438 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

nised with the ' partition' of Bengal. " The reverberations of
%hat victory," Lord Curzon himself said, " have gone like a
thunderclap through the whispering galleries of the East."
It created a new self-confidence among the politically con-
scious people all over Asia. Under the circumstances the
partition of Bengal cut like a deep wound which aroused
national feeling from one end of the country to another,,
though it directly touched only the people of Bengal. The
constructive nationalism of the Congress was driven by it
into more radical channels. Though a temporary split oc-
curred in the ranks of the nationalists on account of this
extremism, from 1907 to 1916, not only were the two sec-
tions brought together in the Lucknow session of the Con-
gress, but even the Muslim League which had stood aloof
until then came in to form a new coalition. The inadequacy
of. the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909 had given rise to
much discontent. It was not allayed by Their Majesties'
visit to India and the restoration of the integrity of Bengal
(1911). India made whole-hearted sacrifices during the
Great War in men, money, and materials with great expec-
tations about the future. But the events that followed after
the British triumph deepened India's distrust in the good
faith of her foreign masters. Even the moderates of earlier
years turned extremists in the post-War period in India.
The new trend was personified in Mahatma Gandhi who
transformed the Indian National Congress from a supplicat-
ing body into a revolutionary organisation, though the
methods he inculcated were non-violent. The weapon of,
' passive resistance' which he had forged in upholding the
sdf-respect of the Indian community in South Africa, was
now elaborated into the Non-co-operation movement of 1921,
and ultimately developed into the more active 'civil dis-
obedience' campaign of 1931. The Montague-Chelmsford