-72_The Necessity of the Situation.htm

The Necessity of the Situation

A VERY serious crisis has been induced in Indian politics by the revival of Terrorist outrages and the increasing evidences of the existence of an armed and militant revolutionary party determined to fight force by force. The effect on the Government seems to have been of a character very little complimentary to British statesmanship. Faced by this menace to peace and security the only device they can think of is to make peaceful agitation impossible. Their first step has been to proclaim all India as seditious. Their second is to announce the introduction of fresh legislation making yet more stringent the already all-embracing law of sedition. By these two measures free speech on press or platform will practically be interdicted, since the perils of truthfulness will be so great that men will prefer to take refuge either in a lying hypocrisy, or in silence. Frankness, honesty, self-respecting and truthful opposition in Indian politics are at an end. The spirit which dictates the resort to these measures, will inevitably manifest itself also in the proclamation as illegal of all societies or organisations openly formed for the purpose of training the strength of the nation by solid and self-respecting political and educational work towards a free and noble future. By the law which gives the Government that power of arbitrary suppression associated work is rendered impossible, though not as yet penalised. If free speech, if free writing, if free association is made impossible under the law, it is tantamount to declaring a peaceful Nationalism illegal and criminal.

The effect of the recent assassinations on the Moderate Party has been to throw them into a panic and demoralisation painful for any lover of Indian manhood to witness. It is quite possible for an Indian politician at this crisis to consider in a spirit of worthy gravity and serious recognition of the issues involved the best way of combating the evil, even if it involves co­operation with a Government which persists in the repression of the national hopes and aspirations and seeks to compel co-

operation by pressure instead of by winning the hearts of the people. But that is not the spirit shown by Moderate organs and by Moderate leaders. All that we can see is a desperate and cowardly sauve qui peut, an attempt by every man to save himself and to burrow under a heap of meaningless words. Wild denunciations of the revolutionary instruments as fiends, dastards, cowards, with loads of other epithets which defeat their purpose by their grotesque violence; strange panegyrics of the deceased police officer as a patriot, saint, martyr by those who formerly never discovered his transcendent merits or had a good word to say for the police; meetings to arrange steps for the suppression of Anarchism loudly advertised by leaders who know that they are powerless to take any effective steps in the present state of the country; Vigilance Committees which can at best pay for the hired vigils of watchmen easily avoidable by a skilful nocturnal assassin; — are these the speech and action of responsible and serious political leaders or the ravings and spasmodic gesticulations of a terrified instinct of self-preservation ?

The Nationalist Party can take no share in these degrading performances. On the other hand its own remedies, its own activities are doubly inhibited, inhibited from below by the paralysing effect of successful or attempted assassinations, inhibited from above by panic-stricken suspicion, panic-stricken repression. We have not disguised our policy, we have openly advertised our plans of party reconstruction and reorganisation, we have sought to speak and act candidly before the Government and the country, not extenuating the errors of the Government, not inflaming the minds of the people. The first answer to our propaganda was given by the revolutionary party in the blow struck at Nasik, the Second by the Government in the extension of the Seditious Meetings Act to all India. We still felt it our duty to persevere, leaving the results of our activity to a higher Power. The assassination in the High Court and the announcement of a stringent Press legislation convinces us that any farther prosecution of the public activities we contemplated, will be vain and unseasonable. Until, therefore, a more settled state of things supervenes and normal conditions can be restored, we propose to refrain from farther political action. The Government and

the Anglo-Indian community seem to be agreed that by some process of political chemistry unknown to us the propagation of peaceful Nationalism generates armed and militant revolutionism and the best way to get rid of the latter is to suppress the former. We will give them the chance by suppressing ourselves so far as current Indian politics are concerned. We have no wish to embarrass the action of the Government or to accentuate the difficulties of the situation. The Government have no doubt a policy of their own and a theory of the best means of suppressing violent revolutionary activities. We have no faith in their policy and no confidence in their theory, but since it is theirs and the responsibility for preserving peace rests on them, let them put their policy freely and thoroughly into action. We advise our fellow Nationalists also to stand back and give an unhampered course for a while to Anglo-Indian statesmanship in its endeavours to grapple with this hydra-headed evil.

But before we resort to silence, we will speak out once freely and loudly to the Government, the Anglo-Indian community and the people. We will deliver our souls once so that no responsibility for anything that may happen in the future may be laid at our doors by posterity. To the Government we have only one word to say. We are well aware that they desire not the co­operation of the Nationalist Party, but its annihilation. They trace the genesis of the present difficulties to the propaganda of the Nationalist leaders and an unstatesmanlike resentment is allowed to overpower their judgment and their insight. Choosing to be misled by a police whose incapacity and liability to corruption has been loudly proclaimed by their own Commissions presided over by their own officials, they have formed the rooted opinion that the leaders of Nationalism are secretly conspiring to subvert British rule, and neither the openness of our proceedings nor the utter failure of the police to substantiate these allegations have been able to destroy the illusion. The open espionage, menace and detective machinations to which we are subjected, are sufficient proof of its persistence. Nevertheless, it is due to the Government that we should speak the truth and it is open to them to consider or reject it at their pleasure. The one, the only remedy for the difficulties which beset them in India, is to cease

from shutting their eyes on unpleasant facts, to recognise the depth, force and extent of the movement in India, the radical change that has come over the thoughts and hearts of the people and the impossibility of digging out that which wells up from the depths by the spades of repression. They are face to face with aspirations and agitations which are not only Indian but Asiatic, not only Asiatic but worldwide. They cannot do away by force with these opinions, these emotions, these developments unless they first trample down the resurgence in Japan, China, Turkey and Persia and reverse the march of progress in Europe and America. Neither can they circumvent the action of natural forces which are not moved by but move the Indian political leaders. Reforms which would have satisfied and quieted ten years ago are now a mere straw upon a torrent. Some day they must make up their minds to the inevitable and follow the example of rulers all over the world by conceding a popular constitution with whatever safeguards they choose for British interests and British sovereignty, and the earlier they can persuade themselves to concede it, the better terms they can make with the future. This has been the traditional policy of England all over the world, and it has always been an evil day for the Empire when statesmen have turned their backs on English traditions and adopted the blind impolicy of the Continental peoples. They have seen at Lahore and Hughly that Moderatism is a dead force impotent to help or to injure, that whatever the lips may profess, the hearts of the people are with Nationalism. Impolitic severity may transfer that allegiance to the militant revolutionism which is raising its head and thriving on the cessation of all legitimate political activity. The Nationalist leaders will stand unswervingly by their ideals and policy, but they may prove as helpless hereafter as the Moderates are in the face of the present situation.

The Anglo-Indian community, through its recognised organs, is now busy inflaming hostility, hounding on the Government to farther ill-advised measures of repression and adding darkness to darkness and confusion to confusion. Statesmanship they never had, but even common sense has departed from them. The Indian people made a fair offer of peace and alliance to them at the beginning of the movement by including goods

produced in India through European enterprise and with European capital as genuine Swadeshi goods; but instead of securing their future interests and position by standing in the forefront of the political and industrial development of India, they have preferred to study their momentary caste interest and oppose the welfare of the country to which they owe their prosperity. As a punishment God has deprived them of reason. They are hacking at the roots of British investment and industry in India by driving blindly towards the creation of more unrest and anarchy in the country. They are imperilling a future which can still be saved, by fanatical attachment to a past which is doomed. If they could look at politics with the eye either of the statesman or the man of business, they would see that neither their political nor their commercial interests can be served by a vain attempt to hold this vast country by pressing a mailed heel on the throats of the people. The pride of race, the arrogance of colour, a bastard mercantile Imperialism are poor substitutes for wisdom, statesmanship and common-sense. Undoubtedly, they may induce the Government to silence and suppress, to imprison and deport till all tongues are hushed and all organisations are abolished — except the voice of the bomb and the revolver, except the subterranean organisation that, like a suppressed disease, breaks out the more you drive in its symptoms. Have they ever contemplated the possibility of that result of their endeavours — the possibility that their confusion of Nationalism with Terrorism may be ignorant and prejudiced, and that the measures they advocate may only destroy the one force that can now stand between India and chaos ?

To the people also we have a last word to say. We have always advocated open agitation, a manly aspiration towards freedom, a steady policy of independent, self-sustained action and peaceful resistance to the repression of legitimate activities. That policy was only possible on condition of a certain amount of self-restraint in repressive legislation by the Government, and a great amount of courage, self-restraint, resolution and self-sacrifice on the part of the people. It appears we cannot count on any of these conditions. The rise of a revolutionist party fanatically opposed alike to the continuance of the British con-

nection and to peaceful development makes our policy yet more impossible. A triangular contest between violent revolution, peaceful Nationalist endeavour and bureaucratic reaction is an impossible position and would make chaos more chaotic. Any action at the present moment would be ill-advised and possibly disastrous. The Government demands co-operation from the Moderates, silence from the Nationalists. Let us satisfy them and let there be no action on our part which can be stigmatised as embarrassing the authorities in their struggle with Terrorism. The self-restraint of our party after the conviction of Mr. Tilak was rewarded by the breakdown of Moderatism after it had undisputed control of the press and platform for almost a year. A similar self-restraint will be equally fruitful now. Revolution paralyses our efforts to deal peacefully but effectively with Repression; Repression refuses to allow us to cut the ground from under the feet of Revolution. Both demand a clear field for their conflict. Let us therefore stand aside, sure that Time will work for us in the future as it has done in the past, and that, if we bear faithfully the burden of the ideal God has laid upon us, our hour may be delayed, but not denied to us for ever.