{"id":1096,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1096"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:31","slug":"35-facts-and-opinions-25-9-1909-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/02-karmayogin-volume-02\/35-facts-and-opinions-25-9-1909-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-35_Facts and Opinions 25-9-1909.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nFacts and
\nOpinions<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nVolume I – Sept. 25, 1909 – Number 14<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\tThe
\n Convention President<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                <\/font>
\nT<\/font>he nomination of Sir Pherozshah Mehta as
\nthe President of the three men’s Convention at Lahore is not an event that is of
\nany direct interest to Nationalists. Just as the three tailors of Tooley Street
\nrepresented themselves as the British public, so the three egregious
\nmediocrities of the Punjab pose as the people of their province and, in defiance
\nof the great weight of opinion among the leading men and the still stronger
\nforce of feeling among the people against the holding of a Convention Congress
\nat Lahore, are inviting the representatives of the Moderate Party to a session
\nof what is still called, even under these discouraging circumstances, the Indian
\nNational Congress. It is of small importance to us whom these three gentlemen
\nelect as their President. The nomination was indeed a foregone conclusion. Sir
\nPherozshah Mehta, having got rid of his Nationalist adversaries, now rules the
\nConvention with as absolute a sway as he ruled the Corporation before the
\nEuropean element combined against him and showed that, servile as Bombay
\nrespectability might be to the Corporation lion, it was still more servile to
\nthe ruling class. Indirectly, however, the election is of some importance to
\nBengal owing to the desire of the people of this province for an United
\nCongress. It is no longer a secret that in Bengal Moderate circles the feeling
\nagainst Sir Pherozshah is almost as strong as it is in the Nationalist Party. It
\nhas even been threatened that, if Sir Pherozshah becomes the President, Bengal
\nwill not attend the session at Lahore. This has since been qualified by the
\nproviso that Bengal as a province will not attend, although some individuals may
\novercome their feelings or their scruples. Bengal as a province would in no case
\nattend the sitting of a mutilated Congress. Even the whole Moderate Party were
\nnot likely to attend unless their objections on the score of constitutional
\nprocedure were properly considered. All that the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 205<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\nthreat can mean is that, even of those who
\nwould otherwise have gone, most will not attend. This is, after all, a feeble
\nmenace. Neither Sj. Surendranath nor Sj. Bhupendranath nor the Chaudhuri
\nbrothers are likely to forego attendance, and, for all practical purposes, these
\ngentlemen are the Moderate Party in Bengal. If the Bengal leaders do go to
\nLahore, they are certain to obey meekly the dictates of Sir Pherozshah Mehta;
\nfor there is not one of them who has sufficient strength of character to stand
\nup to the roarings of the Bombay lion. They were in the habit of obeying him
\neven when he had no official authority, and it can well be imagined how the
\nstrong, arrogant and overbearing man will demean himself as President, and how
\nutterly impossible it will be even to suggest, either in Subjects Committee or
\nin full meeting, any idea which will not be wholly palatable to the autocrat.
\nSj. Surendranath Banerji at Hughly advanced the strangely reactionary conception
\nof the President of a Congress or Conference as by right not less absolute than
\nthe Czar of all the Russias, bound by no law and no principle and entitled to
\nexact from the Conference or Congress implicit obedience to his most arbitrary
\nand unconstitutional whims and caprices. This absolutist conception is likely to
\nbe carried out to the letter at the Lahore Convention. If ever there was any
\nhope that the Lahore session of the Convention might be utilised for bringing
\nabout an United Congress, that has now disappeared. The hope was cherished by
\nsome, but it was from the first an idle expectation. A firm combination of all,
\nwhether Moderates or Nationalists, who are in favour of union, and the holding
\nof a freely elected Congress at Calcutta was all along the only chance of
\nbringing about union.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n Presidential
\n Autocracy<\/a><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe conception of the President as a
\nRussian autocrat and the assembly as the slave of his whims is one which is
\nforeign to free and democratic institutions, and would, if enforced, make all
\ntrue discussion impossible and put in the hands of the party in possession of
\nthe official machinery an irresistible weapon for stifling<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 206<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\nthe opinions of its opponents. It is a
\nconception against which the Nationalist party have struggled from the beginning
\nand will
\nstruggle to the end. The ruling of the President is final on all points of
\norder, but only so long as he governs the proceedings of the body according to
\nthe recognised rules of debate. He cannot dictate the exclusion of resolutions
\nor amendments which
\ndo not seem to him rational or expedient, but must always base his action on
\nreasons of procedure and not on reasons of state. The moment he asserts his
\nindividual caprice or predilection, he lays himself open to an appeal to the
\nwhole assembly or even, in very extreme cases, to an impeachment of his action
\nby a vote of censure from the delegates. It has been erroneously alleged that
\nthe Speaker of the House of Commons sways the House with an absolute control.
\nThe Speaker is as much bound by the rules of the House as any member; he is the
\nrepository of the rules and administers an old and recognised procedure,
\nelaborate and rigid in detail, which he cannot transgress, nor has any Speaker
\nbeen known to transgress it. Some have been suspected of administering the
\nrules, wherever they left discretion to the Speaker, with a partiality for one
\nparty, but even this has been rare, and it was always the rules of procedure
\nthat were administered, not personal whim or caprice. As the present Speaker
\npointed out recently in his evidence before a public Commission, there is a
\nrecognised means by which the conduct of the Speaker can be called in question
\nby the House. It would be strange if it were otherwise. The framers of the
\nBritish Constitution, who so jealously guarded every loophole by which autocracy
\nmight creep into any part of the system, were not likely to leave such a glaring
\ndefect of freedom uncorrected, if it had ever existed.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n Mr.
\n Lalmohan Ghose<\/a><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe death of Mr. Lalmohan Ghose removes
\nfrom the scene a distinguished figure commemorative of the past rather than
\nrepresentative of any living force in the present. His interventions in politics
\nhave for many years past been of great rarity and, since the Calcutta Congress,
\nhad entirely ceased. It cannot therefore<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 207<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\nbe said that his demise leaves a gap in
\nthe ranks of our active workers. He was the survivor of a generation talented in
\npolitics rather than great, and, among them, he was one of the few who could lay
\nclaim to the possession of real genius. That genius was literary, oratorical and
\nforensic rather than political but as these were the gifts which then commanded
\nsuccess in the political arena, he ought to have stood forward far ahead of the
\nmass of his contemporaries. It was the lack of steadiness and persistence common
\nenough in men of brilliant gifts, which kept him back in the race. His brother
\nMr. Manmohan Ghose, a much less variously and richly gifted intellect but a
\nstronger character, commanded by the possession of these very qualities a much
\nweightier influence and a more highly and widely honoured name. In eloquence we
\ndoubt whether any orator of the past or the present generation has possessed the
\nsame felicity of style and charm of manner and elocution. Mr. Gokhale has
\nsomething of the same debating gift, but it is marred by the dryness of his
\ndelivery and the colourlessness of his manner. Mr. Lalmohan Ghose possessed the
\nrequisite warmth, glow and agreeableness of speech and manner without those
\ndefects of excess and exaggeration which sometimes mar Bengali oratory. We hope
\nthat his literary remains will be published, specially the translation of the
\nMeghnadbadh<\/i>, which, from such capable hands, ought to introduce favourably a
\nBengali masterpiece to a wider than Indian audience.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 208<\/font><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facts and Opinions Volume I – Sept. 25, 1909 – Number 14 The Convention President                   The nomination of Sir Pherozshah Mehta as the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-karmayogin-volume-02","wpcat-23-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}