An official notification prohibited Government servants from attending Congress meetings. THE HINDU: “The Congress is a magnificent Assembly and officials and non-officials may be curious to see what it is like. Anti-Congressmen no less than Congressmen must share this curiosity. Government seem to have deluded themselves into the belief that the people of India will calmly put up with the insulting resolution as they have done with other resolutions. There is, however, a limit for everything; and an impudent aggression of this sort on the liberty of the people will be resented throughout the country.”
JANUARY 3, 1891
The conspiracy against the Congress
THE WOUND CAUSED BY THE OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT HAS HAD scarcely time to heal before another act of official folly has placed the rulers and the ruled in a position of uncompromising hostility if not positive hatred. The indignation that was aroused in the Congress Hall by the ill-advised and foolish notification in the Calcutta papers interdicting the attendance of Government officials at Congress meetings has suddenly radiated far and wide. Nobody could for a moment entertain the faintest suspicion that a Government presided over by an English statesman, trained in the free atmosphere of Britain and inured to the tactics of party politics could be a party to the secret conspiracy set up against the Congress by individual members among the officials. That the representative of the gracious Sovereign who had pledged herself to be bound to her Indian subjects by the same obligations of duty as bind her to her English subjects should have committed himself to such an inconsiderate act of wanton aggression upon the feelings of a people who, whatever may be their shortcomings, have never lacked in their devotion to the Queen and the British nation, should cause intense pain and surprise in the hearts of all well-wishers of British rule. That solid foundation of popularity which Lord Ripon had wisely laid and which the shrewdness and statesmanship of Lord Dufferin did not allow to be seriously disturbed, has been left to “the illustrious bearer of an historic name” to be thoughtlessly thrown down. Jealous, suspicious and timid, the Government have been devising one plan after another to take the wind out of the sails of the Congress, forgetting that the wind which they aim at has not been moving the Congress hitherto. There are, indeed, English as well as Indian officials who heartily sympathise with the efforts of the Congress for the reform of serious political abuses; but their sympathies from the very nature of their position have been more or less of a passive character. A strong official phalanx, on the other hand, has always been opposing it tooth and nail, setting man against man and race against race. A Lieutenant-Governor wrote “Democracy not suited to India” and found a knee-crooking aristocrat in the Rajah of Bhinga to claim its authorship. Sir Syed Ahmed stood forth for a time as the head of the opposition, but the unholy alliance with Rajah Siva Prasad and the Lucknow printer ended in the now famous war of the “patriots”. The Congress has been fighting its way independently of the support and in spite of the active opposition of all such formidable men; and what is the result? Do the Government expect anything better from the forced boycotting of the Congress by their servants? But there is another side to the question, which is too important to be ignored which is too important to be ignored. How far is individual liberty to be restrained by official position? It is, no doubt, a wholesome principle that Government officials ought not to exert themselves in collecting subscription from the public. We only wish that it had been adhered to in all cases. Again no reasonable objection could be taken to the ruling that Government officials ought not to take part in criticising the Government, provided that the observance of the rule is more consistently enforced. But to go beyond this, to dictate his private movements, to limit his enjoyments, to forbid his communion with an individual or a body of individuals, to direct where he is to go and where he is not to go, is unalloyed despotism which those entrusted with the administration of India ought to be ashamed to proclaim to the civilised world. The Congress is a magnificent assembly and officials as well as non-officials may be curious to see what it is like. Anti-Congressmen no less than Congressmen must share this curiosity. Government seem to have deluded themselves into the belief that the people of India will calmly put up with this insulting resolution as they have done with other resolutions. There is, however, a limit for everything; and an impudent aggression of this sort on the liberty of the people will be resented throughout the whole country. The authorities in England will also be pressed and will feel themselves bound to give their verdict on the conduct of the Indian Government. We understand that it has been resolved upon to address the Secretary of State for India on the subject; and if Lord Cross will have the courage to face the House of Commons he may endorse the action taken by the Government of India. But it is too much to suppose that he will court a defeat. If, however, the House of Commons be called upon to express themselves on the question, there will be shaking of the head in several quarters. We cannot imagine that a statesman of Lord Lansdowne’s stamp would give his adherence to a reactionary policy without calculating the consequences. On the contrary, we are perfectly willing to believe that the notification in question has been issued without his Lordship’s sanction or authority. If so, his Lordship is bound for the sake of his own reputation as well as that of the Government he presides over and the Sovereign he represents, to repudiate the notification which is as scandalous as it is mischievous and disabuse the public mind of the notion that methods such as are worthy only of Russia could be inaugurated and enforced under the sway of Britain. As for the extremely moderate and reasonable demands of the Congress, they will be granted sooner or later. The justice of the most important of the measures put forth by the Congress has been generally admitted and victory is within measurable distance. Having conceded one by one all that the Congress asks for, no particular purpose will be served by the open hostility shown to the institution. It can only keep up that soreness and bitterness of feeling which it has been the earnest endeavour of many a patriotic Englishman to remove, replacing it by a oneness of feeling and sentiment, strengthened by the common desire of preserving the interdependence of the two countries and solidarity of the Empire as a whole. God forbid that the thoughtlessness of individual rulers should tend to the alienation of the feelings of the people from a noble race which has spread its influence for good over all parts of the world and has been the proclaimer of liberty to all races.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I