Home Rule League | Enlite Cafe

Major Leaders were Tilak and Annie Besant.
Other leaders were G.S. Khaparde, Sir S. Subramania Iyer, Joseph Baptista, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

To achieve self-government in India.
To promote political education and discussion to set up agitation for self-government.
To build confidence among Indians to speak against the government’s suppression.
To demand a larger political representation for Indians from the British government.
To revive political activity in India while maintaining the principles of the Congress Party.

Tilak’s League
- Started in April 1916 and operated in Maharashtra excluding Bombay city (with headquarters at Poona), in Karnataka, in Central Provinces, and in Berar.
- Demands included swarajya, the formation of linguistic states, and education in the vernacular medium.
Besant’s League
- Started in September 1916 and operated in the rest of India (including Bombay City).
- She campaigned through her newspapers – New India and Commonweal.

The movement was not a mass movement and was restricted to educated people and college students.
The leagues did not find a lot of support among Muslims, Anglo-Indians, and non-Brahmins from Southern India as they thought home rule would mean a rule of the upper caste Hindu majority.
Tilak went abroad and Annie Besant got confused regarding her reaction to the Montagu Declaration.
The Government made use of Defence of India Act, 1915 to curb the activities of the agitators.
Students were prohibited from attending Home Rule meetings.
Gandhi got prominence in the freedom movement.