THE STORM IN BENGAL.
The merits or demerits of the Partition of Bengal have already been
discussed to satiety. As far as its purpose was to promote
administrative efficiency it is no longer on its defence. Bengal proper
is still the most populous province in India, but it has been brought
within limits that at least make efficient administration practicable.
The eastern districts, now included in the new province, which had been
hitherto lamentably neglected, have already gained enormously by the
change, which was at the same time only an act of justice to the large
Mahomedan majority who received but scanty consideration from Calcutta.
The only people who perhaps suffered inconvenience or material loss were
absentee landlords, pleaders, and moneylenders, and some of the
merchants of Calcutta, Anglo-Indian as well as native, who believed
their interests to be affected by the transfer of the seat of provincial
government for the Eastern Bengal districts to Dacca. Nevertheless the
Partition was the signal for an agitation such as India had not hitherto
witnessed. I say advisedly the signal rather than the cause. For if the
Partition in itself had sufficed to rouse spontaneous popular feeling,
it would have been unnecessary for the leaders of the agitation to
resort in the rural districts to gross misrepresentations of the objects
of that measure. What all the smouldering discontent, all the
reactionary disaffection centred in Calcutta read into the Partition was
a direct attack upon the primacy of the educated classes that had made
Calcutta the capital of the Bengalee "nation." The Universities Act of
1904, it was alleged, had been the first attempt on the part of a
masterful Viceroy to reduce their influence by curtailing their control
of higher education. Partition was a further attempt to hamper their
activities by cutting half the "nation" adrift from its "intellectual"
capital. This was a cry well calculated to appeal to many "moderates,"
whom the merely political aspects of the question would have left
relatively unmoved and it certainly proved effective, for in Calcutta
feeling ran very strong. Whilst "monster" demonstrations were organized
in Calcutta and in the principal towns of the _mofussil_, the wildest
reports were sedulously disseminated amongst the rural population.
Partition was meant to pave the way for undoing the Permanent Settlement
which governs the Land Revenue in Bengal, and, once the Permanent
Settlement out of the way, Government would screw up the land tax. As
for the creation of the new province, it was intended to facilitate the
compulsory emigration of the people from the plains, who would be driven
to work on the Englishmen's tea plantations in the far-off jungles of
Assam. Reports of this kind were well calculated to alarm both the
_Zemindars_, who had waxed fat on the Permanent Settlement, and the
credulous _rayats_, whose labour is indispensable to the _zemindar_
squirarchy. In the towns, on the other hand, the masses were told that
Partition was an insult to the "terrible goddess" Kali, the most popular
of all Hindu deities in Bengal, and, in order to popularize the protest
amongst the small townsfolk, amongst artisans and petty traders, the cry
of _Swadeshi_ was coupled with that of _Bande Mataram_.
The spirit of revolt against Western political authority had been for
some time past spreading to the domain of economics. _Swadeshi_ in
itself and so far as it means the intelligent encouragement of
indigenous is perfectly legitimate, and in this sense the Government of
India had practised _Swadeshi_ long before it was taken up for purposes
of political agitation by those who look upon it primarily as an
economic weapon against their rulers. It was now to receive a formidable
development. _Swadeshi_ must strike at the flinty heart of the British
people by cutting off the demand for British manufactured goods and
substituting in their place the products of native labour. At the first
great meeting held at the Calcutta Town Hall to protest against
Partition, the building was to have been draped in black as a sign of
"national" mourning, but the idea was ostentatiously renounced because
the only materials available were of English manufacture. Not only did
the painful circumstances of the hour forbid any self-respecting
Bengalee from using foreign-made articles, but some means had to be
found of compelling the lukewarm to take the same lofty view of their
duties. So the cry of boycott was raised, and it is worth noting, as
evidence of the close contact and co-operation between the forces of
unrest in the Deccan and in Bengal, that at the same time as it was
raised in Calcutta by Mr. Surendranath Banerjee it was raised also at
Poona by Tilak who perhaps foresaw much more clearly the lawlessness to
which it would lead. For, though the cry fell on deaf ears in Bombay,
the boycott did not remain by any means an idle threat in Bengal. The
movement was placed under the special patronage of Kali and vows were
administered to large crowds in the forecourts of her great temple at
Calcutta and in her various shrines all over Bengal. The religious
character with which the leaders sought to invest the boycott propaganda
showed how far removed was the _swadeshi_ which they preached from a
mere innocent economic propaganda for the furtherance of native
industries. For a description of the Tantric rites connected with
_Shakti_ worship I must refer readers to M. Barth's learned work on "The
religions of India," of which an English translation has been published
by Messrs Trübner in their Oriental series. In its extreme forms
_Shakti_ worship finds expression in licentious aberrations which,
however lofty may be the speculative theories that gave birth to them,
represent the most extravagant forms of delirious mysticism. Yet such
men as Mr. Surendranath Banerjee[7], who in his relations with
Englishmen claims to represent the fine flower of Western education and
Hindu enlightenment, did not hesitate to call the popularity of _Shakti_
worship in aid in order to stimulate the boycott of British goods. To
prevent any blacksliding the agitators had ready to hand an organization
which they did not hesitate to use. The gymnastic societies founded in
Bengal for physical training and semi-military drill on the model of
those established by Tilak in the Deccan were transformed into bands of
_samitis_ or "national volunteers," and students and schoolboys who had
been encouraged from the first to take part in public meetings and to
parade the streets in procession as a protest against Partition, were
mobilized to picket the bazaars and enforce the boycott. Nor were their
methods confined to moral suasion. Where it failed they were quite ready
to use force. The Hindu leaders had made desperate attempts to enlist
the support of the Mahomedans, and not without some success, until the
latter began to realize the true meaning both of the Partition and of
the agitation against it. Nothing was better calculated to enlighten
them than another feature introduced also from the Deccan into the
"national" propaganda. In the Deccan the cult of Shivaji, as the epic
hero of Mahratta history, was intelligible enough. But in Bengal his
name had been for generations a bogey with which mothers hushed their
babies, and the Mahratta Ditch in Calcutta still bears witness to the
terror produced by the daring raids of Mahratta horsemen. To set Shivaji
up in Bengal on the pedestal of Nationalism in the face of such
traditions was no slight feat, and all Mr. Surendranath Banerjee's
popularity barely availed to perform it successfully. But to identify
the cause of Nationalism with the cult of the Mahratta warrior-king who
had first arrested the victorious career and humbled the pride of the
Mahomedan conquerors of Hindustan was not the way to win over to it the
Mahomedans of Bengal. In Eastern Bengal especially, with the exception
of a few landlords and pleaders whose interests were largely bound up
with those of the Hindus, the Mahomedans as a community had everything
to gain and nothing to lose by the Partition. For those amongst them who
were merchants the boycott spelt serious injury to their trade and led
in some instances to reprisals in which the Hindus fared badly. Whenever
it happened in this way that the biter was bit, the Bengalee Press
accused the Government of encouraging the revival of sectarian strife,
just as it denounced every measure for the maintenance of order which
the Government was compelled to take in the discharge of one of its most
elementary duties, as brutal repression and arbitrary vindictiveness,
and any mistake of procedure made by some subordinate official under the
stress of a very critical situation was distorted and magnified into a
gross denial of justice. But it was out of the punishments very properly
inflicted upon the misguided schoolboys and students whom the
politicians had put in the forefront of the fray that the greatest
capital was made. Whilst the politicians themselves prudently remained
for the most part in Calcutta, making high-sounding speeches and writing
inflammatory articles, or were careful in their own overt demonstrations
not to overstep the extreme bounds of legality, they showered telegrams
and letters of congratulation on the young "martyrs" who had been duly
castigated.
The leaders of the movement had also another string to their bow which
they used with considerable effect. Never before had there been such
close contact between Indian politicians and certain groups of English
politicians. Lord Curzon's fall and the extremely injudicious
references to Partition made by Mr. Brodrick, the then Secretary of
State, in the correspondence published after the resignation of the
Viceroy, had from the first given a great stimulus to the anti-Partition
campaign, Mr. Brodrick's remarks led the Bengalees to form a very
exaggerated estimate of the personal part played by Lord Curzon in the
question of Partition, and they not unnaturally concluded that, if the
Secretary of State had merely sanctioned the Partition in order to
humour the Viceroy, he might easily be induced to reconsider the matter
when once Lord Curzon had been got out of the way. Their hopes in that
quarter were, it is true, very soon dashed, but only to be strung up
again to the highest pitch of expectancy when the Conservative
Government fell from power, and was replaced by a Liberal
Administration, with Mr. John Morley at the India Office and an
overwhelming majority in the House of Commons, in which the Radical
element was very strongly represented. Several of the leading Radical
organs in England had for a long time past joined hands with the
Bengalee Press in denouncing Lord Curzon and all his works, and, most
fiercely of all, the Partition of Bengal. The Bengalee politicians,
moreover, not only had the active sympathy of a large section of Radical
opinion at home, but they had in the House itself the constant
co-operation of a small but energetic group of members, who constituted
themselves into an "Indian party," and were ever ready to act as the
spokesmen of Indian discontent. Some of them were of that earnest type
of self-righteousness which loves to smell out unrighteousness in their
fellow countrymen, especially in those who are serving their country
abroad; some were hypnotized by the old shibboleths of freedom, even
when freedom merely stands for licence; some were retired Anglo-Indians,
whose experience in the public service in India would have carried
greater weight had not the peculiar acerbity of their language seemed to
betray the bitterness of personal disappointment. Every invention or
exaggeration of the Bengalee Press found its way into the list of
questions to be asked of the Secretary of State, who, with less
knowledge than he has since acquired, doubtless considered himself bound
to pass them on for inquiry to the Government of India. A large
proportion of these questions were aimed at Sir Bampfylde Fuller, who,
as the first Lieutenant-Governor of the new province of Eastern Bengal,
had been singled out for every form of vituperation and calumny, and no
subject figured more prominently amongst them than the disciplinary
treatment of turbulent schoolboys and students. It is so easy to appeal
to the generous sentiments of the British public in favour of poor boys,
supposed to be of tender years, dragged into police courts by harsh
bureaucrats for some hasty action prompted by the generous, if foolish,
exuberance of youth, especially when the British public is quite unaware
that in India most students and many schoolboys are more or less
full-grown and often already married. Every one of these questions was
duly advertised in the columns of the Bengalee Press, and their
cumulative effect was to produce the impression that the British
Parliament was following events in Bengal with feverish interest and
with overwhelming sympathy for the poor oppressed Bengalee.
Nevertheless, there came a moment when the first feverish excitement
seemed to wane. Time had gone on, and though there was a new Viceroy in
India and a new Secretary of State at Whitehall, the Partition had
remained an accomplished fact. The visit of the Prince and Princess of
Wales to Calcutta had temporarily exercised a restraining influence on
the political leaders, and the presence of Royalty in a country where
reverence for the Throne is still a powerful tradition seemed to hush
even the forces of militant sedition. In Eastern Bengal, where the
agitation had been much fiercer than in Bengal proper, the energy and
devotion displayed by the Lieutenant-Governor in fighting a serious
threat of famine had won for him the respect of many of his opponents,
and the situation was beginning to lose some of its acuteness when it
was suddenly announced that Sir Bampfylde Fuller had resigned. The
effect was instantaneous. The points at issue between Sir Bampfylde
Fuller and the Government of India have been fully and frequently
debated, and it is needless to discuss here the reasons given for his
resignation, or for its prompt acceptance by the Viceroy. What I am
concerned with is the effect produced by that incident. It was immediate
and disastrous. The Bengalee leaders took heart. They claimed Sir
Bampfylde's downfall as their triumph--theirs and their allies' at
Westminster. Those, on the other hand, who imagined that it was Sir
Bampfylde's methods that had intensified the agitation and that his
removal would restore peace--even the sort of half peace which had been
so far maintained in Bengal proper under the milder sway of Sir Andrew
Fraser--were very soon undeceived. For if for a short time Sir Bampfylde
Fuller's successor was spared, the Government of Eastern Bengal was
compelled before long to take, more vigorous measures than he had ever
contemplated, and the agitation, which had hitherto refrained from
exhibiting its more violent aspects in Bengal proper, not only ceased to
show any discrimination, but everywhere broadened and deepened. The
veteran leaders, who still posed as "moderates," ceased to lead or,
swept away by the forces they had helped to raise, were compelled to
quicken their pace like the Communist leader in Paris who rushed after
his men exclaiming:--_Je suis leur chef, il faut bien que je les suive_.
The question of Partition itself receded into the background, and the
issue, until then successfully veiled and now openly raised, was not
whether Bengal should be one unpartitioned province or two partitioned
provinces under British rule, but whether British rule itself was to
endure in Bengal or, for the matter of that, anywhere in India.
The first phase of unrest in Bengal, at any rate in its outward
manifestations, had been mainly political, and on the whole free from
any open exhibition of disloyalty to the British _Raj_. With the
Partition of Bengal it passed into a second phase in which, new economic
issues were superadded to the political issues, if they did not
altogether overshadow them, and the _Swadeshi_ movement and the boycott
soon imported methods of violence and lawlessness which had hitherto
been considered foreign to the Bengalee temperament. This phase did not
last for much more than a year after the Partition, for, when once
started on the inclined plane of lawlessness, the agitation rapidly
developed into a much wider and deeper revolt, in which _Swadeshi_ held
its place, but only in a subordinate position. The revolt began rapidly
to assume the revolutionary complexion, in the religious and social as
well as in the political domain, which Tilak had for years past, as we
have seen, laboured to impart to his propaganda in the Deccan, and, as
far as his personal influence and counsels availed, in every part of
India with which he was in contact. The ground had already been prepared
for this transformation by spadework in the Bengalee Press conducted by
two of Tilak's chief disciples in Bengal. One was Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal,
the bold exponent of _Swaraj_, whose programme I have already quoted.
The other was Mr. Arabindo Ghose, one of the most remarkable figures
that Indian unrest has produced. Educated in England, and so thoroughly
that when he returned to India he found it difficult to express himself
in Bengali, he is not only a high-caste Hindu, but he is one of those
Hindu mystics who believe that, by the practice of the most extreme
forms of _Yoga_ asceticism, man can transform himself into a super-man,
and he has constituted himself the high priest of a religious revival
which has taken a profound hold on the imagination of the emotional
youth of Bengal. His ethical gospel is not devoid of grandeur. It is
based mainly on the teachings of Krishna to Arjuna as revealed in the
_Bhagvad Gita_, and I cannot hope to define its moral purpose better
than by borrowing the following sentence from Mrs. Besant's introduction
to her translation of "The Lord's Song":--
It is meant to lift the aspirant from the lower levels of
renunciation where objects are renounced, to the loftier
heights where desires are dead and where the Yogi dwells
in calm and ceaseless contemplation, while his body and
mind are actively employed in discharging the duties that
fall to his lot in life.
This reading of the _Bhagvad Gita_ differentiates the newer Indian
conception of renunciation, which does not exclude but rather prescribes
the duty of service to society, from the older conception, which was
concerned merely to procure the salvation of the individual by his
complete detachment from all mundane affairs. With this gospel of active
self-sacrifice none can assuredly quarrel, but it is the revolutionary
form which Mr. Arabindo Ghose would see given to such activity that,
unfortunately, chiefly fascinates the rising generation of Bengalees.
For him British rule and the Western civilization for which it stands
threaten the very life of Hinduism, and therefore British rule and all
that it stands for must go, and in order that they may go every Hindu
must be up and doing. That Mr. Arabindo Ghose himself holds violence and
murder to be justifiable forms of activity for achieving that purpose
cannot be properly alleged, for though he has several times been placed
on his trial and in one instance for actual complicity in political
crime--namely, in the Maniktolla bomb case--and though he is at present
a fugitive from justice, the law has so far acquitted him. But that his
followers have based upon his teachings a propaganda by deed of the most
desperate character is beyond dispute. It has been openly expounded with
fanatical fervour and pitiless logic in a newspaper edited by his
brother, Barendra Ghose, of which the file constitutes one of the most
valuable and curious of human documents.
Of the three Bengali newspapers that came into the field soon after
Partition as the explicit champions of revolution--- the _Sandhya_, the
_Navasakti_, to which Mr. Arabindo Ghose was himself a frequent
contributor, and the _Yugantar_--the last named achieved the greatest
and most startling popularity. It was founded in 1906 by Barendra Kumar
Ghose, a brother of Arabindo, and by Bhupendranath Dutt, only brother of
the celebrated Swami Vivekananda, who visited Europe and America as the
missionary of the Hindu revival and has been revered in India, since his
premature death in 1905, as a modern _rishi_ and a no less great one
than those of ancient Vedic times. Barendra Ghose, who had studied
history and political literature at Baroda, where Arabindo was a
Professor in the Gaekwar's College, had originally intended to start a
religious institution, and whilst he edited the _Yugantar_ he founded a
hostel for youths attending "National" schools. The _Yugantar_ set
itself to preach revolution as a religious even more than a political
movement. Its profession of faith is to be found in an article headed
"The Age of the Gita again in India":--
God (i.e., Khrisna in the Gita) has said, "Oh, descendant
of Bharata, whenever there be a decline of righteousness and
the rise of unrighteousness, then I shall become incarnate
again. I shall be born in every Yuga [era] to rescue the good,
to destroy the wrongdoer, and to establish righteousness."
In the _Dwapara-Yuga_ [the era which preceded the present
_Kali-Yuga_, or era of darkness] when righteousness was on
the wane and unrighteousness was springing up in the sacred
land of India under the hands of Duryyodhana and other
miscreants engaged in wickedness, then God, by becoming
incarnate again and awakening his favourite disciple Arjuna
to duty, re-established the kingdom of righteousness in India.
At the present time righteousness is declining and unrighteousness
is springing up in India. A handful of alien robbers is
ruining the crores of the people of India by robbing the wealth
of India. Through the hard grinding of their servitude,
the ribs of this countless people are being broken to pieces.
Endless endeavours are being made in order that this great
nation by losing, as an inevitable result of this subjection,
its moral, intellectual and physical power, its wealth, its
self-reliance, and all other qualities, may be turned into the
condition of the beasts of burden or be wholly extinguished.
Why, oh Indians, are you losing heart, at the sight of many
obstacles in your path, to make a stand against this unrighteousness?
Fear not, oh Indians. God will not remain
inactive at the sight of such unrighteousness in His kingdom.
He will keep His word. Placing firm reliance on the promise
of God, invoke His power, and He will descend in your midst
to destroy unrighteousness. Do not be afraid. "When the
lightning of heaven flashes in their hearts, men perform
impossible deeds."
The article closes with a lyrical vision of the India of the future,
with "the independent flag of righteousness" unfurled, her virtues
restored, plague and famine banished, her industries brought to the
highest pitch of scientific development, her armies and fleets going
forth "to use the unlimited strength, knowledge, and righteousness of
India for the benefit of the whole world."
The _Yugantar_ at the same time set forth in a series of articles the
scheme by which the enfranchisement of India was to be achieved--a
scheme which was little more than a reasoned exposition of the methods
already adopted in the previous decade by Tilak in the Deccan. These
articles form a manual of directions for "the army of young men which is
the _Nrisinha_ and the _Varaha_ and the _Kalki_ incarnation of God,
saving the good and destroying the wicked"--the _Kalki_ incarnation
being that in which Vishnu is to come and deliver India from the
foreigner. To shake off slavery the first essential is that the educated
classes shall learn to hate slavery. Then the lower classes will soon
follow their lead. "It is easy to incite the lower classes to any
particular work. But the incitement of the educated depends on a firm
belief." Therefore the "poisonous" effects of slavery must be constantly
brought home, and "we must always be trying to destroy the present
unnatural liking for a state of servitude." The aspiration for freedom
must be converted into a firm resolve, and to divert the Bengalee "from
the unfailing attraction of a livelihood" to the cause of freedom "his
mind must be excited and maddened by such an ideal as will present to
him a picture of everlasting salvation." Public opinion must be built up
by the newspapers, "which must be filled with the discussion of the
necessity of independence and revolution," by soul-stirring musical and
theatrical performances, glorifying the lives of Indian heroes and their
great deeds in the cause of freedom, and by patriotic songs. "When in
the Mahratta country the high-souled Shivaji stood up for independence
the songs of the bards helped powerfully in his work." Above all, the
materials for "a great sacrifice for liberty" must be prepared. "The
stratagems known as resorting to cover in English military tactics are
very necessary in all political endeavour," and "the enemy" must be kept
constantly occupied by them. "A _Bande Mataram_ procession to-day, a
conference or congress to-morrow, a flourish of _Swadeshi_ speeches the
day after, and so on." A "great commotion may with advantage be made
over small incidents," but "it must always be remembered that these do
not constitute our real effort, and are very trifling accompaniments"
which serve to keep the enemy busy and the country awake "whilst we are
training," and the training consists in the organization, discreetly and
silently, of bands of young men "with power to conceal secret counsel"
and "to remain under complete obedience." Every band must "recognize the
cultivation of physical strength as a principal means of attaining our
object." Each band, working down from the chief town of the district,
must be connected with other bands, and all must be initiated in the
_Shakti mantra_--that _Shakti_ worship which constitutes one of the most
powerful and popular appeals to the sensuous side of Hindu mysticism. As
for arming the bands, there are different ways of collecting arms, and
in this business "there can be no considerations of right or wrong, for
everything is laid at the feet of the goddess of independence." Bombs
can be manufactured in secret places, and guns can be imported from
foreign countries, for "the people of the West will sell their own
Motherland for money," or they can be obtained from the native troops
who, "though driven by hunger to accept service under Government, are
men of our own flesh and blood," or, perhaps, even "secretly" from other
Great Powers. Funds also can be collected in similar ways. Much money is
required, and amongst other things for "secret preachers at home and
abroad." It can be obtained "by voluntary donations," or "by the
application of force," which is perfectly justifiable since the money is
to be taken and used "for the good of society." Thefts and dacoities
are, under normal conditions, crimes because they destroy the sense of
social security, but "to destroy it for the highest good is no sin, but
rather a work of religious merit." The taking of blood is, in the
circumstances, equally praiseworthy. "The law of the English is
established on brute force, and if to liberate ourselves we too must use
brute force, it is right that we should do so." Nor is this doctrine
merely stated in general terms:--
Will the Bengali worshippers of _Shakti_ shrink from the
shedding of blood? The number of Englishmen in this
country is not above one lakh and a half, and what is the
number of English officials in each district? If you are firm
in your resolution you can in a single day bring English rule
to an end. Lay down your life, but first take a life. The
worship of the goddess will not be consummated if you sacrifice
your lives at the shrine of independence without shedding blood.
These are the doctrines of revolutionary Hinduism expounded day by day
for nearly two years by a group of highly educated young Bengalees, the
effectiveness of whose appeal to sacred traditions was enhanced by
remarkable qualities of style. I have before me a letter from a Hindu
scholar who certainly has no sympathy with the methods advocated by the
_Yugantar_--"Nothing like these articles ever appeared before in Bengali
literature." "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,"
and this was essentially true in the case of the _Yugantar_. The
Government translator confessed in the High Court that he had never
before read, in Bengali, language so lofty, so pathetic, and so
stirring, that it was impossible to convey it in an English translation.
Yet, the writers had never learnt to write Bengali in their school-days,
and the organ tone of Milton, which was distinctly audible in the
Bengali, betrayed their English education. The sale was unbounded. The
circulation of the _Yugantar_ rose to over 50,000, a figure never
attained before by any Indian newspaper, and sometimes when there was a
special run upon a number the Calcutta newsboys would get a rupee for a
single copy before the issue was exhausted. So great indeed was the
demand that the principal articles, forming a complete gospel of
revolution, were republished in a small volume, entitled _Mukti con
pathe_: "Which way does salvation lie?" Not only were these appeals to
racial and religious passion reflected in many other papers all over
Bengal, but the most lamentable fact of all was that scarcely any native
paper, even amongst those of an avowedly moderate complexion, attempted
to counteract, or ventured to protest against, either the matter or the
tone of these publications. Their success, on the other hand, induced
not a few to follow suit. What is forgotten in England by the
uncompromising champions of the freedom of the Press is that in a
country like ours, with its party system fully represented in the public
Press, even the newspapers which either party may consider most
mischievous find their corrective in the newspapers of the other party.
In India that is not the case. There is no healthy play of public
opinion. The classes whose confidence in the British _Raj_ is still
unshaken are practically unrepresented in the Press, which is mostly in
the hands of the intellectuals, of whom the majority are drifting into
increasing estrangement, while the minority are generally too timid to
try to stem the flowing tide. Nor, if the "moderates" in Bengal were
overawed by the violence of the new creed, can the whole blame be laid
upon their shoulders when one remembers how little was being done by
Government, and how ineffective that little was to check this
incendiarism. Though there were many Press prosecutions, and action was
repeatedly taken against the _Yugantar_ in respect of particular
articles, the limited powers possessed by Government were totally
inadequate, and it was not till the Indian Newspapers (Incitement to
Offences) Act was passed in June, 1908, that the _Yugantar_ was
suppressed. In the meantime it had left an indelible mark on Indian
history, and many innocent victims paid with their lives for the
extraordinary supineness displayed during those first disastrous two
years of Lord Minto's administration.
The list of outrages and deeds of violence which had begun in Bengal in
1907 grew heavier and heavier as 1908 wore on, but none perhaps created
such a sensation there as the murder of Mrs. and Miss Kennedy, who were
killed at Muzafferpur on April 30, 1908, by a bomb intended for the
Magistrate, Mr. Kingsford. The bomb had been thrown by a young Bengalee,
Khudiram Bose, and it was the first occasion on which an Indian had used
this product of modern science with murderous effect. The excitement was
intense. The majority of the Bengalee papers, it is true, were fain to
reprobate or at least to deprecate this particular form of propaganda,
but such comments were perfunctory, whilst they generally agreed to cast
the whole responsibility upon an alien Government whose resistance to
their "national" aspirations goaded impatient patriotism to these
extremes. Even amongst many who did not actually sympathize with the
murderer there seems to have been a lurking sense of pride that it was a
Bengalee who had had the courage to lay down his life in the striking of
such a blow. Khudiram Bose at any rate was not "lily-livered." Khudiram
Bose at any rate had shown that "determination" with the lack of which
the writers in the _Yugantar_ had so often taunted their fellow-countrymen.
So for the Nationalists of Bengal he became a martyr and a hero. Students
and many others put on mourning for him and schools were closed for two or
three days as a tribute to his memory. His photographs had an immense sale,
and by-and-by the young Bengalee bloods took to wearing _dhotis_ with
Khudiram Bose's name woven into the border of the garment.
Bomb explosions followed in quick succession in Calcutta itself, and a
secret manufacture of explosives was discovered in a suburban garden.
Norendranath Gosain, who had turned approver in this last case, was shot
dead in Alipur Gaol, and a Hindu police-inspector in the streets of
Calcutta. Four attempts made upon the life of the Lieutenant-Governor of
Bengal, Sir Andrew Fraser, showed how little effect leniency had upon
the growing fierceness of the revolutionists. Scarcely a month and often
not a week passed without adding to the tale of outrages. I need not
recite them in detail. Perhaps the most significant feature was the
double purpose many of them indicated of defeating the detection and
punishment of crime and of striking terror into Indians who ventured to
serve the British, _Raj_[8]. Thus, on February 10, 1909, Mr. Ashutosh
Biswas, the Public Prosecutor and a Hindu of high character and
position, was shot dead outside the Alipur Police Court, and, in like
manner nearly a year later, Mr. Shams-ul-Alam, a Mahomedan Inspector of
the Criminal Investigation Department in the High Court itself of
Calcutta. Sedition was seething over the greater part of both Bengals,
and though the agricultural population remained for the most part
untouched or indifferent, there were few even of the smaller towns and
larger villages that were not visited by the missionaries of revolution.
_Swadeshi_ and the boycott were now merely an accompaniment to the
deeper and more menacing trumpet-call of open revolt, but they helped
"to keep the country awake" even where the true spirit of _Swaraj_ had
not yet been kindled. The _mofussil_ was honeycombed with secret
societies, whose daring dacoities served not only to collect the sinews
of war, but to impress the timid and recalcitrant with the powerlessness
of the State to protect them against the midnight raider. Truly the
teachings of the _Yugantar_ were bearing fruit, even to the laying down
of life and the taking of life. Unlike the majority of Bengalee
agitators, the writers in the _Yugantar_, it must be admitted, did not
flinch from the danger of practising what they taught. Most of them came
ultimately within the grasp of the Criminal Code, and Barendra Ghose,
who was arrested in connexion with the manufacture of bombs in the
Maniktolla garden, was sentenced to death, though subsequently
reprieved. His brother, Arabindo, on the other hand, though arrested at
the same time, had the good fortune to be acquitted. The work done by
the _Yugantar_ lived, nevertheless, after it, and is still living.
A very heavy responsibility must at the same time attach to those
responsible both at home and in India for the extraordinary tolerance
too long extended to this criminal propaganda. For two whole years it
was carried on with relative impunity under the very eyes of the
Government of India in Calcutta. Month after month they must have seen
its audacity grow in direct proportion to official apathy. They must
have seen a reign of lawlessness and intimidation spread steadily over a
great part of the Metropolitan province. The failure of the ordinary
machinery of justice to check these crying evils was repeatedly brought
home to them. Yet it was not until 1908 that the necessity of
exceptional measures to cope with an exceptional situation was tardily
and very reluctantly realized. The Indian Explosive Substances Act and
Summary Justice Act of 1908, together with the Press Act of the same
year and the more drastic one enacted last February, have at last to
some extent checked the saturnalia of lawlessness that continued, though
with signs of abatement, into the beginning of this year. The Press Act
of 1910, especially, seems to have really arrested the poisonous flow
of printer's ink and with it the worst forms of crime to which it
maddened the feverish blood of Bengal. But some of those who are most
intimately acquainted with the inner workings of the revolutionary
movement hold strongly that none of these enactments had such an
immediately sobering effect as the deportation of the nine prominent
Bengalees who were arrested at the end of 1908. Such a measure is, I
know, very repugnant to British traditions and British sentiment, and in
this particular instance it unfortunately included two men whose
criminal guilt was subsequently believed not to be altogether beyond
doubt, though it may well have been argued that by financing and
administering a dangerous organization such as the _Anusilan Samiti_
they made themselves responsible for the deeds of its members.
Nevertheless, the deportation struck just at that type of agitator whose
influence is most pernicious because it is most subtle, and whose
responsibility is greatest because of his more experienced years and
greater social position. Such a measure, however, is only warranted in
extreme circumstances and cannot be transformed into indefinite
detention. The grounds on which Government announced the release of
these deportees last winter were even more unhappily chosen than the
moment for the announcement, but the event seems so far to have
justified Lord Minto's confidence, though one of the deported agitators,
Pulin Bahari Das, of Dacca, has had to be rearrested and is now under
trial at Dacca for conspiracy of a most serious character. There is
still much lawlessness in both Bengals.[9] The continued prevalence of
political dacoities, and especially the difficulty experienced in
securing legal evidence against them, are distinctly unfavourable
symptoms. There are many peaceful citizens who will give private
information as to the outrages committed by these bands, consisting
mainly of youths of respectable connexions, but that so few have the
courage to face terrorism by going into the witness-box shows that the
secret societies which inspire such terror have not yet been broken up.
The extent to which disaffection is rampant in the native Bar also
hampers the administration of justice, for whilst there is an eager
competition for earning political notoriety by an eloquent defence of
political prisoners, it is sometimes difficult to find pleaders who will
undertake to conduct prosecutions. On the other hand, it is all to the
good that many of those who were ready to coquet with sedition in its
earlier stages or who had not the moral courage to speak out against it
seem now to be taking heart, and in this respect the reforms embodied in
the Indian Councils Act have usefully supplemented the sobering effect
of repressive legislation. For one of the stock arguments of "advanced"
politicians has been the failure of the "moderates" to obtain any
recognition from Government, and the enlargement of the Legislative
Councils took the sting out of that taunt. Independently, however, of
the reforms, the extreme violence of language and of methods which had
come into vogue was bound to produce some reaction. Amongst the educated
classes, many respectable fathers of families, whatever their political
opinions may be, have taken fright at the growth of turbulence and
insubordination in schools and colleges, which were often carried into
the home circle; for when once the principle of authority has been
undermined the parent's authority cannot remain unshaken. In the same
way some even of the "advanced" leaders have been alarmed by the
development of secret societies which often attract young men of very
good connexions, and they have proposed to use for the detection and
suppression of dacoities the local bands of "national volunteers" whom
they formerly helped to organize for the purpose of enforcing the
boycott and stimulating unrest. How far, even if unreservedly exercised,
the influence of such men as Mr. Surendranath Banerjee will be as potent
for checking the mischief as it was for promoting it remains to be
seen. For the present also the boycott is being discountenanced in the
same quarters, though Mr. Banerjee, presumably to "save his face,"
professes to have agreed only to a suspension pending the revision of
Partition. But his paper, the _Bengalee_, is almost the only one that
pretends to regard the Partition as still an open question. It has been
eclipsed by far graver issues, of which the further development cannot
yet be foreseen.
The return to more sober counsels seems to be confined unhappily to the
older generation, and the older generation, even if we include in it the
middle-aged, must before long pass away. What we have to reckon with,
especially in Bengal, is the revolt of the younger generation, and this
revolt draws its inspiration from religious and philosophical sources
which no measures merely political, either of repression or of
conciliation, can reach. It often represents a perversion of the finest
qualities, as, apparently, in the case of Birendranath Gupta, who
murdered Shams-ul-Alam in the Calcutta High Court last January. An
English missionary who knew him well assured me that in his large
experience of Indian youths he had never met one of more exemplary
character or higher ideals, nor one who seemed more incapable of
committing such a crime. The oaths and vows administered on initiation
to secret societies are not directed only to political ends. They impose
on the initiates in the most explicit terms a life of self-denial, and
sometimes celibacy; and though these vows do not always avail against
some of the worst forms of sensuality, it would be foolish and wrong to
generalize from unworthy exceptions. In its moral aspects the revolt of
young Bengal represents very frequently a healthy reaction against sloth
and self-indulgence and the premature exhaustion of manhood which is
such a common feature in a society that has for centuries been taught to
disregard physiological laws in the enforcement of child marriage. To
this extent it is a revolt, though in the name of Hinduism, against
some of the worst results of the Hindu social system, and that it has
spread so largely amongst the Brahmans of Bengal shows that it has
affected even the rigidity of Brahmanism. Thus, whereas we have seen in
Kolhapur the Brahmans of the Deccan assert that in this "age of
darkness" there can be no Kshatriyas, their fellow-caste-men in Bengal
are quite willing to invest Kayasthas with the sacred thread, on the
ground that they are really of Kshatriya descent, in order to stimulate
martial virtues amongst the Bengalees by reviving for their benefit the
old Vedic caste of warriors. Equally significant is the propaganda that
has been carried on by Brahmans amongst the Namasudras, a large and
mainly agricultural caste, chiefly located in the Jessor district of
Bengal and the Faridpur district of Eastern Bengal. The purpose of the
propaganda was political, but the inducement offered to the Namasudras
in order to stimulate their Nationalism was that the Brahmans would
relax the rigour of caste in favour of those who took _the Swadeshi_
vow, and it is stated that, in several villages where they succeeded in
making a large number of converts, the Brahman agitators marked their
approval by condescending to have their "twice-born" heads shaved by the
village barber--an act which, however trivial it may seem to us,
constituted an absolutely revolutionary breach with a 3,000 years-old
past.
On the other hand, the constant invocation of the "terrible goddess,"
whether as Kali or as Durga, against the alien oppressors, shows that
Brahmanism in Bengal is equally ready to appeal to the grossest and most
cruel superstitions of the masses. In another of her forms she is
represented holding in her hand her head, which has been severed from
her body, whilst the blood gushing from her trunk flows into her open
mouth. A very popular picture of the goddess in this form has been
published with a text to the effect that the great goddess as seen
therein symbolizes "the Motherland" decapitated by the English, but
nevertheless preserving her vitality unimpaired by drinking her own
blood. It is not surprising that amongst extremists one of the favourite
euphemisms[10] applied to the killing of an Englishman is "sacrificing a
white goat to Kali." In 1906 I was visiting one of the Hindu temples at
Benares and found in the courtyard a number of young students who had
come on an excursion from Bengal. I got into conversation with them, and
they soon began to air, for my benefit, their political views, which
were decidedly "advanced." They were, however, quite civil and friendly,
and they invited me to come up to the temple door and see them sacrifice
to Kali a poor bleating kid that they had brought with them. When I
declined, one of them who had already assumed a rather more truculent
tone came forward and pressed me, saying that if I would accompany them
they would not mind even sacrificing a white goat. There was a general
shout of laughter at what was evidently regarded by the others as a huge
joke. I turned away, though I did not then understand its grim humour,
as I do now.
The blind hatred of everything English with which the younger generation
is so largely saturated can only, in most cases, be the result of the
teachings that have impressed upon them the existence of a fundamental
antagonism between Hindu ideals and ours. Like the wretched Kanhere at
Nasik, they would have to admit that they never suffered injustice
themselves nor knew of any one who had. A great many have never come
into contact with a single Englishman, and their ignorance even of the
system of government under which they live is profound. Not the least
ominous symptom is that this spirit of revolt seems to have obtained a
firm hold of the zenana; and the Hindu woman behind the _purdah_ often
exercises a greater influence upon her husband and her sons than the
Englishwoman who moves freely about the world. Absolute evidence in such
matters is difficult to obtain, but there was a very significant and
quite authentic case last year, which I may as well quote here, though
it occurred in the Bombay Presidency. Two Brahman ladies of good
position from Bombay were discovered at Kolhapur wearing the garb of
_sanyasis_, i.e., mendicant ascetics. They confessed that they had left
their homes, to which the police wisely restored them, to invoke the
assistance of a great ruling chief of Southern India in a plot to
exterminate the hated foreigner, and their main object in starting upon
this insane venture had been to regain their hold upon their husbands'
affections by a great "patriotic" achievement. That real _sanyasis_ are
frequently the missionaries of sedition is certain, and their reputed
sanctity gives them access to the zenana. In Bengal even small boys of
so tender an age as still to have the run of zenanas have, I am told,
been taught the whole patter of sedition, and go about from house to
house dressed up as little _sanyasis_ in little yellow robes preaching
hatred of the English.
The question is, can we extricate the better elements from this tangle
of passion and prejudice? There are many foul spots in the Hindu revival
in Bengal, apart even from tendencies which we cannot but regard as
politically criminal. At the same time there runs through it a strain of
idealism which probably constitutes its real force, and also our danger.
For strangely emotional and often a creature of his senses, the Bengalee
is accessible to spiritual influences with which the worldly-ambitious
Brahmanism of the Deccan, for instance, is rarely informed. He is always
apt to rush to extremes, and just as amongst the best representatives of
the educated classes there was in the last century a revolt against the
Hindu social and religious creed of their ancestors which tended first
towards Christianity or at least the ethics of Christianity and then
towards Western agnosticism, so the present revolt may be regarded in
some of its aspects as a reaction against these earlier tendencies; and
in spite of its extreme violence it may not be any more permanent. The
problem is still full of unknown quantities; but the known quantities
are at any rate sufficient to make us appreciate its gravity.