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Difficulties at Nagpur
THE
difficulties experienced at Nagpur
in bringing about the compromise which at one time seemed on the point of being
effected, do not strike a mind outside the whirlpool of local excitement and
controversy as either obvious or insurmountable; yet it is evident that so much
importance is being attached to them as to seriously imperil the chance of a
Congress session being held at all this year. It is imperative that some
decision should be arrived at in the course of the next few days either one way
or the other. Both sides lay the blame of the failure to arrive at an agreement
on its opponents. The Nationalists say that the Moderate Party will not accept
any reasonable terms and the Moderates charge the Nationalists with backing out
of the compromise on the question of the money subscribed to the Rashtriya
Mandali. It appears that the Nationalists are willing to co-operate if Srijut
Surendranath Banerji be nominated as President in lieu of Mr. Tilak. The reasons
for this proposal and its rejection are not far to seek. Sj. Surendranath is
recognised all over India as the acknowledged leader of one of the two great
parties in Bengal, a man with a great name and a great following in the country
and, what is more important from the Nationalist standpoint, one who, whatever
vagaries his ideas or policy may lead him into, is believed to be a
thoroughgoing Boycotter and Swadeshist and in no sense a Government man. Dr.
Rash Behari Ghose, on the other hand, is a dark horse in politics. All that the
rest of
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respect of the common herd. A seat on the
Legislative Council is nowadays an obstacle and not a help to leadership, a
cause of distrust and not of trust: the man to whom the bureaucracy lends ear is
not one whom the people can trust and follow, and one who consents to sit in a
Council where he is not listened to and can command no influence, has not the
self-respect and backbone which are necessary to a popular leader — in days of
stress and struggle. To us Nationalists a seat on the Council is not merely an
obstacle but an absolute bar to popular leadership, for it means that the man
has one foot in the enemy's camp and one in the people's. It is easy to
understand therefore why the Nagpur Nationalists are opposed to the idea of Dr. Ghose's Presidentship, specially as his political views are not understood nor
has he, like Mr. Gokhale, a record of past services and self-sacrifice to set
against the disqualification of a seat on the Legislative Council. Nor is it
difficult to understand why the Moderates of Nagpur have shied at the idea of
Srijut Surendranath's Presidentship. The Moderatism of Western India is much
more Loyalist than Moderate, unlike that of Bengal, where except in the case of
a small minority Moderatism wears loyalty more or less loosely as a sort of
cloak or garment of respectability than as an essential part of its politics.
This tendency is exaggerated in places like the
But the rights of this question are so simple that there is no excuse for allowing the Congress to break up over it. If the Moderates want Dr. Rash Behari Ghose or any other Loyalist or Legislative Councillor as President, they must be satisfied with their three-fourths majority on the Reception Committee and pay the bulk of the expenses of the session. If they desire a larger co-operation on the part of the Nationalists, they should meet them halfway by accepting the nomination of Surendranath or any other President acceptable to both parties as a com-
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promise. And if they will take neither
course, they should leave it to the Nationalists to arrange for the holding of
the Congress with Mr. Tilak as President. But for them to insist on the
Rashtriya Mandal funds, raised on the clear understanding that they should only
be devoted to Congress purposes if Mr. Tilak were nominated President, being
given into their hands to hold a Congress with a Loyalist President in the chair
is a preposterously childish and unreasoning obstinacy. We cannot understand how
the Rashtriya Mandali could take this step even if they wished, since it would
be a distinct contravention of the condition on which the money was given and a
misuse of public money. Yet it is because the Rashtriya Mandali will not comply
with this unreasonable demand that the Moderates of Nagpur seem to have given
the coup de grâce to the
Bande Mataram,
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