DO YOU KNOW – 11
The Surat split of 1907 between Moderates and Extremists of the Congress was a signficant event in the course of national movement.
Lets understand the Surat split in a simple way :
The Surat Split was not a spontaneous event. It was actually the culmination of the simmering tension between Moderates and Extremists.
How and why did the tension build up ?
- In 1905, at the Benaras session of the Congress, the Extremists wanted the support to extend the Swadeshi Movement outside Bengal. Further, they wanted to include all forms of associations such as government service, law courts, legislative councils, etc within the boycott programme.
But the Moderates were against these wishes of the Extremists. Since the Congress was dominated by the Moderates, as a compromise, only a mild support was given to the Extremists. This mild support prevented a split.
In 1906, at the Calcuta session of the Congress, the Extremists wanted Tilak or Lajpat Rai as the president, while Moderates wanted Dadabhai Naoroji. Finally, Dadabhai was elected as president. However, again as a compromise, ‘swaraj’ was adopted as a goal of the Congress and swadeshi and boycott were supported. This time too, a split was avoided.
- The Extremists encouraged by the support given at the Calcutta session wanted to have a wide passive resistance and boycott of govt institutions. However, the Moderates wanted to participate in council reforms and thought that Extremists would be suppressed by the British. Thus both the parties considered the other as hurdle in their respective goals and decided to part ways.
- In 1907, the Extremist wanted the session of Congress to take place at Nagpur and again wanted Tilak or Lajpat Rai to be the president and reiteration of support to swadeshi and boycott.
However, the Moderates wanted the session to take place at Surat in order to exclude Tilak from the presidency since leader from the host province could not be the president. Thus, the split which was avoided in 1905 and 1906 finally took place in 1907. Thus, the Congress was now full of Moderates.
- After the split, the Congress weakened. The Moderates had no mass support as people were largely supporters of the Extremists. The Extremists, on the other hand, failed to organise an alternative party to sustain the movement.
The government launched a massive attack on the Extremists. Tilak was imprisoned. Aurobindo and Pal retired from politics. Lajpat Rai left for abroad. Thus, the national movement fizzled out in 1908. Only after six years i.e. in 1914, when Tilak was released from jail, the national movement picked up again.
