After the massacre of jallianwala bag of Amritsar (1919) there was tension in whole Punjab. Congress committee yearly session was earlier planned in Amritsar but due to tension in Amritsar venue it was decided to be shifted to other place. Swami Ji went to Allahabad in congress working committee meeting. He strongly argued that yearly venue of session should not be shifted and should remain in Amritsar. A committee comprising swami ji, motilal Nehru and madan Mohan malviya ji was appointed to inquiry into Punjab occurrences. (P.Sitaramayya, the history of the Indian national congress 1885-1935 p- 293) Swami Ji tour to Punjab witnessed at close hand the misery and heart break that the excesses of the martial law regime had brought to his homeland. His reluctant decision to accept the office of chairman of the reception committee for the 1919 Amritsar session was partly caused by that experience, but the other reasons that prompted his acceptance clarify his attitude to politics at that time. He himself spelt out these reasons in his opening address at the congress session, “I am not standing on this platform today on account of a political movement, but for the fulfillment of a different type of duty.” the first reason why he was there was that he had been urged to take up this task by the imprisoned Punjabi leaders, and had been implored to do so by the wives of the political prisoners. The second reason he called my ashram and its duties, explaining it thus, up to today this Indian national congress has been carrying out normal political work, but today it has to climb to the summit of religion.

(Quotations from original Hindi texts of the swami’s Amritsar conference address obtained from Gandhi memorial museum, Delhi) This conviction of the religious dimension of the movement had been strengthened by the advice Gandhi ji had given him in a letter saying “my conviction is that as long as we do not enter into the political field with dharmic aims, so long will we be unable to succeed in the pure and true amelioration of India. If you become the chairman of the reception committee, you will be able to introduce dharmic feelings within the congress” (INCO p-103)

Thus we understand that it was a religious crusade that propelled the swami ji to political platform.