108. Home Rule Movement Started

When Great Britain was deeply enmeshed in the World War I, India's national movement though intermittent continued to throw up surprises. One of them was the Home Rule Movement. In December 1915, Tilak, who was one of the first nationalist leaders with a following and deep understanding of the grassroots of India, voiced the thought of Home Rule (instead of `swadeshi’, that being a word the British were wary about).


It was for the first time that someone had mentioned the word Home Rule as being the goal for the Indian National Movement. On April 28, 1916, the Home Rule League was set up with its headquarters in Poona (Pune). Tilak went on a whirlwind tour of the country, appealing to everybody to unite under the banner of Home Rule League.


Anne Besant of the Theosophical Society fame also assisted him in this task. Under face of this attack, the government fell back to that old reliable – stricter laws. Laws were formulated to prevent agitations, to prevent `undesirable aliens’ from entering India, propaganda came under government control, and so on. The importance of the Home Rule movement was that for the first time the independence of India came to be clearly the goal of the Indian national movement.


The public at large was first an audience and then terrorist nationalists who bombed parliaments and blew up railways, and they must have further scared the middle class away from the movement. and history will tell you no movement for independence was ever a success without the involvement of the bourgeoisie. So, while the idea of freedom was gaining ground, the populace at large was not really involved.