907 and 1911, five new laws were enforced to check anti-government activity.
    • Seditious Meetings Act, 1907;
    • Indian Newspapers (Incitement to Offences) Act, 1908;
    • Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908; and
    • the Indian Press Act, 1910.
  • Extremist newspapers were suppressed.
  • Tilak, the main Extremist leader, was sent to Mandalay (Burma) jail for six years on charge of disturbing public order. Aurobindo and B.C. Pal retired from active politics. Lajpat Rai left for abroad.
    • Aurobindo Ghose, their ideologue, was involved in a revolutionary Conspiracy case and immediately after being judged innocent gave up politics and escaped to Pondicherry to take up religion.
    • B.C. Pal temporarily retired from politics.
    • Lajpat Rai, who had been a helpless onlooker at Surat, left for Britain in 1908 to come back in 1909 and then to go off to the United States for an extended stay.
• The Extremists were not able to organise an effective alternative party to sustain the movement.
• The Moderates also suffered:
  • They gave up all the radical measures adopted at the Benaras and Calcutta sessions of the Congress,
  • spurned all overtures for unity from the Extremists and excluded them from the party.
  • They thought they were going to rebuild, to quote Pherozeshah Mehta, a ‘resuscitated, renovated, reincarnated Congress.’
  • But the spirit had gone out of the Congress and all efforts to restore it failed.
  • The Moderates were left with no popular base or support, especially as the youth rallied behind the Extremists.
• In the long run, the split did not prove useful to either party.
  • The Moderate leaders lost touch with the younger generation of nationalists.
  • The British Government played the game of “Divide and Rule” and tried to win over moderate nationalist opinion so that the militant nationalists could be isolated and suppressed.
• To placate the moder­ate nationalists, it announced constitutional concessions through the Indian Councils Act of 1909, which are known as the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909.
  • In 1911, the Government also announced the cancellation of the partition of Bengal. Western and Eastern Bengals were to be reunited, while a new province consisting of Bihar and Orissa was to be created.
  • At the same time the seat of the Central Government was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi.
• After 1908, the national movement as a whole declined for a time. In 1914, Tilak was released and he picked up the threads of the movement in the form of Home Rule Movement. After release from Jail, Tilak became Moderate.
• The two factions could again come together and the Congress revitalised when Gandhi took the leadership in 1920.