Previous Year Question
Name the first activist who demanded Complete Independence (Purna Swaraj).
Correct Answer: D
Detailed Solution
At the Ahmedabad Session of the Indian National Congress
in 1921, Maulana Hasrat Mohani formally proposed that Swaraj in the Congress creed should mean Complete Independence. Historical records of the Congress session state that Gandhi opposed the proposal and that it was rejected at that stage.
Contemporary government records preserved in the official Maharashtra Gazetteers also document Hasrat Mohani and his advocacy of complete independence in 1921.
However, it would be historically unsafe to state that Hasrat Mohani was simply “the first person in India ever to demand complete independence.” The archival life record maintained by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram states that Sri Aurobindo had openly advanced the ideal of complete independence earlier through the newspaper Bande Mataram and describes him as the first political leader in India to openly put forward that ideal.
Hasrat Mohani → formally proposed Complete Independence as the Congress objective at the Ahmedabad Session in 1921.