Congress presidentship

EVEN since the appearance of Mahatma Gandhi on the scene, the Presidentship of the Congress has been shorn of some of its old importance. The President no longer leads the Congress as he used to do in the old days. He either meekly follows a more forceful personality as more than one President have done since 1920, or drives his lonely furrow as C Vijayaraghavachariar did at Nagpur, or is but the leader of a section of the Congress as Lala Lajpat Rai was at the Special Congress in Calcutta, or CR Das at Gaya. Heaven forbid that this should be said by way of censure or reproach. It is a peculiar good fortune of a nation to have a man like Mahatma Gandhi to lead it at time of crisis such as India has been passing through. When such a man is there, he naturally takes his rightful place at the head of the nation, no matter who else may or may not fill places of nominal authority and control. The thing was not altogether unknown even in the old Congress. Who that is old enough does not remember that almost dictatorial authority exercised by the great Sir Pherozeshah Mehta for some years in the early days of the Congress? Whosoever might be the President, it was Sir Pherozeshah who wielded the real authority. Mahatma Gandhi’s case is more conspicuous, only because of his stronger hold on the Congress and the country, more particularly on the country, which in the days of Sir Pherozeshah was yet to be evolved as a political entity. It is partly, perhaps principally, for this very reason that nobody ever seriously thought of electing the Mahatma to the Presidential Chair.