The Ideological Differences Between Moderates and Extremists in the Indian National Movement with Special Reference to Surendranath Banerjea and Lajpat Rai
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1 The Ideological Differences between Moderates and Extremists in the Indian National Movement with Special Reference to Surendranath Banerjea and Lajpat Rai 1885-1919 ■by Daniel Argov Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the University of London* School of Oriental and African Studies* June 1964* ProQuest Number: 11010545 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11010545 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 2 ABSTRACT Surendranath Banerjea was typical of the 'moderates’ in the Indian National Congress while Lajpat Rai typified the 'extremists'* This thesis seeks to portray critical political biographies of Surendranath Banerjea and of Lajpat Rai within a general comparative study of the moderates and the extremists, in an analysis of political beliefs and modes of political action in the Indian national movement, 1883-1919* It attempts to mirror the attitude of mind of the two nationalist leaders against their respective backgrounds of thought and experience, hence events in Bengal and the Punjab loom larger than in other parts of India* "The Extremists of to-day will be Moderates to-morrow, just as the Moderates of to-day were the Extremists of yesterday.” Bal Gangadhar Tilak, 2 January 190? ABBREVIATIONS B.N.]T.R. Bengal Native Newspaper Reports I.N.'j, Indian National Congress i.o.: j. India Office Library Prog Proceeding(s) P.N.]T.R. Punjab Native Newspaper Reports EUR. MSS. European Manuscripts 5 « CONTENTS Page Introduction............... ............. ...... 6 Chapter I The Early Career of Surendranath Banerjea, the National Fund and the National Conference 1871-1885•••♦••* 15 Chapter II The Character and Ideas of the Indian National Congress 1885-1895.... • **# 58 Chapter III The Early Career of Lajpat Rai and the Emergence of a Rift in the Congress 1882-1902 ......... 106 Chapter IV The Ideas of the Extremists and the Surat Split 1900-1907*................ 162 Chapter V The Congress Adrift, and Captured by the Extremists 1908-1920....*♦♦* 229 Epilogue ............ 280 Bibliography 295 6 INTRODUCTION The Ilbert Bill controversy and the Anglo-Indian Defence Association gave impetus to the National Fund in Bengal, which culminated in December 1885 in the National Conference, and in December 1885 in the establishment of the Indian National Congress* During its early years, the main struggle of the Congress was & struggle for recognition by the Government# The Congress endeavoured to present an image of respectability and loyalty, and its watchwords were moderation and caution* An exclusive body of English- educated Indians, whose principle desire was to assimilate Western political institutions, the Congress kept aloof from the masses. The Congress directed its main effort towards England and pinned its hopes on the Liberal party* It justified its requests for Indian representation in the British Government of India on the basis of England1s pledges to India. The concept of England*s pledges, built upon declarations of Thomas Munro i Macaulay, Henry Lawrence, and above all upon Queen Victoria’s Proclamation, was enhanced by Hipon’s pro-Indian policy; yet from the end of Ripon’s Viceroyalty to 20 August 1917» successive viceroys and secretaries of state for India emphatically repudiated the feasibility of introducing English political 7 institutions to India. fTA time may conceivably come #•• to leave India to herself but for the present it is necessary to govern her as if we were to govern her for ever"'1’ - proved to be the consummation of England’s pledges and their delayed fulfilment. The growth of the extremist party in India was explained by Bipin Chandra Pal as follows: "Lord Pipon was a kind Viceroy but one who acted as a baby-comforter and we had been brought up for too long a period upon political lollipops; Lord Curzon threw the baby-comforter away and p thus made us feel our hunger for Swaraj •" At the same time it was the failure of the moderates to gain reforms by persuasion which resulted in the extremists1 determination to force the Government to yield power by coercion# Both the moderates and the extremists came from the middle class, both were reacting towards British rule, and both voiced Indian grievances# The moderates claimed social equality and a share in the British Government of India on the grounds that they were British subjects; the extremists demanded social equality and political emancipation as their birthright. The moderates appealed to Englishmen in England and placed their reliance on English history and English political ideas; the extremists drew sustenance from India1s 1. Sir John Seeley, The Expansion of England, London 1883? pp.193-194. 2. B.C.Pal, Speeches at Madras, Ganesh, Madras 1907? p#6# 8 heritage and appealed to Indians by invoking religious patriotism. The moderates emphasised the need for political apprenticeship under the providential guidance of British rule; the extremists rejected the idea of Englandfs providential mission in India as an illusion. They disparaged the constitutional agitation of the moderates as Mendicancy', and their stress on apprenticeship as an acceptance of ceaseless political servitude* Instead* they called for self-reliance and self-apprenticeship through Swadeshi, Boycott and Passive-Resistance. In contrast* the moderates stressed that their constitutional agitation was practical statesmanship, that emotional idealism was fraught with peril, that rashness was not courage, that British rule would not come to an end because of Boycott, and above all that the removal of British rule would result in chaos and anarchy. The present tendency to depict the early history of the Indian National Congress as 'The History of the Freedom Movement1 ignores the fact that the moderate leaders of the Congress constantly harped on the theme of securing the permanence of British rule in India. For Banerjea, Swaraj meant self-restraint;^" while Sinha and Gokhale said, on different occasions, that if the British were to leave 1. Surendranath Banerjea, A Nation in Making, Oxford University Press, 1925? p*l2$. 9 India, Indians would call them back before they reached 1 Aden* The moderates reconciled loyalty to England with Indian patriotism, believing that the two were necessarily compatible and complementary* Eor the extremists, Indian patriotism and loyalty to British rule were two diametrically conflicting entities. The moderates tenaciously sought gradual reform and could see no half-way-house between order and revolution. The extremists held that revolution was but rapid evolution, and that peace and order under British rule amounted to national stagnation. The moderates used English political ideas as their weapons for arguments and petitions. The extremists bolstered up IndiaTs past and advocated militant struggle, not debate. The moderates sought Hindu-Muslim unity, and maintained a secular view of politics; the extremists fostered Hindu pride and thus antagonized the Muslims. The moderates solicited constitutional reforms on the basis that the British Government of India was not an alien government but an administration which could transform itself through gradual stages into an Indian national government. The extremists regarded the British Government of India as a system of 1. Sinha to Lady Minto, Mary Countess of Minto, India; Minto and Morley, London 1934, p.298* flokhale to Lord Hardinge, Lord Hardinge, My Indian Years, London 1948, p.115* 10 despotic alien rule* The moderates aspired to attain Indian self-government within the British Empire. The extremists regarded the British Empire as imperialism based on capitalism, and strove to free India from British rule. Thus the differences between the moderates and the extremists were not confined to different methods of agitation, but were fundamental differences in aim and methods. This thesis seeks to outline the change in India's reaction to British rule from the period when the British Government of India was regarded as a providential government ordained to fulfil a mission, to the time when it was viewed as a Satanic government. With the exception of S.A.Wolpert, Tilak and Gokhale (University of California, 1962), standard works on the Indian national movement (i.e. H.C.E. Zacharias, Renacent India from Ram Mohan Roy to Mohandas Gandhi, London 1933 or, Andrews and Mukerji, The Rise and Growth of the Congress in India 1938? or, C.Y.Chintamani, Indian Politics since the Mutiny, London 1940), provide a general history of the Indian National Congress without sufficiently emphasising the mental conflict between the moderates and the extremists. S.A. Wolpertfs comparative study of Tilak and Gokhale portrays the role of the two best known representatives of the moderates and the extremists, yet it might lead the unsuspecting reader to draw the conclusion that the two Maharashtrian leaders were the only ones, or that 11 Maharashtra alone exemplified the history of the Indian national movement. While there are political biographies of Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Aurobindo Ghosh, and numerous studies of Tilak, no full study has been written on Surendranath Banerjea, while Lajpat Rai has been virtually neglected. Thus the choice of contrasting Surendranath Banerjea with Lajpat Rai has been made in order to present a comprehensive study of Surendranath Banerjea, and to fill the gap on Lajpat Rai. When Gandhi led the Non-Co-operation movement Banerjea became an anachronism and was charged with national treason, hence his personality does not appeal to Indian historians of the freedom movement.