Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 25th December 1909 — No.25
Facts and Opinions
The United Congress Negotiations
The persistence of the Bengalee in shielding Moderate obstinacy under cover of an appeal to the wholly inconclusive proceedings of the private Conference in the Amrita Bazar Office last year shows both the paucity of possible arguments for the Moderate position and the readiness of its chief organ to ignore facts of which it has been reminded more than once and which it cannot deny.
The difference between the conference last year and the recent negotiations is radical.
That conference was between Conventionists and non-Conventionists, the recent negotiations were between Moderates and Nationalists.
The Amrita Bazar Office Conference was an attempt made by certain leaders in Bengal and Maharashtra to secure admission for the Nationalists to the Convention.
The United Congress Committee was confined to Bengal and sat to consider whether Bengal Moderates and Nationalists could not agree together before inviting the Conventionists of other provinces to accept the terms offered by United Bengal.
Last year's Conference was a confabulation of leading men representing their own opinions only, this year's negotiations were conducted by men elected for the purpose by the Provincial Conference representing the whole of Bengal.
At the Conference in Bagbazar it was the middle section of opinion, neither Moderate nor Nationalist, of which Sj. Motilal Ghose, Rai Jotindranath Chaudhuri, and some of the older leaders in the Mofussil are the most influential members, which engineered a compromise in the absence of the Nationalist leaders.
Sj. Tilak was a prisoner in Mandalay jail, Sj. Aurobindo Ghose under trial at Alipur, Sj. Khaparde and Sj. Bepin1 Chandra Pal absent in England.
The compromise was reluctantly accepted by many of the Nationalists present,— as we have ascertained by correspondence with some of the chief Nationalists who attended,— and only because it was pressed on them 
that these were the only terms on which the Moderate Party would admit of the idea of union.
It was not accepted at all by the Bengal Nationalists and it has been recently admitted by the Amrita Bazar Patrika that letters were received from the Mofussil repudiating the surrender on the question of the creed.
How is it that the Bengalee persists in ignoring these facts?
The compromise was rejected by the Moderates themselves, Bombay refusing utterly to recognise the four Calcutta resolutions as a possible part of any treaty, and this was recognised by the Moderates this year; for at the first meeting of the United Congress Committee it was distinctly intimated to the Nationalist members that the four resolutions must not be pressed as a condition of union.
In other words the one concession for which some of the leading Nationalists induced themselves to waive their rooted objections to constitution and creed, is expunged and the Nationalists are expected to be bound by a rejected compromise by which the Moderates refuse to be bound.
They are expected to adhere to the concessions they made last year, while the only concession made to them is withdrawn.
This fact is quite sufficient by itself to put the Bengalee's argument out of court.
We repeat that the recent negotiations had nothing to do with last year's abortive compromise, rejected as it was by both parties immediately after it was made.
Their sole object was to ascertain whether the Moderates would accept substantial concessions from the Nationalists without asking the latter to sacrifice their conscience and their principles.
Apparently they are not.
Therefore union is impossible.