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A Pusillanimous Proposal
WE
published yesterday the letter of Babu Ananda Chandra Roy of Dacca in which he
invites East Bengal to welcome Mr. Hare and establish with the Shillong Government
the ordinary relations of kow-towing and petitioning. We characterised the
letter as an indefensible production and a second perusal only confirms us in
the impulse to give it a yet harsher name. What Babu Ananda Chandra proposes
under the cover of lawyer-like arguments and illogical sophistry, is no less
than to betray his country.
The whole of Bengal has registered a solemn vow that let Viceroys do what
they will and Secretaries of State say what they will, the united Bengali nation
refuses and will for ever refuse to acknowledge the Partition. Taxes we may pay,
laws we may obey, but beyond that we have no farther relations with the
Government of Shillong. The position is clear, beyond sophistry, above dispute.
Whatever differences may exist among us, on this there is one unanimous voice.
But Babu Ananda Chandra Roy can no longer bear the deprivation of the fleshpots
of Egypt or the strain of self-denial and stern resistance which this resolution
implies and wishing himself to recoil from that arduous position, he invites
all his countrymen to follow his lead and countenance him in a cowardly
surrender.
And why are we to commit this inglorious act of political suicide? In the
first place, because Mr. Hare is such a nice gentleman and therefore the
"grounds and causes" we had for avoiding that bad bold man Sir
Bampfylde no longer exist. We do not know what grounds and causes Ananda Babu
had for avoiding Sir B. Fuller — we have a suspicion that it was because
public opinion left him no choice; but the one ground and cause that Bengal had
for this action was the existence of the Partition, that and nothing else. The
Partition exists in full force and the "grounds and causes" exist
therefore unabated and unimpaired. The "leadership" which regulates
grave political issues according
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to
the personal character and amiability of the ruler for the time being, is a
leadership for which India has no longer any use. It is not Hare and Fuller that
matter, but our country and the British system and policy which seeks to keep us
in perpetual servitude.
Other of Ananda Babu's reasons for submission are that it will enable
himself and his friends to enter the Legislative Council of the new province, to
act as Honorary Magistrates and visitors of Lunatic Asylums and to get the
circulars for the preference of Mahomedans in appointments modified or
abrogated. The fossils of the old days of selfish submission are incorrigible.
We should have thought otherwise — that to advance such contemptible reasons
for acquiescing in the mutilation of one's country would have been regarded as
an act of inconceivable shamelessness.
Ananda Babu, however, will not admit that he is counselling
acquiescence, for he is quite willing to mention in every address to the new
ruler of Shillong that we are weeping for the Partition and will go on weeping
inconsolably — on stated public occasion until it is rescinded! The
childishness of such a suggestion would be amusing if it were not painful to
think that such political ineptitude proceeds from a man who has long been
looked up to as a leader and counsellor in our political movements.
Manifestos and utterances of this kind compel us to ask whether some of
our "Swadeshi" leaders are sincere in desiring that the Partition
should be rescinded. The ugliest feature of the Swadeshi agitation has been the
refusal of the members for the East Bengal districts to vacate their seats on
the Legislative Council. Ananda Babu's letter is another sign of evil omen. But
there is one man among the older leaders whose sincerity cannot be doubted.
Babu Surendranath Banerji is the leader of United Bengal; he has just declared
himself at Barisal, the high priest of the mother's worship. Will he permit this
calm proposal to desecrate her image and perpetuate its mutilation and utter
no protest?
Ananda Babu has other proposals equally remarkable. He proposes to
beseech the Government to help us in the Swadeshi
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movement; to smother the Boycott, as an illegtimate child or at least to conceal
it as if it were something we were ashamed of; to bow down to the settled fact,
as the fiat of the Highest Authority, confusing apparently Mr. John Morley
with that Power which undoes the decrees of Statesmen and Princes! And he asks
us, "Save and except showing our disapprobation of the Partition what else can
we gain by avoiding the new L.-G.?" That is a question easy to answer. If we
persist in the Boycott both of British goods and of British offices and
officials, we shall gain, if nothing else, the speedy reversal of the Partition.
It is a pity that our leaders understand so little of British politics,
otherwise they would understand that it is only in this way that Mr. Morley's
game of bluff can be met. The Partition cannot be maintained against a
permanently alienated and restless Bengal. But there is one way in which we can
perpetuate Lord Curzon's work, and that is to submit, to give up the fight and
bow the knee betraying, for individual advantages and temporary gains, our
mother.
Bande
Mataram, August 25, 1906
Home
BY
THE WAY
It
is sad to watch the steady intellectual degeneration of our once vigorous
contemporary the Indian Mirror. Commenting on the formation of Labour
Unions, the Mirror advises the promoters to make the suppression of
strikes the principal object of their efforts! Certainly, the strike is the last
weapon in the hands of labour and should not be used as the first. But the idea
of organising Labour Unions to suppress strikes is a masterpiece of unconscious
humour. We shall next hear that Mahomedan Educational Conferences should be
organised to discourage Mahomedan education, that the anti-circular laws should
make it their chief object to put down picketing, and perhaps that a League is
being formed with Babu Narendra Nath Sen at its head to "suppress" the
Indian Mirror.
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We do not think the amazing timidity of our political leaders can be
paralleled in any other country in the world. Is a National Congress
established? Its object, one would think, must be to concentrate the strength of
the nation and fight its way to power. Oh, by no means, it is only to advise
and assist the Government! Is a national Council of Education instituted? Of
course, it has arisen to rival and replace the alien-ruled University. Not at
all, not at all; it is meant not to stand in opposition to but to supplement the
old University! Does Labour rise in its strength and band itself into
formidable combinations? Their work will be, then, to resist the greed and
heartlessness of Capital and vindicate the claims of the toiler to just treatment
and a man's wages for a man's work. O God indeed! These Unions are rather meant
to suppress strikes and establish kindly relations between the employers and the
employed! Are we, after all, one wonders sometimes, a nation of cowards and old
women?
*
The excuse usually urged for these pitiful insincerities is that it is
all diplomacy. The diplomacy of grown-up children! The diplomacy of the ostrich
hiding its head in the sand? What a poor idea these "leaders" must
have formed of the political intelligence of the British Government and of
Englishmen generally, if they think they can be deceived by such puerile
evasions. Bureaucracy and Anglo-India take advantage of these professions and
laugh in their sleeves. Meanwhile, the country loses the inspiration of great
ideals, the exaltation of frank and glorious conflict, the divine impulse that
only comes to those who know they are battling bravely and openly for the
freedom of their country, not to men who cringe to the enemy and lie and palter
with their consciences.
Truth and bold straight dealings we believe to be not only our noblest
but our wisest policy in our struggle with the alien. Our leaders have no faith
in the nation; they believe it is weak and impotent, and shuffiings, evasions
and shallow insincerities are the weapons of the weak. We for our part believe
in the im-
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mense
strength of the nation and demand that our leaders shall bring it face to face
with the enemy. Still if they must have diplomacy let them give some diplomacy
worth the name. If the shades of Cavour and Bismarck have leisure to listen to
such senilities, what a smile of immortal contempt must pass over their lips as
they watch the "diplomacy" of our leaders.
Bande
Mataram, August 27, 1906
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