-038_The Old Year.htm

The Old Year

                    THERE are periods in the history of the world when the unseen Power that guides its destinies seems to be filled with a consuming passion for change and a strong impatience of the old. The Great Mother, the Adya Shakti, has resolved to take the nations into Her hand and shape them anew. These are periods of rapid destruction and energetic creation, filled with the sound of cannon and the trampling of armies, the crash of great downfalls, and the turmoil of swift and violent revolutions; the world is thrown into the smelting pot and comes out in a new shape and with new features. They are periods when the wisdom of the wise is confounded and the prudence of the prudent turned into a laughing-stock; for it is the day of the prophet, the dreamer, the fanatic and the crusader, -- the time of divine revelation when Avatars are born and miracles happen. Such a period was the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth; in such a period we find ourselves at the dawn of this twentieth century the years of whose infancy have witnessed such wonderful happenings. The result of the earlier disturbance was the birth of a new Europe and the modernisation of the Western world; we are assisting now at the birth of a new Asia and the modernisation of the East. The current started then from distant America but the centre of disturbance was Western and Central Europe. This time there have been three currents, -- insurgent nationalism starting from South Africa, Asiatic revival starting from Japan, Eastern democracy starting from Russia; and the centre of disturbance covers a huge zone, all Eastern, Southern and Western Asia, Northern or Asiaticised Africa and Russia which form the semi-Asiatic element in Europe. As the pace of the revolution grows swifter, each new year becomes more eventful than the last and marks a large advance to the final consummation. No year of the new century has been more full of events than 1906-07, our year 1313.

    If we look abroad, we find the whole affected zone in agita-

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tion and new births everywhere. In the Far East the year has not been marked by astonishing events, but the total results have been immense. Within these twelve months China has been educating, training and arming herself with a speed of which the outside world has a very meagre conception. She has sent out a Commission of Observation to the West and decided to develop constitutional Government within the next ten years. She has pushed forward the work of revolutionising her system of education and bringing it into line with modern requirements. She has taken resolutely in hand the task of liberating herself from the curse of opium which has benumbed the energies of her people. She has sent her young men outside in thousands, chiefly to Japan, to be trained for the great work of development. With the help of Japanese instructors she is training herself quietly in war, and science, has made an immense advance in the organisation of a disciplined army, and is now busy laying the foundations of an effective navy. In spite of the arrogant protests of British merchants, she has taken her enormous customs revenue into her own hands for national purposes. By her successful diplomacy she has deprived England of the fruits of the unscrupulous, piratical attack upon Tibet and is maintaining her hold on that outpost of the Mongolian world.
        Japan during this year has been vigorously pushing on her industrial expansion at home and abroad; she has practically effected the commercial conquest of Manchuria and begun in good earnest the struggle with European trade and her manufactures are invading Europe and America. Her army reorganisation has been so large and thorough as to make the island Empire invincible in her own sphere of activity. A little cloud has sprung up between herself and America, but she has conducted herself with her usual sang froid, moderation and calm firmness; and, however far the difficulty may go, we may be sure that she will not come out of it either morally or materially a loser.
        In other parts of the Far East there have only been slight indications of coming movements. The troubles in the Philippines are over and America has restored to the inhabitants a certain measure of self-government, which, if used by the Filipinos with energy and discretion, may be turned into an instrument for the

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recovery of complete independence. Siam has purchased release from humiliating restrictions on her internal sovereignty at the heavy price of a large cession of territory to intruding France; but she is beginning to pay more attention to her naval and military development and it will be well if this means that she has realised the only way to preserve her independence. At present Siam is the one weak point in Mongolian Asia. Otherwise the events of this year show that by the terrible blow she struck at Russia, Japan has arrested the process of European absorption in the Far East.
        But the most remarkable feature of the past year is the awakening of the Mahomedan world. In Afghanistan it has seen the inception of a great scheme of National Education which may lay the basis of a State, strong in itself, organised on modern lines and equipped with scientific knowledge and training. Amir Abdur Rahman consolidated Afghanistan; it is evidently the mission of Habibullah, who seems not inferior in statesmanship to his great father, to modernise it. In Persia the year has brought about a peaceful revolution, -- the granting of Parliamentary Government by an Asiatic king to his subjects under the mildest passive pressure and the return of national life to Iran. In Egypt it has confronted the usurping role of England with a nationalist movement, not only stronger and more instructed than that of Arabi Pasha but led by the rightful sovereign of the country. The exhibition of cold-blooded British ferocity at Denshawi has defeated its object, and, instead of appalling the Egyptians into submission, made them more determined and united. It is now only a question of time for this awakening to affect the rest of Islam and check the European as effectually in Western Asia as he has been checked in the East.
        In this universal Asiatic movement what part has India to play? What has she done during the year 1313? In India too there has been an immense advance, -- an advance so great that we shall not be able to appreciate it properly until its results have worked themselves out. The year began with Barisal; it closes with Comilla. The growing intensity of the struggle in Eastern Bengal can be measured by this single transition, and its meaning is far deeper than appears on the surface. It means that the two

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forces which must contend for the possession of India's future, -- the British bureaucracy and the Indian people, -- have at last clashed in actual conflict. Barisal meant passive, martyr-like endurance; Comilla means active, courageous resistance. The fighting is at present only on the far eastern fringe of this great country; but it must, as it grows in intensity, spread westwards. Sparks of the growing conflagration will set fire to Western Bengal, and India is now far too united for the bureaucracy to succeed long in isolating the struggle.
        The second feature of the year has been the rapid growth of the Nationalist Party. It has in a few months absorbed Eastern Bengal, set Allahabad and the North on fire, and is stirring Madras to its depths. In Bengal it has become a distinct and recognised force so powerful in its moral influence that petitioning is practically dead and the whole nation stands committed to a policy of self-development and passive resistance. The Press a few months ago was, with the exception of a few Marathi weeklies, one journal in the Punjab, and the Sandhya and New India in Calcutta, almost entirely Moderate. The increase of Nationalist journals such as the Balbharat and Andhra Keshari in Madras, the Aftab in the North and ourselves in Calcutta, the appearance of local papers filled with the new spirit, the sudden popularity of a paper like the Yugantar and the extent to which the new ideas are infecting journals not avowedly of the new school, are indices of the rapidity with which Nationalism is formulating itself and taking possession of the country.
        A third feature of the year has been the growth of National Education. The Bengal National College has not only become an established fact but is rapidly increasing in numbers and has begun to build the foundations of a better system of education. The schools at Rungpore and Dacca already existed at the commencement of the year; but immediately after the Barisal outrage, fresh schools at Mymensingh, Kishoregunj, Comilla, Chandpur and Dinajpur were established. Since then there have been further additions, -- the Magura School, another in the Jessore District, another at Jalpaiguri, as well as a free primary school at Mogra. We understand that there is also a probability of a National School at Chittagong and Noakhali. No mean

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record for a single year. As was to be expected, most of these schools have grown up in the great centre of Nationalism, East Bengal.
        Such is the record of Nationalist advance in India in 1313. It is a record of steady and rapid growth; and the year closes with the starting of a tremendous issue which may carry us far beyond the stage of mere beginnings and preparations. Long ago we heard it prophesied that the year 1907 would see the beginning of the actual struggle for national liberty in India. It would almost seem as if in the turmoil in Tipperah the first blow had been struck.

Bande Mataram, April 16, 1907

A Vilifier on Vilification

Our Bombay contemporary, the Indu Prakash, is very wroth with the Nationalist Party for their want of sweet reasonableness. He accuses them of rowdyism "which would put the East End rowdy to shame", and adds, -- "Their forte seems to be abuse, vilification, impertinence and superlative silliness, and these are exhibited alternately." It strikes us that the Indu Prakash has been guilty of  "abuse, vilification, impertinence and superlative silliness" not alternately, but in a lump within the brief space of these two sentences. This sort of phraseology is, however, part of the ordinary Moderate rhetoric which is usually the reverse of moderate in its temper. Unable to meet the Nationalists in argument, they make up for it in invective, denouncing them as "maniacs", "rowdies", "mere school boys". We have already answered the charge of rowdyness and we will only add here that violent personal attack is not confined to one party. But the moderates have their own methods. They attack individual members of our party behind their backs or else in meetings in which the public are not admitted, like those of the Subjects committee, but not usually in public. They vilify them in the correspondence columns of their papers and ignore them or only abuse the party generally in the leading articles. Then they call this the decency and "high dignity of public life". We

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prefer to call it want of straightforwardness and courage. The Indu thinks that personal attacks and violent outbreaks of temper have no part in English politics. This is indeed a holy simplicity; and it is not for nothing that the Bombay journal calls itself Indu Prakash, "moonshine". It is true, of course, that English politicians do not carry their political wranglings and acerbities into social life to anything like the extent that the Continental peoples do or we do in India; and this is a most praiseworthy feature of English public life. We do not agree with the Indu that the differences which divide us are smaller than those which exist between English parties; but small or great, we agree that they should not generate hatred, if it can be avoided. But if the moderates are so anxious to avoid the acerbation of feelings, why should they not set the example? Let them avoid autocracy and caucus tactics, frankly recognise the Nationalists as a party whose opinions must be consulted, be conciliatory and constitutional in their procedure; and what the Indu misterms "Extremist rowdyism" will die a natural death.

By The Way

A Mouse in a Flutter

Poor N. N. Ghose! When we dealt with him faithfully in our "By the Way" column, we did so in the belief that it would do him good; the wounds given by a friend are wholesome, though painful. We expected that if we printed him in his true colours, he would recognise the picture, grow ashamed and reform; but it is possible we did wrong to pluck out so cruelly the heart of our Sankaritola Hamlet's mystery. Certainly we did not anticipate that the sight of his own moral lineaments would drive him into such an exhibition of shrieking and gesticulating fury as disfigures the Indian Nation of the 15th April. Such self-degradation by a cultured and respectable literary gentleman is very distressing and we apologise to the public for being the cause of this shocking spectacle. We will devote our column today to soothing down his ruffled plumes. By the way, we assure Mr.

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Ghose that when we talk of his ruffled plumes, we are not thinking of him in his capacity as a mouse at all. We are for a moment imagining him to be a feathered biped -- say, a pelican solitary in the wilderness or else, if he prefers it, a turtle-dove cooing to his newly-found mate in Colootola.
        What is it that Mr. Ghose lays to our charge? In the first place, he accuses us of having turned him into a mouse. In the second place, he complains that after turning him into a mouse, we should still treat him as a human being. "I am a mouse," he complains; "how can I have an arm of succour or a fully organised heart? I am a mouse, ergo I am neither a politician nor a cynic." We plead not guilty to both charges. We do not profess to have any magical power whatever and when we casually compared our revered contemporary to the mouse in the fable, we had not the least idea that we were using a powerful mantra which could double the number of Mr. Ghose's legs and change him into a furtive "rodent". The rest of our remarks we made under the impression that he was still a human being; why he should so indignantly resent being spoken of as a human being, we fail to understand. No, when we made the allusion, we did not mean to turn Mr. Ghose into a mouse any more than when we compared him to Satan reproving sin, we intended to turn him into the devil. But the Principal of the Metropolitan College seems as skilful in mixing other people's metaphors as in mixing his own.
        If, after this explanation, he still persists in his "mouse I am and mouse I remain" attitude we cannot help it. The worthy publicist seems to have had mice on his brain recently. The other day he discovered a winged or fluttering species of the rodent; now the mere mention of a mouse has engendered the delusion that he is one himself. We do not believe in the existence of fluttering mice, -- but after Mr. Ghose's recent exhibition we can well believe in the existence of a mouse in a flutter. This time he seems to have discovered a new species which he calls "rhodents"! There was much discussion in our office as to this new animal. Some thought it a brilliant invention of the printer's devil; others opined that in his wild excitement the editor's cockney-made pen had dropped an "h"; others held that our

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Calcutta Hamlet, unlike the Shakespearian, cannot distinguish between a mouse and a rhododendron. A learned Government Professor assured us, however, that rhodon is Greek for a rose and that Mr. Ghose has found a new species of mouse that not only flutters but flowers, -- of which he believes himself to be the only surviving specimen. However that may be, we have learned our lesson and will never compare him to a "rhodent" again. A rose by another name will smell as sweet and a mouse by any other name will gnaw as hard.

Bande Mataram, April 17, 1907

Simple, not Rigorous

The finale of the Punjabee case has converted a tragedy into a farce. The bureaucracy started to crush the New Spirit in Punjab by making a severe example of its leading exponent in the Press. They have ended by acerbating public feeling in the Punjab and creating racial hostility -- the very offence for which, ostensibly, the Punjabee is punished, -- without gaining their ends. The ferocious severity of the sentence passed on Srijut Jaswant Rai has defeated its own object. Reduced in length from two years to six months in the Sessions Court, it has in the final appeal been reduced in its nature from rigorous to simple imprisonment. The upshot is that the Government enjoys the honour of entertaining two patriotic Nationalists with an unsolicited hospitality for the next six months. Meanwhile, the tone of. the Nationalist Press will not be lowered by one note nor its determination to speak the truth without fear or favour affected even in the smallest degree. But the memory of the original sentence will remain; the gulf between the aliens and the people yawns yet wider. Incidentally the Punjabee has been endeared to all India by its boldness and readiness to suffer for the cause; its circulation has been largely increased and its influence more than doubled. Well done, most simple and rigorous bureaucracy!

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British Interests and British Conscience

"The demand for popular self-government must be resisted in the interests of Egypt" -- this is the Pioneer's, verdict on the National Movement in that unhappy land. We can understand why Egyptian aspirations must be stifled in the interests of the "protectors" of Egypt; but to say that this must be done in the interests of the children of the soil is indeed monstrous. The inordinate self-conceit of Englishmen very often betrays them into ludicrous absurdities. 'The Britisher fancies himself the Heaven-appointed ruler of the universe; and whoever ventures to stand in his way must be a nuisance, a rebel, a traitor. The whole history of Britain is a long struggle for liberty; and even the other day the British Premier could not help exclaiming, "The Duma is dead; long live the Duma." But whenever it is a question of Egypt or India where British interests are at stake, British greed overpowers British conscience and all sorts of monstrous arguments are fabricated to justify the suppression of popular movements. But the history of the British occupation of Egypt which began as a temporary measure and perpetuated itself as a piece of expediency, is quite well known and the world can no longer be deceived by journalistic falsehoods.

A Recommendation

The Englishman has arrogated to itself the office of Press-censor and has commenced to issue certificates of good conduct to our moderate contemporaries. Those that have not the good fortune to see with it eye to eye are branded as seditious. This is what it wrote in its yesterday's issue: -
        "We regret that in a recent issue we confounded the two papers Swadesh and Swaraj, identifying the politics of the former with those of Bande Mataram and other journals of the same bilious tinge. As a matter of fact, Swadesh is conducted with moderation and ability and is by no means to be confused with the seditious sheets which are doing so much mischief in this country."

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A critic who confounds the names of journals on which he sits in judgment, is a sight for Gods and men; and we congratulate our Swadesh friend on the testimonial secured from so high a quarter. But is it solicited or unsolicited? The seditious rags may now envy the distinction. But will they be tempted to mend their ways? We would suggest a kaisar-i-Hind for meritorious journals and recommend the Indian Mirror and the Indian Nation for the first two medals.

Bande Mataram, April 18, 1907

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