The facts about the articles in the Indu Prakash
were these. They were begun at the instance of KG Deshpande, Sri Aurobindo's
The title refers to Congress politics. It is not used in the sense of the
Aladdin story, but was intended to imply the offering of new lights to replace
the old and faint reformist lights of the Congress.
From Notes and Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Here is the third of the series published in Indu Prakash, 28 August
1893
Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.
The little that is done seems nothing when we look
forward and see how much we have yet to do.
Thus far I have been making a circuit, in my disinclination to collide too abruptly
with the prepossessions of my countrymen and now that I am compelled to handle
my subject more intimately and with a firmer grasp, nothing but my deliberate
conviction that it is quite imperative for someone to speak out, has at all
persuaded me to continue. I have at the very outset to make distinct the
grounds on which I charge the Congress with inadequacy. In the process I find
myself bound to say many things that cannot fail to draw obloquy upon me: I
shall be compelled to outrage many susceptibilities; compelled to advance many
unacceptable ideas; compelled,—worst of all,—to stroke the wrong way many
powerful persons, who are wont to be pampered with unstinted flattery and
worship. But at all risks the thing must be done, and since it is on me that
the choice has fallen, I can only proceed in the best fashion at my command and
with what boldness I may. I say. of the Congress, then, this,—that its aims are
mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds towards their accomplishment is
not a spirit of sincerity and whole-heartedness, and that the methods it has
chosen are not the right methods, and the leaders in whom it trusts, not the
right sort of men to be leaders;—in brief, that we are at present the blind
led, if not by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed.
To begin with, I should a little while ago have had no hesitation in saying
that the National Congress was not really national and had not in any way
attempted to become national. But that was before I became a student of
Mr Pherozshah Mehta's speeches. Now to deal with this vexed subject, one must
tread on very burning ground, and I shall make no apology for treading with
great care and circumspection. The subject is wrapped in so thick a dust of
controversy, and legal wits have been so busy drawing subtle distinctions about
it, that a word which was once perfectly straightforward and simple has become
almost as difficult as the Law itself. It is therefore incumbent on me to
explain what I wish to imply, when I say that the Congress is not really
national. Now I do not at all mean to reecho the Anglo-Indian catchword about
the Hindu and Mahomedans. Like most catchwords it is without much force, and
has been still further stripped of meaning by the policy of the Congress. The
Mahomedans have been as largely represented on that body as any reasonable
community could desire, and their susceptibilities, far from being denied
respect, have always been most assiduously soothed and flattered. It is
entirely futile then to take up the Anglo-Indian refrain; but this at least I
should have imagined, that in an era when democracy and similar big words slide
so glibly from our tongues, a body like, the Congress, which represents not the
mass of the population, but a single and very limited class, could not honestly
be called national. It is perfectly true that the House of Commons represents
not the English nation, but simply the English aristocracy and middle class and
yet is none the less national. But the House of Commons is a body legally
constituted and empowered to speak and act for the nation, while the Congress
is self-created: and it is not justifiable for a self-created body representing
only a single and limited class to call itself national. It would be just as
absurd if the Liberal Party, because it allows within its, limits all sorts and
conditions of men, were to hold annual meetings and call itself the English
National Congress. When therefore I said that the Congress was not really
national, I simply meant that it did not represent the mass of the population.
But Mr Pherozshah Mehta will have nothing to do with this sense of the word his
very remarkable and instructive Presidential address at Calcutta, he argued
that the Congress could justly arrogate this epithet without having any direct
support from the proletariate: and he went on to explain his argument with the
profound subtlety expected from an experienced advocate. "It is because
the masses are still unable to articulate definite political demands that the
functions and duty devolve upon their educated and enlightened compatriots to
feel to understand and to interpret their grievances and requirements, and to
suggest and indicate how these can best be redressed and met."
This formidable sentence is, by the way, typical of Mr Mehta’s style and
reveals the secret of his oratory, which like all great inventions is
exceedingly simple: it is merely to say the same thing twice over in different
words. But its more noteworthy feature is the idea implied that because the
Congress professes to discharge this duty, it may justly call itself national.
Nor is this all;
But at this point some one a little less learned than
Mr Pherozshah Mehta may interfere and ask how it can be true that the Congress
is not a popular body. I can only point his attention to a previous statement
of mine that the Congress represents not the mass of the
population, but a single and limited class. No doubt the Congress tried very
hard in the beginning to believe that it really represented the mass of the
population, but if it has not already abandoned, it ought now at least to
abandon the pretension as quite untenable. And indeed when Mr Pherozshah and Mr
Manmohen Ghose have admitted this patent fact—not as delegates only, but as
officials of the Congress—and have even gone so far as to explain the
fact away, it is hardly requisite for me to combat the fallacy. But perhaps the
enquirer, not yet satisfied, may go on ask what is that single and limited
class which I imagine the Congress to represent. Here it may be of help to us
to refer again to the speeches of the Congress leaders and more especially to
the talented men from whom I have already quoted. In his able official address
Mr Manmohan Ghose asks himself this very question and answers that the Congress
represents the thinking portion of the Indian people. "The delegates present
here today," he goes on, "are the chosen representatives of that
section of the Indian people who have learnt to think, and whose number is
daily increasing with marvellous rapidity." Perhaps Mr Ghose is a little
too facile in his use of the word "thinking". So much at the mercy of
their instincts and prejudices are the generality of mankind, that we hazard a
very high estimate when we call even one man out of ten thousand a thinking
man. But evidently by the thinking portion Mr Ghose would like to indicate the
class to which he himself belongs; I mean those of us who have got some little
idea of the machinery of Eng1ish politics and are eager to import it into India
along with cheap Liverpool cloths, shoddy Brummagem wares, and other useful and
necessary things which have killed the fine and genuine textures. If this is a
true interpretation he is perfectly correct in what he says. For it is really
from this class that the Congress movement draws its origin, its support and
its most enthusiastic votaries. And if I were asked to describe their class by
a single name, I should not hesitate to call it our new middle class. For here
too English goods have driven out native goods: our society has lost its old
landmarks and is being demarcated on the English model. But of all the brand
new articles we have imported, inconceivably the most important is that large
class of people—journalists, barristers, doctors, officials, graduates and
traders—who have grown up and are increasing with prurient rapidity under the
aegis of the British rule: and this class I call the middle class: for, when we
are so proud of our imported English goods, it would be absurd, when we want
labels for them, not to import their English names as well. Besides this name,
which I have chosen is really a more accurate description than phrases like
"thinking men" or "the educated class" which are merely
expressions of our own boundless vanity and self-conceit. However largely we
may choose to indulge in vague rhetoric about the all-pervading influence of
the Congress, no one can honestly doubt that here is the constituency from
which it is really empowered. There is indeed a small contingent of aristocrats
and a smaller contingent of the more well-to-do ryots: but these are only two
flying-wheels in the great middle class machine. The fetish-worshipper may
declare as loudly as he pleases that it represents all sorts and conditions of
people, just as the Anglo-Indians used to insist that it represented no one but
the Bengali Babu. Facts have been too strong for the Anglo-Indian and they will
be too strong in the end for the fetish-worshipper. Partisans on either side
can in no way alter the clear and immutable truth—these words were put on paper
long before the recent disturbances in Bombay and certainly without any
suspicion that the prophecy I then hazarded would be fortified by so apt and
striking a comment. Facts are already beginning to speak in a very clear and
unambiguous voice. How long will the Congress sit like careless Belshazzar, at
the feast of mutual admiration? Already the decree has gone out against it;
already even the eyes that are dim can discern,—for has it not been written in
blood?—the first pregnant phrase of the handwriting upon the wall. "God
has numbered the kingdom and finished it." Surely after so rough a lesson,
we shall not wait, to unseal our eyes and unstop our ears, until the unseen
finger moves on and writes the second and sterner sentence: "Thou art
weighed in the balance and found wanting." Or must we sit idle with folded
hands and only bestir ourselves when the short hour of grace is past and the
kingdom given to another more worthy than we?
lndu Prakash, 28
August 1893