THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS.
It is impossible to acquit the Congress of having contributed to the
growth of active and violent unrest, though the result may have lain far
both from the purpose of its chief originators and from the desire of
the majority of its members. Western education has largely failed in
India because the Indian, not unnaturally, fails to bring an education
based upon conceptions entirely alien to the world in which he moves
into any sort of practical relation with his own life. So with the
Indian politician, who, even with the best intentions, fails to bring
the political education which he has borrowed from the West into any
sort of practical relation with the political conditions of India.
The Indian National Congress assumed unto itself almost from the
beginning the functions of a Parliament. There was and is no room for a
Parliament in India, because, so long as British rule remains a reality,
the Government of India, as Lord Morley has plainly stated, must be an
autocracy--benevolent and full of sympathy with Indian ideas, but still
an autocracy. Nor would the Congress have been in any way qualified to
discharge the functions of a Parliament had there been room for one. For
it represents only one class, or rather a section of one class--the
Western educated middle, and mainly professional, class, consisting
chiefly of lawyers, doctors, schoolmasters, newspaper men; an important
and influential class, no doubt, but one which itself only represents an
infinitesimal fraction--barely, perhaps, one-hundredth part--of the
whole population. To what extent it is really representative even of
that small section it is impossible to say, as the members are not
returned by any clearly defined body of constituents or by any formal
process of election. Originally it attracted the support of not a few
non-Hindus, though the Hindu element always largely preponderated, and a
small group of distinguished Parsees, headed by Mr. Dadhabai Naoroji,
together with a sprinkling of Mahomedans, helped to justify its claim to
be called National, in so far as that appellation connoted the
representation of the different creeds and races of India. But gradually
most of the Mahomedans dropped out, as it became more and more an
exponent of purely Hindu opinion, and the Parsees retained little more
than the semblance of the authority they had at one time enjoyed.
On broader grounds still the Congress could never be called National in
the Western democratic sense of the term, for whatever exceptions it may
have been willing to make in favour of individuals, there can be no
question of popular representation in India so long as the Hindu caste
system prevails, under which whole classes numbering millions and
millions are regarded and treated as beyond the pale and actually
"untouchable." From time to time a few enlightened Hindus recognize the
absurdity of posturing as the champions of democratic ideals so long as
this monstrous anomaly subsists, but, whilst professing in theory to
repudiate it, the Indian National Congress has during the whole course
of its existence taken no effective step towards removing it. Nor is the
Congress any more representative of the toiling masses that are not
"unclean." No measures have been more bitterly assailed in the Congress
than those which, like the Punjab Land Alienation Act of 1900, were
framed and have operated for the benefit of the agricultural and other
humbler classes--i.e., of the real "people of India," in whose name
the Congress speaks so loudly and with so little title.
An earlier generation of Hindus had fully recognized the urgency of
social problems, like that of the "depressed" castes, and had realized
that, until Indians had brought their own customs and beliefs to some
extent into line with the social customs and beliefs of the West, they
could not hope to raise their political life on to the Western plane.
The Indian National Congress, unfortunately, succumbed to the specious
plea put forward in an evil hour many years ago by a distinguished
Hindu, afterwards a Judge of the Bombay High Court, Mr. K.T. Telang, who
was himself unquestionably an enlightened social reformer, that the
"line of least resistance" was to press for political concessions from
England where they had "friends amongst the garrison," instead of
fighting an uphill battle for social reforms against the dead-weight of
popular ignorance and prejudice amongst their own people. That many
members of the Congress take part also in social reform conferences and
are fully alive to the importance of social reform cannot alter the fact
that, by turning its corporate back upon the cause they have at heart,
the Indian National Congress has arrested instead of promoting one of
the most promising movements to which Western education had given birth.
Do not, however, let us throw the blame wholly upon the Congress. For,
like Mr. Telang, it has been induced to put its trust in "the friends
amongst the garrison"--Englishmen often of widely different types and
characters, like Bradlaugh and Hume and Webb and Sir William Wedderburn,
and in more recent days Sir Henry Cotton and Mr. Mackarness--and upon
them must rest no small responsibility for the diversion of many of the
best talents and energies of educated India from the thorny path of
social reform into the more popular field of political agitation.
What has been the result? A self-constituted body of Indian gentlemen
who have no title to represent the people and a very slender title to
represent the upper classes of Indian society, but who, as I have
already said, doubtless represent to some extent a considerable and
influential section of Western educated opinion, might have given very
useful assistance to Anglo-Indian legislators and administrators had
they devoted themselves to the study of those social problems in the
solution of which it is peculiarly difficult and dangerous for an alien
Government to take any initiative. Instead of that, they set before
themselves a task that was impossible because they had no _status_ to
perform it. They were fighting all the time in the air, and their
proceedings therefore lacked reality. The Congress was not only an
irresponsible body, but it was never steadied by a healthy divergency of
opinions and the presentation of conflicting arguments. It was not even
a debating society, for all represented practically the same interests,
held the same views, made the same speeches, which there was no one to
question or to refute. Hence the monotony of the proceedings, the
sameness of the speeches, sometimes marked with great ability, and
generally delivered with much eloquence and fervour, at the short annual
sessions. The proceedings were usually controlled by a small caucus who
drew up long-winded resolutions, often embodying half a score of
resolutions carried in previous sessions. Some one delivered a
soul-stirring oration, and then the "omnibus" resolution, which was not
even always read out, was put to the vote and passed unanimously. Every
one knew beforehand that every speaker would attack the policy of
Government, whether he dealt with the ancient stock grievances or with
some new question raised by the legislative and administrative measures
of the current year; and every one knew also that all the others would
applaud. There was no other way of bidding for popularity and making a
mark than by achieving pre-eminence in the arts of pungent criticism and
exuberant rhetoric. Behind the scenes there were, doubtless, often
fierce fights and jealousies, and the struggles _in camera_ are reported
to have been sometimes very violent and bitter. But an unbroken front
was maintained to the outside world, and the divisions which ultimately
almost shipwrecked the Congress very rarely showed themselves on the
surface of its proceedings till nearly 20 years after its birth.
The attitude of Government who had accepted the Congress's assurances of
loyalty, and recognized its aims, as defined by it, to be "perfectly
legitimate in themselves," was laid down for the first time officially
in 1890, under Lord Lansdowne's Viceroyalty, in terms that were
certainly not hostile:--
The Government of India recognize that the Congress
movement is regarded as representing in India what in Europe
would be called the more advanced Liberal Party as distinguished
from the great body of Conservative opinion which
exists side by side with it. They desire themselves to maintain
an attitude of neutrality in their relations with both
parties, so long as these act strictly within constitutional limits.
To the principles of that declaration the Government of India has
strictly adhered ever since, even when, as in 1905, the Congress might
have been deemed to have over-stepped those constitutional limits by
endorsing the Bengalee doctrine of boycott.
Though the majority of the Congress probably glided unconsciously or
without any deliberate purpose from, its earlier attitude of
remonstrance and entreaty into violent denunciation of Government and
all its works, there had always been a small group determined to drive
or to manoeuvre their colleagues as a body into an attitude of open and
irreconcilable hostility. That group was headed by Tilak, the strongest
personality in Indian politics, who was gradually making recruits among
the more ardent spirits all over India. On one occasion, as far back as
1895, when the Congress held its annual session in his own city of
Poona, he had attempted to commit it to the aggressive doctrines which
he was already preaching in the Deccan, but he soon discovered that the
temper of the majority was against him. He was, however, far too
tenacious ever to accept defeat. He bided his time. He knew he had to
reckon with powerful personal jealousies, and he remained in the
background. His opportunity did not come till ten years later when he
pulled the strings at the two successive sessions held in 1905 at
Benares and in 1906 at Calcutta. It was then that the Congress passed
from mere negative antagonism into almost direct defiance of Government.
It must have been a proud moment for Tilak when the very man who had
often fought so courageously against his inflammatory methods and
reactionary tendencies in the Deccan, Mr. Gokhale, played into his
hands, and from the presidential chair at Benares got up to commend the
boycott as a political weapon used for a definite political purpose. A
year later, it is true, Mr. Gokhale and the "moderate" party in the
Congress, who had seen in the meantime to what lawlessness the boycott
was leading, were anxious to undo or to mitigate at the Calcutta session
what they had helped to do at Benares. But again, by dint of lobbying
and even more by threatening to break up the Congress, Tilak carried the
day, and a resolution was passed in the form upon which he insisted to
the effect that the boycott movement was legitimate. It was not till the
following year at Surat, after the preaching of lawlessness had begun to
yield its inevitable harvest of crime, that the "moderates" recoiled at
last from the quicksands into which the "extremists" were leading them.
Tilak, however, carried out his threat, and he and his friends wrecked
that session of the Congress amidst scenes of disgraceful riot and
confusion.
Yet even after this the "moderates" lacked the courage of their
convictions. The breach has never been altogether repaired, but there
have been frequent negotiations and exchanges of courtesies. In the very
next year at Madras a man as incapable of promoting or approving
criminal forms of agitation as Dr. Rash Behari Ghose was holding out the
olive branch to "the wayward wanderers" who had treated him so
despitefully at Surat; and last year at Lahore, when Pandit Mohan
Malavya was expounding from the chair the latest formula adopted by
Congress as a definition of its aims, his chief anxiety seemed to be to
prove that it offered no obstacle to the return of the Surat insurgents
to the fold. This formula, it may be mentioned, lays down that "the
objects of the Indian National Congress are the attainment by the people
of India of a system of Government similar to that enjoyed by the
self-governing members of the British Empire and a participation by them
in the rights and responsibilities of the Empire on equal terms." This
is a formula which many "moderates" no doubt construe in a spirit of
genuine loyalty, but it does not exclude the construction which more
"advanced" politicians like Mr. Pal place upon _Swaraj_.
The last session of the Congress at Lahore, in December last, is
generally admitted to have aroused very little enthusiasm, and there are
many who believe that, weakened as it has been by recent dissensions, it
will scarcely survive the creation of the new enlarged Councils. These
Councils have been so constituted that they will be able to discharge
usefully the functions which the Congress arrogated to itself without
any title or authority. Perhaps it was the consciousness that the
Congress would at any rate be henceforth overshadowed by the new
Councils that led Pandit Malavya to inveigh so bitterly in his
presidential address at Lahore against the shape ultimately given to the
reforms. What one may hope above all is that the Councils will help to
give the Indian "moderates" a little more self-reliance than they have
hitherto shown. The Indian National Congress has at all times contained
many men of high character and ability, devoted to what they conceived
to be the best interests of their country, and at first, at any rate,
quite ready to acknowledge the benefits of British rule and to testify
to their conviction that the maintenance of British rule is essential to
the welfare and safety of India. Many of them must have seen that the
constant denunciation of Government by men who claimed to represent the
intelligence of the country must tend to stimulate a spirit of
disaffection and revolt amongst their more ignorant and inexperienced
fellow-countrymen. Yet not one of them had the courage to face the risk
of temporary unpopularity by pointing out the danger of the inclined
plane down which they were sliding, until they actually saw themselves
being swept hopelessly off their feet at Surat. It was then too late to
avert the consequences of pusillanimity or to shake off their share of
responsibility for the evils which the tolerance they had too long
extended to the methods of their more violent colleagues had helped to
produce. One of the main purposes of the Indian National Congress has
avowedly been to set up a claim for the introduction of representative
government in India. Yet it has itself seldom escaped the control of a
handful of masterful leaders who have ruled it in the most irresponsible
and despotic fashion. The Congress has, in fact, displayed exactly the
same feature which has been so markedly manifested in the case of
municipalities, namely, the tendency of "representative" institutions in
India to resolve themselves into machines operated by, and for the
benefit of, an extremely limited and domineering oligarchy.