The Home Rule League Movement was on the rise during 1916 and 1917 across India. While these leagues were started by Lokmanya Tilak and Annie Besant in Poona and Madras respectively, soon they were also established in districts of Bihar like Gaya, Saran and Muzaffarnagar.
The members of the Leagues carried out aggressive nationalist propaganda across the country and supported the Congress-League-Scheme. Initially, the members of these leagues were only lawyers and businessmen but soon a need was felt to include common people in this movement.
In July 1917, nationalist leader, founding member of the Congress and freedom fighter Surendranath Banerjea gave an important speech at the Theosophical House of Gaya. Through this speech, he emphasized the need for the ideas of the Home Rule League to be widely circulated and stressed that the members of the League should bring out booklets and pamphlets in the widely spoken Hindi language. This advice was followed by several supporters of Home Rule like Balmukund Bajpai who wrote a pamphlet titled Swaraj Katha which was banned by the Government and for which he was persecuted.
Many other freedom fighters like Babu Bajrang Sahai of Hazaribagh and Tarini Prasad Sinha from Gaya also got actively involved in the Home Rule League Movement.
Source: Indian Culture Portal