Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 18th December 1909 — No.24
Facts and Opinions
The Lahore Convention
The prospects of the Lahore Convention seem to be exceedingly clouded.
In the matter of the Presidentship the fiat has gone forth from Bombay that Pandit Madan Mohan shall be President and, unless the dissatisfaction with the Mehta leadership has extended itself to the subservient Congress Committees, it is likely that the Bombay nomination will give the lead to the rest of the Conventionist coteries, excepting perhaps Burma and Bengal.
The Convention is now at a critical stage of its destinies.
Disowned by the Punjab, troubled by strained relations between Bombay and Bengal, it has received the crowning blow from the Government which supports it; its policy has been discredited 
before the country and once more it has been proved to a disgusted people that the methods of the Conventionists lead to nothing but rebuffs, humiliation and political retrogression in the name of reform.
If this body is to survive, there is need of a strong hand and skilful guidance, otherwise the present session is likely to be the last.
Already the Convention is becoming the refuge of an out-of-date and vanishing coterie who no longer command the confidence of the country.
By its very constitution the Convention has cut itself off from the people and a few men meeting in conclave elect the delegates in the name of an indifferent or hostile public.
The dying past in vain strives to entrench itself in this insecure and crumbling fortress.
Every day will serve to undermine it more and more and the Nationalists are content to let time and inevitable tendency do their work for them.
Only by a radical self-purification and change of policy can the Convention hope to survive.