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Many
Delusions
IN
A
country where subjection has long become a habit of the public mind, there will
always be a tendency to shrink from the realities of the position and to hunt
for roundabout, safe and peaceful paths to national
regeneration.
Servitude is painful and intolerable,
—
servitude is killing the nation by inches,
— servitude must be got rid of, true; but the pains and evils of servitude
seem almost more tolerable to a good many people than the sharp, salutary pangs
of a resolute struggle for liberty. Hence the not uncommon cry, — “The
violent and frequently bloody methods followed by other nations are not suited
to a gentle, spiritual and law-abiding people; we will vindicate our
intellectual originality and spiritual superiority by inventing new methods of
regeneration much more gentlemanly and civilised.” The result is a hydra-brood
of delusions, — two springing up where one is killed. The old gospel of
salvation by prayer was based on the belief in the spiritual superiority of the
British people, — an illusion which future generations will look back upon
with an amazed incredulity. God answers prayers and the British people are
god-like in their nature; so why should we despair? Even now there are prominent
politicians who say and perhaps believe that although there is no historical
example of a nation liberated by petition and prayer, yet the book of history is
not closed and there is no reason why so liberal and noble a nation as the
British should not open a new and unprecedented chapter, -- a miracle which never
happened before in the world's records may very well be worked for the sole and
particular benefit of India! The petitionary delusion, however, though not yet
killed, has been scotched; its lease of life is not for long.
Another delusion of which Babu Narendranath Sen of the
Indian Mirror, and
the cultured and eloquent lady whom the Mahatmas have placed at the head of the
new Theosophist
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Church,
are the principal exponents, asks us to seek our regeneration through religion,
— only when we have become religiously and morally fit, can we hope to be
politically free. In spite of the confusion of ideas which underlies this
theory, it is one which has a natural charm for a religiously-minded people.
Nevertheless it is as much a thing in the air as the petitionary delusion. If by
religion is meant the nivrtti mārga it is an absurdity to talk of
politics and religion in the same breath; for it is
the
path of the few, — the saints and the elect
—
to whom there is no I nor thou, no mine or
thine, and therefore no my country or thy country. But if we are asked to
perfect our religious development in the pravrtti mārga, then it is
obvious that politics is as much a part of pravrtti mārga as any other
activity, and there is no rationality in asking us to practise religion and
morality first and politics afterwards; for politics is itself a large part of
religion and morality. We acknowledge that nothing is likely to become a
universal and master impulse in India which is not identified with religion. The
obvious course is to recognise that politics is religion and infuse it with the
spirit of religion; for that is the true patriotism which sees God as the Mother
in our country, God as sakti in the mass of our countrymen, and
religiously devotes itself to their service and their liberation from present
sufferings and servitude. We do not acknowledge that a nation of slaves who
acquiesce in their subjection can become morally fit for freedom; one day of
slavery robs a man of half his manhood, and while the yoke remains, he cannot
compass a perfect and rounded moral development. Under a light and qualified
subjection, he may indeed develop in certain directions; but in what direction
are we asked to develop? In the morality of the slave, the Shudra, whose dharma
is humility, contentment, service, obedience? In the morality of the
merchant whose dharma is to amass riches by honesty and enterprise and
spend them with liberal philanthropy? In the morality of the Brahmin whose dharma
is to prepare himself for the nivrtti mārga by learning and holy
exercises, to forgive injuries and accept honour or insult, wrong and injustice,
with a calm and untroubled mind? It is obvious that we may develop far on these
lines without coming at all nearer to moral fitness for freedom. Politics is the
work
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of
the Kshatriya and it is the virtues of the Kshatriya we must develop if we are
to be morally fit for freedom. But the first virtue of the Kshatriya is not to
bow his neck to an unjust yoke but to protect his weak and suffering countrymen
against the oppressor and welcome death in a just and righteous battle.
A third delusion to which the over-intellectualised are subject is the
belief in salvation by industrialism. One great danger of the commercial aspect
of the Swadeshi movement is that many of our young men may be misled into
thinking that their true mission is to go abroad, study industries and return to
enrich themselves and their country. We would warn them against this pernicious
error. This work is an admirable work and a necessary part of the great national
yajña which we have instituted; but it is only a part and not even the
chief part. Those who have never studied Japanese history, are fond of telling
our young men that Japan owes her greatness to her commercial and industrial
expansion and call on them to go and do likewise. Commercial and industrial
expansion are often accompaniments and results of political liberty and
greatness, — never their cause. Yet the opposite belief is held by many who
should have been capable of wiser discrimination. We find it in the truly
marvellous address of Srinath Pal Rai Bahadur at Berhampur; — there is a
wonderful contrast between the canine gospel of submissive loyalty preached in
the first part of the address and the rampageously self-assertive gospel of
economic independence preached in its tail-end. "Whatever the advantages of
political advancement, they sink into insignificance when compared with the
blessings which industrial prosperity brings in its train," — such is the
gospel according to Srinath Pal Rai Bahadur. It is so far shared by many less
loyal people that they consider industrial prosperity as prior to and the cause
of political advancement. The idea is that we must be rich before we can
struggle for freedom. History does not bear out this peculiar delusion. It is
the poor peoples who have been most passionately attached to liberty, while
there are many examples to show that nothing more easily leads to national death
and decay than a prosperous servitude. We are particularly thankful that British
rule has not, like the Roman, given us industrial prosperity in exchange for poli-
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tical
independence; for in that case our fate would have been that of the ancient
peoples of Gaul and Britain who, buying civilisation and prosperity with the
loss of their freemanhood, fell a prey to the Goth and Saxon and entered into a
long helotage from which it took them a thousand years to escape. We must strive
indeed for economic independence, because the despotism that rules us is
half-mercantile, half-military, and by mortally wounding the lower mercantile
half we may considerably disable the upper; at least we shall remove half the
inducement England now has for keeping us in absolute subjection. But we should
never forget that politics is a work for the Kshatriya and it is not by the
virtues and methods of the Vaishya that we shall finally win our independence.
Bande Mataram,
April 5, 1907
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