THE SPECIAL CONGRESS

MUCH as we dislike the decision of the All-India Congress Committee to hold a special session of the Congress in August, we confess we cannot see eye to eye with the Marhatta when it suggests in the course of a leading article that ‘the Swarajya party may not take part in the session.’ Whether the Special session will be at all held is not free from doubt, thanks to the stupid decision of the Improvement Trust not to give the Reception Committee the use of the land on which it proposed to erect the pandal. But if it is held, we are of the opinion that no consideration of tactical advantage or disadvantage should keep any section of Congressmen from participating in it. A decision to hold a Special Congress session is not like one of those resolutions of the Congress as to which one can argue for any length of time whether it is mandatory or not. It is mandatory to all those who believe in the ultimate authority of the Congress electorate. In the present case, even the argument based on tactical considerations is far from decisive, so far as the Swarajya party is concerned. Has not the great leader of that party himself told us that the Special Congress can do only one of two things — that it can either declare itself in favour of entry into the Councils or endorse the compromise arrived at Bombay? If so, a decision not to join the Special Congress would clearly be not only constitutionally wrong, but in the highest degree inexpedient. The Swarajya party would have so much to gain from either of the possible and alternative actions on the part of the Congress anticipated by its leader, that one may say that for it to refrain from joining the Congress merely because it did not originally want it would be foolish and suicidal.

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