CONCLUSION
READER: From your views I gather that you would form a third party. You
are neither an extremist nor a moderate.
EDITOR: That is a mistake. I do not think of a third party at all. We do
not all think alike. We cannot say that all the moderates hold identical
views. And how can those who want to serve only have a party? I would
serve both the moderates and the extremists. Where I should differ from
them, I would respectfully place my position before them, and continue
my service.
READER: What, then, would you say to both the parties?
EDITOR: I would say to the extremists:--"I know that you want Home Rule
for India; it is not to be had for your asking. Everyone will have to
take it for himself. What others get for me is not Home Rule but foreign
rule; therefore, it would not be proper for you to say that you have
obtained Home Rule, if you expelled the English. I have already
described the true nature of Home Rule. This you would never obtain by
force of arms. Brute-force is not natural to the Indian soil. You will
have, therefore, to rely wholly on soul-force. You must not consider
that violence is necessary at any stage for reaching our goal."
I would say to the moderates:--"Mere petitioning is derogatory; we
thereby confess inferiority. To say that British rule is indispensable,
is almost a denial of the Godhead. We cannot say that anybody or
anything is indispensable except God. Moreover, commonsense should tell
us that to state that, for the time being, the presence of the English
in India is a necessity, is to make them conceited.
"If the English vacated India bag and baggage, it must not be supposed
that she would be widowed. It is possible that those who are forced to
observe peace under their pressure would fight after their withdrawal.
There can be no advantage in suppressing an eruption, it must have its
vent. If, therefore, before we can remain at peace, we must fight
amongst ourselves, it is better that we do so. There is no occasion for
a third party to protect the weak. It is this so-called protection which
has unnerved us. Such protection can only make the weak weaker. Unless
we realise this, we cannot have Home Rule. I would paraphrase the
thought of an English divine and say that anarchy under home rule were
better than orderly foreign rule. Only, the meaning that the learned
divine attached to home rule is different to Indian Home Rule according
to my conception. We have to learn, and to teach others, that we do not
want the tyranny of their English rule or Indian rule."
If this idea were carried out both the extremists and the moderates
could join hands. There is no occasion to fear or distrust one another.
READER: What, then, would you say to the English?
EDITOR: To them I would respectfully say: "I admit you are my rulers. It
is not necessary to debate the question whether you hold India by the
sword or by my consent. I have no objection to your remaining in my
country, but although you are the rulers, you will have to remain as
servants of the people. It is not we who have to do as you wish, but it
is you who have to do as we wish. You may keep the riches that you have
drained away from this land, but you may not drain riches henceforth.
Your function will be, if you so wish, to police India; you must abandon
the idea of deriving any commercial benefit from us. We hold the
civilization that you support to be the reverse of civilization. We
consider our civilization to be far superior to yours. If you realise
this truth, it will be to your advantage, and, if you do not, according
to your own proverb, you should only live in our country in the same
manner as we do. You must not do anything that is contrary to our
religions. It is your duty as rulers that, for the sake of the Hindus,
you should eschew beef, and for the sake of the Mahomedans, you should
avoid bacon and ham. We have hitherto said nothing, because we have been
cowed down, but you need not consider that you have not hurt our
feelings by your conduct. We are not expressing our sentiments either
through base selfishness or fear, but because it is our duty now to
speak out boldly. We consider your schools and law courts to be useless.
We want our own ancient schools and courts to be restored. The common
language of India is not English but Hindi. You should, therefore, learn
it. We can hold communication with you only in our national language.
"We cannot tolerate the idea of your spending money on railways and the
military. We see no occasion for either. You may fear Russia; we do not.
When she comes we will look after her. If you are with us, we will then
receive her jointly. We do not need any European cloth. We will manage
with articles produced and manufactured at home. You may not keep one
eye on Manchester and the other on India. We can work together only if
our interests are identical.
"This has not been said to you in arrogance. You have great military
resources. Your naval power is matchless. If we wanted to fight with you
on your own ground we would be unable to do so, but, if the above
submissions be not acceptable to you, we cease to play the ruled. You
may, if you like, cut us to pieces. You may shatter us at the cannon's
mouth. If you act contrary to our will, we will not help you and,
without our help, we know that you cannot move one step forward.
"It is likely that you will laugh at all this in the intoxication of
your power. We may not be able to disillusion you at once, but, if there
be any manliness in us, you will see shortly that your intoxication is
suicidal, and that your laugh at our expense is an aberration of
intellect. We believe that, at heart you belong to a religious nation.
We are living in a land which is the source of religions. How we came
together need not be considered, but we can make mutual good use of our
relations.
"You English who have come to India are not a good specimen of the
English nation, nor can we almost half Anglicised Indians, be considered
a good specimen of the real Indian nation. If the English nation were to
know all you have done, it would oppose many of your actions. The mass
of the Indians have had few dealings with you. If you will abandon your
so-called civilization, and search into your own scriptures, you will
find that our demands are just. Only on conditions of our demands being
fully satisfied may you remain in India, and, if you remain under those
conditions we shall learn several things from you, and you will learn
many from us. So doing, we shall benefit each other and the world. But
that will happen only when the root of our relationship is sunk in a
religious soil."
READER: What will you say to the nation?
EDITOR: Who is the nation?
READER: For our purposes it is the nation that you and I have been
thinking of, that is, those of us who are affected by European
civilization, and who are eager to have Home Rule.
EDITOR: To these I would say: It is only those Indians who are imbued
with real love who will be able to speak to the English in the above
strain without being frightened, and those only can be said to be so
imbued who conscientiously believe that Indian civilization is the best,
and that European is a nine days' wonder. Such ephemeral civilizations
have often come and gone, and will continue to do so. Those only can be
considered to be so imbued, who, having experienced the force of the
soul within themselves, will not cower before brute-force, and will not,
on any account, desire to use brute-force. Those only can be considered
to have been so imbued who are intensely dissatisfied with the present
pitiable condition having already drunk the cup of poison.
If there be only one such Indian, he will speak as above to the English,
and the English will have to listen to him.
These demands are not demands, but they show our mental state. We will
get nothing by asking; we shall have to take what we want, and we need
the requisite strength for the effort and that strength will be
available to him only who
1. will, only on rare occasions, make use of the English language;
2. if a lawyer, will give up his profession and take up a hand-loom;
3. if a lawyer, will devote his knowledge to enlightening both his
people and the English;
4. if a lawyer, will not meddle with the quarrels between parties,
but will give up the courts and from his experience induce the
people to do likewise;
5. if a lawyer, will refuse to be a judge, as the will give up his
profession;
6. if a doctor, will give up medicine, and understand that rather
than mending bodies, he should mend souls;
7. if a doctor, will understand, that no matter to what religion he
belongs, it is better that bodies remain diseased rather than that
they are cured through the instrumentality of the diabolical
vivisection that is practised in European schools of medicine;
8. although a doctor, will take up a hand-loom and, if any patients
come to him, will tell them the cause of their diseases, and will
advise them to remove the cause, rather than pamper them by giving
useless drugs; he will understand that, if by not taking drugs,
perchance the patient dies, the world will not come to grief, and
that he will have been really merciful to him;
9. although a wealthy man, regardless of his wealth, will speak out
his mind and fear no one;
10. if a wealthy man, will devote his money to establishing
hand-looms, and encourage others to use hand-made goods by wearing
them himself;
11. like every other Indian, will know that this is a time for
repentance, expiation and mourning;
12. like every other Indian, will know that to blame the English is
useless, that they came because of us, and remain also for the same
reason, and that they will either go or change their nature, only
when we reform ourselves;
13. like others, will understand that, at a time of mourning, there
can be no indulgence, and that, whilst we are in a fallen state, to
be in gaol or in banishment is much the best;
14. like others, will know that it is superstition to imagine it
necessary that we should guard against being imprisoned in order
that we may deal with the people;
15. like others, will know that action is much better than speech;
that it is our duty to say exactly what we think and face the
consequences, and that it will be only then that we shall be able to
impress anybody with our speech;
16. like others, will understand that we will become free only
through suffering;
17. like others, will understand that deportation for life to the
Andamans is not enough expiation for the sin of encouraging European
civilization;
18. like others, will know that no nation has risen without
suffering; that, even in physical warfare, the true test is
suffering and not the killing of others, much more so in the warfare
of passive resistance;
19. like others, will know that it is an idle excuse to say that we
will do a thing when the others also do it; that we should do what
we know to be right, and that others will do it when they see the
way; that when I fancy a particular delicacy, I do not wait till
others taste it; that to make a national effort and to suffer are in
the nature of delicacies; and that to suffer under pressure is no
suffering.
READER: This is a large order. When will all carry it out?
EDITOR: You make a mistake. You and I have nothing to do with the
others. Let each do his duty. If I do my duty, that is, serve myself, I
shall be able to serve others. Before I leave you, I will take the
liberty of repeating.
1. Real home-rule is self-rule or self-control.
2. The way to it is passive resistance: that is soul force or
love-force.
3. In order to exert this force, Swadeshi in every sense is
necessary.
4. What we want to do should be done, not because we object to the
English or that we want to retaliate, but because it is our duty to
do so. Thus, supposing that the English remove the salt-tax, restore
our money, give the highest posts to Indians, withdraw the English
troops, we shall certainly not use their machine-made goods, nor use
the English language, nor many of their industries. It is worth
nothing that these things are, in their nature, harmful; hence, we
do not want them. I bear no enmity towards the English, but I do
towards their civilization.
In my opinion, we have used the term "Swaraj" without understanding its
real significance. I have endeavoured to explain it as I understand it,
and my conscience testifies that my life henceforth is dedicated to its
attainment.
APPENDICES:
Some Authorities.
Testimonies by Eminent Men.
APPENDICES.
Some Authorities.
The following books are recommended for perusal to follow up the study
of the foregoing:--
"The Kingdom of God is Within You"--_Tolstoy_.
"What is Art?"--_Tolstoy._
"Slavery of Our Times"--_Tolstoy_.
"The First Step"--_Tolstoy_.
"How Shall We Escape"--_Tolstoy_.
"Letter to a Hindoo"--_Tolstoy_.
"The White Slaves of England"--_Sherard_.
"Civilization: Its Cause and Cure"--_Carpenter_.
"The Fallacy of Speed"--_Taylor_.
"A New Crusade"--_Blount_.
"On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"--_Thoreau_.
"Life Without Principle"--_Thoreau_.
"Unto This Last"--_Ruskin_.
"A Joy for Ever"--_Ruskin_.
"Duties of Man"--_Mazzini_.
"Defence and Death of Socrates"--From _Plato_.
"Paradoxes of Civilization"--_Max Nordau_.
"Poverty and Un-British Rule in India"--_Naoroji_.
"Economic History of India"--_Dutt_.
"Village Communities"--_Maine_.
Testimonies by Eminent Men.
The following extracts from Mr. Alfred Webb's valuable collection, if
the testimony given therein be true, show that the ancient Indian
civilization, has little to learn from the modern:--
Victor Cousin.
(_1792--1867_). _Founder of Systematic Eclecticism in Philosophy._
"On the other hand when we read with attention the poetical and
philosophical movements of the East, above all, those of India, which
are beginning to spread in Europe, we discover there so many truths, and
truths so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of
the results at which the European genius has sometimes stopped, that we
are constrained to bend the knee before that of the East, and to see in
this cradle of the human race the native land of the highest
philosophy."
J. Seymour Keay, M. P.
_Banker in India and India Agent._
(_Writing in 1883._)
"It cannot be too well understood that our position in India has never
been in any degree that of civilians bringing civilization to savage
races. When we landed in India we found there a hoary civilization,
which, during the progress of thousands of years, had fitted itself into
the character and adjusted itself to the wants of highly intellectual
races. The civilization was not prefunctory, but universal and
all-pervading--furnishing the country not only with political systems
but with social and domestic institutions of the most ramified
description. The beneficent nature of these institutions as a whole may
be judged of from their effects on the character of the Hindu race.
Perhaps there are no other people in the world who show so much in their
characters the advantageous effects of their own civilization. They are
shrewd in business, acute in reasoning, thrifty, religious, sober,
charitable, obedient to parents, reverential to old age, amiable,
law-abiding, compassionate towards the helpless, and patient under
suffering."
Friedrich Max Muelier, LL.D.
"If I were to ask myself from what literature we hear in Europe, we who
have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and
Romans, and of one Semetic race, the Jewish may draw that corrective
which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more
comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for
this life only but a transfigured and eternal life--again I should point
to India."
Michael G. Mulhall, F.R.S.S.
_Statistics_ (_1899_).
Prison population per 100,000 of inhabitants:
Several European States 100 to 230
England and Wales 90
India 38
--"_Dictionary of Statistics_," _Michael G. Mulhall, F.R.S.S._,
_Routledge and Sons, 1899_.
Colonel Thomas Munro.
_Thirty-two years' service in India._
"If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a
capacity to produce whatever can contribute to convenience or luxury;
schools established in every village, for teaching, reading, writing and
arithmetic; the general practice of hospitality and charity among each
other; and, above all, treatment of the female sex, full of confidence,
respect and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a civilised
people, then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe; and
if civilization is to become an article of trade between the two
countries, I am convinced that this country [England] will gain by the
import cargo."
Frederick von Schlegel.
"It cannot be denied that the early Indians possessed a knowledge of the
true God; all their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions
noble, clear and severely grand, as deeply conceived and reverently
expressed as in any human language in which men have spoken of their
God.... Among nations possessing indigenous philosophy and metaphysics,
together with an innate relish for these pursuits, such as at present
characterises Germany; and in olden times, was the proud distinction of
Greece, Hindustan holds the first rank in point of time."
Sir William Wedderburn, Bart.
"The Indian village has thus for centuries remained a bulwark against
political disorder, and the home of the simple domestic and social virtues.
No wonder, therefore, that philosophers and historians have always dwelt
lovingly on this ancient institution which is the natural social
unit and the best type of rural life; self-contained, industrious,
peace-loving, conservative in the best sense of the word.... I think you
will agree with me that there is much that is both picturesque and
attractive in this glimpse of social and domestic life in an Indian
village. It is a harmless and happy form of human existence. Moreover,
it is not without good practical outcome."
J. Young.
_Secretary, Savon Mechanics' Institutes._
(_Within recent years_).
"Those races, [the Indian viewed from a moral aspect] are perhaps the
most remarkable people in the world. They breathe an atmosphere of moral
purity, which cannot but excite admiration, and this is especially the
case with the poorer classes who, notwithstanding the privations of
their humble lot, appear to be happy and contented. True children of
nature, they live on from day to day, taking no thought of to-morrow and
thankful for the simple fare which Providence has provided for them. It
is curious to witness the spectacle of coolies of both sexes returning
home at nightfall after a hard day's work often lasting from sunrise to
sunset. In spite of fatigue from the effects of the unremitting toil,
they are, for the most part, gay and animated, conversing cheerfully
together and occasionally breaking into snatches of light-hearted song.
Yet what awaits them on their return to the hovels which they call home?
A dish of rice for food, and the floor for a bed. Domestic felicity
appears to be the rule among the Natives, and this is the more strange
when the customs of marriage are taken into account, parents arranging
all such matters. Many Indian households afford examples of the married
state in its highest degree of perfection. This may be due to the
teachings of the Shastras, and to the strict injunctions which they
inculcate with regard to marital obligations; but it is no exaggeration
to say that husbands are generally devotedly attached to their wives,
and in many instances the latter have the most exalted conception of
their duties towards their husbands."
Abbe J. A. Dubois.
_Missionary in Mysore. Extracts from letter dated Seringapatam, 15th
December, 1820._
"The authority of married women within their houses is chiefly exerted
in preserving good order and peace among the persons who compose their
families: and a great many among them discharge this important duty with
a prudence and a discretion which have scarcely a parallel in Europe. I
have known families composed of between thirty and forty persons, or
more, consisting of grown-up sons and daughters, all married and all
having children, living together under the superintendence of an old
matron--their mother or mother-in-law. The latter, by good management,
and by accommodating herself to the temper of the daughters-in-law, by
using, according to circumstances, firmness or forbearance, succeeded in
preserving peace and harmony during many years amongst so many females,
who had all jarring interests, and still more jarring tempers. I ask you
whether it would be possible to attain the same end, in the same
circumstances, in our countries, where it is scarcely possible to make
two women living under the same roof to agree together.
"In fact, there is perhaps no kind of honest employment in a civilised
country in which the Hindu females have not a due share. Besides the
management of the household, and the care of the family, which (as
already noticed) under their control, the wives and daughters of
husbandmen attend and assist their husbands and fathers in the labours
of agriculture. Those of tradesmen assist theirs in carrying on their
trade. Merchants are attended and assisted by theirs in their shops.
Many females are shopkeepers on their own account and _without a
knowledge of the alphabet_ or of the decimal scale, they keep by other
means their accounts in excellent order, and are considered as still
shrewder than the males themselves in their commercial dealings."
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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious typographical and printer errors have been corrected without
comment. In addition to obvious errors, the following two changes have
been made:
Page 62: 'four' replaced with 'our' in the phrase: "... to deepen our
slavery."
Page 115: 'cover' changed to 'cower' in the phrase: "... will not
cower before brute-force...."
Page 128: 'foot' changed to 'roof' in the phrase: "... living under
the same roof....'
Other than this, any inconsistencies in the author's spelling, use of
grammar and punctuation have been preserved in this text as they appear
in the original publication.
Two possible printer errors which have not been corrected in this text
include:
Page 116: "... the will give up his profession;" probably should
read, "... he (or 'they') will give up his profession...."
Page 119: "It is worth nothing that these things are...." probably
should read, "It is worth noting that these things are...."