ABSTRACT
The Congress met at Calcutta at the end of December 1928 charged with a mood of frustration and anger. On its second tour of India, beginning in October 1928, the Simon Commission met with boycotts and black-flag demonstrations in almost every town and city it visited. At Calcutta Gandhi mediated between the Nehrus, father and son, between the older generation of nationalists who wanted a constitutional settlement and the new generation who were impatient for freedom and for a confrontation with the Raj. With these national developments Tamil Congressmen were at first wholly out of step. In anticipation of elections in late 1929 or early 1930, Srinivasa Iyengar, Rajagopalachari and Tamil Congressmen of all persuasions were out campaigning against the Justice and Independent parties. By contrast with the protracted struggle for control of the regional Congress in 1922–25, in 1930 the leading Swarajists quickly surrendered their places on the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC).
