A Nation in Making/Chapter 37

​37

Conclusion

Many of my friends have asked me to record a note as to what I consider to be the secret of health and longevity. I am now on the wrong side of seventy-five, but I enjoy fairly good health, and my mental agility remains unimpaired. They say that my experience would prove useful.

I have endeavoured in life to carry out the principle that the preservation of health is our first and foremost duty; everything else depends upon it. The machine must be kept fit and in a high degree of efficiency before it can do its work properly. Our best men, with a few exceptions, have nearly all died early, Ram Mohun Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, Kristo Das Pal, Ram Gopal Ghose, and others died in the prime of life. They exemplified the old Latin proverb: 'Those whom the gods love die young.' What a gain it would have been, if they had been spared longer to guide and lead their countrymen with their ripe judgment and experience.

The first and essential condition of good health, to my mind, is regular exercise at stated times. It should be moderate and given up as soon as one feels a sense of hilarity. Excess is to be avoided and is bound to do harm. The physical system accustoms itself to respond to the muscular rhythm that nature feels as the result of regular exercise. Throughout life, and even now, I take half-an-hour's exercise in the morning upon an empty stomach, and forty minutes' in the afternoon after tea. The latter I have sometimes to give up on account of public engagements, but I must have this exercise before dinner. Walking, in my opinion, is the best form of exercise. I used to add to it dumb-bells and Indian clubs in my early days. To take exercise early in the morning before a meal is the Indian practice, and I find that Miss Harriet Martineau recommends it. Almost equally essential is the habit of orderly and regular living. I am sorry to have to say that our countrymen do not always realize its importance. Their hours of meal and sleep are not always fixed, and they hardly recognize that the body is a machine, working with orderly precision, whose wants must be carefully attended ​to. One of my mottoes through life has been to avoid evening func- tions and dinners as far as possible. 'Early to bed and early to rise' is a wise precept, which I read in Todd's Students' Guide while yet a boy, and I have consistently tried to practise it. Even when, as a member of the Government, I had to attend State functions, I tried to run away as early as I could. On one occasion, when Lord Strathcona gave a dinner to the Press representatives in London, of whom I was one, I quietly slipped away as soon as the dinner was over and the toasts began. Fortunately for me, there was a door left open to admit fresh air close to where I had my seat. I had marked it before dinner, and as soon as that was over, I quickly and quietly made my exit. I do not know if anybody noticed me, but I was comfortably in bed by eleven o'clock.

On another occasion, when at a meeting of the Imperial Legis- lative Council we were discussing the Rowlatt Bill, Lord Chelmsford adjourned the Council at dinner time and asked members to reas- semble in an hour and a half. I got up as soon as the announcement was made, and said, 'My Lord, I go to bed at nine o'clock'. 'You are excused, Mr. Banerjea,' said Lord Chelmsford, with that win- some goodwill which never failed him. On the following morning when we reassembled, I learnt that some of those who had attended the night sitting had to be roused from sleep to give their votes. I will give another instance to illustrate my incorrigible habit of going to bed early. This was in 1897, when Mr. Gokhale and myself were in London as witnesses for the Welby Commission. He wanted me to see Sir Henry Irving play the part of Napoleon at Drury Lane Theatre, which was close to the Hotel Victoria, where we were both staying. I said, 'If you really want me, you must drag me out of bed and let me return home by eleven o'clock'. He said, 'All right, I will do that'. I was in bed, and at nine o'clock I heard a knock at my door. On the stroke of the hour, Gokhale was there. Now there was no escape for me. I had to get up and be ready. Gokhale escorted me to the theatre, where he sat by me, watching me with keen interest. For me it was more or less a novel experience. To him also it was novel in another sense: watching a stiff-necked Puritan like myself, who avoided theatres, succumb to the charms of the greatest living actor among Englishmen. I enjoyed the acting thoroughly. For Gokhale it was a personal triumph; I shared it in the joy of the spectacle I witnessed. I never could understand, and to me it is still an enigma, how Sir Henry Irving, who was, I think, above six feet, could adapt himself to the stature of Napoleon, who ​was not more than five feet four inches in height. However that may be, Gokhale, splendid fellow that he was, brought me back to my room by about eleven o'clock.

Early to bed has been the invariable practice of my life, and to it I largely ascribe the good health I enjoy. I am not so sure about the early rising. I have always been a late riser. I usually sleep about eight hours out of the twenty-four, and sometimes I extend it to nine or even ten hours. Sleep has been my greatest enjoyment, and I find that it is more or less a family gift. When I retire for sleep I close the chambers of my mind against all worry and anxiety, and that is the secret of sound sleep. At the start, perhaps, it requires a little will-power, but with practice it becomes a matter of habit. I do not think excessive brain work is a real menace to health, pro- vided it is congenial and does not interfere with sleep. On the con- trary, when congenial, it acts as a tonic, and the fatigue of it is all merged in the delight which it generates and the stimulus it imparts to the nerves.

I have said nothing about food or drink. Abstention from smok- ing and intoxicating drinks has always been recommended for good health. I have been a total abstainer from both, and cannot say that my enjoyment of life has been less hearty than that of those who smoke or drink. They may perhaps help to add to our social amenities, but they are neither indispensable nor free from risks to health, even though they may not be indulged in immoderately. As for food, it varies according to climatic conditions and racial pre- dilections. Every community has a rough sort of idea of the food upon which it can best thrive, and the idea is generally an ancestral bequest, subject to limitations that time or changes in local condi- tions may impose. The European is a meat-eater. The Indian is a vegetarian. The Bengalee is a fish-eater, and fish is a light, healthy, and nourishing food. There is a marked similarity in the matter of food between the Japanese and the Bengalees. Both are rice and fish-eaters, though the Japanese is more generous in his patronage of a meat diet. One thing is clear—at least that is my experience—that food should vary with age. One should follow the intimations of nature, which, with the advance of years, creates a steadily grow- ing disinclination for animal food.

After all is said and done, the crowning aspiration of the Latin poet holds as good to-day as it did in his own time. The highest of earthly blessings is a sound mind in a sound body—mens sana in corpore sano. The sound body, corpus sanum, is the foundation, ​and mens sana, the sound mind, is the superstructure. A clear con- science, freedom from worry and from hatred and malice, and peace and goodwill to all, are the stable foundations upon which the phy- sical system must rest. They are moral rather than material in their essence. After all the mind and body must act and react upon one another, and strengthen one another. The mind dominating the body, the physical co-operating with the moral, must form a homo- geneous whole, checking and restraining whatever is evil in human nature, improving and elevating whatever is good in us, thus quali- fying the individual man to do his duty to himself and to society, and to rise to the full measure of his stature.

My reminiscences disclose my views and my mental attitude with regard to the political situation in India and the side-issues that they raise. Concerning the social side, however, I have said little or nothing, except incidentally, when they have formed a part of political problems or of quasi-political discussions. For instance, I have referred once or twice to the question of enforced widowhood prevailing in Hindu society. The problem occupies a large place in Hindu thought. It is daily growing in importance. Its discussion is welcomed even by those who are not in favour of any reform or change. The other social problems, indeed, stand upon a more or less different plane. There is not about them, perhaps, the same popular interest, the same history linked with one of the greatest names in modern India, nor the same growing sense of a wrong done to the weaker sex, which the latter are beginning to realize. But all the same, it is useless to disguise the fact that the social problem in India is weighted with issues of unusual difficulty and complexity. You cannot think of a social question affecting the Hindu community that is not bound up with religious considera- tions; and when divine sanction, in whatever form, is invoked in aid of a social institution, it sits enthroned in the popular heart with added firmness and fixity, having its roots in sentiment rather than in reason.

Thus the social reformer in India has to fight against forces believed to be semi-divine in their character, and more or less invulnerable against the commonplace and mundane weapons of expediency and common sense. This feeling transmitted through generations has assumed the complexion of a deep-seated instinct. It is against a social edifice, resting upon traditional instinct and reinforced by religious conviction, that the Indian social reformer has had to fight; and that he has been able at times to make an ​appreciable impression, as in the case of Chaitanya, not only bears testimony to his forceful and commanding personality, but also to the attitude of the Indian masses, always responsive to real greatness, and to the necromancy of high endeavours, when inspired by lofty motives, though these may be pitted against injunctions professedly sacred. The glamour of divine origin, claimed for the social custom that is assailed, is eclipsed by the actual presence of the semi-divine person who claims to communicate his message amid a flood of heavenly effulgence, which overpowers the faithful and inspires them with an enthusiasm that carries everything before it. The people feel the advent of an avatar with a message repealing the old and communicating the new. He is bound by no convention; he is above and beyond all formula. He has in him the inspiration of a revelation, proclaiming the truth that is in him, and he pro- claims it in a form that touches the heart and appeals to the imagination.

Such an avatar was Chaitanya, the greatest reformer that Bengal has produced. He, like Buddha, was an iconoclast, waging war against caste and denouncing enforced widowhood. One divine message is thus arrayed against another, through the mouth of an elect of the Almighty. But the old lingers, the struggle between the old and the new still continues; and the friends of humanity turn to the progressive forces of the world for their ultimate triumph. Nevertheless, a definite stage towards progress is reached. Thought is let loose, winged with a new inspiration, and there is nothing more potent than the influence of new ideas, which, like a stream- let, flow down the mountain-side of established custom, eat into its substance and broaden and deepen into an ever-extending channel. The course of social progress has thus been slow; for great men are not as plentiful as blackberries. The religious feeling introduces an element of complexity; and, further, the forward movement of a huge society is necessarily slow. Nevertheless, the movement is there, and a little leaven leaveneth the mass.

Our surroundings being what they are, and what they have been for generations, every Hindu has in him a strong conservative bias. The great Napoleon used to say, 'Scratch a Russian and you will find a tartar.' Scratch a Hindu and you will find him a conservative. Of course, there are notable exceptions. All honour to the men, such, for instance, as the members of the Brahmo Samaj, who in obedience to the call of duty have adopted and practised in their lives more advanced ideas in regard to social observances. They ​represent a standing protest against our more conservative community. I have, however, never been able to make up my mind to follow the advanced principles of the Brahmo Samaj. They are the goal to be reached, and, to my mind, they should be reached by progressive stages. There is no such thing as a principle in public affairs, but every principle has to be determined by the circumstances of its application. This is a maxim which Edmund Burke is never tired of repeating, and in India its most illustrious advocate was Raja Ram Mohun Roy, the founder of the Brahmo Samaj. He was the inaugurator of the new faith, but he kept up his touch with the old, by his persistence in wearing the Brahminical thread to the end. Maharshi Debendranath Tagore followed him in this respect, and the Adi Brahmo Samaj have taken their lead from the saintly Maharshi.

I feel that, if we have to advance in social matters, we must, so far as practicable, take the community with us, by a process of steady and gradual uplift, so that there may be no sudden disturbance or dislocation, the new being adapted to the old, and the old assimilated to the new. That has been the normal path of progress in Hindu society through the long centuries. It would be idle to contend that Hindu society is to-day where it was two hundred years ago. It moves slowly, perhaps more slowly than many would wish, but in the words of Galileo 'it does move', more or less according to the lines of adaptation that I have indicated. The question of sea-voyage, or child-marriage, or even enforced widow- hood, is not to-day where it was in the latter part of the last century. Fifty years ago I was an outcaste (being an England-returned Brahmin) in the village where I live. To-day I am an honoured member of the community. My public services have, perhaps, partly contributed to the result. But they would have been impotent, as in the case of Raja Ram Mohun Roy for many long years after his death, if they were not backed by the slow, the silent, the majestic forces of progress, working noiselessly but irresistibly in the bosom of society, helping on the fruition of those ideas which have been sown in the public mind. Remarkable indeed have been, in many respects, the relaxations and the removal of restrictions of caste. Dining with non-Hindus, which was an abomination no many years ago, is now connived at, if not openly countenanced. A still more forward step towards loosening the bonds of caste has been taken within the last few years. The barriers of marriage between some sub-castes have been relaxed, and marriages between hitherto ​prohibited sub-castes of Brahmins and Kayasthas are not infrequent, and I have had some personal share in this reform. Beneficent are the activities of the Brahmo Samaj, but behind them is the slower but larger movement of the general community, all making towards progress.

I have now closed my reminiscences. They are the product of mature thought and prolonged deliberation, and of the conviction that a public life so eventful as mine, so full of changes, from the prison to the council chamber, from dismissal from public service to elevation to Ministerial office, may prove useful to my country- men. There is yet a long journey ahead of us before we reach the promised land. The desert has not yet been crossed. We are scarcely over the first stage. A long, long period of toil and travail awaits us; and perhaps in this wearisome journey the counsel and example of a fellow-traveller, who has some experience of it in its early stages, and has tasted its toils and its triumphs, may be welcomed by those who, foot-sore with travel and oppressed with the burden- someness of their task, may look around for inspiration, if not guidance. I claim to have had a high patriotic purpose in writing these reminiscences. I want to do justice to the memories of hon- oured colleagues, many of whom are now dead. I want to indicate the beginnings, the growth, and the early development of national life, so that they may afford a guide for the future. Above all, I want to guard against the perils and temptations that beset us in the onward march to our goal. I began these reminiscences on May 31, 1915, in my quiet little villa in the suburbs of Ranchi, now in the province of Behar, and I continued them steadily till they were interrupted by my appointment as Minister of Local Self-govern- ment. I resumed the work in January, 1924; and it has been to me a labour of love; for it has enabled me to live over again the days of my youth and manhood in the companionship of honoured colleagues whom death has removed from our ranks. No pleasure is comparable to that which one feels amid surroundings which have passed away, but the memory of which still lives. Indeed, it takes one away from the living present to the dead past a past, however, no longer inanimate or inert, but revived into life by the touch of the memories of strenuous work and high aspirations.

Now what is the moral to which these reminiscences point, and the lesson which they seek to enforce? Let me here quote Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt—and he was no dreamer, not even an enthusiast. He was a man of affairs, and one of the most level​headed amongst them. He had, indeed, the gift of an historic imagination, as evidenced by his fine novels, but it was an imagina- tion chastened by his grasp of the inwardness of things. Writing to me from Baroda, where he was Prime Minister at the time, he said—and the letter appears in his life by Mr. J. N. Gupta of the Indian Civil Service—: 'What a wonderful revolution we have seen within the lifetime of a generation. What a change—what a noble part you have played in leading that change.' 'We have witnessed in our times' said Romesh Chunder Dutt a wonderful change.' It assumes the form and complexion of a bloodless revolution.

This is no exaggeration of language, but the bare truth; and contemporary history bears it out. Looking at the political side, what do we find? In 1875, when I began my public life, our local bodies were devoid of the popular element. With the exception of four municipalities in Bengal—their number now is 116—the members were all nominated by the Government, and so was the chairman, their executive head. The Legislative Councils were in the same position. The members were all nominees of the Government. On the executive Government, which determined the policy and the measures of the administration, there were no Indian re- presentatives, nominated or elected. There was only a handful of Indians in the Indian Civil Service which is the corps d'élite governing the country. Indian opinion was weak, hardly vocal. The pulsations of national life were not felt. The great Indian continent consisted of innumerable units, disintegrated, without coherence or consistency, without unity of purpose or aim; speaking with different voices, wrangling, quarrelling, contending, with their energies dissipated amid a conflict of views and a Babel of tongues.

Now contrast this picture with what we see before us. In Bengal, as in other provinces, the local bodies are constituted on a popular basis; the constitution of the Calcutta Corporation, the greatest in the Indian Empire, is democratic. The Legislative Councils are all organized on popular lines, with a predominance of the popular element. On the Executive Councils there is a fair representation of the Indian element which has a potential voice in the government of the country; and, lastly, the beginnings of Parliamentary institutions have been introduced in the provinces with the definite pledge that full responsible government is in sight. The Indianization of the services is proceeding apace. There may be, and indeed there are, complaints as to the pace, but the idea that India is for the ​Indians is definitely recognized as a cardinal principle of the Government.

The potency of Indian public opinion has been fully established by the modification of the Partition of Bengal, which had been repeatedly declared by high authority to be a settled fact, but which Indian opinion declined to accept as such, and Indian opinion triumphed. The Press to-day is free, vocal, all but omnipotent. Our organizations—social, political, and industrial—cover the land from end to end. Thus a stupendous revolution has been achieved in less than fifty years' time. It is bloodless except for occasional and transient outbursts of anarchical violence. The more ardent spirits may not be, and perhaps are not, satisfied with what has been achieved. They urge a more rapid pace, perhaps even a shorter cut to the goal. But that there has been a vast transformation none can gainsay. The world-forces may have helped the movement. But we too did our bit. Self-government was the end and aim of our political efforts; constitutional methods the means for its attainment. The Indian National Congress was our great outstanding organization, and it recognized no method except by, and through, the constitution for the achievement of self-government within the Empire. For more than thirty years it worked upon these constitutional lines with undeviating singleness of purpose; and marvellous has been its achievement.

And here let me raise a warning note. There is a feeling amongst some that, if necessary, we should travel beyond the constitution and the limits of the British Empire to achieve the full measure of cur freedom and cur status in the civilized world. To that my reply is that the necessity has not yet arisen; nor does it seem to me, from all that one knows of British history, that it will arise within a measurable distance of time of which we need take any note. It is a mistake in politics to take too long views of things. We may then be apt to drift into ideals the realization of which may hamper our present activities and our immediate growth and progress. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof' is a scriptural text which the man of affairs should never lose sight of. If we proclaim that we aspire to be independent of the British connexion, that we want self-government, pure and simple, without being hampered by the obligations of our position as members of the British Commonwealth, no one can oppose an aspiration which in the abstract is so just and patriotic. But it is circumstances that impart to every political principle its colour and its discriminating effect. Now what ​will happen if we accept this ideal and seek to enforce it in our everyday political activities? We shall get the whole of the British Empire, with its immense power, against us and the fulfilment of our ideal. Whereas, if we limit our aspiration to the dominion status, we get the whole of this influence on our side. We are not only not handicapped, but we enlist on our behalf the sympathies, and it may be the active help, of the British democracy, and even in some cases of the self-governing dominions. Severance they will object to, and perhaps strenuously oppose. Union and incorporation they will welcome, and even help.

After we have attained dominion status we may leave to our successors to decide what should be done towards the accomplish- ment of further progress, if deemed necessary and desirable. They will be the best judges; they will decide according to the conditions then prevalent. And in the meantime we go on with our work of securing dominion status with the full support of the British Empire, and perhaps of civilized mankind. Is it possible to withstand the force of these considerations?

But is dominion status to be obtained by a process of orderly evolution, or by methods that are frankly revolutionary. or are at least ancillary to them, and must be regarded as a part of them? My long public life and my chequered public carcer enable me to speak with some authority. I was in England in 1909 when Dhingra committed the anarchical crime to which I have already referred, namely, the murder of Sir William Curzon-Wyllie and Dr. Lalkaka. What happened? I was fearfully handicapped; my public work came to a standstill. The Indian students in the English universities were in a serious plight. I did my best to undo the mischief; but a remnant of the atmosphere, then created, still lingers. I would appeal to my countrymen and I would say to them: 'Talk not of revolutions, or of tactics, such as obstruction, which are allied to revolutionary methods. You would then stand upon a dangerous precipice and might be hurried, despite yourselves, into the abysmal depths of a real revolutionary movement, with all the terrible consequences, the bloodshed and the reaction that follow in its train. Pray do not play with fire. When a movement has been set on foot, forces gather round it of which perhaps you had not the faintest conception, and impart to it a volume and a momentum beyond the ideas of its originators, who are now powerless to control it.'

We Hindus abhor revolution and even the semblance of it. ​Evolution is our motto, and here we follow the intimations of nature. The infant grows to boyhood, and the boy to manhood. So, too, there is no cataclysm in the moral universe. It follows the orderings of the material world-development stage by stage, generated by forces that have their roots in the bosom of society, and are fostered and stimulated by the beneficent activities of patriotic workers and the generous help and patronage of progressive Governments.

Non-Co-operation may help us to stand on our own legs by making us wholly dependent upon our own resources and activities. But at the same time, it cuts us off from the perennial and ever- sustaining sap afforded by the culture and civilization of the world, and the wide outlook which is a stimulus to progress. We cannot stand alone, isolated and detached from the rest of mankind, but must be in close association with them, giving to them what we have to give, receiving from them what we have to receive, swelling the common fund of human knowledge and experience. We thus broaden and elevate our own culture and civilization by the touch of the world-forces, and in our turn impart to them the spirituality that has been the heritage of our race. We have to make our contribution to humanity; and humanity repays us with compound interest, in the rich treasure of wisdom and inspiration that it places at our disposal.

We must indeed take our stand upon the old foundations. We broaden and liberalize them; and we build thereon. National life flows on in one continuous stream, the past running into the present, the present rolling on, in one majestic sweep, into the invisible and ever-expanding future, broadening at each stage, and scattering its fertilizing and beneficent influences all around. Our moorings must indeed be fixed in the past, in instincts and traditions that have built up our history, and will largely shape and mould the future.

But we cannot remain wedded to the past. We cannot remain where we are. There is no standing still in this world of God's Providence. Move on we must, with eyes reverentially fixed on the past, with a loving concern for the present and with deep solicitude for the future. We must, in this onward journey, assimilate from all sides into our character, our culture, and our civilization, whatever is suited to our genius and is calculated to strengthen and invigorate it, and weave it into the texture of our national life. Thus co-operation, and not non-co-operation, association and not isola​tion, must be a living and a growing factor in the evolution of our people. Any other policy would be suicidal and fraught with peril to our best interests. That is my message to my countrymen, delivered not in haste or in impatience, but as the mature result of my deliberations, and of my lifelong labours in the service of the motherland.