How to combat reaction
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Take your experience further with Premium access. Thought-provoking Opinions, Expert Analysis, In-depth Insights and other Member Only BenefitsWHAT is the best and most effective answer which India can give to Lord Birkenhead’s challenge? We have said already that there is no great room for variation in political method, that the method of the future must be essentially the method of the past, constitutional agitation in its accepted sense supplemented by non-violent non-cooperation, each cured of the elements that have so far prevented it from being a complete success. Now, what is it that made ordinary constitutional agitation so largely ineffective in the past? The answer is obvious. While we adopted the English method of protest, petition and prayer, we did not take sufficient note of the fact that this method in England's own case was only the first outward and tangible expression of her determination to assert herself, to bend her rulers to her will. The failure of this method did not connote the giving up or even the weakening of the determination, but only led to the adoption of some other and more drastic method. What happened, in our own case, is that when the ordinary method of constitutional agitation failed, we knew of no other. Some of us actually gave way to despair; others, more optimistic than the former, preferred to persevere and thought, by sheer persistence, to induce the British Government to yield to the national demand. It cannot be said that hey never succeeded. Where circumstances were favourable, and the demand itself did not raise any large or far-reaching issue, they did achieve some measure of success. But not only was the success more an exception to the rule than the rule itself, but from the ultimate national point of view, it meant little or nothing.