Annie Besant became a prominent leader in the Indian Independence Movement by using speeches, publications, political organization, and constitutional proposals to promote Indian self-government. She founded publications that promoted self-government and established the All-India Home Rule League in 1916. She helped bring nationalist groups together around the Lucknow Pact in 1916. In 1917 she was interned by the British raj but, under pressure from supporters, was released after three months, and later that year she became the first woman president of the Indian National Congress. Despite her efforts, she gradually lost some favor in the movement because her vision of Indian self-government maintained close connections with England and she opposed tactics such as mass noncooperation. Both full independence and noncooperation strategies came to define the independence movement from the 1920s under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi.
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