The Background Of The Surat Split Of 1907

In December 1907, the Indian National Congress split.  The historical role of the Moderate nationalists had been exhausted by 1907. Their accomplishments were enormous and their low level of political consciousness and the enormous challenges they faced at the outset. They had no faith in the common people, did no work among them, and as a result, they were unable to establish roots among them. 

 

•    Even their propaganda was ineffective. They also did not organise any pan-India campaigns, and when one did emerge in the form of the Swadeshi and Boycott Movement in 1905-07, they were not its leaders (though the Bengal Moderates did play an active role in their own province). 

 

•    Their politics was based on the belief that they would be able to persuade the rulers to implement economic and political reforms, but they had limited success in this regard. 

 

•    Rather than respecting them for their moderation, the British treated them with contempt, mocked their politics, and repressed popular uprisings. Their fundamental flaw, on the other hand, was that they were unable to keep up with the pace of events.

 

•    They were blind to the fact that their own accomplishments had rendered their politics obsolete. 

 

•    They failed to meet the demands of the new stage of the national movement. The failure to attract the younger generation was visible proof of this.

 

•    From the beginning, the British had reservations about the National Congress. However, they were not overtly hostile in the first few years of its existence because they believed its activities would remain academic and limited to a small group of intellectuals. 

 

•    However, as soon as it became clear that the Congress would not be confined in this way, and that it would become a focal point for Indian nationalism, the officials became openly critical of the Congress, nationalist leaders, and the media.

 

•    The nationalists were now referred to as "disloyal babus," "seditious Brahmins," and "violent villains." Congressmen were described as "disappointed candidates for office and discontented lawyers who represent no one but themselves" and the Congress as "a factory of sedition." 

 

•    In a public speech in 1888, Viceroy Dufferin attacked the National Congress, ridiculing it as representing only a "microscopic minority" of the population. The Congress leaders were accused of having a "seditious and double-sided character," according to George Hamilton, Secretary of State for India.

 

•    When the Moderates, who controlled the Congress at the time, began to distance themselves from the rising militant nationalist tendencies of certain sections of the Congress, which became evident when the government unleashed a repressive policy against the Indian Press in 1897, the hostility did not abate.

 

•    As Curzon, the Viceroy, put it in 1905: ‘Gokhale either does not see where he is going, or if he does see it, then he is dishonest or his pretensions. You cannot awaken and appeal to the spirit of nationality in India and at the same time, profess loyal acceptance of British rule.’

 

•    George Hamilton, had complained to Dadabhai Naoroji a 1900: ‘You announce yourself as a sincere supporter of British rule; you vehemently denounce the condition, and consequences which are it inseparable from the maintenance of that rule.”

 

•    Moderate-led Congress was weak and lacked a popular base, British policymakers believed it could be easily defeated. This policy was pursued by Curzon in particular, he declared in 1900: ‘The Congress is tottering to its fall, and one of my greatest ambitions while in India is to assist it to a peaceful demise’. In 1903, he wrote to the Madras Governor: ‘My policy, ever since I came to India, has been to reduce the Congress to impotence.’ He had insulted the Congress in 1904 by refusing to meet with its delegation, which was led by the President.

 

•    When the powerful Swadeshi and Boycott Movement began, and the militant nationalist trend became strong, this policy was changed. A new strategy of weakening the nationalist movement was to be implemented. Instead of sneering at the Moderates, as John Morley, the new Secretary of State for India, put it in 1907, the policy was to "rally" them. 

 

 

•    The Extremists, or militant nationalists as we will refer to them from now on, were to be repressed, albeit mildly at first, in order to frighten the Moderates. 

 

•    The Moderates were then to be appeased with promises and concessions, with hints that more concessions would be forthcoming if they separated themselves from the Extremists. The new policy's entire objective was to isolate the extremists.

 

•    The Extremists could be suppressed by using the full force of the state once the Moderates had fallen into the trap. The Moderates could then be disregarded. 

 

•    The Government of India, led by Viceroy Lord Minto and Secretary of State John Morley, dangled the prospect of new reforms in the Legislative Councils and began discussing them with the Congress's Moderate leadership in early 1906. Even though the country was experiencing a vigorous popular movement that the government was attempting to suppress, the Moderates agreed to work with the government and discuss reforms. The result was a complete split among nationalists. Unfortunately for the national movement, neither the Moderates nor the Extremists were able to comprehend the official strategy, and as a result, the national movement suffered several setbacks.

 

•    Even when they were working together to stop the partition of Bengal, there was a lot of public debate and disagreement between Moderates and Extremists in the years 1905-1907. The extremists wanted to expand the Swadeshi and Boycott Movement beyond Bengal. 

 

•    They also wanted to gradually expand the boycott of foreign goods to include all forms of cooperation or association with the colonial government. The Moderates wanted the boycott to be limited to Bengal, and they were adamant that it not be extended to the government.

 

•    The question of the President ship of the Calcutta Congress nearly came to a head in 1906. By selecting Dadabhai Naoroji, who was regarded as a great patriot by all nationalists, a split was avoided. On the Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education, and Self-Government demands, four compromise resolutions were passed. Throughout 1907, the two sides fought over how the four resolutions should be interpreted. 

 

•    Extremists believed that the fight for freedom had begun when the people were roused. They believed it was time for a major push, and the Moderates, in their opinion, were a major impediment to the movement. 

 

•    The majority of them, led by Aurobindo Ghose, believed that the time had come to break with the Moderates, force them out of the Congress' leadership, and split the organisation if the Moderates could not be removed.

 

•    The majority of the Moderates, led by Pherozeshah Mehta, were equally adamant about a split. They believed that remaining with the Extremists would put them in perilous waters. They feared that the Congress organisation, which had been carefully built over the previous two decades, would be shattered. 

 

•    As Gokhale put it in 1907, ‘You (the Extremists) do not realise the enormous reserve of power behind the Government, if the Congress were to do anything such as you suggest, the Government would have no difficulty in throttling it in five minutes.’ 

 

•    Minto and Morley had high hopes for a better future. Many Moderates believed that their dream of having Indians share political and administrative power would be realised. Any hasty action by the Congress in response to extremist pressure could irritate the British Liberals in power. 

 

•    As H.A. Wadya, representing Pherozeshah Mehta’s thinking, wrote in an article in which, after referring to ‘he Extremists as ‘the worst enemies of our cause,’ said: ‘The union of these men with the Congress is the union of a diseased limb to a healthy body, and the only remedy is surgical severance, if the Congress is to be saved from death by blood poisoning.’

 

•    Both sides were mistaken, both from a nationalist and a factional standpoint. The colonial state was negotiating with the Moderates not because of their inherent political strength, but because of the Extremists' fear of them. 

•    The Extremists failed to recognise that the Moderates were their natural outer defence line (in terms of civil liberties and other issues) and that they lacked the strength to confront the colonial state's juggernaut. Neither saw how a broad-based united movement could succeed in a vast country like India ruled by a powerful imperialist nation.

 

•    Tilak (of the Extremists) and Gokhale (of the Moderates), the two main public leaders of the two wings, were mature politicians who understood the dangers of disunity in the nationalist ranks. Tilak didn't want the national front to disintegrate. Without the unity of different political trends, he saw clearly that a powerful movement could not be built at that stage, nor political demands successfully pressed on the rulers. His strategy was to enlist widespread support for his political position in order to compel the Moderates to accept a favourable compromise. But, having roused his followers in Maharashtra, he was pushed on by Bengal's more extreme elements. Tilak discovered that he couldn't afford to get off the tiger he was riding.

 

•    When it came down to it, he had no choice but to follow the more radical leaders, such as Aurobindo Ghose. Gokhale, like others, saw the dangers of a nationalist split and tried to avoid it. Already, in October 1907, he had written to a friend: ‘If a split does come it means a disaster, for the Bureaucracy will then put down both sections without much difficulty.’ But he lacked the character to stand up to a ruthless autocrat like Pherozeshah Mehta.