Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/181

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
TILAK AND THE CONGRESS—II
161

fused. As a protest, he had to leave the Subjects' Committee accompanied, by nearly sixty members including distinguished Nationalists like Mr. Pal and Babu Ashwini Kumar Dutt. Mr. Tilak wanted to move his amendment in the open Congress. Accordingly he sent notice thereof to the President, who, at last realising the strength of Mr. Tilak's party accepted the amendment and bodily inserted it into the main proposition. Discord was thus timely averted and Mr.Tilak, speaking to the resolution declared that he was pleased to state that some ideas he favoured had been incorporated in the resolution; he further said that he was glad they had come to such a solution because the Anglo-Indians had predicted that the 22nd Congress would probably be the last; he expressed his satisfaction that all differences had been squared, and that both the parties had approached the question in a spirit of conciliation and had met half way.

Summarising the work of the Calcutta Congress, Mr. Tilak said:—

"The Congress has now in effect laid down that Swaraj or Self-Government is the goal to be ultimately and gradually attained by the Nation and that, while the Nation may pray and petition to the Government as part of the constitutional agitation and seek the redress of grievances or the fruition of political aspirations, the Nation will mainly rely on its own endeavours to accomplish the object. Swadeshi, Boycott, and National Education are the three most potent weapons given into our hands by the National Congress, and with these we must establish Swaraj."

At Calcutta, Lala Lajpat Rai had invited the Congress