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The Nagpur Affair and True Unity
THE Nagpur Nationalists are now being
run down in every quarter for having failed to work in unison with the
Moderates. The cause of rupture as disclosed by the Indian Social Reformer,
a hostile critic of the Nationalist Party, will convince every
right-thinking man that the Nationalists had ample provocation for what is being
denounced as a highly reprehensible conduct on their part. They had a
Nationalist majority in the Executive Committee and the Moderates were arranging
for a fresh meeting of the Reception Committee to alter this state of things.
This unconstitutional step led to the subsequent unpleasant development. It is
very difficult to disentangle the truth from the apparently exaggerated reports
of "Nationalist rowdyism" of which so much has been heard of late. But we have a
suspicion that it is the wonted game of the Moderates to have it all their own
way and then to try to discredit the opponents by making them responsible to the
country for the disunion and dissension in the camp. Why do they not adopt a
straightforward course from the very beginning? It is they who stand in the way
of a united India by denying a fair representation to those who hold advanced
political views. They always want the Nationalists to compromise their principle
by an appeal in the name of unity. But their selfishness and autocracy never
allow them to reflect on the true way of achieving unity.
There is a cant phrase which
is always on our lips in season and out of season, and it is the cry for unity.
We call it a cant phrase because those who use it, have not the slightest
conception of what they mean when they use it, but simply employ it as an
effective formula to discourage independence in thought and progressiveness in
action. It is not the reality of united thought and action which they desire, it
is merely the appearance of unity. "Do not let the Englishman think we are not
entirely at one on any and every question," that is the bottom idea underlying
this formula. It is a habit of mind born of the spirit
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of dependence and weakness. It is a fosterer of falsehood
and encourages cowardice and insincerity. "Be your views what they may, suppress
them, for they will spoil our unity; swallow your principles, they will spoil
our unity; do not battle for what you think to be the right, it will spoil our
unity; leave necessary things undone, for the attempt to do them will spoil our
unity;" this is the cry. The prevalence of a dead and lifeless unity is the true
index of national degradation, quite as much as the prevalence of a living unity
is the index of national greatness. So long as India was asleep and only talking
in its dreams, a show of unity was possible but the moment it awoke and began to
live, this show was bound to be broken. So long as mendicancy was our method and
ideal, the show was necessary, for a family of beggars must not vary in its
statements or in the nature of its request to the prospective patron; they must
cringe and whine in a single key. Under other circumstances, the maintenance of
the show becomes of less paramount importance.
There is another idea underlying the cry
for unity and it is the utterly erroneous impression that nations have never
been able to liberate themselves and do great
deeds unless they were entirely and flawlessly united within. History
supplies no justification for this specious theory. On the contrary when a
nation is living at high pressure and feelings are at white heat, opinions and
actions are bound to diverge far more strongly than at other times. In the
strenuous times before the American War of Independence, the colony was divided
into a powerful minority who were wholly for England, a great hesitating
majority who were eager for internal autonomy but unwilling to use extreme
methods, and a small but vigorous minority of extremists with men like John
Adams at their head who pushed the country into revolt and created a nation. The
history of the Italian revolution tens the same story. We are fond of quoting
the instance of Japan, pointing to its magnificient unity and crying shame on
ourselves for falling below that glorious standard; but those of us who talk
most of Japan often betray a sovereign ignorance of its history. Nowhere was
there a more keen, determined and murderous struggle between parties than in
Japan in the days of its preparation, and the struggle was not over the ultimate
ideal or object
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-- the freedom and greatness of Japan, on
which all parties were agreed, but on questions of method and internal
organisation. Until that question as between the moderate Shogun Party and the
extremist Mikado Party had been settled, it was felt by all that the approach to
the ultimate ideal of all could not be seriously attempted.
True national unity is the unity of
self-dedication to the country when the liberty and greatness of our motherland
is the paramount consideration to which all others must be subordinated. In
India at the present hour there are three conflicting ideals; one party set the
maintenance of British supremacy above all other considerations; another would
maintain that supremacy in a modified form; a third aspires to make India a free
and autonomous nation, connected with England, if it may be, but not dependent
on her. Until one of these conflicting ideals is accepted by the majority of the
nation, it is idle to make a show of unity. That was possible formerly because
the ideal of a modified British supremacy was the prevailing ideal, but now that
new hopes and resolves are entering the national consciousness, these must
either be crushed or prevail, before true unity of a regenerated nation can
replace the false unity of acquiescence in servitude.
Bande Mataram,
October 23, 1907
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