When the failure of moderate politics became quite apparent by the end of the nineteenth

century, a reaction set in from within the Congress circles and this new trend is referred to as
the "Extremist" trend. The moderates were criticised for being too cautious and their politics was
stereotyped as the politics of mendicancy.

This extremism developed in three main regions and under the leadership of three important
individuals, Bepin Chandra Pal in Bengal, Bal Gangadhar Tilak in Maharashtra and Lala Lajpar
Rai in Punjab.

Many causes are cited to explain the rise of extremism. Factionalism, according to some
historians, is one of them, as at the turn of the century we observe a good deal of faction
fighting at almost every level of organised public life in India. In Bengal there was division within
the Brahmo Samaj.

There was also faction fighting between Aurobindo Ghosh on the one hand and Bepin Chandra
Pal and Brahmabandhab Upadhyay on the other, over the editorship of Bande Mataram.

In Maharashtra there was competition between Gokhale and Tilak for controlling the Poona
Sarvajanik Sabha. The contest came to the surface when in 1895 Tilak captured the
organisation and the following year Gokhale starred his rival organisation, the Deccan Sabha.

In Punjab, the Arya Samaj was divided after the death of Dayanand Saraswati, between the
more moderate College group and the radical revivalist group.

Frustration with moderate politics was definitely the major reason

behind the rise of extremist reaction. The Congress under moderate leadership was being
governed by an undemocratic constitution. Although after repeated attempts by Tilak a new
constitution was drafted and ratified in 1899, it was never given a proper trial. The Congress
was also financially broke, as the capitalists did not contribute and the patronage of a few rajas
and landed magnates was never sufficient.

The social reformism of the moderates, inspired by Western liberalism, also went against
popular orthodoxy.Moderates wanted social whereas More orthodox leaders like Tilak argued
that the social conference would split the Congress and the proposal was ultimately dropped.
But more significantly, moderate politics had reached a dead end, as most of their demands
remained unfulfilled and this was certainly a major reason behind the rise of extremism.

This increased the anger against colonial rule and this anger was generated by the moderates
themselves, through their economic critique of colonialism.

The last in the series was the partition of Bengal in 1905, designed to weaken the Bengali
nationalists who allegedly controlled the Congress. But instead of weakening the Congress, the
Curzonian measures acted as a magic potion to revitalise it, as the extremist leaders now tried
to take over Congress, in order to commit it to a path of more direct and belligerent
confrontation with colonial.

The goal of the extremists was swaraj, which different leaders interpreted differently. For Tilak it
meant Indian control over the administration, but not a total severance of relations with Great
Britain. Bepin Pal believed that no self-government was possible under British paramountcy; so
for him swaraj was complete autonomy, absolutely free of British control. Aurobindo Ghosh in
Bengal also visualised swaraj as absolute political independence. However, for most others
swaraj still meant self-rule within the parameters of British imperial structure. The radicalisation
was actually visible in the method of agitation, as from the old methods of prayer and petition
they moved to that of passive resistance.

This meant opposition to colonial rule through violation of its unjust laws, boycott of British
goods and institutions, and development of their indigenous alternatives, i.e., su/adeshi and
national education.

The ideological inspiration for this new politics came from the new regional literature, which
provided a discursive field for defining the Indian nation in terms of its distinct cultural heritage
or civilisation.

Historical figures who had demonstrated valour and prowess were now projected as national
heroes. Tilak started the Shivaji festival in Maharashtra in April 1896 and soon these ideas
became popular in Bengal, where a craze for national hero worship began.

the central problematic of Indian nationalism. The moderates had wanted the Indian nation to
develop through a modernistic course; but modernism being a Western concept, this meant an
advocacy of the continuation of colonial rule. The extremists, on the other hand, sought to
oppose colonial rule and therefore had to talk in terms of a non-Western paradigm.v They tried
to define the Indian nation in terms of distinctly Indian cultural idioms, which led them to
religious revivalism invoking a glorious past-sometimes even unquestioned acceptance and
glorification of that past. But their Hinduism was only a political construct, not defined by any
definite religious attributes.

The veteran moderate politicians refused to accommodate these new trends within the
Congress policies and programmes, and this led to the split in the Congress in its Surat session
in 1907.

the Swadeshi movement in Bengal (1905-11), which may be described as the best expression
of extremist politics. The movement began as an agitation against the partition of Bengal in
1905, which Lord Curzon had designed as a means of destroying political opposition in this
province. The Bengal Presidency as an administrative unit was increasing in size with the
accretion of territories through conquest and annexation.
At this juncture the partition instead of dividing the Bengali society, brought into existence a
"swadeshi coalition" by further consolidating the political alliance berween the Calcutta leaders
and their east Bengali followers, which according to Rajat Ray, was "nothing less than a
revolution in the political structure of Bengal society.

The agitation against the partition had started in 1903, but became stronger and more organised
after the scheme was finally announced and implemented in 1905. The initial aim was to secure
the annulment of partition, but it soon enlarged into a more broad-based movement, known as
the Swadeshi movement, touching upon wider political and social issues. Sumit Sarkar (1973)
has identified four major trends in Bengal Swadeshi, namely, the moderate trend, constructive
swadeshi, political extremism and revolutionary terrorism.

the moderates began to criticise the partition scheme ever since it was announced in 1903.
Assuming that the British would be amenable to arguments, through prayers, petitions and
public meetings they sought to revise the scheme in its formative stage. But when they failed to
do so and the partition was announced in 1905, they took the first initiative to transform the
narrow agitation into a wider swadeshi movement. For the first time they went beyond their
conventional political methods and Surendranath Banerjea at a meeting in Calcutta on 17 July
1905 gave a call for the boycott of British goods and institutions. At another mass meeting at
Calcutta Town Hall on 7 August a formal boycott resolution was passed, which marked the
beginning of the swadeshi movement.

This was also the first rime that the moderates tried to mobilise other than the literate section of
the population; some of them participated in the national education movement; some of them
even got involved in labour strike.

But moderate political philosophy remained the same, as they only sought to pressurise British
parliament to secure an annulment of partition and could not conceptualise boycott as a step
towards the regeneration of national economy or start a full-scale passive resistance. As a
reaction, a new trend developed with emphasis on self-reliance, village level organisation and
constructive programmes to develop indigenous or swadeshi alternatives for foreign goods and
institutions.

This political programme obviously required mass mobilisation and religion was looked at by
leaders like Aurobindo Ghosh as a means re reach the masses. Religious revivalism therefore
was a main feature of this new politics. Bhagavadgita became a source of spiritual inspiration
for the swadeshi volunteers and Hindu religious symbols, usually sakta imageries, were
frequently used to mobilise the masses. But, as Barbara Southard (1980) has shown, this also
alienated the Muslims and failed to attract the lower caste peasants

The other method of mass mobilisation was to organise samitis.

Prior to the banning of the five principal sarnitis in 1909 they were engaged in various forms of
mobilising efforts, such as moral and physical training, philanthropic work, propagation of the
swadeshi message, organisation of the swadeshi craft, education, arbitration courts etc. But
these mass mobilisation efforts ultimately failed as the membership of the samitis did not extend
much beyond the ranks of educated bhadralok and this high caste Hindu gentry leadership
alienated the lower caste peasantry by often using their coercive power.

And not just physical coercion that was used; the Swadeshi leaders rampantly deployed the tool
of social coercion or social boycott+exerted through caste associations, professional bodies and
nationalist organisations-to punish collaborators or to produce consent among the reluctant
parricipants.

Swadeshi alternatives were often more expensive than British goods; national schools were not
adequate in number. Moreover, some of the lowercaste peasants, like the Rajbansis in north
Bengal or the Namasudras in the east, had developed around this time aspirations for social
mobility and self-respect, which the Swadeshi movement, devoid of any social programme,
failed to accommodate or even recognise.

The other method of mass mobilisation of the swadeshis was to organise labour strikes,
primarily in the foreign owned companies. But here too the nationalists could penetrate only into
the ranks of white-collar workers, while the vast body of Hindustani labour force as well as the
plantation labour remained untouched by such nationalist efforts." It was primarily because of
this failure of mass mobilisation that the boycott movement failed to affect British imports into
India. n By 1908 political extremism had definitely declined, giving way to revolutionary
terrorism.

But certainly another contributory factor behind this decline was the Surat Split of 1907.