Indian Unrest Part 4

Education, to which in its more primitive forms the Bengalees owed whatever influence they retained under Mahomedan rule, has given them under British rule far larger opportunities which they have turned to account with no mean measure of success. I must reserve the th.o.r.n.y question of education for separate treatment. All I need say for the present is that, had it grown less instead of more superficial, had it been less divorced from discipline and moral training as well as from the realities of Indian life, the results might have been very different. As it is, in the form given to it in our Indian schools and colleges, which have been allowed to drift more and more into native hands, English education has steadily deteriorated in quality as the output has increased in quant.i.ty. The sacrifices made by many Bengalees in humble circ.u.mstances to procure for their sons the advantages of what is called higher education are often pathetic, but the results of this mania for higher education, however laudable in itself, have been disastrous. Every year large batches of youths with a mere smattering of knowledge are turned out into a world that has little or no use for them. Soured on the one hand by their own failure, or by the failure of such examinations as they may have succeeded in pa.s.sing to secure for them the employment to which they aspired, and scorning the sort of work to which they would otherwise have been trained, they are ripe for every revolt. That is the material upon which the leaders of unrest have most successfully worked, and it is only recently that some of the more sober-minded Bengalees of the older generation have begun to realize the dangers inherent in such a system. When in 1903 Lord Curzon brought in his Universities Bill to mitigate some of the most glaring evils of the system, there was a loud and unanimous outcry in Bengal that Government intended to throttle higher education because it was education that was making a "nation" of Bengal. Subsequent events have shown that that measure was not only urgently needed, but that it came too late to cure the mischief already done, and was, if anything, too circ.u.mscribed in its scope. The storm it raised was intensified shortly afterwards by Lord Curzon's famous Convocation speech, into which the sensitive and emotional Bengalee hastened to read a humiliating indictment of the "nation." Such a storm showed how heavily laden was the atmosphere with dangerous electricity.

For some years past the influence of Tilak and his irreconcilable school had been projected from the Deccan into Bengal, and nowhere did it make itself so rapidly felt as in the Press. The _Calcutta Review_ has been publishing a very instructive history of the Indian Press by Mr. S.C.

Sanial, a Hindu scholar who has had the advantage of consulting authentic and hitherto unpublished doc.u.ments. His erudite work shows how the native Press of India first grew up in Bengal as the direct product of English education, and faithfully reflected all the fluctuations of educated Bengalee opinion, many of the most influential native newspapers continuing to be published in English, side by side with, and often under the same control as, more popular papers published in the vernacular. Among the "advanced" journalists of Bengal, none had fallen so entirely under the spell of Tilak's magnetic personality as Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal and Mr. Arabindo Ghose, and the former's _New India_ and the latter's _Bande_ also published in English, soon outstripped the aggressiveness of Mr. Surendranath Banerjee's _Bengalee_. For though not immune from the reaction against Western influences and in favour of Hinduism as a religious and social system, the school represented by Mr.

Banerjee confined itself at first mainly to political agitation and to criticism of British methods of administration. The new school represented, perhaps most conspicuously, by Mr. Arabindo Ghose scarcely disguised its hostility to British rule itself and to all that British ascendancy stands for. Hinduism for the Hindus, or, as they preferred to put it, "Arya for the Aryans," was the war-cry of zealots, half fanatics, half patriots, whose mysticism found in the sacred story of the _Bhagvat Gita_ not only the charter of Indian independence but the sanctification of the most violent means for the overthrow of an alien rule. With this "Aryan" reaction, having to a great extent the force of religious enthusiasm behind it, orthodoxy also recovered ground, and Brahmanism was not slow to show how potent it still is even in Bengal when it appeals to the superst.i.tions of the ma.s.ses. In one form or another this spirit had spread like wildfire not only among the students but among the teachers, and the schools of physical training to which young Bengal had taken, partly under the influence of our British love of sports and partly from a legitimate desire to remove from their "nation" the stigma of unmanliness, were rapidly transforming themselves into political societies modelled upon the bands of gymnasts which figured so prominently in Tilak's propaganda in the Deccan. Among the older men, some yielded to the new spirit from fear of being elbowed out by their youngers, some were genuinely impatient of the tardiness of the const.i.tutional reforms for which they had looked to the agency of the Indian National Congress; a few perhaps welcomed the opportunity of venting the bitterness engendered by social slights, real or imaginary, or by disappointments in Government service.

Such appears to have been the _etat d'ame_ of Bengal when the Government of India promulgated the measure of administrative redistribution known as the Part.i.tion of Bengal.

CHAPTER VII.

THE STORM IN BENGAL.

The merits or demerits of the Part.i.tion 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 Part.i.tion 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 Part.i.tion 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 Part.i.tion was a direct attack upon the primacy of the educated cla.s.ses 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. Part.i.tion 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 princ.i.p.al towns of the _mofussil_, the wildest reports were sedulously disseminated amongst the rural population.

Part.i.tion 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 a.s.sam. 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 ma.s.ses were told that Part.i.tion was an insult to the "terrible G.o.ddess" 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 subst.i.tuting in their place the products of native labour. At the first great meeting held at the Calcutta Town Hall to protest against Part.i.tion, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Trubner 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 Part.i.tion, 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 Part.i.tion 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 hors.e.m.e.n. 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 Part.i.tion. 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 Part.i.tion 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-Part.i.tion 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 Part.i.tion, and they not unnaturally concluded that, if the Secretary of State had merely sanctioned the Part.i.tion 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 Part.i.tion 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 const.i.tuted 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 pa.s.s 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 c.u.mulative 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 Part.i.tion 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 Part.i.tion itself receded into the background, and the issue, until then successfully veiled and now openly raised, was not whether Bengal should be one unpart.i.tioned province or two part.i.tioned 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 Part.i.tion of Bengal it pa.s.sed 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 Part.i.tion, 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 a.s.sume 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 const.i.tuted 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 a.s.suredly 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 const.i.tutes one of the most valuable and curious of human doc.u.ments.

Of the three Bengali newspapers that came into the field soon after Part.i.tion 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 k.u.mar 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 inst.i.tution, 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":--

G.o.d (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 G.o.d, 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. G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt 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 G.o.d, 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 cla.s.ses shall learn to hate slavery. Then the lower cla.s.ses will soon follow their lead. "It is easy to incite the lower cla.s.ses 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 const.i.tute 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 princ.i.p.al 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 const.i.tutes 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 G.o.ddess 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 G.o.ddess 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 princ.i.p.al articles, forming a complete gospel of revolution, were republished in a small volume, ent.i.tled _Mukti con pathe_: "Which way does salvation lie?" Not only were these appeals to racial and religious pa.s.sion 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 cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 _a.n.u.silan 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 circ.u.mstances 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 compet.i.tion 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 cla.s.ses, 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 Part.i.tion. But his paper, the _Bengalee_, is almost the only one that pretends to regard the Part.i.tion 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sured 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 a.s.sert 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, const.i.tuted an absolutely revolutionary breach with a 3,000 years-old past.

On the other hand, the constant invocation of the "terrible G.o.ddess,"

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 superst.i.tions of the ma.s.ses. 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 G.o.ddess in this form has been published with a text to the effect that the great G.o.ddess 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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sistance 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 sanct.i.ty 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 pa.s.sion 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 const.i.tutes 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 cla.s.ses 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 quant.i.ties; but the known quant.i.ties are at any rate sufficient to make us appreciate its gravity.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PUNJAB AND THE ARYA SAMAJ.

The Punjab, the Land of the Five Rivers, differs as widely both from the Deccan and from Bengal as these two differ the one from the other. It has been more than any other part of India the battlefield of warring races and creeds and the seat of power of mighty dynasties. Among its cities it includes Imperial Delhi and Runjit Singh's Lah.o.r.e. It is a country of many peoples and of many dialects. It is the home of the Sikhs, but the Mahomedans, ever since the days of the Moghul Empire, form the majority of the population, and the proportion of Hindus is smaller than in any other province of India, except Eastern Bengal.

Owing to the very small rainfall, its climate is intensely dry--fiercely hot during the greater part of the year, and cold even to freezing during the short winter months. Nowhere in India has British rule done so much to bring peace and security and to induce prosperity. The alluvial lands are rich but thirsty, and irrigation works on a scale of unparalleled magnitude were required to compel the soil to yield beneficent harvests. At the most critical moment in the history of British India it was against the steadfastness of the Punjab, then under the firm but patriarchal sway of Sir John Lawrence, that the Mutiny spent itself, and until a few years ago there seemed to be no reason whatever for questioning the loyalty of a province which the forethought of Government and the skill of Anglo-Indian engineers were gradually transforming into a land of plenty. Least of all did any one question the loyalty of the Sikhs. Many of them believed that British rule was the fulfilment of a prophecy of one of their martyred _gurus_, and the Sikh regiments were regarded as the flower of the Native Army.

Yet it was in the Punjab, at Lah.o.r.e and at Rawal Pindi, that the first serious disturbances occurred in 1907 which aroused public opinion at home to the reality of Indian unrest, and stirred the Government of India to such strong repressive measures as the deportation of two prominent agitators under an ancient Ordinance of 1818 never before applied in such connexion. Local and temporary causes may to some extent have accounted for those disturbances. An increase in the land revenue demanded in the Rawal Pindi district was very strongly resented. The regulations issued with regard to the tenure of land in some of the new irrigation colonies were probably unwise and carried out with some harshness. Famine in the unirrigated tracts, and especially the plague, which had desolated parts of the province, had created much misery and bitterness. Other and more remote causes of a social and economic character had also been at work. Nowhere had Anglo-Indian legislation and the introduction of elaborate forms of legal procedure produced results more unfortunate and less foreseen by their authors than in the Punjab. The conversion of the occupants of the land into full proprietors was intended to give greater stability and security to the peasant ownership of land, but the result was to improve the position of the moneylender, who, owing to the thriftlessness of the Indian _rayat_ and the extravagant expenditure to which he is from time to time driven by traditional custom in regard to marriages, funerals, and other family ceremonies, has always played a disastrously important part in village life. As M. Chailley remarks in his admirable study of these problems, "the agricultural debtor had now two securities to offer." He had always been able to pledge his harvest, and now he could pledge also his land. On the other hand, "a strict system of law and procedure afforded the moneylender the means of rapidly realizing his dues," and the pleader, who is himself a creation of that system, was ever at the elbow of both parties to encourage ruinous litigation to his own professional advantage. Special laws were successively enacted by Government to check these new evils, but they failed to arrest altogether a process which was bringing about a veritable revolution in the tenure of land, and mainly to the detriment of an essentially peaceful and law-abiding cla.s.s that furnished a large and excellent contingent to the Native Army. The wretched landowner who found himself deprived of his land by legal process held our methods rather than his own extravagance responsible for his ruin, and on the other hand, the pleaders and their clients, the moneylenders, who were generally Hindus, resented equally our legislative attempts to hamper a process so beneficial to themselves.

But all these were only contributory causes. There were still deeper influences at work which have operated in the Punjab in the same direction as the forces of unrest in the Deccan and in Bengal, but differ from them nevertheless in their origin and in some of their manifestations. In the Punjab too the keynote of unrest is a spirit of revolt not merely against British administrative control, but, in theory at least, against Western influence generally, though in some respects it bears very strongly the impress of the Western influence which it repudiates. The motive force is not conservative Brahmanism as in the Deccan, nor does it betray the impetuous emotionalism of Bengal. It is less rigid and purely reactionary than the former, and better disciplined than the latter.