WHAT CONGRESS AND GANDHI HAVE DONE TO THE UNTOUCHABLES : 7 A STRANGE EVENT
that they should send their sons where they are guarded from coarse influences as Englishmen guard their own sons in England.”
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The second reason why one is justified in describing the passing of this resolution as a strange event lies in the fact that it was entirely opposed to the declared policy of the Congress. In these days when the “Constructive Programme” of the Congress is hawked from every street and at all times when the Congress is resting after an active campaign of non-co-operation and civil disobedience, this statement may well cause surprise to present day Congressmen and their friends. The following extracts from the addresses of the Presidents who presided at the Annual Sessions of the Congress will suffice to bring home the fact that the Congress policy was to give no place to questions of Social Reform in the aims and objects of the Congress.
To begin with, Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji who presided at the Second Session of the Indian National Congress held in Calcutta in the year 1886. In this presidential address he referred to the Congress attitude towards Social Reform and said :—
“It has been asserted that this Congress ought to take up questions of social reform (Cheers and cries of ‘Yes, Yes’) and our failure to do this has been urged as a reproach against us. Certainly no member of this National Congress is more alive to the necessity of social reform than I am ; but, Gentlemen, for everything there are proper times, proper circumstances, proper parties and proper places (Cheers); we are met together as a political body to represent to our rulers our political aspirations, not to discuss social reforms, and if you blame us for ignoring these, you should equally blame the House of Commons for not discussing the abstruser problems of mathematics or metaphysics. But, besides this, there are here Hindus of every caste, amongst whom, even in the same province, customs and social arrangements differ widely—there are Mahomedans and Christians of various denominations, Parsis, Sikhs, Brahmos and what not—men indeed of each and of all those numerous classes which constitute in the aggregate the people of India. (Loud Cheers). How can this gathering of all classes discuss the social reforms needed in each individual class ?... Only the members of that class can effectively deal with the reforms therein needed. A National Congress must confine itself to questions in which the entire nation has a direct participation, and it