Victory and defeat

WE venture to think that it would be entirely wrong to think of the result of the most momentous session of the All-India Congress Committee ever held in terms of the victory of one party or the defeat of another. In reality, it is permissible for both parties to claim victory of one party or the defeat of another if they are so minded. Mahatma Gandhi and those who went into the lobby with him can say that although they have not had all that they wanted, they have certainly had much, that even what they have failed to get in form they have succeeded in getting in substance, that the All-India Congress Committee has definitely shown that in spirit it is still Gandhi-ite in the sense of sharing or professing to share all his leading ideas. On the other hand, it is equally open to CR Das and Pandit Motilal Nehru to claim that the essence of Mahatma Gandhi’s resolutions was their penalty clauses, that at any rate it was those clauses to which they themselves had offered the most determined opposition and that, therefore, the abandonment of those clauses was a clear triumph for them, a triumph which was the more signal and complete because so many among the Mahatma’s professed adherents went with them in this matter and that the Mahatma himself was forced to admit that as regards those clauses, he had no real majority. But the very fact that each of the two parties can thus claim victory for itself shows that in this matter, victory and defeat are deceptive terms, that what has taken place in reality is neither a victory nor a defeat but a real and honourable compromise, in which each party has given something to the other not out of its weakness but out of its strength, in order that the two may live and work together.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.

#Congress