“ You, English, who have come to India are not good specimens of the English nation, nor can we, almost half-Anglicized Indians, be considered good specimens of the real Indian nation. If the English nation were to know all you have done, it would oppose many of your actions. The mass of the Indians have had few dealings with you. If you will abandon your so-called civilization and search into your own scriptures, you will find that our demands are just. Only on •condition of our demands being fully satisfied may you remain in India; and if you remain under those conditions, we shall learn several things from you and you will learn many from us. So doing we shall benefit each other and the world. But that will happen only when the root of our relationship is sunk in a religious soil.”.
Reader: What will you say to the nation?
Editor: Who is the nation?
READER: For our purposes it is the nation that you and I have been thinking of, that is those of us who are affected by European civilization, and who are eager to have Home Rule.
EDITOR: To these 1 would say. “ It is only those Indians, who are imbued with real love who will be able to speak to the English in the above strain without being frightened* and only those can be said to be so imbued who conscientiously believe that Indian civilization is the best and that the European is a nine days’ wonder. Such ephemeral civilizations have often come and gone and will continue to do so. Those only can be considered to be so imbued who, having experienced the force of the soul within themselves, will not cower before brute-force, and will not, on any account, desire to use brute-force. Those only can be considered to have been so imbued who are intensely dissatisfied with the present pitiable condition, having already drunk the cup of poison.
44 If there be only one such Indian, he will speak as above to the English and the English will have to listen to him.
These are not demands, but they show our mental state. We shall get nothing by asking; we shall have to take what we want, and we need the requisite strength for the effort and that strength will be available to him only who will act thus: 1. He will only on rare occasions make use of the English language; 2. If a lawyer, he will give up his profession, and take up a hand-loom; 3. If a lawyer, he will devote his knowledge to enlightening both his people and the English; 4. If a lawyer, he Will not meddle with the quarrels between parties but will give up the courts, and from hisexperience induce the people to do likewise; 5. If a lawyer, he will refuse to be a judge, as he will give up his profession; 6. If a doctor, he will give up medicine, and understand that rather than mending bodies, he should mend souls;, 7. If a doctor, he will understand that no matter to what religion he belongs, it is better that bodies remain diseased rather than that they are cured through the instrumentality of the diabolical vivisection that is practised in. European schools of medicine; CONCLUSION 8. Although a doctor, he will take up a hand-loom, and if any patients come to him, will tell them the cause of their diseases, and will advise them to remove the cause rather than pamper them by giving useless drugs; he will understand that if by not taking drugs, perchance the patient dies, the world will not come to grief and that he will have been really merciful to him; 9. Although a wealthy man, yet regardless of his wealth, he will speak out his mind and fear no one; 10. If a wealthy man, he will devote his money to establishing hand-looms, and encourage others to use hand-made goods by wearing them himself; 11. Like every other Indian, he will know that this is a time for repentance, expiation and mourning; 12. Like every other Indian, he will know that to blame the English is useless, that they came because of us, and remain also for the same reason, and that they will either go or change their nature only when we reform ourselves; 13. Like others, he will understand that at a time of mourning, there can be no indulgence, and that,.whilst we are in a fallen state, to be in gaol or in banishment is much the best; 14. Like others, he will know that it is superstition to imagine it necessary that we should guard against being imprisoned in order that we may deal with the people; 15. Like others, he will know that action is much better than speech; that it is our duty to say exactly what we think and face the consequences and that it will be only then that we shall be able to impress anybody with our speech; 16. Like others, he will understand that we shall become free only through suffering; 17. Like others, he will understand that deportation for life to the Andamans is not enough expiation for the sin of encouraging European civilization; 18. Like others, he will know that no nation has risen without suffering; that, even in physical warfare, the true test is suffering and not the killing of others, much more so in the warfare of passive resistance; 19. Like others, he will know that it is an idle excuse to say that we shall do a thing when the others also do it; that we should do what we know to be right, and that others will do it when they see the way; that when I fancy a particular delicacy, I do not wait till others taste it: that to make a national effort and to suffer are in the nature of delicacies; and that to suffer under pressure is no suffering.”
READER: This is a large order. When will all carry it out?
Editor: You make a mistake. You and I have nothing to do with the others, Let each do his duty. If I do my duty, that is, serve myself, I shall be able to serve others. Before I leave you, I will take the liberty of repeating; 2. The way to it is passive resistance: that is soul-force or love-force.
3. In order to exert this force, Swadeshi in every sense is necessary.
4. What we want to do should be done, not because we object to the English or because we want to retaliate but because it is our duty to do so. Thus, supposing that the English remove the salt-tax, restore our money, give the highest posts to Indians, withdraw the English troops, we shall certainly not use their machine-made goods, nor use the English language, nor many of their industries. It is worth noting that these things ^re, in their nature, harmful; hence we do not want them. I bear no enmity towards the English but I do towards their civilization.
In my opinion, we have used the term tl Swaraj ” without understanding its real significance. I have endeavoured to explain it as I understand it, and my conscience testifies that my life henceforth is dedicated to its attainment.
APPENDICES Some Authorities and Testimonies by Eminent Men L Soma Authorities The following books are recommended for perusal to follow up the study of the foregoing: The Kingdom of God is Within You — Tolstoy What is Art? — Tolstoy The Slavery of Our Times — Tolstoy The First Step — Tolstoy How Shall We Escape? — Tolstoy Letter to a Hindoo — Tolstoy The White Slaves of England — Sherard Civilization, Its Cause and Cure — Carpenter The Fallacy of Speed — Taylor A New Crusade — Blount On the Duty of Civil Disobedience — Thoreau Life Without Principle — Thoreau Unto This Last — Ruskin A Joy for Ever — Ruskin Duties of Man — Mazzini Defence and Death of Socrates — From Plato Paradoxes of Civilization — Max Nordau Poverty and Un-British Rule in India — Naoroji Economic History of India — Dutt Village Communities — Maine II. Testimonies h j Eminent Men The following extracts from Mr. Alfred Webb's valuable collection show that the ancient Indian civilization has little to learn from the modern: Banker in India and India Agent.
( Writing in 1883 ) “ It cannot be too well understood that our position in India has never been in any degree that of civilians bringing civilization to savage races. When we landed in India we found there a hoary civilization, which, during the progress of thousands of years, had fitted itself into the character and adjusted itself to the wants of highly intellectual races. The civilization was not perfunctory, but universal and all-pervading — furnishing the country not only with political systems, but with social and domestic institutions of the most ramified description. The beneficent nature of these institutions as a whole may be judged from their effects on the character of the Hindu race. Perhaps there are no other people in the world who show so much in their characters the advantageous effects of their own civilization. They are shrewd in business, acute in reasoning, thrifty, religious, sober, charitable, obedient to parents, reverential to old age, amiable, law-abiding, compassionate towards the helpless and patient under suffering.”
Victor Cousin (1792-2867) Founder of Systematic Eclecticism in Philosophy.
“ On the other hand when we read with attention the poetical and philosophical movements of the East, above all, those of India, which are beginning to spread in Europe, we discover there so many truths, and truths, so profound, and which make such a contrast with the meanness of the results at which the European genius has sometimes stopped, that we are constrained to bend the knee before that of the East, and do see in this cradle of the human race the native land of the highest philosophy.”
Friedrich Max Muller “ If I were to ask myself from what literature we here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life — again I should point to India.”
Frederick Von schlegel “It cannot be denied that the early Indians possessed a knowledge of the true God; all their writings are replete with sentiments and expressions, noble, clear, and severely grand, as deeply conceived and reverently expressed as in any human language in which men have spoken of their God Among nations possessing indigenous philosophy and metaphysics together with an innate relish for these pursuits, such as at present characterizes Germany, and, in olden times was the proud distinction of Greece, Hindustan holds the first rank in point of time.”
Abbe J. A. Dubois Missionary in Mysore: Extracts from a letter dated Seringapatan, 15th December, 1820.
“ The authority of married women within their houses is chiefly exerted in preserving good order and peace among APPENDICES the persons who compose their families; and a great many among them discharge this important duty with a prudence and a discretion which have scarcely a parallel in Europe.
I have known families composed of between thirty and forty persons, or more, consisting of grown up sons and daughters, all married and all having children, living together under the superintendence of an old matron — their mother or mother-in-law. The latter, by good management, and by accommodating herself to the temper of the daughters-inlaw, by using, according to circumstances firmness or forbearance, succeeded in preserving peace and harmony during many years amongst so many females, who had all jarring tempers. I ask you whether it would be possible to attain the same end, in the same circumstances, in our countries, where it is scarcely possible to make two women living under the same roof to agree together.
“ In fact, there is perhaps no kind of honest employment in a civilized country in which the Hindu females have not a due share. Besides the management of the household, and the care of the family which (as already noticed) is under their control the wives and daughters of husbandmen attend and assist their husbands and fathers in the ' labours of agriculture. Those of tradesmen assist theirs in carrying on their trade. Merchants are attended and assisted by theirs in their shops. Many females are shopkeepers on their own account; and without a knowledge of the alphabet or of the decimal scale, they keep by other means their accounts in excellent order, and are considered as still shrewder than the males themselves in their commercial dealings.”
J. YOUNG Secretary, Savon Mechanics Institutes ( Within recent years ) “ Those races (the Indian viewed from a moral aspect) are perhaps the most remarkable people in the world. They breathe an atmosphere of moral purity, which cannot but excite admiration, and this is especially the case with the poorer classes, who, notwithstanding the privations of their humble lot, appear to be happy and contented. True children of nature, they live on from day to day, taking no thought for the morrow and thankful for the simple fare which Providence has provided for them. It is curious to witness the spectacle of coolies of both sexes returning home at nightfall afcer a hard day’s work often lasting from sunrise to sunset. In spite of fatigue from the effects of the unremitting toil, they are, for the most part gay and animated, conversing cheerfully together.and occasionally breaking into snatches of light-hearted song. Yet "what awaits them on their return to the hovels which they call home? A dish of rice for food, and the floor for a bed. Domestic felicity appears to be the rule among the Natives, and this is the more strange when the customs of marriage are taken into account, parents arranging all such matters. Many Indian households afford examples of the married state in its highest degree of perfection. This may be due to the teachings of the Shastras, and to the strict injunctions which they inculcate with regard to marital obligation; but it is no exaggertion to say that husbands are generally devotedly attached to their wives, and in many instances the latter have the most exalted conception of their duties towards: their husbands.” Colonel Thomas Munro ( Thirty-tuv years service in India ) “ If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to convenience or luxury; schools established in every village, for teaching, reading, writing and arithmetic; the general practice of hospitality and charity among each other; and, above all, a treatment of the female sex, full of confidence, respect and delicacy, are among the signs which denote a civilized people, then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe; and if civilization is to become an article of trade between the two countries, I am convinced that this country [England] will gain by the import cargo.”
Sir William Wedderburn, Bart.
The Indian village has thus for centuries remained a bulwark against political disorder, and the home of the simple domestic and social virtues. No wonder, therefore, that philosophers and historians have always dwelt lovingly on this ancient institution which is the natural social unit and the best type of rural life: self-contained, industrious, peace-loving, conservative in the best sense of the word...I think you will agree with me that there is much that is both picturesque and attractive in this glimpse of social and domestic life in an Indian village. It is a harmless and happy form of human existence. Moreover, it is not without good practical outcome.”