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The Hindu Sabha
an
INDICATION
of the immense changes which are coming over our country,
is the sudden leaping into being of new movements and organisations which are,
by their very existence, evidence of revolutions in public feeling and omens of
the future. The dead bones live indeed and the long sleep of the ages is
broken. The Moslem League was indicative of much, the Hindu Sabha is indicative
of yet more. The Nationalist Party, while in entire disagreement with the
immediate objects and spirit of the league, welcomed its birth as a sign of
renovated political life in the Mahomedan
community. But the Mahomedan community was
always coherent, united and separately self-conscious. The strength of Islam
lay in its unity and cohesion, the fruit of a long discipline in equality and
brotherhood, the strength of the Hindu in flexibility, progressiveness,
elasticity, a divination of necessary changes, broad ideas, growing
aspirations, the fruit of a long discipline in intellectual and moral
sensitiveness. The Moslem League meant that the Mahomedan was awakening to the
need of change, the growth of aspiration in the world around him, — not yet to
the broad ideas modern life demanded. The Hindu Sabha means that the Hindu is
awakening to the need of unity and cohesion.
Does it mean more ? Does it
indicate a larger statesmanship, quicker impulse to action, a greater capacity
for the unity and cohesion it seeks ? Is the Hindu Sabha a novel body, with the
power in it to effect a great object never before accomplished, the effective
union of all shades of Hindu opinion from the lax Anglicised Agnostic, Hindu in
nothing but birth and blood, to the intense and narrow worshipper of the
institutes of Raghunandan ? Or is it merely
an ineffectual aspiration, like the old Congress, capable of creating a general
sympathy and oneness of aim, but not of practical purpose and effective
organisation ? There are only two things strong enough to unite Hinduism, a new
spiritual impulse based on Vedanta, the
essential oneness
of
man, the transience and utilitarian character of institutions, the lofty ideals
of brotherhood, freedom, equality, and a recognition of the great mission and
mighty future of the Hindu spiritual ideas and discipline and of the Indian
race, — or else a political impulse strong enough to unite Hindus together for
the preservation and advancement of their community. The Hindu Sabha could not have come into being but for the
great national movement which awakened the national spirit, the sense of past
greatness, the divination of a mighty future, transforming the whole spirit and
character of the educated community. But we fear that in its immediate
inception and work it leans for its hope of success on a lower and less
powerful motive — rivalry with Mahomedan
pretensions and a desire to put the mass and force of an united Hinduism
against the intensity of a Mahomedan self-assertion supported by official
patronage and Anglo-Indian favour. Alarm and resentment at the pro-Mahomedan policy underlying the Reform Scheme
and dissatisfaction with the Bombay conventionists
for their suicidal support of the Government policy entered largely into the
universal support given by Punjab Hindus to the new body and its great initial
success. Mortification at the success of Mahomedans
in securing Anglo-Indian sympathy and favour and the exclusion of Hindus from
those blissful privileges figured largely in the speech of Sir Pratul Chandra Chatterji
who was hailed as the natural leader of Punjab Hinduism. These are not good
omens. It is not by rivalry for Anglo-Indian favour, it is not by quarrelling
for the loaves and fishes of British administration that Hinduism can rise into
an united and effective force. If the Hindu Sabha takes its anchor on these
petty aspirations, or if it founds any part of its strength on political
emulation with the Mahomedans, it will be impossible for the Nationalist party
to join in a movement which would otherwise have their full sympathy and eager
support.
Lala Lajpat Rai
struck a higher note, that of Hindu nationalism as a necessary preliminary to
a greater Indian Nationality. We distrust this ideal. Not that we are blind to
facts, — not that we do not recognise Hindu-Mahomedan rivalry as a legacy of
the past enhanced and not diminished by British ascendancy, a thing that has to
be faced and worked out either by mutual
concession or by a
struggle between nationalism and separatism. But we do not understand Hindu
nationalism as a possibility under modern conditions. Hindu nationalism had a
meaning in the times of Shivaji and Ramdas, when the object of national revival was to
overthrow a Mahomedan domination which, once
tending to Indian unity and toleration, had become oppressive and disruptive.
It was possible because India was then a world to itself and the existence of
two geographical units entirely Hindu, Maharashtra
and Rajputana, provided it with a basis. It
was necessary because the misuse of their domination by the Mahomedan element
was fatal to India's future and had to be punished and corrected by the
resurgence and domination of the Hindu. And because it was possible and
necessary, it came into being. But under modern conditions India can only exist
as a whole. A nation depends for its existence on geographical separateness and geographical compactness, on having
a distinct and separate country. The existence of this geographical separateness is sure in the end to bear down all
differences of race, language, religion, history. It has done so in Great
Britain, in Switzerland, in Germany. It will do so in India. But geographical
compactness is also necessary. In other words, the désa
or country must be so compact that mutual communication and the organisation of
a central government becomes easy or, at least, not prohibitively difficult.
The absence of such compactness is the reason why great Empires are sure in the
end to fall to pieces; they cannot get the
support of that immortal and indestructible national self which can alone
ensure permanence. This difficulty stands in the way of British Imperial
Federation and is so great that any temporary success of that specious
aspiration will surely result in the speedy disruption of the Empire. In
addition, there must be an uniting force strong enough to take advantage of the
geographical compactness and separateness, — either a wise and skilfully
organised government with a persistent tradition of beneficence, impartiality
and oneness with the nation or else a living national sense insisting on its
separate inviolability and self-realisation. The secret of Roman success was in
the organisation of such a government; even so, it failed, for want of geographical
compactness, to create a world-wide Roman nationa-
lity.
The failure of the British rule to root itself lies
in its inability to become one with the nation either by the effacement of our national individuality or by the
renunciation of its own separate pride and self-interest. These things are
therefore necessary to Indian nationality, geographical separateness, geographical compactness and a living national
spirit. The first was always ours and made India a people apart from the
earliest times. The second we have attained by British rule. The third has just
sprung into existence.
But the country, the Swadesh, which must be the base and fundament of
our nationality, is India, a country where Mahomedan and Hindu live
intermingled and side by side. What geographical base can a Hindu nationality
possess ? Maharashtra and Rajasthan are no longer separate geographical
units but merely provincial divisions of a single country. The very first
requisite of a Hindu nationalism is wanting. The Mahomedans
base their separateness and their refusal to regard themselves as Indians
first and Mahomedans afterwards on the existence of great Mahomedan nations to which they feel themselves
more akin, in spite of our common birth and blood, than to us. Hindus have no
such resource. For good or evil, they are bound to the soil and to the soil
alone. They cannot deny their Mother, neither can they mutilate her. Our ideal
therefore is an Indian Nationalism, largely Hindu in its spirit and traditions,
because the Hindu made the land and the people and persists, by the greatness
of his past, his civilisation and his culture and his invincible virility, in
holding it, but wide enough also to include the Moslem and his culture and
traditions and absorb them into itself. It is possible that the Mahomedan may
not recognise the inevitable future and may prefer to throw himself into the
opposite scale. If so, the Hindu, with what
little Mahomedan help he may get, must win Swaraj both for himself and the Mahomedan
in spite of that resistance. There is a sufficient force and manhood in us to do
a greater and more difficult task than that,
but we lack unity, brotherhood, intensity of single action among ourselves. It
is to the creation of that unity, brotherhood and intensity that the Hindu Sabha should direct its whole efforts. Otherwise we must reject it as a
disruptive and not a creative agency.
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