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Political Activities, 1883-1885
The First Indian National Conference—a second tour through Upper India; an appeal for unity—Lord Dufferin Viceroy—Sir Henry Harrison—drunkenness and the outstill system—public meetings.
On my release from prison, and after my enforced leisure, which, as I have already observed, I greatly enjoyed, owing to the complete rest it gave me, there lay before me heavy public work. I took up the movement for the creation of a National Fund. A great meeting was held on July 17, 1883, attended by over ten thousand people, at which it was resolved to raise a national fund to secure the political advancement of the country by means of constitutional agitation in India and in England. The Contempt Case and the growing movement for Indian unity and solidarity had opened wide our vision, and we invited the other provinces to co-operate with us. The Civil Service agitation had disclosed the essential unity of Indian aims and aspirations, the Contempt Case had accentuated the feeling, and we now began to look beyond our own province, and to seek for strength and invigoration by the moral support and active co-operation of united India. The moral transformation which was to usher in the Congress movement had thus already its birth in the bosom of the Indian National Conference which met in Calcutta, and to which representatives from all parts of India were invited.
The Ilbert Bill controversy helped to intensify the growing feeling of unity among the Indian people. The Anglo-Indian community had formed their Defence Association with its branches in different parts of the country. They had raised over a lakh and fifty thousand rupees to protect what they conceived to be their interests, and to assert their special privileges. Their organization and their resources had secured success to their cause. The educated community all over India watched the struggle with interest. There was the Ilbert Bill agitation with all its developments taking place before their eyes. They could not remain insensible to the lesson that it taught, of combination and organization; a lesson which in this case was enforced amid conditions that left a rankling sense of humiliation in the mind of educated India. It was, however, fruitful of results. It strengthened the forces that