Chitta Ranjan's Patriotism.
In course of one of his lectures Chitta Ranjan once remarked, "Work
for my country is part and parcel of all the idealism of my life. I
find in the conception of my country, the expression also of
divinity." In fact the welfare of our country is very dear to his
heart, for this he has given his all ungrudgingly and spent his
valuable time selflessly whenever the occasion demanded it. Keenly has
he felt the unhealthy condition of our villages and the illiteracy of
the people, and long has he striven to convince our countrymen that
our national regeneration lies in the sanitary and educational reform
of our villages. Under his guidance and patronage there has been
started several years back a private society for the improvement of
the Bikrampur villages. It has for its main object the sanitation of
the villages and the education of the people of Bikrampur and last not
least it tries to make the poor villagers independent of others in
earning their livelihood. Chitta Ranjan has now and then given large
donations to its fund. About three or four years back he gave in the
hands of the workers of the society a large sum for digging a tank to
supply pure drinking water to the villagers. In the early part of the
year 1919 when with the visitation of a great famine in East Bengal
most people of the villages were in imminent danger of dying of
starvation, this society under the patronage of Chitta Ranjan and his
cousin Satish Ranjan started relief work in the villages. The distress
was no doubt acute but it was to a great extent being relieved. But
just towards the close of the year a heavy cyclone passed over East
Bengal and the ever-violent Padma as if to vie with the violence of
the wind ran inundating both her banks; the whole of Bikrampur
appeared desolate, and heaps of dead bodies were seen floating on the
river for several days together. Most of the villagers were left
houseless, their provision had also been swept away and they fell an
easy prey to imminent starvation and contagious epidemic. Chitta
Ranjan could no longer stay quiet at home. He himself appeared on the
scene at a great personal sacrifice. Under his guidance was started a
relief society called the "Bengal Relief Committee" of which Chitta
Ranjan was the Treasurer. He himself gave a donation of Rs. 10,000 and
persuaded many of the large-hearted Marwari Merchants of Bengal to
contribute a large sum to the fund. On this occasion Chitta Ranjan
visited almost all the villages of East Bengal in spite of all sorts
of difficulties on the way; he went to the villages and started
centres of relief work, each centre comprising three or four village
unions. The centres were entrusted with proper funds to feed and
clothe the distressed and homeless villagers. The relief committee
tried a new innovation in social service which was very commendable as
a means of removing poverty from the villages. It arranged to pay the
poor villagers each a small amount of money with which they were to
revive their home industries and thereby out of the sale-proceeds they
would be able to make themselves independent of any external pecuniary
help. For as regards the poor the great object should be to make them
independent; the great danger is of making them more dependent. It is
no doubt a good thing to make them comfortable, but in helping people
if we know that we love them and not pity them, we must try to form
their character, otherwise our charity will be cruel. We read a short
poem in our early years which throw some light on the nature of true
charity.
"I gave a beggar from my little store
Of well-earned gold. He spent the shining ore
And came again, and yet again, still cold
And hungry as before.
I gave a thought, and through that thought of mine
He finds himself a man, supreme, divine,
Fed, clothed, and crowned with blessings manifold,
And now he begs no more."
Such is the nature of Chitta Ranjan's charity which has aimed not
merely at alleviating want, but at creating independence.
Patriotism is with Chitta Ranjan another name for socialism by which
we mean his ardent love for the suffering humanity. He loves this
country as it gives shelter to his poor brethren whom his religion has
taught him to look upon as incarnations of Narayana.
When in April 1917 the political leaders of Bengal asked Chitta Ranjan
to preside over the annual session of the Provincial Conference, he
delivered a speech in Bengali which was unique in character and form
and in which Chitta Ranjan stated that socialism and patriotism were
almost identical so far as our country was concerned. He said in
course of this speech:--
"Some people might say: 'This conference is for political discussion;
what has talk about Bengal to do with it?' Such a question would be
symptomatic of our disease. To look upon life not as a comprehensive
whole but as divided among many compartments was no part of our
national culture and civilisation.... Must we not view our political
discussions from the stand-point of the whole of our countrymen? And
how shall we find truth, unless we view life thus comprehensively and
as a whole?... After all, what are the ultimate object and
significance of this political thought and endeavour? If we wish to
express it in one word, we shall have to say--what has been said so
often--that the object of our politics will be to build up the
Bengalees into a nation of men.... It is therefore that we shall have
to ascertain what our present condition is, and in order to ascertain
this we shall have to take first into consideration the material
circumstances of our people. This again will require that we shall
have to enquire into the condition of our peasantry--whether
agricultural wealth is increasing or decreasing and whether
agriculture is flourishing or otherwise. This in its turn will lead us
to a further enquiry still, viz, as to why our people are leaving
their villages in increasing numbers and are coming to settle within
towns. Is it because the villages are insanitary or is there any other
reason for that? Thus we find that an adequate discussion of politics
will involve a consideration of agricultural questions as well as the
questions of village-sanitation. At the same time we shall have to
consider whether we can improve our material condition even by
bringing under tillage all the available culturable land of the
country. If we can't, then we shall have to consider the question of
industry and trade as well."
But why do we fail to enquire into the condition of our country in
this way? We never look to our country, never think of our countrymen,
of our past national history, or our present material condition, for
the vanity arising from false education has rendered us blind and
callous. Chitta Ranjan has truly remarked in the same paper.
"We boast of being educated; but how many are we? What room do we
occupy in the country? What is our relation to the vast masses of our
countrymen? Do they think our thoughts and speak our speech? I am
bound to confess that our countrymen have little faith in us.
... Besides, we seem to look upon them with contempt. Do we invite
them to our assemblies and our conferences? Perhaps we do when we want
their signatures to some petition to be submitted before the
Government; but do we associate with them heartily in any of our
endeavours? Is the peasant a member in any of our committees or
conferences?"
By the grace of God this mentality has now been changed. The masses
and the classes of our country have associated themselves in the
present national movement. The peasant delegates are now honoured
members of even the Indian National Congress. The note of warning that
Chitta Ranjan struck was very opportune. This set our leaders to feel
the heart-throbbing of our mother country. But what led us astray?
Chitta Ranjan has justly remarked:--
"Mimic Anglicism has become an obsession with us: we find its black
foot-print in every walk and endeavour of life. We substitute meeting
houses for temples; we perform stage-plays and sell pleasures in order
to help charities. We hold lotteries in aid of our orphanages; we give
up the national and healthful games of our country and introduce all
sorts of foreign importations. We have become hybrid in dress, in
thought, in sentiment, and culture and are making frantic attempts
even to be hybrids in blood. What wonder, then, that in this new
pursuit of western ideals we should forget that money is only a means
to an end and not an end in itself?"
What has made us shallow; why have we, the so-called educated, become
strangers to our own countrymen? For like other ideals, our ideal of
education also has become mean and impoverished; and so what was easy
and natural--we have made it complex and difficult. We must even now
beware and listen to the wise warning of Bankim--a warning all too
unheeded when it was first uttered. But one thing is certain that
unless we change the whole organism of our educational system and make
it harmonise with our national ideals even our existence is
threatened. For this education has created a wide gulf between the
educated and the masses, which our national existence demands to
bridge over. About our present system of education Chitta Ranjan has
said:--
"It has imparted an element of unnecessary anglicism into
our manners and modes of life--so that in outer seeming it
might almost appear as if the educated Bengalee had little
organic touch with the heart of his countrymen. Then, again
this education has made us familiar not with things but with
words; it has made us clever but not men.... We have
acquired a despicable habit of looking down with contempt,
upon those who have not received this English Education of
ours; we call them "illiterate" and "uneducated" and sneer
at their ignorance. But these uneducated countrymen have
hearts and sympathies; they worship their gods, they are
hospitable to guests, they feel for the suffering and
distress of their neighbours.... To me it seems perfectly
clear that if we want to lead our newly-awakened national
consciousness in the paths of true knowledge, education
should be diffused through the medium of our own vernacular
and not through the unwholesome medium of English."
The reason for this ghastly failure in our national life is palpable
from other points of view also. We the educated few, never co-operated
with the masses of our countrymen. We are not only proud of our
education, but also proud of our wealth and proud of our caste: and
this three-fold pride has so deadened and blinded our senses that, in
all our endeavours we leave quite out of account those who are the
flesh, blood and back-bone of the land. The gentry of our country are
mostly ill educated and therefore their pride springs from emptiness.
To speak the truth, the so-called educated have no right to mix with
their countrymen. They are narrow, callous and anglicised. They fail
even now to understand that in this crucial moment of Indian History,
the whole country should stand as one in working out her future
destiny. Here the Hindus and the Mohammedans should co-operate, the
Brahmins, the Vaidyas and the Kayasthas should come out hand in hand
with the peasants and the chandals. Chitta Ranjan harped upon the same
theme in his presidential address at the Provincial Conference:--
"Those who constitute 40 out of 46 millions of our countrymen,--those
who produce our bread by their labour--those who in their grinding
poverty have kept alive the torch of their ancient culture and ancient
polity--those whom our English civilization and English culture and
English law-courts have yet been powerless entirely to corrupt--those
whom the oppression of Zemindars and Mahajans have failed to
crush--are we,--a corrupt and effete handful--are we their betters and
superiors? We boast of our Hinduism; but with our false pride of
caste we are striking Hinduism at its very root. Even now while there
is time, let us perceive our fearful and heedless blunder. In our
oppressed and down-trodden fellow-brethren let us recognise the image
of Narayana: before that sacred and awful image, let us abandon all
false pride of birth and breed and let us bend our heads in reverence
and true humility. These seething millions of your land--be they
Christians or Mahomedans or Chandals--they are your brothers; embrace
them as such, co-operate with them and only then will your labours be
crowned with success."
In taking a survey of our present condition, we have to think of the
poverty of the peasant-class, and closely connected with this question
of poverty is the question of village depopulation. The village is the
centre of our civilisation and culture; and hence the decay of
village-life is bound to cripple and enfeeble our body-politic. Now
the cause of this village depopulation is two-fold. In the first
place, there is the ravage of malaria and in the second place, there
is the temptation of city-life with its ease, luxury and commercial
and money-making facilities. Thus modern cities like some huge
reptiles are swallowing up the ancient village centres of our country;
and one of our chief duties will be to re-establish the health,
prosperity and welfare of the villages. In order to do this, we shall
have to improve the water-supply of our villages, to remove jungles,
to educate the common people in the laws of health and sanitation.
Also in order that agriculture may flourish, we shall have to
establish banking institutions upon a small scale. For this combined
and harmonious work we must have a plan. Chitta Ranjan has suggested
one in his presidential address at the Provincial Conference of
1917:--
Our first step will be to organise all the villages of each district
into a number of village groups or unions. Where one village is
sufficiently large and populous, that by itself will constitute one
union or group. In the case of smaller villages, several of them will
be combined to form one group or union. Then a census must be taken of
the adult males of each village-union: These will form the primary
village assemblies; and they will elect from among themselves a
panchayet or executive body of five members. This panchayet or
executive body will have the sole administration of the village-group
in its hands. It will look to sanitation; it will arrange for
water-supply; it will establish night-schools; it will arrange for
industrial and agricultural education; in short the domestic economy
of the village-group will be entirely in the hands of the Panchayet.
Besides, in each village-group there will be a public granary; each
agricultural proprietor will contribute to this granary according to
his quantity of land; and in years of drought and scarcity, the
resources of this public granary will be drawn upon to feed the
people.
In case of petty disputes, civil or criminal the panchayet will be the
sole deciding authority, but in the case of larger disputes, they will
report to the district civil and criminal courts; and their reports
will be treated as the sole plaints or complaints in such cases.
In the next place, the primary assembly of each group, will, according
to its population, select from five to twenty five members to the
district Assembly. These district assemblies will consist of members
numbering from 200 to 500 and will exercise the following powers:--
(1) It will exercise general supervision over the working of the
panchayets and the affairs of the village group.
(2) It will devise ways and means of the better performance of the
functions of panchayets; and it will be directly responsible for the
education and sanitation of the district capital.
(3) It will devise means for the improvement of agriculture and
cottage industries.
(4) It will supervise the sanitation of the villages included in each
village-group: and will be directly responsible for the sanitation of
the district council.
(5) It will start such industrial and business concerns as may be best
suited to further the resources of the district.
(6) It will employ chowkidars and peace-officers for the villages.
(7) It will have sole charge of the district police.
(8) Each district assembly will elect its own President and will
appoint sub-committees for the discussion of different subjects.
(9) For the provision of cheap capital, each district assembly will
open a bank: this bank will have branches in each village-group.
(10) The district assemblies will have power to raise by taxation the
money necessary for its requirements.
(11) The present local and district boards will be abolished.
(12) Necessary laws will have to be passed to place the primary and
district assemblies on a legal basis.
This out-line of work is very closely connected with Indian socialism.
This is what we now call Swaraj or self-government of the villages.
These institutions did actually exist in our country from very ancient
times; they grew and developed with our growth, and they have a
peculiar harmony with the genius of our national character. Chitta
Ranjan has therefore proposed only reversion to our older social
institutions. But life among us now is not so simple as it was before;
it has become complex, difficult and intricate. Hence what was
inchoate requires to be put into a system. The panchayet was a natural
out-growth of our ancient village community! It consisted of those
five persons who naturally and easily emerged into prominence by their
qualities of character and intellect. The authority of the panchayet
lasted only so long as the community at large tacitly accepted their
authority. Now the question arises, "Will the Government entrust so
much power to us?" Again there are the Anglo-Indian papers crying
themselves hoarse, "No no, there is so much of anarchism in the land,
it will lead to fearful abuses if the people are entrusted with any
large share of power." But the real fact is just the opposite, if the
people are given opportunities of serving their country on a larger
scale, the so-called anarchism will die out of itself. Of this Chitta
Ranjan says in his address:--
"Since the days of the swadeshi movement our young men have been
possessed with the ardent desire to serve their country. At the time
of the Ardhodoy yoga (the most auspicious moment for taking a bath in
the Ganges), and again at the time of the Damodar floods of 1913, this
desire for service found noble vent in action; and the help rendered
by our young men on these two occasions has been repeatedly
acknowledged even by high officials of the Government. But
unfortunately much of this noble energy and zeal goes utterly to
waste; there is no permanent channel through which it can be made to
flow; there is no work of durable utility to which we have been able
to apply it. Hence a feeling of impatience and despair has arisen in
the minds of our young men; and sedition is the outer manifestation
of this feeling of impatience and despair."
It will be the part of wise statesmanship not simply to check the
symptom but to cure the disease--not simply punish sedition but to
root out the deep seated cause which gives rise to it. Our young men
labour under the impression that the bureaucracy will give them no
opportunity of doing real service to their country. This impression
must be removed and they must be given opportunities for larger
co-operation in the affairs of administration of the country. These
young men have hearts to feel and a burning zeal for service; they
think that instead of being utterly suppressed the activities of these
young enthusiasts ought to be given proper field and scope. The
English have no doubt done us immense deal of good and we are grateful
to them for that. By holding before our eyes the ideal of an alien
culture and civilization, the English have roused us from the stupor,
torpidity and lethargy of spirit into which we had gradually come to
sink. They have helped to awaken our national consciousness and to
re-establish our national vitality. We are no doubt grateful for these
manifold services. But are there no reasons for the English to be
grateful to India? Are they not in honour bound in return of the many
benefits they have derived from us to give us every scope of shaping
our national life? Chitta Ranjan has also harped upon this point in
his address at the Provincial Conference:--
"I am confident that the praise and gratitude which are their due for
these manifold services will flow forth in an abundant measure from
our hearts. But let us look to another aspect of the question. What
was England before her advent to India? What was her position in the
hierarchy of world powers? Can it be denied that the sovereignty of
India increased the power and prestige of England a hundred-fold and
more? If then India has reason to be grateful to England, is not
England also under a corresponding debt of immense gratitude to India?
Of the gratitude of India, proofs have been forth-coming again and
again. Of the gratitude of England, the proof is now to come; and if
you refuse to grant our legitimate prayer, we shall take it that your
gratitude is an empty and meaningless phrase."
To a patriot when he goes to take a survey of the present condition of
India, the first thing that presents itself is the deplorable state of
the agriculturists; and that at once reminds us of our poverty. We all
know that in the absence of trade and commerce agriculture is the
chief means of our subsistence. In his address at the Bengal
Provincial Conference Chitta Ranjan has presented before us a pitiable
picture of our peasantry. The annual income of a peasant of our
country ranges from sixteen to twenty rupees. This amount is certainly
insufficient for a peasant even to keep his body and soul together. A
prisoner in a Government Jail in India gets Rs. 48 annually for his
subsistence. The comparison clearly shows that for bare subsistence
the peasants have to incur debts. There is not one single village in
Bengal where at least 75% of the inhabitants are not in debt; and
there are villages where this frightful indebtedness extends to the
whole of the population. Thus it appears, first, that the peasant by
tilling his land does not earn enough to give him an adequate
livelihood; and secondly, that out of the little that he earns a
portion finds its way into the pocket of the "Mahajan". And poverty is
the source of all corruption, in the case of the peasants poverty
grinds them in two ways. In the first place, it makes them weak,
feeble, spiritless, and in the second place it has become a frightful
source of theft and robbery. Thus from whatever point of view we
consider the matter, the removal of poverty seems to be one of our
chief and foremost problems.
In order to fight out poverty agriculture will not be sufficient for
us. Without industry and commerce our poverty will never be removed.
We had commerce though not on European lines. Time was when we earned
our own bread and wove our own clothes. We had corn in our granaries;
our cattle gave us milk; our tanks supplied us with fish; and the eye
was smoothed and refreshed by the limpid blue of the sky and the green
foliage of the trees. All day long the peasant toiled in the fields;
and at eve returning to his lamp-lit home, he sang the song of his
heart. For six months the peasant toiled in the field: and for the
remaining six months of the year he worked at the spinning wheel and
distaff as was most consonant with the natural genius of his being.
To-day that peasant is gone--his very breed extinct; gone too is that
house-hold with its ordered and peaceful economy of life. The
granaries are empty of their golden wealth; the kine are dry and give
no milk; and the fields once so green are dry and parched with thirst.
The evening lamp is no more lighted; the house-hold gods are no longer
worshipped; even the plough cattle have to be sold in order to give us
some poor and meagre sustenance. The tanks have dried up; their water
has become unwholesome; and the peasant has lost his natural freshness
and gaiety of temperament. What will remedy this? Chitta Ranjan has
thus said in his address--
"Agriculture is not sufficient to give us our subsistence. Trade and
commerce we must adopt; only our road must not be the road of
Industrialism. In the days of old when our life was natural, normal,
we had our own fashion and method of trade--a fashion dictated by the
law of our being, by the genius of our soul. There we find that when
the season of agriculture was over, our peasants would weave their
clothes and prepare other articles of domestic use. They had not to
look forward to Manchester to clothe them. Our cottage industries
have perished; and the muslin-industry of Dacca and other parts of
Bengal, once so famous and prosperous--has practically vanished. So
also has vanished cotton cultivation--once conducted on an extensive
scale but the secret of which now seems to have died out. Why should
we not take to the spinning wheel as before and weave our own clothes?
The brass ware industry of Bengal--that also has practically
disappeared, chiefly for lack of patronage; for economic prudence
aside, even our æsthetic taste has grown so coarse and vile that we
prefer false and tawdry imitations to genuine and durable articles of
value. Thus all our national industries have vanished and with these
have vanished our wealth and prosperity."
How to reconstruct these industries and restore a portion of our
ancient affluence? We must have no traffic with industrialism, for our
simple industries are powerless to cope with the dynamic force of
western industrialism. In the first place we have to give up our
luxury and licence. They have filtered down even to the cottage of the
cultivator. We must give them up if we wish to awaken the powers of
our latent self and so invigorate the whole of our social and national
life. Home-spun and coarse clothes should not prickle us. The
temperance and restraint which will be necessary in order to sacrifice
our luxury will be healthful and beneficent for our soul. Curtailment
of luxuries which means non-importation of foreign articles will
conserve our wealth and give a chance of new life to our dying
industries and starved handicrafts.
As a true patriot Chitta Ranjan foresaw as early as the year 1917 that
our national regeneration lay in the curtailment of our luxuries. To
get rid of the materialism of Europe we must turn to our home
industries. He advised his countrymen to fall back upon the spinning
wheel and to weave their own clothes, be they coarse or fine. He has
often said that until we, as a nation, are purged of the impurities
consequent upon western license, all our healthy growth must become
impossible. For it is certain, that
"Nation grown corrupt
Love bondage more than liberty--
Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty."