Creed and Constitution

THE ATTEMPT to bring about the unity of the two parties in Bengal as a preliminary to the holding of a United Congress has split on the twin rocks of creed and constitution. We will place before the country as succinctly as possible the issues which were posited during the negotiations and state clearly the Nationalist attitude, leaving it to Bengal to judge between us and the upholders of the Convention's creed and constitution. We ask our countrymen to consider whether the concessions we made were not large and substantial and the single concession offered to us worthless and nugatory, whether the reservations we made were not justifiable and necessary, except on the view that principles are of no value in politics, and, if they come to the conclusion that the proposals we made were fair and moderate, we ask them to absolve us of all responsibility for the failure of the negotiations.

The terms offered by the Moderate party were based on a compromise framed at the Amrita Bazar Office last year which has since been rejected by the Moderates in one of its most important features, namely, the insistence on the acceptance of the four Calcutta resolutions as an indispensable condition of union. The Moderate proposal was that the Nationalists should sign the creed unconditionally and accept the Conventionist constitution, but that the Bombay leaders should be asked to consent to the formation of a Committee this year at Lahore to revise the Constitution and pass it as revised at the next session. The terms of the revision would naturally be left to that Committee and if it were equally composed of Nationalists and Moderates, there would have been some value in the concession. But by a rule of the Moderate constitution all Associations not of three years' standing would be debarred from sending delegates. The formation of the Nationalists into

Page-367

a distinct party was only completed in the year 1906, that is precisely three years ago, and the rule was evidently framed in order to help in making impossible the election of Nationalist delegates. At the time the rule was framed there was not and could not be any association of our party with the requisite qualification, and such bodies as would have been qualified now, have mostly perished in the storm of repression which broke on the Nationalists after the unnatural alliance between coercive conciliation and an Indian progressive party previous to the Surat Congress, –an alliance not then declared, but sufficiently proved by the conduct and utterances of Sir Pherozshah Mehta and Mr. Gokhale then and after. It is evident, therefore, that if we accepted the Moderate constitution apart from its utter illegality, we should be consenting to our own exclusion by an electoral device worthy of Lord Morley himself, even though the front door might be nominally open to us. Only an insignificant number of Nationalists would be able to qualify as delegates and the Revision Committee would be a Moderate Committee and the revision a mere modification of unessential details. The concession therefore was nugatory, as illusory as the Reforms offered to us by bureaucratic benignity. On the other hand, the Nationalists were expected to sign a creed which they could not uphold as their own conscientious belief, to recognise an unconstitutional constitution and to leave the four resolutions to the chances of a Moderate Subjects Committee and the possible prohibition of their amendments by a Mehta or Malaviya.

The Nationalist members of the Committee rejected these impossible demands and submitted proposals of their own on each of the three main points at issue. They consented to accept the first Article of the Moderate Constitution which declared the objects of the Congress to be self-government and the acquisition of the rights of British citizenship; they refused to accept the second Article which requires every representative elected by the people to subscribe personally to these objects as a pre-condition of entering the pandal as a delegate. They refused to accept the Constitution as a Constitution, but they consented

Page-368

to accept it as a set of provisional rules allowed by mutual agreement to govern Congress proceedings until a real Constitution was passed next year, provided that the rule limiting the right of election to Associations of three years' standing which accepted the creed, should be made inoperative by the same mutual agreement. They agreed not to press the four resolutions as a precondition of union, provided they received an assurance that they should not be debarred from bringing them in the Subjects Committee and, if necessary, in the Congress itself. The Moderates rejected the proposal; they demanded unconditional acceptance and subscription to the creed as the indispensable basis of union. Yet the Nationalists had really conceded everything which the other party could reasonably expect. They accepted a limited self-government as the object of the Congress, although they refused to accept it as their own, they accepted the Moderate Constitution with the exception of one subclause which meant the exclusion of Nationalist delegates; and made no farther stipulation that it should be changed in any way previous to being passed as the real legal Constitution of the Congress; they consented to leave over the question of the four resolutions, reserving only their constitutional right to move them in Subjects Committee and in Congress. We ask, could anything have been fairer, more generous, more thoroughly pervaded by the desire to bring about unity even at the cost of substantial, indeed immense concessions?

Our attitude with regard to the creed has been consistent throughout. We accepted the Colonial self-government resolution at Calcutta in 1906 because we saw that it was the opinion of the majority. We accepted it at Pabna and Hughly because it was the opinion of an influential minority whom we did not wish to alienate. If we had been asked to subscribe to it as a creed or even as the objects of the Congress in 1906, we should have at once and emphatically refused. At Pabna the Moderates did not venture to demand any such subscription from the delegates, they did not ask it at Hughly. They knew very well that the demand would have been indignantly repudiated by Bengal. We now go farther and consent to accept it as the objects of

Page-369

the Congress, to be only altered when all India wishes to alter it, for that is the provision in the Moderate Constitution. We propose to accept it and adhere to it in the same spirit, either as the opinion of the majority or as a necessary concession to secure the adhesion of an influential minority. It is a political accommodation, nothing else. To consent to Article II, which is a clause of exclusion limiting popular election, is a very different matter. The Moderate argument was that it is not a creed we are asked to sign, but merely a declaration of acceptance of the objects of the Congress and that it need not in any way limit or modify our speech and action except for the few hours spent in the Congress pandal. Apart from the very doubtful political honesty of such a distinction, we do not believe that it is the view of the creed held in other parts of India and in practice it could not work. The District Associations and the political Associations electing delegates to the Congress are expected by the Moderate Constitution to subscribe to the Congress creed or statement of objects and, if they utter or allow their prominent members to utter sentiments or pass resolutions inconsistent with it, the Congress would have a right to feel embarrassed and stigmatise the departure as double dealing. This is the reason why we have always opposed the limitation of the aims or beliefs of the Congress by any hard and fast rule. We would oppose it even if the creed were a declaration of the Nationalist faith. Such a limitation deprives the Congress of its free and representative character, it hampers aspiration and public opinion, it puts a premium on political hypocrisy. Even if we allow the argument of the Bengal Moderates, our fundamental objection to Article II is not removed. It is an exclusory clause, it limits the right of the people to elect any representative they choose, it sets up an authority over the electorate in the same way as the exclusory clauses of the Government Reform Councils Regulations, it is a sort of Congress Test Act arbitrary and undemocratic. The true democratic principle is that the man elected by the people must be recognised as a delegate, whatever his opinions. We shall always oppose any restriction of the freedom of election by the Government; how can we consistently do so, if we recognise

Page-370

a restriction in a popular assembly of our own making? And if this principle of exclusion is once admitted, where is it to stop? What guarantees us against the future introduction of anew clause demanding the signing of a declaration renouncing Boycott and passive resistance as a precondition of entrance into the pandal?

It will be seen therefore that from whatever point of view it is taken, the refusal to accept Article II of the Convention rules was not only reasonable, but the Nationalists could not have taken any other course without committing political and moral suicide. The reasonableness of our position on the two other points is self-evident and need not be argued. The refusal of these liberal concessions even by the Bengal Moderates shows that the holding of a united Congress is impossible. The argument that the Convention cannot accept such terms, only shows that the Convention can never be the basis of a united Congress and that, while it exists, a united Congress is out of the question. Before, therefore, any farther steps can be taken in that direction, we must await the collapse of the Convention which we believe to be not far distant. The Nationalist party have stated the terms on which alone they will consent to a compromise, and they will not lower them, neither will they renew negotiations until either the Convention is dead and buried or the Moderate leaders give up their attachment to the Convention creed and constitution.

Page-371