Punjab

by Rajmohan Gandhi

It was at this session, which confirmed Gandhi’s ascendancy, that Jinnah left the Congress. Concerned that mass protests would lead to violence, Jinnah was equally if not more troubled by Nagpur’s decision to alter the Congress’s goal from ‘Swaraj within the Empire’ to just ‘Swaraj’, i.e. whether within or outside the Empire. In 1920, despite Indians’ pervasive distaste for the Empire, Jinnah thought that quarrelling Indian groups needed an external authority as an arbiter of last resort. This, of course, was in line with Sayyid Ahmed Khan’s position in the 1880s and 1890s and a view that some Hindus too shared, like Malaviya in Nagpur. Most Indians in 1920, however, no longer accepted the indispensability of the Empire.