The Indian National Congress adopted the momentous ‘Purna Swaraj’ (complete independence) resolution during its Lahore session of the All-India Congress Committee on 19 December 1929. The resolution was publicly proclaimed on 26 January 1930. Subsequently, the Congress party called upon all Indian citizens to celebrate this occasion as ‘Independence Day’. Consequently, the matter of dominion status for India under British sovereignty was definitively resolved.
The Tricolor Flag with Saffron on the top, White color in the middle and green color at the bottom with Charkha (spinning wheel) in the middle was adopted as the National flag and people were asked to fly the flag on 26 January, 1930. The Poorna Swaraj declaration was further elaborated and passed as Karchi Resolution in the Karachi session of the All India Congress committee of 1931. (the Constituent Assembly chose 26 January 1950 for the Constitution of India to come into effect to honour the date of the public declaration of Purna Swaraj.)
The Poorna swaraj declaration
We maintain that the Indian people, like all peoples, possess the fundamental and inalienable right to liberty and to benefit from the fruits of their labor, as well as to access the necessities of life, thereby enabling them to realize their full potential for development. We further maintain that whenever any government denies a people these rights and subjects them to oppression, that people retain the inherent right to reform or eliminate such government. The British administration in India has not merely stripped the Indian people of their freedom but has constructed itself upon the systematic exploitation of the populace, thereby causing comprehensive devastation to India’s economic, political, cultural, and spiritual dimensions. We therefore hold that India must dissolve its connection with Britain and achieve Purna Swaraj, or absolute independence.
India’s economic condition has been ruined because of the British exploitation. The finances derived from our population bear no reasonable relationship to our actual earnings. Our median daily income amounts to seven pice, a sum equivalent to less than twopence, while the substantial taxation imposed upon us demonstrates a troubling disparity: twenty percent of all revenue originates from land levies collected from the agricultural population, and an additional three percent derives from the salt duty, which disproportionately burdens the economically disadvantaged segments of society.
The destrution of village-based industries, including hand-spinning, has resulted in the loss of traditional livelihoods, rendering the rural population without productive employment for a minimum of four months annually. This prolonged idleness has contributed to intellectual stagnation among peasants due to the absence of handicraft activities. Furthermore, unlike other nations, no alternative economic activities or industries have been established to compensate for the loss of these traditional crafts.
Customs and currency have been so manipulated as to heap further burdens on the peasantry. The British manufactured goods constitute the bulk of our imports. Customs duties betray clear partiality for British manufactures, and revenue from them is used not to lessen the burden on the masses but for sustaining a highly extravagant administration. Still more arbitrary has been the manipulation of the exchange ratio, which has resulted in millions being drained away from the country.
Politically, India’s status has never been so reduced as under the British regime. No reforms have given real political power to the people. The tallest of us have to bend before foreign authority. The rights of free expression of opinion and free association have been denied to us, and many of our countrymen are compelled to live in exile abroad and cannot return to their homes. All administrative talent is killed, and the masses have to be satisfied with petty village offices and clerkships.
Culturally, the system of education has torn us from our moorings, and our training has made us hug the very chains that bind us.
Spiritually, compulsory disarmament has made us unmanly, and the presence of an alien army of occupation, employed with deadly effect to crush in us the spirit of resistance, has made us think that we cannot look after ourselves or put up a defense against foreign aggression, or even defend our homes and families from the attacks of thieves, robbers and miscreants.
We hold it to be a crime against man and God to submit any longer to a rule that has caused this fourfold disaster to our country. We recognize, however, that the most effective way of gaining our freedom is not through violence. We will therefore prepare ourselves by withdrawing, so far as we can, all voluntary association from the British Government, and will prepare for civil disobedience, including nonpayment of taxes. We are convinced that if we can but withdraw our voluntary help and stop payment of taxes without doing violence, even under provocation, the end of this inhuman rule is assured. We therefore hereby solemnly resolve to carry out the Congress instructions issued from time to time for the purpose of establishing Purna Swaraj.