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The
Ordinance and After
WE
HAVE pointed out in previous articles
what we considered to be the individual effect of three of the measures of
repression adopted by the bureaucracy in their fight with the Swadeshi movement.
The review has led us to the conclusion that there is so far no new element in
the situation beyond, on the one hand, the clear and universal conviction that
has been carried home to the people of the nature and extent of the resistance
which we may expect from the bureaucracy and, on the other, the more urgent
necessity of adopting certain measures for national defence and resistance which
ought to have been taken before. The conditions of the problem have not been
materially changed, but its acuteness has been enhanced. The persecution of
Swadeshi leaders and workers is nothing new, but it has increased in scale and
in the atrocity of the punishments — and it is being carried out not by local
officials but by the Government of India. The attempt to break the back of the
movement by restricting the action of students and teachers is nothing new, but
it is now being taken up deliberately, systematically, not by a local
administration, but by the Government of India. The utilisation by the
bureaucracy of Nawab Salimullah and by the Nawab Salimullah of hooligans to
harass and, if possible, break the Boycott is nothing new, but the extent to
which this sinister opposition has been carried and the wide space of country
over which it has been attempted is a new phenomenon. But there is one measure
of the Government which is in itself a new phenomenon and seriously affects, if
it does not entirely alter, the whole situation. This is the Coercion Ordinance
directed against public meetings. It would not be true to say that the ordinance
was absolutely unforeseen. We at least had always held it extremely probable if
not quite certain that this and even more violent and crushing methods of
coercion would eventually be adopted by the bureaucracy in its struggle for
self-preservation. But we did not anti-
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cipate
so rapid a development of coercive measures, or that they would reach their
height, as they threaten to do under a professedly Radical and Democratic
Government. Not that we ever believed there was any essential difference between
Liberals and Conservatives with regard to India, but there was a difference in
their professions and we imagined that what the Conservatives would do
immediately and without compunction, the Liberals would also do, but with
hesitation and some show of reluctance. There has, however, been no slightest
sign of reluctance. With alacrity and a light heart they have refused to India
that right of free speech and free meeting which their political creed declares
to be a common and fundamental right and to deny which is an act of tyranny.
Nevertheless, though not expected so soon, the Coercion Ordinance was not a
contingency which had altogether been left out of view.
What then is the new condition which it creates? One of immense
importance. Up till now our whole programme with unimportant exceptions has
fallen well within the law. We have worked against bureaucratic government, we
have not worked against the law nor exceeded its restrictions to any of our
methods. So careful have we been in this respect that the bureaucracy have been
at a loss where to get a hold on the Swadeshi movement without losing their
prestige and reputation, and in the end they have been obliged to throw their
reputation overboard and allow the agents of their ally, the Nawab of Dacca, to
create disorder so as to prepare the way for proclaiming the Swadeshi areas.
This desire to keep within the law was not, as some of our disappointed
adversaries suggested, born of fear or unwillingness to bear sacrifices for the
country — for even without breaking the law many Swadeshi workers had to go to
jail or undergo police and Goorkha violence, but part of a well-reasoned policy.
To be able to keep within the law gives an immense advantage to a young movement
opposed by a strong adversary in possession of all the machinery of legal
repression and oppression; for it allows it to grow into adult strength before
giving the enemy a sufficient grasp to strangle it while it is yet immature.
Moreover, a nation which can show a respect for law even in the first throes of
a revolution has a better chance of enjoying a
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stable
and successful Government of its own when its chance comes. Nevertheless
legality can never be the first consideration in a struggle of the kind we have
entered upon, and if new laws are passed which offend against political ethics,
which make our service and duty to our country impossible and to obey which
would therefore be an unpatriotic act, they cannot possibly command obedience.
Still more is this the case when the measure in question is not a law, but an
executive ukase which may be prevented from passing into law. This can best be
done by a widespread and quiet but determined passive resistance which will make
the ukase inoperative without a resort to measures of the most extreme and
shameless Russianism. We have not concealed our opinion that this is the course
the country ought to adopt in the present juncture, if for no other reason, then
because it is our duty as men, as citizens, as patriots.
We recognise, however, that much is yet to be said on the opposite side.
The strongest argument against the course we have suggested, is that the
bureaucracy evidently desire an immediate struggle. The course of events at
Barisal, the recent outrageous insult to a
prominent Swadeshi worker and the insolent harassment of the townspeople by the
local officials and their underlings, are extremely significant. The attempt
to provoke a struggle between the Hindus and the Mahomedans culminating in the
singular affair of the Barisal night panic which still calls for explanation,
has been a failure. It seems that the police are now attempting to force on some
demonstration which will give them an excuse for turning Barisal into a second
Rawalpindi. The unprovoked blow given by a Goorkha to Srijut Satish Chandra
Chatterjee was obviously a prearranged affair, leaving the victim the choice
between swallowing the insult and an act of retaliation which might have led to
an émeute. We think that Srijut Satish Chandra on the whole did well to
subordinate his feelings to the good of his country, but the odds were the other
way, and the police must have known it. That in case of resistance even of the
most passive kind, the police or military would not "hesitate to
shoot", is extremely probable from the action of the Punjab authorities and
the known attitude of the local officials in East Bengal. Would it then be wise
for us, it is argued, to expose
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ourselves
passively to the arrest and deportation of our leaders,
the
dragooning of our towns and villages, the utmost outrages on men and women and
all the violent ills of despotic repression, without any certain gain to the
country to set in the opposite balance? The question really turns on the
precise strength of the movement at its present stage of growth. If it is
already strong enough to bear extreme Russian repressions without becoming
unnerved and demoralised, the course we have suggested is the best, because it
is the boldest. If not, it would be sounder policy perhaps to leave the
bureaucracy to its Pyrrhic victory for a while and immediately turn all our
energies to giving the movement the necessary strength, — in other words, the
necessary organisation of men, money and means which it needs in order to cope
with the bureaucracy on equal terms. The choice lies between these alternatives.
It
has given us quite a turn to find the following criticism of Mr. Morley's
approaching "reforms" in the columns of India. "Tinkering with
the Indian administrative machine will no longer avail. A thorough overhauling
of its component parts has become imperative and unless the leaders of opinion
in India are encouraged to play a part in the work of Government in a manner
which is altogether denied to them today, the last state of India will be
deplorably and ominously worse than the first." Of course India is
much behind the times in imagining that "encouragement" to the leaders
of public opinion will meet the situation. The least that India now demands is the admission
of the people of the country to the management of its own affairs. But it is at
once surprising and gratifying to find that the organ of Palace Chambers has at
last realised the necessity of a complete and revolutionary change in the whole
system of administration. It quotes against Mr. Morley an admirable passage of
his own writings in which this pregnant observation occurs. "A small and
temporary improvement may really be the worst enemy of a great and permanent
improvement unless the first is
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made
on the line and in the direction of the second." Precisely so. This is the
main reason, even apart from their insufficiency, that any mere administrative
reforms are looked on with suspicion by the Nationalist Party. The great and
permanent improvement India demands is an entire change of the principles of
Government in India, and a small and temporary improvement in details, leaving
the principles untouched, would not be "on the line and in the
direction" of the great improvement called for; it would be its worst
enemy. Merely to temper absolute bureaucratic power by providing means for
consulting the "leaders of public opinion" is a reform which would be
the worst enemy of Indian self-government. We recommend this dictum of Mr.
Morley, the philosopher, to Mr. Gokhale and other Moderates.
Bombay
is nearer London than Calcutta; and while Mr. Gokhale during his visit to
Calcutta tried to organise a special session of the Congress at Bombay, the
people of Bombay are contemplating the holding of the next session of the
Congress in London. The Guzerati writes: —
"The idea of holding the next session of the Indian National
Congress in London is a good idea. Years ago a similar proposal was put forward.
But it was not taken up by Congressmen in right earnest. The extremists who are
sure to quote Mr. Morley's reply to the anti-Partition memorialists in
justification of their opposition to sending any petitions, will be probably
also opposed to holding any session of the Congress in London. Excluding this
class of Indians, the more thoughtful, sober-minded and responsible section of
Congressmen who form the majority, will be in favour of the idea, provided
financial difficulties could be overcome and the most representative Congressmen
induced to visit England."
And it asserts that "a successful Congress session in London would
be more fruitful especially at a juncture like the present
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than
five sessions held in India". Fruitful in what respect? If our contemporary
means fruitful in expenditure, humiliation and loss of self-respect, then we
must agree with him. Why should the National Congress hold its session in
London? The nation does not live in London and the root-idea of a national movement
is opposed to this continual theatrical supplication to the very people who are
interested in preventing us from becoming a nation. While our contemporary
confidently asserts that
a successful session in London would be more "fruitful" than five
sessions held in India, we, belonging as we do to that section which Mr. Romesh
Dutt during his two hours’ presidentship of the Congress saw routed by the
Moderates, may be permitted to suggest that one such session will do more injury
to the country and the cause than five years without a session of the Congress.
The attitude of British statesmen, moreover, is not encouraging even to the
Moderates who still think of getting rights marked "Made in Great
Britain" in the same consignment with Liverpool salt or Manchester
piecegoods. The hand on the dial will be put back if we leave the nation and
check the growing spirit of self-help and self-exertion to go and beg for
"rights" in England and spend on this fruitless act sums which we
badly require for the long-neglected task of national organisation. "The
time," says our contemporary, "has come when Congressmen in a body
should face the British public." Possibly; but not to "plead the cause
of India and her inhabitants in the very metropolis of the Empire". This
idea about the British public is a pure superstition. The British public will
never interfere with the action of its representatives and kinsmen in India and
in the India Office, unless and until it finds itself in danger of losing its
Empire in the East. The quarrel has to be fought out between the people of India
and the Anglo-Indian bureaucracy, and it must be fought out on the soil. To
attempt to transfer the field of battle to London will be impracticable and
harmful.
Bande
Mataram,
May 30, 1907
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