NDA (II) 2018 General Ability Test · Question 137 of 146

Correct — C, Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Tilak founded the Indian Home Rule League in April 1916 at Belgaum, during the Bombay provincial congress, shortly after his return from six years of imprisonment in Mandalay. It was the first of the two Home Rule Leagues; Annie Besant set up hers at Adyar, near Madras, in September of the same year. The two divided the country between them rather than competing — Tilak's league worked in Maharashtra outside Bombay city, in Karnataka, and in the Central Provinces and Berar, while Besant's covered the rest of India. The demand in both was self-government within the empire, on the Irish model, pressed while Britain was preoccupied with the war.

• (a)Gopal Krishna Gokhale — Gokhale died on 19 February 1915, more than a year before either league was founded, so he could not have started one. He belongs to the moderate wing and is remembered for the Servants of India Society, founded in 1905, and as Gandhi's political mentor.
• (b)Mahatma Gandhi — The tempting answer, because Gandhi's 1909 book Hind Swaraj carries the English subtitle Indian Home Rule. But writing a book of that title is not founding a league. Gandhi's actual connection came later — in 1920 he took over Besant's All India Home Rule League and renamed it the Swarajya Sabha.
• (d)J. B. Kripalani — Acharya J. B. Kripalani was a Gandhian of a later generation who became Congress President in 1947. He had no role in the Home Rule movement of 1916.

The Home Rule agitation of 1916 to 1918 filled the gap between the collapse of the Swadeshi movement and the arrival of Gandhian mass politics. It borrowed its name, its method and its confidence from the Irish Home Rule movement, and its achievement was organisational as much as political — it built a network of branches, newspapers and public meetings that Gandhi could later use. The Montagu Declaration of August 1917, promising the gradual development of self-governing institutions in India, was in part a response to it.

The distractor to watch is Gandhi, because of the Hind Swaraj subtitle. Two hard dates settle the item. Gokhale died in February 1915, before any league existed; Gandhi had returned to India only in January 1915 and spent his first years travelling and observing rather than founding organisations. That leaves Tilak, whose return from Mandalay in 1914 and re-entry into politics is precisely what the 1916 league represents. Note also the naming — the Indian Home Rule League is Tilak's; the All India Home Rule League is Besant's, and it is her body that became the Swarajya Sabha in 1920.

• Tilak founded the Indian Home Rule League in April 1916 at Belgaum.
• Annie Besant founded the All India Home Rule League at Adyar, Madras, in September 1916.
• Tilak's league operated in Maharashtra outside Bombay city, Karnataka, and the Central Provinces and Berar; Besant's in the rest of India.
• Gokhale, who founded the Servants of India Society in 1905, died on 19 February 1915.
• In 1920 the All India Home Rule League was renamed the Swarajya Sabha.

• Reading Hind Swaraj's subtitle Indian Home Rule as evidence that Gandhi founded the league.
• Swapping the two league names — the Indian Home Rule League is Tilak's, the All India Home Rule League is Besant's.
• Placing Gokhale anywhere in 1916; he had died the previous year.

Asked as a founder-identification item with a title-based trap sitting in the option list.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The All India Home Rule League, founded at Adyar in September 1916, was started by

  • (a)Bal Gangadhar Tilak
  • (b)Annie Besant
  • (c)Motilal Nehru
  • (d)Madan Mohan Malaviya

  Answer(b) Annie Besant — her league covered the country outside the areas worked by Tilak's Indian Home Rule League.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Gopal Krishna Gokhale is associated with the founding of

  • (a)the Servants of India Society
  • (b)the Indian Home Rule League
  • (c)the Swaraj Party
  • (d)the Forward Bloc

  Answer(a) the Servants of India Society — founded in 1905 to train full-time public workers; Gokhale died in 1915.