द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

INTRODUCTION 37
§ IV. ORGANISATIONS, PARTIES AND PERSONALITIES
To understand properly a narrative about the Indian struggle
for freedom, it is necessary to have some idea of the different
organisations, parties and personalities in India.
The most important party or organisation in India is the
Indian National Congress, founded in 1885. It has its
branches all over India. There is a central committee for
the whole country called the All-India Congress Committee,
which consists of about 350 members. This committee
elects an executive committee for the year, called the Working
Committee. Each province has a Provincial Congress Com-
mittee and under this committee there are district, sub-
divisional (or tahsil or taluka), union and village Congress
Committees. The different Congress Committees are all
formed on the elective principle. The aim of the Congress is
the ‘attainment of complete independence by all peaceful and
legitimate means.’ The leader¹ of the Congress is Mahatma
Gandhi—who is the virtual dictator. The Working Com-
mittee since 1929 has been elected according to his dictation
and no one can find a place on that committee who is not
thoroughly submissive to him and his policy.
Within the Congress there is a strong Left Wing who hold
radical views on social and economic questions, i.e., questions
relating to caste, to landlord versus peasant and to capital
versus labour. This group also advocate a more vigorous
and activist policy for the achievement of political freedom.
On all such problems, Mahatma Gandhi holds a more com-
promising position. A few years ago the prominent members
of the Left Wing were Mr. Srinivasa Iyengar, ex-Advocate-
General of Madras and ex-President of the Congress, Pandit
Jarvaharlal Nehru of Allahabad, formerly an advocate by
profession and son of the late Pandit Motilal Nehru, Dr.
Mohammed Alam, an outstanding Moslem leader of Lahore
and an advocate, and Mr. K. F. Nariman of Bombay, a Parsi
¹ The President of the Congress is not the real leader. Whoever
presides at a plenary session of the Congress continues as Congress
President till the next session. The Congress President is elected as
a result of nomination by the different Provincial Congress Committees