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Back to the Land
THE life of a nation is always rooted in its villages but that of India is so deeply
and persistently rooted there that no change or revolution can ever substitute
for this source of sap and life the Western system which makes the city the
centre and the village a mere feeder of the city. Immense changes have taken
place, great empires have risen and fallen, but India is still a nation of
villagers, not of townsmen. This has been perhaps an obstacle to national unity
but it has also been an assurance of national persistence. It is an ascertained
principle of national existence that only by keeping possession of the soil can
a nation persist; the mastery of the reins of government or the control of the
trade and wealth of a country, does not give permanence to the people in
control. They reign for a while and then the virtue departs out of them and they
wither or pass away and another takes their place; but the tillers of the soil,
ground down, oppressed, rack-rented, miserable, remain, and have always the
chance of one day overthrowing their oppressors and coming by their own. When a
small foreign oligarchy does the trading and governing and a great indigenous
democracy the tilling of the soil, it is safe to prophesy that before many
generations have passed the oligarchy of aliens will be no more and the
democracy of peasants will still be in possession.
When the poison of Western education was first poured into our veins, it
had its immediate effect, and the Hindus, who were then the majority of the
Bengali-speaking population, began to stream away from the village to the town.
The bait of Government service and the professions drew away the brightest
intellects and the most energetic characters by their promise of wealth,
prestige and position. They won for their community the rewards which they had
set out to win. The Hindu community has now a monopoly of Government service, of
the professions, of prestige, wealth and position; but it has lost possession of
the soil, and with the loss of the soil it has sacrificed the source
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of
life and permanence. The Amrita Bazar Patrika has long been drawing
attention to the dwindling of the higher castes, and Mr. A. Chowdhuri at the
Pabna Conference pointed out what has been known to the few for some time but
not the general public, that this decrease is not confined to the higher castes
but is common to the Hindu population. We are a decadent race, he cried, and
inconsistent as the cry may seem with the splendid and leading position which
the Bengali Hindu occupies in the public and intellectual life of the country,
it is perfectly true. Intellectual prominence often goes hand in hand with
decadence, as the history of the Greeks and other great nations of antiquity has
proved; only the race which does not sacrifice the soundness of its rural root
of life to the urban brilliance of its foliage and flowering, is in a sound
condition and certain of permanence. If the present state of things is allowed
to continue, the Mahomedan will be the inheritor of the future and after a brief
period of national strength and splendour the Bengali Hindu, like the Greek,
will disappear from the list of nations and remain only as a great name in
history. Fortunately, the national movement has come in time to save him if he
consents to be saved. With the deepening of the movement, as it turns its eyes
more and more inwards, it is earning wisdom and acquiring insight, and one of
the more powerful tendencies of the moment is the reversion of interest to the
village. Srijut Jogesh Chowdhuri has an instinct for the need of the moment and
just as he threw himself into Swadeshi activity long before the leaders of the
hour awoke to its importance, so now he has started his Palli Samaj propaganda
while the rest of the political leaders are unable to extend their view beyond
the fields of activity already conquered. Srijut Rabindranath Tagore at Pabna
laid stress on the same necessity. "Back to the land," is a cry which
must swell with time and, if the Bengali Hindu is wise, he will listen and obey.
Swadeshi was the most pressing need of the nation till now, because we were
threatened with a commercial depletion which would have rendered agricultural
life impossible by turning famine into a chronic disease. The peasant must live
if he is to keep possession of the soil, and a flourishing national commerce is
the only sure preventive of famine. But now Swadeshi has become an integral
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part
of our politics, the gradual growth of Indian industry is assured until this
growth is complete, the struggle with famine will continue and this also is
getting to be recognised as an essential part of our political activity. We must
now turn to the one field of work in this direction which we have most
neglected, the field of agriculture. The return to the land is as essential to
our salvation as the development of Swadeshi or the fight against famine. If we
train our young men to go back to the fields, we shall secure the perpetuation
of the Hindu in Bengal which is now imperilled. They will be able to become
mentors, leaders and examples to the village population and by introducing
better methods of agriculture and habits of thrift and foresight and by
organising the institution of Dharmagolas and securing more equal position for
the peasant in his dealings with the merchant and the moneylender they will
materially assist the Swadeshi manufacturer and the organiser of famine relief
in the fight for survival. To settle more Hindu agriculturists on the land is
the first necessity if the Hindu is to survive.
National Education has followed the trend of the political movement and
its first energies have been devoted to literary and technical instruction. In
the latter branch it has already, in spite of insufficient help from the public,
achieved a signal success; if it has been able to make only a beginning, yet
that beginning has been so sound, so admirably and intelligently done, that we
can already perceive in this little seed the mighty tree of the future. We
understand that the literary instruction is now being organised with a view to
make the College in Calcutta a home of learning and fruitful research as well as
a nursery of intelligence and character. But we look to the organisers of the
College to make equal provision for agricultural training, so that a field may
be created for its students on the soil whence all national life draws its sap
of permanence. The establishment of the Pabna School is of good omen in this
respect, but a single institution in East Bengal will not be sufficient, as the
conditions of Pabna are not universal in Bengal, and model farms on drier soil
such as we have in Comilla and West Bengal will also be needed. If the work is
taken in hand from now, it will not be a moment too soon, for the problem is
urgent in its call for a solution,
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and
the mere organisation of village associations will be only partially effective
if it is not backed up by a system of instruction which will bring the educated
Hindu back to the soil as a farmer himself and a local leader of the peasantry
of the race.
Bande
Mataram,
March 6, 1908
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