Contibution of great social thinker for social reforms mahamanya madan mohan malviya
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In December 1886, Malaviya attended the 2nd Indian National Congress session in Calcutta under chairmanship of Dadabhai Naoroji, where he spoke on the issue of representation in Councils. His address not only impressed Dadabhai but also Raja Rampal Singh, ruler of Kalakankar estate near Allahabad, who started a Hindi weekly Hindustan but was looking for a suitable editor to turn it into a daily. Thus in July 1887, he left his school job and joined as the editor of the nationalist weekly, he remained here for two and a half years, and left for Allahabad to join L.L.B., it was here that he was offered co-editorship of The Indian Opinion, an English daily. After finishing his law degree, he started practising law at Allahabad District Court in 1891, and moved to Allahabad High Court by December 1893.[15][16]
Malaviya became the President of the Indian National Congress in 1909 and 1918. He was a moderate leader and opposed the separate electorates for Muslims under the Lucknow Pact of 1916. The "Mahamana" title was conferred to him by Mahatma Gandhi.
To redeem his resolve to serve the cause of education and social-service he renounced his well established practice of law in 1911, for ever. In order to follow the tradition of Sannyasa throughout his life, he pursued the avowed commitment to live on the society's support. But when 177 freedom fighters were convicted to be hanged in the Chauri-chaura case he appeared before the court, despite his vow and got acquitted 156 freedom fighters.[17]
He remained a member of the Imperial Legislative Council from 1912 and when in 1919 it was converted to the Central Legislative Assembly he remained its member as well, till 1926.[18] Malaviya was an important figure in the Non-cooperation movement.[19] However, he was opposed to the politics of appeasement and the participation of Congress in the Khilafat movement.
In 1928 he joined Lala Lajpat Rai, Jawaharlal Nehru and many others in protesting against the Simon Commission, which had been set up by the British to consider India's future. Just as the "Buy British" campaign was sweeping England, he issued, on 30 May 1932, a manifesto urging concentration on the "Buy Indian" movement in India.[20] Malaviya was a delegate at the Second Round Table Conference in 1931.
However, during the Civil Disobedience Movement, he was arrested on 25 April 1932, along with 450 other Congress volunteers in Delhi, only a few days after he was appointed in 1932 at Delhi as the President of Congress after the arrest of Sarojini Naidu.[21] In 1933, at Calcutta, Malaviya was again appointed as the President of the Congress. Thus before Independence, Malaviya was the only leader of the Indian National Congress who was appointed as its President for four terms.
On 25 September 1932, an agreement known as Poona Pact was signed between Dr. Ambedkar (on behalf of the depressed classes among Hindus) and Malaviya (on behalf of the other Hindus). The agreement gave reserved seats for the depressed classes in the Provisional legislatures, within the general electorate and not by creating a separate electorate. Due to the pact, the depressed class received 148 seats in the legislature, instead of the 71 as allocated in the Communal Award proposal of the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. After the pact, the Communal Award was modified to include the terms as per the pacts. The text uses the term "Depressed Classes" to denote Untouchables among Hindus who were later called Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under India Act 1935, and the later Indian Constitution of 1950. [22]
In protest against the Communal Award which sought to provide separate electorates for minorities, Malaviya along with Madhav Shrihari Aney left the Congress and started the Congress Nationalist Party. The party contested the 1934 elections to the central legislature and won 12 seats.