_Indian National Congress an English Product._ It is an undisputed
historical fact, that the idea of the Indian National Congress was a
product of Lord Dufferin’s brain; that he suggested it to Mr. Hume,[55]
and that the latter undertook to work it out. We have no means of
knowing whether Mr. Hume communicated the fact to all the Indian leaders
who joined hands with him in organising it, but in all probability he
told some of them. It leaked out, however, in Lord Dufferin’s lifetime,
was published in the press, brought to his notice and never denied by
him. Nor did Mr. Hume, who died only in 1912, ever deny it. It has since
been admitted to be true by his biographer, another veteran Congress
leader, Sir William Wedderburn.[56] Sir William says on page 59 of his
life of Mr. Hume: “_Indeed in initiating the National Movement, Mr. Hume
took counsel with the viceroy, Lord Dufferin; and whereas he was himself
disposed to begin his reform propaganda on the social side, it was
apparently by Lord Dufferin’s advice that he took up the work of
political organisation as the first matter to be dealt with._” We have
no hesitation in accepting the accuracy of the statement made by Sir
William Wedderburn as to what Lord Dufferin told Mr. Hume, because we
have no doubt of Mr. Hume’s sincerity of purpose. Lord Dufferin did
evidently tell Mr. Hume that “as head of the Government, he had found
the greatest difficulty in ascertaining the real wishes of the people;
and that for purposes of administration it would be a public benefit, if
there existed some responsible organisation through which the Government
might be kept informed regarding the best Indian public opinion.” Sir
William Wedderburn assures us that “these kindly counsels (_i. e._,
those given by Lord Dufferin) were received with grateful appreciation
by all concerned,” and “indeed so cordial were the relations” between
the officials and the Congress leaders that “Lord Dufferin was
approached with a view to the first Congress being held under the
presidency of Lord Reay, then Governor of Bombay.” We are told that Lord
Dufferin welcomed the proposal as showing the desire of the Congress to
work in complete harmony with the Government, but he saw many
difficulties in accepting the proposal, and so the idea was abandoned.
“None the less the first Congress was opened with the friendly sympathy
of the highest authorities.”
So this is the genesis of the Congress, and this alone is sufficient to
condemn it in the eyes of the advanced Nationalists. There is no
parallel to this in the history of the world. Who has ever heard of a
movement for political liberty being initiated by a despotic government,
which is foreign in its agency and foreign in its methods?
_Hume, a Lover of Liberty._ It is obvious that when Lord Dufferin
expected a political organisation to represent the best Indian opinion,
it was far from his mind to suggest an organisation that would demand
parliamentary government for India, or self-government even on colonial
lines. What he evidently aimed at was a sort of an innocuous association
which should serve more as a “safety valve” than as a genuine
Nationalist organisation for national purposes. Mr. Hume may have meant
more. He was a lover of liberty and wanted political liberty for India
under the _ægis_ of the British crown. He was an English patriot and as
such he wanted the continuance of British connection with India. He saw
danger to British rule in discontent going underground, and one of his
objects in establishing the Congress was to save British rule in India
from an impending calamity of the gravest kind which he thought was
threatening it at that time. In his reply to Sir Auckland Colvin,[57] he
admitted that “a safety valve for the escape of great and growing
forces generated by” British “connection, was urgently needed, and no
more efficacious safety valve than” the “Congress movement could
possibly be devised.” This correspondence between Sir Auckland Colvin,
then Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces, and Mr. Hume, reveals
the whole genesis of the Congress movement, and is so clear and
illuminating that no student of Indian politics can afford to neglect
it.
It leaves no doubt whatsoever that the immediate motive which underlay
the idea of starting the Congress was to save the Empire from “the
danger” that loomed ahead “tremendous in the immediate future,” “the
misery of the masses acted on by the bitter resentment of individuals
among the educated class.” In the words of Mr. Hume, “no choice was left
to those who gave the primary impetus to the movement. The ferment, the
creation of Western ideas, education, invention, and appliances, was at
work with a rapidly increasing intensity, and it became of paramount
importance to find for its products an overt and constitutional channel
for discharge, instead of leaving them to fester as they had already
commenced to do, under the surface.” Mr. Hume further adds that though
“in certain provinces and from certain points of view the movement was
premature, _yet from the most important point of view, the future
maintenance of the integrity of the British Empire_, the real question
when the Congress started, was, not is it premature, but is it too late?
will the country now accept it?” Indeed, by that test, the events have
proved that the Indian National Congress has been a great success, and
that either Mr. Hume’s reading of the political situation was
exaggerated, or that his remedy has been amply justified.
_Congress to Save British Empire from Danger._ But one thing is clear,
that the Congress was started more with the object of saving the British
Empire from danger than with that of winning political liberty for
India. The interests of the British Empire were primary and those of
India only secondary, and no one can say that the Congress has not been
true to that ideal. It might be said with justice and reason that the
founders of the Indian National Congress considered the maintenance of
British rule in India of vital importance to India herself, and
therefore were anxious to do everything in their power, not only to save
that rule from any danger that threatened it, but even to strengthen it;
that with them the redress of political grievances and the political
advance of India was only a by-product and of secondary importance. If
so, the Congress has been true to its ideal, and no one can find fault
with it.
On the strength of an illuminating memorandum found among his papers,
Hume’s biographer has stated the nature of the evidence that “convinced”
Mr. Hume at the time (_i.e._, about 15 months before Lord Lytton left
India) that the British were “in immediate danger of a terrible
outbreak.” We will give it in Mr. Hume’s own words.
“I was shown seven large volumes (corresponding to a certain mode of
dividing the country, excluding Burmah, Assam, and some minor tracts)
containing a vast number of entries; English abstracts or
translations--longer or shorter--of vernacular reports or communications
of one kind or another, all arranged according to districts (not
identical with ours), sub-districts, sub-divisions, and the cities,
towns and villages included in these. The number of these entries was
enormous; there were said, at the time, to be communications from over
thirty thousand different reporters. I did not count them, they seemed
countless; but in regard to the towns and villages of one district of
the Northwest Provinces with which I possess a peculiarly intimate
acquaintance--a troublesome part of the country, no doubt--there were
nearly three hundred entries, a good number of which I could partially
verify, as to the names of the people, etc.” He mentions that he had the
volumes in his possession only for about a week; into six of them he
only dipped; but he closely examined one covering the greater portion of
the Northwest Provinces, Oudh, Behar, parts of Bundelkund and parts of
the Punjab; and so far as possible verified the entries referring to
those districts with which he had special personal acquaintance. Many of
the entries reported conversations between men of the lowest
classes,[58] “all going to show that these poor men were pervaded with a
sense of the hopelessness of the existing state of affairs; that they
were convinced that they would starve and die, and that they wanted to
do _something_, and stand by each other, _and that something meant
violence_,” (for innumerable entries referred to the secretion of old
swords, spears and matchlocks, which would be ready when required. It
was not supposed that the immediate result, in its initial stages, would
be a revolt against the Government, or a revolt at all in the proper
sense of the word. What was predicted was a sudden violent outbreak of
sporadic crimes, murders of obnoxious persons, robbery of bankers,
looting of bazaars). “In the existing state of the lowest half-starving
classes, it was considered that the first few crimes would be the signal
for hundreds of similar ones, and for a general development of
lawlessness, paralysing the authorities and the respectable classes. It
was considered also, that everywhere the small bands would begin to
coalesce into large ones, like drops of water on a leaf; that all the
bad characters in the country would join, and that very soon after the
bands obtained formidable proportions, a certain small number of the
educated classes, at the time desperately, perhaps, unreasonably, bitter
against the Government, would join the movement, assume here and there
the lead, give the outbreak cohesion, and direct it as a national
revolt.”
To this, Sir William Wedderburn adds further from his own personal
knowledge:
“The forecast of trouble throughout India was in exact accordance with
what actually occurred, under my own observation, in the Bombay
Presidency, in connection with the Agrarian rising known as the Deccan
riots. These began with sporadic gang robberies and attacks on the
money lenders, until the bands of dacoits, combining together, became
too strong for the police; and the whole military force at Poona, horse,
foot, and artillery, had to take the field against them. Roaming through
the jungle tracts of the Western Ghauts, these bands dispersed in the
presence of military forces, only to reunite immediately at some
convenient point; and from the hill stations of Mahableshwar and
Matheran we could at night see the light of their campfires in all
directions. A leader from the more instructed class was found, calling
himself Sivaji, the Second, who addressed challenges to the Government,
offered a reward of 500 rupees for the head of H. E. Sir Richard Temple
(then Governor of Bombay), and claimed to lead a national revolt upon
the lines on which the Mahratta power had originally been founded.”
So in the words of these two leaders, the immediate motive of the
Congress was to save the British Empire from this danger. There is,
however, one difficulty in believing outright that this was the
immediate reason of the birth of the Congress. Mr. Hume is said to have
seen this evidence at the time he was in the service of the Government,
viz., fifteen months before Lord Lytton left India. Between then and the
first meeting of the Congress in 1885 intervened a period of about seven
years. During this time Lord Ripon was viceroy for five years. The idea
of starting a political organisation on the lines of the Congress is
said to have originated with Lord Dufferin.
This is a little inconsistent with the theory that the Congress was
founded out of fear of a political outbreak and only in the nature of a
safety valve. Nor is the latter theory consistent with Mr. Hume’s first
political manifesto addressed to the graduates of the Calcutta
University in March, 1883. This document is so manly in its
outspokenness, so true in its principles, that we will quote the whole
of it (or at least as much of it as is given in Mr. Hume’s biography).
Addressing the graduates of the university, Mr. Hume said:
“Constituting, as you do, a large body of the most highly educated
Indians, you should, in the natural order of things, constitute also the
most important source of all mental, moral, social, and political
progress in India. _Whether in the individual or the nation, all vital
progress must spring from within, and it is to you, her most cultured
and enlightened minds, her most favoured sons, that your country must
look for the initiative._ In vain may aliens, like myself, love India
and her children, as well as the most loving of these; in vain may they,
for her and their good, give time and trouble, money and thought; in
vain may they struggle and sacrifice; they may assist with advice and
suggestions; they may place their experience, abilities and knowledge at
the disposal of the workers, but they lack the essential of nationality,
and the real work must ever be done by the people of the country
themselves.” “Scattered individuals, however capable and however well
meaning, are powerless singly. What is needed is union, organisation and
a well defined line of action; and to secure these an association is
required, armed and organised with unusual care, having for its object
to promote the mental, moral, social and political regeneration of the
people of India. Our little army must be _sui generis_ in discipline and
equipment, and the question simply is, how many of you will prove to
possess, in addition to your high scholastic attainments, the
unselfishness, moral courage, self-control, and active spirit of
benevolence which are essential in all who should enlist?”
Even truer and nobler are the sentiments in the final appeal which ended
this letter and which runs thus:
“As I said before, you are the salt of the land. _And if amongst even
you, the élite, fifty men can not be found with sufficient power of
self-sacrifice, sufficient love for and pride in their country,
sufficient genuine and unselfish heartfelt patriotism to take the
initiative, and if needs be, devote the rest of their lives to the
cause, then there is no hope for India._ Her sons must and will remain
mere humble and helpless instruments in the hands of foreign rulers, for
‘_they who would be free, themselves must strike the blow_.’ And if even
the leaders of thought are all either such poor creatures, or so
selfishly wedded to personal concerns, that they dare not or will not
strike a blow for their country’s sake, then justly and rightly are they
kept down and trampled on, for they deserve nothing better. _Every
nation secures precisely as good a government as it merits._ If you, the
picked men, the most highly educated of the nation, can not, scorning
personal ease and selfish ends, _make a resolute struggle to secure
freedom for yourselves and your country_, a more impartial
administration, a larger share in the management of your own affairs,
then we, your friends, are wrong, and our adversaries right; then are
Lord Ripon’s aspirations for your good, fruitless and visionary; then,
at present, at any rate, all hopes of progress are at an end, and India
truly neither lacks nor deserves any better government than she now
enjoys. Only, if this be so, let us hear no more factious, peevish
complaints that you are kept in leading strings, and treated like
children, for you will have proved yourselves such. _Men know how to
act._ Let there be no more complaints of Englishmen being preferred to
you in all important offices, for if you lack that public spirit, that
highest form of altruistic devotion that leads men to subordinate
private ease to the public weal, that true patriotism that has made
Englishmen what they are, then rightly are these preferred to you, and
rightly and inevitably have they become your rulers. And rulers and
taskmasters they must continue, let the yoke gall your shoulders ever so
sorely, until you realise and stand prepared to act upon the eternal
truth, _whether in the case of individuals or nations, self-sacrifice
and unselfishness are the only unfailing guides to freedom and
happiness_.”
The capitals and italics are, except in two cases, ours. In the original
there are only two italics, (1) the word _themselves_ in the sentence
“they who would be free, _themselves_ must strike the blow,” and, (2)
“_Men_ know how to act.” Now these are not the words of a diplomat, much
less those of a hypocrite. Mr. Hume was too noble not to mean what he
said, and the present writer has no doubt but that Mr. Hume was
absolutely sincere in what he said. He had a passion for liberty. His
heart bled at the sight of so much misery and poverty as prevailed in
India, and which according to him was preventable by good government. He
burned with indignation at the “cowardly” behaviour of his countrymen
towards Indians, and he could not help feeling ashamed at the way in
which pledges given and promises made were being ignored. He was an
ardent student of history and knew full well that no government, whether
national or foreign, had conceded to popular demands without pressure
from below. In the case of an alien government, the chances were even
still more meagre. He therefore wanted the Indians “to strike” for their
liberty if they wanted it. The first step was to organise. So he advised
organisation.
Nor are we prepared to believe that men like Ranade, Tilak, Naoroji, W.
C. Bonnerjea, Ajudhia Nath, and Tyabji, were only tools in the hands of
the Britishers. No, we do not think so. They were all true and good
patriots. They loved their country and they started the Congress with
the best of motives. It is possible that with some British sympathisers,
the interests of the British Empire were primary, and they sided with
the Congress because they believed that thereby they could best secure
the Empire; but the writer of this book knows from personal experience
how deeply the love of humanity and liberty is embedded in the hearts of
some Britishers, and he is compelled to believe that at least some of
those who showed their sympathy with the Congress were of that kind.
The Imperialist Junker and Jingo calls such men “Little Englanders,” but
the truth is that their hearts are too big to be imperial. They believe
in humanity, and in liberty being the birthright of every human being.
In their eyes a tyrant, one who robs others of their liberty, one who
bases his greatness on the exploitation of others, or deprives them of
their rights by might or clever diplomacy, does not cease to be so by
the fact of his being their countryman. They are patriots themselves and
will shed the last drop of their blood in the defence of their liberty,
and in the defence of their country’s liberty and independence, but
their patriotism does not extend to the point of _applauding_ their
country’s robbing others of theirs. Yes, there are Britons who are
sincere friends of the cause of liberty all over the globe. They deplore
that their country should be ruling India at all, and if it were in
their power, they would at once withdraw from India. Some of these
sympathise with the Indian Nationalists in all sincerity, and have done
so ever since the Indian National Congress was started, or even from
before that time. It is no fault of theirs, if the Indian Nationalist
Movement has not been such a success as they would have wished it to be,
and if it has not been able to achieve anything very tangible. The
fault is purely that of the Indians, and of the Indians alone, or of the
circumstances.
Mr. Hume was quite sincere in his motives, but he forgot that a
political organisation started at the instance or even with the approval
of the rulers whose power and emoluments it proposed to curtail, whose
despotism and principles it questioned, in short, whom it proposed to
displace and dethrone, was an anomaly; it was unnatural. In their desire
to have an easy and unopposed start, the Indian founders of the National
Congress forgot their history, and consequently ignored the truth that
“those who wanted to be free must themselves strike the blow,” and that
it was monstrous to expect those against whom the blow was aimed to
bless the striker and the striking. We do not agree with Mr. Gokhale
that “no Indian could have started the Indian National Congress” and
that “if the founder of the Congress had not been a great Englishman and
a distinguished ex-official, such was the official distrust of political
agitation in those days that the authorities would have at once found
some way or other to suppress the movement.”
First, political agitation did not start with the Congress. It had been
started before and no attempt to suppress it had succeeded. Second, the
distrust of political agitation in India was not greater in those days
than it is now and has been during the life of the Congress. But if it
be true that the movement could not have been started by an Indian or by
the combined efforts of many Indians, all we can say is that that itself
would be proof of its having been started before time and on wrong
foundations.
Had not Mr. Hume said that “whether in the individual or the nation, all
vital progress must spring from within,” and that it was “to her own
sons that the country must look for the initiative?” Did not Mr. Hume
say in his manifesto of 1883 that “in vain may aliens like myself love
India ... in vain may they struggle and sacrifice ... they may assist
with advice and suggestion, but they lack the _essential_ of
nationality, and the real work must ever be done by the people of the
country themselves?”
These may be only truisms, but they are fundamental and any political
effort made in defiance of them must be futile and impotent. The Indian
leaders of the Congress have never fully realised the absolute truth of
these principles and the result is the comparatively poor record of the
Congress. In his original manifesto issued in 1883, Mr. Hume wanted
fifty Indians “with sufficient power of self-sacrifice, sufficient love
for and pride in their country, sufficient genuine and unselfish
heartfelt patriotism to take the initiative and if needs be to devote
the rest of their lives to the cause.”
Of course there were many times fifty men of that kind in the country,
even then, who were devoting their lives to the service of their
country, but not in the political line. It took the Congress and the
country, by working on Congress lines, more than twenty years to produce
fifty, many times fifty, such men to devote their lives to the political
cause. But unfortunately these are neither in the Congress, nor of the
Congress. Barring Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji and the late Mr. Gokhale, who
among the living Congress leaders can be said to have devoted their
lives, in the way Mr. Hume wanted them to do, to the Congress cause?
Within the last thirty years India has produced many noble sons who have
given their all in the service of the Motherland. They come from all
provinces, all religions, all denominations, and all castes. But very
few of them have ever been active in the Congress or for the Congress.
Within the same period many Indians have given away many hundreds of
thousands of rupees, some the whole earnings of a lifetime, in aid of
education or for other public or charitable purposes; but the Congress
work has always languished for want of funds. The British Committee of
the Indian National Congress, located in London, have never had
sufficient money to do their work decently. The expenses of the British
Committee have largely fallen on Sir William Wedderburn. He and Mr. Hume
between them spent quite a fortune on the movement. No single Indian is
said to have spent even a fraction of that. The question naturally
arises,--why has it been so? The answer is obvious. The movement did not
appeal to the nation. The leaders lacked that faith which alone makes it
possible to make great sacrifices for it.
In the early years of the Congress there was a great deal of enthusiasm
for it among the English educated Indians. So long as no attempts were
made to reach the masses and carry on the propaganda among the people,
the officials expressed their sympathy with the movement. Lord Dufferin
even invited the members as “distinguished visitors” to a garden party
at Government House, Calcutta, when the Congress held its second session
in that city in 1886. In 1887 the Governor of Madras paid a similar
compliment to them at Madras,[59] but in 1888 when Mr. Hume adopted the
methods and tactics of the Corn-Law Leaguers of England, down came the
hand of the Government; and then the Congress movement at once adopted
an apologetic tone and abandoned the only method by which it could make
itself heard with effect. Why? Because, in the words of Mr. Hume, there
were no “_men_ who could act.”
_The Congress Lacked Essentials of a National Movement._ Ever since then
the Congress has cared more for the opinion of the Government and the
officials than for truth or for the interests of the country. Again the
question arises, why? And the reply is, because the leaders had neither
sufficient political consciousness nor faith. They had certain political
opinions, but not beliefs for which they were willing to suffer. They
were prepared to urge the desirability of certain reforms in the
government of the country, even at the risk of a certain amount of
official displeasure, but they were not prepared to bear persecutions,
or suffer for their cause. Either they did not know they had a cause,
or they were wanting in that earnestness which makes men suffer for a
cause. Or, to be charitable, they thought that the country was not
prepared for an intense movement and considered it better to have
something than nothing. They perhaps wanted to educate the country in
political methods and bring about a political consolidation of all the
national forces, before undertaking an intensified movement. But with
the greatest possible respect for the founders of the Indian National
Congress, or for those who a few years ago took up the control of the
movement, we cannot help remarking that by their own conduct they showed
that their movement lacked the essentials of a national movement.
A movement does not become national by the mere desire of its founders
to make it so. In the opinion of the writer it is a mistake to start a
_national political movement_ unless those who start it are prepared to
make great sacrifices for it. A halting, half-hearted political movement
depending on the sympathy and good will of the very class against whom
it is directed, consulting their wishes at every step, with its founders
or leaders trembling for their safety and keeping their purse strings
tight, only doing as much as the authorities would allow and as would
not interfere in any way with their own personal interests and comforts
and incomes, is from its very nature detrimental to real national
interests. A political movement is mischievous in its effects if its
leaders do not put a sufficient amount of earnestness into it to evoke
great enthusiasm among their followers, such as would prepare them for
great sacrifices for the cause on the one hand, and on the other,
produce a certain amount of fear of unpleasant consequences in those
against whom it is directed. For this it is necessary that the leaders
should be prepared to suffer for the cause. The sacrifice of money is
the least proof of earnestness which a believer in any cause can give.
It is a fact that the English friends of the movement showed more
earnestness than many of the Indian leaders. They spent their own money
over it and they incurred the displeasure of their countrymen and the
odium of being called traitors to their own country. Mr. Hume was “in
deadly earnest.” He started the movement with the good will of the
authorities and waited for results for two years. When, however, he
found that “the platonic expressions of sympathy by the authorities were
a mockery,” that nothing was done to lessen the “misery of the masses”
and to relieve their sufferings and redress their grievances, he decided
to put more intensity into the movement. He undertook to instruct the
Indian nation and rouse them to a sense of their right and to a sense of
the wrong that was being done to them. In his opinion, “the case was one
of extreme urgency, for the deaths by famine and pestilence were counted
not by tens of thousands or by hundreds of thousands, but by
millions.”[60] He concluded that “in order to _constrain the Government_
to move, the leaders of the Indian people must adopt measures of
exceptional vigour, following the drastic methods pursued in England by
Bright and Cobden in their great campaign on behalf of the people’s
food.” So, like Cobden, Hume decided that since the attempt of the
Congress leaders to instruct the Government had failed and since the
Government had refused to be instructed by them, the next step was “to
instruct the nations, the great English nation in its island home, _and
also the far greater nation_ of this vast Indian continent, so that
every Indian that breathes upon the sacred soil of this our motherland,
shall become our comrade and coadjutor, our supporter and if need be
_our soldier, in the great war that we, like Cobden and his noble band,
will wage for justice, for our liberties and our rights_.”[61]
_Hume’s Political Movement._ Now these were noble words, pointing out
the only political weapon that ever succeeds against autocratic
governments. We are told by Mr. Hume’s biographer that “in pursuance of
such a propaganda in India, Mr. Hume set to work with his wonted energy,
appealing for funds to all classes of the Indian community, distributing
tracts, leaflets and pamphlets, sending out lecturers and calling
meetings both in large towns and in country districts. Throughout the
country over one thousand meetings were held, at many of which over five
thousand persons were present, and arrangements were made for the
distribution of half a million pamphlets, translations into twelve
Indian languages being circulated of two remarkable pamphlets, showing
by a parable the necessary evils of absentee state landlordism, however
benevolent the intention.”[62]
That was true political work, done with a real political insight. If it
had been persevered in, the history of the Congress would have been
different and perhaps the revolutionary party would never have been born
or would have been born earlier. In either case the country would have
been farther ahead in politics than it is now. What, however, actually
happened was that the Government was at once moved to hostility. Lord
Dufferin spoke of the Congress in terms of contempt “as the
infinitesimal minority,” at a Calcutta dinner. Sir Auckland Colvin
stirred up the Mohammedans, organised an Anti-Congress Association and
denounced the Congress in no measured terms, as mischievous, disloyal,
and much before the time.
_Congress Overawed._ Mr. Hume started to explain in an apologetic tone.
It was at this time that he came out with the “safety valve” theory. The
propaganda was at once abandoned, never to be resumed in the history of
the movement. The movement in England failed for want of funds. The
movement in India collapsed for want of perseverance, vigour and
earnestness. Here again we are disposed to think that Mr. Hume’s
subsequent conduct was influenced more by the fears and half-heartedness
of the Indian leaders than by his own judgment. If the Indian leaders
had stuck to their guns and pushed on their propaganda, the country
would have supplied funds and would have rallied round them. Perhaps
there might have been a few riots and a few prosecutions. But that would
have drawn the attention of the British public to Indian conditions more
effectively than their twenty-eight years of half-hearted propaganda in
England did. The political education of the people would have been more
rapid and the movement would have gained such a strength as to make
itself irresistible. It is possible, nay, probable, that the Government
would have suppressed the movement. But that itself would have been a
victory and a decided and effective step in the political education of
the people. The revolutionary movement would have come earlier and the
Government would have seen the wisdom of conciliating the moderates much
earlier than 1909. What was given to us in 1909 might have been given
twenty years earlier. The Mohammedans would have been happy to get in
1889 what they got in 1909. The Indian leaders, however, thought that
they were not sufficiently strong and that the movement stood the chance
of being suppressed. They gave in and abandoned the only effective
weapon they had forged to get redress of political grievances.
No nation and no political party can ever be strong enough to make their
voice effective, unless and until they put forward a sufficient amount
of _earnestness_ (not bluff) to convince their opponents that in case
their demands are trifled with, the consequences might be serious to
both parties. The history of political advance in self-governed
countries like England, Germany, France, etc., amply proves this. No
political agitation need be started unless those who are engaged in it
are prepared to back it by the power of the purse and the power of
conviction.
_Congress Agitation in England._ The Congress overawed in 1888 and 1889,
failed in both respects. So far as the first is concerned, why, that has
been a theme of lamentation, appeals, and wailings from year to year.
Friends in England, whether in or outside the British Committee, have
lamented it in pathetic terms. The Congress agitation in England has
never been effective. The Congress has had precious little influence on
English public opinion, and although the British Committee of the
Congress have had an office and an organ in London for the last 25 years
or more, their influence in English politics has been almost nil. But
for the generosity of Mr. Hume and Sir William Wedderburn, the Congress
office in London might have been long ago closed. The leaders of the
Congress have talked very much of their implicit faith in the English
nation; they have held out hopes of our getting a redress of our wrongs
if we could only inform the British people of the condition of things
prevalent in India; yet the efforts they have put forward to achieve
that end have been puerile and paltry. There is a party of Indian
politicians who do not believe in agitation in England, but the leaders
of the Congress and those who have controlled the organisation in the
last 30 years do not profess to belong to that party. We shall now try
to explain why this has been so.
_Causes of Failure of the Congress._ (1). The movement was neither
inspired by the people nor devised or planned by them. It was a movement
not _from within_. No section of the Indian people identified themselves
with it so completely as to feel that their existence as honourable men
depended on its successful management. The movement was started by an
Englishman, at the suggestion of an English pro-consul. The Indians, who
professed to lead it, were either actually in government service or in
professions allied to government service and created by the Government.
A good many of the latter aspired to offices under the Government or to
a recognition of their merit and public spirit by the Government. They
were patriotic enough to give a part of their time and energy to the
movement, so long as it did not clash with their own interests, so long
as they were not required to mar their careers for it, or so long as it
did not demand heavy sacrifices from them. We do not question either
their motives or their patriotism, but it was not sufficiently intense
to induce them to stake their _all_ on it.
(2). The movement lacked the essentials of a popular movement. The
leaders were not in touch with the people. Perhaps they did not even
want to come in touch with them. Their propaganda was confined to a few
English-educated persons, was carried on in English and was meant for
the ears of the authorities rather than for the people. The leaders
always felt shy of the masses, made no efforts to reach them, and
systematically discouraged the younger men from doing the same. Some of
them have openly opposed efforts in this direction.
(3). The leaders failed to inspire enthusiasm among the people, either
by their own failure to make sacrifices, or by the triviality of their
sacrifices. Their ordinary life, their income, their prosperity, and
their luxuries were in no way affected by the movement. There were only
two exceptions to this, viz., Dadabhai Naoroji and Gokhale. The
sacrifices of Messrs. Hume and Wedderburn shamed the people, but failed
to appeal to their imagination. In fact, they roused the anger of the
people against the leaders and created distrust. The spectacle of
leaders accepting high offices they were offered under the Government
added to this distrust.
(4). The movement was neither confined to a select few, nor open to all.
While the people were expected to add to the spectacular side of the
show by their presence in large numbers, by crowded meetings, by cheers
and applause, they were never given a hand in the movement. Differences
of opinion were always discouraged and free discussion was never
allowed. It was neither a public forum, nor a private meeting of the
select few. In the latter case it would have been less expensive and
would have saved money for work in England. In the former case it would
have been more effective.
(5). A national movement, demanding only a few concessions and not
speaking of the liberties of the nation and of its ideals, is never an
effective movement. It is at best an opportunist movement. It is
mischievous in so far as it diverts attention from substantial _nation
building_ and _character making_. It brings fame without sacrifice. It
opens opportunities for treacheries and hypocrisies. It enables some
people to trade in the name of patriotism. No political movement can be
entirely free from these disadvantages, but the greatest mischief which
a political movement lightly handled and led does, is that it delays the
development of the people on normal lines by raising hopes which are
baseless and can never be realised by means recommended and methods
adopted.