The Swarajya Party's rise was undeniable, its pragmatic message resonating with a populace weary of both British oppression and the Indian National Congress's perceived ineffectiveness. But as the 1920s dawned, a new wave of unrest began to swell, spearheaded by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, recently returned from South Africa. His philosophy of Non-Cooperation, emphasizing civil disobedience and mass boycotts, was gaining traction across India.
Adav, now twenty-one, observed this phenomenon with a detached, analytical gaze. The Codex's [Historical Database] was screaming warnings. The Non-Cooperation movement, while powerful in its moral message, contained a fatal flaw in Adav's cold calculation: its reliance on spontaneous, uncontrolled mass action. History, as he remembered it, vividly recounted the tragedy of Chauri Chaura in 1922, where a peaceful protest escalated into mob violence, leading to the killing of policemen and Gandhi's abrupt suspension of the entire movement. It was a chaotic, inefficient setback, a moment of uncontrolled energy that dissipated into despair.
Adav could not allow this to happen. The Chauri Chaura incident, for him, was another "design flaw," a waste of public energy that would stall the momentum the Swarajya Party was meticulously building. He needed to demonstrate the power of disciplined, organized Indian might, a force that could paralyze the Raj without resorting to the violence that the British were prepared to crush. He needed to show the world what true, controlled non-cooperation looked like.
He summoned Bose to Bombay. "Gandhi's movement," Adav stated, gesturing to Codex projections of projected crowd sizes and British response scenarios, "is a powerful current. But uncontrolled, it will capsize. We must direct it. We must perfect it." Bose, initially hesitant about interfering with Gandhi's moral authority, listened intently as Adav laid out his precise plan to avert the historical disaster and turn a weakness into a display of unshakeable strength.