A Nation in Making/Chapter 11

11

The Congress Deputation to England

Each member pays his own expenses—first meeting at Clerkenwell—interview with Gladstone; the elective principle—members of the Deputation—the debate at the Oxford Union—return to India; the Ripon College controversy.

By one of the resolutions adopted at the Bombay Congress a deputation to England was appointed 'to represent the views of the Congress and to press upon the attention of the British public the political reforms which the Congress advocates'. The 'political reforms' here referred to meant the beginnings of representative government by the expansion and reconstitution of the Councils. That, indeed, had always been in the forefront of the Congress programme, and at the Bombay Session, a skeleton scheme was drawn up and accepted, suggesting the broad outlines upon which the Councils should be reconstituted. Mr. Bradlaugh was requested to introduce a Bill in Parliament upon those lines. The members of the Deputation were appointed by name, and among them were Mr. Hume, Sir Pherozshah Mehta, Mr. Monomohan Ghose, Mr. W. C. Bonnerjea, Mr. Sharifuddin, Mr. Eardley Norton, Mr. R. N. Mudholkar, and myself.

Each member of the Deputation was to pay his own expenses. We learnt that even in England this would be considered an unusual proceeding, but we did not demur. Of the financial position of the other members of the Deputation I knew nothing. Mine was far from being satisfactory. The sum total of my worldly wealth consisted of Rs. 13,000 of Government securities, which were invested in the name of my wife. It was estimated that the cost would be Rs. 4,000 for each member. In other words, I was required to spend nearly one-third of what little reserve fund I had been able to lay by. I did not grudge the sacrifice, and I owe it to the adored memory of my wife to say that she willingly joined me and made over the securities for the purpose for which they were wanted. Not a farthing of the expense did we derive from any source except our own. We paid all travelling and hotel charges from the moment of our starting till we returned to our homes. This was true of every member of the Deputation. This was the first Congress Deputation to England, and its mission was to press for the inauguration of a reform that was to culminate in the establishment of self-government in India.

The Deputation created great interest at the time. It would be no exaggeration to say that it went forth upon its errand amid the benedictions of the people. We started for England in March, 1890, and arrived in London early in April. The British Committee of the Indian National Congress organized our meetings, the first of which was held in Clerkenwell Road, Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji's constituency, under the presidency of Sir William Wedderburn. I well remember the day, and what preceded and what followed the meeting. We dined at the National Liberal Club as the guests of Mr. George Yule, and proceeded to Clerkenwell. The arrangements were very much those of an ordinary Indian meeting, such as I had been accustomed to. There was the platform where the speakers and the principal men of the locality were assembled, and there was the body of the hall where the audience sat.

I met Mr. H. E. A. Cotton at the meeting. He had been deputed by his father, Sir Henry Cotton, to see me and communicate his good wishes. I was a little nervous, as the audience was one to which I had not been accustomed. Mr. George Yule told me, as we were going to the meeting, that there was not much difference between an Indian and an English audience. Both hated long speeches and dry details; both were moved by appeals to the feelings that are a part of their inherited instincts, which it was for the speaker to discover and to play upon. I soon made the discovery. In fact, my acquaintance with English literature and history had given me an idea as to what the tenor of my speeches should be; and, on the whole, my efforts were not unsuccessful. Englishmen are not frightened by a dark man addressing them in their own language. At first they are perhaps a bit puzzled and amused. Presently they begin to appreciate, and even to admire, as the speaker proceeds; and, if he knows his business, he is able to develop in them a genuine vein of sympathy and perhaps of interest in the redress of grievances for which they are partly responsible. After I had addressed a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce at Manchester, a gentleman stood up and said, 'I have never been so deeply moved as now in regard to Indian affairs'. There is a vast field of work awaiting us in England, and a great opportunity of which we have not taken the fullest advantage. On several occasions after we had addressed public meetings, we were asked to repeat our visit. Mr. Augustine Honey, the organizer of the public meetings in the south of England and Wales, wrote thus in the official report submitted by him to the British Committee of the Indian National Congress:

'At all the meetings the demand was that Mr. Banerjea should visit them again; and I would point out to you the great advantage the movement would gain by his presence, as that alone would ensure overflowing audiences in the towns already visited. I would strongly urge the importance of this fact upon your Committee, as I have already urged it upon Mr. Banerjea himself as well as Mr. Hume; and in confirmation of this I would remind you that, immediately after the Cardiff meeting, Mr. R. N. Hall on behalf of the South Wales Liberal Federation, of which he is the secretary, entreated Mr. Banerjea to revisit Cardiff before leaving for India, to address a meeting of the representatives of the constituencies in South Wales in the largest hall in Cardiff, at which he promised there would be an audience of several thousands of persons to hear the claims of India. I will make a similar promise for Plymouth.'

Unfortunately, a deputation to England on the scale of 1890, backed by the organization and the resources then at our disposal, was never repeated, though the results achieved by that Deputation were unique in the history of the Congress movement. We addressed meetings in many of the great towns of England, Wales and Scot- land, and the Deputation fittingly finished its labours with an interview with Mr. Gladstone, at which the impression was left on our minds that he would speak at the second reading of Lord Cross's Bill on the Expansion of the Councils and support the elective principle. Our anticipation proved true. For on the occasion of the second reading of the Bill, Mr. Gladstone urged that what should be conceded was a real and living representation of the people of India. The elective principle as such was not indeed conceded, but a definite advance towards it was made. Under regulations framed by the Government under the Parliamentary Statute of 1892, municipalities and district boards were permitted to return members to the local Councils, subject to confirmation by Government, and the non-official members of provincial Councils were allowed the privilege of returning members to the Imperial Legislative Council. The right of asking questions was conceded, and the annual discussion of the Budget was allowed. Thus the first notable step towards securing representative government was taken, and mainly through the efforts of the Congress and the Deputation of the Congress. The Act of 1892 was still further liberalized by the Statute of 1909, but the foundations of representative government had been well and truly laid by the previous Statute.

I have so far said nothing about the members of the Deputation; but I feel no hesitation in alluding to the work of honoured colleagues whose services, I fear, have not been sufficiently recognized. Mr. Allen Hume, the father of the Indian National Congress, was with us throughout the campaign. As a member of the Civil Service, he had spent his life in desk-work and had few opportunities of public speaking. But when he spoke at our meetings in England, he showed the capacity and resourcefulness of a practised debater. I well remember the crushing reply he gave to a critic of the Congress who had urged at the Birmingham meeting that social reform must precede political reform, and that the Congress must wait for the fulfilment of its programme till social evolution had achieved its work in India. The son of a great father (Joseph Hume), his association with us inspired confidence.

Mr. Mudholkar joined us after we had begun our work. But he threw himself heart and soul into it. His mastery of facts, his clear presentment, and his intense earnestness made a deep impression upon British audiences. Mr. Syed Ali Imam, afterwards Sir Ali Imam, was with us at Plymouth. He had then just been called to the Bar. His cold, clear vein of rationalism was even then conspicuous, and has helped to bring him back, through many deviations, to the fold of the Congress. Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir William Wedderburn occasionally helped us with their presence and their speeches. Mr. Eardley Norton was another member of the Deputation. He joined us late but did good service. On the occasion of the debate at the Oxford Union he moved the Congress Resolution, That the House views with regret the non-recognition of the elective principle in the Bill now before the House of Commons'.

That debate was a memorable one. The Oxford Union is a stronghold of Conservatism. It was here that Mr. Gladstone made his first mark as a debater; and it was under the influences of his Alma Mater that he became the rising hope of the unbending Tories' in the early part of his great career. We entered the debating hall of the Union, Mr. Hume, Mr. Norton and myself, with the almost certain belief that the motion would be lost in that gathering of young Conservatives. I met there Mr. Wilson, then a Professor in the Presidency College and one of the founders of the Calcutta University Institute. I felt sure from what I knew of his political views that he would vote against the motion; and on questioning him about it I found that my anticipation was correct.

We began the fight hopeless of success, but determined to make the best of a bad situation. Mr. Norton moved the Resolution in a speech of great power. The opposition was led by Lord Hugh Cecil. It devolved on me to reply to him. I had partly anticipated, and with accuracy, the line of argument he would follow, and I was prepared with facts and figures to meet him. Our educational backwardness was the deadliest arrow in his quiver. I pointed out in reply that the number of schools in England in 1821 was only 18,467 and the scholars 650,000, and it was not until 1881 that they reached the number of schools and scholars in India. And yet in 1881, England had full-fledged parliamentary institutions, and we were asking for much less. No reply was possible to this array of facts. Young Mr. McGhee, son of the Archbishop of York, a fine speaker, a chip of the old block, supported us in an eloquent speech, in the course of which he paid a high compliment to me. The division was taken, and to our great astonishment it was found that the majority of votes was on our side. The Resolution was declared carried. The vote was a memorable achievement of the Congress Deputation. It demonstrated that the Congress programme of reform was so moderate as to commend itself even to the most conservative section of the British public.

There was one passage in my speech at the Oxford Union which Mr. Norton, half in jest and half with a touch of friendly approval, was never tired of repeating. I may, perhaps, reproduce it here:

'The statement has been made in the course of this debate that the Indians before the advent of the English were a pack of barbarians or semi-barbarians; I believe that was the language that was used. Let me remind this House that they come—the Hindus of India, the race to which I have the honour to belong—(loud cheers)—they come from a great and ancient stock; that at a time when the ancestors of the most enlightened European nations were roaming in their native woods and forests, our fathers had founded great empires, established noble cities, and cultivated a system of ethics, a system of religion, and a noble language which at the present moment excites the admiration of the civilized world. (Loud cheers.) You have only to walk across the way, and place yourselves in the Bodleian library, to witness the ancient records of Indian industry, Indian culture, and Indian ethics; therefore it seems to me the remark is somewhat out of place. (Cheers.) If the remark was made to prejudice the claim which we have now the honour to put forward, to prejudice our claim for representative institutions, never was it more misplaced, for the simple reason that self-governing institutions formed an essential feature of the civilization of the Aryan race, and we come from the Aryan stock. (Cheers.) The hon. opposer of the motion is pleased to refer to the authority of Sir Henry Maine in reference to certain quotations he has made. I am prepared to bow to that authority, and accept him as an authority on Indian matters. What does he say in reference to India? "The first practical illustrations of self-governing institutions are to be found in the early records of India. Their village communities are as old as the hills." (Cheers.) When we ask for representative institutions, or a partial concession of representative institutions, we ask for something which is in entire accord with the genius and the temper of the people of India, in entire accord with the traditions of their history, and in entire accord with the tenour of British rule in India.'

I concluded my speech with the following peroration:

'Representative institutions are a consecrated possession, which in the counsels of Providence have been entrusted to the English people, to guard that possession, to spread it, and not to make it the property of this people or that people, but the heritage of mankind at large. England is the home of representative institutions; from England as the centre, representative institutions have spread far and wide until this country has justly been called the august mother of free nations. The people of India are children of that mother, and they claim their birthright, they claim to be admitted into the rights of British citizens and British fellow-subjects. I am perfectly certain that such an appeal made to the English people can meet with but one response—a response of sympathy, and a readiness to grant it. (Cheers.) I plead before this House for justice; I plead for liberty not inconsistent with the British connexion, but tending to consolidate its foundations; and I am perfectly convinced that, so long as these words, these sacred words, have any weight, any meaning, any signification, amongst Englishmen, and in this House, you will record, by an unanimous vote, an emphatic vote, your sympathy with our aspirations, our desire that India should be governed according to those eternal principles of justice and liberty, which are engraved deep in the hearts, the convictions, and feelings of Englishmen, to whatever party, to whatever creed, to whatever sect they might belong.' (Loud and prolonged cheering.)

I returned to Bombay on July 6, 1890, and on the evening of the same day a monster meeting was held at the Framji Cowasji Institute, to accord me a welcome. At Allahabad and Calcutta, where similar meetings were held, I repeated the burden of my song, namely, that the work which had been begun should be continued, and that deputations should be sent to England from time to time. Unfortunately this was not, and could not be, done for various reasons. The idea was always present to the mind of the early Congress leaders; but it was not possible to give effect to it.

As for myself, I found that on my return home I was involved in serious difficulties in connexion with the Ripon College. While I was away, materials were being got ready for a deadly blow at the College. It was found that a student, who had passed the B. L. Examination from the Ripon College, had been marked present on the rolls of the College, when as a matter of fact he was absent. An enquiry was started, and, by a resolution of the Syndicate, the Law Department of the College was ordered to be disaffiliated for one year. It was a serious thing for the College. If the resolution were given effect to, it would mean the financial ruin of the College; for in those days the Arts Departments of the independent colleges derived substantial aid from the surplus revenues of the Law Departments. The situation was critical. For me the joy of the good work that I was able to do in England was gone. My friends vied with one another in giving me parties and entertainments; but the central idea in my mind all the while was 'how to save the College from impending ruin'. I had built it up with my life-blood. It was a highly efficient and successful institution. I was now confronted with a crisis of the gravest magnitude.

The order for disaffiliation was, however, a recommendation which had to be confirmed by the Government of India. Therein jay our hope of relief. We were prepared to give every reasonable guarantee to prevent a recurrence of what had happened; and with the pledge of such a guarantee we approached the Government of India. The matter was sent back to the University for reconsidera- tion. The guarantees were accepted by the Senate. They were loyally given effect to; and the unhappy incident was allowed to terminate. The Ripon College, partially remodelled, continued its career of increasing usefulness.

I cannot take leave of this controversy without referring to the services of some of those who helped the College on the occasion of its greatest peril; and first and foremost among them was the late Sir Taraknath Palit. We had been friends since 1868. He had known my father and admired his genius and his personality. We first met in England and we formed a friendship, which, now that he is dead, is with me a sweet and sacred memory. He was one of the most warm-hearted men that I have ever met, strong in his likes and dislikes. A man of great strength of character, he never hesitated to express his opinions with clearness and emphasis, and sometimes without reference to the feelings of others. Generous to his friends, he was rigid in exacting what was due to him. I have hardly ever met a man who was so singularly free from the con- ventionalities which mar the happiness of so many of us. He was throughout life the warm friend of all patriotic movements; and his love of his countrymen found its culminating expression in the princely gift which he made, of all that he possessed, for the promotion of scientific education. He took up the case of the Ripon College with all the warmth of his generous nature, and was mainly instrumental in inducing Sir Romesh Chunder Mitter to interest himself in the matter.

Sir Romesh Chunder Mitter's help and co-operation were most valuable. I was then brought into close and intimate touch with him; and the more I saw of him, the greater was my admiration for the man. Strong, honest, with an uncommon fund of that rarest of all commodities, common sense, I always felt that he was one of the finest types of our race. He was not only a great judge, but a great man.

Monomohan Ghose was another friend who helped me on this occasion. Of him also I should like to say a word or two. He did not indeed possess the great gifts of his illustrious brother, Lalmohan Ghose; but the human side was even more largely developed in him. A great lawyer, he was an even greater public man. He was the friend of all who were in need; and many an innocent man owed his life and liberty to his merciful and unpaid advocacy. I heard a story that still lingers in my memory. My friend, who repeated it to me, had gone to see Monomohan Ghose. Monomohan Ghose was not in, but an old man was seated in his office room, with whom my friend fell into conversation. The old man said that he had been charged with murder and that he had been saved from the gallows through the efforts of Monomohan Ghose. He was a poor man who could pay nothing; and nothing was demanded of him. But year after year he visited the great advocate, the benefactor who was to him a second father, and laid at his feet the offering of his heart's gratitude; and, when after his death the visit was repeated, the poor old man sobbed like a child. The news threw him into a paroxysm of grief, and for a few moments he was inconsolable.

Where is the lawyer now who can claim this rich possession over the hearts of clients whom he has served or saved? I remember Monomohan Ghose working in some of these cases without any reward or prospect of remuneration, and with an enthusiasm that lifted him high above the plane of the mere professional lawyer. As a successful advocate, he made money, though he was not as rich as some of his friends at the Bar; but he gathered together a treasure of priceless value in the heartfelt gratitude of those whom he served, too often poor men, the victims of an unscrupulous police.

He followed a plan of his own in defending prisoners in criminal cases. He recognized that the public Press was the bulwark of popular freedom; and whenever he was engaged in an important criminal case, he was careful to take with him a newspaper reporter so that the proceedings might be fully reported. He thus became the terror of wrong-headed mofussil magistrates; and it would be a fitting tribute to his memory to say that he had a sensible share in reducing their vagaries. His unique experience as a criminal lawyer impressed him with the urgent need for the separation of judicial and executive functions in the administration of criminal justice. In season and out of season did he advocate this reform; and it is mainly due to him that the question came within the range of practical politics. The pathos of his early death consecrates the undying interest he felt in this reform.

I will here repeat the incidents connected with the fatal stroke of apoplexy that carried him off. He was at his country house at Krishnagore, which he had rebuilt and embellished, and had con- verted into a palatial mansion. He was preparing to start for Calcutta on his way to Madras, to see his only son, who was a member of the Madras Civil Service. The morning was passed in a somewhat heated discussion over Sir Charles Elliott's article on the separation of judicial and executive functions, which had just then appeared in one of the English reviews. His interest in the subject was keen. He felt that he could give a full and satisfactory rejoinder to Sir Charles Elliott's criticisms. It preyed upon his mind and worked him up into a pitch of unusual excitement; and in this state, while in his bath, he was seized with an apoplectic fit that proved fatal. The news came upon the educated community like a bolt from the blue; and they mourned the death of one so good, so true and so patriotic. Years have elapsed since October, 1896, but the name of Monomohan Ghose is never uttered in an assembly of his countrymen without evoking the deepest emotions.

In connexion with the Ripon College controversy, it is only right that I should add that I was greatly indebted to the friendly services of Sir Henry Harrison and Sir Henry Cotton. I had known Sir Henry Cotton for a period of over forty years, and Sir Henry Harrison for nearly twenty years, since he became Chairman of the Calcutta Corporation, of which I was at the time a member. The relations between English officials and our countrymen are for the most part formal, though I must say they are improving; but both Sir Henry Cotton and Sir Henry Harrison occupied a large place in my esteem and my affcctions, and they were to me as good friends as any I ever knew. Both were indefatigable in their efforts to save the Ripon College; and it was chiefly through their influence that Sir Coomer Petheram, the then Chief Justice, was persuaded to interest himself in the matter. The presence and support of the Chief Justice at a meeting of the Senate, especially in those days, meant a great deal. The vote of the legal clement in the Senate was largely in favour of accepting the guarantees offered and rescinding the order of temporary disaffiliation.

The strain and worry through which I had to pass in connexion with the Ripon College controversy, coupled with the work for the Congress, which was to meet in Calcutta in December, 1890, brought on an attack of pneumonia. It was so sudden and I was so little prepared for what was coming that I had actually ordered my carriage to be got ready to take me to a dinner-party, to which I had been invited by Mrs. Sarala Ghosal, the gifted wife of the late Mr. Janokinath Ghosal, and a well-known authoress. Just as I was about to start for the dinner, I felt feverish. A local doctor was brought in. He felt my pulse and said that I had fever. Within half an hour I experienced a sense of difficulty in breathing. My friend, Dr. Debendranath Roy was sent for. He came and examined me and said it was a case of acute bronchitis. I was ordered to bed; and for over a month I lay there, a helpless patient, suffering from pneumonia, while my colleagues were working hard to ensure the success of the approaching session of the Congress. To the physical pain and weakness from which I suffered was superadded the agony of a bitter disappointment, that I should be shut out from the joy of work that was so congenial to me. They held a Town Hall meeting, but I was not there. There was another fellow-sufferer whose absence was severely felt by Congress-workers. That was Mr. W. C. Bonnerjea, who, too, was confined to a sick-bed, prostrated with rheumatic fever.

I recovered sufficiently to be able to attend a meeting of the Congress and to make, under the peremptory mandate of the President, who fixed for me the limit of time, a speech that did not exceed half a dozen lines. I owed my recovery on this occasion to the affectionate care and watchfulness of the late Dr. Debendranath Roy. I had known him since 1868. He was then ready to proceed to England with me, to compete for the Indian Medical Service. But there was a difficulty in his way. Mr. Monomohan Ghose, our non-official protector of emigrants, as Michael Madhu Shudan Dutt styled him, would not help him without his brother's knowledge and consent; and his brother, Rai Jadunath Roy Bahadur, the leader of public opinion in Krishnagore, objected to his visiting England. Caste prejudices against sea-voyages were then strong, and Rai Jadunath Roy Bahadur did not feel himself equal to overcoming them. But my friend, Dr. Debendranath Roy, graduated from the Calcutta Medical College and rose to distinction in the service of Government; and, when on his retirement he settled down in Calcutta, he commanded a large and lucrative practice. Skilful as a physician, his geniality as a man was even more remarkable. He was himself the victim of diabetes and asthma; but they were never permitted to mar his cheerfulness or disturb his optimism; and the hope and confidence that radiated from his glowing eyes were a source of never-failing comfort to his numerous patients. His premature death in 1909 was mourned by a large circle of friends and admirers. He was not only a distinguished physician but an active educationist, and as a member of the Senate he rendered good service to the Calcutta University.