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

72 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
prisonment.' At this Conference, a resolution was passed
calling upon all Moslems to give up service under the Govern-
ment, whether in a civil or in a military capacity and this
constituted a breach of the law. After the conviction of the
Ali brothers and their associates, Mahatma Gandhi came
forward to take up the challenge. The same resolution was
signed and published by forty-six Congress leaders, and it
was repeated from a thousand platforms all over India.
But the Government did not make a single arrest and took
no notice of this defiance on the part of the Congress. In
September, the Indian Legislative Assembly—the Central
Parliament set up under the New Constitution—passed a
resolution urging an examination and revision of the con-
stitution earlier than 1929. No immediate reply to this came
from the side of the Government but the following year, the
Secretary of State for India, Lord Peel, in a dispatch on the
subject dated November 3rd, 1922, stated that it was too
early to contemplate a revision of the constitution.
From the above narrative it might appear as if throughout
1921 Mahatma Gandhi was riding on the crest of a wave and
had no obstacles to encounter. This impression is not alto-
gether correct. No doubt there was a tremendous volume of
mass opinion on his side—but so far as the intelligentsia were
concerned, there were certain elements opposed to him. In
the first place, the Indian Liberals were everywhere arrayed
against him and in most provinces, they had accepted office
as Ministers. This co-operation on the part of the Liberals
was the direct result of the efforts of Mr. Montagu, the
Secretary of State for India and as long as he remained in
office—that is, till March 1922—they were enthusiastically
in support of the Constitution. After his resignation from
the British Cabinet, reaction set in and Liberal leaders
began to feel that it was becoming increasingly difficult for
them to continue their co-operation. In April 1922, Sir Tej
Bahadur Sapru resigned from the Executive Council of the
Viceroy and in May 1923, Mr. Chintamani, Liberal leader of
the United Provinces, resigned the office of Minister of
Education in that province. Gradually the Liberals all turned
against the Government and by 1927 the change was so great