Looked at, from an impersonal standpoint, the differences between Tilak and Ranade have been summarized by the former as follows:—
"Every one*[1], whether orthodox or heterodox, reformer or reactionary should join in and support the Congress movement. A Congress in Poona cannot be regarded a success unless the majority of the people in Poona join it enthusiastically. We must approach the trader, the artizan and the working man as well as the educated classes and make all of them subscribe to the Congress fund and in order to do this we must appeal to each of them in a manner, so as not to offend their susceptibilities unnecessarily. The Congress eventually aims at being a Congress of the people and the object cannot be achieved, unless, every year, an effort is made to approach more and more the classes that have not taken hitherto much interest in the movement. * * * If the masses are drawn to the Congress, it is possible that they may not lend their support directly or indirectly to the cause of the Social Conference. It is this apprehension that makes the friends of Social Reform restrict the scope of their work for the Congress within a safe narrow circle. * * One (party) wishes to draw to the Congress as large a portion of the public as it possibly can, irrespective of the question of Social Reform : the other does not wish to go much beyond the circle of the friends of reform. * * * The real point of issue is whether * * the Congress in Poona is to be a Congress of the people or of a particular section of it.
- ↑ * From a letter to the Times of India (Quoted in the Mahratta, November 3, 1895).
