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The Conspirators at Work
THERE is a conspiracy to thwart the desire country to have Mr. Tilak as President of the coming Congress in Calcutta. This is due to the natural nervousness of the coterie that have been ruling the Congress all these years, that recognise in the sudden awakening of active interest in asses of the country in the work of the Congress a serious menace to their old and autocratic authority; and the object of conspiracy is not merely to keep Mr. Tilak out of the Congress Presidency, but also to kill at its very birth this new, and in view, dangerous democratic movement in the Congress. This is almost the first time that the message of the Congress has been delivered to large numbers of the rural population in Bengal. In Chittagong, the meeting which accepted the two resolutions concerning the coming Congress, was attended by many thousands of people; and the learned critic who tried in the columns Bengalee to throw discredit on the estimate of our Chittagong Correspondent by referring to the total population of that town, forgot that the crowds that gathered to hear Babu Bepin chandra Pal had come in large numbers from the interior of the district. Many came by train, a much larger number came on foot from neighbouring villages, and many more came by boats. The swadeshi Samaj at whose instance these meetings were held, hard from the day that Babu Bepin Chandra Pal's presence in the on came to be known, worked up the whole district, inviting the mofussil people to come and hear him; and when Bepin Chandra Pal failed to be at Chittagong on the first date that they had fixed for his visit, the Secretary sent an urgent wire to him at Comilla, saying that "thousands" had come to the station to receive him and had gone away disappointed, and when Bepin Chandra Pal went at last to Chittagong he was expressly detained there longer than he had intended to do, on the ground that information had been sent again to the interior and people could not gather before Sunday, and not in full force Page-39 even before Monday. Maulavi Kazimali Khan, a local Mahomedan Zemindar, while commenting on Bepin Babu's address on Saturday, distinctly said that more than ten thousand Mahomedans were present there, and Maulavi Kazimali must have had some idea as to the number of his own people who had come to the meeting. The Chittagong Resolution recommending Mr.Tilak for the Presidency was adopted by at least twelve to fifteen thousand men. The same thing happened in Dacca; over ten thousand people, on a most moderate computation, must have adopted this Resolution at the meeting at Swamibag last Friday. In Mymensingh the meeting was held in the premises of the Gauripore house which were fully covered by the crowd, and large numbers stood on the public road. It is a new thing, this awakening of interest in the public movements of the country, in her rural population; and autocracy, whether official or non- official, cannot bear this encroachment, as it thinks, upon its preserve by the man in the street. It is not, therefore, Mr.Tilak alone, the idol of his people, whose elevation to the leadership of the Congress the autocrats in Bombay and Calcutta so much dread, but the invasion of their preserve by the people, that has led them to join in a conspiracy to defeat his nomination. Tilak must not be made the President of the Congress, for Bombay objects to him, Madras objects to him, and the Central Provinces and the United Provinces would not have him. But is it true? Does Bombay really object to have the one man who has made her own public life so strong, so organised, and so respected all over India, nominated as President of the Congress? Babu Bhupendranath Basu says so, the Sanjibani drawing infallible inspiration from the same source proclaims it; there must, then, be some truth in it. But we have a right to know on whose authority Babu Bhupendranath and his confreres are making these declarations? That the autocrats of Bombay would object to Tilak's nomination was known even without a message from Hastings Street or College Square. The Metropolitan Press of Bombay which is ruled by Mr. Mehta and the Parsees, has never been friendly to Tilak and that they would also oppose Tilak's nomination was a foregone conclusion. But what about the great Maharashtra? Do they too object to have Tilak nominated Page-40 for the Presidency of the Congress? And if Maharashtra cannot speak in the name of Bombay, who, pray, can do so? Are we reduced to such a pass that we must resign our national cause, which has received a new and unprecedented strength and inspiration from the present boycott and Swadeshi movement to the hands of a coterie of importers of foreign goods in the city of Bombay, who have opposed all these years every measure that contained the least fear of risk to their trade and their profits? When the whole country supported the principle of the Counter-ruling Duty on bounty-fed sugar it was Bombay City alone that opposed and condemned it. When Babu Baikunthanath Sen wanted to commit the Congress to a very mild and permissive declaration to encourage the use of indigenous products as encouragement to home industry, it was Bombay City again that saw it a menace to her profitable trade in foreign goods and violently opposed it. And, lastly, what has been Bombay's attitude towards the present Swadeshi and Boycott Movement? Has Bombay supported it, - that Bombay, we mean, by which Bhupendranath and the Sanjibani are so piously swearing today? On the contrary, has not Bombay, that is, the Mehta- Wacha clique, have they not offered a most determined hostility Bengal Movement? When Bengal was in distress this time last year, over the question of supply, and went a-begging to Bombay to help her in her trial by just keeping down the price their Mill produce to its normal level, did the Mehta-Wacha clique raise even their little finger to help her? On the contrary, when Tilak went beseeching the Mill-owners from door to door not to use Bengal's calamity as their opportunity and induced a large number of Gujarati Mill-owners to meet at a Conference and devise some reasonable way to help Bengal, who was it, we ask, who prevented that Conference being held and actually dispersed it by bullying? Was it not Mr.Wacha, the General Secretary of the Congress, the right-hand man of Mr.Mehta, the uncrowned king, as a Madras rhapsodist proclaimed him, of India? Is Bengal now to bow down to the dictate of this clique, who have no more right to speak in the name of Bombay than Bhupendranath has to speak in the name of Bengal? Is not Babu Bhupendranath aware of the part that the Mehta- Page-41 Wacha clique played in regard to the Boycott movement during the past year? And if Bombay objects to Tilak's nomination today, did not Bengal also, in the same sense, object to Lalmohan Ghose's nomination to the Presidency three years back? Have Babu Bhupendranath and his friends such conveniently short memories that they forget that little and illuminating incident about a telegram having been sent from Calcutta saying, - Bengal will not have Lalmohan? These are ugly revelations, and we have been reluctant to make them. There are black sheep in every fold. There are selfish, unscrupulous, designing men in every country, and they are found in every movement. They have their good points, for human nature is not essentially bad but good, and the bad is always accidental, the good alone is necessary and permanent. We are anxious not to emphasise, but to ignore the dark side of every man and every party, but when advantage is taken of reticence to defeat the cause of the country or the nation, such reticence becomes almost sinful and our autocrats must know this that if they conspire to defeat the present movement in secret, we shall not hesitate to expose them in public. It is, however, said that not Bombay alone, but Madras and the Central Provinces, and Allahabad and Oudh also would not have Mr. Tilak. We do not know who are the men in Madras who are speaking, - if they have spoken at all, - in the name of Madras in this matter. It must be the same story everywhere. If anybody has actually opposed Mr. Tilak's nomination from Madras, it must be the autocrats there, and it will have to be seen whether the people of Madras actually support this metropolitan clique. Babu Bhupendranath speaks of the Central Provinces also, we learn, as opposed to Tilak; will Dr. Moonje of Nagpur and Mr. Khaparde of Amraoti say if it is really so? They ought to have some slight knowledge of the state of public feeling in their own parts. The fact really is, Babu Bhupendranath knows no Calcutta or Bengal outside what is covered by himself and his friends, the rest are uninstructed, unillumined, without power and without influence, having no right to be counted in such high national affairs as belonging to the nation except as a faithful following of Babu Bhupendranath and his friends. So Page-42 Mr.Meheta and his friends constitute the only Bombay; perhaps , Mr. Mudholkar and Mr. Chitnavis constitute the only C.P.Pandit; Madanmohan Malavya constitutes the only United Provinces that Babu Bhupendranath knows. The Sanjibani, organ of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, which professes racy even in the determination of divine truths, might been expected to know better. But even the Sanjibani when it speaks of Bombay or the Central Provinces or the United Provinces means, evidently, the old autocrats of the Congress in those places. This autocracy must be knocked on the head. This is the meaning and message of the movement that has found expression in the proposals to have Tilak elected as President of the new Congress, and the latent forces of democracy must be aroused to activity in every Province to defeat or punish the conspiracy that has been secretly hatched to prevent the nomination of Mr. Tilak to the Presidential chair of the coming session Congress in Calcutta. Bande Mataram, September 14, 1906 Page-43 |