100 Years Later: What Went Down During Mahatma's Only Term as Congress President

Gandhi's presidency at the 1924 INC Belgaum session marked key decisions on Hindu-Muslim unity, khadi, and swaraj.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi becoming the President of the Indian National Congress in 1924, the Indian National Congress (INC) has announced a special session of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and a rally on 26 and 27 December in Belagavi, the site of where Gandhi assumed the presidency.

(Photo: Wiki commons/altered by The Quint)

To mark the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi becoming the President of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1924, the party has announced a special session of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) and a rally on 26-27 December in Karnataka's Belagavi, the site of where Gandhi assumed the presidency.

Top leaders of the party, including Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, Chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party Sonia Gandhi, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, along with CWC members, senior leaders, chief ministers, and state unit heads, will attend the two-day event.

What made this term so significant in the history of the Congress and India's struggle for Independence?

Leading Up to 1924

Mahatma Gandhi, after spending 22 years in South Africa, returned to India in early 1915. By the time he landed in Bombay (now Mumbai), he had become a satyagrahi and a public figure, receiving a low-key welcome from his relatives and those who had followed his work in South Africa.

Following the advice of his mentor, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, he travelled widely across the country for a year without involving himself in any political activity.

He instead became involved with the issues facing the peasantry and textile workers, leading their movements in Champaran (1917), Ahmedabad (1918), and Kheda (1918).

These movements, however, were outside the domain of the INC, which had, since its inception in 1885, largely confined its activities to its annual sessions held in various large cities of British India.

Although Gandhi attended the 1916 Lucknow session of the INC, he did not participate in the deliberations, which were dominated by Tilak, Jinnah, and Annie Besant. It was at this session that the famous Lucknow Pact was signed, raising hopes for future Hindu-Muslim unity.

It was in Lucknow that Gandhi first met Motilal Nehru and his 27-year-old son Jawaharlal Nehru, who would become his closest colleague and chosen heir in the years leading to Independence.

The Lucknow session marked the beginning of the over three-decade Gandhi-Nehru relationship that would shape the future of India.

The passage of the Rowlatt Act in 1919, which allowed the Government of India to bypass due process in dealing with acts of political violence and even peaceful activities, was seen by nationalists of all factions – liberals, moderates, and extremists – as an open challenge.

Gandhi described the legislation as 'devilish' and decided to launch a Satyagraha, which led to the brutal Jallianwala Bagh massacre at Amritsar on 13 April.

Gandhi's active participation in the INC began at a session in Amritsar, presided over by Motilal Nehru, though he did not fully engage.

It was only at the special INC session in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in August 1920 that Gandhi emerged as the supreme leader of the party.

This formality was completed at the Nagpur session later that year, where the INC ratified what was passed at Gandhi's behest: the launch of the Non-Cooperation Movement, the first of three major battles leading to India's Independence.

However, Gandhi suspended the Non-Cooperation Movement following the violent Chauri Chaura incident on 4 February 1922, while most Congress leaders were in jail. They were upset with Gandhi's sudden decision.

Jawaharlal Nehru, sharing the Naini prison with his father, wrote: "Chauri Chaura may have been and was a deplorable occurrence... but would a remote village... put an end to... our national struggle for freedom?"

Two sessions of the INC – at Ahmedabad in 1921 and at Gaya in 1922 – and a special session in Delhi followed before Gandhi was persuaded by the powerful combination of Motilal Nehru and CR Das to preside over the 39th session of the INC in Belgaum (now Belagavi).

With great reluctance, he accepted their proposal, realising that his presidency might avert a split in the Congress between the No-changers led by the trio of Rajaji, Patel, and Rajendra Prasad, and the Pro-changers led by CR Das and Motilal Nehru.

The former were against Council entry, while the latter had convinced Gandhi to allow them to enter the Council and take the fight against the colonial government in the chambers.

A month before the Belgaum session, an agreement was reached between the No-changers and Pro-changers at an AICC session in Calcutta in November. This came to be known as the Calcutta Agreement and had to be ratified at the plenary session in Belgaum.

This would not have been possible without Gandhi's 'blessings'. Thus, Motilal Nehru and CR Das were proved right when they persuaded Gandhi to preside over the Belgaum Congress.

Gandhi's Approach to Hindu-Muslim Tensions

Hindu-Muslim unity was always one of Gandhi's top concerns. For him, there was nothing more important.

He wrote in Young India on 29 May 1924: "I see no way of achieving this in this afflicted country without... unity between the Hindus and Mussalmans of India."

When a wave of communal riots swept over India, especially in Kohat, Gandhi denounced the "barbaric folly of killing Muslims for the sake of the life of a cow" – and went on a 21-day fast at the Delhi residence of Mohammed Ali, a former INC president and leader of the Khilafat Movement.

He appealed to Hindus and Muslims to refrain from violence that "tore the very fiber of Indian polity."

On 26 September, a Unity Conference was held in Delhi, chaired by Motilal Nehru. It was the most representative conference of various community leaders. The resolutions passed at the conference called for freedom of conscience and religion, and condemned acts like the desecration of places of worship, persecution of converts, and the use of compulsion for conversion.

The leaders took a pledge to enforce these principles. Two months later, another conference was arranged in Bombay by Mohammed Ali, in which Jinnah was present. However, the conference failed to formulate a united scheme for Hindu-Muslim unity.

Against this backdrop, the 39th session of the INC was held in Belgaum.

Khadi, Charkha, and Unity

Dr Hardikar's volunteers (Seva Dal) impressed the 55-year-old president, who, while lauding their efforts, told them that the sanitary arrangements could have been more scientific (a lesson for leaders at all levels: pay attention to the details).

Gandhi also expressed his displeasure at being allotted a "Khadi palace" instead of a "Khadi hut" as he had desired. The musical concert and an exhibition of indigenous arts and industries received high praise from delegates.

The Calcutta Agreement or the Gandhi-Das-Nehru (Motilal) Pact was ratified, the exodus of Hindus from Kohat was deplored, and the Muslim residents were urged to assure the Hindu minority of full protection (a situation similar to today's Bangladesh).

Instead of 4 annas per year as the annual subscription, the Congress franchise was changed to making the spinning of khadi a qualification for membership.

Gandhi reaffirmed his faith in the charkha, Hindu-Muslim unity, and the removal of untouchability.

As was the custom of the time, before the presidential address, the president would deliver a short opening speech soon after the welcome address. Gandhi began his opening speech by stating: "Hindus and Muslims consider each other enemies and indulge in physical violence. It is hardly necessary to say that this is not the way to secure swaraj. We, Hindus, look down on the untouchables and consider it sinful to touch them. We thus think that they are impure. But in this, we commit a sin before God, a sin of the greatest magnitude."

He continued,

"The Lokmanya had given us the first line of a sloka, 'Swaraj is our birthright,' and it is my mission in life to complete the sloka. This is my belief. I repeat the statement here. If we desire swaraj, then the way to it is through the charkha, yarn, and khaddar."

He saw the charkha as a breadwinner for the poor: "I am convinced that swaraj cannot come so long as the tens of millions of our brothers and sisters do not take to the charkha, do not spin, do not make khadi and wear it. So long as this does not come about, the utter poverty of India cannot be eradicated. There will be no swaraj so long as the tens of millions of the country's destitutes have not got their bread."

Gandhi also explained why he made a pact with the Pro-changers against the wishes of his loyal No-changers: "I have made a compact with Deshbhandu Das and Pandit Motilal Nehru... I accept their right to what they want. I hold that we can gain nothing through the Councils; but there are big leaders who believe that something or the other can be gained through the Councils, and if we do nothing else, we can at least go to the Councils. It is true enough... they too are leaders of the country. Who am I to say no to them?"

"The Congress belongs equally to Pro-changers and No-changers. It is a false notion that it belongs exclusively to either. Therefore they will go [into the Councils] on behalf of the Congress."

In his presidential speech, Gandhi elaborated further: "The Swaraj Party represents, if not a majority, at least a strong and growing minority in the Congress. If I was not to divide the Congress on the issue of its status, I was bound to agree to its conditions so long as they were not in conflict with my conscience. They are not, in my opinion, unreasonable."

Then and Now: 1924 vs 2024

Stressing on Hindu-Muslim unity, Gandhi said that it is not less important than the spinning wheel: "It is the breath of our life." He also desired that the majority set an example of self-sacrifice.

Unfortunately, today the Sangh Parivar promotes just the opposite view at the cost of the nation's social fabric and emotional unity.

They do not realise they are playing with fire. But more than anything else, in his presidential and closing speech, Gandhi laid the highest emphasis on the spinning wheel: "I swear by Civil Disobedience. But Civil Disobedience for the attainment of Swaraj is an impossibility unless and until we have attained the power of achieving a boycott of foreign cloth."

He exhorted Congressmen:

"Go throughout your districts and spread the message of khaddar, the message of Hindu-Muslim unity, the message of untouchability, and take up in hand the youth of the country and make them the real soldiers of swaraj."

After concluding his speech, Gandhi had descended from the rostrum when he was reminded that he had forgotten to thank the Reception Committee. Immediately, he returned to the rostrum and said: "I would not have forgiven myself if I had not tendered my thanks to the noble volunteers trained by Dr Hardikar and to the members of the Reception Committee... I would have been guilty of a breach of duty to you if I had not returned thanks to all of you. May God bless all the volunteers and the members of the Reception Committee." Thus ended the first and last address of Mahatma Gandhi as Congress President.

He stayed on in Belgaum for another three days and addressed conferences on Untouchability, Cow Protection, and All India States before leaving for Bombay on 30 December 1924.

(Captain Praveen Davar is a retired army officer and author of Freedom Struggle and Beyond, a collection of articles on the Independence Movement and the making of modern India. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)