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How to Meet the Ordinance
WHEN we come to look at it closely, the new policy of the British Government in India is a real blessing to the country. We find ourselves in unexpected agreement with the Anglo-Indian Press in this matter. The Anglo-Indian Press is full of joy at these departures from pre-established policy and as- severs in one chorus though in many keys, ekam bahudhā, that it is the very best thing the bureaucracy could have done in the interests of its own continued supremacy. We will not question their authority in a matter in which they alone are interested but we can certainly add that it is the very best thing the bureaucracy could have done in the interests of the country. Lord Minto ought therefore to be a very happy man, for it is not everyone whose actions are so blessed by Fate as to command equal approbation from the Englishman and the Bande Mataram. Our reasons for this approval are obvious on the face of it. The great strength of British despotism previous to Lord Curzon's regime was its indirectness. By a singularly happy policy it was able to produce on the subject nations the worst moral and material results of serfdom, while at the same time it never allowed them to realise that they were serfs, but rather fostered in them the delusion that they were admirably governed on the whole by an enlightened and philanthropic people. We pointed out the other day that the relics of this superstition still lingered even in the minds of many thoroughgoing Nationalists of the new school. We did not indeed believe that the bureaucratic Government was a good government or the British people guided in their politics by enlightenment and philanthropy, but many of us believed that there were certain excesses of despotism of which they were not capable and that the worst British administration would not easily betray overt signs of moral kinship with its Russian cousin. We ourselves, although we were prepared for the worst and always took care to warn the people that the worst might soon come, thought sometimes that there was a fair ba-
Page-337 lance of probabilities for and against frank downward Russianism. For such last relics of the old superstitions, for such over-charitable speculation, there is no longer any room. The whole country owes a debt of gratitude to Sirdar Ajit Singh and the Bharat Mata section of the Punjab Nationalists for forcing the hands of the bureaucracy and compelling them to change, definitely, indirect for direct methods of despotism. It has cleared the air, it has dispelled delusions; it has forced us to look without blinking into the face of an iron Necessity. The question may then be asked, what farther room is there for passive resistance? A Punjab politician is said to have observed, after the arrests of Lala Hansraj and his friends and the first development of violent insanity in the Punjab authorities, "I do not see why the people should go on any longer with open agitation." But, in our opinion, there is still room for passive resistance, if for nothing else than to force the bureaucracy to lay all its cards face upward on the table; the oppression must either be broken or increased so that the iron may enter deeper into the soul of the nation. There is still work and work enough for the martyr, before the hero appears on the scene. Take for instance the Coercion Ukase, the new ordinance to restrict the right of public meeting at the sweet will of the executive. It is obvious that the matter cannot be allowed to rest where it is. We would suggest to the leaders that the right policy to begin with is to ignore the existence of the Ordinance. So far as we understand, the Lieutenant-Governor of Shillong has been empowered to proclaim any area in his jurisdiction, but as yet no area has been proclaimed. This is therefore the proper time for the leaders to go to East Bengal and hold meetings in every District; and those who go, should not be any lesser men, but the leaders of the two parties in Bengal themselves. We are inclined to think it was a mistake to recall Srijut Bepin Chandra Pal from Madras at this juncture; but since he has been recalled, it should be for a joint action in East Bengal against the policy of repression. If the bureaucracy lie low, well and good; it will be a moral victory for the people. But the moment any particular area is proclaimed, the leaders should immediately go there and hold the prohibited meetings as a challenge to the validity of the ukase, refusing to
Page-338 disperse except on the application of force by the police or the military. The bureaucracy will then have the choice either of allowing the Ordinance to remain a dead letter or of imprisoning or deporting men the prosecution of whom will so inflame the people all over India as to make administration impossible or of breaking up meetings by force. If they adopt the third alternative, the leaders should then go from place to place and house to house, like political Shankaracharyas, gathering the people together in groups in private houses and compounds and speaking to them in their gates, advising them, organising them. In this way the fire of Nationalism will enter into every nook and cranny of the country and a strength be created far greater than any which monster meetings can engender. How will the bureaucracy meet such a method of propagandism? Will they forbid us to congregate in our own compounds? Will their police enter our houses and force us to shut our gates to the guest and the visitor? Whatever they do, the country will gain. Every fresh object-lesson in bureaucratic methods will be a fresh impulse to the determination to achieve Swaraj and get rid of the curse of subjection. All that is needed to meet the situation, all that we demand of our leaders is a quiet, self-possessed, unflinching courage which neither the fear of imprisonment, nor the menace of deportation, nor the ulterior possibility of worse than deportation, can for a moment disturb.
That Mr. Morley should completely throw off the mask and unceremoniously declare his real attitude towards Nationalist aspirations is more than what was expected by most people. It is not customary with politicians to be so rudely and unnecessarily frank. Besides, such frankness is calculated to shake that faith in their benevolent professions which is the chief security of British domination in India. We have always been deceived by words. The effect of a series of repressive measures on the feelings of the people is at once counteracted by one kind word from a Viceroy or Secretary of State. Mere flattering promises have
Page-339 hitherto been sufficient to win and retain our allegiance. Why our bureaucrats have broken away from their policy of keeping their real intention veiled behind a number of cant phrases and now make no secret of their determination to put down Nationalism with a high hand can be easily understood by those who have been watching the progress of events during the last two years. The appearance of a Nationalist Party and the home truths they preach have been causing real anxiety to the bureaucracy. If this party gets the ear of the people whose patriotic impulses are never checked by considerations of expediency or immediate self-interest, then such a popular re-awakening is bound to strike at the very root of foreign overlordship. It has therefore become essentially necessary to intercept all communications between the people and their real leaders and well-wishers. It is for this reason that these openly despotic methods are being tried in order to demoralise the Nationalists. The other game is to tempt the Moderates to betray the country by ever dangling before their eyes the bait of administrative reform. This is in every way a great crisis for the country and by his conduct at this moment every man shall be judged. Persecution and temptation are God's methods for separating the showy dross from the true gold.
The Hindu Patriot claims to have grown wise with age, and tries to argue us into serfdom. Happily oblivious of its younger days when it had not yet been prompted by senile prudence to sell itself to the alien lords, it comes forward to justify its back-sliding and aim a few ineffective blows at the Swarajists. This is how it analyses the present situation: — We want food for our nourishment; we want education; we want new outlets for the employment of our sons. But they give us none of these. They would make us swallow the bitter pill of autonomy even at the point of the bayonet and preach the Gospel of "Swaraj". It is to be our food, our raiment and the panacea for all our evils. Everything else they would throw overboard.
Page-340 It would scarcely have called for notice had not this view been shared even now by a small section of the so-called educated community. The Patriot tries to establish what has been disproved by our experience during the last quarter of a century. We had been trying patch-works and half-measures — with what effect the Patriot knows as well as ourselves. It was only when we discovered that we had begun at the wrong end, that the ever-increasing drain on the country with its necessary accompaniments — plague and famine — could not be stopped so long as the people were left to the tender mercy of the foreign overlord, that the cry of Swaraj went forth, and people began to take politics more seriously than before. It is exactly because we cannot get food for nourishment, nor proper education nor even "employment for our sons", so long as we have to depend for these things on our unwelcome guests, that we have begun to think of managing our household, and surely it can serve no useful purpose to ignore our own experience and repeat the political farce over again. Are Englishmen here to give us food and education and provide fat berths for our own children? The whole political situation has been misunderstood, and where the very premises are wrong, the arguments can but lead astray. Bande Mataram, May 15, 1907
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