Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/87

Rh paganda, headed that it was by most of the reformers and risked his popularity with the masses by championing a body which utilised his energy and abiUty but which showed very little recognition of his worth. All these circumstances must carefully be remembered if we would correctly understand the tangle of the Poona Congress (1895).

The real question before the Poona public of 1895 was not whether the Social Conference of that year should, according to the usual practice have been allowed to be held in the Congress Mandap; for had this been the real question at issue "the ridiculous controversy" said to have been "started by Mr. Tilak" would at once have been settled by Mr. Ranade's graceful and timely declaration that the Social Conference, which in truth was attended only by a small fraction of the Congress delegates and visitors would be held in some other place. When there is a childish dispute over a trifle, all the parties concerned are responsible, if it assumes "disproportionate dimensions." The question of holding or not holding the Social Conference in the Congress Pavilion was only a move in the bigger game, the deep-laid plot, of discrediting Mr. Tilak and humiliating him in the eyes of the Poona public and of the Congress at large. Nobody will say that the petty motives of jealousy which moved lesser men inspired leaders like Ranade. It will, however have to be admitted that had Ranade risen to the full height which the occasion demanded much heart-burning would have been avoided. But he was powerless to assert his will against the clique that surrounded him. It was humourously called "The Tilak Persecution Society."