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| 1923, Sept. 25 |
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| Victory of the moderate element in the Indian National Congress. This group (the Swaraj Party), led by Chitta R. Das (prominent Bengali leader), favored participation in the elections with the aim of using its representatives in the legislature to obstruct government and so force the granting of home rule. In the elections the nationalists did, in fact, win an impressive victory, but many of the elected deputies soon forgot about obstruction and began cooperating with the government (tariff autonomy bill passed, 1923). The leaders, Das and Motilal Nehru (father of Jawaharlal), began to advocate the granting of dominion status to India. | 1 |
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| 1924, Feb. 4 |
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| Gandhi was released from prison because of his precarious health. A united conference at Delhi (Sept. 26) brought together representatives of the Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Sikhs, and Christians, who agreed to set up local committees to prevent religious clashes. The militant activities of the Hindu Mahasabha (founded 1915) and the Arya Samaj (Swami Shraddhanand murdered by a Muslim, Dec. 23, 1926) nevertheless continued to aggravate Hindu-Muslim relations. | 2 |
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| 1925, Sept. 7 |
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| The nationalists in the Indian Legislative Assembly called for the establishment of round-table conferences to frame a scheme for responsible government. | 3 |
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| 1926–31 |
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| LORD IRWIN, viceroy. | 4 |
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| 1926, Nov. 8 |
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| The British parliament appointed the Statutory (Simon) Commission, with members from all British parties, to study the situation in India and the working of the Montagu-Chelmsford system. Most Indian parties voted to boycott the commission because no Indians were included. The total effect of the move was to revive agitation and call forth further disorder during the commission's tour of India (1927–28). | 5 |
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| 1928 |
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| India was swept by a great series of strikes among the Bombay textile workers, railway employees, etc., marking the emergence of the industrial proletariat as an important factor (All-India Trade Union Congress founded 1920), and the growing influence of the Communist Party of India (origins 1923). | 6 |
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| Aug. 28 |
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| All-parties conference at Lucknow adopted the Nehru report, a proposed constitution that would give India dominion status under a representative government. Muslim leaders, although divided, disliked the omission of the safeguards for minorities agreed on 12 years earlier in Lucknow. Extremists, led by Jawaharlal Nehru (chairman of the constitutional committee), Subhas Chandra Bose of Bengal, and Srinivasa Iyengar of Madras, rejected the dominion status provision. | 7 |
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| Aug. 30 |
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| These leaders then organized the Independence of India League, calling for complete independence. Their demand clouded the central issue of Hindu-Muslim cooperation. | 8 |
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| Dec. 22–1929, Jan. 1 |
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| That cooperation broke down at the all-parties national convention at Calcutta and the concurrent Calcutta session of the congress (Dec. 29–1929, Jan. 1), at which Gandhi emerged from virtual retirement to heal the extremist-moderate rift with a compromise resolution calling on the government to grant dominion status within one year, failing which the congress goal would become complete independence and another noncooperation campaign would be inaugurated. | 9 |
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