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The Results of the Congress
THE
great Calcutta Congress, the centre of so many hopes and fears, is over. Of the
various antagonistic or contending forces which are now being hurled together
into that Medea's cauldron of confused and ever fiercer struggle out of which a
free and regenerated India is to arise, each one had its own acute fears and
fervent hopes for the results of this year's Congress. Anglo-India and Tory
England feared that the Extremists might capture the assembly, they hoped that a
split would be created, and, as a result, the Congress either come to an end and
land itself in the limbo of forgotten and abortive things or else, by the
expulsion of the new life and the new spirit from its midst, sink into the
condition of a dead-alive ineffectual body associated with the Government and
opposing it now and then only for form's sake. Liberal England represented by
the Cottons and Wedderburns hoped that the unsustaining and empty concessions
Mr. Morley is dangling before the eyes of the Moderate leaders might bring back
the Congress entirely into its old paths and the new spirit be killed by the
show of kindness. It feared that the National Assembly might see through the
deception and publicly demand that there should be either substantial
concessions or none at all. In India itself the Moderates feared that the
forward party in Bengal might force through the Congress strong resolutions on
Boycott and other alarming matters or else avenge their failure by wrecking the
Congress itself, but they hoped that by an imposing show of ex-Presidents on the
platform, by the reverence due to the age and services of Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji,
by the dominant personality of the lion of the Bombay Corporation, by the strong
contingents from Bombay city, Gujerat and other provinces still unswept by new
brooms, by the use of tactics and
straining in
their favour all the advantages of an indefinite and nebulous
constitution, they would quell the Extremists, prevent the bringing forward of
the Boycott and keep absolute control
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of
the Congress. The forward party hoped to leave the impress of the new thought
and life on the Congress of 1906, to get entire Self-Government recognised as
the ideal of the Congress and Swadeshi and Boycott as the means, and to obtain a
public recognition of the new ideas in the Presidential address, but they feared
that the realisation of such considerable results would be too much to hope for
in a single year and a fierce and prolonged struggle would be needed to overcome
the combined forces of conservatism, timidity, self-distrust and self-interest,
which have amalgamated into the loyalist Moderate Party. Such was the state of
mind of the conflicting parties when the Calcutta Congress was opened on the
26th.
Today on the 30th, we can look back and count our gains and losses. The
hopes of Anglo-India have been utterly falsified and the Anglo-Indian journals
cannot conceal their rage and disappointment. The loudest in fury is our dear
old perfervid Englishman which cries out in hollow tones of menace that
if the Congress tolerates Boycott, the Congress itself will not be tolerated.
The hopes and fears of Liberal England have been only partially fulfilled and
partially falsified; the Congress has definitely demanded Colonial
Self-Government and it has accepted the offered concessions of Mr. Morley only
as steps towards that irreducible demand; the new spirit, instead of being
killed by kindness, has declared in no uncertain voice its determination to
live. The fears of the Moderates have been falsified; no strongly worded
resolutions have been passed: neither has the Congress been wrecked by the rapid
development of contending parties in our midst. Their hopes too have been
falsified. Nothing was more remarkable in the present Congress than its
anti-autocratic temper and the fiery energy with which it repudiated any attempt
to be dictated to by the authority of recognised leaders. Charges of want of
reverence and of rowdyism have been freely brought against this year's Congress.
To the first charge we answer that the reverence has been transferred from
persons to the ideal of the motherland; it is no longer Pherozshah Mehta or even
Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji who can impose silence
and acquiescence on the delegates of the nation by their presence and authority,
for the delegates feel that they owe a
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deeper
reverence and a higher duty to their country. Henceforth the leaders can only
deserve reverence by acting in the spirit of the chief servants of their country
and not in the spirit of masters and dictators. This change is one of the most
genuine signs of political
progress which we have observed in our midst. The charge of rowdyism merely
means that the Congress, instead of a dead unanimity and mechanical cheers, has
this time shown lively signs of real interest and real feeling. It is ridiculous
to contend that in a national assembly the members should confine themselves
to signs of approval only and conceal their disapproval; in no public assembly
in the world, having a political nature, is any such rule observed; and the
mother of Parliaments itself is in the habit of expressing its disapproval with
far greater vehemence than was done in this year's Congress. It was due to
this growth of deep feeling and of the spirit of independence that the spells on
which the Moderate leaders had depended, failed of their power to charm. The
lion of the Bombay Corporation
found
that a mightier lion than himself had been aroused in Bengal,
―
the
people.
For ourselves, what have we to reckon as lost or gained? No strongly
worded resolutions have been passed and we are glad that none have been passed,
for we believe in strong action and not in strong words. But our hopes have been
realised, our contentions recognised if not always precisely in the form we desired or with as much
clearness and precision as we ourselves would have used, yet definitely enough
for all practical purposes. The Congress has declared Self-Government on
Colonial lines to be its demand from the British Government and this is only a
somewhat meaningless paraphrase of autonomy or complete self-government. The
Congress has recognised the legitimacy of the Boycott movement as practical in
Bengal without limitation or reservation and in such terms that any other
province which feels itself called upon to resort to this weapon in order to
vindicate its rights, need not hesitate to take it up. The Congress has
recognised the Swadeshi movement in its entirety including the adoption of a
system of self-protection by the people; within the scope of its resolution it
has found room for the idea of self-help, the principle of self-sacrifice and
the policy
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of
the gradual exclusion of foreign goods. The Congress has recognised the
necessity of National Education. The Congress has recognised the necessity of a
Constitution and adopted one as a tentative measure for a year, which, crude,
meagre and imperfect as it is, depends only on our own efforts to develop by
degrees into a working constitution worthy of a national assembly. All that the
forward party has fought for, has in substance been conceded, except only the
practice of recommending certain measures which depend on the Government for
their realisation; but this was not a reform on which we laid any stress for
this particular session. We were prepared to give the old weakness of the
Congress plenty of time to die out if we could get realities recognised. Only in
one particular have we been disappointed and that is the President's address.
But even here the closing address with which Mr. Naoroji dissolved the Congress,
has made amends for the deficiencies of his opening speech. He once more
declared Self-Government, Swaraj, as in an inspired moment he termed it, to be
our one ideal and called upon the young men to achieve it. The work of the older
men had been done in preparing a generation which were determined to have this
great ideal and nothing less; the work of making the ideal a reality, lies with
us. We accept Mr. Naoroji's call and to carry out his last injunctions will
devote our lives and, if necessary, sacrifice them.
Bande
Mataram,
December 31, 1906
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