the Nationalists' majority would have absented itself from the councils or taken to other forms of opposition which would have brought the Bureaucracy to their knees.
It should be noted that this programme was not at all inconsistent with the acceptance of Mahatma Gandhi's. Indeed, it seems certain that both the Mahatma and the Lokamanya would have fused their programmes into one. Had Mr. Tilak lived, the whole of Mr. Gandhi's programme and not merely its first step, would, very probably, have been accepted by the Calcutta Congress, with the proviso, that the Councils were not to be boy- cotted. The Nation would thus have been able to wage a battle royal with the Bureaucracy — ^within and out- side the councils, the one helping the progress of the other ; and the sad spectacle of the Bureaucracy trying to crush the Non-co-operators with the aid of the Mode- rates in the Councils, would never have been seen. Had repression come, it would have appeared hideous in all its nakedness.
