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Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 4th, 1908 }
Convention and Conference
When the leaders of the Moderate party meet at Allahabad, they will be on their trial before India and all the world. They have done much in the past for the country. Whatever we may think of the views they hold or the methods dear to them, they are the survivors of a generation which woke the nation from political apathy and helped to break the spell which British success had thrown upon the hearts of the people. They turned a critical eye on things which had been taken for granted, British peace, British justice, British freedom. Even while they lauded, they criticised, and the habit of fault-finding which they turned into a weapon of political warfare, helped to break the hypnotic power of the bureaucratic domination. This was no small or unimportant result for so abjectly prostrate a generation as the one into which they were born. If the nation is passing out of their hands, it is largely on account of the change in the popular mind which they brought about by their ceaseless attacks on the bureaucracy. But if they did so much to raise the nation, the political influence which they acquired by their services was an ample recompense. They are now losing that influence; the minds of the rising generation are widening to receive ideas which they have chosen to oppose, to envisage hopes which they are anxious to discourage, to attempt enterprises with which they are either unwilling or afraid to associate themselves. The Surat Congress failed because they desired to throw an insuperable barrier across the path of the onward march of the rising generation, because they hoped to confine the future to the formulas of the present and leave the mould of their ideas as the rigid form out of which the nation would not be permitted to grow.
Page – 1003 The Convention is an attempt to drag back the Congress out of the twentieth century into the nineteenth. It is as much a futile piece of reaction as Mr. Morley’s Council of Notables. The same exclusive, oligarchical spirit of the past trying to dominate the future, of the few with wealth, position and fame for their title claiming the monopoly of political life, animates the idea of the Convention. Perhaps if the Convention becomes a living fact, it may, who knows, be accepted by Mr. Morley as the basis for his Council of Notables? But if the Moderates of Bombay would welcome such a consummation, the Bengal leaders ought to know that the attempt to separate the Congress from the life of the people will be disastrous to the future of the movement for which Bengal stands. If they associate themselves with any such attempt to bring back the country to the footstool of the bureaucracy, they will have given the last blow to their influence and popularity. They may remain Notables, they will cease to be popular leaders. The resolution of the Pabna Conference which was accepted by them leaves them no ground to stand upon if they associate themselves with the Bombay attempt to turn back the wheels of time and put an end to the natural evolution of the Congress. The Convention was the creation of Sir Pherozshah Mehta who will leave no stone unturned to save his offspring when the Convention Committee meets at Allahabad; it will be seen whether the fear of Sir Pherozshah Mehta or the fear of the country is strongest in the hearts of the Moderate leaders. They are still, it seems, undecided as to their course, a dangerous condition of mind since the powerful will of Sir Pherozshah is likely to carry all before it, if it is not met by a settled determination to give effect to the plainly expressed wishes of the people. Whatever happens at the Convention the leaders of the Moderate party will be held responsible for the result. If the Congress breaks asunder for good, the blame will rest on them and they will no longer be able to throw it upon the Nationalists who have since the break-up at Surat laid themselves open to the charge of weakness and cowardice rather than stand in the way of reconciliation. From the first meeting of the Nationalist Conference after the fracas on the second day of the session
Page – 1004 to the present moment the attitude of the party has been accommodating to a fault. They allowed the Moderates to score a seeming triumph at Pabna rather than allow a second split. At Poona in their stronghold they invited the co-operation of the Moderates at Dhulia, they even consented to the question of the Boycott being allowed to stand over, unless otherwise decided by the Provincial Conference, rather than forfeit Moderate co-operation. The public utterances of Nationalist papers and Nationalist speakers from the speech of Mr. Tilak after the fracas to the latest speeches at the Poona Conference have all been pervaded by the thought of reconciliation, the anxiety for union. The Nationalists make no stipulation except that no creed shall be imposed on the Congress from outside, no action be taken which implies that the Convention is the arbiter of the destinies of the Congress and that no constitution or change of policy shall be drawn up by anyone as binding on the Congress before the Congress itself decided on its future course. This is an attitude to which no one can take reasonable exception. The Nationalists also appointed a Committee after the fiasco, but the instructions issued to this Committee were merely to watch the results of the split, to see that a reconciliation be effected and only in the last resort to take up the work of the Congress where it had broken off, if no accommodation proved possible. The Committee has therefore taken no action beyond watching the course of events and exercising the influence of its authorised officials to bring about such resolutions as would help the reconciliation of the parties. It depends entirely on the result of the meeting at Allahabad whether the Committee is to assert its existence or quietly allow itself to cease when the main object for which it came into being has been accomplished. Convention and Conference are both mere party organisations and if either of them affects to be the Congress, it will be guilty of a parricidal action leading to the death of the parent body. __________
Page – 1005 By the Way
The annual meeting of the European and Anglo-Indian Defence Association took place last Monday without the world being any the worse for the calamity. There were speeches and there was a report. Each of the orations was in the usual key of solemnity and the Association conducted itself with imperturbable seriousness— a feat of muscular self-control which should be put down to its credit. A sense of humour is an obstacle to success in life and the British nation has always avoided or controlled it, especially since the union with Scotland. It is, indeed, since the Scotchman became a member of the British nation that the great development of England as an Empire has taken place. Now the Anglo-Indian Defence Association hails largely from beyond the Tweed.
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The first speaker who took the affairs of the Empire under his patronage, was a certain Mr. Lockhart Smith. He gave some firm but kindly advice to the leaders of Indian thought as to the best way of managing their business forgetting that his time would have been more usefully employed in minding his own. It appears that the unrest was a natural and healthy aspiration of the people, but all the same it created a natural and healthy alarm in the manly breasts of the Anglo-Indian Defence Association and it is a good thing that it has quieted down to some extent. Unfortunately the position is still far from clear or satisfactory to Mr. Lockhart Smith. This healthy unrest is still too healthily restless for Mr. Smith’s nerves. He therefore calls upon the leaders of Indian thought to rise to the occasion and handle the situation with a statesmanlike reposefulness. They must learn to be quietly unquiet, restfully restless, humbly aspiring, meekly bold. If they are restless in their unrest, the Government will “put back the hands of the clock”, to the great inconvenience of old Father Time. Perhaps Mr. Lockhart Smith is in the habit of putting back the hands of the clock in his office so as to give his clerks a longer spell of work; otherwise we cannot understand
Page – 1006 his sublime confidence in the effectiveness of this trick with the clock or his evident belief that it will stop the march of Time.
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On the whole the advice of Mr. Smith may be summed up as an appeal to spare his nerves. The Viceroy will recognise the position “as clear and satisfactory” if the leaders are content to `aspire’ without being over-anxious to get their aspirations realized. We have no doubt he will.
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After Mr. Lockhart Smith had locked up his heart from farther speech, there was a shower of Sparkes. Mr. H. W. S. Sparkes chose the unrest for the theme of his eloquence. Every sentence in the report of his speech is a scintillating piece of brilliance. He said, “If the wishes of the people of India, the Extremists, who are thinking of driving the British out of India were granted, they would be the first to go down on their bended knees and ask the Government to stay back and dictate any terms they liked.” That the people of India are all Extremists, is the first proposition we gather from this remarkable prophecy, that they all want to drive the British out of India is the second. It appears that their wishes are going to be granted, but whether by God or John Morley the prophet does not inform us. At some psychological stage of the process of eviction— after the wishes have been granted and the British have been driven out of India,— the Government and Mr. Sparkes are to be intercepted on the Apollo Bunder by a deputation of Bipin Pal, Tilak and Khaparde on bended knees asking them to stay back on any terms rather than deprive India of their beatific presence. This is the first spark.
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The second spark is of a somewhat fuliginous character. Mr. Sparkes hastened to disclaim this remarkable prophecy, it is his foster-child and not his own only begotten son. “These were not his own views, but of the Bengalis and men who never mixed
Page – 1007 in politics.” They are the views, it seems, of two classes of men, first, of the Bengalis, then, of men who never mixed in politics; and the opinion of the latter on a political question is no doubt exceptionally valuable. But if this is the opinion of the Bengalis, who then are the people of India who are all Extremists and want to drive the British out in order to have the luxury of asking them back on their bended knees? There seems to be a confusion of Sparkes somewhere.
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It appears that “the Indians are trying to be registered as a nation of the world, but they were fools if they thought that that time had come.” Here is another brilliant classification, but we do not quite grasp the distinction between a nation of the world and a nation not of the world. It seems to savour of German metaphysics and is too deep for us. Anyway, we observe that Mr. Sparkes differs from the Transvaal authorities, he will not allow Indians to register themselves in the book of the world. What, not even their thumb impressions, Mr. Sparkes?
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“The Partition wounded the people of Bengal to the quick but Mr. Morley had done well in refusing to reopen that question.” This was the last fitting coruscation of Sparkes, and yet neither the Ganges nor the Maidan was ablaze. After this Mr. Summons with his blood-curdling references to the train-wrecking incident and the Allen affair fell quite flat. He discovered a distinct attempt made to shield the wrong-doers. This is a charge against the police to which we invite the prompt attention of Sir Andrew Fraser. Mr. Summons ought to be called upon either to substantiate his allegation against the Lieutenant-Governor’s friends or withdraw it. Such was the feast of fancy and the flow of soul which came off last Monday. The end of this once potent Association threatens to be as pitiful as that of the Roman way— which began in massive dignity and ended in a bog.
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