A MAHRATTA SHOE
It was roses, roses all the way—almost all the way during the
forty-four hours in the train from Calcutta to Surat; and along the
last part of our journey every platform was crowded with eager,
smiling faces straining to catch sight of the future President of the
Congress, and the long-trusted leaders who accompanied him. Dr. Rash
Behari Ghose had been designated President by the Reception Committee
at Surat, in spite of stormy opposition in favour of Mr. Tilak at
a conference in Nagpur some two months earlier, and the subsequent
proposal of Lajpat Rai by Mr. Tilak himself. He stood smiling at
the carriage door, and answered with short speeches of thanks
and encouragement. Or he walked the platform, and sat at station
tea-tables while old men and youths hung long garlands of marigolds
and jasmine round his neck, presented him with bright bouquets of
flowers sparkling with “fairy rain,” or sprinkled his coat and hands
with Swadeshi scents from long silver bottles. Others were with
him—Mr. Surendra Nath Banerjea, the orator, Mr. Aswini Kumar Dutt,
the leader of Barisal, members of the Chaudhuri family conspicuous
in Calcutta, and many other well-known men who for years past had
tried to carry on the work of constitutional reform in the face of
Anglo-Indian ridicule, contempt, and hatred. A few younger men were
there also, men of another party, who had abandoned appeals and
petitions either to Anglo-Indian or British justice.
But the chief attention was centred on Dr. Ghose—Rash Behari,
as people called him—a large, spectacled man of sixty-two, with
strongly marked face and the general look and bearing of a European
judge. From his student days at the Presidency College in Calcutta
he had devoted himself to the law. He obtained the highest honours
the University gives, he lectured in law, he produced the standard
work on the “Law of Mortgage in India.” I suppose he was exactly
what people mean by a jurist. He prided himself also on a minute
acquaintance with the whole range of the English classics, and it is
almost impossible to read a page of his speeches without coming upon
memories of some great passage in our literature. For he belonged to
the time when education and capacity were estimated by a knowledge
of English, and he had besides a genuine delight in the form and
substance of words. But civil law was his life’s business, and in
the knowledge of it he was called unrivalled.
He had taken to public politics late, only when the pressure of
Government upon the growing national feeling appeared to him
dangerous. But the weight of his knowledge, and his influence as one
of the representative Indian members on the Viceroy’s Legislative
Council brought him quickly into notice, and in the previous December
(1906) Calcutta had chosen him Chairman of the Reception Committee
for the Congress, to which Dadabhai Naoroji had been brought from
England as President to preserve the peace. Like all lawyers, he
tended to moderation. He represented the spirit of the Congress as
it had been established for more than twenty years—the spirit that
had begun by hoping to win even Anglo-Indian consideration for its
programme of reform, and, after abandoning that hope, still did not
despair of influencing opinion in England, if only petitions and
proposals could be heard.
His danger was the danger of all students—of all whose life is
spent among writings that usually appeal to reason, and not among
men, with whom reason plays so small a part. When it comes to
action, such students are likely either to distrust themselves, to
hesitate between opposite courses, in both of which they perceive
advantages, and in hesitation finally to submit their wills to far
inferior intellects, out of a kind of awe towards men who have
really done something. Or else they may show a childish impatience
at disagreement, and suppose they have settled a controversy by
ending it, like shutting a book with a bang. I thought the judicial
hesitancy rather than impatience would be Dr. Ghose’s temptation, but
I was wrong, for he had, in fact, recently displayed a very decisive
vigour in joining with Mr. Gokhale in denouncing the Seditious
Meetings Bill on the Viceroy’s Council.[50]
So amid acclamation they travelled to the Congress—the
President-Elect and the other leaders.
On Christmas Day Surat was reached at last—a little old town on the
west coast, between Baroda and Bombay, where early traders from
England, France, Portugal, and Holland had built their “Factories,”
soon after Akbar’s death. The crowd round the station was so tightly
jammed that it was a long time before any one could leave the train.
By reasoning and entreaty the youthful bands of “Volunteers” in
khaki and forage caps at last cleared a space. A procession of
carriages was formed and began to advance step by step through the
shouting throngs of orange, crimson, and white-clad people. All the
windows and tottering balconies of the beautiful but decrepit city
that starves upon its past—even the galleries of Islam’s crumbling
minarets and the roofs of Hindu temples—were crammed with faces.
Women peeped through shutters or stood shamelessly beside their
children and brothers. Boys and girls thrust their heads through
holes in the ruinous walls. At every few yards more garlands were
offered, more bunches of flowers and sweet-smelling seeds. Thick fell
the showers of rose-water sprayed from silver bottles. On every side
rose the great cheer of “Bande Mataram!” From end to end the streets
were hung with strings of pink and yellow paper flags, and here and
there a triumphal arch uttered the universal welcome in Indian or
English words. The great Pandal, or Pavilion, for the Congress, and
the camp of tents pitched around it for the delegates from all India
stood by the river side beyond the town itself. The distance was not
much over two miles, and yet that journey took more than two hours to
accomplish, so high ran the enthusiasm of joy.
But, behind the shouting and the triumph, one heard the quiet voice
that whispers of mortality. In the grey light of Christmas morning,
as we came through some obscure junction in the train, we had heard
that Mr. Allen, the collector of Dacca, had been shot on the platform
at Goalundo in Eastern Bengal, and his life was despaired of. Mr.
Allen did in the end recover, but at the time recovery was said to be
impossible, and the news threw the same gloom and consternation over
the Indian party of reform as struck the Irish Home Rulers on the
news of the Phœnix Park murders. The month before there had been an
attempt to wreck Sir Andrew Fraser’s train as he was returning from
Orissa; but this was the first political assassination, and every
one knew that it would be answered by more repression, leading to
further outrages and more repression again. Nothing worse could have
befallen the party that still hoped for some sort of agreement in
reform and conciliation with the country’s far-off rulers, and the
mute despondency that fell upon the leaders in the train showed the
depth of their foreboding.
Even more ominous were the whispers of growing and violent division
that reached us at Surat. The Extremist or Nationalist party had
taken a new and decisive step in pitching a separate camp for
themselves in a distant quarter of the town. For the last two days
Mr. Tilak had been there, organizing and addressing them. The day
before they had held a full meeting of five hundred delegates, with
Mr. Arabindo Ghose in the chair, and Mr. Tilak had spoken at length
on the situation, especially denouncing the rumoured withdrawal of
the Moderate party from the previous year’s Calcutta resolutions upon
Self-government, Swadeshi, Boycott, and National Education. Such
a withdrawal was not to be endured. Rather than submit they would
oppose the election of the President himself, even though the chair
was waiting to receive him.
The resolutions were nowhere to be seen. Rumour said they had been
altered past recognition. The heading of a Draft Constitution for the
Congress was found. There it stood written that the ultimate goal of
the Congress was “the attainment by India of self-government similar
to that enjoyed by the other members of the British empire.” That was
Mr. Gokhale’s work! How inferior to the Calcutta resolution that “the
system of Government obtaining in the self-governing British Colonies
should be extended to India”! “Other members of the British Empire”
might mean Crown Colonies, Dependencies, anything! The Self-governing
Colonies must be the model, and nothing else! That the heading of the
draft implied nothing else,—that no one in his senses would apply the
word “Self-government” to a Crown Colony, did not matter. Undermining
ways were at work! The Calcutta resolutions were being tampered
with! the Moderates were capturing the Congress in the enemy’s
interest! It was not to be endured.
The whole air was full of suspicion. The mere choice of Surat for
the Congress after Nagpur was abandoned—how suspicious that was!
Surat, too close a neighbour to Bombay, the very stronghold of
“Bombay Moderates”—Parsis, mere Parliamentarians, unredeemed by the
fire of sacrifice, men who would make the best of both worlds, men
who took titles from an alien Government! It was in Surat that Sir
Pherozeshah Mehta had founded his fortunes. Now he dominated all
the west coast, all the Presidency of Bombay, and here he was seen
with Mr. Dinshaw Edulji Wacha, most statistical of Parsis, himself
President of the Calcutta Congress in 1901. All the other obedient
satellites were circling round him too, bent on conciliating a
Government that answered conciliation with titles or contempt. Was
a National Congress to be manipulated by mitred Parsis? It was all
very well to plead Sir Pherozeshah’s services to India in the past—in
the days when, as a disciple of Ranade himself, he had stood almost
alone against the bureaucracy, had displayed a courage equal to Mr.
Gokhale’s, an eloquence hardly second to Surendra Nath’s, a power of
sarcasm hardly rivalled by Moti Lal’s; had been chosen President of
the young Congress in 1890; had conquered for Indians the control of
the Bombay Corporation; had converted his city into a model of local
government; had swept away her slums and purged her administration.
To the suspicious Nationalist these things were nothing now. They
belonged to the past, to the scrap-heaps of dead reputations. The
crisis called for other arms, other methods. It was no longer a
battle of slums and water, no longer a thing of appeals for sympathy
and dear old Lord Ripon’s reforms. Even Sir Pherozeshah’s address at
the Bombay Congress only three years before was now suspect. He was
chairman of the Reception Committee, and one remembered the passage
which ran:—
“My steadfast loyalty is founded upon the rock of hope and
patience. Seeking the will of Providence, like Oliver Cromwell,
in dispensations rather than revelations, seeing God’s will, like
him, in the fulfilment of events, I accept British rule, as Ranade
did, as a dispensation so wonderful—a little island set at one end
of the world establishing itself in a far continent as different
as different could be—that it would be folly not to accept it as a
declaration of God’s will. But, as I have often said, when, in the
inscrutable dispensation of Providence, this country was assigned
to the care of England: the choice was offered to England as to
Israel of old: ‘Behold I have placed before you a blessing and a
curse; a blessing, if ye will obey the commandments of the Lord
your God; a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments, but go
after other gods, whom ye have not known.’ We cordially confess
that, in the main, England has chosen wisely and well.... But the
acceptance and announcement of a policy of righteousness is one
thing, its application is another.”
To the suspicious Nationalist the time for such language was three
years past. Such compliments, such protests, all belonged to the
age of innocence, before the Partition of Bengal proved the real
character of England’s domination and the futility of protest and
of compliment alike. It was known that in a Provincial Conference
lately, here in Surat itself, Sir Pherozeshah had secured the
exclusion of the great questions of Boycott and National Education
apart from Government aid. All evidences pointed one way: the Bombay
Moderates were not the men for times like these; the Bombay Moderates
must go!
So in the Nationalist camp suspicion cried aloud, and indignation
grew on rumour. In the afternoon of Christmas Day, just before
the President-elect arrived in insecure triumph, Lala Lajpat Rai
himself went to the Nationalist camp—Lajpat Rai, the quiet, fearless
man, with all the honour of dishonour still upon him; a Moderate,
a close friend of Gokhale, but a patriot above suspicion, the man
put forward as President by the Nationalists themselves, had he not
refused to stand rather than hasten the dangerous breach. Surely
he, if any one, might serve as peacemaker. He proposed a conference
between the parties, five leaders aside. The Nationalists appointed
their representatives—Mr. Tilak, Mr. Arabindo Ghose, Mr. Khaparde
of Nagpur, and two others. On the bare hope of peace, Lajpat Rai
sought Mr. Gokhale at the station as the President-elect steamed in.
What a moment to arrange a conference! How could even Mr. Gokhale
appoint five leaders to represent sixteen hundred delegates? For
the twenty-two years of its existence the Congress had settled the
form of its resolutions by a “Subjects Committee,” which met for
discussion in the evening after the Presidential address. Why depart
from constitutional usage now?
So behind Rash Behari’s triumphal carriage, amid the shouting and
the garlands and the flags, death, distrust, and suspicion whispered
of mortality. That night few slept. Backwards and forwards, from
tent to tent and house to house, the leaders passed, discussing,
consulting, deliberating, full of uncertainty and apprehension.
Morning found them still apprehensive and uncertain. In a last effort
to secure Mr. Surendra Nath Banerjea, if not peace, Mr. Tilak,
Arabindo Ghose, and Mr. Khaparde went to his house with proposals.
Mr. Moti Lal Ghose, of the _Amrita Bazar Patrika_, went with him
as peacemaker, though that remarkable man had qualifications for
the task about on a level with a porcupine’s. To Surendra Nath
they proposed two conditions under which they would refrain from
opposing the President’s election: the four Calcutta resolutions
on Self-government, Swadeshi, the Boycott, and National Education
must be repeated in the same form as last year, and some “graceful
allusion” must be made by one of the speakers on the election of the
President, “to the desire of the public to have Lajpat Rai in the
Chair.” To make such an allusion graceful at such a moment might have
puzzled even Surendra Nath’s eloquence. But he was not the man to
abandon either party in their need. He undertook both conditions for
himself, and advised the Nationalists to seek an interview with Mr.
Gokhale or Mr. Tribhovandas Malvi, a Surat gentleman, chairman of the
Reception Committee, and supreme in the Congress till the President
was elected. They did not attempt to see Mr. Gokhale. Mr. Malvi could
not see them, because he was engaged in prayer.
One by one the fateful hours of the morning passed away. By noon the
Congress delegates and the vast audience who had paid for seats began
to gather in the Pandal. The meeting was to have begun at one, but,
to allow time for burning the body of a Scinde delegate who had died,
it was put off till half-past two. The delay was unfortunate. In that
enormous pavilion of striped canvas full ten thousand people were
already assembled. The architect had constructed it for something
over ten thousand, and every place was full. The delegates from all
the provinces of India, with a few to represent the Indian grievances
in the Transvaal, numbered perhaps sixteen hundred, of whom five
hundred might be called Extremists of one kind or the other. On
the platform sat some thirty to forty Indian ladies, Parsis, for
the most part, but Hindus and even Mohammedans as well, significant
of a deeper change than politics. The other thousands were the
indistinguishable audience who had come to listen, or perhaps do more
than listen. The whole interior, constructed on different levels so
that all might see, rose and fell in waves of brilliant turbans,
orange, crimson, gold, and white, according to the provinces from
which they came, and in a black and solid square sat the bare-headed
delegates from Bengal. Under the burning sun that pierced the roof
the whole of that vast crowd remained for hours, disputing, arguing,
exhorting each other in groups and districts, a dubious exercise of
patience.
The platform people began to arrive. Among the first came Dr.
Rutherford, Member of the Mother of Parliaments, now visiting India
in hope of understanding a little of her distress. At his side was
another of “the ruling race,” come for the same purpose. As they
advanced up the centre of the throng applause and shouts of “Bande
Mataram” received them, but under all the shouting one heard low,
penetrating hisses and angry cries of “Shame!” from men who no longer
endured a sign of British rule, not even in the way of friendship.
Then a quiet, white-turbaned figure, with sad determination in his
look, entered from the side. Like one man, the ten thousand sprang to
their feet. Cheer followed cheer; it seemed as though the cheering
would never cease. Who does not love the man that has suffered for a
cause? It was Lajpat Rai.
A few minutes afterwards the Volunteers were seen lining the central
passage again, and up the midst in a solid body came Dr. Rash Behari
Ghose, President-elect; Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, the mitred Parsi;
Mr. Wacha, the sane, unwearied master of statistics; Mr. Surendra
Nath Banerjea, the orator of Bengal; Mr. Gokhale, whom some were
tired of hearing called the Just; and other leaders of the Congress,
famous and trusted for twenty years. At the sight, opposition shut
its voice. The cheering rose, and rose again. In honour done to
patriots so long conspicuous and so tenacious against contempt
and failure, it seemed as though the day might yet pass without a
rupture. The platform was reached. Mr. Tribhovandas Malvi, Chairman
of the Reception Committee, rose to welcome the Congress in the name
of his native Surat, and there was silence. He told the history of
Surat, and passed on to the history of the Congress. People do not
want to hear history when they are making it. Moghuls, Mahrattas,
French Factories that stood on their very ground where now the Pandal
stood—what did all of them matter? King Shivaji, he was dead. The
early efforts of the Congress, the failures, the successes—all were
dead. But the present moment was alive and big with futurity. For
heaven’s sake, come to the present moment! So the assembly waited,
impatient, but in silence, save that at the word “moderation” a
breath of murmur stirred.
The address ended. Dewan Bahadur Ambalal S. Desai, late Chief Justice
of progressive Baroda, learned in law, in banking, and commercial
enterprise, rose formally to propose that Dr. Ghose, already
designated President, should now take the Presidential Chair. At the
name of Ghose, the deep murmur of dissent was heard again, and one
shrill voice cried, “Never!” But the moment the Dewan sat down, Mr.
Banerjea was seen standing in his place beside the table—Surendra
Nath, the hero of a hundred platforms, grey-bearded son of thunder,
youthful still in the service of the cause, by reason and temperament
friend and champion of both parties alike. He was to second the
proposal that Dr. Ghose should take the Chair. Hardly had his immense
voice uttered ten words when, like the cracking of thunder that
begins before the lightning ceases, the tumult burst, and no word
more was heard.
Waving their arms, their scarves, their sticks, and umbrellas, a
solid mass of delegates and spectators on the right of the Chair
sprang to their feet and shouted without a moment’s pause. Over their
heads was the label, “Central Provinces”—Central Provinces where
Nagpur stands and the Congress was to have been. “Remember Nagpur!”
they cried; “Remember Midnapur!” where, during the Bengal Provincial
Conference a week or two before, Surendra Nath had attempted to keep
the peace against the Extremists, and had actually sat on the same
platform with a District Superintendent of Police! White turbans
from Madras joined them. The whole ten thousand were on their feet,
shouting for order, shouting for tumult. Mr. Malvi, still half in the
Chair, rang his brass Benares bell, and rang in vain. Surendra Nath
sprang upon the very table itself. Even a voice like his was not a
whisper in the din. Again and again he shouted, unheard as silence.
He sat down, and for a moment the storm was lulled. The voices of the
leaders were audible, consulting in agitated tones—Dr. Ghose shrill,
impatient, and perturbed with anger; Mr. Gokhale distressed, anxious,
harassed with vain negotiation and sleepless nights. Already one
caught the word “suspension.” “If they will not hear Surendra Nath,
whom will they hear?” said one. “It is an insult to the Congress,”
said another. “An insult to Bengal!” cried a third. Again Surendra
Nath sprang on the table, and again the assembly roared with clamour.
Again the Chairman rang his Benares bell, and rang in vain. In an
inaudible voice like a sob he declared the sitting suspended. The
platform rose, Surendra Nath descended, the Indian ladies, who had
beguiled the long waiting by chanting the hymn of “Bande Mataram”
with quavering voice, filed out through a door at the back, and the
leaders of the Congress movement disappeared into tents prepared for
them.
After twenty-two years of steady and regular procedure the Congress
had broken up in less than an hour. To the excited groups into which
the great assembly split it seemed incredible. As when a growing
child overturns the family routine and is astonished to find its
parents distraught and weeping, so the Extremists stood a little
amazed and dumbfounded at what they had done. Wild defence was met by
wild denunciation, but no violence followed. It was still a polite
and peaceful people, anxious to leave conciliation open. I conversed
with Mr. Kelkar of Poona, editor of the _Mahratta_, as Mr. Tilak’s
lieutenant. The outbreak, he said, was accidental and unexpected.
They had determined to oppose Dr. Ghose’s election, but not by
tumult; they would not even have opposed it had not the Moderate
offer of compromise come too late. I visited the Nationalist camp,
far across the town, and found Mr. Tilak himself, just returned from
his dubious triumph, sitting naked in his cloth. He gave me the same
assurance. The whole thing had been a mistake; it had all happened
because the undertaking to renew the Calcutta resolutions had reached
him too late—not till the Chairman had begun his speech. The
resolutions had then been handed to him by Mr. Gokhale, and he had
admitted he would himself have been satisfied if certain changes in
their wording had been removed and the original form restored. But by
that time it was too late to reassure his followers, or re-establish
his authority for peace.
It is hard to say how far this difficulty about the Calcutta
resolutions was vital, or how far a sincere desire for peace might
have explained it away. The mere delay in supplying them to Mr. Tilak
was accidental—the fault of a Surat printer. Mr. Gokhale has said
so, and his word is above suspicion.[51] But he admits that “slight
verbal alterations had been made in one or two of them to remove
ambiguity,” and it was left, as usual, for the Subjects Committee to
decide in what form they should finally be submitted to the Congress.
Unhappily, after the events of the day, there was no chance or
thought of a Subjects Committee meeting, and the disputed alterations
remained unsettled. Some were obviously unimportant, unless a
quarrel was desired on any straw. The change from “the system
of government obtaining in the self-governing Colonies” to “the
self-government enjoyed by other members of the British Empire” in a
draft constitution implied no change of meaning, but, hearing of the
criticism, Mr. Gokhale had himself inserted the word “self-governing”
before “members of the British Empire.” In the Swadeshi resolution,
the Calcutta version had promised “to stimulate the production
of indigenous articles by giving them preference over imported
commodities even at some sacrifice”; in the new draft this sentence
appeared as “to stimulate the consumption of indigenous articles by
giving them preference where possible over imported commodities.”
Here the omission of the words “even at some sacrifice” was due to
the inaccuracy of the newspaper copy, from which the resolution
was taken. In the Calcutta resolution about National Education
the clause proposing “to organize a system of education—literary,
scientific, and technical—suited to the requirements of the country
on national lines and under national control” had been altered in
the new draft to a proposal “to organize an independent system
of education—literary, scientific, and technical—suited to the
requirements of the country.” Mr. Gokhale defended the alteration
on the ground that it avoided the triple repetition of the word
“national,” was more restrained in form, and “more in accord with
what was being actually attempted in different parts of India.” In
the changes so far there was nothing to split a party determined to
preserve its unity.
The difference in the remaining resolution was vital. It went to
the very root of the difference between the parties, and for the
sake of it alone the proposed changes remain worthy of notice. In
the original Calcutta resolution the Congress was “of opinion that
the Boycott Movement inaugurated by Bengal by way of protest against
the Partition of that province was and is legitimate.” In the new
form proposed for discussion in the Subjects Committee the wording
ran, “This Congress is of opinion that the Boycott of foreign goods
resorted to in Bengal by way of protest against the Partition of that
province was and is legitimate.” All the difference between Moderates
and Extremists—just the one point which made genuine conciliation
impossible—lay implied in that small difference of wording. “Boycott
of foreign goods” was plain; it was a necessary part of Swadeshi,
whether used as a political protest or as an encouragement to Indian
industries. But “Boycott Movement” might mean the rejection of
almost anything—the rejection of foreign goods, of foreign justice,
foreign appointments, foreign education, foreign authority, taxation,
Government itself. Already it had been so interpreted, both at the
Calcutta Congress and frequently throughout the year. To yield on
this point would be to hand over the Congress to Extremists for ever,
to abandon the first principles of the Congress, which had been to
work out the salvation of India in association with the British
rulers, and endeavour, in spite of Anglo-Indian mockery and hatred,
to invoke the sense of justice which must somewhere surely lie in
the heart of so great and free a people as the English. If these
first principles were now to be abandoned, if the Congress was to
be pledged to call upon India to go her own way, regardless of the
English people and the English Government, the Congress as it had
hitherto existed might as well give up the pretence of existence,
and bequeath its effects to a new and different force. Here was no
half-way house, no common ground for compromise. The alteration in
the wording was vital.
On this difference at the root negotiation failed. The Boycott
resolution was perhaps not even mentioned, but at the back of men’s
minds the difference lay. Through the evening and night negotiations
continued. The Nationalists held another conference in their camp.
Unless the Calcutta resolutions were replaced in the original form,
they were instructed to oppose the election of Dr. Ghose, but to
allow all speakers a fair hearing and create no tumult. Envoys passed
between the camps; could not a joint committee of the parties meet
for discussion? Could not Mr. Gokhale and Mr. Tilak meet? Could not
Surendra Nath act as conciliator? Could not Dr. Rutherford, Member
of the Mother of Parliaments, be asked for the advice of historic
experience? Backwards and forwards the negotiation went, and during
that night also few slept.
The morning of December 27th again found them at variance, still
uncertain, their mood more fretted by sleeplessness and anxiety.
But a general anticipation of peace prevailed, because all foresaw
what the enemies of reform would say if the Congress collapsed. By
noon the Pandal was again full to overflowing. At one o’clock the
Presidential procession entered. Again Dr. Rash Behari Ghose bore
with him the printed copy of his Presidential address, which ought
to have been delivered the afternoon before, and had, unhappily,
appeared that morning in some of the Calcutta papers, with an attack
upon the Extremists still unaltered.[52] At his side, as before,
came the familiar Congress leaders, and amid stormy applause that
breathed defiance to interruption, they took their seats behind
the green table that stretched the whole length of the high-raised
platform, before which there was no railing, but only, as it were, an
escarpment for defence.
In the front row of the delegates, not in the place reserved for him
on the platform, Mr. Tilak was seated. As the procession entered he
sent a note to the Chairman by one of the boy Volunteers to say he
wished to speak on the election of the President after the seconder
had spoken. According to his own account, he added, “I wish to move
an adjournment with a constructive proposal,” apparently referring to
another special conference of delegates from both sides. According
to the Chairman and others who claimed to have seen the note, it
proposed “an amendment for the adjournment of the Congress.” It
was a difference much argued afterwards, but the note itself had
disappeared into chaos and could no more be recovered than the
Sibyl’s leaves that flitted round her cave.
In deliberate and expectant silence the proceedings began. Mr. Malvi
called upon Mr. Banerjea to take up his speech, seconding the
appointment of Dr. Ghose as President. Speaking with a chastened
exuberance, as of a hero rebuked by fate, Surendra Nath appealed to
the past achievements of the Congress, appealed to the necessity
of union for strength, and sat down amid silence, amid applause.
Mr. Motilal Nehru, wealthy barrister of Allahabad, circumspect and
respected, Moderate by nature in everything but generosity, said a
few sentences. Every one went delicately, moving on a crust of ashes.
In inaudible words Mr. Malvi proposed that Dr. Ghose should take
the Chair as President, and amid various shouting he declared the
motion carried. Heavy with years and knowledge, Dr. Ghose transferred
himself to the seat, and rose at once to deliver that thoughtfully
prepared address. “Brother Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,” he
began, “my first duty is to tender you my thanks for the signal
honour you have done me.”
Beyond his first duty he never went. As when lightning flashes in air
surcharged with storm, Mr. Tilak was seen standing straight in front
of the Presidential Chair itself, expostulating, protesting, all in
that calm, decisive voice of his, the voice of a man indifferent to
fate. He had given notice of an amendment, he was there to move it,
and there he would remain. “You cannot move an adjournment of the
Congress,” cried Mr. Malvi; “I declare you out of order.” “I wish to
move an amendment to the election of President, and you are not in
the Chair,” Mr. Tilak replied. “I declare you out of order!” cried
Dr. Ghose. “You have not been elected,” answered Mr. Tilak; “I appeal
to the delegates.”
Uproar drowned the rest. With folded arms Mr. Tilak faced the
audience. On either side of him young Moderates sprang to their feet,
wildly gesticulating vengeance. Shaking their fists and yelling to
the air, they clamoured to hurl him down the steep of the platform.
Behind him, Dr. Ghose mounted the table, and, ringing an unheard
bell, harangued the storm in shrill, agitated, unintelligible
denunciations. Restraining the rage of Moderates, ingeminating peace
if ever man ingeminated, Mr. Gokhale, sweet-natured even in extremes,
stood beside his old opponent, flinging out both arms to protect him
from the threatened onset. But Mr. Tilak asked for no protection. He
stood there with folded arms, defiant, calling on violence to do its
worst, calling on violence to move him, for he would move for nothing
else in hell or heaven. In front, the white-clad audience roared like
a tumultuous sea.
Suddenly something flew through the air—a shoe!—a Mahratta
shoe!—reddish leather, pointed toe, sole studded with lead. It
struck Surendra Nath Banerjea on the cheek; it cannoned off upon
Sir Pherozeshah Mehta. It flew, it fell, and, as at a given signal,
white waves of turbaned men surged up the escarpment of the
platform. Leaping, climbing, hissing the breath of fury, brandishing
long sticks, they came, striking at any head that looked to them
Moderate, and in another moment, between brown legs standing upon the
green-baize table, I caught glimpses of the Indian National Congress
dissolving in chaos.
Like Goethe at the battle of Valmy, I could have said, “To-day marks
the beginning of a new era, and you can say that you were present at
it.”
The Indian ladies vanished. The platform leaders withdrew rapidly
through a door at the back of the Pandal. Mr. Tilak was borne off
by his followers. But in the vast pavilion itself a combat raged
at large. Chairs, useless now except as missiles, flew through the
air like shells discharged at a venture; long sticks clashed and
shivered; blood flowed from broken heads. Group rushed upon group,
delegate upon delegate. Breathing slaughter, they glared for victims.
It was hard to tell friend from foe. Ten thousand men, all crowded
together among ten thousand chairs, no uniform, no distinction,
nothing to mark off Extremist from Moderate except the facial
expression of a temperament—it was a confused and difficult conflict
to maintain. Who would wish to fall to the bludgeon of a political
friend? Nor was a certain chivalry or politeness wanting. Standing
in the midst on a chair from which I could command the scene, I
watched two champions, beaked vultures from the North, belabouring
each other with murderous intent. By an adroit stroke one brought
his stick down on the other’s skull, and knocked his turban off.
Instantly a truce was granted till the many yards of long white
turban had been rapidly rolled tight again, and then with fresh fury
the contest was renewed.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE PANDAL AT SURAT.
THE LINE OF RETREAT.
[_Face p. 258._
]
So with varied incident the combat swayed and raged and crackled.
Suddenly the police appeared—no mistaking them in their short blue
uniforms and the little clubs that made no political distinctions.
Only about thirty entered, but thirty men who know what they want
are to ten thousand who are not quite sure like a dog to sheep. With
them came their Superintendent, their Inspector—Scottish, small and
wizened as a prize jockey, calmly ordering here, ordering there,
protected in the roaring turmoil only by courage and a penny cane.
Bit by bit the tumult was driven out by the doors into the open.
Within an hour the vast Pandal, strewn with broken chairs, sticks,
and rags of raiment, stood empty as a banquet-hall deserted.
Even that night negotiations were again renewed. But suspicion had
now gone too deep, and, as in an instinctive quarrel, each attempt
at conciliation revealed a new distrust. Next day (December 28th)
opened with savage rumours of bloodshed, but two hundred police now
guarded the wreck of the Pandal, and there, in anxious and regretful
security, a convention of nine hundred Moderates met. They had signed
an agreement to preserve order, to promote reform by constitutional
means, and to aim at self-government similar to the self-government
existing in other parts of the Empire. Dr. Ghose was in the Chair,
some of the prominent leaders spoke, and a committee was appointed
to watch events. The most significant point in the meeting was the
presence of Lajpat Rai upon the platform, and his declaration that he
would continue to fight under the old banner of the Congress was at
such a moment worth a thousand men.
The Convention then turned to consider the woes of Indians in the
Transvaal, whose delegates had been wandering about in the chaos,
tearfully lamenting the vanity of human wishes. In the afternoon the
Extremists also held a convention, and also appointed a committee
to watch events. In the large courtyard of a private house they met
in silent crowds. Grave and silent—I think without saying a single
word—Mr. Arabindo Ghose took the Chair, and sat unmoved, with far-off
eyes, as one who gazes at futurity. In clear, short sentences,
without eloquence or passion, Mr. Tilak spoke till the stars shone
out and some one kindled a lantern at his side. He reviewed the
situation, accused the “Bombay Moderates” of seeking favour with the
Government and rejecting the Nationalist offers of compromise. He had
no wish to destroy the Congress, for its prestige was useful; but a
new spirit had entered Indian affairs, and unless the Congress was
permeated with the new spirit it had better die—it was dead already.
By the new spirit he meant self-confidence and self-assertion,
contrasted with the old methods of petitions for rights, appeals for
justice, and other forms of mendicancy which the British Government
answered with elusive promises, and the Anglo-Indians with scorn.
So, on that note of deep and perhaps irreconcilable divergence,
the twenty-third Indian National Congress ended. Many delegates
remained in Surat for a day or two, taking part in conferences upon
child-marriage, widow-remarriage, the education of women, Indian
industries, the drink problem, the revelations of the Divine Will,
and other questions of permanent interest for Indian life. But the
Congress was over. The work of the old Congress as it had existed
for all those years was rolled up and done. Re-union of Moderate
and Extremist in some form might still be possible; for a militant
party, a nationalist party, an Opposition is never long divided,
and oppression is a fine reconciler. But breach or no breach, all
felt the Congress would never be the same again. In the twinkling
of a shoe it had been changed, and a new spirit, a different and
difficult spirit, had indeed arisen in the country.
As I returned with the leaders of the Congress movement in the train,
each station rang with shouts of “Down with Rash Behari!” “Down with
Gokhale!” “Down with Surendra Nath!” Not a cheer, not a single cry of
“Jai!” That was on a Sunday, and on the Wednesday before no cheering,
no garlands had seemed enough. It had been roses, roses all the way.
[Illustration: THE SACRED RIVER.
[_Face p. 262._
]
FOOTNOTES:
[50] Towards the conclusion of his speech came the following
characteristic sentences: “I oppose this Bill because it violates all
the traditions which have up to this time guided the Government. I
oppose this Bill because I wish to see the English Rule broadbased
on the people’s will, and not resting merely on the sword, whether
Indian or British. And, lastly, I oppose this Bill because it will
kill all political life in this country.... One word more. It is
unfortunate that the 1st of November should have been fixed for this
meeting. That day has always been associated in our minds with the
gracious Proclamation of Queen Victoria. It will now be associated
with the loss of one of our most cherished rights.”
[51] See Mr. Gokhale’s letters on the Breach in the Congress, the
_Bengalee_, January 13 and 14, 1908.
[52] The main part of the address was a sorrowful indictment of
Mr. Morley’s government during the year, an answer to the Arbroath
speech, and a criticism of the professed Simla reforms. It then
passed to the situation between the two parties in India, and
concluded with a strong repudiation of the Extremist position, and a
warning to Extremists “not to be beguiled by phantoms, nor to expect
they could end the British rule by boycotting the administration,”
whereas their only chance lay in co-operation with the Government in
every measure likely to hasten their political emancipation. At the
end of the copy which Dr. Ghose gave me, and which he intended to
read to the Congress, was a manuscript note expressing deep regret
at the murderous attempt upon Mr. Allen in Eastern Bengal, and the
following peroration, also in manuscript:—
“I call upon you to fight for your rights, resolved not to be beaten,
nor even knowing when you are beaten. To doubt of victory is to doubt
the justice of our cause. It is to doubt our courage and the strength
of our combination. It is to doubt the honesty and sincerity of a
great people who are bound by every obligation of duty to redeem
their pledges. It is to doubt the irresistible force of moral power
in the affairs of nations. We may be baffled for a time, our efforts
may be abortive, but I have faith in the justice of our cause, faith
in your patriotism, in the English nation, and in the sword of the
avenging angel. Let us then work, not in sorrow or despondency, but
in the joyful assurance that our cause will triumph and our country
take her rightful place in the Federation of the Empire.”