The Tyabjis

Extracts from the Presidential Address by Badruddin Tyabji Third Session of the Indian National Congress, Madras, December 27, 1887

Gentlemen, I have had the honour of witnessing great public meetings both in Bombay and elsewhere, but it is quite a novel sensation for me to appear before a meeting of this description - a meeting composed not merely of the representatives of any one city or even of one province - but of the whole of the vast Continent of India - representing not any one class or interest, but all classes and all interests of the almost innumerable different communities that constitute the people of India.

. . .

At the first Congress in Bombay, in 1885, we had less than 100 representatives from the different parts of India; in the second Congress, at Calcutta, 1886, we had as many as 440 representatives; while at this Congress, I believe, we have over 600 delegates representing all the different parts and all the different communities of this great Empire. I think, then, Gentlemen, that we are fairly entitled to say that this is a truly representative national gathering.

. . .

Gentlemen, it has been urged in derogation of our character, as a representative national gathering, that one great and important community - the Musalman community - has kept aloof from the proceedings of the two last Congresses. Now, Gentlemen, in the first place, this is only partially true and applies to only one particular part of India, and is moreover due to certain special, local, and temporary causes and in the second place, no such reproach can, I think, with any show of justice be urged against this present Congress and, Gentlemen, I must honestly confess to you that one great motive, which has induced me in the present state of my health to undertake the grave responsibilities of presiding over your deliberations, has been an earnest desire on my part to prove, as far as in my power lies, that I, at least not merely in my individual capacity but as representing the Anjuman-i-Islam of Bombay, do not consider that there is anything whatever in the position or the relations of the different communities of India - be they Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, or Christians - which should induce the leaders of any one community to stand aloof from the others in their efforts to obtain those great general reforms, those great general rights which are for the common benefit of us all and which, I feel assured, have only to be earnestly and unanimously pressed upon Government to be granted to us.

. . .

I, for one, am utterly at a loss to understand why Musalmans should not work shoulder to shoulder with their fellow-countrymen, of other races or creeds, for the common benefit of all. Gentlemen, this is the principle on which we, in the Bombay Presidency, have always acted, and from the number, the character, the position, and the attainments of Musalman delegates from the Bengal Presidency and from the Presidency of Madras, as well as from the North-West Provinces and the Punjab, I have not the smallest doubt that this is also the view held, with but few though perhaps important exceptions, by the leaders of the Musalman communities throughout the whole of India.

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But, Gentlemen, do those who thus charge us with disloyalty stop for a moment to consider the full meaning and effect of their argument, - do they realize the full importance and significance of the assertion they make? Do they understand that, in charging us with disloyalty, they are in reality condemning and denouncing the very Government which it is their intention to support? Gentlemen, when they say that the educated natives of India are disloyal, what does it mean? It means this: that in the opinion of the educated natives - that is to say, of all the men of light and leading, all those who have received a sound, liberal and enlightened education, all those who are acquainted withthe history of their own country and with the nature of present and past Governments, that in the opinion of all these - the English Government is so bad that it has deserved to forfeit the confidence and loyalty of the thinking part of the populaiton. . . I say, therefore, that the conduct of those who thus recklessly charge us with disloyalty resembles the conduct of the "foolish woodman" who was lopping off the very branch of the tree upon which he was standing unconscious that the destruction of the branch meant the destruction of himself.

Notes