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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. 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
Page-824
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 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
Page-825
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.
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
Page-826
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.
*
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 his sublime
confidence in the effectiveness of this trick with the clock or his evident
belief that it will stop the march of Time.
*
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
Page-827
to
'aspire' without being over-anxious to get their aspirations realised. We have
no doubt he will.
*
After Mr. Lockhart Smith had locked up his heart from farther speech,
there was a shower of sparks. 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 Bepin 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.
*
The second spark is of a somewhat fuliginous character. Mr. Sparkes
hastened to disclaim this remarkable prophecy, it is his fosterchild and not his
own and only begotten son. "These were not his own views, but of the
Bengalis and men who never mixed 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
Page-828
luxury
of asking them back on their bended knees? There seems to be a confusion of
Sparkes somewhere.
*
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?
*
"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 Alien 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.
Bande
Mataram,
April 4, 1908
Page-829
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