द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

· THE SLUMP 139
Committee better known as the Muddiman Committee, was
placed before the Assembly. The Home member, Sir
Alexander Muddiman, moved the acceptance of the Majority
Report of the committee and as an amendment to that,
the Swarajist leader, Pandit Motilal Nehru, put forward
what has been called the 'National Demand'. The National
Demand, as formulated by the Pandit, was the result of a
compromise with non-Swarajist members of the Assembly
and represented the Greatest Common Measure of agreement
among the non-official members. The National Demand
was to the effect that constitutional reforms practically
amounting to the immediate grant of Dominion Status should
be conceded by the British Parliament and that a Round
Table Conference between British and Indian representatives
should meet in order to discuss the ways and means for
implementing those reforms. The reply given to the demand
by the official spokesman in the Assembly at the time and
later on by the Viceroy, amounted to a refusal.
Before the end of the year, Lala Lajpat Rai, joined the
Assembly as a Swarajist and was elected Deputy-Leader of the
Party. About this time the Responsivist Party, headed by
Mr. M. R. Jayakar and Mr. N. C. Kelkar, the erstwhile
Swarajist leaders, was launched. It differed from the Swaraj
Party on two main points. It advocated discriminate opposi-
tion, as opposed to the Swarajist policy of indiscriminate
opposition to the Government in the Legislatures. Further,
it did not approve of the pro-Moslem attitude of the Swaraj
Party or of the Indian National Congress and on the contrary,
it allied itself more with the Hindu Mahasabha. The accen-
tuation of Hindu-Moslem differences in 1925 and after, threw
more Hindu Congressmen into the arms of the Hindu Maha-
sabha and the politics of the Hindu-Mahasabha was, generally
speaking, identical with that of the Responsivist Party. Both
the Hindu Mahasabha and the Responsivist Party thought that
the Moslem community by co-operating with the Government
was able to strengthen its position and further its interests, to
the detriment of Hindu interests—while the Indian National
Congress through its policy of indiscriminate opposition was
unable to do anything for the Hindus. This feeling was