A Page From History : The Rise and Fall of the Congress “Commercial Nationalism”—A Brief Review

The Congress is dying. And it is dying not by inches but by leagues. Ask Nehruites, Ask Patelites, ask Gandhites—they all agree that Congress is dying. That is the one thing on which they all seem to agree. What was live wire till yesterday is dead wood today. What was a rocket in the skies is now scraping the roofs and felling the trees and may soon lie like a stick on the ground. It may rule for some time more—it may even win the next general elections—and thus given an optical illusion of strength. But its light is out and its life is gone. While “relatives” may hug the Congress carcass out of ‘moha’ and some others may jubilate over it out of ‘Iobha’, the nation as such has little reason to grieve or to gloat over its demise, and much to understand the genesis of the sudden mortality of the Congress, and to take a lesson for a more fruitful organisation of political movements in the country.
Khaddar-Deep Nationalism
The anti-climax of the Congress is neither accidental nor unexpected. The seeds of decay were inherent in the organism. The symptoms of its natal deficiencies were endemic. They were germane to the origins and inspiration of the Congress. They were implied in the unhistoric and unscientific approach of the Congress to the problems of Bhartiya Swatantrata, Bhartiya Dharma and Bhartiya Sanskriti. History was ignored, religion was ridiculed, geography was violated, culture was denied, and a whole rich ethos of the nation was rejected, to win political independence. Little wonder patriots of yesterday have become permit-holders today.  
“Safety Valve”
The history of the last millennium in Bharat is the story of Hindus struggling to break the chains which they would not acquisce in. The British came to Bharat. They struggled for two centuries to conquer the land. With force and fraud, they succeeded. But the Hindu will to expel the alien tyrant ceased not. It asserted itself in 1857. It reappeared in Phadke. Here was an unpredictable tide of Hindu Nationalism. The British therefore devised the “Safety valve” of the Congress to secure the safety of the engine of British imperialism. It is no mere accident that the Congress bears a non-Hindu name viz. “The Indian National Congress.”
Why Congress Flourished
Congress, being the first all- Bharat political movements was an obvious organisation for the patriot to promote the liberation of the land, through. In 1916 nationalism got a better hold of the Congress. But while it captured the Congress, it suffered a dilution from containment in a body designed for unnational, nay antinational, purposes. All subsequent efforts of Gandhiji failed to nationalise congress objectives. The political gurus of congressmen continued to be Mill, Mazini and Marx—and not Rama, Janaka, Vikrama and Shivaji.
Commercial Patriots
Patriots with the purest notions of nationalism joined the Congress to win independence through its agency. But there were others —far more numerous —de-hinduised by centuries of foreign rule. Here were men who accepted British politics and British economics, British attitude and British ideals. They were suckled on the sayings of Bentham and Rousseau. For them “Bible was a thousand, times greater than Gita”; Sanskrit was a ‘dead language’; Hindus had never been a nation; Dharma was superstition.  These gentlemen too wanted the British to go. But their nationalism was commercial, being rooted in economic needs and political power. These English-educated gentlemen constituted the mass of congressmen.
Why Hindus Joined Congress
Thus the Congress grew because it was the first to claim the allegiance of the people for a nationalist cause. It grew further because men thought — ARITH-METICALLY — that an organisation open to all ‘communities’ must naturally become the strongest and be the best. They forgot the lessons of 1857 that the contrary objectives of conflicting groups cannot, by an alchemy of tall words, be turned to positive account. It grew to its plenitude of power because it was associated by Gandhiji with the Hindu ideal of Ram Rajya. When the Congress decided in 1921 that ‘Allah-o-Akbar’ was a greater slogan than ‘Vande Matram’, the Hindus taught it a lesson by strengthening the Sabha in the twenties. Thus it was that coming first in the field, using Hindu ideals to attract Hindus and sundry objectives to impress all, it grew into a ‘congress’ a veritable confiderocy of independent forces for the one object of expelling the British. Its one cementing idea was the explusion of the Britisn. No positive idea informed its activities. They swore by Gandhism because they thought Gandhiji imdispensable. For the rest they swam down stream, uninspired by any ideal higher than the expulsion of the British.            

By : Kamal

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