Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 1st January 1910 — No.26
Facts and Opinions
The Alleged Breach of Faith
The Moderate critics are never tired of harping on the difference between Lord Morley's scheme and the Regulations and alleging 
or hinting that promises have been made to the ear which have been broken in the act.
The Statesman very naturally resents the implied charge of breach of faith.
We do not know what private hopes the Secretary of State may have held out to Mr. Gokhale or Sj. Surendranath Banerji, but, judging from Lord Morley's public utterances, we do not think the charge of a breach of faith can be for a moment sustained.
He has never pretended that his reform was the granting of a democratic constitution or the first step towards Parliamentary self-government.
On the contrary he distinctly stated that if he had thought his measure to be anything of the kind he would have immediately withdrawn it.
All that he promised was a scheme by which Indian public opinion could be more liberally consulted, and there were from the beginning distinct indications that the Government would put its own meaning on the phrase and draw a distinction between Indian opinion and Indian educated opinion.
If the Moderates chose to interpret this limited concession as the granting of a constitution and a new Magna Charta, neither Lord Morley nor Lord Minto are to blame for a deliberate and gratuitous self-deception and deception of the people.
The complaint that the non-official majority is ineffective and unreal, means simply that it is not a popular majority.
We do not think the Government ever promised a popular majority; they promised a non-official majority and they have given it.
If the Moderates chose to believe that the Government would go out of its way to make the non-official majority a popular one, they have themselves to thank for this pitiful self-delusion, against which the Nationalists have been warning the country for some time past.
The truth is that they have been utterly worsted in their diplomatic relations with British Liberalism and they are now trying to exculpate themselves before the public by throwing the blame on their allies.
No English statesman can be condemned for trying to get the best of a diplomatic bargain of this kind; the loser must blame his own folly, not the good faith of the other party.
Did not the Bengal Moderates recently propose a similar bargain to the Nationalists in the United Congress Committee's negotiations?
And, if the Nationalist1 had been fools enough to agree, would they have been justified afterwards in quarrelling with the good faith of the Moderates merely because they themselves had chosen to enter the Convention on conditions which would have meant hopeless ineffectiveness in that body and political suicide outside?
If infants in diplomacy choose to cherish an obstinate admiration for their own Machiavellian cleverness or mere bookmen who do not understand the A.B.C. of practical politics, elect to play the game with past masters of political statecraft, the result is a foregone conclusion.
We have exposed over and over again the hollowness of the pretensions of this measure to figure as a great step forward in Indian administration or the beginning of a new progressive era in Indian politics, but we did not need the publication of the Regulations to open our eyes to this hollowness.
Lord Morley's own statements, the nature of things and of humanity and the clauses of the Reform Bill itself were a sufficient guide to anyone with even an elementary knowledge of politics.