{"id":287,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:07","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=287"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:07","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:07","slug":"115-reasons-of-secession-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/115-reasons-of-secession-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-115_Reasons of Secession.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nReasons of Secession<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>W<\/font><\/span>E
\nHAVE<\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span> now placed all the facts of the
\nMidnapur Conference before the public and the reasons which made a Nationalist
\nsecession inevitable are sufficiently obvious. The Loyalist legend that the
\nNationalists came prepared to break up the Conference by force, but were either
\nbaffled, say some authorities, by the "mingled tact and firmness" of
\nMr. K. B. Dutt, or overawed, say others, by the presence of the President’s
\nbureaucratic friends and allies, and in their rage and disappointment seceded
\nand held a separate meeting, is too contemptible a lie to be treated seriously.
\n"Why should they secede? What was the necessity of a second
\nConference?" ask our opponents with a holy simplicity, "Did we not
\npass the same resolutions? Was not a translation of the President’s marvellous
\naddress offered to the audience? What does it matter if the President broke his
\nword? As for the interpretation of Swaraj as colonial self-government, it is an
\nunimportant matter, a prejudged matter, no Conference pretending to be a branch
\nof the Congress organisation has any right to pass a resolution for Swaraj pure
\nand simple and no responsible politician can support such a resolution. The
\nPolice Superintendent? Well, he was there only to see that the train wrecking
\noutrage was not repeated by the Nationalists in the Conference Pandal!"<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>Let us clear the matter of this jungle of irrelevancies. It was not over
\nthe resolutions passed by the Moderate Subjects Committee and Conference that
\nthe secession took place. When the Moderates saw that they had succeeded in
\ndisgusting and tiring out their opponents and had the field themselves they
\nquietly adjourned to the Bailey Hall and held their own Committee and passed
\ntheir own resolutions \u2014<\/span>
\n this is a favourite trick with this party which
\nthey perform in the full confidence that their opponents will in the end
\nacquiesce in the accomplished fact for the sake of "unity". We are
\ninformed that two resolutions were seriously modified in Committee at the
\ncommand of the Presi-<\/p>\n

<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-640<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

dent,
\nbut whether these modifications stood, or repentance came with the morning, does
\nnot matter: for the resolutions were not the cause of the secession. The
\nquestion of the language in which the President’s speech should be delivered was
\na detail on which the Mofussil delegates felt strongly and it is obvious that if
\nthese Conferences are to serve the purpose for which they are created, the
\nvernacular must be the medium employed. It is absurd to have the President’s
\nspeech in English and then to patch up matters by offering a translation, when
\nthe audience is already wearied out by listening to a long address in a foreign
\ntongue which they do not understand. If Mr. K. B. Dutt had to address all India,
\nthough no one asked him to, he could have delivered a lecture in the British
\nIndian Association or published a pamphlet or written an article in the Bengalee<\/i>;
\n<\/i>the Conference Pandal was not the place for his dissertation. But in any
\ncase the question of language was not a determining cause of the secession.
\nAgain we do not think it a light thing that a gentleman who fills the important
\nand dignified position of the President of a District Conference, should, after
\nhe has been nominated without opposition on the strength of a clear promise, go
\nback upon his word and yet cling to his post. Honour is not a light thing, a
\npublic undertaking is not a light thing, and that the President did promise, has
\nbeen testified to by honest Moderates as well as Nationalists who were present
\non the occasion. But the seceders did not take this ground for secession, for
\nthey had consented, on the strength of Srijut Surendranath’s qualified
\nassurance, to the election which, once made, could not be unmade. As to Swaraj,
\nwe do not think it an unimportant matter, nor can we see that a District or
\nProvincial Conference is debarred from passing a resolution in its favour; for
\nby this rule several District Conferences, including the Bhola Conference,
\npresided over by Srijut Ambica Charan Mazumdar, have forfeited their right to be
\nconsidered branches of the Congress organisation. But we will let that too go,
\nfor it was not to pass a resolution on unqualified Swaraj that a second
\nConference was held. The secession took place because of the arbitrary conduct
\nof the President supported by his party in evading the right of the whole body
\nof delegates to express its opinion effectively on disputed matters and because<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-641<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

of
\nthe use made by him of his alliance with the Police to support his arbitrary
\nauthority.<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>The emergence of two distinct parties in Indian politics has altered the
\nwhole nature of our political problems and our political activity and it is
\nabsolutely necessary that the constitution, methods and procedure of the
\nCongress and the subordinate bodies should be constructed accordingly. Formerly
\nit mattered nothing how the Congress was conducted, because there was no overt
\ndifference of opinion and whatever the Congress chiefs did or thought good was
\naccepted without question or murmur. If there were dissentients they were easily
\nsilenced. But now there are two distinct parties with different ideals,
\ndifferent methods of work, a different spirit and standpoint, each struggling to
\nget the ear of the country and the control of our public activities. It is clear
\nthat if these two parties are to live together in the Congress, there must be
\nsome procedure which both can recognise as just, some means of determining their
\nrelative strength and giving each a means of influencing the course of Congress
\nwork in proportion to its strength. This can be done by constituting the
\nSubjects Committee so that each party shall be represented according to the
\nstrength it can muster or by allowing each section of the delegates to choose by
\nvote its own representatives; the representatives of both sides can come to an
\nagreement in Committee on disputed points and where agreement is impossible, the
\nmajority of votes will decide the matter, subject always to an inalienable right
\nof appeal by amendment to the whole body of delegates. With such rules of
\nprocedure there would be no reason why two parties should not exist side by side
\nand the deliberations of the Congress and Conferences be conducted with decorum,
\norder and dignity. But if one side refuses to acknowledge the existence of the
\nother, if it tries, when it cannot ignore it, to put it down by bullying or by
\nthe personal authority of its own leaders, and when even that is not possible by
\nwhat it calls a combination of tact and firmness but the other side calls a
\nmixture of trickery and arbitrariness, when it keeps procedure vague and
\ndisregards the rules common to all public assemblies, then to live together
\nseems almost impossible. This is the reason why the fight over the nomination of
\nthe President is so unneces-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-642<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

sarily
\nbitter. One side feels that it cannot allow the election of a Nationalist
\nPresident because that would mean official recognition of the right of the other
\nto share in influencing and guiding the Congress work. The other side feels that
\na<\/span> Moderate
\nPresident will simply be an instrument for Moderate tactics, not an impartial
\nspeaker of the House. He will rule Nationalist proposals and amendments out of
\norder, refuse to take the sense of the House when called upon and by other
\narbitrary exercise of his authority serve his party. The rowdiness of which the
\nModerates complain is simply the clamorous persistence which is the sole means
\nleft to the other party to compel justice and a hearing. All this the
\nNationalists have again and again endured in the hope that by sheer persistence
\nthey might get their existence recognised and such rules formulated as would
\npermit of differences being automatically settled. But when the Moderate goes so
\nfar as to call in a third party to weigh down the balance in his favour, and
\nthat third party the common enemy, the bureaucrat and his police, the limit of
\nsufferance is over-passed and nothing is left but to separate before difference
\nof opinion degenerates into civil war. This was the stage which by the grace of
\nMr. K. B. Dutt was reached at Midnapur. We bring no charge against the Calcutta
\nleaders except that of supporting a man instead of considering the interests of
\nthe country; we prefer to believe that they had nothing to do with the underhand
\nmethods of their local lieutenant; but the support they rendered him made him
\nimpervious to reason and left the Nati6nalists no resource but secession. The
\nNationalist Conference, the Nationalist organisation is now an accomplished
\nfact. If the local Moderates come to their senses, a modus vivendi <\/i>may in
\nfuture be found, but in any case our Conference and Association will remain and
\nwork. Midnapur has taken the initiative in giving Nationalism an organised shape
\nand form.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande
\nMataram<\/i>, <\/i><\/font>December 14, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-643<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reasons of Secession                   WE HAVE now placed all the facts of the Midnapur Conference before the public and the reasons which made a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","wpcat-8-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","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=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}