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was based on the active participation of the people and on the sympathy and support of the non-participatingmillions. In fact, unlike a violent revolution, which could be waged by a minority of committed cadres and fighters, a non-violent revolution needed the political mobilization of millions and the passive support of the vast majority.
    It may be pointed out, parenthetically, that it was because of the long experience of this kind of political participation by common people that the founders of the Indian Republic, who also led the freedom struggle in its last phase, could repose full faith in their political capacity. The leaders unhesitatingly introduced adult franchise despite widespread poverty and illiteracy.
    The Indian national movement was fully committed to a polity based on representative democracy and the full range of civil liberties for the individual. It provided the experience through which these two could become an integral part of Indian political thinking.
    From the very beginning the movement popularized democratic ideas and institutions among the people and struggled for the introduction of parliamentary institutions on the basis of popular elections. Starting from the turn of the twentieth century, the nationalists demanded the introduction of adult franchise. Much attention was also paid to the defence of the freedom of the Press and speech against attacks by the colonial authorities besides the promotion of other political and economic policies. Throughout, the movement struggled to expand the semi-democratic political arena and prevent the rulers from limiting the existing space within which legal political activities and peaceful political agitations and mass struggle could be organized.
    Congress ministries, formed in 1937, visibly extended civil liberties to the resurgent peasants’, workers’ and students’ movements as also to radical groups and parties such as Congress Socialist party and Communist party.
    From its foundation in 1885, the Indian National Congress, the main political organ of the national movement, was organized on democratic lines. It relied upon discussion at all levels as the chief mode for the formation of its policies and arriving at political discussions. Its policies and resolutions were publicly discussed and debated and then voted upon. Some of the most important decisions in its history were taken after rich and heated debates and on the basis of open voting. For example, the decision in 1920 to start the Non-Cooperation Movement was taken with 1336 voting for and 884 voting against Gandhiji’s resolution. Similarly, at the Lahore Congress in 1929, where Gandhiji was asked to take charge of the coming Civil Disobedience Movement, a resolution sponsored by him condemning the bomb attack on the Viceroy’s train by the revolutionary terrorists was passed by a narrow majority of 942 to 794. During the Second World War, Gandhiji’s stand on cooperation with the war effort was rejected by Congress in January 1942.
    Congress did not insist on an identity of viewpoints or policyapproaches within its ranks. It allowed dissent and not only tolerated but encouraged different and minority opinions to be openly held and freely expressed. In fact, dissent became a part of its style. At independence, Congress, thus, had the experience of democratic functioning and struggle for civil liberties for over sixty years. Furthermore, the democratic style of functioning was not peculiar to Congress. Most other political organizations such as the Congress Socialist party, trade unions and Kisan Sabhas, students’, writers’ and women’s organizations, and professional associations functioned in the manner of political democracies.
    The major leaders of the movement were committed wholeheartedly to civil liberties. It is worth quoting them. For example, Lokamanya Tilak proclaimed that ‘liberty of the Press and liberty of speech give birth to a nation and nourish it’. 1 Gandhiji