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The Old Policy and the New
BABU Bhupendranath Bose has issued a manifesto of his views in the Bengalee, in which he explains his letter to the Secretary of the People’s Association at Comilla. That document, it seems, was a private letter, although it was obviously intended to produce a public effect, viz. to prevent the nomination of Mr. Tilak and to counteract the effect of Babu Bepin Chandra Pal’s meeting and speeches in Comilla. However, we have now an authoritative statement of Babu Bhupendranath’s "policy", and no further misunderstanding is possible. This policy is precisely what we expected; it might have been penned in the pre-Partition and pre-Swadeshi days and amounts simply to the old Congress programme. We are to solicit Government help and favours as before, to oppose its measures when they are bad and, when they are very bad, to support this opposition "with the vital energy of the entire nation". But we are not to attempt to stand apart from the Government; we are not fit (because we have castes!) to stand among the self-governing countries of the world. We must therefore accept our subjection and wait for the golden days when we are thoroughly Europeanised, before we make any attempt to assert our national existence. At the same time, we may work out our own salvation in industrial matters, by such enterprises as the Banga Lakshmi Mill, in social matters by the abolition of caste, and even in educational matters by — but no, Babu Bhupendranath Bose has never been a friend of the National University idea. Such, when stripped of all verbiage, is the programme which Babu Bhupendranath sets before us, and since, in spite of his modest disclaimer, he has a commanding influence in determining the active policy of our leaders, his programme may be taken as the ultimate programme of his party. We should like to know what Babu Bhupendranath precisely means by opposition to Government schemes. Except in
Page-163 extreme cases, so far as we understand him, he is opposed to bringing the vital energy of the nation to bear on the Government; and the only alternative policy is one of prayer and petition. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that prayer and petition have no appreciable influence on the British Government and that whatever slight influence it might have once had, has faded into nullity. It is only when the nation, finding its prayers and petitions rejected, begins to manifest its strength that the British Government inclines its ear and is graciously pleased to withdraw a circular, to dismiss a Fuller or to consider whether it can unsettle a settled fact. But Babu Bhupendranath argues that we cannot bring "the vital energies of the nation" to support opposition to any and every measure of Government. We are quite at one with him; but we cannot follow him in the strangely illogical conclusion he draws from this premise. He concludes from it that our right course is to trust to the broken weapon of remonstrance and futile petition in all but exceptional cases like the Partition. We conclude that our right course is not to waste unnecessary time over smaller matters, but to go to the root of the matter, the control over finance and legislation which is the basis of self-government and the first step towards autonomy. The proposal of the old party is to use the great outburst of national strength which the Partition has evoked, in order to get the Partition rescinded, and then to put it back in the cupboard until again wanted. Such a policy will be absolutely suicidal. These outbursts can only come once or twice in a century, they cannot be evoked and ruled at the will of any leader, be he Surendranath Banerji or even a greater than Surendranath. Nor would such frequent outbursts benefit the country, but would rather, like frequent occasions of fever, weaken the nation and render it finally listless and strengthless. The problem for statesmanship at this moment is to organise and utilise the energy which has been awakened for an object of the first importance to our national development. The withdrawal of the Partition by itself will not improve the position of our race with regard to its rulers nor leave it one whit better than before Lord Curzon’s regime. Even if the present Government were overflowing with
Page-164 liberal kindness, it cannot last for ever, and there is nothing to prevent another Imperialist Viceroy backed up by an Imperialist Government from perpetrating measures as injurious to the interests and sentiments of the nation. The only genuine guarantee against this contingency is the control by the nation of its own destinies, and to secure an effective instalment of this control should be the first aim of all our political action. No British Government will willingly concede anything in the nature of effective control. It can only be wrested from them by concentrating "the vital energies of the entire nation" into opposition to the Government and admitting of no truce until the desired end is secured. This is the kernel of the new party’s policy and it differs entirely from Babu Bhupendranath’s meaningless and futile programme.
The old leaders are now telling the country that there is no need of a conflict as their ideals are identical with those of the new party, and it is only the latter who are heating themselves into a passion about nothing. The other day, Babu Naresh Chandra Sen Gupta in perfect good faith accepted this statement and declared it to the assembled students. But yesterday we learned that Babu Bhupendranath Bose insists on our working in association with the Government and not in opposition! This is emphatically not the ideal of the new party, for we are opposed to any accommodation with the Government which precedes or dispenses with the concession of effective self-government to the Indian people. We shall shortly make a succinct and definitive statement of our programme and demands; and if there is really no difference of ideals, if the whole quarrel is a misunderstanding and the old leaders are prepared not only to profess but to carry out those ideals in co-operation with the new party, the conflict will die a natural death. But it should be realised that without sincerity and frank openness no attempt at an understanding can be successful or worth making.
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A charge which is being freely hurled against the new party is that they, or at least an active section of them, indulge in "vile abuse" of the old leaders. We do not care to deny that some of our writers and speakers are unsparing and outspoken in their attacks on individual leaders and that sometimes the bounds are passed. But this is a common incident of any political controversy under modern conditions. Both sides are guilty of such excesses. The correspondence to which the Bengalee has been recently giving a large part of its space is often of a poisonous virulence and an almost absurd violence of misrepresentation and the chief vernacular organ of the old party has no better claims to "respectability" in this respect than the most outspoken exponent of a more extreme policy. It is merely party passion which tries to ascribe all the violence and vilification to one side. These are inevitable concomitants of a party conflict and it will not do for either side to affect a sanctimonious spotlessness of demeanour; for the affectation will not bear scrutiny.
It is announced that Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji has accepted Babu Bhupendranath’s offer of the Presidentship of the National Congress at Calcutta. No one was likely to oppose Mr. Naoroji as a President and had the proposal been brought forward constitutionally in the Reception Committee, the supporters of Mr. Tilak would have consented to postpone his name till the next year. But the Secret Cabal which is managing affairs in defiance of all rule and practice, were determined to score a party success and to use Mr. Naoroji, without his knowledge, as a tool for their ignoble purpose. They would face the supporters of Mr. Tilak with an accomplished fact, which they must either accept or incur the odium of opposing an universally respected name. They have followed a similar method with regard to the Exhibition which they have practically sold to the Government for a price. In this way, the Reception Committee is being turned into a
Page-166 farce and when they allow it to meet, it will find itself without occupation as all its functions have been performed for it behind its back. It becomes therefore the imperative duty of all who have any desire for national control over the national assembly to demand a settled elective constitution not only for the Congress but for every Congress body and law for its procedure which the leaders shall not be allowed to violate unless they are prepared to face a public impeachment from the platform of the Congress.
The Bhagalpur Meeting
The Englishman is very glad that Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji and not Mr. Tilak is going to preside at the National Congress, but it is also very glad of anything that can discredit Babu Surendranath Banerji. Its statement that the Bhagalpur meeting was very scantily attended while the Bengalee reckons 6,000 may be compared with the previous attempt of a correspondent in the Bengalee to prove that the population of Chittagong district was about the same as the computed audience of Babu Bepin Chandra Pal’s mass meeting! Just as a Mymensingh adherent of petitionary politics declares that none of the leading men attended Bepin Babu’s meeting at Mymensingh, so the Englishman declares that the Behari gentry and even the leading Bengalis held aloof from Babu Surendranath’s Bhagalpur meeting. The Bengalee against the "extremists" and the Englishman against Mr. Banerji seem to be wonderfully unanimous! There is, however, one statement of the Englishman‘s which is significant: "Some Behari students apparently taking the cue set by Calcutta, it alleges, created a disturbance, protesting against the proceedings. They intend, we learn, to call an indignation meeting." There is no breath of all this in the Bengalee which represents the meeting as crowded, enthusiastic and unanimous. We have seen some recent Calcutta meetings, very sparsely attended, which have been represented as numbering thousands. It is about time that some rein should be placed on the arithmetical imagination of reporters; otherwise we shall justify Lord Curzon’s infamous attack
Page-167 by growing into a nation of exaggerators. We wish to know also whether there is any truth in the Englishman’s report of opposition. If there is opposition in Behar, it is better to know its extent and reasons than to burke it by a disingenuous silence.
By The Way
The Englishman has been making all sorts of remarkable discoveries recently; its activity in this field is stupendous. Recently, it discovered the respectability of the Congress. Yesterday, it suddenly found out that Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji is an angel. A comparative angel, of course, but still an angel. He is pardoned all his wild and whirling speeches, his fiery denunciations of British rule, his immeasured expressions of condemnation; for will he not keep out Mr. Tilak from the Presidential Chair of the Calcutta Congress? Why is it that the very name of this man, with his quiet manner of speech, his unobtrusive simplicity and integrity, his absence of noisy and pushing "patriotism", is such a terror to Moderate and Anglo-Indian alike? Far more tactful and measured in speech than Mr. Naoroji, the idea of him yet causes them an ague. It is because he is the one man among us who sees clearly and acts. The man of action in the Presidential Chair of the Congress! The Anglo-Indian envisages the idea and sees in it the very image of his doom. Of course, it is the appearance of that wild new species, the "extremist", that is responsible for Mr. Naoroji’s angelic transfiguration. There is a delightful flexibility about this word "extremist". It is imbued with a thoroughly progressive spirit and never stands still. Once quite within the memory of man, Babu Surendranath Banerji was an "extremist" but his scarlet coat is growing quite a dull and faded pink in these latter times. Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji was once denounced as a blatant extremist — that was the day before yesterday. But now that Mr. Shyamji Krishnavarma and his Home Rulers raise their wild heads above the terrified horizon, Mr. Naoroji is on a fair way to being admitted into the sacred fold of the "statesman-like" and "moderate". A still
Page-168 worse species of fire-breathing monster has recently turned up in the Bengal extremist. And we look forward with blissful hope to the day when the Englishman will learn to respect the "notorious Bepin Chandra Pal" and embrace him tearfully as the sole remaining bulwark against more anarchic monsters than himself. The upshot is that India progresses. Bande Mataram, September 12, 1906
The Statesman, not content with lecturing the Bengali leaders, opens its news columns to curious speculations about the President of the next Congress. It is apparently not quite satisfied with Mr. Naoroji — a natural sentiment, since, whatever the moderates profess, Mr. Naoroji is not one of them, though he may not go the whole way with the advanced school. Accordingly, the name of Nawab Sayyed Mohammed is thrust forward — because he is a Mahomedan. The idea that the election of a Mahomedan President will conciliate the anti-Congress Mahomedans is a futility which has been repeatedly exposed by experience. Mr. Rasul’s presidentship at Barisal has not conciliated the following of the Nawab of Dacca; such nominations can only gratify those Mahomedans who are already for the Congress. The question this year for the Congress is Swadeshi or no Swadeshi, Boycott or no Boycott, and no minor considerations can be admitted. A still more extraordinary piece of information is that Punjab will put up Lala Lajpat Rai against Mr. Tilak! We know, on the contrary, that Punjab is for Mr. Tilak and that Lala Lajpat Rai is the last man to countenance opposition to Mr. Tilak. In itself the candidature of Lala Lajpat Rai would not be unwelcome to the new party. He is one of those men who act, more than they talk, a man with a splendid record of solid patriotic work behind him and to him above all other belongs the credit of building up the Arya Samaj into the most powerful and practically effective organisation in the country. Were both Mr. Tilak and Mr. Naoroji to decline the Presidentship, Lala Lajpat Rai’s would be the only other possible candidature.
Page-169 The "Statesman" under Inspiration
An obviously inspired article appears in the Statesman in which a gallant attempt is made to misrepresent the issues before the country. It tries to convey the idea that the "extremists" have set up Mr. Tilak in opposition to Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji. As everybody is aware, it was not until Mr. Tilak’s name was already put prominently before the country that the "moderate section", seeing no other way of avoiding the issue, bethought themselves of Mr. Naoroji. On the issue of representation or no representation our contemporary affects to be in doubt as to the position of the new party, and it discovers that the Bengali people are no longer unanimous against the Partition. How then can Mr. Morley reconsider the question? Need we inform the Statesman that the Bengali people are as unanimous against the Partition as they ever were and always will be? We do not doubt Mr. Morley’s ability to find excuses for evading a concession which he has never meant to yield, unless his hand is forced. But the movement for a new representation is not only a contravention of the understanding which had existed among all parties since the last Town Hall meeting, but it was hatched in secret and engineered in secret. The country was not taken into confidence as to the motives or justification for this important departure. Had the old leaders acted straightforwardly in the matter and shown overwhelmingly strong reasons for the step, the leaders of the new party, although opposed on principle to the submission of new prayers and entreaties, might not have refused to countenance a strong and dignified representation which did not sacrifice in any degree the policy of Swadeshi and Boycott. Since they would not adopt this straightforward course, it is fair to conclude that the case for a new representation was too weak to be publicly presented. We have therefore every right to appeal to the country to maintain the policy hitherto successful. Tighten the grip of the Boycott, let both parties unite to give a new impetus to the Swadeshi; paralyse the two-headed administration of Bengal by every legitimate means of passive resistance — and the Partition will inevitably be rescinded or modified. Bande Mataram, September 13, 1906
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The strictures which the extraordinary announcement made at Bhagalpur by Babu Surendranath Banerji has aroused, have compelled the Bengalee to offer a sort of apology or explanation for the unconstitutional action of the leaders. It was distinctly stated at Bhagalpur that Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji had accepted the Presidentship of the Congress. It follows, therefore, that the Presidentship was unconstitutionally offered to Mr. Naoroji by one or two individuals behind the back of the Reception Committee. It is now explained that Mr. Naoroji simply wired his willingness to accept the Presidentship offered to him. On this theory the offer was a private suggestion of individuals and the individuals made a public announcement of their private suggestion and its private acceptance, in order to compromise the Reception Committee and force its hands. The explanation therefore does not exculpate the authors of this stratagem; it only makes their action more disingenuous and tricky. No individual has any right to take privately the consent of Mr. Naoroji or another, as if the Presidentship depended on his choice. Until the Reception Committee has decided to whom it will offer the function, all that individuals, be they never so much leaders, have the authority to do is to put forward name or names for recommendation by the Committee. It is only after the Committee has made its decision that the person selected can be asked whether he is willing to accept the offer. If it is thought necessary to make sure of this beforehand, that also can only be done with the sanction or by the direction of the Committee. The fact that the Bengalee should have advanced such a puerile quibble to justify the conduct of Babu Bhupendranath is a proof that these "constitutional" leaders have no conception whatever of what constitutional action means. The plea that it had long been known Mr. Naoroji was coming to India and it was therefore thought fit to ask him to preside at the Congress, is one which will command no credit. When did this "fitness" occur to men who were proposing Harram Singh and Mudholkar and everybody and anybody, but never Mr. Naoroji; although it was known that he was coming to India? Not until Mr. Tilak’s name was
Page-171 before the country and they saw that none of the mediocrities they had suggested could weigh in the scale with the great Maratha leader. Not by these sophisms will the Calcutta autocrats escape the discredit of their actions.
Bande Mataram, September 14, 1906 The Friend Found Out
Our frank criticism of the political ideals in regard to India, of the Anglo-Indian leaders of the Congress has revealed the old "Friend of India" in his true colour. This friend who could not in the last century brook the thought that there was anything worthy of reverence in the spiritual ideals of the Hindu and fell foul of Rammohan Roy for his advocacy of rational and spiritual Hinduism cannot now be patient with those who claim the common right of humanity to manage its own affairs and realise its own divinely appointed destiny without foreign interference and control. We have long ceased to believe in the sincerity of the sympathy of the British middle class who thrives upon our serfdom, with our civic and economic needs and aspirations. The Statesman‘s ill-tempered attack on us comes not therefore as a surprise and if it acts as an eye-opener to our infatuated "moderate" friends, we shall feel ourselves more than amply compensated for the hysterical and violent attack inspired by a nervous anticipation of the inevitable. But perhaps we are misjudging our friend, for though the hand is the hand of Jacob, the voice is the voice of Esau.
"An open foe may prove a curse, But a pretended friend is worse."
Even India has sometimes a ray of light in the midst of its twilight obscurity and crass lack of insight. Thus saith the organ of the Cottons and Wedderburns: "Mr. Morley will not be Secretary of
Page-172 State for India for ever and a day. So long as he is at the helm, the prow of the ship will be set in the right direction. But what will happen when his controlling hand is removed?" Precisely so, Mr. Morley may set the prow in the right direction, but it is perfectly evident from his public statements that he is not prepared to travel fast or far; on the contrary he is utterly against any decision and effective treatment of the intolerable situation in India. He is simply going to repeat an experiment which has failed and is out of date. We shall therefore gain little during his lease of power — and afterwards? Who shall secure us against another Curzonian reaction? We therefore say that an instalment of effective self-government is the one thing which the Congress should insist on because it is the one thing which will make reaction impossible. We farther contend that an effective instalment of self-government not only ought to be but must inevitably be the first step towards complete autonomy. For the statement of these plain and indisputable truths we must, forsooth, be dubbed "seditionists" and "extremists", not only by Anglo-Indian papers for whose opinion we do not care a straw, but by Indian Journals professing to be nationalist. There could not be a greater evidence of the dull servility of attitude, the fear of truth and the unworthy timidity which has become ingrained in our habits of mind by long acquiescence in servitude. If these things are sedition, then we are undoubtedly seditious and will persist in our sedition till the end of the chapter.
BY THE WAY
The Bengalee came out on Sunday with an extraordinary leader in which it appeals to its opponents to sink all personal differences and unite in one common cause. The better to further this desirable end it kicks them severely all round so as to bring them into a reasonable state of mind. The opponents of the Bengalee are all actuated by base personal motives; their organs of opinion are upstart journals trying to create a sensation; their championing of advanced political principles is a trick of the trade, etc. etc. And therefore the Bengalee appeals to them to be
Page-173 friendly, toe the line and follow faithfully in the wake of Babu Surendranath Banerji. Does our contemporary really think that this is the sort of appeal which is likely to heal the breach?
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The praise and approval of the Anglo-Indian papers, says the Bengalee wisely, is a sure sign that we are on the wrong road. Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. On this principle, we ought to go on our way rejoicing. If there is one pleasing feature of the present situation, it is the remarkable unanimity with which the Anglo-Indian Press has greeted our appearance in the field with a shriek of denunciation and called on Heaven and Earth and the Government and the Moderates to league together and crush us out of existence. Statesman and Englishman, Times and Pioneer, all their discordant notes meet in one concord on this grand swelling theme. The "moderate" papers of all shades, pro-Government or advocates of association with Government or advocates of association-cum-opposition, have all risen to the call. The Hindu Patriot rejoices at our lack of influence, the Mirror threatens us with the prison and the scaffold, the Bengalee mutters about upstart journals and warns people against the morass which is the inevitable goal, in its opinion, of a forward policy. Well, well, well! Here is an extraordinary and most inexplicable clamour about an upstart journal and a party without influence or following in the country.
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The Statesman is taking its cue from the Mirror and is growing very truculent and minatory. It is not going to give us any quarter, this merciless "Friend of India", but will abolish, expunge and blot us out of existence in no time. It will not consent to support Indian aspirations unless we consent to perform hara-kiri. It will advise its friend Mr. Morley to make no concession, no, not even increase the number of our Legislative Honourables, until even the very scent of a "sedition" can no longer be sniffed in the Indian breezes. Bande Mataram, September 17, 1906
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