{"id":2825,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2825"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:02","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:02","slug":"154-bande-mataram-29-10-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/06-07-bande-mataram\/154-bande-mataram-29-10-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-154_Bande Mataram 29-10-07.html"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
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\n\tBande Mataram<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\t
\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, October 29th, 1907 }
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\n

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\n
\nThe Nagpur Imbroglio
\n<\/b>
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\n <\/p>\n

\nIt is difficult to get authentic and undisputed news of the Nagpur imbroglio, but if report is to be believed, there is a better chance
\nthan before of a satisfactory working compromise. It is in every way desirable that the present difficulties should be smoothed
\nover if that can be done without any sacrifice of essential principle, and for any such compromise it is essential for both sides
\nto recognise that while they may and should fight stubbornly for their principles both outside and inside the Congress, yet the
\nNational Assembly itself is not the monopoly of either. A great deal of clamour has been raised by the Moderates of Nagpur and
\nBombay over the outbursts of excited popular feeling in which a few Loyalists were roughly handled, and use has been freely
\nmade of them to obscure the real issue. It is well therefore that this incident, which we must all regret, should be understood in
\nits true light. The Moderate majority on the Nagpur Reception Committee happens to be a factitious majority and most of the
\nmembers take no sustained interest in the Committee work while the Nationalist minority are alert and active. At the meeting
\nwhich elected the Executive Committee the Moderates did not attend except in small numbers and a strong Nationalist majority
\nwas elected. The inconveniences of this tactical defeat were very soon felt by the Moderate party and after a fashion to which
\nthey are unfortunately too much addicted, they tried to remedy their original error by riding roughshod over procedure and the
\nunwritten law that guides the conduct of all public bodies. Mr. Chitnavis, one of the Secretaries, called on his own initiative a
\nfresh meeting to elect a new Executive in which the Moderates should predominate. Dr. Munje, also a Secretary, was perfectly
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\n\twithin his rights in opposing the bare-faced illegality of this
\nunconstitutional procedure and refusing to allow the meeting to be held. Meanwhile great popular excitement had been created
\nand there was a strong feeling of indignation among the students and people in general against the Moderate aristocrats of Nagpur and when they issued from the abortive meeting, they were angrily received by the crowd waiting outside and handled in a
\nvery rough and unseemly manner. This was certainly regrettable, but it is absurd to make the Nationalist leaders in Nagpur responsible for the outburst. All that they did was to baffle a very discreditable attempt to defy all constitutional procedure and
\npublic decorum in the interests of party trickery, and in doing so they were entirely right.
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tA persistent attempt has also been made to prejudice the Nagpur Nationalists in the eyes of the country and obscure
\nthe real question by grossly misrepresenting their action with regard to the issue about the Presidentship. By the rule formulated at last year’s Congress\u2014 a rule we have always considered foolish and unworkable\u2014 the local Reception Committee has
\nto elect the President for the year by a three-fourths majority, and, if they cannot do so, the decision rests with the All-India
\nCongress Committee. This arrangement is admirably conceived for swelling the Congress funds on the one hand and for defeating public opinion on the other. The Reception Committee is not an elected or representative body but is constituted on
\na money basis, as anyone who can pay twenty-five rupees or get another to pay it for him can have his name enrolled as
\na member. Whichever side has the longer purse can secure the election of the President of its choice. Such an election is no more
\nlikely to represent public opinion than Mr. Morley’s Council of Notables is likely to represent it. Like the Council of Notables
\nit will represent the opinion of the monied aristocracy, the men of position and purse, the men “with a stake in the country”.
\nNevertheless the rule is there and so long as it stands, it must be observed. The position in Nagpur as in the Deccan is this, that
\nthe Loyalist Moderate party is composed of the wealthy, successful and high-placed men, the retired officials, the Rai Sahebs
\n   <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\tand Rai Bahadurs, the comfortable professional men and those
\nwho pride themselves on their English education and Western enlightenment and look down with contempt on the ignorant
\nmasses. On the other hand the young men and the poorer middle class form the bulk of the Nationalist party, although it contains
\na minority of the wealthier men. The lines of divergence are therefore somewhat different from those in Bengal and the gulf
\nbetween the two parties wider both in opinion and in spirit. In Bombay or Nagpur it would be perfectly impossible for a man
\nlike Sj. Surendranath Banerji to be a leader of the Moderates; he would be looked on with suspicion, continually checked,
\nsnubbed, thrust into the shadow and eventually forced out of the camp.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThe struggle over the Presidentship in Nagpur followed lines necessitated by the character of the two parties. The Moderates
\nrelied on the length of their purse, the Nationalists appealed to the people. A few Moderates of wealth advanced money and
\nfilled the Reception Committee with men of their persuasion, who were therefore in a sense paid to vote for any President
\nproposed by their wealthy patrons. The Nationalists on the other hand created a Nationalist organisation or Rashtriya Mandali and invited all who were willing to become members of the Reception Committee
\non condition that Mr. Tilak became<\/i>
\nPresident <\/i>to send in the requisite sum, not to the Reception Committee but to the Rashtriya Mandali. Eventually it was found
\nthat though the total sum raised by the Nationalists was much larger than that contributed by the Moderate magnates, yet the
\nvotes it represented fell short of three-fourths. It was decided, therefore, after paying in the sums sent in unconditionally to the
\nCongress funds, to devote the rest to some Nationalist purpose, preferably the creation of a National School in Nagpur. This
\ndecision has been deliberately misrepresented as a perversion of Congress funds and a refusal on the part of the Nationalist party
\nto contribute their share of the Congress expenses. The money was expressly sent in on the condition and with the proviso
\nthat the contributors would become members of the Reception Committee only
\n<\/i>if there was a certainty of Mr. Tilak’s being
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\n\telected, and for this reason it was sent in to the Rashtriya Mandali and not to the Congress Committee as the latter could not accept conditional contributions. In the disposal of these monies
\ntherefore, Mr. Tilak not having been elected, the Congress has no concern whatever and the Moderate party less than none; it
\nis a matter entirely between the Nationalist organisation and its contributors. Yet it is on these and similarly flimsy pretexts that
\nthe Moderate magnates have withdrawn from the Reception Committee. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tA compromise can now be arrived at only on condition that the present constitution of the Executive Committee is not interfered with and that the Congress session will be duly held at Nagpur. To transfer the Congress to Madras or any other centre
\nfor the convenience of the Moderate party while there are men willing to hold it in Nagpur would mean a definite and final
\nsplit in the Congress camp which would turn the Congress into a Rump of Loyalists and Moderates possibly with a Nationalist
\nAssembly standing in opposition to it. The All-India Committee is not likely to force on such an undesirable consummation.
\nWhoever may or may not retire himself from the Reception Committee, the body itself remains and is the only one constitutionally capable of holding the session this year. On the other hand the rule of the three-fourths majority remains and if
\nMr. Tilak’s followers cannot secure this for their nominee, the Nationalists cannot lower themselves by attempting to secure
\nhis election by any unfair or unconstitutional means. They may also meet the Moderates halfway by raising further funds as their
\nshare of the Congress expenditure. If Mr. Tilak is not elected, it does not matter to us, in the absence of Lala Lajpat Rai,
\nwhether Dr. Rash Behari Ghose or any other figurehead graces the Presidential seat, and this need not be a cause of further
\nquarrel. On the basis of Dr. Ghose’s election and the status quo<\/i> in other respects a compromise ought not to be impossible, and
\nat the present juncture it is undoubtedly desirable. We hope that good sense and not party feeling will prevail.
\n\t\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

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\n\t726<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, October 29th, 1907 }   The Nagpur Imbroglio   It is difficult to get authentic and undisputed news of the Nagpur…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-06-07-bande-mataram","wpcat-54-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825","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=2825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}