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Unity*
AN OPEN LETTER
TO THOSE WHO DESPAIR OF THEIR COUNTRY
TO
THE sons of our mother Bharat who
disclaim their sonhood, to the children of languor
and selfishness, to the wooers of safety and ease, to the fathers of despair
and death -- greeting.
To those who impugning the holiness
of their Mother refuse to lift her out of danger lest they defile their own
spotless hands, to those who call on her to purify herself before they will
save her from the imminent and already descending sword of Death, -- greeting.
Lastly to those
who love and perhaps have striven for her but having now grown themselves faint
and hopeless bid others to despair and cease, -- to them also greeting.
Brothers, for
whether unwise friends or selfish enemies of my Mother, you are still her children,
-- there is a common voice among you spreading dismay and weakness in the hearts
of the people; for you say to each other and to all who would speak to you of
their country, "Let us leave these things and look to our daily bread;
this nation must perish but let us at least and our children try to live while
live we can. We are fallen and depraved and our sins grow upon us day by day;
we suffer and are oppressed and oppression increases with every setting of the
sun; we are weak and languid and our weakness grows weaker and langour more languid every time the sun rises in the east.
We are sick and broken; we are idle and cowardly; we perish every year from
famine and plague; disease decimates us, with every decade poverty annihilates
family after family; where there were a hundred in one house,
there are now ten; where there was once a flourishing village, the leopard and
the jackal will soon
* An incomplete piece of writing found among the early
manuscripts, probably belonging to a period before
1905
Page-57
inhabit. God is adverse to us and ourselves our worst
enemies; we are decaying from within and smitten from without. The sword has
been taken out of our hands and the bread is being taken out of our mouths.
Worst of all we are disunited beyond hope of union and without union we must ere
long perish. It be five decades or it may be ten, but very soon
this great and ancient
nation will have perished from the face of the
earth and the Negro or the Malay will inherit the homes of our fathers and till
the fields to glut the pockets and serve the pleasure of the Englishman or the Russian. Meanwhile
it is well that the Congress should meet once a year and deceive the country
with an appearance of life; that there should be posts for the children of the
soil with enough salary to keep a few from starving, that a soulless education
should suck the vigour and sweetness of body and
heart and brain of our children while flattering them with the vain lie that
they are educated and enlightened; for so shall the nation die peacefully of a
sort of euthanasia lapped in lies and comforted with delusion and not violently
and in a whirlwind of horror and a great darkness of fear and suffering."
With such Siren song do you slay the hearts
of those who have still force and courage to strive against
Fate and would rescue our Mother out of the hands of destruction.
Yet I would willingly believe that matricides though you are, it is in ignorance. Come therefore, let
us reason calmly together.
Is it indeed...
(Incomplete)
Page-58
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