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IN the letter addressed by her to the Secretaries to the All-India and Provincial Congress Committee, Mrs. Besant gives four reasons why she can no longer belong to the Congress. As the matter is of some importance, it is worthwhile examining these reasons at some length. The first reason, that Mrs. Besant is a firm believer in the British connection and a strong opponent of the programme of non-co-operation, is obviously inconclusive, because a good many we believe the large majority of those present at the Nagpur Congress itself believe in the British connection, just as strongly as she does and there are some, like Pandit Malaviya, who do not accept the non-co-operation programme any more than she does. If there is room in the Congress for those, why not for Mrs. Besant also? The second reason, that the Congress has narrowed the basis of its former Constitution, is the reverse of the truth. The Congress has not narrowed but has rather widened the basis of its former Cons
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ALTHOUGH at the time of writing, the result of the division of Mr. Gandhi’s resolution regarding the creed of the Congress is not definitely known, everyone who has followed the trend of events during the last few months can say that it is in the nature of a foregone conclusion. It is particularly inconceivable that having carried his point in the subjects Committee, where the audience is a more or less select body, Mr. Gandhi could have any difficulty in carrying it in the open Congress where his followers are believed to be in a decided, if not overwhelming, majority. Nor could one anticipate any other result of the nature of the discussion and the personnel of the speakers on either side. On one side were, besides Mr Gandhi who is a host in himself, Lala Lajpat Rai and Mr Bipinchandra Pal, two of the most powerful and popular speakers we have in the whole country. On the other side, there was no one with the exception of Col Wedgwood (who obviously laboured under the disad
PM, Om Birla, Ghulam Nabi pay tributes to Vajpayee, Malviya on their birth anniversary
New Delhi, Dec 25(UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and other MPs on Friday paid floral tributes to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the Central Hall of Parliament House on their birth anniversary.
PM Modi also released a book titled ‘Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Parliament- A commemorative volume’ on the former PM, brought out by the Lok Sabha Secretariat which highlights Vajpayee’s ideas and views on a wide range of important national and international issues.
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It is on the cards that the nationalist leaders who are unable to accept the whole of Mr. Gandhi’s programme will bring forward a proposal for amending that programme with a view to bringing it into greater conformity with the trend of nationalist thought and the general nationalist sentiment. They will in all probability urge radical modifications in all three principal clauses. As regards the boycott of Councils, which is for the moment a more or less dead issue, they may not improbably advocate the substitution for it for a clause urging that the country should adopt an attitude of active and vigorous watchfulness in regard to the doings of the new Councils and the new Ministers. As regards the other two, they are sure to ask that greater emphasis should be laid on the positive than on the negative side, namely, on the establishment of national schools and colleges, on the one hand, and of arbitration courts on the other, and that the process of withdrawal from either clas