The Nagpur Congress and Non-Co-operation

EVER since the passing of the non-co-operation resolution at the Special Congress in Calcutta, speculation has been rife in many quarters as to what the ordinary session of the Congress at Nagpur will do in the same matter. It is a matter of common knowledge that prominent nationalist leaders in several Provinces publicly declared on the morrow of the passing of the resolution that they would leave no stone unturned to get the decision of Calcutta rescinded at Nagpur. Some of them made this declaration in the very act of expressing their readiness to obey the Congress resolution as long as it remained operative. Yet the two months that have passed since the Special Congress was held have not witnessed any remarkable activity on the part of this section of Congressmen towards the fulfillment of their promise. With the exception of Babu Bepin Chandra Pal and one or two others intimately associated with him, the Bengal leaders have done literally nothing, and Bepin Chandra and his associate have themselves, judging from the reports of their activities, worked more along common and generally accepted lines than for the specific purpose of securing the annulment of that part of the non-co-operation resolution which they stoutly but unsuccessfully resisted at Calcutta. In Madras and Maharashtra, two of the strongest centres of opposition to the non-co-operation programme, no work, of which the public is aware, has been done. Mr. Baptist, who condemned the programme with a vehemence not surpassed even by the Anglo-Indian Press, has since concerned himself only with the formation of labour unions, an important problem, but which has little to do with that programme. The Hindu of Madras, the organ of Mr. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, had warned Mr. Gandhi on the eve of the Calcutta Congress against taking any step that might leave him “to drive his lonely furrow,” but since its defeat at Calcutta, it has done little to educate public opinion.

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