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The Gospel according to Surendranath
THE appearance of Babu Surendranath Banerji as an exponent of the "New Nationalism" is a phenomenon which shows the spread of the new spirit, but, we fear, nothing more. We congratulate Babu Surendranath on his conversion to the New Nationalism, but we are not sure that we can congratulate the New Nationalism on its convert. Nationalism is, after all, primarily an emotion of the heart and a spiritual attitude and only secondarily an intellectual conviction. Its very foundation is the worship of national liberty as the one political deity and the readiness to consider all things well lost if only freedom is won. "Let my name be blasted," cried Danton, "but let France be saved." "Let my name, life, possessions all go," cries the true Nationalist, "let all that is dear to me perish, but let my country be free." But Babu Surendranath is not prepared to consider the world well lost for liberty. He wishes to drive bargains with God, to buy liberty from Him in the cheapest market, at the smallest possible price. Until now he was the leader of those who desired to reach a qualified liberty by safe and comfortable means. He is now for an unqualified liberty; and since the way to absolute liberty cannot be perfectly safe and comfortable, he wants to make it as safe and comfortable as he can. It is evident that his conversion to the new creed is only a half and half conversion. He has acknowledged the deity, but he is not prepared for the sacrifice. It is always a danger to a new religion when it receives converts from among strong adherents of the old, for they are likely to bring in with them the spirit of the outworn creed and corrupt with it the purity of the new tenets. If leaders of the old school wish to be accepted as exponents of the New Nationalism, they must bring to it not only intellectual assent, but a new and changed heart -- a new heart of courage and enthusiastic self- sacrifice, to replace the old heart of selfish timidity and distrust of the national strength.
Page-273 In the
leading article of last Friday's Bengalee some very important
admissions are made. The unlimited possibilities of the organised national
strength of India are acknowledged without reservation. "There is no
limit to what they can do. We at any rate would set no limits to their ambition....
We want our
country to be as great in its own way as other countries are in theirs. And we
are determined to secure our rightful place in the federation of humanity by
methods which are least wasteful in their nature and would soonest bring us
to the assured destination." The federation of humanity is one of those
sounding phrases, dear to Babu Surendranath, which have no relation to
actualities; but the rightful place of India among the nations, federated or
unfederated, is one which cannot admit of any the least restriction on her
liberty. And the description of the methods to be used at least rules
petitioning out of court, for petitioning is certainly
wasteful in its nature and would not bring us soonest, -- nor, indeed,
at all -- to our assured destination. There is more
behind. "Where is the room for compromise in spiritual life? Nobody
has a right to tell us in regard to a question like this, thus far you shall go
and no farther. National expansion and self-realisation is a sacred duty which
we cannot lay aside at the bidding of any authority above or below. The charter
here is a charter from on high and no mundane authority has a right to undo
it." All this is admirable. It is true that the writer in the next breath
says, "We have no quarrel with anybody who does not
stand in our way," -- an obvious truism, --
and invites the Government
"not to block the way", promising it as a reward "a happy and not
inglorious transformation at no distant date". But the bureaucracy knows,
as well as the writer knows, that transformation is only an euphemism for
translation to a better world, and there is not the slightest chance of its
listening to this bland invitation. However, the fact stands out that Babu
Surendranath has declared for absolute autonomy to be arrived at by methods
which among other things would soonest bring us to the assured destination.
Page-274 nal. Our position is that it is imperatively necessary for this nation to enter
into an immediate struggle for national liberty which we must win at any cost;
that in this struggle we must be inspired and guided by the teachings of history
and those glorious examples which show how even nations degraded, enslaved and
internally disunited, can rapidly attain to freedom and unity; and that for this
purpose the great necessity is to awake in the nation a burning, an
irresistible, an unanimous will, to be free. The Bengalee denies all
these positions. We must win liberty, it holds, not by an immediate struggle but
by a long and weary journey; not by heavy sacrifices, but in the spirit of a
Banya by grudging, limited and carefully-calculated sacrifices. We are not to be
guided by the concrete lessons of history, but by vague and intangible
rhetorical generalisations about "our increased knowledge and wisdom, our
enlarged affections and interests of the present day". We are to curb our
will to be free by a "trained intelligence" which teaches us that we
are not a homogenous nation and must therefore tolerate differences.
Page-275 the annoyance
of finding its intellectual positions and its methods assailed; but we cannot
gratify it. So far as possible, our ideas are being realised in practice
wherever Nationalism is strong; out for their full effectiveness they need the
whole nation at their back and it is therefore our first duty to convince the
nation by exposing
pseudo-Nationalism in all its workings. Bande Mataram, April 22, 1907
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