which it involved, an unprecedented opportunity of
stimulating the active forces of disaffection.
As far as Bengal was concerned, an “advanced”
Press which always took its cue from Tilak’s
Kesari had already done its work, and Tilak
could rely upon the enthusiastic support of men like
Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal and Mr. Arabindo Ghose, who
were politically his disciples, though their religious
and social standpoints were in many respects different,
Mr. Surendranath Banerjee, who subsequently fell out
with Tilak, had at first modelled his propaganda very
largely upon that of the Deccan leader. Not only
had he tried to introduce into Bengal the singularly
inappropriate cult of Shivaji, but he had been clearly
inspired by Tilak’s methods in placing the Swadeshi
boycott in Bengal under the special patronage of so
popular a deity as the “terrible goddess”
Kali. Again, he had followed Tilak’s example
in brigading schoolboys and students into youthful
gymnastic societies for purposes of political agitation,
Tilak’s main object at the moment was to pledge
the rest of India, as represented in the Congress,
to the violent course upon which Bengal was embarking.
Amongst the “moderate” section outside
Bengal there was a disposition to confine its action
to platonic expressions of sympathy with the Bengalees
and with the principle of Swadeshi—in
itself perfectly legitimate—as a movement
for the encouragement of native industries. At
Benares in 1905 the Congress had adopted a resolution
which only conditionally endorsed the boycott, and
the increasing disorders which had subsequently accompanied
its enforcement had tended to enhance rather than
to diminish the reluctance of the Moderate party to
see the Congress definitely pledged to it when it met
at the end of 1906 in Calcutta. The “advanced”
party led by Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal had put forward
Tilak’s candidature to the presidency, and a
split which seemed imminent was only avoided by a compromise
which saved appearances. Sir Pherozeshah Mehta,
a leading Parsee of Bombay, who had been drawn into
co-operation with the Congress under the influence
of the political Liberalism which he had heard expounded
in England by Gladstone and Bright, played at this
critical period an important part which deserves recognition.
He was as eloquent as any Bengalee, and he possessed
in a high degree the art of managing men. In politics
he was as stout an opponent of Tilak’s violent
methods as was Mr. Gokhale on social and religious
questions, and he did perhaps more than any one else
to prevent the complete triumph of Tilakism in the
Congress right down to the Surat upheaval. Thanks
largely to his efforts, the veteran Mr. Naoroji was
elected to the chair at Calcutta. None could venture
openly to oppose him, for he was almost the father
of the Congress, which in its early days had owed
so much to the small group of liberal Parsees whom
he had gathered about him, and his high personal character
and rectitude of purpose had earned for him universal