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The Hughly Resolutions
WE PUBLISH in this issue the draft resolutions of the Hughly Reception Committee which have reached our hands in a printed form. Formerly our information had been that the Committee had based its resolutions on the Pabna Conference resolutions and preserved them in the spirit if not in the letter. We regret to find that this information was erroneous. While appreciating the labours of the Committee we cannot pretend to be satisfied at the result. The letter of the Pabna resolutions has been preserved in a few cases and their manly and dignified character contrasts strangely with the company in which they are found, but for the most part the mass of the resolutions represent an attempt to go back to the tone of appeal, prayer and protest which Bengal had decided to give up until the concession of real control should impart to these forms the sense of power which can alone save them from the stamp of a futile mendicancy. The phrasing also of these draft resolutions seems to us to be defective. The pronouncements of opinion of a public assembly of this standing ought to be free from an undignified effusiveness, prolixity or argumentativeness. Whatever argument is needed beyond what is barely necessary for an adequate expression of the assembly’s opinion on the subject in hand, should be reserved for the speeches. That too is the proper place for enthusiasm, eloquence and rhetoric. To import those elements into the resolutions themselves is to import into the assembly’s pronouncements an appearance of immaturity and inexperienced youthfulness not conducive to its dignity in the eyes of those who are accustomed to the serious handling of weighty affairs. Two of the resolutions, quite apart from other objections, travel beyond the scope of the assembly by their local character. The proper place for such resolutions is the District Conference and the
Page-209 mere fact of the larger assembly being held in a particular district does not change the character of the Conference whose business is to express the opinion and guide the public activities of the people of Bengal in matters affecting the country and the province as a whole. These resolutions deal with particular local interests of the people of Hughly and the riparian towns and districts on the banks of the Ganges. If the Conference is to handle local matters, there is no reason why they should ignore similar wants and necessities in the districts of East Bengal. Finally, there are two questions of national importance in which the Nationalist party holds views connected with a distinct policy and on which it is necessary to know the opinion of the country, and in these two matters the resolutions of the Committee do not satisfy us. The resolution on the Reforms contains a parenthesis which is unwarranted by the facts and will have the effect of committing the people of Bengal to the acceptance of the Reforms with all their vital imperfections and disastrous tendencies. The resolution on the Congress, while unexceptionable in sentiment, has the vital defect of not dealing with the crucial questions at issue or showing a way to the realisation of the desirable consummation advocated. At Pabna there was a distinct means pointed out and, since that has been rendered null and void, the people of Bengal must take other means as definite and more decisive to see that their wishes are no longer ignored. To call on the leaders is to express merely a pious wish and the time has gone by when in this matter the action can be left to the discretion of the leaders. They may ignore the resolution in their action or say that they could find no means of carrying out the wishes of the Conference. In view of these defects the Nationalist party in Calcutta have drawn up a number of draft resolutions and amendments of the Reception Committee’s draft which they propose to bring forward before the Subjects Committee. We hold it imperative that in these matters there should be no unnecessary secrecy or hole and corner action. We have nothing to conceal either from the Government, the people or those whose opinions may differ
Page-210 from ours. Our propaganda is open, frank and democratic. The actual details of action, when action is in our hands, are best discussed in Cabinets and private Committees, but in a people striving to be free and democratic deliberation must be public and policy openly and fully expressed. Unfortunately, the late period at which we were able to procure a copy of the draft resolutions and the necessity of immediate action have made it impossible to circulate the draft in time to receive the opinions of Mofussil Nationalists or even to consult all who are in Calcutta. We have however sent copies to the Mofussil and hope that the delegates will be ready with any suggestions they may have to make when they meet at Hughly. The want of a Nationalist daily at this time is being severely felt; we have to do what we can with the means at our disposal. The alterations made in the Committee’s draft have been dictated by the considerations above stated. We have thought it right to adhere to the decision arrived at by us at Pabna to clear our politics of all that is low and humiliating in tone and substance and to make self-reliance, self-respect and a manly expression of opinion the cast of our public resolutions. There are certain matters in which the ultimate decision rests with the Government and yet in which the people are bound to express their opinion, but so long as they have no recognised instrument through which they can bring their weight to bear in these matters, all they can do is to place their opinion on record and leave to the Government the responsibility of ignoring the opinion of a whole province. The expression of opinion is addressed to the people of this province and of the whole country; it is their sympathy and moral support we seek and we do not wish to appeal to an authority which is not bound to listen to or consider our appeals and protests and with whom even the reception of public resolutions by great bodies representing whole populations is a matter of rare condescension and favour. When we have a direct and effective share in administration, then will be the time to submit representation and protest to a Government which will be partly ours. In our draft resolutions everything expressing this attitude of appeal and unavailing objurgation
Page-211 has been rigorously excluded and in only one instance we have followed the precedent of the Pabna Conference in making a demand, not because we expect it to be fruitful but to mark a strong sense of the serious breach of a definite promise with which the authorities have long been charged and the nonfulfilment of an elementary obligation binding on all Governments popular or democratic which ranks along with the preservation of order and the defence of the country from foreign invasion. We were somewhat opposed to the making even of this demand at the time of the Pabna Conference, but now that the authorities profess a willingness to reform the administration and claim co-operation on our part, it is advisable to emphasise the serious failings which make co-operation under present conditions impossible and to indicate the conditions which can alone make co-operation of a real kind possible to the people. The draft resolutions on Councils Reform, local self-government and the improvement of judicial administration have the latter purpose in view. Purely local resolutions we propose to omit. We have restored in our draft the Pabna resolution on the Boycott; we do not see any sufficient reason for departing from the Pabna wording whether to lower the tone or to enter into an unnecessary justification of the legitimate character of the Boycott which a body like the Conference long committed to the movement ought to take for granted. We have omitted the first clause of the Education Resolution for the same reasons which motived its exclusion at Pabna and especially because we look with suspicion on mass education entirely under official control. If primary education is placed under free District Boards, there will be no farther objection; otherwise we must confine ourselves to the effective extension of National Education to the primary stage. We totally reject the resolution on the Terrorist outrages which no Bengal Conference ought to pass after the speech of the Lieutenant Governor which still stands on record and has not been withdrawn. Sir Edward Baker distinctly declared that the Government has no farther use for mere denunciations of the outrages however fervently worded and he has thrown on the whole country the responsibility for the cessation of the
Page-212 assassinations or their continuance. The suitable course for the Conference is to dissociate itself in a dignified manner from all forms of violence and quietly remind the authorities that the atmosphere in which the worst forms of political crime can alone exist is of their creation and the means of eradicating them in their hands. The people are helpless spectators of this miserable strife and the Conference has no right to pass any resolution which would even by implication admit their responsibility. There remain the questions of Reform and the Congress. On the former we have already stated the attitude of the Nationalist party which is not irreconcilable on the point but refuses to countenance any reform which does not begin the concession of self-government. Especially is it impossible for us to accept a measure which introduces permanent elements of discord and maims the growing national sentiment by perpetuating divisions, to say nothing of the false and vicious principles, destructive of democratic development on which it is based. The reform ensures us nothing but an increase in the number of nominated and elected members and a non-official, not an elective, majority. It also holds out to us a promise of ampler discussion, interpellation and division. But the rules for formation of electorates, election and the conduct of business as well as the admissibility of particular elections and an unqualified power of veto are all in the hands of the authorities. There might be an increase of moral weight behind a popular opinion or protest, but equally there might be an increase of moral weight behind the Government if they can succeed in passing anti-national measures by a majority of members, official, nominated and elected from convenient electorates, as approved by a majority in a reformed Council. In any case we would not think so doubtful and trivial a concession worth accepting, –for gratitude for concessions implies acceptance of the concessions, –and when it is practically an inducement for consenting to the permanent mutilation of the body politic and offered without amnesty, cessation of repressive measures or release of the deportees it is binding on the Nationalist delegates to stand or fall by the rejection of the measure.
Page-213 In the matter of a united Congress we have pointed out that it is imperatively necessary to provide a means by which the desired union can be brought about. The difficulties in the way of union are two, the creed and the Constitution. The Constitution of the body now calling itself the Congress has been framed and imposed on it without consulting even that body and it is well known that many members of the Moderate party refuse to join a body constituted by a means which, even if it were not ultra vires, would be as arbitrary as the most arbitrary action of which even Lord Curzon’s Government was ever guilty. The Nationalists on their part insist that they cannot be called on to accept a Constitution of many clauses of which they disapprove and which was imposed on a body from which they were specially excluded. The call on them to join a body which insists on their forswearing their fundamental principles before they enter, is still more absurd. Therefore a freely elected Congress constituted on the old lines is the only solution and the Conference must decide that point if it is serious in its desire. Our draft resolution provides a means by which negotiations can be carried on by Bengal with the other provincial leaders and the organisers of what is called the Lahore Congress and, in case of unanimity proving impossible, for the assembling of a real united Congress on the initiative of Bengal in co-operation with all who desire union. We admit that the success of the plan depends on its acceptance by the Bengal Moderates, but we believe it was substantially this idea which the deported Moderate leader Sj. Krishna Kumar Mitra was trying to get carried out when he was arrested. We see no reason why Bengal Moderates should object to it. At any rate this is the Nationalist proposal. In addition to these amendments and substitutions we have appended two additional resolutions to which there ought to be no objection. One of them is in the Pabna list and we do not know why it should be omitted.
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