Movement for Social Justice

Extremist Phase

When the British refused to listen to the demands, some leaders believed in demanding their rights more forcefully, and they were known as extremist leaders. They had faith in the self-reliance, self-confidence, and self-respect of the Indian people and were willing to make sacrifices and confront the government.

These leaders started agitation in the form of hartals, rallies, processions and picketing. “Swadeshi’ and ‘Boycott’ became the two main principles of this phase. Swadeshi meant the use of Indian goods while Boycott meant not to use the British goods. Thus they were like two sides of the same coin. The important extremist leaders included Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh.
   

Divide and rules
In 1857, Hindus and Muslims had fought against the British together. But the British, fearing their unity, adopted the policy of Divide and Rule to create a rift between these two communities.

The British wanted to prevent the Hindus and Muslims from fighting against them together, so they adopted the Divide and Rule policy. In 1905, they divided Bengal into East Bengal for the Muslims and West Bengal for the Hindus to create division be[1]tween the two communities. However, people protested this division by holding hartals, demonstrations, and processions. This further fueled the struggle for freedom.