|
Shall India be Free ?
THE LOYALIST GOSPEL
LIBERTY
is the first requisite for the sound health and vigorous life of a nation. A
foreign despotism is in itself an unnatural condition and if permitted, must
bring about other unhealthy and unnatural conditions in the subject people which
will lead to fatal decay and disorganisation. Foreign rule cannot build up a
nation — only the resistance to foreign rule can weld the discordant elements of
a people into an indivisible unity. When a people, predestined to unity, cannot
accomplish its destiny, foreign rule is a provision of Nature by which the
necessary compelling pressure is applied to drive its jarring parts into
concord. The unnatural condition of foreign rule is brought in for a time in
order to cure the previous unnatural condition of insufficient cohesiveness; but
this can only be done by the resistance of the subject people; for the incentive
to unity given by the alien domination consists precisely in the desire to get
rid of it; and if this desire is absent, if the people acquiesce, there can be
no force making for unity. Foreign rule was therefore made to be resisted; and
to acquiesce in it is to defeat the very intention with which Nature created it.
These considerations are not abstract ideas, but the
undeniable teaching of
history which is the record of the world’s experience. Nationalism takes its
stand upon this experience and calls upon the people of India not to allow
themselves to fall into the acquiescence in subjection which is the death-sleep
of nations, but to make that use of the alien domination which Nature intended,
– to struggle against it and throw it off for unity, for self-realisation, as an
independent national organism. In this country, however, there is a class of
wise men who regard the rule of the British bureaucracy as a dispensation of
Providence, not only to create unity but to preserve it. They preach therefore a
gospel of faith in the foreigner, distrust of our countrymen and acquiescence in
alien rule as a godsend from on
Page-300
high and an
indispensable condition for peace and prosperity. Even those whose hearts rebel
against a doctrine so servile, are intellectually so much dominated by it that
they cannot embrace Nationalism with their whole heart and try to arrive at a
compromise between subjection and independence,
–
a half-way house between
life and death. Their ingenuity discovers an intermediate condition in which the
blessings of freedom will be harmoniously wedded with the blessings of
subjection; and to this palace in fairyland they have given the name of Colonial
Self-Government. If it were not for the existence of this Moderate opinion and
its strange parti-coloured delusions, we would not have thought it worth while
to go back to first principles and show the falsity of the Loyalist gospel of
acquiescence. But the Moderate delusion is really a by-product of the Loyalist
delusion; and the parent error must be demolished first, before its offspring
can be corrected. The Moderates are a hybrid species, emotionally nationalist,
intellectually loyalist. It is owing to this double nature that their delusions
acquire an infinite power for mischief. People listen to them because they claim
to be Nationalist and because a sincere Nationalist feeling not infrequently
breaks through the false Loyalist reasoning. Moreover by associating themselves
with the Moderates on the same platform the Loyalists are enabled to exercise an
influence on public opinion which would otherwise
not be
accorded to them. The gospel according to Sir Pherozshah Mehta would not have
such power for harm if it were not allowed to represent itself as one and the
same with the gospel according to Mr. Gokhale.
What then are the original ideas from which the Loyalist gospel proceeds? It has
a triple foundation of error. First comes the postulate that disunion and
weakness are ingrained characteristics of the Indian people and an outside
power is necessary in order to arbitrate, to keep the peace and to protect the
country from the menace of the mightier nations that ring us in. Proceeding from this view and supporting it, is the second postulate that there must be
an entire levelling down and sweeping away of all differences, aristocrat and
peasant, Brahmin and Sudra, Bengali, Punjabee and Maratha, all must efface their
characteristics and differences before any resistance to foreign domination can
be
Page-301
attempted,
even if such resistance were desirable. The third postulate is that a healthy
development is possible under foreign domination and that this healthy
development must be first effected before we can dream of freedom or even of
becoming a nation. If these three postulates are granted, then the Loyalist
creed is unassailable; if they are proved unsound, not only the Loyalist creed
but the standpoint of the Moderates ceases to have any basis of firm ground and
becomes a thing in the air. The Nationalist contention is that all these three
postulates are monuments of political unreason and have no firm foundation
either in historical experience or in the facts we see around us or in the
nature of things. They are inconsistent with the fundamental nature of foreign
domination; they ignore the experience of all other subject nations; they
disregard human nature and the conditions of human development in communities.
The Loyalist gospel is as untrue as it is ignoble.
The Mask is Off
The Anglo-Indian journals are trying to assure the public that everything is
quiet in Jamalpur under the shadow of the British sword. The accounts that are
appearing in various Indian journals put a very different complexion on the
situation. It appears, to begin with, that the Gurkhas who were called in to
preserve the peace are being allowed in cooperation with local hooligans to
break it. The case of image-breaking is being deliberately put off and the whole
energy of the executive is devoted to terrorising the Hindus. Several
pleaders, a Muktear, a Naib of Ramgopalpur and a Superintendent of the
Gauripur estate, along with other leading gentlemen of Jamalpur have been
arrested. "The number of Mahomedan arrests," writes one correspondent,
"is simply nil". Comment is hardly necessary. The alliance of
the British bureaucracy with hooliganism stands confessed. To take advantage of
Mahomedan riots in order to further terrorise by legal proceedings the assaulted
Hindus, is the first preoccupation of the local magistrates. We have pointed
out already that the procedure is to give scope and room enough for anti-Swadeshi
Page-302
violence and pillage and then to punish the Swadeshists for the crime of self-defence
or even simply for the crime of being assaulted. The mask is off.
A Loyalist in a Panic
Not only the Englishman
but the Indian Mirror has been seriously frightened by the course of
events in the Punjab. No wonder. The lion spirit of the Punjab was not burned on
the pyre with Runjit Singh; it only went to sleep for a while after Chilianwala
and is now again awake. The Mirror is uneasy for the safety of the
Empire. The Mirror does not mind very much what may happen in East
Bengal, but if discontent spreads to the Punjab, it may affect the Sikhs, and
then what would become of the British Empire and the Indian Mirror? The
remedy proposed by our senile contemporary is that we should stop all political
agitation by putting off all public meetings until the country is quiet and that
Babu Bepin Chandra Pal should not go about stirring up the people of Southern
India "as regards Swadeshi, Boycott, Swaraj and other things". Sir
Denzil Ibbertson is also advised to cure the evil by kindness, — a wise counsel
to which, no doubt, he will incline his patient ear; for where can he find a
better well-wisher
than the Indian Mirror? It appears that the meetings addressed by Srijut Bepin Chandra
"are not likely to lessen the political unrest; on the contrary, they are
decidedly adding fuel to the fire". Well, what else should be their object?
To lull the country back into sleep and submission? The Mirror reminds us
of a venerable old woman awakened at night by the noise of burglars in the house
and recommending everybody to turn over and sleep or pretend to sleep until the
house is quiet, — and the burglars, unopposed, have done their business. But
we thought that the Mirror had discovered the Extremists to be a small
and insignificant party without any following in the country. What does it matter what such
a party is or is not doing? The country, the Mirror declared, is at the
back of the Moderate Party. Has that comforting belief so soon gone to pieces?
Bande Mataram, April 27, 1907
Page-303
|