Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910 — No.26
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 1st January 1910 — No.26
Facts and Opinions
The Perishing Convention
The Convention has met at Lahore and the fact that it could meet at all, has been hailed as a great triumph by the Anglo-Indian Press.
But the success of this misbegotten body in avoiding immediate extinction has only served to show the marks of decay in every part of its being, and the loud chorus of eulogies streaming up from Anglo-India will not help to prolong its days.
The miserable paucity of its numbers, the absence of great ovations to its leaders, the surroundings of stifling coldness, indifference and disapproval in the midst of which its orators perorated and resolved, have been too striking to be concealed.
Even the Statesman, which is anxious to pass off this fiasco as a signal triumph for Moderatism and dwells on the enthusiasm and earnestness in the Bradlaugh Hall,— an enthusiasm and earnestness other reporters were unable to discover,— is obliged to admit the smallness of the circle to which these creditable feelings were confined.
To this body calling itself the Indian National Congress how many delegates did the Indian nation send?
The magnificent total of three hundred.
From Bengal Sjs. Surendranath, Bhupendranath and A. Chaudhuri1 with less than half-a-dozen followers enriched Lahore with their presence; Madras could muster only twelve; the Central Provinces sent so 
few that the reporters are ashamed to mention the number.
The United Provinces sent, according to the Amrita Bazar Patrika's correspondent, about thirty; the Bombay number is not mentioned, but even the Statesman does not go beyond eighty; the rest came from the Punjab.
Even the Anglo-Indian champion of Conventionism, estimating largely and on the basis of hopes and expectations, cannot raise the total to four hundred.
The same paper takes refuge in the “huge concourse” of spectators, but, when it comes to actual facts, the huge concourse melts away into some hundreds of spectators, an estimate supported by the statement in the Bengalee that there were considerably more spectators than delegates.
It is admitted that Bradlaugh Hall which cannot seat more than three thousand was far from being filled, the Statesman observing two wings of the Hall to be quite empty and other accounts reporting the Hall to be half empty.
An allowance of some thousand spectators to watch the performances of the gallant three hundred in this Thermopylae of Moderatism, will be as liberal as the facts will allow.
Could there be more damning evidence of the unpopularity of this pretentious body of well-to-do oligarchs electing themselves semi-secretly in close electorates of a handful of men and yet daring to call themselves the nation's Congress?
The farce is almost over.
The falsity of their pretensions has been shown up signally.
The Convention will not dare again to meet in the Punjab; it will not come to Bengal; Nagpur, Amraoti and the Maharashtra are barred to it; and if the attendance from Madras is any sign, it will not be easy for it to command a following or an audience again in the Southern Presidency.
What remains to Conventionism?
Bombay city, Gujerat and the United Provinces are still open to them for a season.
The abstention of a disgusted nation has passed sentence of death on this parody of the Indian National Congress.