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Is Mendicancy Successful?
AN
apologia
for the mendicant policy has recently appeared in the columns of the Bengalee.
The heads of the defence practically reduce themselves to two or
three arguments.
1. The policy of petitioning was recommended by Raja Rammohan Roy, has
been pursued consistently since then, and has been eminently successful — at
least whatever political gains have been ours in the last century, have been won
by this policy.
2. Supposing this contention
to be lost, there remains another. There petitioning is bad, but when the
petition is backed by the will of the community, resolved to gain its object by
every legitimate means, it is not mendicancy but an assertion of a natural
right.
3. Even if a petitioning
policy be bad in principle, politics has nothing to do with principles, but must
be governed by expediency, and not only general expediency, but the expediency
of particular cases.
4. Then there is the argumentum ad hominem. The Dumaists petition, the Irish petition, why should not we?
We believe this is a fair summary of our contemporary's contentions.
We
are not concerned to deny the antiquity of the petitioning policy, nor its
illustrious origin. Raja Rammohan Roy was a great man in the first rank of
active genius and set flowing a stream of tendencies which have transformed our
national life. But what was the only possible policy for him in his times and
without a century of experience behind him, is neither the only policy nor the
best policy for us at the present juncture. We join issue with our contemporary
on his contention that whatever we have gained politically has been due to
petitioning. It appears to us to show a shallow appreciation of political forces
and an entire inability to understand the fundamental facts which underlie
outward appearances. When the sepoys had conquered
Page-175
India
for the English, choice lay before the British, either to hold the country by
force and repression or to keep it as long as possible by purchasing the
co-operation of a small class of the people who would be educated so entirely on
Western lines as to lose their separate individuality and their sympathy with
the mass of the nation. An essential part of this policy which became dominant
owing to the strong personalities of Macaulay, Bentinck and others, was to yield
certain minor rights to the small educated class, and concede the larger rights
as slowly as possible and only in answer to growing pressure. This policy was
not undertaken as the result of our petitions or our wishes, but deliberately
and on strong grounds. India was a huge country with a huge people strange and
unknown to their rulers. To hold it for ever was then considered by most
statesmen a chimerical idea; even to govern it and keep it tranquil for a time
was not feasible without the sympathy and co-operation of the people themselves.
It was therefore the potential strength of the people and not the wishes of a
few educated men, which was the true determining cause of the scanty political
gains we so much delight in. Since then the spirit of the British people and
their statesmen has entirely changed — so changed that even a Radical
statesman like Mr. Morley brushes aside the expressed "will of the
community" with a few abrupt and cavalier phrases. Why is this? Precisely
because we have been foolish enough to follow a purely mendicant policy and to
betray our own weakness. If we had not instituted the National Congress, we
might have continued in the old way for some time longer, getting small and
mutilated privileges whenever a strong Liberal Viceroy happened to come over.
But the singularly ineffective policy and inert nature of the Congress revealed
to British statesmen — or so they thought — the imbecility and impotence of
our nation. A period of repression, ever increasing in its insolence and cynical
contempt for our feelings, has been the result. And now that a Liberal
Government of unprecedented strength comes into power, we find that the gains we
can expect will be of the most unsubstantial and illusory kind and that we are
not to get any guarantee against their being withdrawn by another reactionary
Viceroy after a few years. It
Page-176
is
perfectly clear therefore that the policy of mendicancy will no longer serve.
After all, cries the Bengalee, we have only failed in the case of the
Partition. We have failed in everything of importance for these many years,
measure after measure has been driven over our prostrate heads and the
longed-for Liberal Government flouts us with a few grudging concessions in
mere symptomatic cases of oppression. The long black list of reactionary
measures remains and will remain unrepealed. We do not care to deny that in
small matters petitioning may bring us a trivial concession here or a slight
abatement of oppression there, even there we shall fail in nine cases and win in
one. But nothing important, nothing lasting, nothing affecting the vital
questions which most closely concern us, can be hoped for from mere mendicancy.
To the contention of antiquity and success, therefore, our answer is that this antique policy has not succeeded in the long run,
but utterly failed, and that the time has come for a stronger and more effective
policy to take its place. To the other contentions of the Bengalee we
shall reply in their proper order. This which is the true basis of the
petitionary philosophy has neither reason nor fact to support it.
By The Way
The Englishman is at it again. His fiery imagination has winged its way
over rivers and hills and is now disporting itself on airy pinions over far
Sylhet. We learn from our contemporary that the British Government has been
subverted in Sylhet, which is now being governed by a number of schoolboys who
—
horrible to relate
—
are learning the use of deadly lathi. This
startling resolution is the result of Babu Bepin Chandra Pal's recent visit to
Sylhet. To crown these calamities, it appears that Golden Bengal is circulating
its seditious pamphlets broadcast. Its irrepressible emissaries seem not to have
despaired even of converting the Magistrate to their views, for even he is in
possession of a copy. We have, however, news later than the Englishman's. We
have been informed from a reliable source that the Sylhet
Page-177
Republic
has been declared and that Babu Bepin Chandra Pal is to be its first President.
*
The Englishman graciously accedes to the request of a
correspondent who prays this "much-esteemed journal to accommodate the
following lines". There is some gems from the delicious production which
the accommodating Englishman has accommodated. "We should always beg
the Government and not fight it for favours." Fighting for favours is
distinctly good; but there is better behind. "It is impossible for us to
obtain rights and privileges by fulminating acrimonious invectives on the
Government and making the Anglo-Indian rulers the butt-end of mendacious
persiflage and anathema." Shade of Jabberjee! The junior members of the Bar
Library will enjoy this elegant description of themselves. "For ought I
know most of the educated men are opposed to the despicable spread-eagleism of a
coterie of raw youths, who having adopted European costumes and rendered their
upper lips destitute of "knightly growth" give themselves all the airs
of a learned Theban and range themselves against the British Government."
This is a sentence which we would not willingly let die and we would suggest to
the raw youths with the destitute upper lips that they might sit in council and
devise means to preserve a literary gem which will immortalise them no less than
the brilliant author. How infinitely superior is the true Jabberjee to the mock
imitation. Even the author of the letter to Mr. Morley must hide his diminished
head before this outburst.
*
This attitude of the Extremists merely exposes their Boeotian stupidity.
Let them lay to it, that if they do not yet refrain from the obnoxious
procedure, they are sure to come to grief. We will lay to it, S.M. After such a
scintillation of Attic wit and rumbling of Homeric thunder, our Boeotian
stupidity finds itself irremediably reduced to Laconic silence. Truly, there
seems to be
Page-178
some
fearful and wonderful wild fowl in the ranks of the moderationists.
Bande
Mataram,
September
18, 1906
Mischievous
Writings
The
leading article in last Tuesday's Mirror, reproduced in another column,
shows the peculiar frame of mind that finds safety both from bold thoughts and
brave sacrifices, in its professions of friendship and loyalty to the foreigner.
The Indian Mirror gives an assurance to his Anglo-Indian friends that
there is no danger to the Empire from the insignificant band of
"extremists" who preach the pernicious doctrines of national autonomy
and popular freedom; and we hope, it will give rest and sleep to the
Chowringee
paper. The Mirror says:
—
"To say that educated India desires to
be absolutely free of the British control is absolutely idiotic, and we are sure
every thoughtful and cultured Indian will resent such a suggestion with
the utmost indignation."
But why resent, my brother? And
where is there any room for indignation here, either? It may be idiotic, we
admit, for we are sure that the Indian Mirror with all its conceits would
not dare to claim an absolute monopoly of this virtue for itself and those who
think with it. But this indignation is difficult to understand unless the
Ophelia of old has taken to play the part of Godiva with the whole lot of
British friends as his spouse, in his old age. Go on, thou brave queen, ride in
all thy nudeness through the country, and we shall close our doors, put down our
blinds, and desert every thoroughfare until thou comest to thy journey's end.
A
Luminous Line
There
is, however, one sentence in this lengthy leader of the Mirror which is,
after all, very reassuring even to the extremists.
Page-179
Our
amiable contemporary unconsciously admits that absolute autonomy is not an
absolutely sinful ideal even for the people of this country, who are head over
ears burdened with a debt immense of endless gratitude to their British rulers;
— only, we must first of all be fit for it.
"We have not as yet gone through our preliminary training and such a
thing as absolute autonomy would just now be an evil rather than a blessing to
us."
So says the Mirror, and it shows us how slowness of thought and
understanding may exist in some minds, with a lightning-swiftness of fearful
imagination. Take heart, dear friend, we do not propose to procure a decree nisi
now and at once, and set you free immediately. What we say is that for this
preliminary training, which even you would not object to, a clear perception of
the end is necessary, in both trainer and trained; the one needs it for right
guidance, and the other for diligent pursuit of the goal. Fear not, soft soul,
we are not so heartless as to disturb your
sweet slumber so soon!
The
Statesman and the Indian Mirror appear to have entered into a Holy Alliance for
the suppression of the extremists. The basis of this great political combination
seems to be mutual admiration of the most effusive and affectionate kind. Mirror
assures Statesman that he is a noble Anglo-Indian and a true and tried Friend of
India; Statesman quotes Mirror's solemn lucubrations by the yard. It only needs
the Hindu Patriot to join the league and complete the Triple Alliance. An
Anglo-Indian paper, a Government journal masking under the disguise of an Indian
daily, and the exponent of the most pale and watery school of
"patriotism", would make a beautiful symphony in whites and greys.
Such an alliance is most desirable: it would be a thing of artistic beauty and a
joy forever — and it would not hurt the new party.
*
Page-180
We
were a little surprised to find the Bengalee lending itself to the
campaign. It chooses to insinuate that while the methods of the old party are
extremely proper, sober and legal, those of the new party are outside the bounds
of the law. In what respect, pray? We advocate boycott and picketing, but that
is a gospel of which Babu Surendranath Banerji has constituted himself in the
past the chief Panda. We advocate abstention from Legislative Councils and other
Government bodies, but so do the old leaders
strongly recommend it —
to East Bengal. We advocate the assertion
by the people of their right to carry on the agitation in every lawful way —
but so did the old leaders at Barisal. We advocate abstention from all
association with the Government, but such abstention has not yet been forbidden
by law. We advocate the substitution of Indian agency and Indian energy in every
department of life for our old state of dependence on foreign agency and energy.
We advocate an organised system of self-development guided by a Council with
regard to Bengal and an open democratic constitution for the Congress instead of
the secret unconstitutional manipulations of a few leaders. We advocate finally,
autonomy as the ideal and goal of our endeavours. Where is the illegality, if
you please?
*
To listen to these excited people one would imagine we were calling on
the teeming millions of India to rise in their wrath, fall upon the noble
Anglo-Indian friends of the Mirror and with teeth, nails and claws, drive
them pell-mell into the Indian Ocean. All these imputations have, of course, a
definite object and the excitement is a calculated passion. On one side to
discredit the party with the timid and cautious, on the other to draw the
attention of the bureaucracy and secure for us free lodgings from a paternal
Government, seems to be the objective. Of neither contingency are we afraid; the
new policy is not for those who tremble or who prefer their own safety
and ease to the service of their country, and the fear of the Government we
renounced long ago and have forgotten what it means. It is no use trying to
awaken that dead feeling in our nature: We shall go
Page-181
on
our way steadily and persistently, careless of defeat or victory,
indifferent
to attack or suffering, until we have built up such a nucleus
of force and courage in India as will compel both moderate and official to yield
to the demands of the people. But always within the bounds of the law, if you
please, our friend of Colootola. We are a law-abiding people, even when we are
extremists.
*
We have been severely attacked more than once for splitting up the
country into factions and thus marring the majestic unity of the national
movement. We have already given our answer to that charge. Already before the
Swadeshi movement the divergence of ideals had begun to declare itself and in
several parts of India strong sections had grown up who were already
dissatisfied with mendicancy and with the haphazard formation and methods of the
Congress. Until recently the only course which seemed left to men of this
persuasion was to hold entirely aloof from the Congress or else to attend it
without taking any prominent part in its deliberations. But at the present time
the aspect of things has greatly changed. The party predominates in the Deccan,
is extremely strong in the Punjab and a force to be reckoned with in Bengal. It
numbers among its leaders and adherents many men of ability, energy and culture
some of whom have done good service in the past and others are obviously among
the chief workers of the future. They have a definite ideal which is not the
ideal of the older leaders and definite methods by which they hope to arrive at
their ideal. It is idle to expect that a party so constituted will any longer
consent to be excluded from political life or from the deliberations of the
Congress through which it may exercise a general influence over the country. The
old party is anxious that we should take up the position of an insignificant
"extremist" party, tolerated perhaps and sometimes made use of to
frighten the Government into concessions, but not recognised. "Exist, if
you please, but do not interfere with or oppose us," is their cry,
"and do not try to assert yourselves in the Congress." Such a demand
is ridiculous in the extreme. When there is a definite difference as to ideals
and methods, it is
Page-182
too
much to expect of any growing party that it shall not use every means to educate
the people to their views and organise such opinion as has declared itself on
their side. Nor is it reasonable to demand a considerable part of the educated
community to banish itself from Congress or only attend as a mute and inert
element. If the Congress is really a national body, it must admit all opinions
and give them free facility for expressing their views and urging their
measures. If, on the other hand, it is merely a gathering of moderates, it has
no right to pose as a national body. The argument usually urged that the
Congress has been built up by a certain class of people and with certain ideas
and that therefore it should remain in the same hands and under the domination
of the same ideas, is one which has no value whatever, unless we are to accept
the Congress merely as a society for the cultivation of good relations with the
Government. If it is a national assembly, it must answer to changes of national
feeling and progress with the progress of the nation. We shall therefore
persist in disseminating our ideas with the utmost energy of which we are
capable and in organising the opinion of the country wherever we have turned it
in the desired direction, for action and for the prevalence of our ideals. The
only question that remains, is the question of united action. It is certainly
desirable, if it can be brought about, that the action of the whole country in
certain important matters should be united. But the very first condition of such
unity is that all important sections of opinion should have the chance of
expressing its views and championing its own proposals, before the united action
to be taken is decided by a majority. It is for this reason that we demand an
elective constitution and a Council honestly representing all sections, so that
real unity may be possible and not the false unity which is all the old party
clamours for. Their plan for united action is simply to boycott the new party
and impose silence on it under penalty of "suppression". So long as
they persist in that spirit, united action will remain impossible.
Bande
Mataram,
September 20, 1906
Page-183
To
the onlooker the duel between the Statesman and the Englishman is
extremely amusing. The interests of Anglo-India are safe in the hands of both;
only they differ as to the extent to which the alien yoke should be made light.
The Englishman advocates an open and straightforward course
—
to make the Indians feel that they are a
conquered people — as helpless in the hands of the conquerors as was the dwarf
of the story in the iron grip of the giant. The Statesman, on the other
hand, wants to cover the heels of British boots with soft velvet. We for
ourselves prefer an open course to a crooked policy.
The fun of the thing is that from consideration of methods they have
descended to personalities. The Englishman credits the Statesman with
the instinct to follow Mr. Surendranath Banerji with doglike fidelity. To this
the Statesman replies — "Strange as it may appear to the
Englishman,
we are in the habit of forming our own opinions and of expressing them
without any extraneous assistance
—
even from the Bar Library, or elsewhere.
Mr. Banerji has certainly not done us the honour of tendering his help, nor have
we found it necessary to invite it." We take our contemporary at his word.
But we may be permitted to ask our contemporary if the paragraph about the New
India to which we referred the other day was not written under some
extraneous inspiration, — white or brown? Next, our Chowringhee contemporary
boasts of his independent policy and fearless proclamation of it. "In
order," says our contemporary, "to attain a wide circulation and a
position of influence, it is not enough to follow the example which this journal
set a quarter of a century ago by reducing its price to an anna. If the Englishman
is ever again to become a force in journalism, it must copy the Statesman
in matters of greater importance than the mere cost of its daily issue. It
must learn to have an honest and independent policy and to proclaim it
fearlessly." And our contemporary seems to think that man's lapses like
their civil claims are barred
Page-184
by
limitation, or he has a very conveniently short memory, or how could he
otherwise so soon forget the dangerous position he was placed in at the time of
the Rent Bill controversy and the way out he found by removing Mr. Riach, the
responsible editor?
*
After
all we do not despair. There is yet some hope left for our contemporary, for he
can still understand that — "it is possible for a newspaper, as for an
individual, to err at times and honestly to advocate views which may be
mistaken."
*
The Indian Mirror, has, after all, found one good point in the
armour of the "extremists"; they will not stand any humbug, says our
ancient contemporary, and no one will dare question the truth of his opinion,
for he speaks clearly from personal experience.
*
Babu Surendranath Banerji is reported to have advised the youthful
students of Bally — "to keep themselves within the limits of law and
never, in their excitement, run into excesses but always to serve their
motherland with unflinching devotion, through
good report and evil",
and
the old leader is right, because the latest
experience shows that Indian publicists and patriots have good reason to stand
in fear of reports.
*
The Indian Mirror is surprised that we are resting on our oars
when the Congress-bark should be fast sailing. The light that the Mirror is
reflecting is both dim and antiquated in these days of radium and X-rays. Our
information is that the "recognised" leaders are making arrangements
for the Congress though even the Mirror has not been taken into their
confidence.
*
Page-185
The old saw was that a mountain in labour produced a
mouse. But the modern saw is that the Indian politicians in labour produce
speeches and interviews. Somehow the information has leaked out that the
Hon’ble Mr. Gokhale's recent visit to England has not been much of a success.
Now Sir William Wedderburn comes to the rescue of the Bombay patriot and says
that the Hon’ble gentleman had a series of interviews with eminent British
politicians from the Prime Minister down to 150 pro-Indian M.P's. Achievement
indeed!
*
“Star to star vibrates light" — is there also a similar
responsiveness between mind and matter, or else why should there be so fearful a
tremor in mother earth, keeping time, as it were, to the nervous tremours of the
bold British and the timid Indian heart, at the present unrest in Bengal caused
by Sonar Bangla and the Shanti-Sechan?
Bande
Mataram,
October 1, 1906
Mr.
Gopal Krishna Gokhale is a mathematician and these mathematicians are a
wonderful people. They can prove anything they please. If Mr. Gokhale's
political opponents are numerous, he
applies the qualitative test, and shakes his head
—
"no good"; if they are not many,
he applies the quantitative test and turns his nose up at — "too
poor!" Anyhow, what was required to be demonstrated has been demonstrated,
Q.E.D.
*
Is Narendranath Sen among the boycotters?
—
enquires the Englishman, else how
has he put his name on the Rakhi-Circular, which asks people to renew their
boycott vow on the Rakhi-Day? Will Babu Narendranath send a copy of his Subliminal
Consciousness (sic) to his Hare Street brother to illu-
Page-186
mine
the situation? That, or the Isis Unveiled, will explain all.
*
The Bengalee is in mortal agony because of the prolonged
"tension between the rulers and the ruled". Love's quarrels never last
long, we know. But how to make these up? The traditional Dooti must be called
in, and Morley and Minto must play Brinda and get about a re-union between the
forlorn Bengalee and their discarded Lords. "Call them back, for old
love's sake, or we cannot live — outside the Council Chambers," — cries
the widowed Bengalee. The Rakhi-Day is coming, and love-bands will be
distributed to all the world, except only to him whose association makes the
world sweet! Oh the bitterness of it!
*
"The demonstrations of last year passed off without any excesses of
any kind and without any breaches of the law. The same temper animates us now.
The triumphs of constitutionalism are writ large on the pages of the year's
history." Thus perorates the Bengalee in its appeal for the coming
Rakhi-celebrations. "The triumphs of constitutionalism!" but of whose
constitution: of the Bengalee or of the British?
*
Empire Portents
-
Following the portentous tremors of mother
earth came, says the Empire, the capture of "a huge Boal fish at the
Haldi river. It measured six feet and was unusually
swollen."
What was swollen, the editor does not say
—
the feet, the tail, or the fish itself?
When cut open, however, a dead jackal was found inside! When doors are
"crossed", and trees are marked, and jackals are found inside greedy
Boal fish, and there is the murderous cry of Bande Mataram all over the
land, judgment
cannot, surely, be far
away.
*
Page-187
Many
things, the world knows, have saving power, but that a striking metaphor could
save a Conference was not known to us before. But this seems actually to have
happened recently at Umballa. When the Legislative Council Resolution came up
for discussion, there suddenly developed a rift in the lute. Everybody agreed
to the view that "the Punjab Council as at present constituted serves no
useful purpose". The New Party, with their acknowledged partiality for
inconvenient logic, wanted to add, "and it may as well be abolished".
The logic of it was dreadfully strong, and the amendment was pressed on the
Conference and debated upon. But the situation was saved by a "statesmanly metaphor" from Lala Murlidhar, the well-known poet-politician of
Umballa. "Do men cut down a tree because its fruit is unripe or happens to
be bitter or worm-eaten? Do men raze to the ground a house that leaks?"
After this, the amendment was bound to be negatived and the Resolution
carried. Lala Murlidhar has discovered the art evidently of making sunshine out
of cucumber, and pressing sweet honey out of bitter almond!
*
An additional proof of the tremendous work the "Moderates" have
been doing in the country was found by the last Provincial Conference at Umballa.
It passed a number of Resolutions asking the Government to do this and undo
that thing; but when it was proposed that a Committee or Association should
be started "to establish and help District Associations," the
Conference left it, we are told, "untouched".
*
Mr. Gokhale resolves the complexities of the present problem in Bengal
into "private quarrels and personal jealousies"
—
Burke was right when he said that he had known great statesmen
with the intellect of pedlars; yet Burke did not know us of modern India.
Page-188
Is
Mr. Gokhale also among the extremists? He advises the Bengalis to agitate
"in statesmanlike and reasonable manner" and explaining these terms,
says—
The Boers have got self-government by fighting manfully. The Irish will
get self-government within a year or so. We must keep their examples before our
eyes. And everything will be easy, he adds, if we imitate their ways
—
and perhaps finish with an object — but our
policy interdicts all personalities.
Bande
Mataram,
October 10, 1906
By The Way
Emerson
and original sin have never as yet gone together. But Principal Herambachandra
Moitra has achieved the impossible. Lecturing to a Bombay congregation on a
Wednesday he solemnly declared that "even children themselves are not free
from sin," and on the following Sunday discoursed on "Emerson".
Poor sage of Concord!
*
Calcutta
is going to have a Tower of Silence — for the Parsis. The Patrika would,
however, seem to hold that it is more needed by our own patriots. They evidently
permit writing in that dreadful place.
*
A "veteran" laments the decay of manners among the people of
this country, in the hospitable columns of the Pioneer. There was a time,
only forty years ago, when on the approach of a European, Indian lads would cry
— "Gora ata Gora ata" — and skid. When the same class of lads now
"pass a European with a cigarette between their lips and stare him calmly
in the face," and a "large number of natives salaam with their left
hands"
—
the world or the British Empire, which
means the same thing, must be nearing its end.
*
Page-189
Bengal politicians seem determined to maintain the ancient reputation of
the nation for its logical acumen and subtlety. The Barisal Conference resolved not
to send any prayer or petition to Government; when the Conference was
forcibly dispersed, the leaders sent a wire to the Viceroy on the ground that a
telegram was surely not a petition. They have resolved not to approach the
Lieutenant-Governor of the partitioned Province with any prayer or address, but
may still draw their Honours' "serious attention" to various matters,
public and personal, including the gift of a Deputy Magistracy to their sons.
Surely a cosy place in the Executive Service is not a membership of the
Legislative Council.
*
There is considerable indignation among the true "Friends of
India", both in England and in this country, at the "political
oration" delivered by Mr. Manmatha Chandra Mullik at the recent Tyabji
memorial meeting in London. After this we shall be told that it would be sinful
to discourse on religion at a commemoration service in honour of Lord Bishop of
Canterbury, or to speak on science at a memorial meeting of a President of the
British Association. We think at the recent Tyabji Bose meeting in London, Babu
Romesh Chandra Dutta must have discoursed, therefore, on the greatness of Islam,
and Sir Henry Cotton on the saving grace of Brahmo-Theology. We anxiously await
full reports of their speeches.
Bande
Mataram,
October 11, 1906
Page-190
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