The Modern Period
Part VII
After the Cauri Caura incident in which the constables were cut to pieces by the angry mob, Gandhiji withdrew his mass civil disobedience movement which was to be launched all over the country. His promise of attaining Swaraj within an year fell through and a sort of full spread over the entire programme of the Congress. It was in this atmosphere that the Swarajist Party was established following the Congress Session of Gaya of 1923. Das and Motilal Nehru formed the Swarajist Party to carry the fight into the legislatures. Swaraj was to be attained by council entry. By this time M. V. Abhyankar who was the acknowledged leader of Nagpur moved a resolution at the All-India congress Committee meeting in Bombay that Council-entry should be accepted as the programme of the party. Khaparde and Munje too were in favour of capturing all public bodies and Councils. Thus, there was a tussle between the Non-changers and the Swarajists within the Congress party.
In the elections of 1923, the Swaranjists in the Central Provinces got a clear majority. The Governor called Munje, the leader of the Swarajists to form the Ministry. He promptly refused the invitation and party launched its obstructive battle. When the Governor formed his own Ministry, the Swarajists in the house passed a motion of non-confidence against it. This was the first non-confidence motion to be passed against a Government under the Reform Act. It was the first triumph of the battle for freedom inside the Council. The Swarajist party itself, however, soon betrayed signs of schism under threats from the Governor. The election of Tambe of the Swarajist party as president was hailed as its truimph. He decided in October 1925 to accept the membership of the Executive Council in the Central Provinces in the vacancy caused by the retirement of M.V. Joshi. This had a nation-wide reaction. Tambe was supported by Kelkar and M. R. Jayakar of Bombay. The Berar Swaraj Party in the Executive Committee was called at Nagpur and Motilal Nehru after heated discussions with Munje remarked that ,"Maharashtra was a diseased limb of the Swaraj Party and he was quite prepared to amputate it" . the result was that N.C. Kelkar and M. R. Jayakar resigned from the Party and Munje followed the suit. The Responsive Co-operationist group formed their own party under the Presidentship of Jayakar. Munje Aney of this faction broke off from Abhyankar-Vamanrav Joshi.
The congress Party which was developing cracks inside was destined to witness worst kind of communal riots between 1923 and 1925. In 1923 Mustafa Kamal Pasha declared Turkey a Republic and in 1924 the Khilafat itself was abolished. The Indian Muslims were baffled. In knocked the bottom out of the Hindu-Muslim unity nurtured by the Congress all these years. The Muslims fell apart from the Congress increasingly.
In 1923, in the tense atmosphere of communalism the Nagpur people under the leadership of Hedgevar, Paranjape and Colkar successfully carried the Dindi Satyagraha. During the riots of the next year Munje gave complete co-operation to Hedgevar the founder of the Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangha. What was happening in Nagpur was common phenomenon in many other cities of India. To quell the riots Gandhiji started a fast of 21 days on 18th September 1924.
It may be noted here that Hedgevar, was once an active and prominent worker of the Congress Party. He was the chief associate of Paranjape who founded the Bharat Svayamsevak Mandal with a view to training the volunteers for the Nagpur Session of the Congress of 1920. During the Non-co-operation Movement Munje and Hedgevar carried a hurricane campaign against the Government in and out of Nagpur. Hedgevar was sentenced to one year's rigorous imprisonment. After his release he found that his heart was not in the congress as the unconditional help to the Muslims in the Khilafat movement to the exclusion of Goraksha-cow protection-in the Congress programme presented a real contrast. To him, as to many others in Nagpur, unconditional help to Muslims for the attainment of Hindu-Muslim unity was a theoretical or spiritual solution fraught with danger. It was this mental dichotomy that drove Hedgevar to found the Rashtriya Svayamsevaka Sangha and forced many a thinker of Nagpur to join the Hindu Maha Sabha.