I LEARNT from my master that Sandip had joined forces with Harish
Kundu, and there was to be a grand celebration of the worship of
the demon-destroying Goddess. Harish Kundu was extorting the
expenses from his tenantry. Pandits Kaviratna and Vidyavagish
had been commissioned to compose a hymn with a double meaning.
My master has just had a passage at arms with Sandip over this.
"Evolution is at work amongst the gods as well," says Sandip.
"The grandson has to remodel the gods created by the grandfather
to suit his own taste, or else he is left an atheist. It is my
mission to modernize the ancient deities. I am born the saviour
of the gods, to emancipate them from the thraldom of the past."
I have seen from our boyhood what a juggler with ideas is Sandip.
He has no interest in discovering truth, but to make a quizzical
display of it rejoices his heart. Had he been born in the wilds
of Africa he would have spent a glorious time inventing argument
after argument to prove that cannibalism is the best means of
promoting true communion between man and man. But those who deal
in delusion end by deluding themselves, and I fully believe that,
each time Sandip creates a new fallacy, he persuades himself that
he has found the truth, however contradictory his creations may
be to one another.
However, I shall not give a helping hand to establish a liquor
distillery in my country. The young men, who are ready to offer
their services for their country's cause, must not fall into this
habit of getting intoxicated. The people who want to exact work
by drugging methods set more value on the excitement than on the
minds they intoxicate.
I had to tell Sandip, in Bimala's presence, that he must go.
Perhaps both will impute to me the wrong motive. But I must free
myself also from all fear of being misunderstood. Let even
Bimala misunderstand me ...
A number of Mahomedan preachers are being sent over from Dacca.
The Mussulmans in my territory had come to have almost as much of
an aversion to the killing of cows as the Hindus. But now cases
of cow-killing are cropping up here and there. I had the news
first from some of my Mussulman tenants with expressions of their
disapproval. Here was a situation which I could see would be
difficult to meet. At the bottom was a pretence of fanaticism,
which would cease to be a pretence if obstructed. That is just
where the ingenuity of the move came in!
I sent for some of my principal Hindu tenants and tried to get
them to see the matter in its proper light. "We can be staunch
in our own convictions," I said, "but we have no control over
those of others. For all that many of us are Vaishnavas, those
of us who are Shaktas go on with their animal sacrifices just the
same. That cannot be helped. We must, in the same way, let the
Mussulmans do as they think best. So please refrain from all
disturbance."
"Maharaja," they replied, "these outrages have been unknown for
so long."
"That was so," I said, "because such was their spontaneous
desire. Let us behave in such a way that the same may become
true, over again. But a breach of the peace is not the way to
bring this about."
"No, Maharaja," they insisted, "those good old days are gone.
This will never stop unless you put it down with a strong hand."
"Oppression," I replied, "will not only not prevent cow-killing,
it may lead to the killing of men as well."
One of them had had an English education. He had learnt to
repeat the phrases of the day. "It is not only a question of
orthodoxy," he argued. "Our country is mainly agricultural, and
cows are ..."
"Buffaloes in this country," I interrupted, "likewise give milk
and are used for ploughing. And therefore, so long as we dance
frantic dances on our temple pavements, smeared with their blood,
their severed heads carried on our shoulders, religion will only
laugh at us if we quarrel with Mussulmans in her name, and
nothing but the quarrel itself will remain true. If the cow
alone is to be held sacred from slaughter, and not the buffalo,
then that is bigotry, not religion."
"But are you not aware, sir, of what is behind all this?"
pursued the English-knowing tenant. "This has only become
possible because the Mussulman is assured of safety, even if he
breaks the law. Have you not heard of the Pachur case?"
"Why is it possible," I asked, "to use the Mussulmans thus, as
tools against us? Is it not because we have fashioned them into
such with our own intolerance? That is how Providence punishes
us. Our accumulated sins are being visited on our own heads."
"Oh, well, if that be so, let them be visited on us. But we
shall have our revenge. We have undermined what was the greatest
strength of the authorities, their devotion to their own laws.
Once they were truly kings, dispensing justice; now they
themselves will become law-breakers, and so no better than
robbers. This may not go down to history, but we shall carry it
in our hearts for all time ..."
The evil reports about me which are spreading from paper to paper
are making me notorious. News comes that my effigy has been
burnt at the river-side burning-ground of the Chakravartis, with
due ceremony and enthusiasm; and other insults are in
contemplation. The trouble was that they had come to ask me to
take shares in a Cotton Mill they wanted to start. I had to tell
them that I did not so much mind the loss of my own money, but I
would not be a party to causing a loss to so many poor
shareholders.
"Are we to understand, Maharaja," said my visitors, "that the
prosperity of the country does not interest you?"
"Industry may lead to the country's prosperity," I explained,
"but a mere desire for its prosperity will not make for success
in industry. Even when our heads were cool, our industries did
not flourish. Why should we suppose that they will do so just
because we have become frantic?"
"Why not say plainly that you will not risk your money?"
"I will put in my money when I see that it is industry which
prompts you. But, because you have lighted a fire, it does not
follow that you have the food to cook over it."