All-India Congress Committee meeting

Everything goes to show that the forthcoming meeting of the All-India Congress Committee will be one of the most important in the history of that body and of the Congress. The agenda is not only interesting but also exciting. Some of the subjects included in it are so contentious that it will be an agreeable surprise if the discussions will be carried on without an excess of heat or even bitterness whether on one side or the other. There are, for instance, the resolution of which notice has been given by certain Hindu members from the UP and which records dissatisfaction at Mr Mahmood Ali’s alleged speeches at Aligarh and Lucknow about Mahatma Gandhi and calls upon him either to explain the matter or to resign his office of President forthwith; and the counter-proposition of another UP member reposing confidence in Mr Ali’s leadership. It is inconceivable that these propositions can in the present conditions of Hindu-Muslim tensions be discussed in a calm atmosphere, and since the matter is not one which involves any great question of principle or policy, one hopes with all one’s heart that Gandhi will succeed in persuading the contending groups of members to drop the subject. This ought not to be a very difficult matter, seeing that the second proposition is put forward only as an amendment to the first, and that the first will have no legs to stand upon if Gandhi will rise in his place and say, as he is sure to do if the resolution is actually moved, that he sees nothing objectionable in the references made or alleged to have been made to himself by Mr Ali.