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Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, September 4th, 1906 } Partition and Petition
There seems to be a recrudescence of the old and decadent praying mood once again in certain quarters, and attempts, we understand, are being made to induce the leaders of public opinion in the mofussil to join the Calcutta clique for sending a fresh representation to the Secretary of State for India, for the revocation or modification of the Partition of Bengal. The recent reply of the British Prime Minister to a question put to him by Mr. O’Donnell seems to be partly responsible for this recrudescence, which, we understand however, is mainly due to wire-pulling from Palace Chambers. Some of our own countrymen now in England also seem to be playing into the hands of our Parliamentary friends, who are clearly anxious to help their own Government out of a very uncomfortable and undignified position in which the present agitation in Bengal has clearly placed them. Similar hopes were held out by some of our British friends, about six months ago, and it was in consequence of these that people were induced to join the last Town Hall demonstration against Partition; and it was practically stipulated that that would be our last prayer on this subject to the Government. The same game, however, is going to be played over again. We do not know if a Town Hall meeting will be convened for this purpose; but advices from England seem to hold that no public meeting would at all be necessary, a carefully drawn-up petition, signed by a few leading men, and submitted, not through the local Government, because the matter affects two Provinces, and the Government of any of these would not be competent to receive it, but through the Government of India, would equally serve the purpose; as the Government in England is said to be favourably
Page – 131 inclined to a reconsideration of the Partition, and a representation from Calcutta would be very helpful at this moment. We have no doubt that it will be so; but why, in the name of commonest political wisdom, we ask, should we be so anxious to offer this help to the Government that is clearly seeking an honourable means of retreat from a very difficult and untenable position wherein its own perversity and folly have placed it? We are all anxious to have the Partition revoked, but we are so anxious not because Partition actually works irreparable ill to the country, for the ends of the authors of this evil measure have been completely frustrated already, and the political life of Bengal which it was their avowed intention to weaken or kill, has been made almost infinitely stronger than it ever was before or could possibly be in the near future,— by this very Partition itself. The outraged sentiments of the country have found relief in the consciousness of a new power among the people. Outrages wound only because they are a proof of the weakness and incapacity of the outraged; if this weakness is not felt, and this incapacity fails to be established, the wound also ceases to exist. This has happened in Bengal, and more particularly in East Bengal in connection with this Partition outrage; and there is a growing indifference in the country as regards the fate of this measure. People have found a larger and a more profitable object for their public life. They have commenced to grow into a vivid consciousness of their own strength; and they are, accordingly, growing more and more indifferent to what the Government may or may not do, either in regard to this or to any other matter. They know and feel that their fate lies in their own hands, and in the hands of God, who guides the destinies both of individuals and nations. ______
English Enterprise and Swadeshi
The Anglo-Indian papers are nowadays repeatedly referring to the Jamalpur Railway workshop as a Swadeshi enterprise. The use of the word throws a good deal of light on the meaning
Page – 132 of that Swadeshi which our benevolent Government so unctuously professes. The Jamalpur workshop does nothing for India beyond employing a number of coolies who are ill-paid and therefore underfed and a staff of Bengali clerks. It adds nothing appreciable to Indian wealth, on the contrary it diminishes it. All that can be said is that instead of taking 100 per cent of the profits out of India, it takes 90 per cent. This is precisely the meaning of Government Swadeshi— to provide a field for English capital, English skilled work in India and employ Indian labour, not out of desire for India’s good, but because it is cheap. If the Government really desired India’s good, it would provide for the training of educated Indians so that such work as is done in Jamalpur, might be executed by Indian brains and with Indian capital as well as by Indian hands. But we do not ask the Government to give us such training. It would be foolish to expect a foreign Government to injure the trade of its own nation in India. We must provide for our own training ourselves. ____________
Sir Frederick Lely on Sir Bampfylde Fuller
Sir Frederick Lely’s was a name well known in Gujarat and nowhere else in India. He has now earned a cheap notoriety for himself by holding forth in the Times on Sir Bampfylde Fuller’s dismissal. Sir Frederick is full of dismal forebodings on the effect of this dismissal, which has evidently shaken the foundations of British rule in India. One cannot help reflecting how weak, in that case, those foundations must be! Sir Frederick adorns his lamentations with an imaginative reference to people’s tongues being cut out for speaking against Brahmins some short period before this particular Heaven-born’s sacred boot soles hallowed the streets of Bombay! Evidently, Sir Frederick is brooding regretfully on the impossibility of adorning Belvedere with the tongues of Babu Surendranath Banerji and Babu Bipin Chandra Pal, red sacrifices to the stability of British rule. That might certainly simplify the task of Government,— or it might not. __________
Page – 133 Jamalpur
Our correspondent’s report from Jamalpur gives the sober facts of the situation and clears away the mist of misrepresentation and wild rumour with which the Anglo-Indian journals have sought to obscure the incident. From the beginning the English version has been an attempt to throw the whole blame on the workmen by charging them with rioting before the gunshots. Their version has varied from day to day. With the exception of one or two minor details, the opposite version has been throughout clear, consistent and rational. There will of course be the usual cases and counter-cases and diametrically opposite statements sworn to in evidence. But we have ceased to take any interest in these futile legal proceedings. An Englishman assaulting an Indian may be innocent or guilty, but, as he cannot be punished, it does not matter an atom whether he is innocent or guilty. The fight has to be fought out to the end and the resort to law is no more than a persistent superstition. _________
By the Way
The wailings of the Englishman for Sir Bampfylde Fuller do not cease. The Rachel of Hare Street mourns for the darling of her heart and will not be comforted. We wish our contemporary would realise that the rest of the world are heartily sick of this daily ululation. Deeply as we sympathise with his grief we cannot help thinking that it is indecently prolonged. Rest, rest, perturbed spirit, rest!
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The Englishman makes, after his fashion, a curious use of the severe criticism on Babu Surendranath’s Shanti-Sechan which have appeared in the Bengali press. He thinks that it means the “repudiation” of Surendra Babu and the abandonment of the Partition Agitation. Prodigious! Apparently the Englishman has yet to learn that the movement in Bengal was not created by
Page – 134 any single man and does not depend on any single man. It is a great natural upheaval and the leaders are no more than so many corks tossing on the surface of a whirlpool. If one or more goes down, what does it matter to the whirlpool?
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It is amusing to find Babu Bipin Chandra Pal represented as a fanatical worshipper of Surendra Babu. “When Babu Bipin Chandra finds it in his heart to condemn the editor of the Bengalee,” cries the Englishman, “then indeed all is over.” Shabash! The humours of Hare Street are mending.
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There is another kind of humour which pervades the columns of the Indian Mirror, but it is not so pleasing as the Englishman‘s. The Mirror poses as a Nationalist organ, but its paragraphs and articles often breathe Anglo-Indian inspiration. Its comments on the official version of the Shantipur case are an instance. It even goes so far as to call on the Railway authorities to punish the “Bengali Stationmaster” because Mr. Carlyle complains of his conduct in the matter. We had to look twice at the top of the sheet before we could persuade ourselves that it was not an Anglo-Indian sheet we were reading.
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Still worse is the paragraph on the Jamalpur affair. The Mirror calls on the promoters of the Railway Union not to do anything which will provoke the feelings of the workmen to a white heat. We had thought it was the gunshots of the European railway officials which had done that work. But no; in the eyes of the Mirror that seems to have been a harmless act. It is Mr. A. K. Ghose and Babu Premtosh Bose who are to blame. Yet the editor of this paper is one of our “leaders”.
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The Mirror farther gives hospitality to an amusing utterance of Kumar Kshitendra Deb, that renowned statesman who is
Page – 135 standing for the Bengal Legislative Council. This Kumar first carefully differentiates true Swadeshi from false, the true being the kind of Swadeshi which allows Kumars and others to become Legislative Councillors, the false the kind of Swadeshi which doesn’t. All this is to prevent misunderstanding about his views which he innocently imagines that the public are anxious to learn. We think our Kumar is rather ungrateful to the “false” Swadeshi, but for which he would have had rather less chance of becoming Legislative Councillor than the man in the moon. The worthy Kumar has no sympathy with martyrs naturally enough. We want, apparently, not martyrs but men who are determined to attain a position. No, thank you, Kumar, we have had too many of that kind already; the little change to martyrs will do no harm.
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