319 1 THERE is nothing in the present non-co-operation programme in respect of which there need be any substantial difference of opinion among nationalist leaders. In this respect, Bezwada has completed the work begun at Nagpur. When the non-co-operation resolution was first put before the Congress at Calcutta, not only did a large and powerful minority stand aloof from Mahatma Gandhi and his supporters, but this minority included every nationalist leader of the first rank, with the exception of Pandit Motilal Nehru. The process of re-unification began almost immediately after the Special Congress, when large numbers of prominent nationalists in every Province, who did not believe in the boycott of the Councils, decided to stand aside from the elections, for no other reason except that the Congress had passed the boycott resolutions. It is an open secret that until a few days before the annual session of the Congress some of the most prominent leaders were still not only in a hesitating mood, but were almost sure that they would have to put in a resolute fight at Nagpur. When the Congress did meet at Nagpur, however, a change was visible. What happened either in the subjects committee or at the open session is now a matter of history. Suffice it to say that the vast majority of those leaders who had differed from Mr. Gandhi at Calcutta was won over by the modifications which the non-co-operation resolution at Nagpur. But one leader of commanding position and authority still held out. Pandit Malaviya was unreconciled and opposed to a very substantial part of the programme. Few men can be said to represent the soul of India more truly than Pandit Malaviya, and the fact that he could not accept the programme could only mean that there were large numbers of people who remained to be inwardly convinced.
166 WE cannot help thinking that the attack made by Lala Lajpat Rai on the Moderates in a recent speech at Bombay was a one-sided attack, good enough for an ordinary nationalist or non-co-operator, but not for one holding the eminent position that Lala Lajpat Rai does in Indian politics, far less for the President of the Special Congress at Calcutta. Much that the speaker said we can grant; some of it we have ourselves said. It is true that while till the other day, there were three parties in the land, the bureaucracy, Moderates and the advanced wing of the Nationalist Party, to-day a portion of the second have virtually merged their existence in the first. That they would do so had been foreseen by some, at the very time when the Moderates first seceded from the Congress. The worst thing about such secession was that it would place the seceders more in a position in which some of them at any rate would be unable to resist the temptation of identifying themselves with our common opponents. To-day not only the Moderate ministers in certain provinces, but an appreciable proportion of the Moderate rank and file, have virtually made common cause with the bureaucracy as regards the latter’s campaign against the non-co-operators. Within certain limits, the thing is intelligible. Both the Moderates and the bureaucracy are opposed to non-co-operation and are convinced of the necessity of counteracting it, and it is not unnatural that there should be something in common between their respective activities in this direction. When there is propagandism, for instance, it is inevitable that the Moderates should repeat some of the things said by the bureaucracy and vice versa. But those Moderates who support, or even fail to oppose, a policy of repression go beyond all reasonable limits and lay themselves open to the severest condemnation.