Indian Liberal Party

The Liberal Party of India was a political organization espousing liberalism in the politics of India under the British Raj.

The Liberal party was formed in 1910, and British intellectuals and British officials were often participating members of its committees. The Indian National Congress, which had been formed to create a mature political dialogue with the British government, included both moderates and extremists. Many moderate leaders with liberal ideas left the Congress with the rise of Indian nationalism, and extremist leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai and Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

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 schism in the Congress with moderate leaders forming the "National Liberal Federation of India" in 1919. Its most prominent leaders were Tej Bahadur Sapru, V. 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.

A number of Liberals including Sapru and Sastri attended the first Round Table Conference (November 1930 to January 1931). They rallied the Indian Princes to the idea of an all-India federal union. Sapru and Sastri likewise attacked the communal issue, working primarily through M. A. Jinnah. The two Liberals' ultimate object was to secure a constitutional agreement, provisional if not final.

The Liberals were moderate nationalists who openly pursued India's independence from British rule and resented the excesses of British imperialism. 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. Their goals and methods were inspired by British Liberalism. They aimed toward parliamentary democracy, including not only an institutional structure but a system of values which emphasized the achievement of national welfare through peaceable negotiation and compromise among competing public interests. Therefore, the Liberals regularly participated in the legislative councils and assemblies at the town, provincial and central levels.

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