In a yielding disposition, a false prudence, a distrust of enthusiasm and energy, he found the real dangers of the Indian temperament.
“Our whole life from top to bottom smacks of fear,” he wrote, “deadly fear of losing in the estimation of those whom we in our heart of hearts believe to be only usurpers; fear of losing the sunshine of the smile of those whom we believe to be day and night engaged in the exploitation of our country and the spoliation of our people, fear of offending the false gods that have by fraud or force taken possessions of our bodies and souls, fear of being shut up in a dungeon or prison house, as if the freedom that we enjoy were not by its own nature one to be abhorred.”[68]
He was soon in his own person to prove the sincerity of his creed. The condition of the Punjab during 1907 was particularly deplorable. For thirteen years scarcity had prevailed almost without intermission in the south of the province, and the increasing poverty was only relieved by the hideous mortality of the plague. Just before Lajpat Rai’s deportation, the official record of deaths from plague in the Punjab alone rose to nearly 65,000 in one week, and the real number was almost certainly higher. On the top of hunger and plague, which we piously call the visitations of God, came the visitations of the Government in a largely increased revenue assessment, increased irrigation rates, the Colonization Bill threatening to break a solemn promise made by Government to the Chenab settlers fifteen years before, and the refusal of the Lieutenant-Governor to take any steps against the leading Anglo-Indian paper of Lahore for a series of abusive articles against Indians, whilst Indian papers were prosecuted and condemned for articles containing certainly no greater incitement to racial animosity.[69] The feeling in the Punjab became intensely embittered. Local riots occurred at Lahore and Rawal Pindi. Anglo-Indian journalists remembered that it was the fiftieth anniversary of the Mutiny. Strange precautions were taken. English people took refuge in the forts. In the haggard element of fear anything may assume a terrifying shape, and without trial or charge or warning, the most prominent member of the Arya Samaj was seized, and sent to Mandalay.[70]
It was all a little ironic, this treatment of a sad, retiring, clear-minded man, seeking neither advantage nor fame—one who had freely given up his possessions, and worked for many years unknown at the humblest duties. When I was at Peshawar, I ventured to ask one in authority why a man of such high reputation as Lajpat Rai should have been selected for attack, and in defence of the Punjab Government, he said: “You see, it was just because he was so good that they fired him. If he had been a rotter, they could have left him alone.” I think it was as fine a compliment as any political offender could hope for.
But it was not entirely for his personal excellence that the Punjab Government struck at Lajpat Rai, nor for the wide influence of his decisive eloquence. It was because they hoped to strike the Arya Samaj at the same time. The authorities in Northern India, always timid and suspicious owing to the neighbourhood of the Frontier and the more warlike character of the peoples, had long regarded the Samaj with special enmity. I have known a soldier, with papers of the highest character, turned out of a Sikh regiment admittedly for belonging to the Samaj. Much of this suspicion arises from false information, such as is always supplied to officials who remain isolated from the surrounding people. The editor of the Hindustan, for instance, who had recently been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, was described as a graduate of the Anglo-Vedic College, though he had hardly been there a month, and owed the rest of his training to a Christian Mission School. In the same way young Ajit Singh, who was deported on suspicion of tampering with the native troops, was described as a prominent Samajist, though he had never belonged to the Samaj at all. Some members of the Society have turned to politics, because for the moment the attraction is irresistible for many generous minds, and at such a time, as Disraeli said in “Sybil,” “to be young and to be indifferent are no longer synonymous.” But the Samaj as such has no concern with politics.
An Arya Samaj Teacher.
[Face p. 304.
It is a religious body—a Universal Church—bent only on religious purification and the training of youth in accordance with Vedic rules. One can understand the opposition of orthodox Hindus, Mohammedans, and Christian missionaries, for in its religious propaganda the Samaj is distinctly militant and gathers in many converts. But the Indian Government is mistaken in regarding it as a centre of sedition. The leaders of both sections—such men as Hans Raj, Principal of the Anglo-Vedic College in Lahore, and Lala Munshi Rama, Governor of the Gurukula, near Hardwar—have steadily set their faces against political work of any sort, and they discourage political discussion among the students as strictly as the Risley Circular. It is useless, they say, to look for the political regeneration of India while the character and intellect of the people are unregenerate. I do not agree with them, believing, as I do, that political freedom is essential for any regeneration of the national spirit. But to accuse the Samaj of political aims, to grasp at any forgery or lie which seeks to implicate the Society in sedition, are only signs of ignorance fixed in its isolation among a subject race. In the summer of 1907, Lala Munshi Rama wrote a detailed defence of the Samaj on this point in the Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore—a defence so just and reasonable that even the Gazette, conspicuous among Anglo-Indian papers for the virulence of its anti-Indian feeling, described the “dignity of this deeply pondered vindication” as commanding respect. In one passage he said:—
“It is an awful responsibility which these people undertake who try to set the Government against the Arya Samaj, a Society which is trying its best to uproot some of the evils of intemperance, of impurity, of child-marriage, of polygamy, of gambling, and a host of other vices—why, it is the Arya Samajists whom you find in the foremost rank of workers in the field.”