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A NATION IN MAKING

enthusiasm which augurs well for the future solidarity of Hindus andMohamedans.

The success that had attended my efforts in Northern India encouraged my friends to depute me on the same mission to Western, and Southern, India. I started for Bombay in the winter of 1878. The Bombay leaders had already been informed of my mission; and they received me with kindness and cordiality. Mr. Vishanarain Mandlik, Mr. Kashinath Trembuck Telang, and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Pherozshah Mehta, were the leaders of Bombay public opinion. All af them are now, alas, dead and gone. A public meeting was held in Bombay, and the Civil Service Resolutions and Memorial were in substance adopted. I then proceeded to Surat, and Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat. Civil Service meetings were held and the Calcutta Resolutions were adopted in both places. I then returned to Bombay, and from Bombay I proceeded to Poona, where I was the guest of the late Mr. Ranade.

Mr. Ranade was then a Subordinate Judge, but his official position never overshadowed his instincts or interfered with his duties as a citizen. He was a constant figure on the Congress platform as a visitor, and he was the power behind the throne, guiding, advising and encouraging the Congress leaders in their work. His simplicity, the charm of his manners, his intellectual eminence, and his genuine and all-consuming love of country, fascinated all who came in contact with him. I was his guest at Poona, and he treated me as a member of his family.

From Poona, where a meeting was held and our Resolutions were adopted, I proceeded to Madras, where I became the guest of Dr. Dhanakatu Raju. I called on the Madras leaders, including Mr. Chensal Row, the Hon’ble Humayoon Jah Bahadur, and others, and I urged them to hold a public meeting to discuss the Civil Service question. For some reason or other a meeting could not be held; and we had a conference of leading men at Pacheappa’s Hall, at which our Memorial and Resolutions were adopted. Madras to-day, so instinct with the public life of India, is very different from what Madras was in 1878. To-day it is fully on a line with the rest of India as regards its public spirit and its efforts for the public good. In 1878, it was the only place in all India where I found it impossible to hold a public meeting upon a question of vital interest to our people, and in regard to which there was practical unanimity all over India.