A Nation in Making/Chapter 4

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4

1875–1882

As I have already observed, I was furnished with a copy of the report of the Commission by the Government of India, and I was informed that they had recommended my dismissal. I made up my mind to proceed to England and to lay my case before the authorities of the India Office. I left Calcutta about the end of March, 1874, and arrived in London about the middle of April. I at once placed myself in communication with the India Office. The attitude of some of the officials on whom I called was distinctly cold and unsympathetic. It seemed to me that they were unwilling to go behind the report of the Commission or give me a further hearing, and within a few weeks of my arrival I was officially informed that I had been dismissed from the Indian Civil Service.

One chapter of my life was now closed. I had fought a hard battle and lost it. The whole of my official prospects were blasted. The recollection of the emotions then roused is still vivid in my mind. I felt that my dismissal was a relief. It was indeed a crushing, staggering blow, but it meant absolution from a strain upon body and mind which had wellnigh become intolerable. I was indeed prepared for my fate; I might almost be said to have been expecting it; and when, on returning home to my lodgings in Kentish Town, from a dinner-party at Mr. B. Mookerjee’s house, I read the official letter, lying on my table, under the gas-lamp dimly burning, informing me of my dismissal, I spontaneously exclaimed, ‘The bitterness of death is past and gone’. From April, 1873, to April, 1874, this fight had been going on, first with Mr. Sutherland, and then between the Government and myself; and to me it was a real relief when it was all over and I knew where I stood.

Not for a moment did I lose heart in this supreme crisis. Now and then, indeed, I thought of her who in a distant land would share the blow, but who, I knew, would not bend or reel under it. I closed my eyes upon the past and resolutely set them upon the future, which I painted with a hue as radiant as circumstances permitted. I was already a student of the Middle Temple and ​had kept eight terms. There were four more terms to keep before I could be called to. the Bar. I made up my mind to stay on in England and finish my terms and be called to the Bar. Little did I then dream that even here my hopes were doomed to be frustrated.

I continued eating my dinners, and the time came when I was to be called. That was some time in April or May, 1875. My name was duly put up. An objection was, however, raised, from what quarter or by whom I knew not, nor did I care to enquire then nor do I even now. My dismissal from the Civil Service was considered to be a fatal objection, and the Benchers of the Middle Temple declined to call me to the Bar. An old English barrister, Mr. Cochrane, who for many years was an eminent leader of the Calcutta Bar, warmly interested himself in my case. Old as he was and almost tottering with the weight of years, he did all that was humanly possible. It was a pleasure to see the old man, fired with the enthusiasm of youth on my behalf. He was a grand specimen of a type which I fear is rapidly passing away. But all his efforts were made in vain. From the Civil Service I had been dismissed. From the Bar I was shut out. Thus were closed to me all avenues to the realization of an honourable ambition.

The outlook was truly dark. My friends declared that I was a ruined man, and that there was no hope for me on this side of the grave. Even the great Kristo Das Pal, editor of the Hindoo Patriot, took the same view. A friend, now dead, who achieved considerable distinction as a member of the Calcutta Bar, advised me in a sympathetic vein that I should change my name, go to Australia and seek out a career there for myself. I listened to these friendly counsels with all the equanimity I could muster, but I never despaired, nor even was the exuberant joyousness of my youthful nature darkened by the heavy clouds that lay thick around me. In the iron grip of ruin I had already formed some forecast of the work that was awaiting me in life. I felt that I had suffered because I was an Indian, a member of a community that lay disorganized, had no public opinion, and no voice in the counsels of their Government. I felt with all the passionate warmth of youth that we were helots, hewers of wood and drawers of water in the land of our birth. The personal wrong done to me was an illustration of the helpless impotency of our people. Were others to suffer in the future as I had suffered in the past? They must, I thought to myself; unless we were capable as a ​community of redressing our wrongs and protecting our rights, personal and collective. In the midst of impending ruin and dark, frowning misfortune, I formed the determination of addressing myself to the task of helping our helpless people in this direction.

I was in England from April, 1874, to May, 1875; and during these thirteen months I shut myself up in my lodgings, in the village of East Molesey near Hampton Court, devoting myself to such studies as I thought would qualify me for this work. From ten o’clock in the morning after breakfast till dinner time at eight o’clock in the evening, I was incessantly at work, reading books that I thought would inspire me with the fervour and equip me with the capacity for that which was to be my life-work. I used to make copious notes with indices, and these are even now in my possession. Occasionally I used to run up to London, and see friends, and consult as to what should be done in order to be called to the Bar; but it would be no exaggeration to say that I was immersed in my books and felt no higher pleasure than in the companionship of the great masters, with whom I was then in daily communion.

It was a year of preparation, of laborious apprenticeship (from April, 1874, to April, 1875) that was most valuable in my life, and upon which I look back with infinite pleasure. The gloom that surrounded me was dispelled in the new vision that opened out to me in the prospective glories of a dedicated life of unselfish devotion in the service of my fallen country. It was a period of incessant work led by an invisible inspiration. I recovered my buoyancy in the new hope that was awakened in me, and the joy that thrilled me, that all was not lost, but that there was still work to be done by me, perhaps even in a higher sphere than before. Out of death cometh life, a higher life and a nobler resurrection. So it was in my case.

I returned home in June, 1875, a ruined man in the estimation of all, save and except my wife and myself. She received me, when we first met on my return, with a bright and cheery countenance—and here let me for a moment pause to pay a tribute of loving and admiring respect to the memory of my dear lamented wife. She did not indeed receive the education which fortunately is now common among Indian ladies of her class and position. But she possessed extraordinary gifts of commonsense, sympathy and courage. She firmly stood by me in this dark crisis, and never thought that ruin and confusion had seized us. Not one regretful ​glance did she ever cast upon the past, but bravely looked upon the future, and her courage and confidence were justified.

I came back to Calcutta in June, 1875. What was I to do—how obtain a living and yet do some useful work for the country? The outlook was as gloomy as it could be. On all sides the door was barred. I could not join the Bar, whether as a vakil or a barrister—the professions were closed to me, there was no industry to which I could turn. But I began at once to take a part in public affairs. Soon after my return to Calcutta, a meeting was held in the theatre of the Medical College, to promote the Temperance movement. It was a crowded meeting. The Temperance cause excited much interest in those days. The labours of Peary Churn Sircar, the apostle of the Temperance movement in Bengal, were bearing fruit. It was a living movement; for the dangers of intemperance spreading among the rising generation were real and ominous. They had to be protected against the seductive influence of drink, to which some of the most illustrious men of the last generation had fallen victims. The interest in the question was great and the meeting was largely attended. I was asked to speak. It was practically my first public utterance at a great Calcutta meeting. I made a favourable impression and on the following morning was told by a friend that I had taken my place among our recognized public speakers.

Soon after, Pundit Iswar Chunder Vidyasagar offered me an appointment as Professor of English in the Metropolitan Institution, which I accepted. My speech had already made me popular with the students, and helped me, I think, to get the appointment. The salary was small, Rs. 200 a month, less than half of what I had been getting as Assistant Magistrate, but I was glad that I had something to do and that it afforded me an opportunity, of which I took the fullest advantage. I sought by every possible means in my power to kindle in the young the beginnings of public spirit, and to inspire them with a patriotic ardour, fruitful of good to them and to the motherland. In the lecture-room I attended to my immediate duties as Professor, but I felt that I had a higher call. The Students’ Association had already been organized. I became its most active member, and urged the establishment of branch Associations in the different colleges as feeder-institutions.

I soon helped to make student life instinct with a new spirit in Calcutta. I delivered lectures in Calcutta, Utterpara, Kidderpore and other places, upon such subjects as Indian Unity, the Study ​of History, the Life of Mazzini, the Life of Chaitanya, High English Education, etc. I was in great demand as a speaker and never spared myself. Between the students and myself there grew up an attachment which I regarded as one of my most valued possessions. Amongst those who regularly attended the meetings in those days were Mr. B. Charkravarti, Swami Vivekananda, Mr. Nanda Kishore Bose, Mr. S. K. Agasti and others.

The City College was founded in 1879. The schism in the Brahmo-Samaj, Owing to the marriage of Keshub Chunder Sen’s daughter with the Maharaja of Cooch-Behar, had important results. It led to the establishment of the Sadharan Brahmo-Samaj, the City College, and other kindred institutions. The leading spirits in that dissentient movement were Ananda Mohan Bose, Shivanath Sastri, Durga Mohan Das, and other Brahmo leaders. I was invited to join the tutorial staff of the City School (for it had not then become a college). I gladly accepted the offer, as it added to my income and extended the sphere of my contact with the student community.

It was hard work for me—to teach four hours daily, and this in addition to my propaganda work among the students and my political work in connexion with the Indian Association, in which I felt the keenest interest. But I never grudged the toil or the strain. The excitement of work has been the pleasure of my life and has kept my spirits up amid disappointment, defeat and disaster. Even now, when I have passed my seventy-fifth year, its fascination is so overpowering that I have to restrain myself from considerations of health.

It may not, perhaps, be out of place to mention here an offer of an appointment made to me about this time, which, if I had accepted it, would have changed the whole tenor of my life. I was offered a post under the Tippera Raj, I think it was the English Secretaryship, on a salary of Rs. 700 a month. I was getting at this time only three hundred rupees a month, and there was no prospect, near or remote, of any substantial increase. I had, however, no difficulty in making up my mind and in refusing the offer. I said to myself that for good or for evil my career in life was definitely fixed, that I had set my hand to the plough and could not look back.

I left the Metropolitan Institution in March, 1880. Pundit Vidyasagar wanted me to give up my connexion with the City College, offering to make good the pecuniary loss that I would ​thereby sustain. I could not see my way to complying with this request, though I was prepared to give him an additional hour for teaching in the Metropolitan Institution. I tendered my resignation, which he accepted.

A month later, in April, Principal Robertson of the Free Church College invited me to join that institution as Professor of English Literature. I accepted the offer and continued to be Professor in the Free Church College till 1885, when I resigned owing to the growing demands, on my time and attention, of the educational institution that I had founded.

In 1882, I took over charge of a school, teaching up to the Matriculation standard, known as the Presidency Institution. It became the nucleus of the Ripon College, but at the time when I took it over it had only two hundred students on its rolls. I thoroughly reorganized the school. It was affiliated to the Intermediate standard, and eventually to the B.A. and B.Sc. and the B.L. standards, of the Calcutta University. With Lord Ripon’s permission, obtained on the eve of his departure, I named the institution after him, and it is now known as the Ripon College. It is a fully-equipped, first-grade college, with a high school attached to it with nearly 2,500 students ail told. It has been provided with a building of its own, at a cost of nearly Rs. 1,50,000. I have divested myself of all proprietary rights over this institution and have made it over to the public under a body of trustees created for the purpose.

I was engaged in the active work of teaching from 1875 to 1912, that is, for a period of nearly thirty-seven years. On being elected to the Imperial Legislative Council, in February, 1913, it became necessary for me to travel frequently between Delhi and Calcutta, and I had to withdraw from my professorial duties. Great as is the importance I attach to my political work, to which I shall refer fully later on, far more interesting to me personally were my duties as a teacher.

It was with the greatest reluctance that I ceased to be a teacher, for I loved the students and I rejoiced in their company. I said on one occasion during the Swadeshi agitation, ‘If I have contributed to the up-building of student life, the students in their turn have made me what I am. If I have inspired them with the spirit of service, they in their turn have rejuvenated me and filled me with the ardour of youth.’ I have grown young in their company and by daily contact with them I have retained even amid advancing ​years some of the qualities of youth, The late Mr. Philip Smith of the Oxford Mission asked me, when he went to see me in jail in 1883, whether I could explain to him the secret of my great influence over the student community. My reply was prompt and decisive, J said, ‘I love the students. I rejoice with them in their joys, I grieve with them in their sorrows, and they reciprocate the sentiment with the generous enthusiasm of youth.’

I regarded my vocation as a sacred calling. My duties were indeed multitudinous,: but to those of the class-room I accorded a special preference. I never came to the lecture-room without being thoroughly prepared for my work. Sometimes such was the inspiration of the lecture-room that a difficult point that had evaded my efforts in my own private study became luminously clear under the influence of my environment. Thus there is the play of a living magnetism between the teacher and the taught, and all teachers who have taken a real interest in their work must have felt it. I always set a high value upon my educational work and put it in the forefront of my activities. It may not be out of place to reproduce some remarks that I made in this connexion in one of my speeches:

In my mind my educational and my political work were indeed interlinked. I felt that the political advancement of the country must depend upon the creation among our young men of a genuine, sober and rational interest in public affairs. The beginnings of public life must be implanted in them. They must have their period of apprenticeship and qualify themselves for their civic duties. They must, on the one hand, be stirred out of their indifference to politics, which was the prevailing attitude of the student-mind in Bengal in 1875, and on the other, protected against extreme fanatical views, ​which, as all history shows, are fraught with peril in their pursuit. I was resolved, so far as it lay in me, to foster a new spirit and to produce a new atmosphere. This was the underlying idea that prompted me to help in the organization of the Students’ Association.

Associated with me in the work of organization was the late Mr. Ananda Mohan Bose. Mr. Bose had come back from England a few months before me, and had founded the Students’ Association of Calcutta, of which he was the President. Mr. Ananda Mohan Bose was one of the most brilliant students of the Calcutta University. Born in the district of Mymensingh (he was one year senior to me), he passed the Matriculation Examination from the Mymensingh Zilla School with great distinction, standing sixth in the University list in order of merit. He stood first at the Intermediate, B.A. and M.A. Examinations, and crowned an almost unique career by carrying off the blue ribbon of the University, the Prem Chand Roy Chand Scholarship. He went up to Cambridge, and was the first Indian Wrangler, occupying the eighteenth place in the list. He was a vigorous and eloquent speaker, and, at a meeting of the East Indian Association held in London, he spoke with a force and eloquence that extorted the admiration of Mr. Fawcett, who was present, and who said that there were not half a dozen speakers like him in the House of Commons. From a man so well equipped, great things were expected by his countrymen, and Mr. Ananda Mohan Bose threw himself into his public work with an earnestness not common among the members of the great profession to which he belonged. He was rising into a good practice at the Bar, but his heart was in the work of the country; and I have no doubt in my mind that his divided attention between the Bar and his public duties interfered with his professional success.