A Nation in Making/Chapter 20

​20

Swadeshism and 'Bande-Mataram'

We have heard a great deal about the Non-Co-operation movement. To-day the vernacular Press is far more widespread in its influence than it was at the time of the Swadeshi movement; and the vernacular Press in its utterances distinctly leans towards Non-Co-operation. But the truth cannot be gainsaid that Non-Co-operation is nowhere as compared to the influence that Swadeshism exercised over our homes and our domestic life. Non-Co-operation, even in its strongest centres (and they are not many in Bengal), is not a social force, such as Swadeshism was in the days of its power and influence. There are innumerable villages in Bengal where the charka and the khaddar are unknown. I wish it were otherwise; but the truth must be stated. An industrial movement linked with a political controversy may receive a momentary impulse which may send it far forward, but in the long run it suffers by such association. An industry must be conducted on business lines; and business considerations must, in the long run, guide and dominate its course and progress. Capital, organization and expert knowledge—these constitute the basic foundations of an industrial enterprise. A patrictic impulse will certainly help it; but only for a time, and will cease to be operative when normal conditions are restored.

It is sometimes said that our public movements are soulless, and that they are so because we do not always take the masses of our people with us. This is perhaps neither the time nor the place to discuss this question. The masses do not actively associate themselves with any public movement unless their own particular interests are vitally concerned. All great movements originate with and are guided and controlled by, the intellectual leaders of the community, the masses more or less sympathizing with them and lending them the weight of their moral support. They are vocal only on great occasions, demonstrative and sometimes uncontrollable when their deeper feelings have been roused, and the memories of past wrongs, or the sense of present oppression, are ​kindled in their breasts. The Swadeshi movement appealed to their personal interests. They had sense enough to perceive that the movement, if successful, would herald the dawn of a new era of material prosperity for them.

When I entered public life nearly fifty years ago, I had three ideals, which have never failed to inspire me, and to which I always, amid the many vicissitudes of my political life, endeavoured, according to my opportunities, to give effect. They were: (1) The unification of the various Indian peoples upon a common platform for the advancement of our common political interests; (2) the establishment of friendly and fraternal relations between Hindus and Mohamedans as the first indispensable condition of Indian progress; and (3) the uplifting of the masses and their association with us in our public movements. It was for the realization of the first two of these ideals that I toured all over India in 1876 and 1877, spoke upon the question of Indian unity at numerous public meetings, and sought to unite all India in a common demand for the redress of a great national grievance. To me the Swadesh movement opened out a splendid opportunity for the realization of one of the ideals of my life, and I embraced it with alacrity and enthusiasm.

Swadeshi meetings were held all over the country, even in places beyond our own province. I was present addressing as many meetings (mostly in Bengalee) and in as many places as I could, and as my health and strength would permit. It was a time of unusual excitement and strenuous work. None spared himself. Every one did his best. We travelled to places strange and unknown, often difficult of access. We ate strange food. We minded nothing. We complained of nothing. We put up with the severest hardships and inconveniences in our journeys to distant places. We faced the risks of malaria and cholera. Our enthusiasm was our protection. Our faith in our immunity from danger and disease was a moral inoculation that never failed.

There was one comrade to whom I cannot help referring in this connexion, and I do so all the more readily, as he has long been lost to us. I mean Pundit Kali Prosanna Kabyavisarad, editor of the Hitabadi newspaper. In ill-health, suffering from a fatal ailment (Bright's disease), he was present at every Swadeshi meeting to which he was invited. He introduced a new element into the Swadeshi meetings, which is now largely employed in our public demonstrations. They usually begin with some patriotic song, appropriate to the occasion. Kabyavisarad had a fine musical talent. ​He himself could not sing, but he composed songs of exquisite beauty, which were sung at the Swadeshi meetings and never failed to produce a profound impression. He had a natural gift for musical composition, and, though he had an imperfect knowledge of Hindi, his Hindi song (Deshki e kaya halat) was one of the most impressive of its kind. It was a fierce denunciation of the passion for foreign goods in preference to domestic articles, and, when it was sung at the great Congress at Calcutta in 1906, attended by thousands of our people, it threw the whole audience into a state of wild excitement.

Kabyavisarad was always attended by two musical experts, who opened and closed the proceedings of Swadeshi meetings with their songs. They were taught, paid and maintained by him; and, though by no means rich, he sought no extraneous assistance for their upkeep. He was not much of a speaker, but as a writer he was the master of a vigorous and caustic style which he ruthlessly employed against the cnemies of Indian advancement. A devoted patriot, he never spared himself in the service of the motherland; and I remember his attending the Lucknow Congress of 1899, with fever on him, and a warrant in a defamation case hanging over him. He was reckless of health and life; strong-willed, and even obstinate, above all advice and remonstrance. He was rapidly sinking into his grave. Those near and dear to him thought that the best way to improve his health and to save him from the consequences of his, fanatical devotion to the Swadeshi cause was to send him away from the scene of his loved labours. A friend was going to Japan as a doctor on board a passenger ship; and his relations persuaded Kabyavisarad to accompany him, believing that rest and sea-voyage would do him good. Somehow the idea never found favour with me. A presentiment haunted me. Possibly public considerations were working in the inner depths of my consciousness, and coloured my judgment. However that may be, I tried to dissuade Kabyavisarad. He called me his political guru; but so did many others without his fervour or devotion, and who are too ready to fling mud at their guru. He at one time made up his mind not to go, but at last yielded to pressure. He took leave of me in front of the Howrah railway station, as we returned from a Swadeshi meeting at Mugkalyan on the Bengal-Nagpur line, a few miles from Calcutta. He took the dust of my feet. I blessed him. Alas! we were destined never to meet again, for he died at sea on the return voyage.

​Thus was lost to Bengal one of the ablest and most patriotic journalists, who wielded the resources of our language with a power that made him the terror of his enemies and of the enemies of his country. He was not indeed above personalities, the bane of a species of vernacular journalism from which unhappily we have not yet emerged; and some of his sallies into the domain of domestic sanctities we must all deplore and condemn. But his fiercest personal attacks were directed against the enemies of Indian advancement, too often masquerading in the guise of friends and well-wishers. The news of his death was received in Calcutta on July 7, 1907; and when, a fortnight later, the District Conference of the 24-Parganas was held at Baraset, and the proceedings were opened with his Swadeshi songs, there were few in that audience who could withhold the tribute of their tears to the memory of one who, despite his faults and failings—and he had many—served his country with fidelity and devotion, and with a courage that never flinched.

But though a great Swadeshi worker had passed away, the cause did not suffer. All great movements, however much they may be indebted to personal initiative and genius, are largely independent of even commanding personalities. These sow the seeds, which fructify in the birth of men who, though not always their equals, are yet capable of bearing their burden and carrying on their work. Kabyavisarad's enthusiasm was but a reflex of the fervour that was so widely prevalent.

The Government was alarmed at the upheaval of public feeling, and it adopted the familiar methods of repression, which only served to stimulate such feeling. Agricola is reported by Tacitus to have made the shrewd observation that the government of a household is more difficult than that of an empire. When an explosion takes place in a family, the healing influences of time and good sense, aided by friendly counsels, help to bring things to their normal condition; and generally they are found to be effective. But a bureaucracy armed with omnipotent power is tempted to follow short cuts in dealing with an unforeseen situation. Repression is handy and promises to be effective. The heavy price that has to be paid, the disastrous moral result that it produces in the long run, are lost sight of in the eager desire to do the thing quickly. Temporary success is perhaps achieved, but permanent injury is done, and the seeds of future troubles are sown.

The students, as I have already observed, and young men who ​were not students, had taken a prominent part in the Swadeshi movement. Their zeal had fired the whole community. They had become the self-appointed missionaries of the cause. It was thought necessary to curb and control their activities. A circular was accordingly issued by District Magistrates to heads of educational institutions, in which they were told that unless the school and college authorities and teachers prevented their pupils from taking public action in connexion with boycotting, picketing and other abuses associated with the so-called Swadeshi movement, the schools and colleges would forfeit their grants-in-aid and the privilege of competing for scholarships, and the University would be asked to disaffiliate them. The circular was addressed to schools in the mofussil.

The circular made a distinction between students in Calcutta and those in the mofussil, but the Calcutta boys were just as enthusiastic in the Swadeshi cause as their mofussil brothers. Day after day, during the height of the excitement, a number of students used to stand at the corner of the Maidan, watching those who entered Whiteaway, Laidlaw's premises, begging Indians not to purchase foreign goods, or, if the purchase had been made, appealing to them not to repeat their offence. It was reported to me at the time, that some of these young men threw themselves at the feet of a fashionable Bengalee lady, as she was coming out of Whiteaway, Laidlaw's shop, and begged of her to promise not to purchase foreign goods when similar home-made articles were available.

The circular only served to add to the excitement, and it evoked universal condemnation even among organs of opinion that usually supported the policy and measures of Government. The Statesman newspaper, commenting upon the circular, used language that the Statesman has since banished from its columns, except when denouncing really bad measures. 'We should really like to know' exclaimed the Statesman, 'the name of the imbecile official at whose instance the Lieutenant-Governor sanctioned this order. The Government, there can be no doubt' added the same authority, 'has been misled by some person who is either grossly ignorant of the situation, or has allowed himself to be frightened by the fantastic scares of the last few weeks'; and the paper concluded by observing, 'Government has blundered apparently into a childish and futile policy which can only have the effect of manufacturing an army of martyrs'. That was the language of a leading English newspaper when the first circular of a restrictive character was ​issued affecting students. But circular after circular followed, each one adding to the prevailing excitement, and aggravating the evil which it was intended to cure.

The Bande-Mataram circular was one of them. It was issued by the new Government of Eastern Bengal, and it declared the shouting of Bande-Mataram in the public streets to be illegal; and an authority in the person of a high European official, supposed to be versed in the ancient lore of our country, was found, who went so far as to assert that it was an invocation to the goddess Kali for vengeance. Where he got this idea from it is difficult to know. The opening lines of the Bande-Mataram are the words of a song, full of love for, and devotion to, the motherland, expatiating upon her beauty and her strength. 'I salute the mother, the mother of us all, namely the motherland' - that is the plain meaning of the words. But amid the excitement which prevailed in official circles a sinister meaning was read into this very innocent formula, and a circular was issued by the Government of East Bengal suppressing the cry in the streets. We took legal opinion, and the legal opinion (that of Mr. Pugh, an eminent advocate of the Calcutta Bar) was in our favour, and against the legality of the circular.

At the Barisal Conference the cry had an almost historic bearing, to which I shall refer later on. In the meantime let me thankfully note that the official angle of vision has, in this respect, undergone a change, and the national standpoint has been accepted. At one of the recruiting meetings that I attended in North Bengal, I saw British officers standing up with the rest of the audience as the great national song was sung, and soldiers of the Bengalee regiment, wearing the King's uniform, were received by their countrymen, in the numerous towns that they visited, with shouts of Bande-Mataram! And when they spoke at the recruiting meetings, some of them declared within the hearing, and with the full approval, of their officers that nothing would give them greater pleasure, or fill them with more patriotic pride, than to attack the German trenches with the cry of Bande-Mataram on their lips.

The cry, at one time banned and barred and suppressed, has become pan-Indian and national, and is on the lips of an educated Indian when on any public occasion he is moved by patriotic fervour to give expression to his feelings of joy. What is equally important to note is that it is no longer regarded by officials as the rallying cry of seditious men, intent on breaking the peace or on creating a disturbance.

​The song of which 'Bande-Mataram' are the opening words occurs in Bankim Chunder Chatterjee's well-known novel, Anandamatha. It is a Bengalee song, but so rich in Sanskrit vocabulary that it is understood in every part of India by educated men. Its stately diction, its fine musical rhythm, its earnest patriotism, have raised it to the status and dignity of a national song, and it forms a fitting prelude to the business of great national gatherings. Bankim Chunder Chatterjee could hardly have anticipated the part which it was destined to play in the Swadeshi movement, or the assured place it was to occupy in all national demonstrations. Dante, when he sang of Italian unity, had no conception of the practical use to which his song would be put by Mazzini and Garibaldi, or the part it would play in the political evolution of the Italian people. Men of genius scatter their ideals broadcast. Some of them fall on congenial soil. Time and the forces of Time nurse them. They ripen into an abundant harvest fraught with unspeakable good to future generations.