India was bereft of dynamic leadership

Those into freedom struggle - in whatever form - were waiting for someone to lead them from the front. There was a serious problem with the nationalist movement in India around the time. Gandhi reached India in January 1915 and came to Santiniketn on February 17 but left within two days for Poona on hearing news of Gokhale's death. Acharya Kripalani recalls in his autobiography that "India was bereft of dynamic leadership, with political life at a low ebb.

The 1907 split at Surat and the withdrawal of its most active and progressive elements had weakened the Congress, which had in consequence ceased to inspire, enthuse, or educate the people. It was a body without a soul. In 1912, I attended its session at Patna, a lifeless affair with scarcely an audience".

Kripalani also gave the reasons for the same. "The Government had effectively suppressed the violent revolutionaries and had 'rallied the moderates', as directed by John Morley, the then secretary of State. They had also suppressed the 'nationalist' leaders. Bipin Chandra Pal was no longer the inspiration that he had once been; Lala Lajpat Rai had gone to America; Aurobindo Ghose had retired from politics and sought a quiet retreat at Pondicherry where he practised yoga.

Tilak had just returned from Mandalay after serving a long term of imprisonment. There was no political leader of adequate stature to guide the young who felt humiliated at the thought that their country, with a population of three hundred million, was being governed by a few foreigners from six thousand miles away".