“Courage,” said a leader in Bande Mataram, “is your principal asset. Heroism, says Emerson, feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right. If you are to work out the salvation of your country, you will have to do it with heroism. You have voluntarily cut yourselves off from outside help to develop strength from within. Darkness will hem you round, disappointments will cross your path, slander will pursue you from behind, but you are to depend on yourselves, and yourselves alone. You must press on and not allow yourselves to be dragged back by encumbrances in the name of unity. You have your only guide in the loftiness and spirituality that make their heaven in the thought of the wider light and purer happiness that you may bring to your country by long force of vision and endeavour. The rapturous contemplation of a new and better state for your country is your only hope. What great element is wanting in a life guided by such a hope?”[47]
There is a religious tone, a spiritual elevation, in such words very characteristic of Arabindo Ghose himself, and of all Bengali Nationalists, contrasted with the shrewd political judgment of Poona Extremists. In an age of supernatural religion Arabindo would have become what the irreligious mean by a fanatic. He was possessed by that concentrated vision, that limited and absorbing devotion. Like a horse in blinkers, he ran straight, regardless of everything except the narrow bit of road in front. But at the end of that road he saw a vision more inspiring and spiritual than any fanatic saw who rushed on death with Paradise in sight. Nationalism to him was far more than a political object or a means of material improvement. To him it was surrounded by a mist of glory, the halo that mediæval saints beheld gleaming around the head of martyrs. Grave with intensity, careless of fate or opinion, and one of the most silent men I have known, he was of the stuff that dreamers are made of, but dreamers who will act their dream, indifferent to the means. “Nationalism,” he said, in a brief address delivered in Bombay, early in 1908—“Nationalism is a religion that comes from God”:—
“Nationalism cannot die, because it is God who is working in Bengal. God cannot be killed, God cannot be sent to gaol. Have you got a real faith, or is it merely a political inspiration, a larger kind of selfishness?... You all know what Bengal used to be; you all know that the name of Bengali used to be a term of reproach among nations. What has happened? What has made the Bengali so different from his old self? One thing has happened, Bengal is learning to believe. Bengal was once drunk with the wine of European civilization, and with the purely intellectual teaching that it received from the West. It began to see all things, to judge all things, through the imperfect instrumentality of the intellect. When this was so, Bengal became a land of doubters and cynics....
“The intellect, having nothing more to offer save despair, became quiescent, and when the intellect ceased to work, the heart of Bengal was open and ready to receive the voice of God whenever he should speak. When the message came at last, Bengal was ready to receive it, and she received it in a single moment. In a single moment the whole nation rose, the whole nation lifted itself out of despair, and it was by this sudden awakening from a dream that Bengal found the way of salvation, and declared to all India that eternal life, immortality, not lasting degradation, was our fate....
“There came a time, after the first outbreak of triumphant hope, when all the material forces that could be brought to bear against Nationalism were gradually brought into play, and the question was asked of Bengal, ‘Can you suffer? Can you survive?’ The young men of Bengal were now called upon to suffer. They were called upon to bear the crown, not of victory, but of martyrdom....
“It is not by any mere political programme, not by National Education alone, not by Swadeshi alone, not by boycott, that this country can be saved. Swadeshi by itself might merely lead to a little more material prosperity, and you might forget the real thing you sought to do, in the glamour of wealth and in the desire to keep it safe. In other subject countries also there was material development.... When the hour of trial came, it was found that those nations which had been developing materially were not alive.... The forces of the country are other than visible forces. There is only one force, and for that force I am not necessary, you are not necessary, he is not necessary. Let us all be thrown aside as so much waste substance, the country will not suffer. God is doing everything. When He throws us away, He does so because we are no longer required. But He is immortal in the hearts of His people.”
This fervour of nationality, which some would call fanaticism, certainly appears to differ in degree from the religious fervour with which we pray for the High Court of Parliament, “under our most religious and gracious King at this time assembled.” But it would be no compliment to ourselves to doubt that at the back of both there is a unity of spirit.[48]
As to fanaticism of language and the violence that cannot keep outside the limits of sedition, I have seen violent and bloodthirsty passages translated from the Yugantar, the Sandhya, the Hitaishi (“Friend”) of Barisal, and other vernacular papers. Such papers are fined, suppressed, have editors imprisoned, and under the new Press Act may have their type confiscated. But in none of them have I seen more deliberate attempts to stir up race hatred and incite to violence than in Anglo-Indian papers which suffer nothing. Take, for instance, this obvious instigation to indiscriminate manslaughter by the Asian, an Anglo-Indian weekly in Calcutta (May 9, 1908):—
“Mr. Kingsford has a great opportunity, and we hope he is a fairly decent shot at short range. We recommend to his notice a Mauser pistol, with the nickel filed off the nose of the bullets, or a Colt’s automatic, which carries a heavy soft bullet and is a hard-hitting and punishing weapon. We hope Mr. Kingsford will manage to secure a big ‘bag,’ and we envy him his opportunity. He will be more than justified in letting daylight into every strange native approaching his house or his person, and for his own sake we trust he will learn to shoot fairly straight without taking his weapon out of his coat pocket. It saves time and gives the elevation fairly correctly at any distance up to about ten or fifteen yards. We wish the one man who has shown that he has a correct view of the necessities of the situation the very best of luck.”
That was written certainly at a time of great excitement, when an attempt had been made to assassinate the unpopular magistrate by a bomb, which killed two ladies, not only innocent, but related to one of those exceptional men whose sympathy with the people makes them justly beloved. But two can play at the evil game of race hatred, and if the Indian press is violent, the tone of the Anglo-Indian press is almost invariably insolent and provocative. If “seditious” only means “likely to lead to violence,” it is seditious too. There are fine exceptions, like the Statesman, the Indian Daily News, the Empire, and Capital, in Calcutta. Steadily supporting the official side, though with great freedom of criticism, as was shown in the case of Lord Curzon, the Pioneer of Allahabad maintains an honourable tradition. But as to Anglo-Indian papers like the Englishman of Calcutta and the Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore, it must have been difficult for any thoughtful Indian who loved his country to read them during 1907 without cursing our race. Even the Times of India, the best paper in Bombay, greeted Mr. Keir Hardie’s arrival in the city with a whole column of insults, not only to the Labour leader, but to the Indian people. Judging from the style, I thought the editor must have bribed some poor, half-educated Indian to do the thing for him; but I heard afterwards, through one of the staff, that it was written by an Anglo-Indian, who was quite proud of his achievement. What cause he had for pride may be seen from a paragraph or two:—