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Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, May 16th, 1907 }
Mr. Morley’s Pronouncement
The attitude assumed by Mr. John Morley in answer to the questions in Parliament about the latest act of mediaeval tyranny, cannot surprise those who have something more than surface knowledge of English politics and English politicians. Those who have been behind the scenes in English political life, know perfectly well that there sincerity is an element which does not exist. Professions, principles, ideals are the tinsel and trappings of the stage; each politician is an actor who has a part to play and plays it, certain set sentiments to mouth and mouths them. But the only reality behind is a mass of interests, personal interests, class interests, party interests, and the ruling principle of action is to “catch votes” and avoid the loss of votes. We have all noticed how persistently the Anglo-Indian Press out here talk of every movement as being artificial and the work of “professional agitators”, and how persistently they refuse to credit the popular leaders, even when they are men of high moral worth like Lala Lajpat Rai, with sincerity. We generally put this down to the perverseness and wilful misrepresentation of a reptile press; the real truth is that they are judging us from their knowledge of their own country. They are perfectly well aware that in England politics is a huge piece of humbug; it professes to be a conflict of principles and is really a conflict of more or less sordid interests. They know that in England a sincere politician is a contradiction in terms. They are therefore unable to believe in the existence in India of a sincerity and reality for which their own country offers no precedent. The only exceptions to the general rule of insincerity are the novices in politics— the maiden innocence of whose souls is soon rubbed off by a few Parliamentary sessions,
Page – 402 — and a handful of independent-minded eccentrics who have no chance whatever of rising to influence, much less to office. Occasionally a man of absolute sincerity like Mr. Bradlaugh breaks the record, but that is only once in half a century. When Mr. John Morley entered politics, he entered as a literary man and austere philosopher and brought the spirit of philosophy into politics. His unbending fidelity to his principles earned him the name of Honest John, and this soubriquet, with the reputation for uprightness of which it was the badge, has survived long after the uprightness itself had perished in the poisoned air of office. No one can be long a Cabinet Minister in England and yet remain a man of unswerving principle. As Indian Secretary, Mr. Morley could not be expected to carry his philosophic principles into the India Office. On the contrary, there were several reasons why he should be even more reactionary than ordinary Secretaries of State. The Secretary of State does not represent India or stand for her interests; he represents England and his first duty is to preserve British supremacy; but Mr. Morley is also one of the foremost exponents of the most arrogant and exclusive type of enlightenment in nineteenth-century Europe, the scientific, rationalist, agnostic, superior type. As such, he was the last man to think well of or understand Asiatics or to regard them as anything but semi-barbarous anachronisms. Moreover, as the Bengalee‘s London correspondent pointed out this week, he is evidently showing signs of senile decay which is shown partly in his growing ill-temper and intolerance of contradiction, but most in the mental languor which prevents him from questioning or scrutinising the opinions and information served up to him by the India Office. The verbatim fidelity with which he reproduces whatever Anglo-India tutors him to say, is strikingly evidenced by his answers to Messrs. Rutherford and O’Grady. His remarks on the situation in East Bengal might have been taken for an extract from the Englishman‘s editorials or from the imaginative reports of the special correspondent of the Empire. Mr. Morley makes no attempt to justify the arbitrary action he has sanctioned except on the plea of necessity, the tyrant’s
Page – 413 plea, which no one in former days would have held up more eloquently to condemnation and ridicule than Mr. Morley himself. He does not tell us why Lala Lajpat Rai was deported or what were the charges against him; probably he does not himself know, but simply accepted the assurance of the able and experienced Denzil and the level-headed Minto that the step was necessary. For they are the men on the spot, and Mr. Morley’s conception of his position in the India Office is that he is there to act as a buffer between the men on the spot and adverse criticism. We need not discuss his utterances; they are merely faithful echoes of Anglo-Indian special pleading, in which there is nothing that is new and very little that is true. But the threat which he held out to the Moderate party is worth noting. For some time Mr. Morley and Lord Minto, with whom the Secretary of State rather superfluously assures us that he has an excellent understanding, have been talking big of some wonderful reform that they have up their sleeves and feverishly assuring the world that these fine things are all their very own idea and by no means forced on them by Indian agitation. And now we are told, or rather the Moderate leaders are told, that they will lose these pretty toys if they do not help the bureaucracy to put down “disorder”, or, in other words, to put down Nationalism. Mr. Morley offers them a certain administrative reform if they can give up for themselves or can induce their countrymen to give up the aspiration towards freedom. The Anglo-Indian journals all take up the cry and the absolute insincerity of it is sufficiently shown by the fact that even so venomous, reactionary and antiIndian a print as the Englishman proses solemnly on the theme! The object of these threats is manifest. The sudden succession of coercive measures may for a moment have stunned the people, it may for a few days dismay the more timid, but it has certainly created a deep and settled exasperation throughout the country. The dismay is temporary, the exasperation will be permanent. Mr. Morley and Anglo-India hope to take advantage of the moment of dismay in order to half-bribe, half-intimidate the Moderate party into detaching themselves from any opposition to these coercive measures. This is a vain hope. For even to the
Page – 414 meanest political intelligence two considerations will at once occur. The first is that there is such a thing as buying a pig in a poke. Even the simplest buyer will want to see the animal before he puts down its price, and even the most confiding Moderate will want to know what is this wonderful reform of Mr. Morley’s before he sells the country’s future and risks his influence with the people for its sake. But on this point Mr. Morley preserves as studious a silence as on the charges against Lajpat Rai. Again, Mr. Morley and Lord Minto have hinted that their measure is an instalment of self-government, yet Mr. Morley emphatically declares that he will never strip the bureaucracy of any means of repression they possess, however barbarous and antiquated. It is evident therefore that whatever “self-government” may be in store for us, it is a “self-government” in which executive despotism will remain absolutely undiminished and unmodified. We have heard of a despotism tempered by epigrams and a despotism tempered by assassination, but this is the first time we hear of a self-government tempered by deportations. We do not think any section of Indian opinion is likely to rise to this lure. The Bengalee has already rejected the one-sided bargain with scorn and even the Indian Mirror has received it without enthusiasm. Coerce, if you will,— we welcome coercion, but be sure that it will rank the whole of India against you without distinction of parties. __________
The Bengalee on the Risley Circular
The Bengalee yesterday made its pronouncement on the Risley Circular which closes with the following remarks. “If the Government persist in their present career of folly, one of two things must happen. Either the official university will be absolutely supplanted by a comprehensive system of national education or, if that consummation cannot be easily realised, generations of young men will turn their energies and attention to active and practical, as distinguished from academic pursuits. We are not sure that either way the country will be a loser. And we know
Page – 415 of no third alternative. One thing that we cannot think of is meek acquiescence. The country will not submit either to this resolution or to any other like it.” There is a certain note of weakness in the conditional way in which this is presented, which somewhat spoils the effect of the declaration. We cannot understand why we should wait to see whether the Government persist in their present career of folly. The policy of the Government in this educational matter is manifestly a deliberate policy undertaken with a definite object and there is no reason to suppose that they will not persist in it. This habit of waiting on the actions of the bureaucracy rests on a weak and mistaken principle. The victory both in war and politics rests with the side which can reply to attack by taking up the aggressive; a continual defence and waiting on the enemy’s movements is weakening and demoralising. And why should a comprehensive system of National Education and the turning of young men to active and practical pursuits be mutually exclusive? Surely, increasing attention to technical, commercial and scientific instruction is a necessary part of any sound system of National Education. It is gratifying, however, to find that there is no intention of submitting to this resolution or any other like it. The bureaucracy in their frantic attempts to crush Nationalism, are doing their best to make anything but thoroughgoing Nationalism impossible. __________
What does Mr. Hare Mean?
Writes the Indian Mirror:— “For one full week we have it constantly dinned into our ears that Mr. Hare intends to visit the scenes of disturbance. Yet he has not left Shillong as yet, and disturbances are as rife as ever. What does Mr. Hare mean?” Even Homer nods; and even Mahatmas are at times slow to understand the significance of events. Our contemporary declines to accept the Jamalpur affairs as a link in a chain that has been forged by people interested in the suppression not so much of Swadeshi and Boycott as of the spirit of Nationalism. The
Page – 416 Harrison Road case might have been a blow aimed at Boycott, for at that time the new spirit had not made itself prominently manifest in Bengal and other parts of India. But the Barisal barbarities left no room for doubt. Then came the Comilla excesses. Are we to believe that the Moslem population of East Bengal has really been deluded into the idea that East Bengal belongs to Salimullah? Are we, again, to believe that the British Government which now sees wraiths even in wreaths of smoke, contemplates with a sense of security, if not with satisfaction also, the growth of this idea in the truculent population of the province and the consequent growth of the influence and power of an ordinary Zamindar? Are we then to believe that the British Government is too weak to check the spread of rowdyism in East Bengal and the distribution of the “red pamphlet”? Then comes the deportation of the Punjab leader by the Government in a manner which reminds one of the conduct of “Cunning old Fury” in Alice in Wonderland, who wanted to play the parts of judge and jury to convict the defendant in a case in which he himself was the plaintiff. The crowning act comes from Mr. Morley, once extolled by the Friend of India as the beau ideal of a man and a politician, who expresses his determination “not to strip the Government of India of any weapon or law for the suppression of native disorders”. The Jamalpur affairs are only a link in the chain. Accept this view and the whole situation, as well as the attitude of the local officers will be clear. We need no longer fight shy of the real significance of things. Let us take things as they are and face the situation boldly irrespective of consequences to individuals in the discharge of their duties. __________
Not to the Andamans!
It is evidently with a sigh of relief that the Indian Mirror learns the news that Lala Lajpat Rai is to be sent not to the Andamans but to Mandalay. It says:— “Soon after his arrest, it was reported widely that Lala Lajpat Rai was going to be taken to the
Page – 417 Andamans. But instead of being sent to that penal settlement, he has been conveyed as a State prisoner to Mandalay in Upper Burma where there is a large fort. Mandalay is certainly a far better place than the Andamans.” To those like us outside the esoteric circle— and they by no means form a microscopic minority— the distinction between the two places, on the present occasion, seems immaterial. Of course it needs no ghost to tell us that Mandalay is not the Andamans. But are not both places equally suited to the requirements of the Government? It was not the intention of the Government to remove Lajpat Rai to a particular place with a view to subject him to a particular kind of climate. In Mandalay in Upper Burma “where there is a large fort”, the Punjab leader will not be allowed to do as he likes. The object of the Government in deporting him was to remove him from the scene of his labours and thus attempt to put a stop to his career of usefulness— call it political activity if you like. The first object the Government has succeeded in accomplishing by removing him to Mandalay. And it would have been equally accomplished by removing him to the Andamans. But the second object cannot be accomplished by such a removal. If the people are ready to carry on his work— which since his deportation it has become their sacred duty to do— the object of the Government will be frustrated. The work of an individual often becomes the work of a people, and such work reaches its glorious culmination only when it is taken up by the people at large from whom come the energy and the character of a nation. If the people are prepared to take up his work, then his deportation, which has given them an impetus, will prove but a blessing in disguise.
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