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Partition and the Government
THE situation in the country is such that the Government will be bound before long to devise some effective means to meet it, and what can that means be except the revocation or some material modification of the Partition of Bengal which is the apparent cause of the present crisis. The Government must have seen already that without some such revocation or modification of the administrative arrangements in Bengal, as will reunite at least the Bengalee-speaking populations of the province under one local Government, the present discontent will not be allayed. They have tried many things during the last twelve months; – persecution of school boys, application f regulation lathis, the prostitution of British justice and British administration for saving British prestige and British trade in the country, have all been tried and all have equally failed create the least impression upon the grim determination of e people to boycott British goods; and it must have, by this time become clear even to the habitually purblind Indian Bureaucracy that the obnoxious Partition measure must be revoked or substantially modified to meet the irresistible demands if Indian opinion which, unlike what it was before, is now not an empty, wordy thing, but has a new and growing force behind it .The Government cannot be blind to the fact that the boycott of British goods, which has already affected British trade to some extent, will not only increase in volume, inflicting greater injury day by day on England’s commercial interests in India, but will so be extended to other things than mere goods and chattels. The many strikes in various parts of the country, the organisation of working men’s unions, and the general upheaval which these indicate, are an ominous thing. It shows the new-born capacity of the people of this country for combined and organised opposition to the will of their employers and oppressors; and the lay may not be very distant when these strikes and combinations will be organised in mercantile concerns and Government Page-15 offices, and even in the Police and other State Departments on which the British in India have, naturally, to so entirely depend for the peaceful and uninterrupted discharge of their functions both as rulers of the people and as exploiters of the resources of their country; and if this comes about, who will prevent the people from literally paralysing the whole foreign machinery, both of administration and exploitation in the country, almost any moment they like? This is the prognosis of the present situation; and neither the Government nor the foreign mercantile community who, according to Lord Curzon, discharge the second of the dual functions of the British Government of India, - the function, namely, of exploitation, – can by any means view this situation without the gravest concern. And the difficulty of meeting this situation lies in the very nature of the opposition that the people have resolved to offer to the Government, and the foreign exploiters. Open violence is easy to meet and conquer; especially by a Government which is armed with despotic powers and has immense resources both of , the Police and the military at its command. But passive resistance is not to be so easily fought and conquered; least of all can it be conquered by an alien authority when this resistance is offered by a people whose civic life, though destroyed, has found some slight compensation in the larger and more bold and powerful organisation of their social life, and with whom the social boycott is an instrument before which the mightiest political power must ultimately bend its knee and confess its impotence. Passive resistance is the more difficult to fight among a people who have been trained by their religion, as well as by the miseries they have been subjected to for many centuries, under endless vicissitudes of fortune, to bear all ills and deprivations with a more-than-stoic quiet and determination. The conditions of life in a warm climate, which make hunger and cold far easier to bear than these are in colder countries, are also a great and almost invaluable asset on the side of the passive resisters arid strikers in this country. And when the day comes, as it is bound to come, if the present agitation continues, that will see the clerks in the Government offices and the foreign mercantile Page-16 firms
simultaneously refusing work, for political reasons, the British authorities and
their kinsmen will both find themselves suddenly so hopelessly stranded that
both administration and exploitation will become equally impossible at once.
Bengal, at any rate, is fast moving towards this contingency, and. the very thought
of it must paralyse the stoutest and most optimistic official in the
country. Page-17 battle of freedom in India will be won the day when a measure that the Government had set their hearts on, as they clearly had done in the present case, is subverted and repealed by pressure of organised and resistful popular opinion in the country. It seems surprising that there is such precious little political sense in the old leadership of our political life that this elementary fact is not recognised by it, but has to be so persistently hammered into its head. We can well understand why Sir William Wedderburn, or Sir Henry Cotton, or even Mr. A.O. Hume and other British friends should suggest, if they have not distinctly advised, the presentation of another petition to the Indian Secretary to give him a decent plea for reopening the question, for such a petition will save his dignity and the prestige of the Government while at the same time granting them all an excuse for going back upon their old proclamations regarding administrative urgency and settled facts. But why should we, whose distinct interest clearly is to increase the power of the people and weaken the unholy prestige of the Government, agree to such a course? If the old leaders in Calcutta are able to read the trend of public opinion in Bengal they must see how strongly opposed people are to the idea of approaching the authorities with any fresh prayer or petition. The way in which this suggestion was considered at the recent conference of delegates at the Bengal Landholders’ Association, – and formally rejected, – is a very clear indication of the trend of popular sentiment in the country in regard to this matter. The Comilla Resolution wired by our Comilla Correspondent day before yesterday is extremely significant. This Resolution is a distinct proof of the birth of a new political force and the quickening of true political wisdom in the community. The reality of this new force is proved by the very form in which the Comilla Resolution has been cast. It is not a mere statement of opinion, unsupported by arguments and facts such as our Resolutions both at the Congress and elsewhere have hitherto been. It is framed after the Resolutions that are usually discussed and adopted at public meetings and conferences in Europe and America where there is an intense reality in political work and agitation and honest desire in the leaders to take the people into Page-18 their fullest confidence in regard to every matter of public interest and educate them up to an intelligent understanding of all He questions. In the face of the Comma Resolution it will be sinful, we hold, on the part of the Calcutta clique even to send any suggestions to the Indian Secretary in regard to the Partition of Bengal. Bande Mataram, September 3, 1906 Page-19 |