Facts and Opinions Volume I - Nov. 13, 1909 - Number 19 House-Searches One wonders what would happen in any European country if the police as a recompense for their utter inefficiency and detective incapacity were armed with the power and allowed to use it freely of raiding the houses of respectable citizens, ransack the property of absent occupants and leaving it unsafe and unprotected, carrying off the business books of Presses, newspapers and other commercial concerns, the private letters of individuals, books publicly sold and procurable in every bookshop, violating the sanctity of correspondence between wife and husband, searching the per

Passing Thoughts Volume I - Feb. 19, 1910 - No. 33 The Bhagalpur Literary Conference The prevalence of annual conferences in the semi-Europeanised life of Bengal is a curious phenomenon eloquent of the unreality of our present culture and the inefficiency of our modernised existence. Our old life was well, even minutely organised on an intelligent and consistent Oriental model. The modern life of Europe is well and largely organised on an intelligent and consistent Occidental model. It materialises certain main ideas of life and well-being, provides certain centres of life, equips them efficiently, serves the object with which they are institu

The Hughly Resolutions WE PUBLISH in this issue the draft resolutions of the Hughly Reception Committee which have reached our hands in a printed form. Formerly our information had been that the Committee had based its resolutions on the Pabna Conference resolutions and preserved them in the spirit if not in the letter. We regret to find that this information was erroneous. While appreciating the labours of the Committee we cannot pretend to be satisfied at the result. The letter of the Pabna resolutions has been preserved in a few cases and their manly and dignified character contrasts strangely with the company in which they are found, but for the most part the m

Facts and Opinions Volume I - Jan. 22, 1910 - Number 29 Lajpatrai's Letters The case of Parmanand, the Arya Samaj teacher, whom with a singular pusillanimity the D.A.V. College authorities have dismissed before anything was proved against him, has been of more than usual interest because of the parade with which Lajpatrai's letters to him were brought forward. The letters were innocent enough on the face of them, but prejudice and suspicion were deliberately manufactured out of the connection with Krishnavarma, the expression "revolutionary", the use of the word "boys", and an anticipation of the agrarian outbreak in connection with the Punja

A Thing that Happened IT IS not the policy of the Karmayogin to dwell on incidents whether of the present administration of the country or of the relations between the ruling caste and the people. To criticise persistently the frequent instances of high­handedness and maladministration inevitable under a regime like the present does not lead to the redress of grievances; all that it does is to create a prejudice against the reigning bureaucracy. The basis of our claim to Swaraj is not that the English bureaucracy is a bad or tyrannical Government; a bureaucracy is always inclined to be arrogant, self-sufficient, self-righteous and unsympathetic, to ignore the abuses wi

Creed and Constitution THE attempt to bring about the unity of the two parties in Bengal as a preliminary to the holding of an United Congress has split on the twin rocks of creed and constitution. We will place before the country as succinctly as possible the issues which were posited during the negotiations and state clearly the Nationalist attitude, leaving it to Bengal to judge between us and the upholders of the Convention's creed and constitution. We ask our countrymen to consider whether the concessions we made were not large and substantial and the single concession offered to us worthless and nugatory, whether the reservations we made were not justifiable an

-70_The Viceroy's Speech.htm The Viceroy's Speech THE speech of Lord Minto on the occasion of the first meeting of the Viceroy's Council under the new regime is a very important pronouncement; and the most momentous of the passages in the pronouncement are two, the one in which he disposes finally of any lingering hopes in the minds of the Moderates, the other in which he threatens to dispose finally of any lingering hopes in the minds of the Nationalists. It has been a Moderate legend which still labours to survive, that the intention of Lords Morley and Minto in the Reforms was to lay the foundations of representative self-government in India. This legend was perseveringly reiterated in direct co

To My Countrymen TWO decisive incidents have happened which make it compulsory on the Nationalist Party to abandon their attitude of reserve and expectancy and once more assume their legitimate place in the struggle for Indian liberties. The Reforms, so long trumpeted as the beginning of a new era of constitutional progress in India, have been thoroughly revealed to the public intelligence by the publication of the Councils' Regulations and the results of the elections showing the inevitable nature and composition of the new Councils. The negotiations for the union of Moderates and Nationalists in an United Congress have failed owing to the insistence of the former on the

Facts and Opinions Volume I - Jan. 1, 1910 - Number 26 The Perishing Convention The Convention has met at Lahore and the fact that it could meet at all, has been hailed as a great triumph by the Anglo-Indian Press. But the success of this misbegotten body in avoiding immediate extinction has only served to show the marks of decay in every part of its being, and the loud chorus of eulogies streaming up from Anglo-India will not help to prolong its days. The miserable paucity of its numbers, the absence of great ovations to its leaders, the surroundings of stifling coldness, indifference and disapproval in the midst of which its orators perorat

The Right of Association* MY FRIEND Pandit Gispati Kavyatirtha has somewhat shirked today his duty as it was set down for him in the programme and left it to me. I hope you will not mind if I depart a little from the suggestion he has made to me. I would like, instead of assuming the role of a preacher and telling you your duties which you know well enough yourselves, to take, if you will allow me, a somewhat wider subject, not unconnected with it but of a wider range. In addressing you today I wish to say a few words about the general right of association especially as we have practised and are trying to practise it in India today. I choose this subject for