Archival Notes

NATIONALIST POLITICS IN BENGAL 1908-1909

In a previous issue (A & R, volume 4, pages 112-19) we examined the differences between the Moderates and the Extremists which led to the rupture between the two parties at Surat. On 28 December 1907, the day after the free-for-all at the Congress session, the Moderate delegates met in the pandal under police guard. Extremists, even those "who were ready and offered to sign the declaration required",¹ were not admitted. At the meeting the Moderates adopted a manifesto calling for the Congress to be revived "under convention".² A committee was formed for drawing up a constitution; it was decided that this committee would meet at Allahabad in April.

      By excluding the Extremists from their convention, the Moderates appropriated exclusive control of Congress machinery to themselves. This made the Indian National Congress no more a "national institution" but simply a "party organisation" that Sri Aurobindo declined to dignify with the name of Congress. At Surat he had been behind the Extremists' "refusal to join the new-fangled Moderate Convention",³ even though Lokmanya Tilak—justly fearful that the Extremists might not be able to face inevitable Government repression — was ready to sign the conventionalists' "statement of adhesion".⁴ As the Allahabad meeting of the convention approached, Sri Aurobindo continued to stand firm against signing what became known as the "creed" — the article of the convention document limiting the aim of the Congress to self-government within the Empire. But Sri Aurobindo was as much in favour as Tilak of reestablishing a united Congress, if this could be done without sacrificing essential principles.

      Moderatism in its most reactionary form had its stronghold in the Bombay Presidency, particularly in Bombay city, home of Pherozshah Mehta [Plate 9]. Convinced that British rule was the best possible thing that could have happened to India, Pherozshah considered the Congress — of which he had been a member since its inception in 1885 — to be a forum where loyal Indians could "present our petition of rights, our appeal and our prayer for a policy of wisdom and righteousness", confident that "English statesmanship will ultimately respond to the call".⁵ For more than twenty years Pherozshah had enjoyed both the esteem of his countrymen and the token positions given him by the British. He now could only be apprehensive seeing that much of Bombay Presidency—Poona and most of the rest of Maharashtra — now looked for leadership to the Extremist Tilak, and that Extremism was everywhere on the rise in the country, particularly in Bengal.

      The Moderates had only been able to forestall the Extremists' bid to make Tilak president of the 1906 Congress by nominating instead the venerable Dadabhai Naoroji [Plate 8]. But even the moderating influence of the "Grand Old Man" could not prevent four resolutions from being passed at Calcutta that had nothing in them of "petition", "appeal" or "prayer". It was only "in deference to the weight of public opinion" that Pherozshah agreed to accept the resolution on boycott, which he personally opposed.⁶ During negotiations on this issue he had been "insulted" by "the rudeness displayed" towards him by certain "truculent and misguided

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youngmen", as Calcutta Moderate Bhupendranath Bose [Plate 7] called them,⁷ who were no longer willing to obey the old-line leaders. The manoeuvres carried out by Pherozshah and his allies before and during the Surat session were all calculated to undo the Calcutta results and reestablish the former status quo.

      In Bengal the split between Moderate and Extremist was never so acute as it was in western India. As Bipin Chandra Pal explained in 1909:

The Bengalee "Moderate" . . . has been a staunch advocate of Svadeshi and Boycott, National Education, and National Volunteering. The only points of difference between the two schools have been — (1) in regard to the ideal, and (2) in regard to the scope of the Boycott. The Bengalee Moderates proclaimed Colonial Self-Government as their ideal, instead of the absolute autonomy set up as the ultimate goal by the so-called Extremists, and, unlike the latter, they refused to extend the Boycott to all voluntary officers under the Government.⁸

      The Extremists were unquestionably the coming force in Bengal, and their programme on the crucial points of Swaraj (self-government) and boycott enjoyed widespread popular support. The political machinery might still be controlled by the coterie led by the Moderate Surendranath Banerjea [Plate 6], but the Extremists had growing grassroots strength, not only in eastern Bengal — home of veteran leaders such as Pal, Aswini Kumar Dutt [Plate 2] and Manoranjan Guha Thakurta [Plate 3] — but also in Calcutta, where Sri Aurobindo and his associates were creating policy through their writings in Bande Mataram. A clash between the two groups was inevitable. As the 1908 session of the Bengal Provincial Conference approached, it became clear that it would be at this meeting, scheduled to be held on 11 and 12 February in Pabna, that the confrontation would take place.

THE PABNA CONFERENCE

In a vain effort to show that Extremistism had been destroyed at Surat, the Moderates spent the days before the event stumping in East Bengal and Calcutta, the Extremists' strongholds. Host Pabna, a city of East Bengal, wanted Aswini Dutt to be president of the conference. The Moderates refused to attend if Dutt presided. The tussle was solved by nominating as president one who belonged to no party, indeed who had never attended a political meeting⁹ — the universally respected poet Rabindranath Tagore. [Plate 5].

      The Calcutta delegates, including the leaders of both parties, left the metropolis on the night of 10 February. The next day they boarded a steamer for the last leg of their journey to the river-junction of Pabna. The president and the leaders of the Moderates were lodged in the local Dak bungalow. No Extremists received such treatment, despite the fact that a majority of the four hundred arriving delegates favoured the Extremist side. However, when the proceedings opened at 4 p.m. on the eleventh, Sri Aurobindo and others of his party were given places on the dais along with the president, Surendranath Banerjea, Bhupendranath Bose, Mr. A. Chaudhuri et al. Five thousand people filled the pandal. No students were among the spectators; out of fear of the Risley Circular of 1907, which prohibited students from taking part in political meetings, teachers posted at the doors prevented students from entering.

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      A. Chaudhuri, the Calcutta Moderate leader and President of the Pabna Reception Committee, was the first to speak. He appealed for unity, but gave his remarks an openly Moderate slant by chiding the Extremists for "tilting at windmills". He admonished them to be patient, declaring "the goal is distant".¹⁰

      One must remember that in 1908—a mere seventy-five years ago — the British Empire was at its apogee. Most Indians believed that to aspire for independence in a world dominated by a few imperial powers was nothing short of madness. The British of course agreed. Even when John Morley, Secretary of State for India, was willing to discuss requests for reform, he affirmed that even the status of self-governing colony—a goal corresponding to the Swaraj resolution passed at Calcutta — "would remain for many a long day to come ... a mere dream".¹¹ Today in an independent India it is difficult to believe that turn-of-the-century leaders were willing to accept this state of affairs. But the conflict between the Moderates and Extremists, the most significant trend of the period, cannot be understood if the timidity of the Moderates and the resistance of the British is not taken into account.

      After Mr. Chaudhuri's cautious speech, Mr. A. Rasul proposed Rabindranath Tagore to the chair. It was planned to have Motilal Ghose second the motion, but, as a gesture to the Extremists, this honour was given to Sri Aurobindo. "In a short and sweet speech which could be heard from the furthest corner of the Pandal", Sri Aurobindo "said that the president was a national poet and had done much to inculcate the new idea", infusing "the new spirit in the country". Sri Aurobindo was "lustily cheered" for his remarks.¹² Then, after Motilal Ghose had supported the motion in Bengali, Tagore stood to the ovations of the crowd. The Bengali speech he read out to the assembly was acknowledged a masterpiece by both parties. Tagore, referring to the split, urged both sides not to fan the flames of dissension.

      The real business of the conference got underway at 7 p.m., when the Subjects Committee began its deliberations. The pandal was cleared of all but selected delegates, who were to adopt the resolutions to be passed in the open session. Bengal showed itself in advance of the rest of the country by reaffirming three of the important resolutions passed at the Calcutta Congress (Swaraj, Boycott, Swadeshi) and strengthening the fourth (National Education). None of the retrograde Moderate modifications proposed at Surat in 1907 were given a hearing.

      Most of the twenty-one draft resolutions were accepted without much discussion. Interest was focused on Swaraj. Much time was spent in "warm and animated discussion" on the form of self-government to be demanded.¹³ The Extremists, not content with the Calcutta resolution for colonial self-government (not to speak of the Surat retreat to self-government "within the Empire"), wanted to push for pure Swaraj—independence without qualification. The Moderates were unwilling to accept this. Mr. A. Chaudhuri expressed the doubt whether the conference was "really prepared to vote for independence".¹⁴ The negotiations seemed to have reached a deadlock, and "there was an imminent danger of a split, for both sides held firmly to their positions."¹⁵ The Moderates, finding themselves on the defensive, threatened to "cut themselves apart from the Conference" if the Extremist version of the resolution was passed.¹⁶ A group of Extremists, in particular those from East Bengal, were anxious to have the resolution passed in whatever form, and this group gave its approval to the Moderates' wording. When an amendment was proposed asking that the resolution be dropped altogether, an earlier suggestion was again

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put forward and finally agreed on. According to this compromise the Moderate resolution would be moved at the session, but the Extremists would be permitted to enter a protest. The Extremists consented to this course, as Sri Aurobindo later explained, because they "did not wish to alienate" an "influential minority", that is, the Moderates.¹⁷

      At 2 p.m. the next day (12 February), the open sitting of the conference was resumed. Twenty resolutions were ratified without incident. The fourth resolution, on National Education, was proposed by Sri Aurobindo, who gave a "short but inspiring speech".¹⁸ The controversial Swaraj resolution was held until last. It was proposed by Ananthbandhu Guha, the Mymensingh leader, who commented that a long time had been spent on its wording. He hoped that no one would put any obstacle to its being carried, but added that he had no objection to anyone raising a voice of protest. As planned, after the seconding of the resolution by Babu Bishnupada Chatterjee, Babu Manoranjan Guha rose to speak on behalf of the Extremists. The party spokesman said that no one, not even Surendranath Banerjea, could object to his protesting. In his usual humorous style, Manoranjan said that the Moderates' mendicant policy was hidden in the resolution. He said he wanted to know whether the people were still willing to buy favours from the British. He even went so far as to ask the audience to raise their hands in a show of support to his position—a step even the president appears to have thought improper. The consensus of the people was that they were no longer willing to beg. When the conference was asked to ratify the resolution, the Moderates raised their hands and cried "All", but the Extremists took "no part in the voting, the President saying so to the assembly".¹⁹

      The Moderates had won the battle but lost the war. A split had been avoided because the Extremists were willing to compromise. But it was clear, as the Bande Mataram trumpeted on the eighteenth, that "Swaraj is the only goal which the heart of Bengal recognises, Swaraj without any limitation or reservation"—complete independence. We must again pause to note that this was a radical claim in February 1908. The Swadeshi movement, begun in 1905, did not at first articulate political independence as its goal. Few dared to think that it was towards this that their faltering steps were leading. An editorial in Surendranath Banerjea's Bengalee, written just after the Pabna Conference, gave the Moderates' short-sighted viewpoint in these words: "Whether we are to have Swaraj within the Empire or Swaraj outside the Empire is a distant possibility with which the present generation is not called upon to deal as a practical consideration."²⁰ (Emphasis mine.) The quite different viewpoint of the Extremist section of the "present generation" had already been given in Yugantar, the Bengali daily edited by Sri Aurobindo's brother Barin and others. In what must have been taken as a brazen empty vaunt, Yugantar wrote in June 1907: "The fact that India was one day subject to the English will appear as an incredible story to the youth of independent India."²¹ In 1983 we see that the vaunt has become a reality.

      In his closing speech at Pabna, Rabindranath flung caution to the wind and out of the gladness of his heart there burst from him a flood of inspiring eloquence which made the whole audience astir with feelings of impassioned aspiration. Swaraj was the theme of his eloquence and to anyone listening carefully it was evident that 'Swaraj' unlimited and without reservation, was the ideal enthroned in the heart of the poet.²²

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Sri Aurobindo, who wrote these words, went on in his Bande Mataram editorial to declare that Swaraj was "the direct revelation of God to this [Indian] people". He characterised Manoranjan Guha as an "inspired speaker when he told the Conference never to lose sight of God in the movement". And what God had revealed was not mere political freedom but "a freedom vast and entire . . . spiritual freedom, social freedom, political freedom". It is significant that Sri Aurobindo had achieved the spiritual freedom of Nirvana just one month before. In his editorial he revealed the motives that were still impelling him to political action: "Spiritual freedom can never be the lot of many in a land of slaves. ... If the mass of men around us is miserable, fallen, degraded, how can the seeker after God be indifferent to the condition of his brothers? ... By our political freedom we shall once more recover our spiritual freedom."²³

      Earlier (14 February), Bande Mataram had commented editorially that the Swaraj resolution at Pabna was a defeat for the Extremists. It expressed pleasure, however, that the Extremists, by their abstention, had not been false to their principles. The next day, looking at the other side of the picture, it proclaimed "Nationalism Triumphant". The Moderates also claimed a victory, declaring the conference an "unqualified success". Both sides were satisfied that the political unity of Bengal seemed closer than ever.

THE ALLAHABAD CONVENTION

One great hurdle remained to be crossed before Moderates and Extremists in Bengal, and in other provinces, could join forces in a united Congress. This was the meeting of the convention committee formed at Surat, scheduled to be held at Allahabad on 18 and 19 April 1908. Discussion of the upcoming event centred around the "creed" of the Moderates, which stated the object of the Congress to be the attainment, through constitutional means, of self-government within the Empire. To sign this creed, as conventionalists were required to do, meant, in effect, to become a Moderate. The convention, as Bande Mataram pointed out on 4 April, was "an attempt to drag back the Congress out of the twentieth century into the nineteenth", when the "mendicant policy" of the Moderates held undisputed sway. The Extremist demand was that "no creed shall be imposed on the Congress from outside".²⁴ If the Congress were left open to all parties, and allowed to decide unhindered its future course, the Extremists were willing, indeed anxious to join.

      On 10 April 1908 Calcutta's Extremists assembled at Panthi's Math to discuss the steps they "should now take to influence the moderate convention to be held at Allahabad".²⁵ The Extremists were a democratic party. The policy-makers presented their decisions to the rank and file, who adopted or amended them. What a contrast to the secret cabals of the Moderates! Lalit Mohan Ghosal opened the meeting with an appeal to Great Britain, mother of freedom, to grant freedom to India. Bipin Chandra Pal, the recently released hero of the Bande Mataram trial, warned that if the convention was allowed to exist, the Government would use it to break up the "People's Congress". Afterwards Pal read out the following resolution drafted by Sri Aurobindo with the help of C.R. Das:

      That this meeting requests the Congress Convention Committee and the

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      Convention to settle the dispute between the different parties at the Surat Congress in the manner following:—

      (a) By agreeing to hold the adjourned meeting of the Congress of 1907.

      (b) By agreeing to accept the four resolutions passed at the Calcutta Congress of 1906.

      (c) By agreeing to accept Dr. Rash Behari Ghosh as President in spite of any irregularities that may have occurred in his election.

      (d) By requesting Dr. Ghosh to call the Congress and resume the adjourned sitting.

      (e) By agreeing not to formulate any creed or to lay down any objects or reasons at the resumed sitting of the Congress which would have the effect of excluding persons who are now entitled to be elected as delegates.

      (f) By agreeing to accept not only the delegates elected at the Congress of 1907 but also to accept any other delegate that may be so elected as members of the adjourned sessions.

      Clause (c) is given above in its amended form. In Sri Aurobindo's draft it ran simply: "By agreeing to accept the election of Dr. Rash Behari Ghosh as valid." Clause (f) was added to the draft by Bipin Chandra Pal and accepted unanimously.²⁶

      The Extremists were willing to go so far as to accept the election of Rash Behari — the principal occasion for the break at Surat — provided first that the Moderates would accept the four great resolutions passed at Calcutta — Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott and National Education — and secondly, that they did not impose their creed on the Congress. Many Extremists, Bipinbehari Das Gupta, for example, thought the party was conceding the Moderates too much. But the assembly was in favour of the compromise advocated by Bipin Pal, C.R. Das and Sri Aurobindo. Das spoke in Bengali in support of the resolution and seconded it. Sri Aurobindo then spoke in English. A synopsis of what he said was printed in the Bande Mataram and subsequently in his Speeches. The Bengalee reported as follows:

Mr. Aravinda Ghose in a long English speech spoke of the Surat affairs. He had very little hope of a real union taking place. The national movement was God's movement. Whatever God decreed would happen. Whether they should succeed or not rested upon Him. If by natural evolution it should come to their being forced to suffer prosecutions they would most gladly face persecution. (Loud cheers.) They would not shrink from persecutions. But they should try to have a united Congress. He had drafted the resolution and he saw nothing wrong in sacrificing a little for the sake of a compromise. That would be the first and last giving in of his party for the sake of a united Congress.²⁷

      It was at this point that the discussion of clause (c) took place. Answering objections raised by Babus Shamsunder Chakravarty and Bepinbehari Das Gupta, Bipin Pal said that even Tilak was not opposed to accepting Rash Behari's election so long as the Calcutta resolutions were accepted. Sri Aurobindo then spoke again. He

pointed out that they would be overlooking a gross irregularity by accepting Dr. Ghose's election as valid but that was for that time only. Petitioning he

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said, would cease when they would get the nation at the party's back. They must make the Congress act up to the will of the nation. They could not accept the creed as it would exclude a large section of the country. The people had spoken out their minds at Pabna, Dhulia and other places.

      At the close of the meeting Bipin Pal expressed his hope that Surendranath Banerjea, as leader of the Bengal Moderates, would place the resolutions passed by both parties at Pabna before the convention committee at Allahabad.²⁸

      Surendranath had his own hopes and fears which would travel with him to Allahabad. Surat had made dramatically clear what was already evident enough— that he no longer could claim to be the undisputed leader of Bengal. His influence was being more and more undercut by the Extremists, and this loss of provincial support was compromising his position as one of the three or four chief Moderates in the country. Now he and his associates had been forced at Pabna to accept resolutions which left them "no ground to stand on if they associated themselves with the Bombay [i.e. Mehta-Gokhale] attempt to turn back the wheels of time and put an end to the natural evolution of the Congress".²⁹ Surendranath had been lucky to escape the Provincial Conference with nothing passed more embarrassing to him than four resolutions reaffirming the Calcutta programme. If the Extremists had succeeded in passing a resolution for complete Swaraj, it would have shown that Moderatism in Bengal was a thing of the past. Even as it was, the Pabna programme was a pill that Bombay would not be able to swallow. And if Mehta and Gokhale coldshouldered errant Bengal and its erstwhile leader, what would become of Surendranath's dreams for national preeminence?

      The actual work at Allahabad would be done by a committee composed of Pherozshah Mehta and D.E. Wacha representing Bombay, and Surendranath and the Congress "president", Rash Behari Ghosh, representing Bengal. The Bengal Moderates had written a draft constitution for the Congress which they hoped would leave the impress of their ideas on the national body. Just as important for them, their draft, if accepted, would exclude the Extremists from Congress politics unless they agreed to follow the Moderate lead. The "Bengal Draft" contained, for example, a clause permitting only political associations of "over five years' standing" to send representatives to provincial Congress committees.³⁰ This clearly was meant to prevent independent representation of the Nationalist (Extremist) Party, which was not formed until 1906. The Moderates' denial in the columns of the Bengalee that the purpose of their draft was not "to exclude all 'extremists' or 'undesirables'"³¹ was a vain exercise; their tactics were all too evident. But what would become of the Moderates of Bengal if their exclusion of what was in fact the most vigorous political element in the province made them the undisputed leaders of a dead letter?

      Congressmen of the Punjab were alive to this danger, and their own draft constitution contained no entrance restrictions. But at Allahabad neither the Punjab nor the Bengal draft was accepted. Although most of the fifty-five participants were from Bengal, and Surendranath Banerjea played a visible public role, the decisions were taken by the Bombay machine. The constitution that was adopted made the Congress in effect the personal property of Pherozshah Mehta—a "Mehta Majlis" [parliament] as Sri Aurobindo later dubbed it. The document was worded with Surat clearly in mind. All matters that there became stumbling-blocks to the Moderates

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— change of venue, election of the president, movement of amendments — were regulated in accordance with the Lion of Bombay's wishes.

      There was one delegate at Allahabad who was actually sympathetic to the Extremists — Lala Lajpat Rai [Plate 4]. In 1907, desiring Congress unity at any cost, he had refused to let himself be put forward as the Extremists' choice for president, and had thus alienated many in Bengal and Maharashtra. He had even signed the Moderates' creed and so could be present at the Allahabad meeting. There this sincere middle-of-the-roader tried to look after the interests of his old friends.

      Although a signatory, Lajpat Rai was opposed to "the requirement of its [the creed's] being signed before anybody could attend a meeting of the Indian National Congress". He thought that "none of us had the right to exclude from the deliberations of this Congress anybody who pitched his ideal so high as the complete independence of his mother country". He made it evident to whom he was referring in this sentence by adding,

one chief point for consideration before me was that no assembly in India could be called "national" which precluded by virtue of this creed a man of the purity and of the ability and of the absolute disinterestedness and high patriotism of the nation as Aurabindo Ghose.³²

      But the convention, fearful of the power the upstart Aurobindo wielded over the nation, did not heed Lajpat Rai's objection. It closed its doors to the vitality of the Extremists. The result is that for more than ten years the Congress became an "inanimate body".³³

      In his speech at Panthi's Math Sri Aurobindo had said that the Extremists must be ready to face prosecutions. These proved to be prophetic words. On 2 May 1908, just three weeks after the speech, he was arrested and imprisoned for a year in Alipur Jail. While he was there, Lokmanya Tilak was convicted of sedition and transported to Mandalay, and eleven Bengali leaders, among them Aswini Kumar Dutt, Manoranjan Guha Thakurta, Krishna Kumar Mitra and Subodh Chandra Mullik, were deported to various parts of the Empire. When Sri Aurobindo was released in May 1909, the Extremist party was disordered, leaderless, almost inert. At once and almost singlehandedly he took steps to revive the national spirit. He gave speeches in Calcutta and the districts, and started two journals in which he dealt with political matters — one, Karmayogin, in English, the other, Dharma, in Bengali.

      The Moderates were also inactive at this time, partly because their leader was absent. Surendranath Banerjea had gone to England to attend a press conference, and to exercise his oratorical powers on British audiences. He returned to Calcutta in August 1909 — too late for the great anti-partition meeting of 7 August, but in time to prepare for the next confrontation between the Moderates and Extremists of Bengal—the 1909 Provincial Conference, which would be meeting at Hooghly on 5 and 6 September.

THE HOOGHLY CONFERENCE

Sri Aurobindo's long third-person note on his political life (SABCL volume 25, pages 21-39) contains an account of the "Provincial Conference at Hooghly" and

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another of the "Provincial Conference at Barisal in 1909". The first account comes before his imprisonment of 1908-09, the second after it. In fact both refer to the Bengal Provincial Conference held at Hooghly in 1909, though in both there is some admixture of other events. The first account (pages 32-33) occurs after the speeches Sri Aurobindo delivered in January and February 1908, and before his arrest in May 1908. Sri Aurobindo placed it here, in the period February-April 1908, because it begins as a description not of the Hooghly Conference (despite the name used) but rather of the Pabna Conference of 11 and 12 February 1908:

He led the party again at the session of the provincial conference at Hooghly [read Pabna]. There it became evident for the first time that Nationalism was gaining the ascendant. . . .

      Sri Aurobindo was not the only Nationalist (Extremist) leader at Pabna (as he was at Hooghly the next year); but it was at Pabna, not at Hooghly, that it first became evident that Nationalism was gaining the ascendant. The rest of the account in the note is a description of what took place at Hooghly. It is quite authentic historically, and will be made use of by the present writer even though its occurrence is not chronological.

      The second account (pages 34-35) is for the most part a description of the situation at Hooghly in its correct chronological place; but Sri Aurobindo mistakenly refers to the event as the "Provincial Conference at Barisal in 1909". The Barisal Provincial Conference took place in April 1906. The speech Sri Aurobindo refers to in the second account is apparently the one he delivered in July 1909 at the Barisal District Conference (properly Backergange District Conference — it was common practice to refer to this district by the name of its principal city) — which explains the confusion of names. The account goes on to speak of "the compromise at Hooghly" owing to which "the two parties had not split altogether apart and both joined in the Conference". Since it is obviously the Hooghly Conference that is being referred to here — for this was the only important conference of 1909 that both parties joined in —the compromise mentioned is evidently the one arrived at at Pabna the year before. This compromise is implicit, in its correct chronological position, in the first account, although there, as we have seen, it is the circumstances of the compromise at Hooghly that are described. What is important in Sri Aurobindo's accounts is not the chronology or nomenclature, which can best be determined from contemporary documents, but his masterful firsthand assessment of the political forces at play.

      The most important factor in the situation of 1909 was the apparent decline in the strength of the Nationalist movement. The nine deportations that had decimated the Extremist leadership were the most dramatic in a whole series of repressive measures that left "a general discouragement and depression" in their wake, "though the feeling in the country had not ceased but was only suppressed and was growing by its suppression."³⁴ Sri Aurobindo acknowledged the "fatigue and inactivity" that had overtaken the national movement in his talk of 15 August 1909 reproduced on page 99. The Moderates were not willing to admit to it. Baikunthanath Sen would say at the Hooghly Conference that the popular agitation against the Partition retained its original strength. This certainly was not true. Sales of bilati cloth were on the increase. But Baikunthanath's assertion that unrest prevailed throughout the province was no

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overstatement. Nor was it an exaggeration when he said that the political situation was "surcharged with elements which might cause apprehension and anxiety"³⁵ — not only to the Government but also to the Moderate party. Bengal in fact was becoming more and more Extremist in sentiment, even if for the moment this sentiment was going unexpressed. The Extremists, on their part, were concerned about the Moderate-led "revival of the weakness of our nineteenth century politics".³⁶ But while the Moderate machine continued to chug along in reverse, the Bengali nation, "extremist at heart", was increasingly giving its support to Sri Aurobindo's party. Surendranath's popularity was steadily declining [Document 2]. Sri Aurobindo was enough of a realist, however, to recognise that the success of the Nationalist movement since 1905 was a result of the union between the Moderates and Extremists, and even while he was organising opposition to the Moderate oligarchy, he made open appeals for union.

      Hooghly was in 1909 a political "sleepy hollow" in politically inactive western Bengal.³⁷ This gave the Moderates a homecourt advantage that they did not enjoy at Pabna, and they exploited this to the utmost. The Reception Committee at Hooghly first gave out that they "would keep the Pabna resolutions in view while framing their resolutions".³⁸ But the draft resolutions received by delegates less than a week before the conference met were retrograde in several respects. Sri Aurobindo revealed the inadequacy of the Reception Committee's draft by publishing it side by side with his own draft in the Karmayogin [Document 1], and explaining the situation in an editorial. One of the Moderate resolutions expressed "gratefulness" to the government for its recent reform scheme (what eventually became the Minto-Morley Reforms), while timidly noting some dissatisfaction with the "undue favour in the matter of representation in the Councils which may be shown to any particular community". These "separate electorates on sectarian lines" were "emphatically condemned" by Sri Aurobindo. He could see the evil plant that would sprout from this seed; and in fact the separate electorates proved to be the first step towards the separate country of Pakistan. The Moderate resolution on the Partition also showed a lack of spine; it appealed to the Government in an unmanly way. But it was especially the boycott resolution that had been emasculated. The resolution at Pabna had spoken of "the Boycott movement" and its use "as a political weapon and as a measure of economic protection".³⁹ The Moderates, always chary of such forthright language, now equivocated: "the Boycott of foreign goods ... is, in its opinion, a perfectly legitimate movement. . . calculated to promote the political as well as industrial and economic welfare of the country". The changes seem minor, but they take the teeth out of the movement. The very term "Boycott movement", insisted on by the Extremists at Calcutta, against considerable opposition, as implying the spread of Boycott outside Bengal,⁴⁰ has been removed.

      The Moderates did not confine themselves to legitimate, if retrograde manoeuvres in the Reception Committee. They even used "unfair means to chuck men of pronounced nationalistic views from the list of the delegates", going so far as to try "to prevent even Sri Aurobindo being returned"⁴¹ on certain "technical grounds".⁴² Sri Aurobindo commented on these "dirty tricks" in Dharma on 30 August, by which time he had been selected as a delegate from Diamond Harbour. He reminded the Moderates that the Bengal Provincial Conference was not being held under the reactionary rules of the convention. If they wanted him to be excluded

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from politics, why didn't they "stand up openly before the country and proclaim it"? He advised them to act like the English in political matters — boldly and openly, before a fully informed public.

      Sri Aurobindo's popularity and position as the leader of the Extremists was underscored on 2 September when he was elected as one of the delegates of the "graduates" of Calcutta at a public meeting at College Square.⁴³ (He would eventually represent not only Diamond Harbour and these graduates but also Uttarpara and the students of Hooghly and Chinsurah.) "Graduates" may be a euphemism, like the term "senior students" used elsewhere to describe the participants [Document 3]. The presence of students at meetings was still a controversial matter on account of the Risley Circular. The Moderates were not unhappy about the restrictions on student participation, since the youth of Bengal was solidly behind Sri Aurobindo. Jyotish Chandra Ghose, an Extremist participant at the conference, writes that Sri Aurobindo took certain steps in open defiance of the circular in order to have students participate both as delegates and as volunteers.⁴⁴ He did this not merely to gather support for himself; he believed the political future of the country depended upon its youth.

      The day after the College Square meeting was held, the Moderate leaders met for a secret strategy session at the Bengalee office [Document 2]. Although Surendranath and his chief lieutenant, Bhupendranath Bose, wanted to establish a concordat with the Extremists, it was agreed that if the Extremists got control of the vital Subjects Committee, the Moderates would walk out of the conference. The main matter of concern was the Boycott resolution. The Government and the Anglo-Indian community, while they could hardly oppose the Swadeshi movement's encouragement of indigenous industry, were opposed to Boycott because it hurt them where they could feel it — in the pocketbook. The Moderates, under government pressure, decided to try to get rid of the term "Boycott" by making "Swadeshi" do duty for both the manufacturing and commercial aspects of the movement. This was an unnecessary verbal nicety. As the Barisal Hitaishi declared: "The English people have not been frightened by the word boycott. . . . What they want is money."⁴⁵

      The stage was now set for the conference. The two were differentiated not only by their platforms but by their tactics. The Moderates depended on secret manoeuvres, exclusion clauses and closed-door meetings; the Extremists, who had "nothing to conceal",⁴⁶ called for an end to secrecy and placed everything before the people in newspapers and at public meetings. Just before the conference the Bengal Extremists met at Hooghly in a place called the Dutch Villa. Present also was the prominent Maharashtrian leader Dr. Paranjpe. He listened as Sri Aurobindo's colleagues, exasperated by the underhanded tactics of the Moderates, advised their chief

to trounce the Moderates in that [Provincial] Conference, by any and every means. Aurobindo would not agree to this improper method. Seeing that he was not coming round, Paranjpe broke in: "Aurobindo Babu, you don't know politics. You must bring down the Moderates by any means fair or foul, by hook or crook."

Sri Aurobindo listened quietly to Paranjpe's remarks, filled though they were with a remnant of the Mahratta's traditional disdain for the Bengali. When his turn to speak came, he replied calmly:

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No, I shall never agree to that. Do you have any idea what great work Surendranath Banerji and his Moderate Party have done in Bengal politics? We are standing on their shoulders and because of that we appear tall. Besides this, whatever be anybody's work, I shall not be a party to bringing down their downfall by foul means. We shall fully respect the Moderate Party and place before the Conference, in clear terms, our stand of Independence. If our ideal is sacred and lofty and just, the Conference cannot but give its verdict in our favour. If you do not accept this policy I shall withdraw from this Conference.

There was no question of permitting the withdrawal of the party's leader, and "the Conference was conducted in accord with Aurobindo's policies."⁴⁷

      The 1909 Bengal Provincial Conference began on Sunday, 5 September. The pandal erected in the compound of the Gauranga Natya Samaj in Chinsurah — the district headquarters of the Hooghly district located just south of the town of Hooghly — was filled to overflowing. There were some 500 delegates — most from Calcutta, fewer than usual from the districts. All told, there were about 1500 people present. Most were young, and the large showing from eastern Bengal gave Sri Aurobindo's party a "strong numerical majority" [Document 3]. Both he and Surendranath were given "animated welcomes";⁴⁸ but the ovation that went up when Sri Aurobindo entered with his body-guard of one hundred volunteers was "warmer" than the one accorded the Moderate leader [Document 3]. This, noted the Hindoo Patriot, "was a sufficient indication of the rampant influence the nationalists [Extremists] commanded".⁴⁹ The Moderates' reaction was to complain that "a sort of commotion" was created when the volunteers pushed their way into the pandal without producing tickets.⁵⁰

      The first speech was by the Chairman of the Reception Committee, Bipin Behari Mitra. With obvious reference to Sri Aurobindo's unruly young supporters, he "pointed out the undesirability of students mixing up in politics".⁵¹ This was met with hissing by these very undesirables, who, the Bengalee commented, "should have been excluded".⁵² Then came the main item of the opening day's pomp — the Presidential address. Baikunthanath Sen, the "well-known pleader and publicist of Behrampur",⁵³ made no secret of his Moderate leanings. His five point platform ignored all four resolutions that had been the focus of Nationalist politics since the Calcutta Congress. He made special reference to Surendranath's speaking tour in England, but did not mention the work of Sri Aurobindo or any other Extremist.⁵⁴ As instructed, he proposed abandoning the use of the word "boycott". This suggestion, says police report, was received with "noisy protests". The young Extremists kept up their "yells of opposition", preventing Baikunthanath from proceeding, until Surendranath "intervened to restore order" [Document 3].

      Then came the real business of the first day—the formation of the Subjects Committee. Baikunthanath Babu wanted to set a low limit on the total number of delegates. The Extremists protested. After the number had been agreed on, there was heated discussion about the Calcutta delegation. The Moderates proposed that of the fifteen representatives allotted to the city, ten should be Moderates. But

the nationalist [Extremist] party, under the command of Arabindo Ghosh, demanded that they should be adequately represented; they adopted a

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threatening attitude and refused to leave the pandal when the chairman declared the discussion closed [Document 3].

Sri Aurobindo's own list had the names of seven Extremists and eight Moderates. This was given to the President, who found a technicality by which he could replace two Extremists by Moderates, so that the Moderate allocation returned to ten of fifteen. But when Baikunthanath Babu "announced the names, the opposition which it received baffled all description. . . . The President tried to explain the matter but his voice was sunk in the uproar."⁵⁵ Eventually, reports a police source, "Ara-binda Ghosh . . . suggested, as a compromise, the appointment of six nationalists and nine moderates, and this was agreed to" [Document 3].

      The Subjects Committee sat at 6 or 7 p.m. The public was excluded, but "L" Calcutta, a government informant, managed to get himself admitted [Document 2]. He reports that despite all the manoeuvring of the Moderates, "the extremists, though not in actual majority, were pushing up rapidly", and their strength was increased by defections from the other side. The Extremists had come to Hooghly with the intention of bringing forward their own draft resolutions [Document 1]. In particular they

intended to put forward a formal protest against any acceptance of the reforms in however slight a degree, to press the Pabna resolution on the Boycott and above all to insist on the Conference taking some definite step which would either materialise the chances of an United Congress or once for all show that union was impossible. The Moderate leaders came determined on four things, not to allow any resolution recognising general passive resistance, not to allow any resolution amounting to an absolute refusal of the Reforms, not to allow any resolution debarring delegates from Bengal from joining the Lahore Convention in case of that body rejecting union and not to consent even to the bringing forward of any amendment or proposal of a pronounced nationalist character in the Conference. On all these points it was made quite evident that if the Nationalists pressed their points the Conference would be broken up by the secession of the Moderate leaders.⁵⁶

It was only because of this threat of secession that the Extremist resolutions were overruled [Document 3]. Sri Aurobindo, in fact, "gave way on all disputed matters and adhered only to their main point of securing some definite step towards a united Congress".⁵⁷ One of the "disputed matters" was the Swaraj resolution, on which there was "very hot discussion" [Document 2]. The Extremists, as at Pabna,

demanded a resolution of absolute swaraj free from all foreign control. Surendra Nath Banerji is said to have told the Extremists that he would prefer disagreement and disruption in the conference to seeing a resolution of absolute Swaraj passed [Document 2].

Here the mediation of Misri Babu (Rajendranath Mukherjee), son of the wealthy zamindar of Uttarpara, proved decisive, and the Extremists accepted the Moderates' draft calling for colonial self-government [Document 2].

      The second clause of the self-government resolution dealt with the Reforms. In the Subjects Committee meeting

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Sri Aurobindo was able to defeat the Moderates' resolution welcoming the Reforms and pass his own resolution stigmatising them as utterly inadequate and unreal and rejecting them. But the Moderate leaders threatened to secede if this was maintained and to avoid a scission he consented to allow the Moderate resolution to pass.⁵⁸

      A third threat of secession came in regard to boycott. According to Surendranath's Bengalee, an attempt was "made to commit the Conference to universal Boycott; but this was firmly objected to by the leaders of the constitutional [Moderate] party". The Bengalee goes on to say that "good sense prevailed" and the Moderate resolution was adopted.⁵⁹ Sri Aurobindo's Karmayogin gives a more detailed and graphic description:

the Moderates insisted on whittling down the Boycott to a mere commercial measure as a price of their adherence to the Conference and Sj. Aurobindo Ghose desired to bring forward an amendment, which he would subsequently withdraw, in order to mark that the Nationalists did not accept the resolution as the opinion of the country. The Moderate leaders threatened to withdraw if this was done and Sj. Aurobindo Ghose was requested to confine himself to the precedent established by Sj. Manoranjan Guha at Pabna⁶⁰ —

that is, to making a statement at the open session. This Sri Aurobindo agreed to do despite his fears, later realised, that the Bengalee, as mouthpiece of the Moderates, would misrepresent the Extremists' position.

      The "definite step" towards a united Congress that Sri Aurobindo insisted on was embodied in a resolution that set up a bipartisan committee to meet and work out differences. Eight delegates were appointed to the committee — four Moderates and four Extremists. Its deliberations will be dealt with below.

      The meeting of the Subjects committee continued until late Sunday night, and was not concluded until Monday morning. As a result the second day's proceedings were delayed until 1.30 p.m. The pandal was even more crowded than the previous day. To the relief of the Moderates, even the younger Extremists were making themselves "quite agreeable ... to all concerned"⁶¹ — at least to begin with. The leaders were again cheered on arrival; again Sri Aurobindo received the wannest welcome. The first three resolutions were passed without special incident. Then came the turn of boycott. When the Extremists in the hall realised that the Moderate resolution had been adopted, they became clamorous and unruly. Baikunthanath Sen, despite "his gray haired head", "flowing whiskers" and "commanding appearance",⁶² was unable to control the meeting. Even Surendranath, who "tried hard to control the people . . . failed and became furious".⁶³ The tumult continued. The Government's reports [Documents 2 and 3] twice stress that had Sri Aurobindo desired it, he could have had his supporters break up the conference, as he had done at Surat. This time he chose another course. He stood before the riotous assembly, holding up his right arm. Seeing this gesture of their leader, the Extremists immediately fell silent. "All the shouting and other [disturbance] that was going on before . . . stopped at once,"⁶⁴ reports Arun Dutt, then a young observer. Baikunthanath Babu was left twirling his moustache, and Surendranath became "still more furious", seeing "while we old leaders can't control them, this young man of hardly thirty commands

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them by just lifting a finger".⁶⁵ Sri Aurobindo then explained to his party why he had accepted the Moderates' resolutions on boycott and the reforms. A report of his speech is reproduced on pages 100 and 101. Before the boycott resolution was put to the vote, Sri Aurobindo asked his followers to leave the hall. They did so, obeying him "in disciplined silence as if a single body", "so that they might not have to vote either for or against the Moderate resolution".⁶⁶ The Bengalee does not report this walk-out; but two pieces of evidence support the accounts given by Sri Aurobindo in On Himself and the Talks. The first is Arun Dutt's statement that "after he [Sri Aurobindo] spoke, I came out of the meeting."⁶⁷ The other is the fact that, while the Bengalee speaks of all the resolutions after the fourth (boycott) as being "duly proposed and seconded"⁶⁸ — the word "duly" is significant — police reports speak of only five resolutions. Apparently those that followed the fifth resolution— on swadeshi, the industrial counterpart of boycott—were not brought up before the now more-than-half-empty assembly. The Bengalee would not have been anxious to report this.

      "Towards the end of the proceedings" of the conference, a question was put to the chair as to what had become of the National Fund [Document 3]. This was a sum of almost a lac of rupees (then a tremendous amount) that had been raised on Partition Day, 16 October 1905. In private talks with his disciples during the twenties, Sri Aurobindo made it clear that the Moderate leaders had grossly misused this money. This was well known at the time — hence the question at Hooghly. The president, not surprisingly, ruled it out of order. Sri Aurobindo then rose and said, diplomatically, that he had received permission from the president to enquire into the matter "without making any imputation at all against anyone". He said that while no one at the conference had any power over the money, they had "the power to bring the force of public opinion to bear on the matter" [Document 3]. The Moderate leaders managed to extricate themselves with aplomb. They proposed that the money should be used to build a Federation Hall (as had already been suggested), and that the president of the conference should speak to the trustees of the fund. This was agreed on, "legal remedies" were abjured, and Surendranath closed by declaring, to the cheers of the assembly, that they should raise "some further money for a Federation Hall". Then, with a vote of thanks to the chair, the Bengal Provincial Conference came to a close.

      According to "L" Calcutta, the Hooghly Provincial Conference was "fruitful of greater and more far-reaching results than any of its predecessors". He considered that the Extremists had "won all along the line", despite the fact that they had given ground to the Moderates at every step [Document 2]. The police doubted if the conference could be considered a victory for the Extremists, since none of the important resolutions had been altered in accordance with their draft. But, as the Nayak commented on 8 September, the resolutions all showed Extremist influence. Indeed, stated the paper, "the Moderates as a matter of undisputed fact have come gradually, if unknowingly, to conform to Extremist principles"⁶⁹ — a point also stressed by "L" Calcutta.

      The disturbances at the conference were given much attention by hostile editors. Even professed neutrals like the Nayak were distressed to note that the Extremists were "lacking in respect to the leaders, in discipline to their superiors, in capacity for work".⁷⁰ But if the young delegates showed all these vices in their dealings

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with the Moderates, they displayed just the opposite towards Sri Aurobindo. This was a sign of one of the most important trends of the period. As Sri Aurobindo noted in 1939: "It was at that time that the people began to get the sense of discipline and order and of obeying the leader." This, he added, paved the way for Gandhi's successful mass movements.⁷¹

      Sri Aurobindo considered the conference a success if only because the threatened breach between the parties had not taken place.⁷² A split at this point would have been undesirable, because the Extremists were "still weak"⁷³ and not really ready to stand alone. All Sri Aurobindo's compromises were adopted "with a view to secure a United Congress".⁷⁴ He knew, as Government observers had the perspicacity to see, that in the long run "this meant an Extremist Congress" [Document 2]. Sri Aurobindo summed up in Karmayogin:

The Nationalist Party is in practical possession of the heart and mind of Bengal. ... It is growing in strength, energy and wisdom. It surely inherits the future. Under such circumstances it can afford to wait.⁷⁵

THE SURMA VALLEY CONFERENCE

On 11 and 12 September, less than a week after the Hooghly Conference, Sri Aurobindo attended the Surma Valley District Conference (also called the Sylhet District Conference), held at Jalsuka, a village in Habigang sub-division, Sylhet District, in the "new province" of Eastern Bengal and Assam. He was pleased to find that "in this remote corner of the eastern region the term 'Moderate' has ceased to be".⁷⁶ It was not to fight a big party battle that he had been invited to the Surma Valley. The organisers of the conference simply wanted the famous leader to be present, knowing that this would give a boost to the local organisation. This was reason enough for Sri Aurobindo to come to this relatively unimportant, rural event; but he was doubtless glad to have an opportunity to leave the hustle-bustle of Calcutta, and to come in touch again with the simple village people who were the salt of the party and the nation. It also gave him a chance to see more of the country —the sujalam suphalam Mother herself. Nolini Kanta Gupta, who was "along for the ride", has left a wonderful description of how the tour provided them

with a fresh opportunity to see once again the beauty of old Bengal, the land of the rivers. . . . Water, water everywhere, so much water you do not see at any other place, an endless sheet of water spread out below, matching the vast expanse of the sky above. From Goalando we went by steamer to Nara-yangunge along the Padma and the Sitalaksha, thence to the Meghna; one who has not seen the Meghna cannot imagine what it is really like—it was, as it were, the living Goddess of the water, Jaleshwari—and next, the mighty Dhaleshwari and on to the Surma. We travelled by river steamer for days on end without a break and we moved about by country boat. The rains had come. The low-lying tracts — they call them Howr — which at other times are just dry lowlands were now all submerged under water. As far as the eyes could reach, there was a vast expanse of water clear and still. Only at places here and there one could see jutting out of its midst a few houses or a village.

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One day, in the twilight of the evening, land and river took on a rosy hue in the crimson glow of the setting sun as we sailed along by a slow-moving boat.⁷⁷

      At Jalsuka, Sri Aurobindo and the others who had come for the conference — some 500 people from the district and beyond — stayed in boats moored to a newly constructed jetty. He was given an enthusiastic welcome. When the conference opened, the President of the Reception Committee paid tribute to the visiting leader, saying that he "represented the interest of the dumb millions of India", demanding for them "the full privileges of man". The audience responded with cries of "Victory to Aurobindo!"⁷⁸ The president of the conference was Babu Sarat Chandra Chaud-huri. He was, as Sri Aurobindo was pleased to note, "not a well-known vakil or political speaker" — like most Congress bigwigs — "but a learned and honoured Brahmin".⁷⁹ Hindu orthodoxy had strong roots in the Surma Valley. It is no surprise that the first resolution was a request to the government not to remove the recently discovered relics of the Buddha from India. Not surprising either was the fact that most discussion was on the resolution concerning readmission to the Hindu fold of men who had taken sea-voyages to Europe. As for the more strictly political resolutions, they were in "striking contrast" to those passed at Hooghly.⁸⁰ The wording was at once simpler and more vivid, lacking the equivocation that the lawyers downriver were adept at. The boycott called for was "full-fledged";⁸¹ the Swaraj demanded was unencumbered by the limiting clauses that Moderates at Surat and Allahabad, at Pabna and Hooghly had chosen to burden themselves with.

      At a reception after the close of the meeting, Sri Aurobindo delivered a speech in English in which he laid stress on self-government and national institutions.⁸² Here and on other occasions "when he stood up to address a gathering, a pin-drop silence prevailed." Nolini Kanta Gupta, who made this observation, felt that "his audience must surely have felt a vibration of something behind the spoken word".⁸³ A local paper said much the same thing when it wrote that Sri Aurobindo's remarks "infused new vigour into the hearts of all".⁸⁴

      Many people of the area, men, women and children, came in crowds "just to hear him speak and have darshan". His words

were not confined to political matters alone. There were many who knew he was a yogi and spiritual guide and sought his help in these matters too.⁸⁵

This last remark makes one recall that all during his multifarious political activities, Sri Aurobindo's yogic sadhana was going on. At Jalsuka "he would sit up practically the whole night", taking advantage of the late hours to do concentrated meditation. He would "go to bed only for a short while in the early hours of the morning".⁸⁶ It is remarkable that one who was so absorbed in yoga never lost his hold on practical affairs. His analysis of the political situation in the various districts of Bengal published in the Karmayogin just after his return demonstrates his mastery of the day-today details of political organisation.⁸⁷

      After the Surma Valley Conference, Sri Aurobindo and his companions "toured the country for about ten or twelve days" before returning to Calcutta.⁸⁸ They visited various places, including the village of Baniachang, where they stopped on 14 September. Although unannounced, they were given a rousing welcome, and as the word of their arrival spread, some one thousand Hindus and Mahomedans gathered

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in Baniachang's main bazar. The Howrah leader Gispati Kabyatirtha addressed the gathering in Bengali. Sri Aurobindo preferred not to give a speech; he did not wish to use a bideshi language in the land of swadeshi, he said. He was still not confident enough of his spoken Bengali to address his countrymen in their native tongue.

THE UNITED CONGRESS NEGOTIATIONS

When Sri Aurobindo returned to Calcutta, the most important item on the political agenda was the meeting of the bipartisan committee for a united congress that had been established at Hooghly. There were four Moderate members — Surendranath Banerjea, Bhupendranath Bose, Amvika Charan Mazumdar and Baikunthanath Sen; and four Extremists — Sri Aurobindo, Jitendra Lal Banerjee and two others.⁹⁰ The opening meeting or meetings were held before the Puja.⁹¹ After the holidays negotiations began again; they were "proceeding" in the early part of December, according to a report published in the Karmayogin on the eleventh. The next issue of the English weekly carried no further details; but in the issue of Dharma dated 5 Paush 1316 (20 December 1909), Sri Aurobindo announced the failure of the negotiations. (The longer of the two Dharma editorials of this date on the subject appears on pages 102ff of the present issue.) The last meeting of the committee apparently took place shortly before 20 December 1909.

      In the long note and talk already referred to in connection with the Hooghly Conference, Sri Aurobindo mentions an important meeting with Surendranath Banerjea which appears to have taken place around the time of the conference. Like the accounts of the conference, the accounts of the meeting in the note and the talk seem to contain some inaccuracies of detail. In the note (SABCL volume 26, page 35) Sri Aurobindo speaks of the meeting as taking place before "the session in Benares" of "the Central Moderate Body". In the talk (6 January 1939) he mentions an upcoming "U.P. Moderate Conference". In fact the 1909 session of the Moderate Convention (still called by the Moderates the National Congress) was held in Lahore. It was in April 1908 that a national Moderate conference had been held in the United Provinces — the Allahabad Convention. (The Benares session of the National Congress was held in December 1905, a year before the Moderate-Extremist split appeared.) There had been a U.P. Provincial Conference in 1908 and there was probably another in 1909, but it does not seem that either of these were what Sri Aurobindo was referring to in the talk. The 1908 conference was held in Lucknow in February, just after the Pabna Conference; it does not appear to have been important enough nationally to have attracted delegates from Bengal. At Lucknow it was decided to hold the 1909 U.P. conference in Agra.⁹² The present writer has not been able to find any report of this conference;* but there seems little chance that the meeting between Sri Aurobindo and Banerjea referred to by Sri Aurobindo had anything to do with the U.P. Provincial Conference of 1909 or any other year. Sri Aurobindo and Surendranath certainly exchanged opinions, at least indirectly through their newspapers, before the Allahabad Convention of April 1908, and it is of course true that Allahabad was in the United Provinces. But the situation before Allahabad

      *The 1909 United Provinces Provincial Conference was held in Agra in April. Sri Aurobindo was in Alipore Jail at that time. [1909 U.P.N.P.R., pp. 285, 327 (several reports).]

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does not match well with the situation at the meeting as described by Sri Aurobindo. The available evidence shows that the meeting must have preceded not a conference or convention held in a U.P. city, but rather the Moderate Convention held at Lahore in December 1909. The accounts in the note and the talk seem to refer to an event around the time of the Hooghly Conference, in other words, in late 1909. There are, besides, two important agreements between Sri Aurobindo's accounts and the events of the united congress negotiations that preceded the Lahore Convention — the participants and the matters discussed. In his talk, Sri Aurobindo speaks of J.L. Banerjee as his Extremist collaborator at the meeting. Jitendra Lal Banerjee was one of the members of the United Congress committee, and this man, known chiefly as a professor, does not seem to have taken an active part in Bengal politics before the Hooghly Conference. Even more significant, the important topics at the negotiations are the very ones Sri Aurobindo mentions in the note and talk as having occupied him and Surendranath at their meeting. For these reasons the present writer has assumed that the Sri Aurobindo-Surendranath meeting was part of the united congress negotiations of December 1909.

      The negotiations centred around the "creed", which the Extremists refused to sign, and the rules of the convention, which they refused to accept. They did, however, say they would accept the aim of the convention as the aim of the Congress without subscribing to it as a creed; and also that they would accept the convention rules as a temporary measure. One rule, however, Sri Aurobindo insisted on being removed — the one that prevented bodies of less than three-years' standing from sending delegates.⁹³ This rule had been formulated by the Moderates expressly to keep out members of the Extremist Party, which had been formed exactly three years before. Surendranath had a solution: "We will elect you as delegates", he said. Jitendra Lal Banerjee and others were agreeable, but Sri Aurobindo saw through the proposal and "just said, 'No'". He knew that this was an attempt by Surendranath "to annex the Extremist Party"⁹⁴ in order to strengthen his hand in his fight with "the dominant right wing of the party" —i.e. the Mehta-Gokhale axis. Surendranath "had always dreamt of becoming the leader of a united Bengal with the Extremist Party as his strong right arm". Sri Aurobindo demanded a change in the Moderate constitution "enabling newly formed associations to elect delegates so that the Nationalists might independently send their representatives to the All-India session and on this point the negotiations broke down."⁹⁵

      Sri Aurobindo had accepted compromise at Pabna and before Allahabad, he had done so again at Hooghly. He could now see that the Moderates were not interested in coming to terms, and so he left them to their fate.

      Sri Aurobindo explained the breakdown of the negotiations in the principal editorial published in the Karmayogin of 25 December. He also mentioned the failure in an open letter, entitled "To My Countrymen", which appeared in the same issue of his journal. This open letter, the second one published by Sri Aurobindo in the Karmayogin (the first was that of 31 July 1909 — see pages 95-96 of the April issue of A & R), became the occasion of the Government's third and final prosecution against him, and in a way the occasion of his departure from Bengal and from politics.

      P.H.

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PRINCIPAL SOURCES

THE PABNA CONFERENCE

Bande Mataram (Calcutta daily), February 1908.

Bengalee (Calcutta daily), February 1908.

Bengal Native Newspaper Reports (B.N.N.R), February 1908.

The Dawn and Dawn Society's Magazine (weekly), February 1908.

Sri Aurobindo, On Himself. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1972, pp. 32-35.

THE ALLAHABAD CONVENTION

Bande Mataram (Calcutta daily), April 1908.

Bengalee (Calcutta daily), April 1908.

Lala Lajpat Rai, India's Will to Freedom. Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1921, p. 119.

R.C. Majumdar, History of the Freedom Movement in India, Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1975, pp. 196-209, 309-14.

R.C. Majumdar, ed., Struggle for Freedom, Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1978, Chapter IX.

Amvika Charan Mazumdar, Indian National Evolution. Madras: G.A. Natesan & Co., 1915, pp. 112-14.

THE HOOGHLY CONFERENCE AND SURMA VALLEY CONFERENCE

V.V. Athale, "Sri Aurobindo in Politics". Mother India, Volume XXIV (1972), p. 503.

Bengalee (Calcutta daily), August-September 1909.

Bengal Native Newspaper Reports (B.N.N.R), September 1909.

Dharma (Calcutta weekly), Bhadra-Ashwin 1316.

Arun Chandra Dutt. Interview with Peter Heehs and Jayanta Chanda. Chandernagore, 4 June 1978.

East Bengal and Assam Native Newspaper Reports (E.B. & A.N.N.R), September 1909.

Jyotish Chandra Ghose, Life-Work of Sri Aurobindo. Calcutta: Atmashakti Library, 1929, pp. 68-72.

Nolini Kanta Gupta, "Reminiscences". Mother India, Volume XIV, no. 7 (August 1962), pp. 20-21.

Karmayogin (Calcutta weekly), August-September 1909.

Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo. Calcutta: Sri Aurobindo Pathmandir, 1966, pp. 173-74.

Sri Aurobindo, On Himself. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1972, pp. 32-35.

[For government records see Documents in the Life of Sri Aurobindo in this issue.]

THE UNITED CONGRESS NEGOTIATIONS

Dharma (Calcutta weekly), Paush 1316.

Karmayogin (Calcutta weekly), December 1909.

Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri Aurobindo. Calcutta: Sri Aurobindo Pathmandir, 1966, p. 172.

The Pioneer (Allahabad daily), March 1908.

Sri Aurobindo, On Himself. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1972, p. 35.

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NOTES

[References to books and articles listed above are by author (and where necessary date) only.]

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