A Nation in Making/Chapter 19

​19

The Boycott and 'Swadeshi' Movement

While these discussions were in progress, the idea of what was afterwards called the 'Boycott Movement' was in the air, and thrust itself into prominence in our deliberations. Much has been written and said about its genesis. From whose fertile brain did it spring when did it first see the light? Both these questions it would be difficult to answer with anything like accuracy. When the public has been roused by any stirring event, its hidden springs touched, and its slumbering forces set in motion by some great calamity or by the passionate desire to work out a cherished ideal, promising to unfold a new chapter in a nation's history, the moral atmosphere becomes fruitful under the pressure of new ideas; for the mind of the whole community is at work and makes its contribution to the sum total of national thought.

In my younger days, I had read Macaulay's graphic account of the condition of English society on the eve of the Civil War between Charles I and his Parliament—how the coming struggle overshadowed all other considerations, how it penetrated the homes of England and became the subject of conversation round every fireplace, how it leavened thought and moulded aspirations. Something of the same absorbing interest was roused by Lord Curzon's Partition of Bengal. The whole community felt a concern about a matter affecting their province such as they had never experienced before. The community was writhing under a sense of surprise and indignation, accentuated by the farce of a conference at 'Belvedere', with its seeming deference to public opinion. It was in this state of the public mind that the idea of a boycott of British goods was publicly started—by whom I cannot say—by several, I think, at one and the same time. It first found expression at a public meeting in the district of Pabna, and it was repeated at public meetings held in other mofussil towns; and the successful boycott of American goods by the Chinese was proclaimed throughout Asia and reproduced in the Indian newspapers.

The feeling was further emphasized by the stirrings of an industrial movement that was beginning to fasten its hold on the ​public mind. The Swadeshi movement had already come into existence. At any rate the Swadeshi spirit was abroad. It was in the air. There was a growing party among the educated community who espoused it. Our industrial helplessness was attracting attention in an increasing measure; and it was readily perceived that the boycott would be a double-edged weapon, industrial and political, in its scope and character.

The idea of a boycott was anxiously discussed for days together at our conferences. There was, as the result of these discussions, a pretty general unanimity of feeling amongst us. It was recognized that in the state of public feeling which then prevailed the movement would meet with general support; and the result fully justified this anticipation.

The only objection that was felt and seriously discussed was, how it would affect our English friends. Would they approve of it? Would they sympathize with it? Might they not regard it as an open avowal of ill will? For, as I have already observed, there were many Englishmen in Calcutta who strongly disapproved of the Partition, and of the form and the manner in which it was carried out. They were helping us with their advice and the weight of their moral support. We were anxious that we should do nothing to alienate them, and that we should continue to receive their sympathy, which proved so helpful. Further, our appeal lay to the British public against the decision of the Government of India. We knew that Lord Curzon and the India Office would do all that lay in their power to prevent a revision of the orders passed. We felt some doubt as to how the movement would be viewed by the British public.

Thus the movement was not anti-British in its origin, nor even in its subsequent developments, though our official critics tried to make out that it was so; and we wanted to know what the British standpoint was likely to be, from Englishmen who might be presumed to be in closer touch than we could be with the temper and opinion of their countrymen at home. How foolish it would have been to have made an appeal to the British public for the reversal of an order of the Government of India by starting an anti- British movement! The organizers of the movement were presumably men of common sense, and they were not going to begin business by an act of folly that would make the British public turn a deaf ear to their appeals.

​The terms of the resolution on the subject adopted at the Town Hall meeting demonstrated their anxiety to proceed with caution and care, and to offend no interest that might be enlisted in their favour. I was commissioned to consult some English friends as to whether they would advise such a resolution and what should be its form. As the communications were confidential, it would not be right to disclose their names even at this distance of time. But, one and all without a single exception, they advised the adoption of the course that had been suggested. A final conference was held at the house of Maharaja Surya Kanto Acharya of Mymensingh, when it was definitely decided to accept the following resolution:

It will thus be seen that the boycott was a temporary measure adopted for a particular object, and was to be given up as soon as that object was attained. Its only aim and purpose was to call the attention of the British public to Bengal's great grievance, and, when the partition was modified and the grievance was removed, the boycott was to cease. That pledge was redeemed.

That the boycott sometimes led to excesses no one will dispute; but all constitutional movements suffer from this inherent weakness, which springs from the defects of our common human nature. All causes—the purest and the noblest—will have their moderates and their extremists. But the excesses, more or less incidental to all constitutional movements, have never been held as an argument against the adoption of constitutional methods for the redress of public grievances. If such a view were held, some of the noblest chapters of human history would have been left unwritten, and we should have been without the inspiration of self-sacrifice and patriotic devotion, which have so often been associated with the struggle for constitutional freedom. Who will say that because there is unhappily a revolutionary propaganda in Bengal, undoubtedly limited and insignificant in the circle of its influence, all constitutional efforts should be given up? The enemies of Indian advancement would wish for nothing better. The friends of Indian progress would view it as a calamity.

​The Boycott Resolution was entrusted to Babu Narendranath Sen. It would have been impossible to have found among the ranks of Bengal leaders one who by his moderation and patriotism was so well qualified for the task. Babu Narendranath Sen was then at the height of his fame and influence. He was the editor of the Indian Mirror, the only daily newspaper at the time in Bengal under Indian management and control. He had long fought the battles of his country with constancy and courage; and his character for sobriety and self-restraint made him respected even by those who did not view Indian aspirations with a friendly eye. It were much to be wished that to the last he had maintained his hold over the affections of his countrymen. But, alas! the closing chapters of his life dimmed the lustre of that great popularity which at one time made him a power in the counsels of his countrymen. The unhappy anarchical developments in Bengal somewhat unhinged a temperament in which the emotions played so prominent a part. He viewed them with concern and dismay, and this champion of a free Press went so far, in his solicitude to support the authorities, as to con- sent to receive a subsidy from the State for the publication of a vernacular newspaper.

It was an un-English and unwise policy for the Government to pursue, for such a paper could command no influence; but it was a matter of national regret that Babu Narendranath Sen should have lent the weight of his name and influence in support of a journalistic enterprise that was so thoroughly condemned by his countrymen. This, however, was the solitary flaw in a career of exceptional brilliancy and usefulness; and the historian of our times will accord to Narendranath Sen his rightful place among contemporaries, as a fearless champion of the public interests, and a warm and devoted worker in the cause of Indian progress. If his wary footsteps gave way in a position of exceptional difficulty, who amongst us is so blameless, so far removed from human failings, that he can afford to throw the first stone at him?

I remember Narendranath Sen in the days of his sturdy manhood, when age and disappointment had not worked their havoc upon his noble temperament, when he was the terror of evil-doers, and when the enemies of his country shrank from his virile presence. I saw him the day before his death. It was a hot day in August; Narendranath Sen lay prostrate on his bed. He was weak, scarcely able to speak, but still in full possession of his faculties. Not a word passed between him and me. We exchanged glances. ​He looked at me with a look on which, as it seemed to me, were imprinted the memories of the past. Tears flowed down his cheeks. I returned the sad and loving glance, my eyes dim with tears, which I tried to check as best as I could, amid the grim surroundings of that chamber of death. I came away with a heavy heart, feeling that my honoured colleagues were one by one passing away, leaving 'the world to darkness and to me'.

It is worthy of remark that the Boycott Resolution did not elicit any marked sense of disapproval from the European Press, certainly not the strong resentment that it subsequently provoked. All that the Englishman newspaper said about it was that 'the policy of boycott must considerably embitter the controversy if it is successful, while in the opposite event it will render the movement and its supporters absurd'. The Statesman was inclined to ridicule the whole movement, but there was not a trace of any resentment on the ground that an anti-British agitation had been inaugurated.

I have dwelt at some length on the attitude of Anglo-Indian opinion with regard to the Boycott Resolution, in order to indicate that the subsequent change that took place was but the reflex of the official bitterness which the success of the movement evoked. Bureaucracy is always unequal to a new situation or to an unexpected development. So long as things go on in the normal groove, bureaucracy, deriving its light and leading from precedent and from ancient and dust-laden files, feels happy and confident. But when the clouds appear on the horizon and when there is the ominous presage of stormy weather ahead, the bureaucratic mind feels restive; the files afford no guidance; the bureaucrat is disturbed; he loses his equanimity; his uneasiness slides into resentment; ​and, imagining dangers where there are none, he adopts heroic measures, which engender the very troubles that wiser and more pacific counsels would have averted.

A boycott movement in India had never before been thought of or attempted. It was a bold conception; and the first impulse of all spectators, as in the case of the Statesman, was to treat it with ridicule. But the success that it soon attained disclosed the volume of public sentiment that was behind it. Without a more or less universal feeling supporting it, the boycott was bound to fail. Its success was a revelation to all; it outstripped the anticipations of its inaugurators. But the bureaucracy in those days would learn nothing that was not in its files and was not consecrated by the dust of the Secretariat shelves. It was amazed at the ebullition of public feeling—it was indignant—it lost all self-control; it sought to repress where tactful handling and conciliatory measures would have been more effective, and it thus added to the intensity of the flame.

The course of events during the whole of the controversy in connexion with the Partition of Bengal bears out what I have just observed. There was throughout a persistent attempt to suppress the expression of public feeling in the name of law and order; and, as always happens in such cases, the attempt at repression recoiled upon its authors. More repressive measures were requisitioned; and the more signally did they fail; and the public excitement and unrest grew apace.

Undoubtedly the student community were deeply moved, and in the exuberance of their zeal they were sometimes betrayed into excesses. When a great impulse stirs the heart of a community it is the young and impressionable who feel the full impact of the rising tide. At all times and in all ages it is to the young that the preachers of new movements have addressed themselves. 'Suffer little children to come unto me' were the words of the divinely-inspired Founder of Christianity. In Greece, in Italy, in America, in Germany, all over the world, when a new gospel was preached, charged with the message of a new hope, it was the young who enthusiastically responded to the call.

I appealed to the young to help us in the great national movement. I knew how deeply they were stirred when I was sent to prison for contempt of court, and I felt that they would help to create a body of public opinion without which we could not hope to succeed. I addressed them at numerous public meetings, and warm was the response. It had its roots in economic rather than in ​political causes. The Partition had indeed moved their deepest feelings, but they were more concerned with the spread of the Swadeshi movement than with the political propaganda that sought to reverse the Partition of Bengal.

Their enthusiasm was roused to a pitch such as I had never before witnessed. It was positively dangerous for a schoolboy or a college student to appear in a class or lecture room in clothes made of a foreign stuff. The students would not submit to exercise books being circulated for their class examinations with paper that had been manufactured abroad. I remember a schoolboy appearing in the fourth form of the Ripon Collegiate School with a shirt made of foreign cloth. As soon as the discovery was made, the shirt was torn off his back, and he narrowly escaped lynching. Let me here relate one more incident of a similar character. At an examination of the Ripon College students, the college authorities supplied foreign-manufactured paper upon which the answers were to be written. The students in a body refused to touch the blank books that were supplied. So strong was the feeling that it was thought not safe to ignore it. Country-made paper had to be substituted, and the examination then proceeded in the usual way.

It was the fervour of the students that communicated itself to the whole community and inspired it with an impulse, the like of which had never been felt before. It was a strange upheaval of public feeling. The Swadeshi movement invaded our homes and captured the hearts of our women-folk, who were even more enthusiastic than the men. A grand-daughter of mine, then only five years old, returned a pair of shoes that had been sent to her by a relative, because they were of foreign make. The air was surcharged with the Swadeshi spirit, and it is no exaggeration to say that our young men were the creators of this stupendous moral change.

I have not witnessed a revolution in my time, nor by an effort of the imagination can I conceive what it is like. But, amid the upheaval of the Swadeshi movement, I could, I think, obtain some idea of the transformation of public feeling and of the wild excitement which must precede a revolutionary movement. A strange atmosphere is created. Young and old, rich and poor, literate and illiterate, all breathe it, and all are swayed and moved and even transported by the invisible influence that is felt. Reason halts; judgment is held in suspense; it is one mighty impulse that moves the heart of the community and carries everything before it. An eminent doctor told me that in the height of the Swadeshi move​ment a girl-patient of his, not more than six years old, cried out in her delirium that she would not take any foreign medicine.

How was it that every one was so moved? The visible and outward conditions do not suffice to explain it. But after all, the element of mystery, if there is any, vanishes before the gaze of the earnest student of history. The Swadeshi movement did not come into birth with the agitation for the reversal of the Partition of Bengal. It was synchronous with the national awakening which the political movement in Bengal had created. The human mind is not divided into watertight compartments, but is a living organism; and, when a new impulse is felt in one particular direction, it affects the whole organism and is manifest throughout the entire sphere of human activities. When the Congress movement was started in the early eighties of the last century it was, and is even now, a common enough remark among a certain class of writers, perhaps not friendly to Indian interests, that it would have been far better, and a more natural course, to have commenced with the vital problems of social reform than with political considerations, which might have been more usefully dealt with later on, after our social and domestic institutions had been placed on a better and more satisfactory footing. The whole course of our national evolution has belied this confident assertion. Social reform, industrial revival, moral and spiritual uplift, have all followed in the track of the great national awakening, which had its roots in the political activities of our leaders. Once again the truth was established, that all reforms are inter-linked and interdependent, and that they act and react upon one another, and strengthen one another by their mutual interaction. The activities of Iswar Chunder Vidyasagar helped Keshub Chunder Sen by enabling him to appeal to instincts and tendencies broadened by the spirit of reform. His work, in its turn, helped that of Kristo Das Pal and others; and the new school of politicians, fresh from their contact with the West, familiar with Western methods and imbued with the Western spirit, left the beaten track and extended the scope of their work by direct appeals to the educated community and even to the masses. The new ideals and the new methods moved the people, and imparted to them an impulse that bore fruit in the manifold activities of an awakened national life.

Industrial revival followed as a matter of course, and devoted men, instinct with the new spirit, applied themselves to the development of our indigenous industries. One of the earliest pioneers in ​this field was Jogesh Chunder Chaudhuri. He belonged to a highly capable family, one of the members of which, Sir Ashutosh Chaudhuri, became a Judge of the High Court of Calcutta. Mr. Jogesh Chunder Chaudhuri is a member of the Calcutta High Court Bar, and is the founder of the Weekly Notes, a law journal which has a recognized and authoritative place among legal publications. But he is no mere lawyer; and the development of the indigenous industries of his country had an irresistible fascination for him. He it was who first started an Industrial Exhibition of Swadeshi articles as an annexe to the Indian National Congress. That was in 1896, and a similar exhibition on a much larger scale was again held under his management in 1906, in connexion with the Calcutta Congress of that year.

Thus when the anti-Partition controversy arose, the ground for a Swadeshi movement had already been prepared, and the political enthusiasm of our people was linked with the fervour to uplift our industrial status. The Swadeshi movement was in spirit a protectionist movement. Only, as we had not the power to make laws, which was in hands other than our own, we sought to surround our domestic industries with a tariff wall not raised by the mandate of the legislature, but by the determined will of our people. Such a movement could only succeed among a highly emotional people, swayed by an impulse that was universal.

The European Press viewed the whole thing as a huge mistake, and was confident that it would soon disappear as a nine days' wonder. That it lasted much longer and was in fairly vigorous operation during the six years that the Partition was in force, was the wonder of foreign visitors, accustomed to the economic conditions prevalent in the Western world. That the people of Bengal should continue, and that for several years, to purchase home-made things at a higher price when similar or even superior articles, imported from foreign countries, could be had cheaper, was a striking testimony to their devotion and self-sacrificing spirit. In this they have never been wanting when the occasion required it, but to this quality, I fear, justice has not always been done.

A powerful, overmastering impulse soon breaks its prescribed bounds and penetrates into the many-sided relations of life. It soon becomes a social force. Swadeshism during the days of its potency coloured the entire texture of our social and domestic life. Marriage presents that included foreign goods, the like of which could be manufactured at home, were returned. Priests would often decline ​to officiate at ceremonies where foreign articles were offered as oblations to the gods. Guests would refuse to participate in festivities where foreign salt or foreign sugar was used. So great was the pressure of public opinion that no Bengalee would think of purchasing a foreign-made dhoti or saree; and, if he wanted to do so for its cheapness, it had to be done during the hours of darkness, when no eyes would watch him, or, if watched, he would elude observation under the friendly covering of night.