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Lucknow Pact (1916)
- In December 1915 due to the efforts of Tilak and Besant, the Bombay session of Congress suitably altered the constitution of the Congress party to admit the members from the extremist section.
- Moderate leaders Pherozeshah Mehta and Gokhale, two main voices of opposition against the militant faction, had died in 1915.
- The Hindu and Muslim members elected to the Imperial Legislature on August 1916 wrote a letter to the viceroy about the reforms to be introduced after the war. But the British government did not agree to the reforms.
- Congress, Muslim League and the Home Rule League held their annual sessions at Lucknow. Ambika Charan Mazumdar, Congress president welcomed the extremists.
- Besant and Tilak also played an important role in bringing the Congress and the Muslim League together under what is popularly known as the Congress-League Pact or the Lucknow Pact.
- Under the Lucknow Pact (1916), the Congress and the Muslim League agreed that there should be self- government in India as soon as possible.
- Mohammed Ali Jinnah played a pivotal role during the Pact.
- The agreements accepted at Calcutta in November 1916 were confirmed by the annual sessions of the Congress and the League in December 1916.
Provisions
- The Congress also agreed to separate electorates for Muslims in provincial council elections and for preferences in their favour (beyond the proportions indicated by population) in all provinces except the Punjab and Bengal, where some ground was given to the Hindu and Sikh minorities.
- It pushed the government towards Self-governance.
- It proclaimed that its goal was to provide Self-rule to India.
- This pact paved the way for Hindu-Muslim cooperation in the Khilafat Movement and Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement.
- Sarojini Ammaiyar called Jinnah, the chief architect of the Lucknow Pact, “the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity“.