{"id":350,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=350"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:29","slug":"105-mr-tilak-and-the-presidentship-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\/105-mr-tilak-and-the-presidentship-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-105_Mr Tilak and the Presidentship.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nMr. Tilak and the Presidentship<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n                        
\nWHILE<\/b> <\/font>writing of the<\/p>\n

Nagpur imbroglio we have touched very lightly
\non the question of Mr. Tilak’s Presidentship, the dispute over which was the
\nbeginning and real cause of the discord at<\/p>\n

Nagpur. We regard this issue as one of immense
\nimportance and shall today try to make clear our position in the matter and the
\nreasons why we attach such a supreme importance to it. The Bombay Moderates with
\ntheir usual skill in the use of their one strong weapon, misrepresentation, have
\nbeen writing and speaking as if the question of Mr. Tilak’s election to the
\nPresident’s chair were a personal issue; they blame Mr. Tilak for not
\nwithdrawing from the field, talk of us as Tilakites and assume throughout that
\nwe are fighting for a man and not for a principle. If it were a personal matter,
\nMr. Tilak who has always been an unselfish and unassuming patriot, always averse
\nto pushing himself or to figuring personally more than was necessary for his
\nwork, always a strong fighter for the success of his ideas and methods but never
\nfor his own hand, would be the first to obviate all discord by withdrawing. But
\nit is not a personal matter and Mr. Tilak has not himself come forward as a
\ncandidate for the Presidentship. His name was put forward last year by the
\nBengal Nationalists without consulting him and was again put forward this year
\nas the embodiment of a principle. This being so, Mr. Tilak has no voice in the
\nmatter except as an individual member of the Nationalist Party, and is not
\nentitled to withdraw his name except with the consent of his party. In fact, his
\npersonal right of accepting or refusing the Presidentship can only arise when
\nand if it is offered him by the local Reception Committee or the All-India
\nCommittee. That the Moderates should not be able to understand this is
\nnatural; their conception of a leader and the Nationalist conception of a leader
\nare as the poles asunder. Mr. Tilak by his past career, his unequalled abilities
\nand capacity for leadership, his splendid courage and self-sacrifice, his
\nservices to the cause and the dis-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-586<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ninterestedness and devotion with which he
\nused his influence, is naturally the most prominent of the Nationalist leaders,
\nand our party looks up to his experience, skill, cool acuteness and moral
\nstrength for guidance on great occasions like the Congress session when it has
\nto act as a single body. But our idea of a leader is not and will never be one
\nwhom we have to follow as an individual for his own sake, whether he is right or
\nwrong; we follow him only so long as he is faithful to the principles of
\nNationalism and is ready to fight its battles in accordance with the collective
\nwill of the party.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            The question was first raised
\nlast year in Bengal when at a meeting of the Nationalists in Calcutta it was
\ndecided to suggest to the country the name of Mr. Tilak as President of the
\nCalcutta Congress and in accordance with this decision Srijut Bepin Chandra Pal,
\nwho was then touring in the Mofussil, was communicated with and asked to bring
\nthe question forward and take the sense of the public upon it in Eastern Bengal.
\nWe have never concealed the fact that this was deliberately done in order to
\nthrow down the gauntlet publicly to Loyalism, Anti-Swadeshism, Moderatism and
\nevery other ism<\/i> which seeks to bring in foreign considerations and alloy
\nor weaken the pure and uncompromising Nationalist creed. The nomination of Mr.
\nTilak was a crucial point as between the two parties, for three separate
\nreasons. At that time the country was divided between the Swadeshists on
\nprinciple and the Anti-Swadeshists \u2014 or, let us say, "honest" Swadeshists of the
\nMehta-Wacha type and still more sharply between Boycotters and those who
\ntrembled at the very name of Boycott. From this point of view, the attempt to
\nsecure Mr. Tilak’s nomination was an attempt on our part to have the Swadeshi-
\nBoycott propaganda recognised on the Congress platform. Secondly, there was and
\nstill is a small ring of Congress officials who treat the Congress as their own
\nprivate property, decide in secret conclave what it shall do or not do, and hand
\nround the Presidentship among themselves and the occasional newcomers admitted
\nto their ranks from the Legislative Councils, except when a live M.P. can be
\nsecured from England or a Mahomedan had to be nominated to demonstrate Hindu-Musulman
\nunity. The second object of the attempt to<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-587<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nget Mr. Tilak nominated .was to break
\nthrough this oligarchic ring and establish the true nature of the Congress as no
\nmere machinery to be engineered by a few wealthy or successful proprietors, but
\na popular assembly in which the will of the people must prevail. Thirdly, the
\nopposition to Mr. Tilak and the attempt to force him always into the background
\narose largely from the feeling that Mr. Tilak’s views and personality are
\nobjectionable to the bureaucracy and that the nomination of a public man once
\nconvicted of sedition would deprive the Congress and, what was more important to
\nLoyalists, leading men of the Congress, of all chance of Government favour. But
\nthese very reasons which made the name of Mr. Tilak an offence and a
\nstumbling-block to the Loyalists, imposed upon the Nationalist Party the duty of
\nbringing forward Mr. Tilak’s name year after year until he is elected.
\nLeadership in the Congress must no longer be regarded as a convenient and
\nprofitable road to appointments on the Bench and in the Government Councils but
\nas a post of danger and a position of service to the people and it must depend
\non service done and suffering endured for the cause and not in the slightest
\ndegree on bureaucratic approval, and the national movement must be recognised as
\na sacred cause which exists in its own right and cannot consent to be regulated
\nby the smiles and frowns of the bureaucracy which it is its first object to
\ndisplace. These are the principles for which our party are contending when they
\ninsist on Mr. Tilak’s nomination and they are principles which are essential to
\nthe Nationalist position and are as living today as they were last year. The
\nquestion of Mr. Tilak’s Presidentship will be always with us until it is finally
\nset at rest by his election, for until then we shall pass it year after year.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            But so far as the<\/p>\n

Nagpur session is concerned, the question no
\nlonger exists. The attempt to make this question wholly responsible for the
\ndifficulty is disingenuous and the demand that Mr. Tilak should throw over his
\nown party by a gratuitous refusal to be President if ever he is asked, so as to
\nreassure irreconcilable Loyalists in their fears, is absolutely preposterous.
\nThe Nagpur Nationalists have put his name forward and they alone are competent
\nto withdraw it. But such withdrawal is not<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-588<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nnecessary. They have failed to secure the
\nnecessary three-fourths majority and they can therefore no longer insist on his
\nname unless they are asked to hold the Congress with their own funds. They are
\nwilling to withdraw in a body from the Reception Committee if the Moderates so
\ndesire; they are willing to co-operate on lines both definite and reasonable;
\nand they are willing, if called upon, to hold the Congress with any Moderate
\nPresident in the chair if the funds in Mr. Dixit’s hands are paid in. But they
\nare not willing to misappropriate public money for the Congress funds and they
\nare not willing to walk into the Loyalist trap by an admission of any personal
\nresponsibility for the disturbances that have taken place, in the shape of a
\nguarantee that no disturbance of any kind shall take place at the time of the
\nCongress. Such a guarantee can only be given by those who were responsible for
\nthe rowdyism or instigated it, and this unwarrantable charge has already been
\nemphatically denied by the leading Nationalists; to ask them to give a guarantee
\nis to ask them to admit what they have already denied. If therefore the
\nModerates insist on these preposterous conditions, the public will know whom
\nthey have to blame.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBande Mataram<\/i>, <\/font>
\nNovember 5, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-589<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mr. Tilak and the Presidentship                            WHILE writing of the Nagpur imbroglio we have touched very lightly on the question of Mr. Tilak’s Presidentship,…<\/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-350","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\/350","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=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}