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“Capturing the Congress”
WE HAVE asked the Nationalists all over India to muster strong at Surat during the Congress session. It is believed in some quarters that we intend to march upon the Congress and re-enact a Pride’s Purge. Another insinuation is that we form a band of vain, petulant upstarts who delight in wrecking and breaking for its own sake. The Bengalee calls upon the people to repudiate these traitors, and the Tribune of Lahore, the Indu Prakash and Social Reformer of Bombay, the Indian People of Allahabad have by this time swelled that cry. The principle that underlay our attempt to get Lajpat elected to the Presidential chair has not been appreciated by the Punjabee, the Hindu and even Lala Lajpat Rai himself. Capital is being made of this fact and unworthy motives attributed to the Nationalists. Our enemies have got a splendid opportunity to discredit the Nationalist movement by saying that even those who are avowedly sympathetic towards the propaganda cannot support all its senseless manifestation. The emergence of a new school of thought, their vigorous and menacing activity and enthusiasm have always made the votaries of established order uneasy and vindictive. In the frenzied anxiety to retain all power, in a paralysing fear of change they raise a terrible clamour and try to play upon the timidity and the spirit of routine of the unthinking people. They cry for the blood of the new messengers without even patiently listening to their message. Even master minds succumb to this weakness. When Dr. Price delivered his eloquent sermon on the great impetus given to national freedom by the revolutionary propaganda in France, Burke became quite unnerved and was so much carried away by an unreasonable fear as to wreck his own reputation as a sedate and practical statesman by setting to work to write that hysterical diatribe against the French Revolution, which even his admirers could not help regretting. It is no wonder therefore that the Nationalists should be
Page-648 assailed with the most unjustifiable vehemence in their attempt to awaken and organise the people and to shift the centre of power and authority to them. But while the Nationalists should pursue their line of action with unabated zeal, they are also to consider, in view of the fierce and vindictive opposition which they have provoked not only from the bureaucracy but also a section of their own countrymen, whether they should not work in their own way without coming into collusion with those whose ideals and methods of work render any concerted action hardly possible. We invite the Nationalists to Surat not so much to capture the Congress by violence, as our enemies maliciously put it, but to see that the Nationalist sentiment and Nationalist programme find their place in the deliberations and finally prevail. Many of us think that the Nationalists cannot pull on with the Moderates and Loyalists who are determined to baffle their patriotic activities to democratise the Congress by a cobweb of malicious misrepresentation and vilification. The Nationalists indulge in no vague charges against the Moderates. They expose their high-handedness with an unequivocal statement of facts. But these people do not meet us on the charges brought against them, but try to evade the real issue by irrelevant and senseless denunciations. Under the circumstances, some of us thought it wiser and easier for the Nationalists to have an organ of their own, without giving the Moderates and Loyalists a chance of misrepresenting and vilifying them. The experience of the Midnapur Conference shows that the delegates, young and old, all smart under the autocracy of the old workers, which is leading many to think a separatist movement preferable to a perpetual friction. But for the present we must put all such thoughts from us. It has been decided to continue the attempt to fight out the battle of Nationalism in the Congress Pandal until at last a majority of the delegates declare for our views. To that end we must now devote all our energies.
The refusal of Lala Lajpat Rai to accept nomination to the Presi-
Page-649 dentship of the Congress as against Dr. Rash Behari Ghose has given great cause for rejoicing to the Moderates and to Anglo-Indian journals like the Empire. The refusal is natural enough, for when a man who has not been nominated is under such circumstances pressed for a reply to the question whether he will accept nomination or not, he is put into a delicate position in which he must either appear to be wanting in modesty or give away his supporters. This was the dilemma in which the Loyalists have placed Lala Lajpat Rai. Evidently, he has been persuaded to think that he was being asked to stand against Dr. Rash Behari Ghose and that the proposal of the Nationalists was intended as a personal honour to himself. Needless to say, the Nationalists have not asked Lajpat Rai to stand as a candidate. The step they have taken is simply to ask from Dr. Rash Behari Ghose the magnanimity to withdraw and leave the field clear so that a great principle might be vindicated in the most striking way of which the circumstances admitted. Had Dr. Ghose shown that magnanimity there would have been no necessity for Lajpat Rai to be asked to stand as a candidate; the unanimous will of the country would have called him to the Presidential chair. Our proposal was not meant as an invitation to do honour to a particular individual, nor, great as is our personal regard for Lajpat Rai, was it dictated by personal affection. We look upon him as the embodiment of an ideal and his nomination as the nation’s answer to the repressions of the bureaucracy. Lala Lajpat Rai, out of feelings which we respect, has declined to give us that opportunity. We are sorry to have lost it, but glad at least that of the two men put forward, one should have shown the magnanimity to which the other has not been able to rise.
Many who are desirous of contributing to the Delegates’ Fund, have addressed enquiries to us about the manner in which it is to be disposed of. The object of the fund is to send to Surat a number of delegates with uncompromising views and of an uncompromising spirit who will see to it, so far as lies in their
Page-650 power, that the Congress at Surat shall make no backward step but, if possible, move a step further towards associating itself with the new life of the country. We hope that no attempt will be made to take any backward step, but we know that there is a reactionary element in the Congress which would be only too glad to recede, and if by negligence we give them their opportunity, the responsibility for any backsliding will be ours. We hope also that Bengal will present a solid front against any reaction, but we have no right to be sure of it, and only if there is the strong moral backing of a number of delegates, who will not compromise with their principles or allow respect of persons or utter persuasion or browbeating to sway them from their firm position, can we expect the Bengal leaders to stand fast against the pressure that may be brought to bear on them. The delegates who will be assisted out of the fund must therefore pledge themselves to stand firm for Boycott as a general principle, for the Swadeshi resolution as it was framed last year, for National Education and Arbitration as prominent planks in the Congress platform and to do their best to see that the Congress takes up the cause of the Transvaal Indians, rejects Mr. Morley’s reforms or any other sham and simulacrum of self-government and takes a sensible step forward in the direction of national organisation. The precise proposals which will be pressed upon the Subjects Committee will be formulated after due discussion in the Nationalist Conference which meets on the 24th at Surat, but these are the broad lines on which we propose to frame them. We may mention finally that all we propose to give out of the fund is assistance; no single delegate will be given all his expenses to and from or at Surat. If it should be decided to propose constitutional changes in the direction of democratising the Congress, our delegates will support such proposals. Those, therefore, who contribute to the Fund should understand that they are contributing to send delegates who will support progress and to save the National Assembly from the danger of a disastrous and ignominious relapse into the past methods and ideas which the nation is fast outgrowing and which Bengal has altogether renounced. Bande Mataram, December 18, 1907
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