Cooperation within the council

THE address delivered by Deshbandhu Das on Saturday at the Faridpur Provincial Conference was mainly devoted to a consideration of the question whether it was possible for Swarajists to honourably cooperate with the government within the councils in the attainment of Swaraj. This question arises from the fact that the Swarajists deliberately entered the councils and adopted a definite policy of obstruction which they thought would help the country in the attainment of Swaraj and also exercise some check on the bureaucracy in pursuing its unpopular and harmful policy. This policy of the Swarajists has, as we know, been successful to some extent in Bengal and Central Provinces, where the dyarchical system of government, as shaped and directed by the bureaucracy, has become unworkable. This has provoked the wrath of the defenders of bureaucratic absolutism who have been accursing the Swarajists of being workers and destroyers, with no constructive merit in them. This is, of course, quite wrong. Das, having brought about the defeat of the Bengal Government, has declared that he and his party are not the vandals they are supposed to be, but their object is to attain Swaraj and they are quite prepared to cooperate with the government within the council, provided that they can honourably do so with their declared object. He has held out the hand of friendship and expressed his readiness to work with the bureaucracy. If it is earnest and sincere in what it professes to be its ideal in India, it should not hesitate to seize the proffered hand of friendship.