The Liberal Party of India was a political organization supporting liberalism in the politics of India under the British Raj.
They preferred gradual constitutional reform to revolutionary methods as the means of achieving independence and because they attempted to secure constitutional reform by cooperating with British authority rather than defying it.
The Liberal party was formed in 1910, and British intellectuals and British officials were often participating members of its committees. Many moderate leaders with liberal ideas left the Congress with the rise of Indian nationalism.
When the Montagu report of 1918 was made public, there was a divide in the Congress over it. The moderates welcomed it while the extremists opposed it.
This led to a split in the Congress with moderate leaders forming the “Indian National Liberal Federation” in 1919. The party (INLF) was founded by Surendra Nath Banerjee and some of its prominent leaders were Tej Bahadur Sapru, S. Srinivasa Sastri and M. R. Jayakar.
Tej Bahadur Sapru emerged as the most important leader among the Liberals. During the agitation against the Simon Commission, he launched the idea of an all-parties conference in India to prepare an agreed constitutional scheme.
This resulted in the “Nehru Report” which proposed a constitution and persuaded the new Labour government in Britain to offer India a Round Table Conference.
In the legislative elections of 1923, most Liberal candidates were defeated, but some were returned in both the Center and the provinces, while even some of the principal leaders regained seats through nomination.
A number of Liberals including Sapru and Sastri attended the first Round Table conference (1930-1931). They reunited the Indian Princes to the idea of an all-India federal union.
The Liberals urged in advance that the Statutory Commission, scheduled under the terms of the Indian Reform Act of 1919 to review the case for further Indian constitutional advance, have both British and Indian members.
However an all-English Commission was announced under John Simon. The Liberals were among the first to denounce it.
264. Liberal Party of India & Indian National Liberal Federation

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