G2FT OF 
 
I 
 
 \ 
 
 SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE. 
 
INDIA'S 
 NATION BUILDERS 
 
 BY 
 
 D. N. BANNERJEA 
 
 . 
 
 BRENTANO'S : 
 
 FIFTH AVENUE & 27 STREET, 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 

 \ 
 

 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 IT has been a great pleasure to undertake the present 
 task, in compliance with the request to write short but 
 reasonably complete narratives of Indians that have 
 served as pathfinders in the difficult work of nation- 
 building in India. But delightful in itself though the 
 writing of the book has been, it has not been quite so 
 easy as one might have expected, by reason of the 
 paucity of reliable material, or difficulties in having 
 access to such material as is actually obtainable. 
 There is an abundance of books that may be used 
 as running commentaries on the various movements 
 in India, social as well as political, but there is 
 unfortunately, a regrettable dearth of authentic 
 biographies from which one might glean salient facts, 
 dates or leading episodes in the careers of great men. 
 
 It is with a view of filling such gaps that the 
 present modest attempt is made. But our obj ect has 
 not been so much to chronicle bare incidents as to 
 strive to reveal the personality of the man whose 
 contribution to one or the other of the liberalising 
 movements in India comes under review. How far 
 such attempts have been successful, we leave it to 
 the readers to judge. 
 
 In the case of Sir Rabindra Nath Tagore, we have 
 deliberately abstained from recording the personal 
 
 434590 
 
6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 incidents of his earlier life, since these have been so 
 graphically described for us, by the poet himself 
 in " My Reminiscences "* and also since his 
 personality and the fruition of his creative genius 
 in the realm of Art and Literature have a more 
 permanent interest than the details of his academic 
 and poetic life. In any case his spiritual vision and 
 the subtle and attractive garb with which he clothes 
 the commonest of sentiments are the most out- 
 standing features of the poet's entire career. 
 Similarly in the cases of one or two others who, 
 after a short-lived and strenuous activity in their 
 respective spheres have since retired, for various 
 reasons, from public life/ we have avoided going 
 into personal incidents. 
 
 The writer is in the fullest sympathy with the 
 aspirations of his educated countrymen and with 
 their demand that a substantial measure of self- 
 government must be given to India immediately, 
 in so far as it is compatible with the security and 
 stability of the Empire as a whole. And it is the 
 writer's firm conviction that a genuine concession to 
 this demand, here and now, would strengthen the 
 bonds between England and India, and that 
 eventual fullest autonomy within the Empire would 
 leave the destinies of India and the mother country 
 indissolubly linked. 
 
 The author desires, however, to repudiate all 
 methods of agitation that are not strictly con- 
 stitutional, and to dissociate himself from any 
 propaganda that exploits race-hatred to promote its 
 
 * Macmillan and Co., London, 73. 6d. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 7 
 
 ends. We sincerely feel that religious, social and 
 political reform must go hand in hand, so that the 
 prevailing anomalies in the Indian communities may 
 not furnish a handle for the reactionary obstruction 
 of the bureaucracy in India, nor that indifference to 
 the demands of India's social emancipation may 
 accentuate the revolutionary destruction of certain 
 misguided idealists. There must be an advance 
 towards the goal, through all the various avenues of 
 approach. 
 
 Though the main ideas and opinions expressed in 
 the book are my own, I take this opportunity to say 
 that the study of " The Renaissance in India," by 
 the Rev. C. F. Andrews, first aroused my interest 
 in the study of Indian problems. This gifted 
 writer surveyed the modern situation in India from 
 the point of view of missionary activity : I have 
 tried to review the modern developments in India 
 in close association with their founders, in the light 
 of their bearing on the birth and the gradual con- 
 solidation of the National Idea, as the result of 
 the West meeting the East. 
 
 I express my thanks to the authorities of the 
 British Museum for affording me every facility for 
 getting at original documents, periodicals and books 
 in general. 
 
 My thanks are likewise due to Colonel Josiah C. 
 Wedgwood, M.P., for always assisting me with advice 
 and suggestions in my literary ventures, and to the 
 Rt. Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, the President of the Board 
 of Education, for his inspiring glimpses into 
 the character and life-work of the late Mr. G. K. 
 
8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 Gokhale. His appreciation of Mr. Gokhale's life- 
 work enhanced my admiration for the noble Indian 
 patriot, and particularly as Mr. Fisher's appreciation 
 had behind it the weight and authority of a famous 
 scholar, and one of the foremost educationalists 
 now engaged in revolutionising the conditions of 
 education in this country. 
 
 I should finally express my thanks to Mr. A. G. 
 Gardiner, of The Daily News and Mr. J. A. Spender, 
 of The Westminster Gazette, for always encouraging 
 the interpretation of Indian ideals and aspirations, 
 with a view to the education of public opinion in this 
 country. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION - - - - - - II 
 
 V. I. SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE - - 21 
 
 II. RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY 40 
 
 III. KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 53 
 
 IV. SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 70 
 V. SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 95 
 
 VI. DADABHOY NAOROJI - 1 15 
 
 VII. SWAMI VIVEKANANDA - 128 
 
 . VIII. GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE - 146 
 
 IX. M. K. GANDHI - - 164 
 
 X. KALI CHARAN BANURJI - 174 
 
 XI. BAL GANGADHAR TILAK - l8l 
 
 XII. BEPIN CHANDRA PAL - 197 
 
 "-XIII. ARABINDA GHOSE - 206 
 
 L> XIV. iALA LAJPAT RAI - 213 
 
 XV. SURENDRA NATH BANNERJEA - 225 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE writer offers no apology, since none is needed, for 
 selecting the present moment as opportune for the 
 presentation to the public, British as well as Indian, 
 of the following character-sketches of eminent 
 Indians that have figured, more or less conspicuously, 
 as pioneers of movements which have taken their 
 rise in, and contributed towards the making of, 
 modern India. It will be obvious to the reader that 
 New India presents rather a perplexing develop- 
 ment, in which the old order and the new are at close 
 grips, victory being assured to the new, however 
 painfully slow may seem the movement towards the 
 triumph of the progressive forces. 
 
 Discriminating critics may regret the absence of 
 names from these essays of Ranade, Sir Subrahmania 
 Aiyar and Sir Krishna Nair, at present Minister for 
 Education in India. But the distinguished services 
 to India rendered by these great men are to be 
 dealt with, it is hoped, in another volume, and in a 
 somewhat different connection. For a similar reason 
 we have refrained from including in the following 
 chapters, narratives of the illustrious careers of 
 sympathetic Englishmen and Englishwomen who 
 have disinterestedly promoted the cause of India's 
 political emancipation. Among names that are 
 
12 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 enshrined in Indian hearts stand out those of 
 Allan Octavian Hume, Sir Henry Cotton and the 
 late Sir William Wedderburn, as bright shining 
 lights on the Indian political horizon. We have 
 been, in the main, concerned with the working of 
 certain progressive forces in India, forces that are 
 mainly the result of western education impinging on 
 a rich heritage of indigenous ideals. 
 
 The writer strongly feels that because of the great 
 world-war, the idea of nationality, always sacred 
 and inspiring has somehow been thrust into the fore- 
 ground of political thought. It was thus evident 
 that people's minds would be naturally more receptive 
 of the imperative claims of " India : a Nation " 
 than ever before. What the flower of the Allied 
 democracy are to-day fighting and dying for, Indian 
 progressives and reformers are living for : to vindi- 
 cate, that is to say, the principle of nationality, to 
 assert the national idea and to demonstrate the 
 inherent right of all nations, great or small, to work 
 out their own destinies, untrammelled by the vested 
 interests of bureaucracies or military oligarchies. 
 
 The series begins with the chapter on Sir Rabrindra 
 Nath Tag ore, not because he is the earliest pioneer 
 of modern India, but because he is to-day best known 
 in contemporary England, not to speak of Europe 
 and America. We have not dealt with the various 
 " nation- builders " throughout, in anything like 
 chronological sequence, but mainly on a rough esti- 
 mate of their influence on Indian life generally. But 
 broadly speaking, the order of treatment has been a 
 purely convenient arrangement, and no invidious 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 distinctions should be inferred from priority of 
 position. 
 
 It was also felt that something must be done 
 to remove the impression, the very misleading and 
 erroneous impression, that Indian leaders have been, 
 and are, impervious to modernist tendencies and 
 oblivious to the numerous evils that lurk in the 
 Indian body-politic. None is more merciless in 
 denunciation of social and other evils than the 
 Indian reformers themselves ; none so unsparing in 
 critical judgment as they. That India must set her 
 house in order, and apply the surgeon's knife to the 
 cankerous growths that she has so far encouraged 
 in her civic and communal life is the constant 
 burden of their teaching. From Ram Mohan to 
 Tagore, from Syed Ahmad Khan to Ranade, they 
 have never ceased from criticising the evils the 
 serious and fundamental evils that are to be found 
 in the Indian character and mentality, precisely as 
 English reformers and French, too, have ever 
 striven to remedy the evils that hamper the growth 
 of the nation's life, and have considered it a duty 
 to expose the evils that were sapping its vitality. 
 
 It is for this reason that we strongly feel that Mr. 
 William Archejr could scarcely have chosen a more 
 ill-starred moment than the present for a wholesale 
 disparagment of Indian publicists, and a scathing 
 indictment of the Indian tradition in its entirety, 
 in his recently published book : " India and the 
 Future." Not that we are afraid of criticism. We 
 sincerely feel that India's best friends are those that 
 lay their fingers on her festering sores. The fault, if 
 
14 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 any, that we have to find with Mr. Archer is not that 
 he is critical, but that his criticisms betray lack of 
 judgment, of the historical conscience, and full 
 knowledge of India's past and present. We are 
 reluctantly driven to confess that the learned 
 journalist's sole knowledge concerning India consists 
 of a bundle of impressions, gleaned from ignorant 
 and hostile sources, and capped with " the high 
 authority of Lord Sydenham of Combe." By the 
 way, the only other statesman in the Empire that 
 Mr. Archer did not consult while writing his book is 
 Lord Milner. But to pass on. 
 
 We are in the heartiest agreement with the learned 
 author's dictum that those" Hinduisers " in the West 
 who exaggerate everything Indian that is good, and 
 allegorise away everything Indian that is repulsive, 
 morbid, retrogressive, render India doubtful service. 
 So far, so good. But we strongly question, not Mr. 
 Archer's sincerity, but the propriety of his method 
 in making the pendulum swing to the other extreme. 
 With due respect to him, we beg leave to remind Mr. 
 Archer that in his eagerness to break a lance or two 
 with Orientalists and others, he seems to have quite 
 forgotten all about the scantiness of the material at 
 his disposal. While passing judgment on the religious 
 scriptures of India, he incidentally forgets that 
 progressive Hinduism does not depend on verses from 
 the Vedas, and, further, he leans upon the broken 
 reed of opinion proceeding from unfriendly quarters. 
 It was hardly necessary to quote Max Miiller, the 
 great orientalist and friend of India, and labour the 
 point that there are inchoate and inconsistent texts 
 
 . 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 in the Hindu scriptures, since Hinduism is a con- 
 tinuity and not a hidebound ecclesiastical system. 
 In its lower developments, Hinduism presents hideous 
 features ; the tyranny of the priest, of caste and 
 repressive doctrine, but which religion is perfect in 
 its cruder aspects and formulations ? 
 
 Mr. Archer, again, lays himself open to the very 
 accusation which he levels against young students 
 from India, viz., that they are fond of " extravagant 
 rhetoric/ Instead of saying that the masses in 
 India have not been educated, and owing to their 
 illiteracy are sinking very low, our learned contem- 
 porary uses flamboyant phraseology and says : 
 " A long chain of prehistoric and historic circum- 
 stances, ultimately traceable to geographical con- 
 ditions, has reduced the masses to a condition of 
 stagnant barbarism" (p. 26). What is this, if not 
 " extravagant rhetoric," not even pardonable as in 
 the case of Indian students, because the medium of 
 expression, in his case, is his own mother-tongue. 
 Who is to blame for the neglect of mass education in 
 India ? The masses themselves ? or " the classes 
 reduced to an even less desirable state of inveter- 
 ately self-satisfied pseudo-civilisation ? " 
 
 But even the above attempts at describing 
 new India pale into insignificance, when Mr. 
 Archer, the journalist, assumes the role of Pope of 
 Rome and prophesies a function discarded by the 
 Vatican now-a-days that India " may one day 
 come to date the dawn of her regeneration from the 
 Battle of Plassey." For aught we know, Mr. 
 Archer is quite right this time. In any case, we 
 
16 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 who are thoroughly loyal to the Imperial economy 
 believe that in the British connection with India 
 is implicit the guarantee of her political emanci- 
 pation. Only we expected that the learned author 
 would consider that after all we are human, and 
 not " rub it in " so v hard. For example, our learned 
 friend would not go the length of telling the Belgians 
 that they may one day come to date the dawn of 
 their regeneration from the farfl of Antwerp, sup- 
 posing the Germans had been ranged on our side. 
 I know and rejoice to know that the analogy 
 does not hold, but it is in the light of the 
 principle of nationality that we should pass 
 judgments on other nations, and pay some heed 
 to their sensitiveness and susceptibilities. 
 
 Arrogating to himself papal infallibility, Mr. Archer 
 lays the lash upon the backs of all Indian publicists, 
 progressive or reactionary, moderate or extremist. 
 At one moment we see Gokhale bleed under the 
 crash of Mr. Archer's sjambok, the next moment 
 Ranade is laid low. We hold no brief for 
 Ranade when he asks Indians to consider them- 
 selves " God's chosen people." But Mr. Archer 
 would be the first to consider himself as one of 
 the elect, and in fact through his interesting 
 articles, he has been giving, during the war, able 
 and forceful expression to his patriotic impulses, 
 and in our judgment quite properly. But then, why 
 should Ranade be pilloried for expressing his patriotic 
 instincts ? It is only human nature to cherish 
 one's traditions and ideals. The wail of lamen- 
 tation, however, becomes very deep and touching 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 when the complaint is voiced forth : ' The wisest 
 of Indians cannot get over the inveterate habit of 
 admitting in one breath that India's past is her 
 disaster, and asserting in the next that it is her glory 
 and her pride. The two propositions are not abso- 
 lutely irreconcilable ; but the first alone is of any 
 practical moment (the italics are ours). If only the 
 Indian politician would cling fast to that, and give 
 up talking as though British rule had involved a 
 decline from some high estate of splendour and 
 felicity, he would do much to hasten the advent 
 of a bright future" (p. 171). Hear, O heavens, 
 and give ear, O earth, for Mr. Archer hath spoken ! 
 
 With such opiate doses would the gifted writer, 
 the exponent of the newest Imperialism, send 
 refractory Indian children to bed ! While the 
 Times is to-day lavishing unstinted praise on Mr. 
 Gokhale, and the Round Table has appreciated 
 vide the issue of December, 1917 the points of 
 his criticism, Mr. Archer raises his prejudices and 
 preconceptions to the perfection of a science, with a 
 view of demolishing the men of straw that his 
 imagination has set up. 
 
 In the scheme of Empire Mr. Archer sees no hope of 
 any British citizen right being conferred on the Indian 
 in the colonies of the Empire. He very wisely says 
 that it is best " for each race to keep itself to itself 
 and not seek to swamp or submerge its neighbours " 
 (p. 175 footnote). And yet in the introduction he 
 recommends that " steps should be taken to make 
 the service of India attractive to the best class of 
 young Englishmen " (the italics are ours). Surely if 
 
i8 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 Empire stands for anything, it involves a policy of 
 give-and-take. According to Mr. Archer, Empire 
 signifies only " take," but no " give." 
 
 One word more, and we have done with 
 the new Goliath that has risen to shatter the super- 
 stitions of India's greatness. In common with 
 other readers, we have been amused with the 
 display of learning concerning Indian affairs. But 
 we shall ask only two questions of Mr. Archer. 
 First, can he point to a single historic instance of a 
 nation that has risen to great heights through the 
 systematic despising of her past heritage, as he would 
 fain see done by the Indians ? And secondly, if 
 India's past is her disaster, why does he so heroically 
 " go f or " the Anglo-Indians who, believing in Mr. 
 Archer's hypothesis, carry it to its logical con- 
 clusion in practice ? Surely, Mr. Archer does not 
 expect all Anglo-Indians to be artists, and literary 
 critics and philanthropic institutions ! 
 
 As we lay down the very expensive volume with a 
 sense of disappointment, we discover the secret of 
 Mr. Archer's trenchant remarks. He says many 
 unkind things, because he is entrenched behind the 
 belief that " eventual self-government " is good for 
 India. He does not say when that millennium 
 is coming, but it would appear some time before this 
 planet becomes unfit for human habitation. 
 
 We quite see that India has much leeway to make 
 up before her sons and daughters can enter upon a 
 richer inheritance. But the path to that goal of 
 perfection, should perfection be ever within human 
 grasp, would not lie through excessive self-laudation, 
 
INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 much less through paralysing self -depreciation and 
 despair, but through discipline and self-control and 
 self-reverence. It is with a view to elucidating 
 this position that the accompanying essays have been 
 written. 
 
 To conclude : nothing could be more unreasonable 
 than the following ipse dixit of Mr. Archer : 
 " Europe is struggling out of the ages of faith into 
 the age of knowledge, some of the worst of its evils 
 proceed from the very rapidity of its movement ; 
 whereas the evils of India are those of secular stag- 
 nation " (p. 6). We quite agree that " secular 
 stagnation " has been so far the evil of India, but one 
 should have thought that The Times and The 
 Morning Post had already taken alarm at the rapidity 
 of the movement with which liberal ideas are 
 replacing conservatism and decadence, even in the 
 most conservative of traditions. India entertains 
 no illusions concerning her inferiority to Europe 
 in the realms of science and mechanical efficiency 
 or organisation. All that she demands is the estab- 
 lishment of a profound association with the west, on 
 lines of right understanding and mutual respect. 
 Less than this she does not desire ; more than this 
 she could not reasonably expect. 
 
 Without making any pretensions to powers of 
 clairvoyance, we might, perhaps, suggest that what 
 Mr. Archer is thinking about is the deplorable 
 condition of the masses in India. But the only 
 panacea for that evil is free and compulsory 
 education so ably advocated by the late Mr. 
 Gokhale. The hopeless illiteracy of the masses 
 
20 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 does, indeed, constitute India's " actual state of 
 degradation," to quote Mr. Archer, and the remedy 
 consists not in knocking down phantoms in Indian 
 character and traditions with missiles of ponderous 
 phrases, but in pleading for the inauguration of a 
 more enlightened educational policy. 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 
 
 WE begin this series of character-sketches with 
 Tagore, not because he takes precedence, in order of 
 time, of other eminent nation-builders of India, but 
 because we feel that his name is best known to the 
 reading public in this country. No other Indian 
 occupies, at present, a more prominent place in the 
 estimation of competent critics. And if towards 
 the end of a highly appreciative chapter, we become 
 somewhat critical of Tagore' s expressed ideas on 
 politics and social philosophy, it is with no intention 
 of minimising his influence as the poet of the 
 Indian Re-awakening, but solely under the honest 
 conviction that constant thinking about universal ideas 
 renders poets and he will be a bold man indeed 
 who questions Tagore' s pre-eminent position as 
 poet somewhat indifferent to concrete issues and 
 to the desire of reducing ideas to a coherent system. 
 We shall offer our criticism in a spirit of reverence 
 towards one of the greatest men that modern India 
 has produced. 
 
 Sir Rabindra Nath, the Nobel Prize Laureate 
 lor 1913, is the most highly gifted poet of the 
 Renaissance in India in its various aspects literary, 
 religious, social and philosophical. He has given, 
 in language understood of the West, eloquent and 
 forceful expression to the emotions and longings 
 
22 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 that stir the heart of New India. But he is much 
 more than merely a brilliant literary exponent of 
 the aspiration and outlook of awakened India. He 
 is a poet, to be sure, but he is a prophet as well 
 one who beckons us on to the future and asks us to 
 lay the foundations of our national life deep and 
 broad, on righteousness, unity and love. 
 
 Tagore's magic minstrelsies have called a new 
 India into being, sweeping the chords with the 
 inspiration that comes from a new vision, a new 
 discovery of the spiritual, a new synthesis of the 
 contradictions of life. The power of his song has 
 welded us into a fuller unity, the vibrations of his 
 music have thrilled us into novel conceptions of duty 
 and self-sacrifice and patriotism. 
 
 Tagore is the poet of disillusioned India, of 
 modernised India, conscious of her destiny. Con- 
 trasted with Kipling, the roughrider of Imperialism, 
 Tagore is the delicate poet of national culture. If 
 it were excess of sentiment to suggest that Nation- 
 alism is the poem of Tagore, we might pernaps say 
 that there is no other theme of human interest so 
 near his heart and so easily transmutable into his 
 music as national regeneration and hope. Kipling 
 made us despair : Tagore bids us be of good cheer. It 
 is impossible to overestimate the amount of mischief 
 that has been done by the famous lines of Kipling ; 
 especially as the supplementary lines are so easily 
 forgotten : 
 
 For East is East, and West is West, 
 And never the twain shall meet." 
 
 They meet in Tagore, who represents in his person- 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 23 
 
 ality and in his poems a spiritual fusion of East and 
 West. While proud of the Indian continuity, he is 
 not ashamed of enriching and replenishing that 
 continuity by assimilating elements of Western 
 culture, which serve to fill the gaps in indigenous 
 tradition. In so doing, he breaks away entirely 
 from those mean and parochial views concerning 
 human destiny which assign to one nation the task 
 of ruling and subduing for all time, and to another 
 nation the duty of perpetual subordination. In 
 Tagore, East and West meet as fully enfranchised 
 partners rather than in the role of slave and master, 
 or factory-hand and employer. 
 
 " This is my prayer to Thee, my Lord, 
 Give me the strength never to disown the poor 
 Or bend my knees before insolent might." 1 
 
 But his national philosophy is not sectarian, racial, 
 denominational or narrow-minded. He is conscious 
 of the limitations and deficiencies in the older phases 
 of Indian tradition. His Nationalist faith does not 
 delight in blowing its own trumpet or magnifying 
 the virtues of India and the vices of other countries. 
 That way lies jingoism. To Tagore " East and 
 West " connote not simply convenient geographical 
 distinctions but culture-grounds of views, con- 
 ceptions, and practices which by their harmonious 
 interaction enrich the content of life. 
 
 Unlike the watchword of Swami Dayananda 
 
 Saraswati, " Back to the Vedas," that of Tagore 
 
 would presumably be : " Forward with life." Yet 
 
 both these men have been progressive. 
 
 ; Tagore is pre-eminently a social reformer. As 
 
24 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 adherents of the Brahmo Samaj, both he and his 
 people have broken away from caste, purdah and the 
 I spirit of religious insularity. He finds it difficult to 
 believe that caste and nationality are compatible 
 with each other. Politics aim at national solidarity ; 
 caste makes for endless distinctions. A great 
 national unification implies, therefore, a great revolt 
 against caste trammels, a strong impulse towards 
 reconciliation of conflicting interests, the mutual 
 composing of differences, rhythmic heart-beats as the 
 result of engaging in common pursuits as brothers, 
 
 | co-equals. In India, caste is the greatest obstruction 
 
 ' in the pathway of reform. 
 
 ' When I realise the hypnotic hold which this 
 gigantic system of cold-blooded repression has 
 taken on the minds of our people, whose social body 
 it has so completely entwined in its endless coils that 
 the free expression of manhood, under the direst 
 necessity, has become almost an impossibility, the 
 only remedy that suggests itself to me is to educate 
 them out of their trance. . . . If to break up 
 the feudal system, and the tyrannical convention- 
 alism of the mediaeval church, which had outraged the 
 healthier instincts of humanity, Europe needed the 
 thought impulse of the Renaissance and the fierce 
 struggle of the Reformation, do we not need in a 
 greater degree an overwhelming influx of higher 
 social ideas before a place can be found for true 
 political thinking ? Must we not have that greater 
 vision of humanity which will impel us to shake off 
 t\ the fetters that shackle our individual life before we 
 begin to think of national freedom ? 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 25 
 
 His vision of his country's future is such as to hold 
 the imagination in thrall. 
 
 " Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, 
 Where knowledge is free, 
 Where the world has not been broken up by narrow domestic 
 
 walls, 
 
 Where words come out from the depth of truth, 
 Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way in the 
 
 dreary desert sand of dead habit, 
 Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening 
 
 thought and action 
 Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country 
 
 awake ! " 
 
 Since Tagore is the poet of the Renaissance, his 
 millennium is not in the past. And yet no living 
 poet could set greater store by the past traditions 
 and culture of India than he. He is Indian to the 
 backbone, and since he is proud of being an Indian, 
 New India is proud of him. His gospel is that of 
 self-respect, self-reliance and national self-realisation. 
 It is not difficult to understand his national fervour 
 when we bear in mind that a keen sense of nationality 
 is characteristic even of men with world-wide 
 sympathies. Tagore believes in India : a nation. 
 And yet this nation is not to cut itself off from the 
 main currents of modern thought, or isolate itself 
 from the spiritual acquisitions of sister nations, nor 
 yet is India to delude herself with the belief that mere 
 trading on the past would lead to aught but moral 
 degeneracy. But, at the same time, in the spiritual 
 federation of nations, India, according to him, should 
 occupy a place of honour as the Mother of Nations. 
 And who could urge this plea with greater consistency 
 and authority than the poet-prophet of the Indian 
 Renaissance, who, by his literary contributions and 
 
26 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 an eminently useful and irreproachable life, has 
 enhanced the status of India in the eyes of the 
 intellectual world ? 
 
 Tagore's evangel is : " cultivate the spirit of 
 invincible optimism ; believe in life ; live worthy of 
 life." W. B. Yeats endorses this with a statement 
 from someone who asserts that Tagore is the first 
 Indian poet who has not " refused to live." But 
 in not " refusing to live " Tagore has not only 
 benefited India but has placed in some measure the 
 whole religious world (including Christendom) under 
 a deep obligation. For the bane of the religious life 
 in the past has been a morbid, too overbearing sense 
 of sin, a depressing concentration on the inherent 
 vileness of human interests and attachments, a 
 sense of the remoteness of God from the arena of 
 mundane interests, and a persistent pursuit of 
 " the soul's salvation " instead of the soul's enrich- 
 ment through service and love. 
 
 " In this laborious world of Thine, tumultuous with toil and 
 
 with struggle, 
 Among hurrying crowds, shall I stand before Thee, face to 
 
 face? 
 
 And when my work shall be done in this world, 
 O King of Kings, alone and speechless shall I stand 
 
 before Thee, face to face ? " 
 
 " Thus it is that Thy joy in me is so full. Thus it is that 
 Thou hast come down to me. O Thou Lord of all heavens, 
 where would be Thy love if I were not ? Thou hast taken me 
 as Thy partner of all this wealth. In my heart is the endless 
 play of Thy delight. In my heart Thy will is ever taking 
 shape." 
 
 Tagore's intense religious mysticism, combined 
 with buoyant joy in life's varied interests, produces 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 27 
 
 a resultant patriotism which is chastened with a sense 
 of limitation and yet is audacious and progressive in 
 its design. 
 
 The Trumpet represents India's contribution, 
 through Tagore, to the Empire's war poetry. The 
 poem is a witness to his profound perturbation of 
 spirit over the Empire's death-grapple with the 
 organised militarism of the Central Powers. His 
 loyalty reflects the loyalty of enlightened India to 
 the best interests of an Empire which, with all its 
 failings, rests primarily on moral suasion rather than 
 on brute force. We cannot resist quoting at least 
 one line from The Trumpet : 
 
 "... . For to-night thy trumpet shall be sounded. 
 From thee I had asked peace, only to find shame. 
 Now I stand before thee, help me to don my armour, 
 Let hard blows of trouble strike fire into my life, 
 Let my heart beat in pain beating the drum of thy victory. 
 My hands shall be utterly emptied to take up thy trumpet." 
 
 But in spite of his war poems, Sir Rabindra 
 Nath Tagore is an uncompromising lover of Peace 
 and concord among the Nations. One of his utter- 
 ances made in Japan is " that the vital ambition 
 of all militarist civilisations is to obtain an exclusive 
 monopoly of the Devil ! " He regrets that in the 
 twentieth century " the unspeakable filth of the cen- 
 turies is being churned up " in direct violation of the 
 Sermon on the Mount, as Christian nations are flying 
 at each other's throats. He warns Japan against 
 accepting European "equality" on a military basis. 
 
 But Tagore is at his best, both in crystallising 
 his philosophy of war and in expressing India's sense 
 of loyalty, in his latest war poem, The Oarsmen. 
 
I 
 
 28 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 We reproduce the poem here, with the exception of 
 the first stanza. 
 
 " Do you hear the roar of death through the listening hush of 
 distance, 
 
 And there rings the Captain's voice in the dark, 
 ' Come, sailors, for the time in the haven is over ! ' 
 
 Whom do you blame, brothers ? Bow your heads down ! 
 
 The sin has been yours and ours, 
 
 The heat growing in the heart of God for ages 
 
 The cowardice of the weak, the arrogance of the strong, the 
 
 greed of fat prosperity, the rancour of the deprived, 
 
 pride of race and insult to man 
 Has burst God's peace raging in storm. . . . 
 
 Stop your bluster of abuse and self- praise, my friends, 
 And with the calm of silent prayer on your brows sail forward 
 to the shore of the new world. . . . 
 
 We do not fear you, O monster : for we have lived every 
 moment of our life by conquering you, 
 
 And we died with the faith that Peace is true and Good is 
 true, and true is the eternal One ! 
 
 If the deathless dwell not in the heart of Death, if glad wisdom 
 
 bloom not bursting the sheath of sorrow, 
 If sin do not die of its own revealment, if pride break not 
 
 under its load of decorations, 
 Then whence comes the hope that drives these men from 
 
 their homes like stars rushing to their death in the 
 
 morning light ? 
 Shall the value of the martyrs' blood and the mothers' tears 
 
 be utterly lost in the dust of the earth, not buying 
 
 Heaven with their price ? 
 And when Man bursts his mortal bounds, is not the Boundless 
 
 revealed in that moment ? " 
 
 One word more about Tagore's poetry. He is the 
 first Indian poet that introduces a democratic concep- 
 tion of God in religious verse. It is no doubt true 
 that the entire Hindu philosophy of God as an all- 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 29 
 
 pervasive Reality, of which individuals are so many 
 isolated self-expressions, is in its higher phases 
 democratic, in the sense that in its most sublime 
 developments at least, it leaves little scope for 
 crouching and cringing before a localised divinity, 
 seated in aristocratic detachment from human 
 affairs. But students of Indian religious experience 
 also know that sublime intellectual abstractions 
 seldom afford a basis for that passionate devotion 
 to an object of worship which serves as a guide 
 through the experiences of life. In India, though 
 Reason has soared above all limitations and 
 attributes that gather round human personality, 
 in its definition of Divine Essence denying to It even 
 such an important function as character, yet the 
 profound religious instincts of the people have led 
 them to bestow passionate worship on some mani- 
 festations of Brahma, the Infinite, the Actionless, 
 the Eternal One, the One without a second, the 
 pure Being. 
 
 In the Worship of Ishwara, then, devotees have not 
 refrained from showing abject humility, have used 
 most slighting and even degrading epithets about 
 themselves in their desire to exalt the Object of 
 Worship, the personal God which claims and purifies 
 allegiance. 
 
 But Tagore's personal God is described as 
 " Brother," " Friend," even though He is " Lord 
 of my life " and " My King." Compare his beautiful 
 hymn : 
 
 " Day after day, O Lord of my life 
 
 I shall stand before Thee, face to face," etc. 
 
30 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 We now come to his political and social philosophy, 
 or rather his attempts at evolving one. In 
 " Nationalism " (Messrs. Macmillan & Co., 1917 : 
 page 97) Tagore uses these words : " Our real pro- 
 blem in India is not political. It is social. This 
 is a condition not only prevailing in India, but 
 among all nations. I do not believe in an exclusive 
 political interest. Politics in the West have 
 dominated western ideals, and we in India are trying 
 to imitate you." We have no quarrel with Sir 
 Rabindra Nath the Poet in his not believing " in an 
 exclusive political interest." It would be just as hard 
 for some of us not endowed with poetic gifts to 
 believe " in an exclusive poetic interest." Gifts 
 may not determine one's launching on a political 
 career, but training is indispensable, and the securing 
 of a thorough training involves time whkh people 
 engrossed in art or literature or kindred pre-occupa- 
 tions can ill afford to spare. If training is essential, 
 knowledge of problems and public affairs is a thousand 
 times more so. Then again, there are people who 
 temperamentally find it in the line of the least resist- 
 ance to write verse, but would at once suffer a com- 
 plete mental collapse, if asked to mount a political 
 platform or offer mediation in a political emergency. 
 
 But does Sir Rabindra Nath mean that the 
 education of the masses is not necessary ? If it is 
 according to him necessary, then how can it be 
 secured without keen political agitation based on an 
 intelligent dispassionate study of facts ? Or does 
 the poet-laureate of Asia mean that the judicial 
 machinery as it exists in India to-day stands in no 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 31 
 
 need of overhauling and police methods in no need of 
 revision ? 
 
 And yet it is the merest platitude that no far- 
 reaching changes in the administration of justice 
 or in methods of government have ever been brought 
 about except under the pressure of an intelligent 
 and organised political demand. Surely, it must 
 have occurred to Tagore that there are vital political 
 problems in India, which it were sheer cowardice 
 and mental perversity to ignore or minimise. Why, 
 the moment one begins to study such humdrum 
 though harassing questions as Indian famines and 
 appalling mortality by the plague, in one's endeavour 
 to trace the root causes and suggest remedies, one is 
 at once brought face to face with the quasi-political 
 aspects of these oft-repeated phenomena. 
 
 " Our real problem in India is not political." 
 Does Sir Rabindra suggest that there is a political 
 problem in India which it is not desirable to bestow 
 attention on, or does he mean that India has not 
 emerged on the political stage at all ? If the latter, 
 it is but a curious irony of fate that has sent Mr. 
 Montagu to India, as a plenipotentiary of the 
 British Cabinet, or announced to the world India's 
 consuming passion for political independence. 
 
 Surely Sir Rabindra Nath knew that Mrs. Besant 
 was interned some time ago, by Lord Pentland's 
 government on a political issue, viz., the promotion 
 of Home Rule for India. And Tagore, who preaches 
 that " our real problem in India is not political " 
 sent a most pathetic message of sympathy to her in 
 these words : " Convey my heart-felt sympathy for 
 
32 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 Mrs. Besant, and tell her that her martyrdom for 
 suffering humanity will do more good than any 
 crumbs that might be thrown at us to silence our 
 clamour." 
 
 There is nothing sacrosanct about politics any 
 more than there is anything inherently depraved 
 about them. Politics are simply public activities 
 directed at the furtherance of national interests in 
 obedience to the obligations of the State. We 
 quite agree with Tagore that " gigantic organisations 
 for hurting others, and warding off their blows, for 
 making money by dragging others back, will not 
 help us. On the contrary, by their crushing weight, 
 their enormous cost and their deadening effect upon 
 living humanity, they will seriously impede our 
 freedom in the larger life of a higher civilisation ' ' 
 (" Nationalism," p. 101). 
 
 It is pretty obvious that Sir Rabindra Nath starts 
 by reading some sinister meaning into politics and 
 then proceeds to demolish the man-of-straw that he 
 sets up. In all probability he confines politics to 
 " a political and economic union for purposes of 
 defence and aggression " as also to activities calcu- 
 lated to promote " Commercialism with its barbarity 
 of ugly decorations ... a terrible menace to 
 all humanity because setting up the ideal of power 
 over perfection " (p. 129: Ibid), But commercial- 
 ism and aggression are not politics, and there is 
 happily an increasing number of politicians whc 
 are fully alive to the dangers of organised nationa 
 selfishness, who are fighting for the rights anc 
 liberties of countries other than their own, wh( 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 
 
 33 
 
 seldom tire of fighting for wider opportunities for 
 the oppressed and down-trodden and who are thus 
 slowly improving on political ideals. Besides, if 
 there are evils rampant in politics-ridden countries, 
 who will venture to assert that countries where 
 politics have been stagnant or absent altogether are 
 models of perfection ? 
 
 At the same time we should venture to point out 
 that there are political organisations in this country, 
 as in other European countries, whose one supreme 
 objective is to try and mitigate the very same horrors 
 that have sent cold shudders into Sir Rabindra Nath's 
 being, and to combat the evil tendencies that 
 " seriously impede our freedom in the larger life of 
 a higher civilisation." And we shall have to admit 
 that there is greater weight attaching to well- 
 considered and concerted action of organisations 
 than the nebulous though sublime day-dreams of 
 isolated individuals. For the only effective way of 
 bringing about the overthrow of a bad organisation 
 is by setting up a good organisation having noble 
 aims and employing honourable methods. All 
 right-thinking men must, of course, admit that there 
 are sordid motives and squalid behaviour in much of 
 the " party politics " propaganda of to-day, but all 
 political activity does not resolve itself into party 
 bias, and in spite of it all, he will be a bold man 
 indeed who will dogmatically assert that no good has 
 come out of it, in democratic countries, even out of 
 the tension and conflict of opposing factions. 
 
 This attitude towards politics would be quite 
 understandable in one that was opposed to the inter- 
 
34 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 change of ideals between East and West. But 
 Tagore says emphatically : "I am not for thrusting 
 off Western civilisation and becoming segregated 
 in our independence. Let us have a deep association. 
 If providence wants England to be the channel of 
 that communication, of that deeper association, I 
 am willing to accept it with all humility. I have 
 great faith in human nature, and I think the West will 
 find its true mission " (Ibid. p. 109). How is it 
 possible then, that with the constant interchange 
 of ideas and the spread of western education, India 
 must eternally refrain from western institutions, 
 say those of representative and responsible govern- 
 ment ? And that on the specious assumption that 
 our venerable ancestors will turn in their graves, 
 when they get to know that their progeny have 
 actually taken to democratic ways. Is it not much 
 more preferable to accept the best ideals that have 
 moulded British institutions than simply to bow 
 down before the physical force of pax Britannica ? 
 
 We do not know whether Sir Rabindra Nath is 
 confusing sectarianism with nationalism " which for 
 years has been at the bottom of India's troubles." 
 The root-causes of India's repeated misfortunes have 
 been sectarian antagonisms and religious bigotries 
 and racial insularities. If we could have evolved a 
 strong, unified and consolidated national conscious- 
 ness, Indian history would be quite different to-day. 
 If, however, Sir Rabindra Nath is referring to the 
 recent unrest in that section of India that is politically 
 self-conscious and articulate, we have only to remind 
 him that national consciousness is richer in content 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 35 
 
 than provincial jealousies and communal feuds, 
 however deplorable the anomalies attending on a 
 period of transition, and however inferior in quality 
 be national feeling to that sense of international 
 harmony towards which all Indian nationalists of the 
 sane type are impatiently aspiring. 
 
 It is only as a nation that India can take her place 
 in the counsels of the nations. It is all very well to 
 talk of International Brotherhood, but we cannot 
 dispense with the preliminary stage of nation-building, 
 and no free nation would admit us to her brother- 
 hood unless we go there as the accredited repre- 
 sentatives of " India : a Nation." The task that 
 faces Indian nationalists to-day is stupendous, and 
 the courage with which they face difficulties of vast 
 magnitude that beset the path of nation-building, 
 should call forth our admiration instead of provoking 
 our amusement. 
 
 Besides, commercial enterprises and vast organisa- 
 tions for the exploitation of weaker races and poorer 
 individuals do not exhaust the contents of nation- 
 ality. A nation has a vast heritage of ideals, dreams 
 and aspirations bequeathed from the past and 
 waiting to be developed for the future, and only as 
 members of a nation can we appraise our own 
 traditions or rightly value the acquisitions of other 
 races. Besides, there are internal problems awaiting 
 solution at the hands of any one nation. We have 
 heard of broad-minded Englishmen and sympathetic 
 Frenchmen, but we have not yet come upon one 
 that was a representative of all the nations. 
 
 But Tagore is on much weaker ground when he 
 
36 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 expounds his views on nationalism; " Nationalism 
 is a great menace," he begins. " It is the particular 
 thing which for years has been at the bottom of 
 India's troubles. And inasmuch as we have been 
 ruled and dominated by a nation that is strictly 
 political in its attitude, we have tried to develop 
 within ourselves, despite our inheritance from the 
 past, a belief in our eventual political destiny." 
 (Ibid. pp. in, 112). And yet, curiously enough, 
 Tagore completely stultifies himself by the astound- 
 ing declaration that " India has never had a real 
 sense of nationalism. Even though from childhood 
 I had been taught that idolatry of the nation is 
 almost better than reverence for God and humanity, 
 I believe I have outgrown that teaching, and it is 
 my conviction that my countrymen will truly gain 
 their India by fighting against the education which 
 teaches them that a country is greater than the ideals 
 of humanity. The educated Indian at present is 
 trying to absorb some lessons from history contrary 
 to the lessons of our ancestors." 
 
 Before we proceed to unravel the amazing incon- 
 sistencies that are sown thick in these otherwise 
 beautiful and touching passages, we should like to 
 give in Tagore' s own words, his definition of a nation. 
 "It is the aspect of a whole people organised for 
 power " (p. no). 
 
 We do not accept the definition, for it is the most 
 tortuous and one-sided that could possibly catch 
 the eye. Yet we should like to analyse his own 
 statements in the light of his definition. A moment 
 ago, we quoted Tagore' s dictum that nationalism 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 37 
 
 " which for years has been at the bottom of India's 
 troubles " is a great menace. But has any student 
 of Indian history even of recent Indian history 
 ever heard of the whole Indian people " organised 
 for power ? " There is nothing more conspicuous 
 among, at any rate, the illiterate masses of humanity 
 inhabiting the various parts of India, than their 
 seeming heterogeneity and disparity from other 
 communities. If the whole of India were " organised 
 for power " British ascendancy there would have 
 been rather difficult to establish. 
 
 But Sir Rabindra Nath takes our breath away 
 when he tells us, in a half-humorous manner that 
 " In the beginning of the history of political agitation 
 in India . . . there was a party known as the 
 Indian Congress ; it had no real programme. They 
 had a few grievances for redress by the authorities." 
 And yet Reuter tells us that Tagore shared with Mrs. 
 Besant, the president-elect of the Indian National 
 Congress (which according to Sir Rabindra Nath 
 was and is presumably, no longer in existence), and 
 Mr. Surendra Nath Banner jea the honours of the 
 national assembly that had met to demand Home 
 Rule within the Empire. And what is more inter- 
 esting is that Tagore specially composed a beautiful 
 ode for the occasion. And yet he coolly tells us that 
 (< there was a party known as the Indian Congress ' 
 ( Ibid. p. 112). 
 
 After rehearsing beautiful sentiments that spring 
 out of a noble but untempered idealism, Sir Rabindra 
 Nath proceeds : " So much for the social and political 
 regeneration of India. Now we come to her 
 
38 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 industries, and I am very often asked whether there 
 is in India any industrial regeneration since the 
 advent of the British Government. It must be 
 remembered that at the beginning of British rule in 
 India, our industries Were suppressed, and since then 
 we have not met with any real help or encouragement 
 to enable us to make a stand against the monster 
 commercial organisations of the world. The nations 
 have decreed that we must remain purely an agricultural 
 people " (p. 126). 
 
 So far, so good. But instead of making any con- 
 structive proposals for the future Sir Rabindra Nath 
 again plunges into exalted rhetoric. " I personally 
 do not believe in the unwieldy organisations of the 
 v \ present day .... Beauty is the signature 
 which the Creator stamps upon his works." 
 
 From another book called " Personality " (Messrs. 
 Macmillan and Co.) we gather that Tagore has deve- 
 loped some views concerning the rights and functions 
 of womanhood. It must be a profound instinct that 
 led him to make the following weighty statement : 
 " At the present stage of history, civilisation is 
 almost exclusively masculine, a civilisation of power 
 ' in which the woman has been thrust in the shade. 
 Therefore it has lost its balance, and it is moving by 
 hopping from war to war. Its motive forces are the 
 forces of destruction, and its ceremonials are carried 
 through by an appalling number of human sacrifices. 
 This one-sided civilisation is crashing along a series 
 of catastrophes at a tremendous speed because of 
 its one-sidedness." (" Personality," p. 172). We 
 do not know what Miss Christabel Pankhurst would 
 
SIR RABINDRA NATH TAGORE 39 
 
 think of the above declaration, but it contains, in a 
 nut-shell, the secret of the failure of a man-made 
 civilisation. I believe, all sane-minded suffragists 
 would hail the statement as a precise and powerful 
 argument for active co-operation between the sexes. 
 Yet, they will soon be disappointed, if they felt 
 elated over Tagore's conversion to the cause of 
 women's suffrage, for he seems to be out of touch with 
 the mighty forces that are impelling the women's 
 movement, with active, progressive, constructive 
 feminism. 
 
 If the one-sided civilisation has failed, how else 
 could it be made complete and harmonious except by 
 organised women capturing the control now denied 
 them over the affairs of the State, and sharing it 
 with men ? But Tagore continues : " Woman's 
 function is the passive function of the soil, which not 
 only helps the tree to grow, but keeps its growth 
 within limits. . . . Woman is endowed with 
 the passive qualities of chastity, modesty, devotion 
 and power of self-sacrifice in a greater measure than 
 man is " (Ibid. p. 172-73). Tagore is quite broad- 
 minded enough to concede that " the human world 
 is the woman's world " and yet he would say to a 
 very large extent, quite rightly that ' This 
 domestic world has been the gift of God to woman." 
 We will only add and to man also. 
 
 In the meanwhile we are grateful for the prophecy 
 " And in the future civilisation also, the women, 
 the feebler creatures . . . they will have their 
 place, and those bigger creatures will have to give 
 way" (" Personality, " page 184). 
 
II 
 
 RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY 
 
 (1772-1833) 
 
 IF one were asked to point to the Indian through 
 whose courageous efforts a golden bridge was first 
 erected uniting the progressive, practical traditions 
 of the West with the sublime idealism of the East, 
 I should point to Ram Mohan Roy. And if one 
 were again asked to single out the great man, through 
 whose personal endeavour and great self-sacrifice, 
 abuses and corrupt practices that had gathered as 
 accretions round the once pure and healthy 
 body of Hindu doctrine received, if not a violent 
 check, at least, scathing condemnation, I should 
 point to Ram Mohan Roy. And if one were asked, 
 whose was the bold and prophetic vision, that en- 
 abled him to see beyond India's political down- 
 fall and the passing away of the sceptre from 
 her, beyond the surrender of her independence and 
 the humiliation of her lot, to the future vistas radiant 
 with the dawn of hope, when through Western culture, 
 and democratic discipline the Mother of Nations 
 would again step out to take an honourable place 
 in the comity of nations, I should point to Ram 
 
 4 o 
 
RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY 41 
 
 Mohan Roy. And finally : If one were asked to 
 indicate the master-mind who saw that India's 
 progress was to be conditioned not by contemplation 
 alone, but by action ; not by pessimism, but by 
 invincible hope ; not by self-suppression, but by 
 self-realisation ; not by isolation from the life of the 
 West, but by healthy competition or co-operation 
 with it, enlisting in the cause of national develop- 
 ment forces that truly modernise life, wresting the 
 mysteries of science, capturing the treasures of 
 Western knowledge, and applying these researches 
 for the enrichment of India, I should again point to 
 Raja Ram Mohan Roy. 
 
 Ram Mohan was, indeed, a man of capacious 
 powers of mind, broad religious sympathies, and a 
 very powerful though genial personality. His range 
 of interests was as wide as the sphere of his activities. 
 He never destroyed for the sheer fiendish delight of 
 destroying. He pulled down, so that he might raise 
 a new building, on the ruins of the old, after clearing 
 away the debris. 
 
 Our hero figures throughout his long and arduous 
 campaign against ignorance, helplessness and 
 oppression, not only as the champion of men, but 
 also of women. He is the first Indian who raised his 
 powerful voice against the iniquitous treatment of 
 women. He has done for women in India, what John 
 Stuart Mill did for the women of England in another 
 direction. The socially enfranchised and one 
 earnestly hopes that also the politically enfranchised 
 women of the future would think well of him, who 
 generations before, strove to improve their status, 
 
42 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 and sought to penalise the indignities and horrors 
 that they suffered, even under the British regime. 
 
 Before we proceed to fuller details and personal 
 incidents, we shoiild like to suggest that the Raja's 
 1 title to celebrity can be established only through his 
 founding the Brahma Samaj in 1828. But his 
 efforts were not, by any means, confined to religion. 
 He just as strenuously promoted the best interests 
 of the community by stimulating interest in educa- 
 tion, giving generous donations, and helping those 
 who were pioneers in this respect. He was perfectly 
 in his element, when pouring hot indignation over 
 the practice of suttee as when pleading for political 
 reform or advocating the cause of the King of Oudh. 
 
 Beyond dispute, the hero of the present sketch 
 stands head and shoulders above his contemporaries 
 and even many of his successors, as the premier 
 nation-builder of India. His great towering person- 
 ality stands in solitary, majestic outline, dwarfing 
 ' by its contrast, even greater men of a later day. 
 For in passing judgments on the achievements of the 
 Raja we must remember the obstacles he had to 
 encounter ; the organised forces of conservatism 
 and decadence against which he had to stand up 
 and fight, and the difficult times during which he 
 flourished. And never did man fight more valiantly, 
 or was more obedient to the heavenly vision. 
 
 Ram Mohan came of a highly respectable and 
 deeply religious parentage, his father being for long 
 connected with the Muhammadan Government in 
 Bengal. He had thus sprung from very high-caste 
 and orthodox Brahmins, known as Kulins. His 
 
RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY 43 
 
 father was a follower of the Vishnuite leader, 
 Chaitanya, who early in the sixteenth century, 
 infused emotional warmth and fervour into Hindu 
 worship and devotion, which was till then either 
 ceremonial or else severely intellectual. His mother 
 came of a Shdkta family. The Shaktas are a Hindu 
 sect, who worship goddesses as the energy of the 
 Supreme Being. Lakshmi is thus the energy of 
 Vishnu ; Uma the energy of Shiva. 
 
 While our hero was only twelve years old, he was 
 married by his parents, but his girl-wife soon died. 
 
 He was married, later, to two girls, and was accord- 
 ingly a polygamist till 1824. These little incidents 
 should not be misconstrued as detracting from Ram 
 Mohan's greatness ; in the first place, he was not 
 responsible for marrying the two wives, he only had 
 to submit to the mandates of the father ; secondly 
 not having attained to years of discretion, he could 
 not have been expected to judge whether the parents' 
 decision was faulty and reprehensible or good. 
 Lastly, his views and convictions which really made 
 him great subsequently had not yet formed and taken 
 shape. He was till then only a creature of cir- 
 cumstances ; not yet the creator of a new environ- 
 ment for Hinduism and India. 
 
 About the year 1784, he was sent, for instruction, 
 to the Muhammadan seat of learning in Patna, where 
 he continued as pupil till 1787. While he pursued his 
 studies there, he was greatly attracted by the teach- 
 ings of Moslem Sufis (i.e., mystics) who had broken 
 away from the rigid orthodoxy of the Schools. These 
 Sufi doctrines suggested affinities with the teachings 
 
44 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 of Vedanta and held his mind under their spell. 
 They became formulative influences in his life. The 
 Sufis, in common with Vedantists, set forth the 
 ultimate goal of the religious endeavour to be 
 absorption into the Divine, and full initiation into the 
 last stage of revelation is attained after preliminary 
 grounding and probation in the stages called " The 
 Way," " The Truth," etc. Intuition was recognised 
 as the best vehicle for the apprehension of reality, 
 by the Sufis. It is also more than probable that Ram 
 Mohan came into touch, while at School, with the 
 Mua'tazallite philosophers, who taught that Reason 
 was a sure and unfailing guide to the facts of life ; 
 that belief in the resurrection of the body was 
 untenable and that sensitiveness to the great moral 
 issues of life was the inner core of religion. This 
 school of thought exercised great influence during the 
 eighth century A.D., in Baghdad and elsewhere, 
 during a period, when through its numerous conquests 
 in the East and the West, Islam came into touch with 
 Greek civilisation and Christian ideals, and enriched 
 and was in its turn replenished by non-Islamic 
 cultures and traditions. 
 
 When Ram Mohan returned home, the rationalistic 
 teachings his mind was steeped in, encouraged him 
 to a revolt against idol-worship. His parents offered 
 ingenious explanations, justifying the worship of 
 images as mere symbols of the divine. But Ram 
 Mohan had finally made up his mind to renounce 
 idolatry, once and for all. Miss Collet tells us an 
 amusing story of how Ram Mohan Roy was once 
 prevailed upon by his mother to do homage to the 
 
RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY 45 
 
 idols for her sake. When he could no longer 
 resist the repeated requests, he went and did the 
 required homage, all the time being as pessimistic 
 and sceptical as ever concerning the utility of the 
 act. He went through great persecution at home 
 and while very young was asked not to darken his 
 father's doorstep again. For several years he went 
 about as a wandering ascetic, in search of truth and 
 desirous of meeting great men who might give him 
 fuller knowledge concerning the things that disturbed 
 his soul. It is even suggested that he held, in the 
 course of these wanderings, prolonged discussions 
 with the Lamas of Tibet. But we possess no con- 
 vincing evidence in support of this statement. After 
 some time, however, his father pardoned him and 
 allowed him to return, when he settled in Benares, 
 and began the study of Sanscrit and Hindu scriptures, 
 but did not commence the study of English till 1796. 
 After the death of his father in 1803, Ram Mohan 
 was most virulently attacked and persecuted by his 
 mother, who wanted, by launching law-suits, to 
 deprive him of his share in the ancestral property and 
 even of his acquired means. But in this attempt 
 she was completely defeated. She wanted to urge 
 the plea that Ram Mohan's persistent refusal to 
 conform to Hindu ceremony and rites was proof 
 positive that he was beyond the pale of Hinduism. 
 In 1804, when settled in Murshidabad, he brought 
 out a book in Persian called " Tuhfatul Muwah- 
 hiddin " or " A Gift, to those who believe in 
 the unity of the Godhead.'* His rationalistic 
 utterances may have given offence to not a few, but 
 
46 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 these certainly mark a definite advance on irrational 
 theory and pre-supposition expressed both by 
 orthodox, unreformed Hinduism and the dogma- 
 ridden Christianity of the missionary pathfinders like 
 Carey, Marshman and Ward. We cast no reflection 
 on the work that was splendidly done under diffi- 
 cult conditions by these really great men, who not 
 only preached the gospel, but translated the Bible, 
 started the first printing press in India, and helped in 
 raising the depressed classes. But their theology 
 was as crude and as hopelessly Calvinistic as their 
 intentions were benevolent, and through theological 
 narrow-mindedness they defeated the very object, 
 for the promotion of which they had so heroically 
 consecrated their lives. 
 
 Some eighty-seven years ago, a wise man from the 
 East could be seen treading the streets of London 
 with measured gait and dignified mien or driving 
 through provincial towns, in the company of friends 
 and admirers, amidst the curious gazes of interested 
 on-lookers. One wonders if the lookers-on could 
 have even a faint glimmering of an idea whether the 
 venerable-looking oriental was visiting London, in 
 1830, on a holiday trip or on a mission the import- 
 ance of Which might disturb the equanimity of a 
 man not so great as he. The Eastern visitor that 
 we are referring to was no other than Raja Ram 
 Mohan Roy. Ram Mohan was given a very warm 
 reception in London by a host of friends, and his 
 lectures on liberal religion were listened to with great 
 interest. He made numerous friends, and the 
 cordiality shown him produced a deep impression on 
 
RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY 47 
 
 his mind and forged new ties of affection for 
 England. 
 
 It might sound incredible, but it is true, neverthe- 
 less, that but for a crucial and heart-rending exper- 
 ience which Ram Mohan went through in 1811, about 
 nineteen years previous to his visit to the metropolis 
 of the Empire, this visit would not have materialised 
 at all. Nor could the cruel memories of that 
 tragic experience be ever blotted out of his mind. 
 It is true that he came on an important political mis- 
 sion that time, viz., to present the petition entrusted 
 to him by the King of Oudh, to lay Indian grievances 
 before the sympathetic public, and to suggest 
 measures the adoption of which would conduce to 
 the material and moral development of India. 
 It was also true that he came to London as an Indian 
 ambassador from the court of the Moghul Emperor. 
 That he achieved unqualified success in his pleading 
 for the Emperor might be seen from the grant to him, 
 on the completion of negotiations, of a settled per- 
 petuity. The Anglo-Indian authorities could not see 
 their way to recognise his status as ambassador, since 
 the King of Oudh was only king in name, political 
 power and control having passed into the hands of 
 the East India Company. The Indian authorities 
 further began to under-rate the value of his mission, 
 by suggesting that the increase of the pension was 
 already recommended, and was simply a matter of 
 time. 
 
 But the Raja was an ambassador in a still nobler 
 cause. It was mainly through his efforts and co- 
 operation that Lord William Bentinck, Governor- 
 
48 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 General of India, was encouraged to abolish the 
 practice of the self-immolation of Indian widows 
 on the funeral pyres of their husbands. And now 
 we might relate the incident that we have already 
 referred to ; the incident that, more than anything 
 else, determined Ram Mohan's visit to England. 
 
 On his brother's death, the widow decided to 
 commit suttee. But when the flames actually 
 touched her she wanted to save her life. The 
 priests and orthodox relatives, however, forced her 
 down with bamboo poles, and drums and horns 
 sounded louder and louder to drown her agonising 
 shrieks. This blood-curdling sight enlisted Ram 
 Mohan's sympathy in a crusade against suttee. The 
 cruel custom was made illegal in December, 1828, 
 much to Ram Mohan's relief, even though, to 
 soften the acrimomy of the orthodox opponents, he 
 made a pretence of pleading for a less drastic measure. 
 
 On the abolition of suttee, a campaign was 
 set on foot by the conservative section of Hindus 
 demanding the abrogation of the new measure, 
 since the new legislation amounted, according to 
 them, to interference with religious custom and 
 was a violation of the policy of religious neutrality. 
 But Lord William was fortunately quite firm. Ram 
 Mohan had already made ample quotations from the 
 Shastras to show that suttee was voluntary and only 
 secondary in importance to life-long chastity. A 
 monster petition was, accordingly, addressed to the 
 House of Commons by the conservative Hindus, and 
 Ram Mohan was anxious lest the reactionaries 
 should achieve their object and renew the nefarious 
 
RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY 49 
 
 custom that was a bar-sinister across India's shield. 
 Shortly before his visit to England, Ram Mohan 
 Roy founded the Brahma Samaj in Calcutta. A 
 building was erected, we understand, by Ram Mohan 
 himself, in Chitpore Road, Calcutta, and opened on 
 the 23rd of January " To be used " so the wording 
 of the Trust Deed runs " ... as a place of 
 public meeting of all sorts and descriptions of people 
 without distinction, as shall behave and conduct 
 themselves in an orderly, sober, religious and devout 
 manner for the worship and adoration of the Eternal, 
 Unsearchable and Immutable Being who is the author 
 and preserver of the Universe, but not under or by 
 any other name, designation or title peculiarly used 
 for and applied to any particular Being or Beings, or 
 by any man or set of men whatsoever, and that no 
 graven image (italics are mine) statue or sculpture, 
 carving, painting, picture, portrait or the likeness of 
 anything shall be admitted within the said building, 
 and that no sacrifice shall ever be permitted 
 therein (italics are throughout ours) and that no 
 animal or living creature shall within or on the said 
 premises be deprived of life .. . . and that in 
 conducting the said worship and adoration no object 
 animate or inanimate that has been or is . 
 recognised as an object of worship by any man or set 
 of men shall be reviled or slightingly or contemptuously 
 spoken of . . . and that no sermon-preaching, 
 discourse, prayer or hymn be delivered, made or used 
 in such worship but such as have a tendency to the 
 promotion of the contemplation of the Author and 
 and Preserver of the Universe to the promotion of 
 
50 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 charity, morality, piety, benevolence, virtue and the 
 strengthening of the bonds of union between men of 
 all religious persuasions and creeds." 
 
 These words mark only the first beginnings of 
 religious liberalism, characterised by the abolition 
 of idolatry, animal sacrifice and even the use of 
 " carving, painting, picture, portrait." We have 
 as yet no systematic theology of the newer order, no 
 organisation or definite conditions of membership. 
 The pervasive line of thought is deistic, tinged with 
 a spirit of toleration, and keen moral perception. 
 But even so, it constitutes a fair advance on what had 
 gone before. Prince Dwarka Nath Tagore was his 
 chief supporter during these initial stages. We shall 
 see that whereas the break with idolatry is complete, 
 priesthood still occupies a prominent position. The 
 chanting of selections from the Upanishads was done 
 by Brahmins in a room screened off from the rest and 
 here only Brahmins were admitted. We might here 
 incidentally refer to the strong grip of conservatism 
 even on a bold and progressive mind like Ram 
 Mohan's. During his visit to England he brought 
 two Hindu servants with him, in order that his caste 
 might remain inviolate, even though in India he 
 combated both caste, idolatry and suttee. Then in 
 India, though he freely dined with Muhammadans 
 and Europeans, he would scrupulously use separate 
 tables in the same room. The main thing behind 
 these habits was, no doubt, the honest belief that 
 open and complete break with orthodox usage might 
 lead to complete social ostracism, and in case 
 he lost his standing as a Hindu, his reforming 
 
RAJA RAM MOHAN ROY 51 
 
 propaganda might be crippled through restricted 
 opportunity. 
 
 Though he never became a Christian, he loyally 
 supported the Christian missionaries in their 
 educational efforts. He even went so far as to secure 
 rooms where Dr. Duff might start a school, and got 
 him some pupils. Further, he gave assistance to 
 the missionaries in translating the scriptures into 
 Bengali, though his interpretation of the original 
 texts caused violent disagreements between him and 
 them. One of them, Mr. Adam by name, was won 
 over to Ram Mohan's side. Bishop Middleton once 
 wounded his feelings without meaning it, of course, 
 by suggesting that only if he became a Christian, 
 he would have the prestige of the Imperial race 
 behind him, and that " he would be respected in life 
 and honoured in death." Ram Mohan never spoke 
 to the Bishop again, for it caused him mortal offence 
 to realise that he should be asked to become a 
 Christian, except for the highest of motives and 
 without any ulterior aim. 
 
 His thoroughness in research may be gauged by his 
 endeavour to study Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and 
 Sanskrit, in order that he might thus be enabled to 
 understand and interpret the teachings embodied 
 in the original versions of the scriptures of the 
 Christians, Muhammadans and Hindus. He was 
 greatly attracted by the ethical value of Christ s 
 teachings, and wrote a pamphlet called " The 
 Principles of Jesus : the Guide to Peace and 
 Happiness." At the conclusion of his researches, 
 he said : 
 
52 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 
 ' The consequence of my long and uninterrupted 
 researches into religious truth has been that I have 
 found the doctrines of Christ more conducive to 
 moral principles, and better adapted for the use of 
 rational beings, than any other which have come to 
 my knowledge." In the preface to " The Principles 
 of Jesus " he says : 
 
 ' This simple code of religion and morality is so 
 admirably calculated to elevate men's ideas to high 
 and liberal notions of one God . . . and is also 
 well-fitted to regulate the conduct of the human race 
 in the discharge of their various duties to God, to 
 themselves and to society, that I cannot but hope 
 the best effects from its promulgation in the present 
 form." 
 
 He never returned to India from his English visit. 
 His last remains were laid to rest in a quiet cemetery 
 in Bristol, where a few friends gathered to show 
 honour to one whose greatness was unique. 
 
 Curiously enough, in spite of his attempts to resist 
 the complete Westernisation of Indian religions and 
 society, his vision of the India of the future was that 
 of a Christian India, industrialised, socially eman- 
 cipated and self-governing. Perhaps he felt that 
 the tide of Western influence would carry everything 
 before it. Some of his efforts are bearing fruit, but 
 the vision of a Christianised India seems yet to be a 
 long way off from realisation. 
 
Ill 
 
 KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 
 (1838-1884) 
 
 " India will attain tme greatness and civilisation if only the 
 basis on which we build this vast fabric is national and firm. 
 . . . In fact nothing but fearless and disinterested patriot- 
 ism, regulated and sustained by keen sense of duty will save 
 Indian society from the evils under which it is groaning, or 
 guard it against new evils. Every man who has paid any 
 attention to the social condition of India must admit that 
 it is impossible to ensure the real welfare of the country unless 
 and until caste is wholly eradicated, for it is this that prevents 
 the realisation of the spirit of true Brotherhood." 
 
 KESHAB CHANDRA SEN. 
 
 " Oh ! may that blessed day soon come when the earth, 
 untrod by sect, or creed, or clan, shall own the two great 
 principles the universal fatherhood of God and the brother- 
 hood of man." Ibid. 
 
 AFTER the death of Raja Rama Mohan Roy in 
 Bristol in 1833, the Brahma Samaj was indeed in a 
 precarious position, and but for the munificent 
 generosity of Prince Dwarka Nath Tagore Sir 
 Rabindra Nath's grandfather would have died a 
 natural death. But even more valuable than the 
 financial assistance given by Dwarka Nath Tagore 
 and Rama Mohana s other colleagues and supporters, 
 was the perfervid devotion and saintliness of 
 Mahanshi Debendra Nath Tagore (1817-1905). But 
 a young man of nineteen was soon to appear on the 
 
 53 
 
54 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 scene, destined to eclipse the achievements of the 
 Founder of the Samaj and even those of the saintly 
 patriarch, Debendra Nath. We refer to Keshab 
 Chandra Sen, who soon after admission to the Samaj 
 took both the leaders and the rank and file by storm, 
 by virtue of his great abilities, his moving eloquence 
 and profound spirituality. 
 
 Sen had received an excellent education along 
 modern lines in Calcutta and came of a Vishnuite 
 family of Vaidya caste. He had great personal 
 attractiveness, and had the rare gift of compelling 
 the loyalty of friends and the admiration of 
 opponents. The charm of his manners combined 
 with his personality and a commanding, highly 
 intelligent expression gave him a unique place 
 in the Samaj. 
 
 Till 1859 we find him attending public meetings 
 of the Brahma Samaj and taking part in the dis- 
 cussions. But it was in 1861, that being convinced 
 that there was ample scope for whole-hearted 
 devotion to the cause, he resigned a lucrative 
 situation he held in the Bank of Bengal and induced 
 his friends to make similar sacrifices, in order that 
 they, like him, might concentrate on the work waiting 
 for them. Before taking this decisive step, however, 
 Keshab had founded, the year before, the Sangat 
 Sabha or " An Association for Religious Fellowship." 
 In connection with this association, weekly meetings 
 for devotional exercises were held, and the customs 
 and ceremonials of Hinduism were freely and frankly 
 discussed. Thus the members seriously considered 
 how far it would be consistent with the progressive 
 
KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 55 
 
 ideals of the Brahma Samaj to incorporate in its 
 worship idolatrous sacraments observed by the 
 orthodox, unreformed Hinduism. It is a matter of 
 common knowledge that at the time of birth, 
 marriage or death certain rituals are practised, which 
 have an idolatrous and superstitious basis. It was 
 decided that these should be repudiated by the 
 Samaj unconditionally. The Brahmins, whether 
 priests or otherwise were enjoined to discard the 
 sacred thread, worn by the twice-born. Further, 
 priestly offices were thrown open to non-Brahmins 
 for the first time. The right of reading the Vedas 
 and the Upanishads was conceded to every Brahma ; 
 caste was denounced as an unworthy and degrading 
 restriction ; inter-caste marriages were definitely 
 encouraged ; widow-remarriages became an impor- 
 tant plank in the progressive propaganda, and the 
 older leaders took alarm lest the vigorous advocacy 
 of social reform might undermine the foundations 
 of the Hindu religion. Durga-puja and Kali-puja 
 were given up, and the chamber in the Tagore resi- 
 dence where the idol stood, soon became a room 
 where people met for prayer and spiritual exercises. 
 
 But the conservatism of the older leaders was a 
 formidable barrier to sound and substantial progress. 
 It was Debendra Nath Tagore who was, so far, 
 really a pillar of the infant church, who opposed 
 strenuous resistance to suggestions in the direction 
 of widow-remarriage, renunciation of caste and the 
 initiation of non-Brahmins to priestly functions. 
 Though by nature liberal-minded, he was averse 
 to drastic reform, and would hesitate at each point 
 
6 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 b.Jore accepting anything that threatened a break 
 with the Hindu continuity. Besides, he felt that 
 the time for sweeping reforms was not yet. What 
 the Samaj needed, according to him, was quiescence 
 of spirit, but not social reform. 
 
 Shortly before, the Maharishi (literally " great 
 seer or sage ") had passed through a critical experi- 
 ence that left a profound impression on him and made 
 him, more and more, other-worldly and austere in his 
 habits. He would fall back on communion with 
 the Infinite mind as a most delightful exercise, and 
 compared to the beatific vision that contemplation 
 conjured up for him, every other activity would pale 
 into insignificance. He was thus spiritually in 
 direct lineal descent from the famous ascetics of the 
 Vedanta, whose supreme joy has been the recognition 
 of the soul's identity with Brahma, who have felt 
 that this could be achieved only through meditation 
 and giving up temporal entanglements, and whose 
 absorption in God has left comparatively little room 
 for other activities. 
 
 The consequence was that the moment Keshab 
 Chandra Sen was appointed minister of the Samaj 
 somewhere between 1861 and 1862 Tagore was 
 convinced that this meant unwarranted violation of 
 Brahmanic rights and Ishvara Chandravidyasagar, 
 the stout protagonist of Hindu widows, and he at 
 once severed their connection with the Samaj, and 
 established a short-lived society called the Upasana 
 Samaj. 
 
 Keshab had come under strong Christian influences, 
 and had a vivid sense of sin and the need for moral 
 
KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 57 
 
 , regeneration. The person and character of Christ 
 held him in complete thrall, and he felt that without 
 developing the ethical side of religion mere contem- 
 plative exercise and a quietistic fatalism would lead 
 to nowhere. He strove to press on the minds of his 
 adherents the urgent claims of philanthropic service 
 and social co-operation, without which religion would 
 degenerate into formalism and be barren of permanent 
 results. No doubt, his mind must have been 
 steeped in these practical ideas during his school and 
 college days, as a direct result of coming into contact 
 with European literature and history : but we see no 
 reason why he should not be given credit for initiative 
 in these matters, or for possessing the genius for 
 practical things, since it is grossly misleading to 
 assert that in India, only contemplation is in vogue 
 and practical activities are under a ban. Nothing 
 can be remoter from the truth. All that we are 
 justified in saying is that certain duties and functions 
 have been allocated to certain classes or castes ; and 
 that even stages have been specified during which 
 certain activities should either be given full sway or 
 completely suspended. 
 
 In 1865 we notice that these differences between 
 the mentality of Keshab and Debendra came 
 to a head ; all the property of the Samaj was 
 left in control of the latter ; while Keshab would 
 have none of the recrudescence of what he would 
 consider reactionary and nefarious rituals, and with- 
 drew with all his influential and progressive following. 
 This split depressed Keshab, since he greatly rever- 
 enced Tagore, who was, in turn, attached to him. 
 
58 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 Thus the schism grew and permanently divided the 
 Samaj between the Adi Brahma Samaj (i.e., original) 
 and the Sadharana section (i.e., universal). The 
 attitude of the former section towards caste and other 
 Hindu ceremonies is uncertain, much being left to 
 the private judgment and discretion of individual 
 believers, the avowed object of maintaining this 
 neutrality being to get greater support from the 
 orthodox masses and preserve intact the Hindu 
 sanctions behind social phenomena. At the time this 
 controversy arose there were fifty Samaj es in B engal, 
 four in North India and one in Madras. 
 
 Keshab, soon after, travelled as far as Bombay and 
 Madras and preached his views, the result being 
 that the Vedic Samaj was established in Madras 
 which years later assumed the name of the Madras 
 Brahma Samaj, and the Society founded in 
 Bombay developed in 1867, into the Prarthana 
 Samaj of Bombay, under the distinguished leader- 
 ship of such champions of liberal religion as the iate 
 Mr. Justice Ranade, Sir Narayan Chandavarkar, 
 Sir R. G. Bhandarkar and others. But the 
 Prarthana Samaj is really the seal of Keshab' s 
 apostolate, for he it was who drew the attention of 
 thoughtful men to the great need for liberalising 
 religion and for infusing new fervour and reforming 
 zeal into the minds of those accustomed to caste- 
 ridden, dogma-ridden and priest-ridden Hinduism. 
 But Keshab also realised the need of a permanent 
 organisation built round the nucleus of his main 
 ideas. 
 
 Keshab' s spiritual life derived the mainsprings of 
 
KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 59 
 
 its enthusiasm from his unbounded fascination for 
 the person and character of Christ, and from his deep 
 conviction that all religious development must lead 
 to ethical discipline and the cultivation of a high 
 standard of character. He also realised the need 
 for developing a communal consciousness instead 
 of a mere individualistic pursuit of religious ends, 
 apart from the recognition of the obligations of 
 the commonweal. His religious culture was mainly 
 built up through his constant study of the Bible 
 a duty which he would always enjoin on fellow- 
 worshippers and his familiarity with books like 
 Seeley's " Ecce Homo," Liddon's " Divinity of our 
 Lord," " Theologica Germanica," the numerous 
 publications of the Christian Literature Society, and 
 exposition of Christian doctrine by his professors 
 while at College, assisted no doubt by his religious 
 genius and the sympathetic attitude towards Christi- 
 anity bequeathed by the magnanimous leaders that 
 had gone before. 
 
 But it is inaccurate and misleading to say that 
 Keshab had, without any exercise of the critical 
 faculty, accepted the doctrinal position as expounded 
 by the missionary pathfinders, of the stamp of Duff, 
 Carey, Marshman and Ward. The Christian position 
 formulated by these noble pioneers was crude, 
 extremely bigoted, and hence chary of any sensible 
 compromise. It is true that Dr. Duff was astonished 
 at Tagore's belief in the infallibity of the Vedas 
 as forming the coping-stone of the Adi Brahma 
 Samaj, but it scarcely occurred to him that equally 
 astonishing to the exponents of progressive religion 
 
60 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 must have been his own (Dr. Duff's) unquestioning 
 faith in the verbal and plenary inspiration of the 
 Bible, the Genesis story of the Fall, and kindred 
 fossilised teachings current in those days in reference 
 to eternal punishment, salvation through subscription 
 to certain dogmas and the like. But we have to 
 remember that in those days higher criticism had not 
 begun its work and the science of comparative 
 religion had not gathered up the fruits of its elaborate 
 researches. 
 
 From the missionary point of view it is a matter 
 for extreme regret that the pioneers of the Christian 
 faith did not then carry to India an evangel, shorn of 
 its grosser elements of orthodoxy and error, for the 
 period in which Keshab developed and propagated 
 his views was the psychological moment when sen- 
 sitiveness to Christian influence was at its maximal 
 intensity. The missionaries could not then realise 
 that in India there was no religious vacuum so far as 
 tradition was concerned and the people had a 
 religious past to which they would tenaciously cling. 
 But from the Hindu point of view, the assimilation 
 of the wholesome teachings of Christianity and of its 
 practical and optimistic outlook, coupled with the 
 rejection of what seemed to them its extravagant 
 claims and narrow views, has resulted in a synthesis 
 of ideals that have enriched each other, without 
 destroying the foundations of either faith. This 
 was only to be expected in a country like India with 
 its immemorial religious culture and numerous 
 schools of philosophy. 
 
 Keshab Chandra Sen, just as his religious genius 
 
KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 61 
 
 was at its highest point of fruition, came under the 
 influence of Rama Krishna Paramahansa, who 
 believed that idols are merely symbols employed to 
 visualise God, and that therefore idolatry is defensible, 
 that all religions are true, that every one should keep 
 to his own faith and that the whole of Hinduism 
 every element of it must be jealously preserved. 
 
 Owing to his severe penances and passion for God, 
 his great adoration of Mother Kali, and his tolerance 
 of all religions, Rama Krishna had earned a great 
 reputation for himself. Keshab was simply mag- 
 netised by him, and would go to him frequently 
 for exchange of views. Rama Krishna was a 
 brilliant conversationalist and had crystallised his 
 views in short epigrammatic sayings. He had com- 
 pletely conquered the sex instinct, the caste-instinct 
 and the desire for possessions. Needless to say, these 
 frequent interviews somewhat modified Keshab' s 
 reforming zeal ; the Hindu ceremony of Arati or 
 waving of censers was introduced in the Brahma 
 ritual, just as baptism and the Lord's supper were 
 already adopted. A simpler mode of life was 
 adopted by Keshab and his friends, much to the 
 decline of the combative attitude towards orthodoxy. 
 
 In 1869, when a new building was just declared 
 open for Brahma worship, Keshab Chandra decided 
 to take a short trip to England. There was lack of 
 organisation in the Samaj ; hardly any constitution 
 or democratic government, everything was in 
 Keshab' s hands, so the members felt that this would 
 be a serious inconvenience, and might even com- 
 promise the security of the new Society. But Keshab' s 
 
62 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 temporary absence during this critical stage turned 
 out to be a blessing in disguise, for not only did his 
 powerful oratory and spiritual earnestness draw 
 round him notable men and women in England, but 
 it revealed to them what was most progressive in the 
 Indian tradition. He interpreted the heart of India 
 to appreciative audiences, in words that breathed 
 and thoughts that burned. Besides, his eloquence 
 and catholicity of mind enlisted the sympathies of 
 advanced thinkers in religious movements in India. 
 But his study of the home life in England, and of the 
 general social conditions prevailing there, opened his 
 eyes to the need for much constructive work on his 
 return to his own country. His new ideas took 
 visible shape in the Normal School for Girls, an 
 Industrial School for Boys, an Institute for the 
 education of women and the Bharata Asrama which 
 he established for the instruction of women and 
 children and for fostering larger ideals of home life. 
 This, by the way, is a distinct advance on his pre- 
 vious views, since he was originally opposed to the 
 education and social enfranchisement of women, and 
 felt that the younger men in the camp were ardent 
 radicals and scarcely realised the danger of conceding 
 much freedom to women. 
 
 Ever since his assumption of leadership Keshab 
 rendered valuable services to the Samaj in compiling 
 a liturgy for devotional purposes, enriching its ritual 
 and introducing modes of worship congenial to the 
 temperament and the general environment of the 
 people. Among these may be mentioned Sankirtana 
 or chanting of hymns to the accompaniment 
 
KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 63 
 
 of musical instruments, and Nagarkirtana or pro- 
 cession of singers, shouting and dancing and singing 
 hymns and songs of praise, while marching through 
 public thoroughfares. The keen enthusiasm of 
 Bhakti, i.e., devotion to God and implicit trust in 
 Him, he had no doubt inherited from his Vishnuite 
 ancestry, who were followers of Chaitanya, the great 
 Bhakti revivalist of the sixteenth century. 
 
 It seems highly probable that the development of 
 Unitarianism in England has had some share in 
 facilitating the Indian transition to a pure form of 
 monotheism. This seems to be almost entirely 
 ignored by modern European writers on Indian 
 religious developments. The present writer has 
 found such books as Dr. Martineau's " Seat 
 of Authority in Religion," " Principle of Ethics," 
 " Quiet Half-hours with Jesus," along with Stopford 
 Brooke's publications and Charles Voysey's 
 voluminous sermons, in the private libraries of 
 Brahma Samajists. Besides, some remarkable books 
 on ethics and metaphysics, included in the University 
 curriculum are by prominent representatives of 
 the Unitarian revolt against the traditional formulae 
 of the Reformed Church. Without doubt, these 
 have influenced the minds of university educated 
 men, and given them somewhat of their bias. 
 
 But over and above these vague generalisations, 
 we know it for a fact that the Brahma leaders in India 
 like Partap Chandra Mazumdar, Siva Nath Shastri, 
 including Keshab Chandra Sen himself, were in 
 constant touch through correspondence and study of 
 their literature, with Professor Max Muller, of Oxford, 
 
64 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 and notably with Unitarian leaders like Charles 
 Voysey, Edward Carpenter, William Ellery Channing 
 of America, and the late Dr. Stopford Brooke of 
 London. In fact Charles Voysey, whose violent and at 
 times irresponsible, polemic against Christianity made 
 him notorious and cost him his incumbency, used to 
 warn Keshab Chandra Sen that he was shivering on 
 the perilous brink of Christian decision, and Professor 
 Max Muller would tell P. C. Mozoomdar that he had 
 better continue as an enlightened, fully-emancipated 
 Hindu rather than formally seek initiation into the 
 Christian Church. 
 
 We thus see that the cross-currents of modern 
 thought had mingled their waters with the stream 
 of eclectic tendencies that produced the Samaj 
 on Hindu foundations. During an epoch, when 
 advanced Christian thinkers in England were seeking 
 for emancipation from the narrow formulae of the 
 Church and its stern dogmatism, that tended 
 to suppress the demands of reason and stifle 
 the dictates of conscience, it is interesting to 
 note that in India there was a parallel revolt 
 against the hide-bound conventions of rigid, lifeless 
 Hinduism of the orthodox type. There was much 
 give-and-take between Christianity and Hinduism 
 without the one absolutely dominating the other. 
 
 It is very uncharitable to sit in judgment on a 
 great man, by reason of one solitary blunder or error 
 of judgment on his part. And we shall not attempt 
 to do so. But the failing of Keshab Chandra Sen 
 centred round a vital principle of reform which was 
 mainly secured through his constant and strenuous 
 
KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 65 
 
 agitation. And when the fateful moment came, when 
 his sincerity of faith in the Reform secured could be 
 put to the test, he hesitated and yielded to adverse 
 pressure. We do not, for a moment, suggest that 
 this fiasco materially detracts from his great and 
 splendid qualities as reformer, missionary enthusiast 
 and man of prayer. We are referring to this incident 
 which led to a violent division of counsels, and to the 
 storm it raised as evidence of the uncompromising 
 spirit of the young party of progress and reform. 
 
 The young prince of Cooch-Beharwas about to be 
 sent to England. It was considered wise by the 
 British Resident and others that he should be married 
 to some girl, socially well-connected and refined. 
 
 Every eye looked to Keshab's daughter, who was 
 well-educated, but was only twelve years of age. 
 The Brahmo Marriage Act required that no marriages 
 be solemnised and considered valid until the boy was 
 sixteen and the girl fourteen years of age. Keshab 
 also knew that the prince of Cooch-Behar might 
 contract polygamous alliances, even though he 
 solemnly declared he would not do so. There were, 
 further, no guarantees that idolatrous rites would not 
 be observed during the ceremony of marriage, and in 
 fact, these were practised, though, be it said to the 
 credit of Keshab, that both he and his daughter 
 withdrew when Hindu ceremonial was being intro- 
 duced. Of course, there is this to be said in favour 
 of Sen, that the marriage was not to be consummated 
 before the return of the prince from England, 
 by which time the girl would have attained 
 maturity. But trivial though the incident might 
 
66 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 seem if connected with some ordinary man, in 
 Keshab, it was considered as a symptom of his moral 
 break-down. His courageous spirit that defied 
 conventions, his championship of unpopular causes, 
 and his unique position as leader had raised high 
 hopes in his followers, who expected him to rise 
 superior to the solicitations of circumstance. But 
 human nature is frail, and we see no reason why 
 Keshab should be singled out for invective and 
 diatribe, when greater men than he have succumbed 
 to similar temptations. 
 
 This incident greatly weakened his position, though 
 he survived it all, by sheer force of character and out- 
 standing ability, and till his death in January, 
 1884, retained unchallenged supremacy in the Samaj . 
 But towards the end, his career was rather dis- 
 appointing. As his influence grew, his followers 
 showed him respect and veneration bordering on 
 idolatrous homage. We have it, on undisputed 
 authority, that he sternly rebuked these sycophantic 
 tendencies among his followers. But the sphinx- 
 eyed vigilance of critics and even friends suggested 
 approbation of unbridled flattery and effusive 
 compliments. Nor was Keshab much to blame. 
 He towered head and shoulders above his contem- 
 poraries, and as such respect and even homage were 
 his bare due. In every country in the world, 
 including those well-known for progress and 
 democracy, conspicuous leaders have a way of being 
 regarded as " tin gods." More so, would this obtain 
 in India, where people are naturally hero- worshippers, 
 and have erected many a noble shrine in honour of 
 
KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 67 
 
 great men. The ineradicable instincts of the people 
 lead them to believe that great men are gods. We 
 are not approving of Keshab- worship, only venturing 
 an explanation of what happens, very nearly in all 
 countries, in regard to great men either truly great 
 or enjoying fictitious or spurious greatness. 
 
 Ever since his memorable visit to Rama Krishna's 
 shrine, about 1874 or 1875, Keshab became more 
 Hindu in his out-look, and desired to preserve as 
 much of Hinduism as was consistent with his mono- 
 theistic position, even allegorising away some cere- 
 monial that he wanted to retain. He was further 
 convinced of the propriety of attempting a harmony 
 of all religions, believing all religions to have common 
 elements of truth. This was rather a " climb down " 
 from his previous recognition of the imperious claims 
 of Christianity and fervent loyalty to the person of 
 Christ. We cannot help quoting some of his remark- 
 able utterances : " My Christ, my sweet Christ, 
 the brightest jewel of my heart, the bridal adornment 
 of my soul for twenty years have I cherished Him in 
 this my miserable heart. Though often defiled and 
 persecuted by the world, I have found sweetness 
 and joy unutterable in my Master Jesus. 
 The mighty artillery of His love He levelled against 
 me, and I was vanquished, and I fell at his feet. 
 . . . None but Jesus deserved this bright, this 
 precious diadem, India, and Jesus shall have it." 
 And again : 
 
 " I say that the New Dispensation stands upon the 
 same level with the Jewish dispensation, the Christ- 
 ian dispensation, and the Vaishnava dispensation 
 
68 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 through Chaitanya. It is a divine dispensation fully 
 entitled to a place among the various dispensations 
 and revelations of the world. But is it equally 
 divine, equally authoritative ? Christ's dispensation 
 is said to be divine. I say that this dispensation is 
 equally divine." But he felt that he, personally, 
 was only a humble instrument through whom the 
 revelation was to be communicated to the world, and 
 while in the penitent and self-depreciatory mood, 
 he would recognise his inferiority to " My Master 
 Jesus." 
 
 " If I honour Jesus," he said, " and claim a place, 
 among His disciples, is there not another side of my 
 life which is carnal and worldly and sinful. . . . 
 Then tell me not I am trying to exalt myself. No, 
 a prophet's crown sits not on my head. My place is 
 at Jesus' feet." 
 
 Among other influences imbibed by Keshab from 
 Rama Krishna was the liability to alternating moods 
 of despondency and exaltation : when subject to 
 the former, he would humble himself in the dust and 
 speak, in the most affectionate and reverent phrase- 
 ology, of Christ as one that forgives sin and brings 
 about moral transformation ; and when seized by 
 the latter, he would place himself on an equality with 
 the world's greatest and best, would speak of himself 
 as a prophet of the New Dispensation, would claim 
 special direct revelations from God, on occasions 
 of great moment and would try to lay down the law 
 to his adherents. Rama Krishna did exactly the 
 same. He would refrain from even calling himself 
 a teacher of men, would gladly listen to another's 
 
KESHAB CHANDRA SEN 69 
 
 teaching, and speak of himself in the most disparaging 
 terms, but when his temperament altered, he would 
 claim access to the secrets of the Most Highest, 
 would teach as if having authority and conveyed the 
 impression that he had supernormal powers. 
 
IV 
 
 SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 
 (1824-1883) 
 
 EUROPEAN travellers in India are naturally impressed 
 with the stateliness and beauty of the Taj Mahal, 
 that noble monument of Indian art. There is 
 another building, which is quite likely to escape their 
 notice, being far, far less imposing in point of 
 architectural design and idea, situated some three 
 miles below Hardawar and built on 900 acres of 
 redeemed jungle track, that stands as a permanent 
 memorial to the unique services to India of an 
 enthusiastic Hindu reformer. It were sheer sacri- 
 lege to compare the two buildings in reference to their 
 artistic pretensions. The institution to which we 
 refer is the Gurukula (literally " seat of learning ") 
 established in 1902, mainly through the efforts of 
 Mahatama Munshi Ram, a successful pleader of 
 Jullundhur, and one of the most prominent members 
 of the vegetarian section of the Arya Samaj. At the 
 moment of writing this Gurukula contains more than 
 300 students, about forty in the college classes and 
 the remaining in the various forms of the School 
 Department. There are thirteen superintendents 
 and a full complement of most competent teachers, 
 
SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 71 
 
 who together with the governor, Mr. Munshi Ram, 
 stand committed to vows of chastity, poverty and 
 obedience. The scholars are admitted to the school 
 when only seven or eight years of age, and must 
 remain on the rolls for sixteen years. Before 
 admission they must take the vows of chastity, obedi- 
 ence and poverty and renew these vows ten years 
 later. During this period, the students must be 
 Brahmacharis, i.e., celibates. They can associate 
 with no women and indeed their own relations visit 
 them usually about twice a year, with the permission 
 of the governor and in the presence of one of the 
 superintendents. 
 
 The governor draws no salary for his services, and 
 in fact has given away to the school almost the entire 
 earnings of a lifetime and the value of his estate. 
 The teachers, that are distinguished graduates of 
 Indian Universities, are only given maintenance 
 allowance. The staff work in cordial co-operation 
 and in complete loyalty to the governor, who has 
 won their confidence through his winsome manners 
 and selfless devotion to duty. The scholars lead a 
 completely communal life, having all things in 
 common. Even presents and gifts brought by their 
 parents or guardians are equally divided among the 
 scholars. In seasons of sickness, the various 
 students gladly take up nursing by rotation. Till the 
 age of fourteen, the pupils are exclusively well- 
 grounded in Sanskrit and in the central ideas of 
 Hindu philosophy and religion, through the medium 
 of Hindi or Sanskrit. As yet they are not introduced 
 to the culture or ideas of Western civilisation. When 
 
72 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 this preliminary discipline is over, they are then 
 taught English, the physical sciences, philosophy 
 and economics and related subjects, in accordance 
 with the curriculum ot universities on the English 
 model. There is a well-equipped library attached 
 to the Gurukula, as also physical and chemical 
 laboratories. There are industrial and technological 
 classes connected with the school for the benefit of 
 all. Strenuous physical exercise is insisted on as 
 part of the training. 
 
 The scholars pay no tuition fees but only a mere 
 pittance for board and residence. They dress in 
 saffron robes of the devotee. The College Board of 
 Control had decided to abolish even these nominal 
 charges with a view to bringing the institution into 
 line with say the ancient Hindu University of Taxila. 
 But paucity of funds, the writer understands, was 
 the only barrier to the proposed abolition. 
 
 This remarkable institution, whose promoters 
 rightly believe in religious discipline as the bed-rock 
 of a national system of education, is a living memento 
 to the hero of our present little sketch. It is a 
 unique educational experiment, combining a revived 
 Hindu monasticism with European culture of an 
 advanced type. The main idea is to instil into the 
 impressionable minds of the young the wealth and 
 magnificence of their own religious and cultural 
 heritage, thus trying to avoid the mental disturbance 
 which might otherwise result as the central ideas of 
 western science and philosophy came into violent 
 conflict with crude or animistic religious notions. 
 The school is so situated that the minds of the young 
 
SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 73 
 
 are in constant touch with nature, the snow-clad 
 peaks of the Himalayas rising in proud and solitary 
 splendour above the lower hills at the foot of the 
 Upper Ganges. The students are thus in com- 
 munion with the freshness and vari-coloured 
 beauties of nature, as were the Munis and Rishis of 
 ancient India, that were inspired to write the sublime 
 hymns of the Rigveda, long before the dogmas and 
 creeds of a later priest-ridden Hindustan became a 
 clogging material to the flow of soul. 
 
 It is under these surroundings that the institution 
 professes to train and equip boys to be useful citizens 
 and religious and national leaders. The general 
 atmosphere may impress the Westerner as somewhat 
 confining and restricting, isolated from the facts 
 and realities of the surrounding world. The institu- 
 tion even undertakes to provide suitable wives, 
 sharing common ideals with the scholar, when the 
 prolonged probation and novitiate are over. 
 
 Should our traveller continue in his peregrinations 
 throughout India, he will come upon another magni- 
 ficent institution, the Dayananda Anglo- Vedic College, 
 situated on the Lower Mall in Lahore, and bearing 
 the imprint of our hero' s genius . This was established 
 in 1885 by a group of Arya Samajists who were con- 
 vinced that the most effective means, in modern times, 
 of preserving the teachings of Dayananda was not 
 only missionary propaganda to which the Samaj stood 
 committed, but also a net- work of educational institu- 
 tions financed, conducted and entirely staffed by Arya 
 Samajists. To keep abreast of the times, it was felt 
 that the appeal to the educated classes could only 
 
74 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 thus be adequately made. To show that progressive 
 Hindu traditions will well harmonise with the 
 latest discoveries of science and the newest teachings 
 of philosophy ; to inculcate reverence for India's 
 past, during the period the young were sedulously 
 engaged in secular learning ; to enlist the sympathy, 
 zeal and intellectual powers of the college under- 
 graduates in interpreting and developing the price- 
 less teachings bequeathed to them by Dayananda, 
 some such institution was, according to them, 
 necessary. Besides, they were zealous to show that 
 the Samaj was not merely a proselytising machine, 
 but had outlined before it an ambitious educational 
 and social reform programme. It was also felt that 
 thus alone could the danger of Christian missions 
 be minimised and countervailed, since missionary 
 institutions were not purely propagandist, but also 
 educative, organised for medical relief, famine 
 relief and general philanthropic purposes. It is 
 worthy of notice, that the initiation of the Arya 
 Samaj has for the first time called into being a 
 vigorous, aggressive Hindu propaganda, with the 
 object of reconverting to Hinduism converts to 
 faiths like Islam and Christianity, as also for 
 capturing converts from orthodox Hinduism. I 
 have advisedly applied the term Hindu to Aryas, 
 since at the Census for 1912, they returned them- 
 selves as Hindus by religion and of the Vedic Dharma 
 by sect. 
 
 There was a split among the promoters of the 
 D.A.V. College and members of its governing bodies 
 on the important issue whether Vedic tradition 
 
SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 75 
 
 should be exclusively upheld before the rising genera- 
 tion of undergraduates, especially earlier in their 
 college career, or whether the English curriculum of 
 studies should occupy a prominent place. Rightly 
 or wrongly, influential men on the Board of Control 
 decided for English education, making ample pro- 
 vision for religious instruction, and the performance 
 of sacred rites. There is a hostel, attached to the 
 D.A.V. College, where the scholars live and carry on 
 their studies, in an atmosphere that encourages their 
 religious ideals and provides for strict supervision in 
 other important details. Students of the college, 
 above referred to, carry off a large number of prizes 
 and scholarships every year from the University of 
 the Punjab, as also a much larger proportion of 
 degrees than any other college. No account of the 
 above college would be adequate which does not 
 pay a tribute to the unselfish and patriotic services 
 of Lala Hans Raj, who continued as its principal for 
 more than thirty years, receiving no salary, only a 
 bare subsistence allowance from a generous brother. 
 It may also be mentioned in passing that admission 
 to the above college is open to all, and that no 
 invidious caste distinctions are tolerated. Professor 
 Sidney Webb, in his introduction to Lala Lajpat 
 Rai's exceedingly interesting volume on " the Arya 
 Samaj," mentions the remarkable instance of a very 
 high-caste Brahmin and his wife, teaching "a score 
 or two " of pariah children, and of living under the 
 same roof with them. ' The Shuddhi (or reclaiming) 
 work carried on for the social uplift of the depressed 
 classes, by openly admitting them to the Hindu 
 
76 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 faith, will also tend considerably to weaken the caste- 
 consciousness that has so far operated against the 
 " untouchables " and denied them the benefits of a 
 human existence. The cumulative effect of the 
 Shuddhi propaganda, if as vigorously conducted in 
 the future, as in the past, and of the denunciation of 
 caste in theory and principle, may altogether render 
 impossible the anomalies referred to. In exceedingly 
 conservative countries like England and India, class 
 or caste may not be quite possible to abolish, in the 
 near future. Yet the Arya Samaj seems to be 
 animated with the right spirit to destroy the 
 foundations of caste. 
 
 Under the aegis of the Arya Samaj women are being 
 educated, and their seclusion is being steadily dis- 
 couraged. Widows are allowed to remarry, should 
 they chose to do so. The untouchables are being 
 reclaimed, and on admission to the Samaj invested 
 with the sacred thread that till recently was the 
 monopoly of the Brahmins. Orphanages, schools, 
 colleges, Gurukulas, numerous places for corporate 
 worship, Maha Kanya Pathashalas for girls, these 
 form the milestones in the Samaj 's onward march to 
 progress. Early marriages are under a ban. 
 
 All these wholesome developments are undoubtedly 
 due to the great inspiration given by the Swami's 
 convictions and teachings and by his life. Religious 
 self-torture is condemned by the Samaj as a degrading 
 penance that is gross superstition and has no religious 
 value. Shraddhas or food-offerings for the souls 
 of departed relatives are positively discountenanced 
 as mere animistic rites. Child-marriages are strictly 
 
SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 77 
 
 forbidden in theory, though it is difficult to say for 
 certain what happens in actual fact. It is to be 
 presumed, however, that a large majority of pro- 
 gressives do observe the ordinance that men are not 
 to marry till they are twenty-five and women till 
 they are sixteen. An exchange of photographs 
 between the contracting parties to a marriage was 
 suggested by Dayananda as an improvement on the 
 old-fashioned marriages, where the parties do not 
 even see each other's faces until they are married. 
 
 The history of a nation is indissolubly bound up 
 with the biography of its illustrious men and women. 
 It is the lives and personalities of a country's heroes 
 and heroines that profoundly affect its prevailing 
 ethical standards and, in fact, call into being a new 
 environment in which the masses might live and 
 move. Judged by any standards, however severe 
 or exacting, Daya Nanda Saraswati, the founder of 
 the Arya Samaj in Bombay and Upper India was 
 indeed a great man, not only in the estimation of his 
 friends and adherents, but what is still more striking 
 in the j udgment of his opponents as well. The Indian 
 tradition, whatever its failings and limitations still, 
 has been considerably enriched by the Swami's 
 message and life-work. It would have been poorer 
 but for his opportune appearance and the grand 
 delivery of a great message. Even to-day, the con- 
 tagious influence of his virile, independent and truth- 
 loving personality is visibly operative in the various 
 activities, social, religious, educational and propa- 
 gandist, on which the Arya Samaj has courageously 
 launched. Daya Nanda, though dead, yet speaketh 
 
78 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 in clear, clarion accents to the advocates of social 
 and religious reform. It is easy, fatally easy, to 
 praise him ; easier still to condemn his teachings, 
 at least some of them ; but it is difficult, very 
 difficult, to appraise the nature of his services 
 to the national regeneration of India. And yet, 
 this task, arduous though it be, must be undertaken 
 in a spirit that combines generous appreciation with 
 fidelity to truth. 
 
 The Swami may, quite appropriately, be called the 
 Luther of Hinduism, since he has, beyond doubt, 
 * rendered the same service to Hinduism by way of 
 purging it of its errors, excesses and anomalies, that 
 Martin Luther did to the cause of Reformation in 
 Europe, towards the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century. Opinions may differ as to the precise 
 value or permanence of the contributions either of 
 Luther in the course of the sixteenth century in 
 Europe, or of Daya Nanda in the last decades of 
 the nineteenth century in India. But there can be 
 no two opinions on the point that both worked for 
 religious emancipation, for liberty of conscience, for 
 the right of individual judgment and for the asser- 
 tion of individuality against the cramping, crush- 
 ing effects of time-old ecclesiastical systems. There 
 may be nothing inherently wrong in a system as 
 such. In fact all human efforts must be co-ordinated 
 and systematised, before they can be prolific of 
 lasting and far-reaching results. But the moment 
 a system, in its overpowering zeal, however laudable 
 that zeal may in itself be, becomes a menace to 
 individuality, to personal character, to the right of 
 
SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARAS WATI 79 
 
 interpreting truth, to the capacity for challenging 
 error enjoyed in various degrees by all individuals: 
 the moment a system begins to extort a me- 
 chanical obedience to tradition, whatever its 
 character, and to mandates however arbitrary ; 
 to the fiats of will exercised by an interested 
 hierarchy of priests all that we can say, then, 
 is that the life has departed from that system. And 
 a mere semblance of life is worse than the trappings 
 of death. It is during crises when bad and 
 defunct systems professed to play the role of vital 
 power, that good and great men have been needed 
 and have appeared. 
 
 And history has a way of repeating itself. 
 Luther appeared when his appearance and bold 
 championship of what he conceived to be the Truth, 
 were badly needed. Daya Nanda appeared in India, 
 when it was time that the stagnant pools of a 
 decadent tradition must be troubled. Both had 
 great strength of will, tenacity of purpose, personal 
 magnetism of an extraordinary kind, and a bold, far- 
 reaching vision. Both had their conception of 
 truth, limited by the theological pre-conceptions 
 peculiar to their respective epochs and countries, 
 and both made a dash forward in the direction of 
 progress and achieved a considerable measure of 
 emancipation. 
 
 ' Yesterday was the four-hundredth anniversary," 
 says The Times Literary Supplement of ist November, 
 1917, " of a religious action which convulsed the 
 whole life of Europe and started movements which 
 have revolutionised the course of history. On the 
 
80 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 eve of All Saints' Day, 1517, an Augustiniah monk, 
 who was also an influential professor in the young 
 University of Wittenberg, in Saxony, affixed to the 
 door of the University Church of All Saints ninety- 
 five theses, or propositions ' from love and zeal for 
 the elucidation of truth/ ' 
 
 No less startling and epoch-making was the day 
 when Swami Daya Nanda Saraswati, fearlessly 
 proclaimed, on November I7th, 1879, before a 
 vast assemblage of Hindus, presided over by the 
 Maharajah of Benares, that polytheism was a 
 monstrous fraud devised by priests that were blind 
 leaders of the blind ; that caste, that iniquitous 
 system that has lain like an incubus on social 
 relations in India, was originally designed to be only 
 a scientific division of labour on the basis of inherited 
 and developed skill, and on the various aptitudes that 
 people respectively acquired ; that ancient Hindu 
 women were free and equals of men, entitled to 
 respect, honour and the fullest use of their oppor- 
 tunities ; that only those could be called priests 
 that were pure, learned and industrious ; that social 
 degradation was possible only by reason of wasted 
 talent and atrophied powers ; that social elevation 
 to the highest caste of the twice-born was open, even 
 according to Manu's Dharama Shastra to the meanest 
 of pariahs ; that India's downfall was owing to her 
 disloyalty to her splendid heritage ; that the path 
 of salvation lay along a restored loyalty to the 
 priceless revelations of truth as embodied in the 
 Vedas. 
 
 The people listened with tense interest. Priests 
 
SWAMI DAYA-RANDA SARASWATI 81 
 
 had mustered in strength from all parts of India, men 
 of renown and vast erudition, whose very names were 
 uttered with bated breath. Grammarians and 
 schoolmen too, that never tired of verbal jugglery 
 and the infinite conjugations of sacred verbs. It 
 was, indeed, an ordeal by battle, the unpopular 
 David meeting the Goliaths of the old order in mortal 
 combat, confident that on his heroic stand hung the 
 issues of the day. A good deal of hair-splitting 
 distinctions were made as also a brave display of 
 sham learning. 
 
 Amid ridicule and jeers, the verdict of the assembly 
 was given against the enthusiastic reformer. His 
 enemies made an open show of his supposed defeat 
 when he stumbled upon some phrases, in an attempt 
 to give a reply that might have silenced their 
 clamour. 
 
 He was given no time ; so with loud acclaims of 
 victory, the throng left the vanquished hero. 
 
 There are very interesting side-issues which might 
 be profitably discussed perhaps in another book such 
 as : What part has idolatry played in moulding the 
 Hindu tradition ? Is it possible to conceive of 
 idolatry as " the outward symbol of an inward 
 grace " and as part of the Hindu's artistic heritage, 
 quite apart from religious considerations ? Does 
 the Hindu worshipper when he bows down before 
 an idol, consciously pay homage to the idol as if it 
 were to him a god in its own essence, by its own 
 virtue, so to speak, or only as a symbol reflecting one 
 or more of the numerous attributes of divinity ? 
 The elaborate ritual and the extremely fascinating 
 
82 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 though complicated ceremonial of both the Roman 
 and High Anglican Churches might possibly suggest 
 points of affinity, however remote or far-fetched the 
 affinity, with Hindu rites. Is it desirable to retain 
 the one as artistic accompaniments to religious 
 worship, as the paraphernalia of outward, co-operate 
 devotion, and at the same time to denounce even the 
 less gross and more pardonable forms of idolatry as 
 debasing, in the name, both of rationalism and pure, 
 undefiled religion ? 
 
 But, quite obviously, the above issues are 
 altogether beyond the scope of the present book, 
 which deals with outstanding facts and forces, 
 and views these facts and forces, and passes judg- 
 ments on their result according as they make the 
 convergence towards national solidarity easier or 
 else thwart and hamper unification. 
 
 More than thirty years before the above incident, 
 one night, a young lad of fourteen called Mul 
 Shankara, born of Samvedi Brahmin parentage, was 
 keeping a strict vigil over the festival of the god 
 Shiva, as his father and other relations were overcome 
 with sleep. The lad was intelligent and keenly 
 observant of all that happened around him. But 
 from early childhood his mind was steeped in 
 idolatrous notions, the supremacy of the priesthood 
 and the omnipotence of the gods of wood and stone. 
 And so, naturally, he was lying prostrate in front of 
 Shiva on this particular night called Shivaratri 
 (or night dedicated to Shiva) bravely struggling 
 against the overmastering inclination to fall asleep. 
 Three days' fasting had preceded this night vigil. 
 
SWAMI DAYA-RANDA SARASWATI 83 
 
 The spirit indeed was willing, but the flesh was weak. 
 The blessings of the powerful god for his reverent 
 worship and willing abstention from food and sleep, 
 so the lad might then be thinking, would more 
 than compensate for the severe bodily discomfort. 
 Besides, his father's word was law to him. He knew 
 what was good for the little Mul Shankara's spiritual 
 life. That was enough for the lad. 
 
 The boy was expecting great things from the 
 god he was told was so powerful. As the solemn 
 hush of the small hours of the morning fell upon the 
 place, a mouse crept out of a hole, began to nibble at 
 the offerings made to the god and what was still 
 worse, began to run across the god's body as if in 
 contemptuous defiance of his presence and powers, 
 if he possessed any. 
 
 This trivial incident marked the turning point in 
 little Mul Shankar's life. It set him thinking. It 
 shattered his illusions regarding the powers of the 
 divinity. This momentary vision released his powers 
 of thinking which tradition and parental authority 
 had all but suppressed. And the boy was obedient 
 to the vision, willing to follow wherever it led. That 
 night was a red-letter day for the boy, and through 
 him was to be the precursor of a glorious dawn of 
 religious emancipation for the masses in Upper 
 India, for, from the moment the mouse took liberties 
 with the sacred body of his god, the boy realised 
 quite subconsciously perhaps, that the god and in 
 fact all the gods of the Hindu pantheon, fell from 
 their pedestals, humiliated and exposed. 
 
 But he must not be in a hurry. Surely there must 
 
84 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 be an explanation. And who could be a better 
 person to approach in reference to this unsavoury 
 occurrence than his own father, plunged by this 
 time in deep slumbers, in the same temple ? Quite 
 nervously, with tremendous hesitation, the boy woke 
 up his father, and asked him why the god should 
 tolerate such gross familiarity. Only to be scolded 
 by the father for interrupting his sleep. These 
 things were not to be disputed or debated. He 
 was not to reason why. His was only to fast and keep 
 the vigil faithfully. If he failed in that, he would 
 be scolded or chastised. Some very bad calamity 
 might soon overtake him. He must not venture 
 into the sanctuary. That was for the hoary priests 
 of the ancient gods. And he was only a little mite 
 of a boy, with limited intelligence, quite uninitiated, 
 his little brain quite inadequate to the understand- 
 ing of these deep mysteries. He must do as he was 
 told. He must believe what he was told to. We 
 have heard and our fathers have told us of old ! 
 So it has been of old, and so must it remain for all 
 eternity. 
 
 But the boy was not to be bamboozled with these 
 verbal trickeries. The moment he made sure that 
 the father had again gone to sleep, he ran home 
 and having taken some light refreshments, soon 
 went off to sleep. He was no more to be bothered 
 with the empty flummeries, the pomp and circum- 
 stance, the elaborate ritual that was all devised to 
 placate this helpless, speechless dummy, the despic- 
 able toady that could not even drive away a mouse ! 
 
 Even young school boys in their earlier forms 
 
SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 85 
 
 might feel inclined to laugh over the insignificant 
 incident that we have described at some length. 
 Only let them remember, let us all remember, that 
 this incident has been epoch-making in the life of 
 Mul Shankara. It made history for India. 
 
 Some thirty years later, a learned pandit that had 
 drunk deep at the Helicon of Vedic lore, that was 
 anxious to reform Hinduism and purge it of the 
 excrescences that an ignorant and obscurantist 
 priesthood had gathered round the pure gold of 
 Vedic tradition, sounded forth a trumpet of defiance 
 at the very head and centre of orthodox Hinduism, 
 Benares. That Pundit was Swami Daya Nanda 
 Saraswati. Our readers might be astounded to 
 learn that this protagonist of reform ; this iconoclast 
 that demanded the dethronement of the gods of the 
 Hindu pantheon; this impatient idealist that was 
 burning with holy zeal to fuse into the dry bones of 
 lifeless ceremonies and dead orthodox formalities 
 of a once sublime but now moribund faith, the 
 sublime and transcendent passion for a living, loving, 
 merciful, just and omniscient God was no other than 
 Mul Shankara, the disillusioned lad that was later 
 converted to an exalted form of monotheism, and 
 which faith, he was seriously convinced, was to be 
 found in its pristine purity in the Vedas. 
 
 ," Back to the Vedas " was his battle cry, as the 
 great sannyasi emerged on the controversial arena. 
 India's only hope was, according to him, to redis- 
 cover the faith that was once delivered to the Munis 
 and Rishis as these were enwrapped in holy medita- 
 tion, grappling with the ultimate mysteries of life. 
 
86 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 Surely in India, if anywhere, has the battle of the 
 soul been fought with a fierce intensity that knows 
 of very few parallels in the annals of religious 
 experience. And these champions of the Eternal 
 have left behind them the records of their mystic 
 struggles and of their triumphant discoveries of the 
 spiritual realm, all recorded and preserved for us in 
 the Vedas. To the Swami, no doubt, the Vedas were 
 the only revealed word of God ; infallible, containing 
 in them the secret not only of all religious truth, 
 but also the promise and potentiality of all scientific 
 discovery, of the latest philosophical view of life, of 
 mechanical inventions and political theory. But of 
 this later. 
 
 But what, after all, has this mysterious conversion 
 led to ? The students of comparative religion or of 
 the science of religion might, no doubt, point out 
 that the learned Swami, in repudiating the traditional 
 faith and striving to propagate the above ideas had 
 only fallen from one error on to another. If what he 
 boldly repudiated was erroneous, false, degrading, 
 priest-ridden, is what he later preached capable of 
 vindication on strict scientific grounds ? 
 
 The limits of the present book preclude our 
 entering on technical metaphysical issues or our 
 reviewing the Swami' s teachings in the light of the 
 latest findings of the science of religion. We are not 
 primarily interested, in the course of these essays, 
 with the Arya Samaj as promulgating a body of 
 doctrines, but with the movement in so far as it has 
 worked for national regeneration, for instilling the 
 ideals of progress, social purity, nationality, self- 
 
SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 87 
 
 reliance and social reform into the mind of the rising 
 generation in India. Judged by these criteria the 
 Swami will continue to occupy a conspicuous position 
 in the muster-roll of fame, as one who undermined the 
 very foundations^ orthodoxy and effected a revolu- 
 tion in ideas and outlook in an exceedingly conserva- 
 tive country like India, and prepared a way for the 
 wonderful Renaissance whose varied healthy mani- 
 festations we see to-day, in every department of 
 thought, feeling and action. 
 
 " Words, words piled on words and words again " 
 the sceptically inclined may say to the above. They 
 evidently ask for signs and wonders. To such we 
 shall point out the Gurukula in Hardawar, which as 
 an educational experiment along indigenous lines 
 possesses unique value, and together with its highly 
 gifted and self-sacrificing governor, Mahatma 
 Munshi Rama, is a living monument to Daya Nand's 
 life and teachings. With a stroke of the pen has the 
 Arya Samaj changed the individual worship of the 
 Hindu devotee into organised congregational worship 
 of believers professing a unity of faith ; it has served 
 as a pathfinder in the trackless jungle of Hindu 
 beliefs ; it has abolished caste ; it has demolished 
 priesthood. 
 
 At the magnificent Durbar held in Delhi on the 
 ist of January, 1877, when Queen Victoria was 
 proclaimed, during Lord Lytton's viceroyalty, as 
 Empress of India, there was a remarkable man 
 present on the occasion, as guest of one of the ruling 
 princes, who was destined to revolutionise the 
 religious ideas and preconceptions of orthodox India. 
 
88 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 That man was Mul Shankara, the subject of the 
 present sketch. It is curious that very few should 
 know of his original and real name almost till 
 the day of his death. He was born in 1824, 
 in the town of Tankara, situated in the Indian 
 state of Morvi Gujerat, Western India. His father 
 was a wealthy banker in the town and was, more- 
 over, Jamadar or headman of the small village, which 
 office the family held as a hereditary right. Amba 
 Shankar, for that was the father's name, was 
 very anxious naturally that the son should 
 be well-grounded in the tenets of Shivaism, and 
 turn out eventually to be a worshipper of the 
 god Shiva. At the early age of fourteen, the boy 
 had committed to memory large portions of the Vedas, 
 besides being trained in the elaborate rules of 
 Sanskrit grammar. 
 
 Mul Shankar was hardly twenty-two when his 
 parents determined to correct his heterodox views 
 on religion, by saddling him with the duties of 
 married life. For some years previously, he had 
 taken asylum with a kindly uncle who sympathised 
 with his point of view and let him do things in his' 
 own way. But on his death, he was compelled to 
 revert to the vigilant supervision of the father, who 
 ever since the memorable Shivaratri, was alarmed 
 at the boy's persistent refusal, bordering on 
 obstinacy, to pay homage to the tribal divinity. 
 His grief over the uncle's death was intensified on 
 the loss of a dear sister and filled his mind with 
 eagerness to try and unravel the mysteries of life and 
 death and to attain Moksha, i.e., release from the 
 
SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 89 
 
 continuous cycle of births and rebirths. It was at 
 the psychological moment when his mind was fired 
 with the ambition to learn the Vedas and grasp 
 their original intention ; to renounce the pleasures 
 of life, to bear hardness as a faithful soldier 
 of Bharatvarsha ; to prepare himself for the 
 spiritual upliftment of his country : it was at 
 this crisis that the father wanted to upset 
 his plans, by marrying him off and thus killing 
 his fine enthusiasms by the hum-drum routine 
 which such a married life would impose on him. 
 But not willing to submit to this ordeal, the boy ran 
 away from home. 
 
 The next twenty-five years i.e., 1845-1870 form a 
 prolonged probation during which he met various 
 Sannyasis of established repute for learning and 
 piety. He voraciously devoured their teachings, 
 only accepting them with certain mental reservations. 
 It may be noted that on his first flight he was caught. 
 But he had made up his mind to break away from 
 the trammels of home, and so ran away again, this 
 time effectively evading pursuit and burning all the 
 traces behind him. One of the ascetics called 
 Brahmananda convinced him, for a season, of the 
 truth of the Vedantic teaching that the soul is an 
 emanation from the divine and individual souls as 
 so many self-expressions of the Divine substance, 
 that the soul and Brahma are one ; that Brahma is 
 the immanent life of the Universe, and not a trans- 
 cendent God or Creator who created the worlds out 
 of nothing. But this teaching was soon given up by 
 Dayananda as unhealthy and unpractical. 
 
go INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 The reality of this world, the trustworthiness of 
 the senses, the reality of human experience and 
 struggle was too visibly imprinted on his mind 
 to allow of his accepting the temporal order as 
 illusory in its character. Mul Shankara was not, by 
 nature, a subtle metaphysician, fond of logical 
 casuistry and wordy debate. He was a practical 
 idealist. He was keen on arriving at some simple 
 philosophy of life that could be strictly denned, and 
 whose terms would bear a simple and unsophis- 
 ticated statement. He was interested more in life ; 
 in the practical difficulties of life, in the means of 
 escape from the perplexities that beset every-day 
 life ; more than in some sublime synthesis which 
 from the metaphysical standpoint, might throw 
 ample light on theoretical problems suggested by 
 the ultimate issues in philosophy. 
 
 He next met Swami Parmananda, after some 
 years, who was a sannyasi of the Saraswati order, 
 and who, after continuous refusal recognised Mul 
 Shankara as a sannyasi of his order, being struck by 
 the latter' s originality in ideas and deep scholarship. 
 From that moment Mul Shankara became Swami 
 Dayananda Saraswati. His one great obj ect in asking 
 for recognition as recluse of an established order was 
 that he might thereby escape the pressure that might 
 yet be exerted by his parents to get him married 
 should they come to know of his whereabouts. 
 A recluse renounces, for all time, caste, home, 
 marriage and all other mundane attachments and 
 obligations. 
 
 Throughout all his wanderings he was seized with 
 
SWAMI DAYA-NANDA SARASWATI 91 
 
 a consuming desire to come upon ascetics who would 
 expound to him the mysteries of the Yoga philo- 
 sophy. Perhaps he felt that through the exposition 
 of yoga (i.e., communion with the Infinite) he might 
 attain to emancipation from the ceaseless round 
 of transmigration that haunted his imagination. 
 
 In 1860, Dayananda met Swami Virjananda, a 
 great authority on Panini's grammar, in Muttra ; 
 an exceedingly able pundit, but very irritable and 
 overbearing. He refused to initiate Dayananda 
 into his teachings till he threw all the books he had 
 on him into the river Jumna. But Dayananda sat 
 at his feet, patiently, submissively, drinking in his 
 teachings, once even bearing corporal punishment 
 without demur. This pupilage lasted for two years 
 and-a-half. Swami Virjananda was absolutely 
 convinced of the veracity and reliability of the Vedas, 
 but indignantly rejected all later accretions as so 
 many lies manufactured by ignorant and mis- 
 leading priests, to serve their personal ends. On 
 the day of leave-taking, in May, 1863, Virjananda 
 asked Dayananda for the customary fee paid 
 as a token of appreciation, knowing that Swami 
 Dayananda had none to give. He asked Dayananda 
 to go and proclaim the pure Vedic faith and combat 
 Puranic errors. Never was pledge more loyally 
 redeemed. 
 
 Daya Nand was essentially a reformer, not a 
 great original thinker. His commentaries on Vedic 
 texts are " more ingenious than ingenuous," to use 
 the words of the last Census report concerning his 
 work. But he felt that, living in the modern world, 
 
92 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 ms 
 
 it was necessary that certain pernicious custo 
 ought to be given up and a progressive mentality 
 acquired. He was constantly in touch, when he 
 began his public career, with educated Hindus who 
 discussed with him how the Reformation and the 
 Renaissance were made possible in Europe. So, 
 being a shrewd practical man, he proclaimed to the 
 conservative masses that the germs of science, 
 medicine, art, literature, philosophy and religions 
 were to be found in the Vedas only awaiting maturity 
 and fruition. There was, indeed, a certain degree 
 of conviction that the Vedas were the encyclopaedia of 
 all knowledge, but the feeling must also have been 
 strong in his mind that an appeal to the past was the 
 way in which the masses could be weaned from 
 idol-worship and veneration of mere formalism. 
 
 Having arrived at certain conclusions he read 
 these back into the Vedas and pleaded for unques- 
 tioning faith in their infallibility. His followers are 
 noted more for their character and militant spirit 
 than for intellectual ability or wide culture. There 
 is a large proportion of men of more than average 
 ability in the ranks of the Arya Samaj, but with the 
 possible exception of Lala Lajpat Rai and Mahatama 
 Munshi Ram, the community has not produced many 
 conspicuous instances of scholarship. There have 
 been, of course, a proportion of men high up in 
 professional careers or in Government service men 
 of the stamp of the late Lala Lai Chand and others 
 but we shall look in vain for men with breadth of 
 vision and large mental calibre, from the community 
 that might " rub shoulders " with Ranade or Tagore, 
 
SWAMI DAYA-KANDA SARASWATI 93 
 
 Gokhale or Keshab Chandra Sen. When we bear in 
 mind, however, that the Punjab, where the Samaj 
 has most flourished, is not educationally advanced, 
 even though it is making rapid strides now, and that 
 the whole fabric of the Samaj ic doctrines rests on 
 superficial foundations the infallibility of theVedas 
 as the repository of all knowledge we shall make 
 generous allowances for the incapacity to produce 
 outstanding leaders. I have no intention to dis- 
 parage the splendid work done by the Samaj. I 
 should only say that any movement that calls itself 
 progressive, and yet rests 011 the verbal inspiration 
 of ancient scriptures, and their being a storehouse 
 of all possible human knowledge, is bound, sooner or 
 later, to develop a narrow, hardened theology, and 
 produce disastrous reactions on the mind, be the 
 movement in question professedly Christian, Hindu 
 or Islamic. 
 
 We conclude this chapter with a concrete instance 
 of how the Samaj does splendid work by means of a 
 progressive interpretation of texts, rites or cere- 
 monies apart from the consideration whether these 
 texts, rites and ceremonies admit of such liberal 
 construction or not. I am quoting from Lala 
 Lajpat Rai's interesting book : " The Arya Samaj : 
 An Indian Movement," pp. 86-87. 
 
 " Devas (gods) are those who are wise and learned ; 
 asuras (demons) those who are foolish and ignorant ; 
 Rakshas those who are wicked and sin-loving ; and 
 pishachas, those whose mode of life is filthy and 
 debasing. 
 
 " Devapuja (or the worship of the gods) consists 
 
94 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 in showing honour and respect to the wise and learned, 
 to one's father, mother, and preceptor, to the 
 preachers of the true doctrine, to a just and impartial 
 sovereign, to lovers of righteousness, to chaste men 
 and women. 
 
 " Tirtha (i.e., pilgrimages) is that by means of 
 which ' the sea of pain ' is crossed. It consists 
 in truthfulness of speech, in the acquisition of true 
 knowledge, in cultivating the society of the wise and 
 good, in the practice of morality, in contemplating 
 the nature and attributes of the Deity with con- 
 centrated attention, in active benevolence, in the 
 diffusion of education, and so on. Rivers and other 
 so-called holy places are not Tirthas." 
 
 Most ingenious explanations, indeed, of customary 
 observances do these statements appear to be. But 
 how else can you combat wrong ideas except by the 
 substitution of right ones ? The Swami was, in 
 this respect, full of moral enthusiasm and initiative. 
 
 The late Madame Blavatsky pays the following 
 compliment to Dayananda : "It is perfectly certain 
 that India never saw a more learned Sanskrit 
 scholar, a deeper metaphysician, a more wonderful 
 orator and a more fearless denunciator of any evil 
 than Dayananda, since the time of Shankaracharya." 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 
 
 (1817-1893) 
 
 WHAT Raja Ram Mohun Roy, the illustrious founder 
 of the Brahma Samaj, did for the moral and intel- 
 lectual rejuvenation of the Hindus, Sir Syed Ahmad 
 has achieved for the social and educational better- 
 ment of the Muslims of India. There would be no 
 educated Muhammadan community existing and 
 flourishing to-day but for the heroic pioneer efforts 
 and far-sighted vision of this great man, who did not 
 see in the utter collapse of the Moghul Empire an 
 argument for racial estrangement and enmity, 
 nor yet a sign and symptom of the permanent moral 
 decay of his community, only a fresh inspiration 
 to summon courage, to accept the challenge, on 
 behalf of his community, thrown by the arduous 
 competitive spirit of the West, to serve as a 
 pathfinder for his countrymen, to prepare them 
 for that relentless competition through education 
 and social reform, so that they may thus be equipped 
 for the struggle which the introduction of Western 
 civilisation had rendered inevitable. This would 
 not have been possible save for the Syed's recognition 
 that there were elements of progress and vitality in 
 
 95 
 
96 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 the fuller, richer culture from the West, whatever the 
 failings of its commercial exponents and that the 
 assimilation of these elements would greatly enrich 
 and amplify the old-fashioned notions of progress. 
 
 The overthrow of the Muhammadan Empire in 
 India was complete when the Syed was born on 
 I7th October, 1817, at the Imperial capital where the 
 nominal suzerainty and shadow of the " great 
 Moghul " still lingered. He bestowed titles and 
 honours ; was the centre of attraction in brilliant 
 state-pageants ; even received ceremonial courtesy 
 and homage from the English Governor-General. 
 But the sceptre had passed on to the East India 
 Company. To the large bulk of Muhammadans 
 the political catastrophe which resulted in the trans- 
 ference of authority to British rulers betokened 
 the downfall of Islam itself. It meant to them, 
 perhaps, an eternal depreciation of Oriental values, 
 a great humbling of national pride and vassalage to 
 an alien civilisation not founded on the sanctions of 
 Muhammadan law. No longer would the exclusive 
 avenue to lucrative employment be the traditional 
 religious and classical training at the historic 
 University of Patna so many must have argued. 
 The Infidel according to them had not only defiled 
 the sanctuary, but demanded a strange and strenuous 
 discipline in novel methods of government, in 
 profane learning of a dubious nature. They had 
 lost their kingdom. But it was still open to them 
 not to sell their souls to the new learning. So they 
 sulked, and refrained from deriving the benefits of 
 western education. 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 97 
 
 Syed Ahmad saw with the flash of genius, that 
 this mentality generated by the regrettable circum- 
 stances would seriously handicap his co-religionists 
 in the keen competition for employment under the 
 John Company. We do not suggest that he did 
 not rise above the mere commercial aspects of 
 the situation. In fact, he clearly perceived that 
 the sullen attitude of the Muslims towards English 
 education threatened the community with intellectual 
 retrogression and narrowness of vision. But he 
 also saw that the keen intellectual Hindus, whose 
 fathers did likewise wield the sceptre of empire 
 once, were capturing many of the subordinate 
 appointments in the gift of the government, if so the 
 regime of the East India Company may be called. 
 Whatever to him personally, or to others, might be 
 the merits or demerits of English education, his 
 practical instincts made it clear to him that under 
 the new conditions, his community must either 
 accept the fresh ordeal or perish. But there was 
 yet another side to the question. Western civilisa- 
 tion, whatever its failings, had embedded in it 
 the discoveries of science, the triumphs of reason, 
 and traditions of a practical, efficient business life. 
 
 On the ethical and religious side, there were not 
 after all, according to him, fundamental differences 
 between the two rival faiths, one professed by his 
 countrymen and the other professed by the 
 people into whose hands were delivered the reins 
 of government. If rightly interpreted, Christianity 
 and Islam had much in common, and rested on the 
 common foundations of belief in the unity of the 
 
 7 
 
98 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 Godhead, and respect for the patriarchs and concern 
 for the moral issues of life as preached and upheld by 
 Christ. Later, when He was removed, Christianity 
 became encrusted with dogmas and creeds and the 
 subtle casuistry of scholastics. But so was Islam in 
 the course of the centuries hardened into fossilised 
 teachings, lifeless formalism and mechanical obedi- 
 ence to the ipse dixits of an ignorant priestcraft, 
 so radically opposed to the pure and lofty mono- 
 theism of the holy prophet of Arabia. There was no 
 reason, whatever, why the adherents of the two faiths, 
 the one in its rise, on the secular side, to power, and 
 the other in a sad predicament because of the decline 
 of its political prestige, should not shake hands and 
 form a life-long friendship, co-operating towards 
 common ends and loyally working side by side. And 
 history has pronounced its verdict that the generous- 
 minded Syed was right, both in principle and in 
 anticipations of resulting good. 
 
 . I Syed Ahmad had a remarkable ancestry. His 
 i grandfather was given, in the reign of Alamgiv II., 
 the titles of Jowahid Ali Khan and Jowad-ul- 
 dowlah, being commander of 1,000 foot and 500 
 horse. His father Muhammad Taqi had so 
 entirely renounced the world and set his face reso- 
 lutely against participation in the gaieties and the 
 dazzling splendour of court functions, that when 
 offered the high office of Prime Minister by 
 Emperor Akbar II., he politely declined it. It is 
 obvious that the influence of the father's character 
 and of his asceticism must have produced consider- 
 able effect on the young Ahmad's outlook on life, 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 99 
 
 even though he seldom inclined towards asceticism 
 throughout his career. No less potent was the 
 influence exerted by his mother. She; would teach 
 her little Ahmad rudiments of reading and writing, 
 and before sending him off to sleep would make 
 him repeat what he had learnt in the day. Syed 
 Ahmad was evidently very well brought up, and 
 was absolutely truthful and straightforward in his 
 younger days, in his dealings with everyone, what- 
 ever his rank and office. There is an interesting 
 little incident of his younger days which would well 
 illustrate our statement 
 
 It is said that Syed Ahmad, while quite young, was 
 to be presented with a Khilat (i.e., free gift of gold- 
 embroidered costume) and was commanded by the 
 Emperor to be present in time. In spite of the 
 vigilance of his mother, Syed Ahmad overslept 
 himself on the day fixed for the occasion, and hence 
 could not arrive till the function was formally over. 
 Later on, he happened to meet the Emperor, who 
 without expressing annoyance, asked him sternly 
 what he did with himself. The courtiers that had 
 gathered round him expected that Syed Ahmad 
 should give an ingenious explanation, highly flatter- 
 ing to the Emperor. To their dismay and horror, 
 the little boy looked straight into the Emperor's 
 face and told the strict literal truth. These charac- 
 teristics, apparently trivial, augured well for the boy's, 
 future. It is more than probable that he inherited 
 his appreciation of the inherent value of right things 
 from his austere and devout-minded father, who as a 
 recluse had not only turned his back on Court favours 
 
ioo INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 and ceremonial functions, but even refused the 
 Imperial offer to be invested with his father's titles. 
 It is the very least to say that Syed Ahmad even 
 when young, could discriminate between substance 
 and showy, glittering unreality. And this right 
 perspective in regard to the relative value of things 
 was characteristic of him till the end. 
 
 He early accepted government service and won 
 golden opinions from English officials for reliability, 
 impartiality and a sense of justice. He had acquired 
 a working knowledge of English before entering the 
 service. But, later, his frequent intercourse with 
 officials encouraged him to follow up the study of the 
 language more thoroughly. While harnessed with 
 official duties, he completed a book of considerable 
 archaeological and historic interest, which aroused 
 great interest and controversy and commended 
 itself to the acceptance of his English colleagues. 
 It is interesting to note that like Raja Ram 
 Mohun Roy, he was somewhat suspicious of, if not 
 quite hostile to, English ways and methods. 
 But actual dealings with the English not 
 only ended the strained feeling but fostered 
 respect and right understanding. He was soon 
 promoted to the office of subordinate Judge, a 
 position which he filled with conspicuous ability, to 
 the satisfaction of all. 
 
 Like Ram Mohun he was anxious to attempt a 
 harmony of various faiths, while retaining his 
 personal loyalty to a modified form of the faith he 
 was nurtured in. So we find that just as the Raja 
 wrote " the Precepts of Jesus," so the Syed with a 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 101 
 
 view to reconcile the minds of the more conservative 
 among his co-religionists to the essentials of the 
 Christian faith, wrote a commentary on portions of 
 " the Genesis." 
 
 During the Mutiny, the Syed rendered yeoman 
 service to the British cause, and through his unflinch- 
 ing loyalty, presence of mind and contemptuous 
 defiance of danger, saved many valuable lives of both 
 men and women. Sir John Strachey, in the course 
 of his speech at Aligarh, on nth December, 1880, 
 paid him an eloquent compliment : " No man ever 
 gave nobler proofs of conspicuous courage and loyalty 
 to the British Government than were given by him in 
 1857. No language that I could use would be 
 worthy of the devotion he showed." On one occasion 
 when the house occupied by Messrs. Shakespeare, 
 Johnson, Adam and others was surrounded by the 
 rebels under the command of a rebel chief, and the 
 lives of European men and women were every moment 
 in jeopardy, he plucked up courage, divested himself 
 of all weapons and cash and headed straight for 
 Nawab Khan in spite of the entreaties of his English 
 comrades, who felt that he set out on a forlorn hope. 
 On being challenged by the mutinous sentries he 
 calmly assured them that he desired to consult their 
 commander, and with extreme coolness marched up 
 to him, assured him of his bona fide intentions, 
 appealed to the rebel chief's sense of honour and 
 asked him under what conditions he would let them 
 escape with their lives. 
 
 He exercised such strong personal magnetism on 
 the chief that he trusted Syed Ahmad implicitly, 
 
102 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 walked down with him quite unaccompanied into the 
 English Bungalow, and there received a formally 
 signed and sealed document conferring on him the 
 right to rule the provinces till the British returned. 
 The negotiations being complete, the commander of 
 the mutineers faithfully promised to let the Euro- 
 peans escape with impunity, if only they could 
 leave before two o'clock the next morning. Equally 
 imposing was Syed Ahmad' s manner of approach 
 to Nawab Khan. With cool courage he addressed 
 the commander : "I have neither arms nor money, 
 but please accept my nuzzur (i.e., offering) by 
 putting your hand on mine ; hearty congratula- 
 tions that you have received the country of your 
 ancestors. But what is to be done with the 
 Europeans inside that house ? " Some time after 
 peace was restored Mr. Shakespeare, the collector, 
 wrote a letter to the commissioner of Rohil Khand, 
 from which the following excerpt may be interesting 
 to our readers. 
 
 " All the three officers (i.e., Syed Ahmad Khan, 
 Mir Turab Ali Tehsildar and Rahmat Khan, Deputy 
 Collector) on whom I am reporting have shown con- 
 spicuous loyalty, but if I were required to draw a 
 distinction, I should do so in favour of Syed Ahmad 
 Khan, whose clear, sound judgment, and rare 
 uprightness and zeal could scarcely be surpassed." 
 
 Some little while after the Rebellion of 1857, Syed 
 Ahmad wrote an interesting book on the causes of 
 the Indian Revolt which, however, was not published 
 till 1873. In this book the author urged many elo- 
 quent pleas for mutual understanding and study of 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 103 
 
 the people's point of view, for trusting the people, 
 consulting them on questions of policy and custom, 
 and the fostering of confidence and mutual self- 
 respect as between the rulers and the ruled. In one 
 remarkable passage he says : " Most men agree in 
 thinking that it is highly conducive to the welfare 
 and prosperity of government indeed, is essential 
 to its stability, that the people should have a voice 
 in its councils. It is from the voice of the people 
 only that government can learn whether its projects 
 are likely to be well received. The voice of the 
 people can alone check errors in the bud, and warn 
 us of dangers, before they burst upon and destroy 
 us. A needle may dam the gushing rivulet, an 
 elephant must turn aside from the swollen torrent. 
 This voice, however, can never be heard, and this 
 security never acquired, unless the people are allowed 
 a share in the consultations of government. . . . 
 The security of a government is founded on its 
 knowledge of the character of the governed, as well 
 as on its careful observance of their rights and 
 privileges. They are in every instance the inherit- 
 ance of the peculiar race." One hears faint, distant 
 echoes in these utterances of Indian members of 
 Council and their indirect representation therein. 
 
 The vision of the Syed is not complete. But we 
 must well bear in mind that he was only a child of 
 his day. Education and enlightenment had not 
 then spread far and wide, and a sense of national 
 solidarity was then only germinant. The utmost 
 political ambition of the Syed's was confined to an 
 Indian member's nomination to the Council, to give 
 
104 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 voice to the Indian point of view. The demand 
 for political autonomy, for acquiring control over the 
 Administration might have been considered by him 
 in the nature of sacrilege or blasphemy. Nor were 
 the times ripe for it. The older civilisation was just 
 overthrown, the probation along modern lines of 
 education had just begun. The lessons of responsi- 
 bility had yet to be learnt as also persistence in 
 familiarising oneself with new procedure and modes 
 of thought. It is doubtless true that there was not 
 much to choose between the social and political 
 anarchy prevailing before the collapse of the Moghul 
 Empire and the rapacity and misgovernment of the 
 company whose motto obviously was : " Each one 
 for himself and God for us all ! " One year we read of 
 50,000,000 people dying of famine, and the next 
 published report of the Company congratulates their 
 officers for phenomenal success in exacting a heavier 
 revenue than ever before. Those were times of 
 uncontrolled greed and unashamed corruption. But 
 there were, here and there, honourable and upright 
 men, with a keen sense of duty. 
 
 More especially did the reign of lawlessness con- 
 tinue unabated when the Syed was a youngster. 
 
 But the Syed was fully alive to the need for 
 harmonious co-operation between the two sister- 
 communities, i.e., Hindus and Muhammadans. In 
 characteristic oriental style he would say that Hindus 
 and Muhammadans were the two eyes of the sweet- 
 heart India, without whose joint focussing of vision 
 on to the same objective, everything would look 
 confused and indistinct in outline. It is true, that 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 105 
 
 after receiving his knighthood in the reign of 
 Lord Lytton, he went back on some of his principles, 
 took to reactionary views on Indian politics, out of 
 sheer diplomacy and a desire to cater to official 
 vanity, launched a propaganda of calumny and mis- 
 representation against the Indian National Congress, 
 and swallowed most of his progressive views. But 
 this should surprise no one. Greater men than he 
 have fallen victims to official patronage and paid a 
 heavy price for it. And no one can be more easily 
 pardoned than Sir Syed, for his shrewd practical 
 instincts never forsook him, and in spheres other than 
 political he held on till the end as pioneer of vigorous 
 reform and as one engaged in the ministry of recon- 
 ciliation. Sir Henry Cotton in a well-known passage 
 refers to him in " New India " as one who for 
 diplomatic reasons apostatised from his ardent 
 admiration for the keen political capacity of the 
 Bengalis. 
 
 Some ten years after the assumption by the British 
 crown of responsibility for the governance of India, 
 the Syed decided to pay a visit to England. In 
 July, 1869, we find him comfortably settled down in 
 Mecklenburgh Square in London with his son 
 Syed Mahmud who v was the first Muhammadan 
 student to accept a state scholarship, recently 
 thrown open to Indians to enable them to 
 prosecute further studies at English Universities. 
 On the i5th October, of the same year, he contributed 
 an exceedingly interesting letter to the Aligarh 
 Institute Gazette, giving his miscellaneous impressions 
 of life in London ; parts of it sound almost childish, 
 
io6 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 but one can clearly see that the Syed was a keen 
 observer of things and was anxious to improve 
 Indian conditions. " All good things," to quote 
 from the letter, "spiritual and worldly, which should 
 be found in man, have been bestowed by the Almighty 
 on Europe, and especially on England. By spiritual 
 good things, I mean that the English carry out all 
 the details of their religion which they believe to be 
 the true one, with a beauty and excellence which no 
 other nation can compare with. This is entirely due 
 to the education of men and women. ... If 
 Hindustanis can only attain to civilisation, they will 
 probably, owing to their many natural powers, 
 become if not the superiors, at least the equals of 
 England. ' ' The Syed was, from the very beginning of his 
 residence in this country, profoundly convinced that 
 apart from education the attainment to a higher level 
 of civilisation was not possible. He was, further, 
 convinced that women must also be educated, for other- 
 wise they can not follow the life of Reason on which 
 he so much insisted, nor could they be good mothers or 
 intelligent wives. But curiously enough, he would 
 wait for the instruction of women till the men were 
 thoroughly well-educated first. I suppose the 
 turbulent activities of the suffragettes were not in 
 those days much in evidence, or else the Syed would 
 take back to India the same progressive views 
 concerning the rights and duties of women as he did 
 in the case of men. But it is idle to accuse the Syed 
 of hesitancy in the direction of female education, 
 and especially if we remember what formidable 
 obstacles he had to encounter, to win acceptance from 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 107 
 
 his conservative compatriots even in reference to 
 Western education being imparted to men. But 
 through a spread of higher education among men, 
 the way has been gradually paved for female 
 education, new ideas are gaining ground, the 
 functions of womanhood are gradually gaining 
 ampler recognition, and to-day we see at the anni- 
 versaries of Muhammadan Educational Conferences 
 that Muslim ladies hold their meetings not far from 
 where men carry on their deliberations. And it is the 
 merest justice to add that this happy state of things 
 would not have been possible but for the efforts 
 of the enlightened Syed who expected great things 
 from his country and attempted great things for her. 
 Syed Ahmad was a great admirer of the progressive 
 tendencies discernible among the Bengalis and the 
 Parsees, but he sincerely, though mistakenly, con- 
 cluded " that their pace is so fast that there is danger 
 of their falling." But he certainly showed signs of 
 being an ideal reformer when he gave vent to his 
 pent-up conviction " that the fatal shroud of com- 
 placent self-esteem is wrapt round the Muhammadan 
 community." Another shrewd remark which bore 
 evidence of intellectual penetration related to the 
 secret of Britain's progressive traditions as consisting 
 in scientific and literary works being written in her own 
 language. And in India, he preached season in and 
 season out that philosophic and literary treatises 
 should be translated in the vernaculars of the 
 country as only thus could the ideas be made popular 
 and the language made richer. The Syed was by 
 instincts and temperament, a statesman and could 
 
ro8 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 well grasp fundamentals, ignoring details for the 
 moment. 
 
 He watched the movements of his English friends 
 in London, met distinguished people in social inter- 
 course, entered into the spirit of their conversations 
 and drank deep at the fountain of Western ideas. 
 The idea that held his mind as if in a vice was thus 
 epigrammatically expressed by him : " Unless the 
 education of the masses is pushed on as it is here, it is 
 impossible for a nation to become civilised and 
 honoured.' ' And this idea, which only gained a vague 
 and inchoate expression in Syed Ahmad's utterance, 
 later fired the imagination of a highly-disciplined 
 politician like Gokhale, and acquired a forceful 
 expression through his Education Bill, which failed 
 to pass through the Council, but indirectly revo- 
 lutionised the attitude of government and people 
 alike to the overmastering need for mass education. 
 
 Syed Ahmad had a keen eye for the so-called trivial 
 incidents of everyday occurrence. When his land- 
 lady's daughter asked for the loan of one of his books 
 on highly controversial religious topics, at a time 
 when she was rather indisposed, the Syed was very 
 much impressed that a lady should, even during a 
 season of sickness, think of acquiring knowledge and 
 of training her mind. "Is it not a matter for 
 astonishment that a woman, when ill, should read 
 with the object of improving her mind ? Have you 
 ever seen such a custom in India, in the family of 
 any noble, Nawab, Raja, or man of high family ? " 
 
 Even the manners and deportment of his chamber- 
 maid aroused in him feelings of disappointment over 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 109 
 
 the backward condition of women then prevailing 
 elsewhere. During his stay in England he formed 
 strong personal friendships and had, ever afterwards, 
 delightful reminiscences of having met the older 
 aristocracy, officials and even the philosopher of 
 Chelsea Thomas Carlyle. The last-named was 
 specially honoured by Syed Ahmad because of his 
 bold presentation of the greatness of Muhammad. 
 
 On his return to India, and indeed long before, he 
 was obsessed by the idea that he must find and 
 collect funds for a college which might do the same 
 service for Muslim young men as the premier univer- 
 sities of Oxford and Cambridge were doing for the 
 youth of England. He had visited these institu- 
 tions, had had long and profoundly interesting 
 talks with Dons and Professors. But instead of the 
 impressions being dissipated in idle curiosity or 
 excitement, they deepened and struck roots in his 
 mind till the conviction came that a new experiment 
 of a similar nature was urgently needed in India, 
 and that he was the man on whom the burden of 
 responsibility should fall, since it was he on whose 
 mind the idea originally dawned with such force. 
 
 A few loyal friends supported Syed Ahmad, when 
 he expressed his intention to educate the youth of 
 the country. But the forces of conservatism arrayed 
 themselves against him. He was roundly condemned 
 as one seeking to uproot the Muslim tradition, a 
 perverse intriguer seeking alliance with the Infidels, 
 as a " lieutenant of the evil one " who did not 
 believe in the story of Adam and Eve, who discarded 
 belief in the tradition that attributes to Muhammad 
 
no INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 the cutting of the moon in two and passage through 
 the milky way. The learned Mullahs from Mecca 
 and Medina fulminated their fatawahs (i.e., decrees) 
 against him, putting him without the pale of ortho- 
 doxy and branding him as a heretic with whom the 
 faithful should on no account have any dealings. 
 Even attempts at taking his life were threatened. 
 But nothing daunted the Syed fought on with the 
 forces of reaction by gentle exposition, moral suasion 
 and sheer force of character. And he won the day. 
 
 Among contributors to the college fund were 
 Hindus and Muhammadans, Government officials, 
 and English friends. Among prominent Indians 
 may be mentioned Sir Salar Jung and Raja Shimbu 
 Narain. Syed Ahmad showed consummate tact 
 and capacity for work, in the matter of collecting 
 friends. 
 
 But prior to the establishment of the college, Syed 
 Ahmad and his lieutenants were anxious to ascertain 
 the feelings of the community and to gauge their 
 requirements. So the provisional committee invited 
 some prize essays on why the Muhammadans were 
 educationally so backward. Among reasons assigned 
 in the most thoughtful essays were : 
 
 1. The general disinclination of well-to-do parents 
 to let their children associate with boys of humbler 
 birth, and the apathy and lethargy of children brought 
 up in comfortable homes where standards of discipline 
 were not high. 
 
 2. Aversion to English education because of the 
 misapprehension that it may undermine the founda- 
 tions 01 faith and also resentment because the teach- 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN in 
 
 ing of Muslim tradition and theology was not 
 included in the curriculum. 
 
 3. Neglect of Arabic and Muslim philosophy in 
 English schools ; also non-observance of Muham- 
 madan festivals coupled with alleged indifference of 
 Hindu and Christian teachers towards Muhammadan 
 boys. 
 
 4. The contempt shown by Muhammadans towards 
 learning and clerical pursuits, and their preference 
 for military careers or lives of ease and indulgence. 
 
 It must have been a proud day for Sir Syed Ahmad 
 when Sir William Muir delivered a powerful address on 
 the occasion of the establishment of the college on 
 I2th November, 1875, in the course of which he said : 
 ' The knowledge of history and of foreign lands 
 will correct views otherwise narrowed by the sole 
 contemplation of what is immediately around, and 
 enable the youth to expatiate on the experience of 
 other ages and of other nations than their own, 
 their minds will be improved by the great discoveries, 
 mechanical and scientific of later times, and their 
 views will be elevated and expanded by contem 
 plation of the works of the creator in the starry 
 heavens and the wonders of nature here on earth." 
 
 Still more eloquent and inspiring was the address of 
 Lord Lytton, then Viceroy of India, who laid the 
 foundation stone of the College on 8th January, 1877, 
 and in the course of his address said : 
 
 ' You will, I am sure, be the last to admit that 
 anything in the creed of Islam is inconsistent with 
 intellectual culture. The greatest and most 
 enduring conquests of the Muhammadan races have 
 
H2 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 all been achieved in the fields of literature, science 
 and art. Not only have they given to a great portion 
 of this continent an architecture which is still the 
 wonder and admiration of the world, but in an age 
 when the Christian societies of Europe had barely 
 emerged out of intellectual darkness and social 
 barbarism, they covered the whole Iberian peninsula 
 with schools of medicine, of mathematics and philo- 
 sophy, far in advance of all contemporary science ; 
 and to this day the populations of Spain and Portugal 
 for their very sustenance are mainly dependent on 
 the past labours of Moorish engineers. . . . The 
 modern culture of the West is now in a position to 
 repay the great debt owed by it to the early wisdom 
 of the East/' 
 
 In 1903, there were 703 pupils in the College of 
 whom 531 are boarders, in the year 1918 the number 
 of students enrolled exceeds 1,200. 
 
 The Pioneer of Allahabad expressed the view in its 
 leading article of 8th January, 1876, that 
 
 ' The ceremony which takes place to-day at 
 Aligarh marks the great progress already made by 
 one of the most thoroughly sound and progressive 
 movements ever set on foot for the advancement of 
 Indian education. The name of Syed Ahmad Khan, 
 the principal promoter of the Muhammadan Anglo- 
 Oriental College, will be held in grateful remembrance 
 in the future by large masses of his countrymen, who 
 may as yet hardly appreciate the importance of the 
 influence he has brought to bear upon their intel- 
 lectual and political development. The rising 
 college bids far to be a real force in this country, and 
 
SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN 113 
 
 its expansion is guaranteed by the fact that it is 
 entirely spontaneous in its growth the fruit, that 
 is to say, of purely native sagacity and determination, 
 in no way an exotic institution, planted by Govern- 
 ment and watered by official favour." 
 
 Syed Ahmed published a series of essays on the 
 life of Muhammad in 1870. He was very fond of 
 combating, by means of persuasive arguments, the 
 assumption of western scholars that Islam was a 
 religion that strove to propagate itself with the 
 help of the sword. " The remark that the sword is the 
 inevitable penalty for the denial of Islam," he 
 would say, " is one of the gravest charges falsely 
 imputed to this faith by professors of other religions, 
 and arises from the utter ignorance of those that make 
 the accusation. Islam inculcates and demands a 
 hearty and sincere belief in all that it teaches ; 
 and that genuine faith which proceeds from a person's 
 heart not by force or violence. Judicious readers will 
 not fail to observe that the above-quoted remark is 
 entirely contrary to the fundamental principles of the 
 Moslem faith, wherein it is inculcated in the clearest 
 language possible : ' Let there be no forcing in 
 religion, the right way has been clearly made dis- 
 tinguishable from the wrong one.' " 
 
 The Syed was very much under the influence of 
 Wahabis whom he strove to defend from bigoted 
 partisan attacks, and who believed in the immediate 
 access of the soul to God, and repudiated miracles, 
 priestcraft and saint-worship. 
 
 The Aligarh College has had the good fortune of 
 securing the services of such eminent Anglo-Indians 
 
H4 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 as Dr. T. W. Arnold, the learned author of " The 
 Preaching of Islam" and at present secretary to 
 Indian students, at the India Office in Whitehall; Mr. 
 Theodore Beck, and Sir Theodore Morison late of 
 the Council of India, and author of the " Economic 
 Transition in India " and other Books. 
 
 His college has been sending out a continuous 
 stream of cultured Muhammadan gentlemen, and has 
 been a centre of attraction for Moslems from the 
 various parts of the world, including Mombasa and 
 Zanzibar. And surely the Hindu-Muhammadan 
 entente of to-day, which is the evidence of wholesome 
 political growth in India, could not be possible save 
 for the enlightenment of the Moslem youth, for, 
 beyond doubt, education is the sheet anchor of 
 political aspirations. 
 
VI 
 DADABHOY NAOROJI 
 
 (1821-1917) 
 
 THE distinctive value of Naoroji's services to India 
 arises from the fact of his membership of the Parsee 
 community, which though commercially enter- 
 prising, has assumed, from time to time, an attitude 
 of aloofness from Indian political demands. Nor 
 is this greatly to be wondered at. Ever since their 
 escape from Persia, owing to bitter religious perse- 
 cutions, the Parsees have discovered in the stability 
 of the British Government and in its policy of 
 I religious neutrality, a guarantee of success in com- 
 I merce and of tolerance in matters of religion. And 
 throughout their domicile in India as British subjects 
 their extreme religious conservatism, habits of social 
 exclusiveness and the profession of an alien faith, 
 that with all its beautiful teachings has not much 
 surface kinship with either Hinduism or Islam, has 
 tended to drive them apart from the two great sister 
 communities in India. It is quite probable, further, 
 that intensive specialisation in business and commer- 
 cial activities has, in the community as such, 
 atrophied the political fervour which springs from 
 altruistic idealism. 
 
 5 
 
n6 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 But though the community as such has so far failed 
 to evolve a political organisation, and to declare the 
 harmony of its ideals with those of the more progres- 
 sive ones, yet it has contributed to the National cause 
 in India, men of outstanding intellectual vigour and 
 political enthusiasm. Names like those of the late 
 Sir Pheroz Shah Mehta, of Sir Dinshaw Edulji Wacha 
 and of B. P. Wadia, of the Home Rule for India 
 League, are names to conjure with in political India. 
 And we may in passing just casually mention that 
 India's gratitude for Mr. B. P. Wadia' s services has 
 been greatly enhanced by his internment, some 
 months ago, for his strenuous activities in connection 
 with Mrs. Annie Besant's recently launched Home 
 Rule propaganda. 
 
 Among the Nation-builders which this community 
 has produced, Dadabhai Naoroji stands head and 
 shoulders above the most enlightened and patriotic 
 of his countrymen. It is to his lasting credit that 
 during his Presidential Address at the Indian 
 National Congress at Calcutta in 1907, he for the first 
 time formulated and expressed the ideal of Home 
 Rule, an ideal which till then was quite alien to the 
 constitutional schemes adopted. 
 
 He tells us of his earlier experiences at school, when 
 it was a matter of comparative indifference to his 
 teachers what the boys did with their time or studies. 
 In fact, the two English teachers of the School in 
 Bombay which Naoroji attended had quite enough 
 on hand by way of composing their own differences, 
 to discourage their " haymaking " or playing 
 truant. But in spite of this lax discipline, Naoroji 
 
DADABHOY NAOROJI 117 
 
 would always manage to come out " top " and 
 with a naive, almost childish, simplicity, he tells us 
 of how he would get the plaudits of the crowd, 
 while repeating aloud the long multiplication tables, 
 in those days a favourite exercise in mental 
 gymnastics, or while marching in procession or 
 attending social gatherings, in his brilliant, gold- 
 embroidered gala dress. Some of these school-time 
 memories stood out so vividly in his mind that when 
 in 1893, he formed one of the Deputation of the 
 Imperial Institute that was to wait on Queen Victoria, 
 he was at once reminded of the associations of early 
 manhood in Bombay. 
 
 From very early years, Naoroji formed habits of 
 temperance and sobriety and till the day of his 
 death was a staunch supporter of the Anglo-Indian 
 Temperance propaganda. A very trifling incident 
 determined his conversion to teetotalism. It was 
 the constant practice in his home that they should 
 take some wine before the evening meal commenced. 
 One evening, the supply of wine ran out and 
 Dadabhoy's mother sent the boy round the corner, 
 to fetch some from the nearest " pub." The boy 
 felt so abashed and humiliated that he should enter 
 a place which he regarded, in spite of his wine- 
 bibbing habits, as disreputable, that he solemnly 
 resolved never to touch the " accursed drink ! " 
 
 His mother's influence, likewise, helped him in 
 acquiring habits of chaste and refined speech, when 
 he was quite a little boy, and he had a horror of 
 hearing profane language used by schoolfellows and 
 others, always reminding them, whenever occasion 
 
n8 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 
 arose, that their improper language " would return 
 unto them." This in itself may sound rather 
 prosaic, since the acquiring of this habit is encour- 
 aged in all decent homes, being considered an 
 essential preliminary to good upbringing. But in 
 Naoroji's case his habits of temperate speech left an 
 imprimatur on all his political utterances, later in 
 life, so that we shall look in vain, had we time 
 enough to ransack his voluminous speeches, for a 
 single outburst of uncontrolled emotion, or irrita- 
 bility in temper. The gentlemanly instincts early 
 ingrained in his character, seldom forsook him 
 during the fiery ordeals of later life ; and in Naoroji's 
 case it has been a militant life throughout ; fighting 
 now for the spread of education in his country ; 
 now for the brushing aside of racial and political 
 discriminations ; and then again for the inauguration 
 of a policy of conciliation and trust. 
 / Naoroji came of a poor but highly respectable 
 family, and were it not for the generosity of the 
 Camas another Parsee family in supplying him 
 with books, and even at times helping towards the 
 payment of his fees, Naoroji would have been 
 deprived of his education, and thus hindered from 
 being the bulwark of strength to the Indian cause. 
 The realisation that poverty may, in numerous 
 instances, prove a formidable bar to equipping oneself 
 for the severe discipline of life, assumed in Naoroji the 
 force of an irresistible conviction, in no wise diminished, 
 even when his career marked the zenith of successful 
 achievement, by the comforting thought that in his 
 own case the kindness of friends helped him tide over 
 
DADABHOY NAOROJI 119 
 
 many a difficulty. In fact, throughout his long and 
 honourable career, almost overcrowded with varied 
 and assiduous activities, Naoroji maintained an 
 attitude of uncompromising democratic zeal, striving 
 to open out wider opportunities for the less favoured, 
 championing the cause of " the submerged tenth " 
 fighting pitched battles on the parliamentary 
 back bench, on the public platform and in the 
 sanctum of intimate friendships, for the amelioration 
 of the lot of the overtaxed peasantry, for the elimina- 
 tion of poverty and illiteracy among India's countless 
 and dumb millions, for the removal of social and 
 political stigmas branded on the foreheads of India's 
 intellectuals, and for the general softening of harsh 
 and severe conditions. The main power that 
 impelled and drove forward his activities was the 
 intense conviction that a bureaucratic government, 
 alien or indigenous, failed to create the environment 
 where talent and genius could come into their own : 
 and on the other hand it reinforced every reactionary 
 influence that suppressed self-realisation, and over- 
 burdened with a crushing weight the undeveloped 
 powers of a nation's manhood. We referred above 
 to Naoroji' s fighting pitched battles : we may, 
 perhaps, add that he fought these with the coolness 
 of an experienced general that had surveyed the 
 entire situation before him, and with the daring 
 and dash of a trained soldier. 
 
 From school the transition to collegiate life 
 at Elphinstone College was made easy by Naoroji' s 
 winning a scholarship* On taking his B.A. final 
 with honours, Dadabhai did not experience great 
 
120 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 difficulty in securing an assistant professorship at his 
 Alma Mater, which later led to a full-blown professor- 
 ship at that historic institution. In all his attempts 
 he was considerably assisted by Sir Erskine 
 Perry and a Professor of the same college. Sir 
 Erskine, the principal, was so much struck by 
 Dadabhai's integrity, intelligence and mastery of the 
 English language, that before Dadabhai's graduation 
 he offered to be responsible for half the expenses 
 requisite for Dadabhai's education for the English 
 Bar, provided his parents could arrange for the 
 raising of the other half. But in those days the 
 prevailing panic was, and this was shared by 
 Dadabhai's parents to an extraordinary degree, that 
 a visit to England might result in the youth's con- 
 version to Christianity. So the project was hung up 
 for a season, and then ultimately dropped so far as 
 the parents were concerned. 
 
 During under-graduate days, and perhaps earlier 
 while at school, Dadabhai would, like Gokhale, snap 
 at English classics and read them with great avidity* 
 He was also tremendously interested in books on 
 travel and adventure, and in thrilling anecdotes 
 of heroism and philanthropy. Thus the lives of 
 the pioneers of the Slavery Abolition movement, 
 lives like those of William Wilberforce, Thomas 
 Clarkson and Zachary Macaulay exercised a great 
 fascination over a mind so wonderfully amenable 
 to appeals of human tragedy and so sensitive to 
 the demands of suffering humanity. The perusal 
 of these biographies fired his imagination, and set 
 his life aglow with many a fixed resolve. And 
 
DADABHOY NAOROJI 121 
 
 it is common knowledge to-day that never did 
 patriot or reformer ever apply himself to seemingly 
 impossible tasks with sterner determination or 
 haughtier defiance of the barriers that strewed the 
 pathway to achievement. At the same time it is 
 instructive to observe that Naoroji was at no time 
 of his life an idle visionary, nor ever did he under- 
 take to achieve what lay beyond the zone of 
 accomplishment in the history of more favoured 
 countries. 
 
 When some years later Dadabhai interviewed Sir 
 Erskine Perry, while the latter held an appointment 
 at the India Office, in Whitehall, Dadabhai was quite 
 convinced, as was his erstwhile principal, that the 
 fiasco of the earlier years had only broadened the 
 avenues of useful service to his country, and that a 
 lawyer's career, however lucrative, would have 
 greatly curbed his enthusiasm for service and con- 
 fined his sphere of influence. 
 
 Before coming to England, however, Dadabhai 
 had striven to the best of his ability to launch new 
 and rather ambitious schemes for the improvement 
 of the standards of teaching efficiency in the existing 
 schools, for establishing a large number of schools 
 where English must be the medium of instruction, 
 for female education leading to the fuller emancipa- 
 tion of women, for floating new journalistic ventures 
 advocating religious and social reform. Dadabhai 
 was thus prompted by his reforming instincts in all 
 the various spheres of his life-work, for he saw the 
 utter futility of dreaming new dreams, without 
 developing the corresponding capacity for setting 
 
122 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 one's house in order, or developing those aptitudes 
 without which mere political ambitions only foster 
 a vague discontent. He clearly foresaw with the 
 vision of a prophet, that gross abuses had crept into 
 his own community, by reason of the obscurantist 
 leadership of ignorant priests and general social and 
 moral helplessness. He was fortunate in securing 
 the loyal co-operation of eminent Parsee progressives, 
 but it is the merest justice to Dadabhai to say that 
 he himself was, from their very inception, the chief 
 guiding spirit of these reforms. The paper called 
 
 Rast Guftar " owes its origin mainly, if not 
 exclusively to Dadabhai' s efforts, and this paper has 
 always maintained an attitude of unflinching 
 criticism of religious and social anomalies in the 
 community and political in the government. 
 
 During his long residence in England, his pro- 
 fessional connection with Messrs. Cama and Co., the 
 first Parsee house of business established in this 
 country did not damp his ardour for political service : 
 it only quickened his eagerness to secure the redress 
 of Indian grievances and to get the British demo- 
 cracy interested in India's vital needs. It was 
 through his powerful presentation of the Indian case 
 in Parliament, that the famous Welby Commission 
 of 1886 was appointed to investigate Indian 
 finance and expenditure. Very little by way of 
 substantial reform was achieved through the various 
 recommendations embodied in the Commission's 
 report : in fact most of the recommendations 
 covered elaborate side-issues of technique and method, 
 and skilfully evaded the broad, main issues that 
 
DADABHOY NOAROJI 123 
 
 required to be handled. But it will remain to 
 Naoroji's perpetual credit, that he, in his capacity 
 as Liberal M.P. (for Central Finsbury), did make 
 a heroic attempt to move the authorities, in the 
 face of powerful vested interests, to press in the right 
 direction. Throughout his parliamentary career 
 he was entirely engrossed in securing sympathy for 
 and interest in the various schemes of reform, fully 
 known to Congress reformers. 
 
 It was through his able and unyielding champion- 
 ship of Indian rights that the competition for the 
 Indian Civil Service was, for the first time thrown 
 open to Indians. 
 
 During his residence in England, he made many 
 notable friendships with renowned publicists like 
 Bradlaugh and Bright, and famous statesmen like 
 Gladstone and the Duke of Argyll. His statements 
 on Indian questions were couched in such dignified 
 and accurate terms, that they compelled the sym- 
 pathy of friends and commanded the respect of 
 opponents. He never appealed to the baser elements 
 of human nature, but based his appeals or demands 
 on facts, and then issued them to the generous 
 impulses, the chivalrous instincts of his hearers, 
 whatever their political persuasion. His faith in 
 the triumph of the cause that he was espousing 
 always remained unshaken, only reinforced by 
 dangers that so often threatened, and deferred hopes. 
 
 It was mainly through the combined influence of 
 
 Dadabhai Naoroji and of that of the unconquerable 
 
 spirit of Charles Bradlaugh, that the famous House 
 
 , of Commons Resolution was passed in i886,recom- 
 
124 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 mending the holding of simultaneous examinations, 
 for all branches of Imperial Services, both in England 
 and India. It is true that this resolution was 
 almost contemptuously set aside by Sir Stafford 
 Northcote, then Secretary of State for India, but we 
 can form some estimate of the magnetic power that 
 was responsible at least for the passage of the historic 
 resolution through the House of Commons, usually, 
 too preoccupied with the pressure of domestic con- 
 cerns, and especially irresponsive and almost empty 
 on the day the East India estimates come up for 
 discussion. We do not know whether during his 
 parliamentary career or earlier he in any way 
 influenced Mrs. Annie Besant's attitude towards 
 India, especially as the latter was then so closely 
 co-operating with Bradlaugh on various democratic 
 platforms. In any case, it is obvious that the two 
 frequently compared notes on Indian matters, and 
 that the nomination of Dadabhai Naoroji as 
 Honorary President of the Bombay branch of the 
 Home Rule for India League, was the result of a 
 genuine appreciation by Mrs. Besant of the sterling 
 qualities of leadership found in such conspicuous 
 measure in the earliest apostle of Home Rule for 
 India. 
 
 Among the noble succession of Indian politicians 
 and statesmen, it would be hard to find one so broad 
 in his democratic outlook, and so solicitous for the 
 well-being of the masses. Politics with Naoroji 
 were never a fad or a hobby, but the most effective 
 method of promoting the best interests of his country. 
 Yet he was no sectarian or narrow-minded nationalist. 
 
DADABHOY NAOROJI 125 
 
 True, that he wanted Indians to rise to the full 
 dignity of emancipated manhood, and was over- 
 powered with grief when he saw the Intelligentsia 
 as " merely drawers of water and hewers of wood." 
 But still his burning desire to promote Indian 
 nationality was due to the still more potent con- 
 viction that only thus could she take an honourable 
 place in the comity of nations. 
 
 Dadabhai Naoroji's private life was just as much 
 above reproach as his public life was above the 
 suspicion of self-interest, insincerity and com- 
 promise. It was his life-long conviction that 
 absolute purity in personal life was essential to the 
 efficient discharge of public duties and responsi- 
 bilities as patriot or nation-builder. This might 
 sound rather puritanic in an age when moral sanctions 
 are looked upon as of subsidiary importance, even 
 by those plunged in the onerous duties of political 
 life. Dadabhai considered a compromise, say on the 
 temperance question as fatal and fatuous as surrender 
 on the Home Rule issue. His long and fully occupied 
 life presents as perfect an embodiment as is humanly 
 speaking possible of the principle that sanity of mind 
 depends on the unimpaired vitality of the physique, 
 and that intensive devotion to noble pursuits 
 demands the surrender of lower standards and baser 
 occupations. 
 
 When in March, 1917, the Grand Old Man of 
 India was gathered to his fathers, there was pro- 
 found and universal grief felt, not only all over 
 Bombay, by the melancholy event, but throughout 
 the length and breadth of India. Political India 
 
126 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 especially was draped in deep mourning, for the 
 ablest and most advanced of her sons was no more. 
 The death was deplored not only by politicians, 
 but by officials, secretaries of learned and reform 
 societies : by the king on his throne to the beggar 
 on the street. 
 
 During the war Naoroji preached as vigorously 
 as possible loyalty to the Empire that was locked in a 
 life-and-death struggle, and which with all the 
 failings of its lesser representatives, was really the 
 guardian of freedom and civilisation, in essence and 
 intention ; if not always, to outward appearance, 
 in actual attainment. 
 
 The influence of Naoroji' s life and work will 
 last until India enters on her full inheritance, the 
 vision of which was so clearly seen and so lucidly 
 stated by this prophet of Indian autonomy. 
 
 When in 1886 he put up for the parliamentary 
 candidature for Holborn, Lord Salisbury sneered at 
 the " black man " seeking election and being feted 
 at the National Liberal Club. And the irony of the 
 remark consists in the fact that Dadabhai Naoroji, 
 was much fairer than Lord Salisbury, and had 
 venerable features of classic dignity. Mr. Ratcliffe, 
 the well-known journalist;, told us only recently that 
 Lord Salisbury's son used to be highly amused why 
 his father should address Naoroji of all others, by 
 this designation. 
 
 His death in 1917, was very deeply and widely 
 lamented. Governors and high officials generally 
 sent messages of condolence to the bereaved family. 
 Sir William Wedderburn presided at a large meeting 
 
DADABHOY NAOROJI 127 
 
 held in Caxton Hall, in London, to pay a tribute to the 
 memory of such an illustrious son of India. Among 
 the moderate politicals of India none came up to 
 Naoroji in point of unblemished private life and 
 irreproachable public career, stimulated by high 
 impersonal aims. 
 
VII 
 SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 
 
 (1862 4th July, 1902) 
 
 " His doctrine was no academic system of metaphysics, of 
 purely historic and linguistic interest, butfthe heart's faith 
 of a living people, who had struggled continuously for its 
 realisation, in life and in death, for twenty-five centuries 
 . . . he stood for work without attachment, or work for 
 impersonal ends, as one of the highest expressions of the 
 religious life." Miss MARGARET NOBLE. 
 
 " Remember ! Remember ! the message of India is always 
 ' Not the soul for nature, but nature for the soul.' ' 
 
 SWAMI VIVEKANANDA. 
 
 " Forgive, when you also can bring legions of angels to an 
 easy victory." Ibid. 
 
 " What the world wants to-day is twenty men and women 
 who can dare to stand in the street yonder and say that they 
 possess nothing but God. Who will go ? " Ibid. 
 
 THE main reason for including the Swami's life-work 
 in these biographical sketches is that though he was 
 especially fond of metaphysics and religious specula- 
 | tion, no one has striven more nobly to modernise 
 1 the general tone of life in India. It is moreCthan 
 probable that some of the influences operative in his 
 character were imbibed during his school days and 
 when he was studying at a missionary college in 
 Calcutta. But the supreme crisis in his life came 
 when he was on a lecturing tour in America. He had 
 frequent interviews with men^of light and leading ; 
 
 128 
 
 
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 129 
 
 studied the methodical habits of the people and their 
 capacity for practical tasks ; saw the condition of 
 women's education and the organisation of medical 
 facilities, and was impressed with the spirit of co- 
 operation obtaining in Western countries. So it is 
 not surprising that we find him in India, an ardent 
 supporter of women's education and the champion of 
 the masses. Though he never swerved one inch from 
 I his central conviction that India's message to the ; 
 
 { world is in the realm of religion, he fully appreciated 4 
 that life in Western countries was more progressive 
 
 i because of love of freedom, education and co-ordina- 
 
 ! tion of effort. 
 
 It is noteworthy that scientific inventions like 
 wireless telegraphy or even the art of navigation 
 struck his mind as appropriate media for the spread 
 of spiritual ideals. He was fully conscious that the 
 
 I dreams of the Buddhist Emperor Asoka to federate 
 
 \ humanity on a spiritual basis could not materialise 
 because of lack of facilities for travel and absence of 
 scientific inventions. 
 
 But on his second visit to America, he felt that in 
 
 I the heart of Western civilisation slumbered a volcano, 
 and behind great commercial activities was the 
 
 I intoxication of power, love of greed and exploitation 
 
 1 of the weak and the poor. This confirmed his 
 previous impression hence his message : " Material- 
 ism and all its miseries cannot be conquered by 
 materialism. Armies, when they attempt to conquer 
 armies, only multiply and make brutes of humanity. 
 . Spirituality must conquer the West. . . ../ 
 Now is the time to work for India's spiritual ideas 
 
130 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 penetrating deep into the West. . . We must 
 go out. We must conquer the world through our 
 spirituality and philosophy. We must do it or die. 
 The condition of Indian national life, of unashamed 
 and vigorous national life is the conquest of the world 
 by Indian thought." 
 
 It was at the Chicago Parliament of Religions 
 held in 1893, that Narendra Nath Dutt the Swami's 
 name before he entered on an ascetic life first 
 received European recognition for interpreting 
 to the West what he conceived to be the best in 
 Hindu thought and ideals, in modern language. 
 His main contribution to the discussions then carried 
 on, may thus be summed up : 
 
 1. God is "impersonal" so far as an ultimate 
 analysis of His being is concerned, for since, in his 
 essence, He is superior to spatial limitation or 
 temporal sequence, He cannot be located in space or 
 limited by time. At the same time, to the individual 
 believer, who has focussed his attention on some 
 aspect of His Being, in his desire to visualise His 
 nature and let it be a source of inspiration for his 
 personal needs, God is " personal." But this is a 
 lower degree of " realisation." To the initiated 
 the Divinity is the Reality that pervades the whole 
 Universe and is operative in human thought as well 
 as in the evolution of the Universes. In that mighty 
 consciousness slumbers the mysteries of the worlds 
 and the secrets of human development. 
 
 2. Being and Becoming are different aspects of the 
 same reality and are only relative to our intelligence. 
 Man has the promise and potentiality of divine 
 
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 131 
 
 realisation, of spiritual perfection and therefore is God 
 in the making, for even his humanity is intelligible 
 only if regarded as an individualised self-expression 
 of God. It is derogatory to human nature, there- 
 fore, to attribute sin to man. Besides, God being the 
 sole and supreme Reality, how could a foreign 
 element like sin invade the sanctuary of being ? 
 " The Hindus refuse to call you sinners '. Ye, 
 divinities on earth, sinners ! It is a sin to call man 
 so ! It is a standing libel on human nature." (from 
 the Swami's address at the Parliament of Religions). 
 On another occasion he wrote : " The sages who 
 wrote the Vedas were preachers of principles. Now 
 and then their names are mentioned, but that is all. 
 We do not know who or what they were. At the 
 same time, just as our God is an impersonal and yet a 
 personal one, so our religion is a most intensely 
 impersonal one, and yet has an infinite scope for 
 the play of persons." 
 
 3. The claim of Hinduism to be the universal 
 religion is that it preaches principles and does not 
 demand loyalty to persons. As for religions that 
 have gathered round the personality of some 
 individual, " smash the historicity of the man, and 
 the religion tumbles to the ground. The glory of 
 Krishna was not that he was a Krishna, but that 
 he was a teacher of Vedanta." 
 
 4. Since God is all and all is God, the world per- 
 ceived by the senses is of an illusory nature, the 
 only true world or state of being is that of intuitive 
 realisation of spiritual reality, which is the recog- 
 nition of the soul's identity with the Ultimate 
 
132 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 
 Reality called Brahma. According to this hypothesis 
 the Ideal and the Real merge into one and all dis- 
 criminations are brushed aside between Being and 
 Becoming. It falls beyond the scope of this book 
 to offer criticisms of the above statements. We can 
 only say in passing that side by side with vigorous 
 and bold thinking, there is serious confusion of 
 issues and impatience with reducing the ideas to a 
 system. The Swami's ideas have not been reduced 
 to a coherent system, but are brilliant flashes of 
 genius alternating with mere verbal jugglery and 
 empty flourishes of rhetoric. 
 
 5. The East is profoundly spiritual and religious, 
 the West profoundly practical and political, but 
 in the main, irreligious and materialistic. Both 
 have to learn a great deal from each other. The 
 Swami's great ambition was to set up a commerce 
 in ideas between the East and the West, analogous 
 to the exchange of commodities between the nations. 
 He would say : " Send a ship-load of doctors and 
 teachers out to India, and we shall send you mission- 
 aries of religion." He would also say : " For clear 
 thinking and sound idealism the Greeks ; for effi- 
 ciency, business reliability and the love for personal 
 and national freedom the English ; but for audacity 
 in religious thinking and for philosophical acumen 
 the Indians." 
 
 6. He had a bold vision of a spiritual federation of 
 humanity, heedless of caste, colour and creed. He 
 was grievously disappointed at the treatment meted 
 out to the negroes in America. Once or twice he was 
 himself mistaken for a negro ; but he did not express 
 
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 133 
 
 any resentment, accepted with great enthusiasm the 
 hospitality of negroes, who acclaimed him as their 
 great leader, and expressed pride that he should 
 achieve such distinction as a member of their race ! 
 When his American friends apologised, he resumed 
 friendship as if nothing had happened, and pro- 
 phesied a great future for the despised race. 
 
 7. The fundamental unity of mankind he perceived 
 in the central fact of the common relation all bore 
 to the Immanent Life. He had great veneration 
 for Christ and spoke of Him as " a disembodied, 
 unfettered soul." He would ever and anon speak 
 of the " Christ in you," the " kingdom of heaven in 
 your heart " and so on. 
 
 8. But finally his lasting achievement was to infuse 
 a spirit of active philanthropy and social co-opera- 
 tion into an individualistic scheme of abstract 
 philosophy. He called it " practical vedantism " 
 or New Vedantism, the idea being that reunion with 
 the Divine Life is best accomplished through selfless 
 service and devotion to man. 
 
 On his return from America he launched a most 
 ambitious scheme of reforms. Miss Margaret Noble 
 tells us that his desire was to spread a net-work of 
 schools, monasteries, hospitals and philanthropic 
 institutions for which he wanted 20,000,000. But 
 the support given, even by those who lost their heads 
 in unstinted praise of him, was at best very meagre 
 and grudging. Still he succeeded in founding the 
 Rama Krishna Mission in connection with which 
 ; there is a monastery for training ascetics, who engage 
 in active philanthropic service, at Belur near Calcutta, 
 
134 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 another at Mayavati near Almora, and the third in 
 Madras. All these Vivekananda founded on h is 
 return from America. There are five institutions for 
 affording medical relief to pilgrims in Benares, 
 Cawnpore, Allahabad, Murshidabad and Madras 
 which have sprung up entirely as the result of his 
 efforts. 
 
 The last three decades of the nineteenth century 
 initiated an epoch of renascent self-respect and sense 
 of national dignity in India. We do not suggest 
 thereby that the political consciousness was then 
 fully developed, or a sense of national solidarity 
 in the modern acceptation of the term, but only that 
 among the Hindus, a pride in their past became a 
 dominant consciousness, and especially pride in their 
 religious achievements in the past. This was in part 
 due to the rediscovery of India's philosophical and 
 religious heritage through the patient and elaborate 
 researches of Western orientalists into India's ancient 
 religions and schools of philosophy. The late Professor 
 Max Miiller of Oxford laid the world of scholarship 
 under a deep obligation by publishing his well- 
 known commentaries on the Hymns of the Rig Veda 
 between 1845 and 1879. The discovery of Sanskrit 
 and a prolonged study thereof by European savants, 
 and of the marvellous treasures buried in its ancient 
 literature, coupled with the recognition that Sanskrit 
 was a suitable vehicle of expression for the subtlest 
 and profoundest of ideas, revolutionised the science 
 of language in Europe. It is, no doubt, true that 
 Sir William Jones published in 1789 a translation of 
 Sakuntala, an Indian drama written by Kalidasa 
 
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 135 
 
 who may aptly be described as the Shakespeare of 
 India. Likewise, Warren Hastings ordered a trans- 
 lation and codification of Hindu laws and customs 
 in 1776, and Prinsep and Cunningham did pioneer 
 work in Indian epigraphy, art, and literature. But 
 these achievements of Western scholars did not 
 arouse the Indian imagination to the splendours of 
 the past nor stimulate, till later, that intense, 
 passionate reverence for Indian traditions and pride 
 in their hoary antiquity, which is a prominent 
 characteristic of the awakened Indian mind to-day. 
 In the early seventies of the last century, how- 
 ever, fixed ideas and obsessions in reference to 
 India's mental and moral degeneracy were replaced 
 by a dawning sense of pride and independence, and 
 people began to feel for the first time since the 
 British advent into India, that whatever the acci- 
 dents of the political connection, India had every 
 right to hold her head high, in the sphere of intellect 
 and religion, as an inheritor of immortal renown, 
 and instead of despising her heritage, to treasure it as 
 of unique value, as something that constituted her 
 birth-right to occupy a foremost place of honour in 
 contemporary and ancient civilisations. 
 
 We have referred to the researches of Western 
 scholars. These were an important element in 
 fostering a new self-confidence and veneration for 
 India. But there were other influences, powerful 
 and almost revolutionary, at work which brought 
 about the new mentality. In the chapter on Ram 
 Mohan Roy, we have dwelt at some length on the 
 splendid pioneer work he did by his agitation for the 
 
136 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 abolition of suttee, for better treatment of women, 
 for a general diffusion of knowledge through schools, 
 and mainly through his establishing the Brahma 
 Samaj in 1828. The reclamation of Hinduism from 
 grossly immoral and degrading customs was in itself 
 a very potent influence for good, even though the 
 Brahma Samaj did not then, as it does not even 
 now, capture the adherence of the masses. But the 
 foundations of vigorous reforms were laid through 
 the heroic efforts and zeal of the Raja and his noble 
 band of colleagues and the way was thus opened for 
 social amelioration and religious reform. The 
 decadent, rigid, hide-bound orthodoxy before and 
 in his day, left hardly much room for hope or 
 movement, and but for the audacious spirit and 
 vision of the Raja the remarks of Abbe Dubois 
 and Meredith Townsend would have been found 
 to ring true to-day : Dubois said : "I venture 
 to predict that the British Government will attempt 
 in vain to effect any very considerable changes 
 in the social condition of the people of India, 
 whose character, principles, customs and ineradicable 
 conservatism will always present insurmountable 
 obstacles" (Dubois : " Hindu Manners, Customs and 
 Ceremonies," p. 23). And Meredith Townsend: 
 " . . . if the English departed or were driven out 
 they would leave behind them as the Romans did in 
 Britain, splendid roads, many useless buildings, an 
 increased weakness in the subject people, and a 
 memory which in a century of new events would be 
 extinct." (" Asia and Europe," p. 27). 
 
 The developments which took place in the period 
 
 
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 137 
 
 roughly covered by the life-time of Swami 
 Vivekananda say from 1870 or thereabouts to 1904, 
 point at least to one enduring benefit that has 
 accrued from the impact of East and West in India. 
 In spite of the loss of political independence, India, 
 weighted under the crushing weight of alien occu- 
 pation, has reasserted her soul, has rediscovered her 
 past, and is thus fired with new and proud ambitions 
 for the future. 
 
 Over and above the establishment of the Brahma 
 Samaj in Bengal and later the founding of the 
 Prarthana Samaj in Bombay, we must mention the 
 vigorous iconoclasm of the Arya Samaj, founded 
 originally in Bombay, but later removed to Lahore, 
 bearing on its numerous activities, and many-sided 
 propaganda the impress of the strong, virile and 
 aggressive personality of its founder, Swami Daya 
 Nanda Saraswati, whose life-work has been sketched 
 in another chapter in the present volume. The 
 movement stands on unquestioning faith in the 
 infallibility of the Vedas, and lays special stress on the 
 desirability of having a national religion resting on 
 Hindu foundations. It is difficult to exaggerate 
 the importance of the Arya Samaj in fostering a 
 spirit of sturdy independence and in summoning 
 the people to take the initiative in religious and social 
 reform, while preserving their loyalty to Vedic 
 tradition instead of priding themselves on the imita- 
 tion of western modes of thought or culture, and 
 completely breaking away from the Indian con- 
 tinuity. Beyond doubt, whatever be the limitations 
 of this movement, it has served to promote indepen- 
 
138 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 dence and discouraged the people from helpless 
 dependence on what Western civilisation stands for, 
 though it is true that all the elements in the Arya 
 Samaj that make for progress are the result of contact 
 with Western civilisation and Christian ideals. 
 
 Another powerful contributory factor to the birth 
 of the spirit to which we have already referred, a 
 spirit which found in Swami Vivekananda an 
 especially forceful expression, has been the teaching 
 of the Theosophical Society, founded by Madame 
 H. P. Blavatsky in New York in 1875, and trans- 
 lerred to Adyar, Madras, in 1879. This is not the 
 time or place to go into a full discussion of what the 
 theosophical movement stands for. Suffice it to say 
 that the most outstanding feature of its propaganda, 
 both in the initial stages under Colonel Olcott 
 and Madame Blavatsky, and later under the still more 
 powerful leadership of Mrs. Annie Besant, has been an 
 insistent and unstinted laudation of things Indian, 
 of holding up Indian culture as essentially pure, 
 spiritual and sublime, and condemnation of W estern 
 civilisation, in certain aspects at any rate, as material- 
 istic and degrading. We have prefaced the Swami' s 
 life-sketch with a description of the various forces 
 that were operative in the environment into which 
 he was born, though in doing so we have no desire to 
 detract from the individuality of the Swami, his great 
 powers of mind, as also fertility of imagination. 
 
 It may be mentioned in passing that the Swami 
 never took to politics as such. At the same time it 
 has to be remembered that he was a convinced 
 nationalist, long before the demands for political 
 
SWAMA VIVEKANANDA 139 
 
 rights in India became articulate, and war cries 
 for national unification became vocal. He be- 
 lieved in a rapprochement between Hindus and 
 Muhammadans, partly because of his conviction that 
 all religions had common elements of truth but 
 mainly because he felt that narrow-mindedness was 
 a sin, and that it would enrich the Indian tradition, 
 if peculiarities in religious outlook and various racial 
 characteristics were accepted in a spirit of catholicity 
 which leads one to believe that people may be quite 
 honest in differing from others, that what impresses 
 one as erroneous may to others hold up the mirror 
 of truth, and that variety and diversity are signs 
 of life. 
 
 But while passing, we may say a few words 
 concerning the great teacher, the influence of 
 whose life and teachings, to a large extent, made 
 Vivekananda. 
 
 Some four miles north of Calcutta, Rani Rashmani 
 a wealthy Bengali lady^ had built the famous 
 temple of Dakhineshwar On 3ist May, 1855, as 
 assistant priest of this temple, came a man whose 
 fame and achievements have made the temple of 
 permanent historic interest. That man was Rama 
 Krishna, whose reputation for sanctity, simplicity 
 of life and God-intoxication, brought him adoring 
 disciples from the four corners of India. He would 
 go into ecstasies as he would concentrate his mind 
 on the worship of the goddess Kali, and would for 
 long intervals become quite unconscious while prac- 
 tising Samadhi (i.e., intensive concentration). He 
 would work himself into a frenzy of delight as he 
 
140 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 contemplated on the attributes of the Mother, as he 
 called the goddess. It is interesting to note that he 
 used the worship of Kali as a symbol of the God 
 whom he believed to be pervading all, around him. 
 Professor Max Miiller thus characterises his mode of 
 worship : " He now began to look upon the image of 
 the goddess Kali as his mother and the mother of the 
 Universe. He believed it to be living and breathing 
 and taking food out of his hand. After the regular 
 forms of worship he would sit there for hours and 
 hours, singing hymns and talking and praying to her 
 as a child to his mother, till he lost all consciousness 
 of the outward world " (cf. Max Miiller : " Rama 
 Krishna," p. 57). He practised great austerities 
 and penances, fought long and hard for a complete 
 suppression of the sex-instinct with the result that he 
 absolutely declined to live with his lawfully married 
 wife, who was moved on hearing of her husband's 
 fame to lead a similar life of asceticism. He engaged 
 in similar struggles against the observance of caste 
 distinctions, did all sorts of work usually done by the 
 pariahs, and even ate their cast-off food, accepted 
 priesthood in a temple built by a lady that was not 
 a Brahmin, and worked up such a feeling of revulsion 
 against money and earthly possessions that even 
 while asleep his body would be convulsed if touched 
 with a coin. His prayers for deliverance from sexual 
 passions and from love of money were so earnest and 
 sincere that his words would bring tears to the eyes 
 of his hearers. It is said that he once had a vision 
 of Jesus, and for days after that went into such 
 transports of delight that he would think and talk of 
 
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 141 
 
 nothing else. He had also the power to induce 
 Samadhi in others, to send them into a hypnotic 
 trance, that is to say, and to attract people to him. 
 
 Norendra Nath Dutt, for that was the original name 
 of the hero of this sketch, was born on the 7th of 
 January, 1862, of a Kayastha family in Calcutta. 
 There was nothing very extraordinary about him, 
 in his earlier years, except that he had a sweet, rich 
 voice and was in great demand for singing Bengali 
 hymns, and impressed one as an intelligent boy, 
 gentle and persevering. During his school days 
 he would attend Brahma Samaj meetings and was 
 constantly under the influence of their prevailing 
 ideas. He had a thoroughly good English education 
 and in 1881 took his Bachelor's degree from the Duff 
 College in Calcutta, taking second class honours in 
 philosophy. Later, he took up the study of law, 
 presumably with intent to settle down to a secular 
 life, but finding the study uncongenial, he gave it 
 up. In 1882, he came under the influence of the great 
 ascetic Parmahansa Rama Krishna, whose fame 
 for religious devotion, passionate fervour for the 
 goddess Kali, and complete absorption in meditation 
 and ecstasy, to the entire neglect of temporal needs, 
 had travelled far and wide through Calcutta and 
 other parts of India. His contact with the great 
 Sannyasi (i.e., recluse) marked the crisis of his life, 
 since from that moment he renounced all secular 
 ambitions and concentrated his mind on the quest 
 after spiritual truth. On the death of Rama 
 Krishna in 1886 Norendra Nath was himself 
 initiated as Sannyasi and spent about six years in 
 
142 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 solitude, in complete retirement from human inter- 
 course ; thinking and contemplating on the mysteries 
 of life. 
 
 He travelled far and wide, met saintly and learned 
 men, leading a similar life of renunciation, compared 
 notes on religion in the course of his peregrinations, 
 and is said to have visited parts of Tibet in order to 
 study Buddhism, with the aid of adepts. We find 
 him, at the termination of this prolonged novitiate, 
 resume public life as preacher of Vedantism and 
 attract large audiences by means of his powerful 
 oratory and attractive personality. He had a virile 
 and independent character, and his utterances 
 breathed a spirit of self-reliance and new-born con- 
 fidence which delighted his hearers and infused 
 new hope in them. He never offered an apology on 
 behalf of India, and was thoroughly convinced that 
 she did not need any, and in fact that it would 
 amount to disgracing the glorious traditions of that 
 time-honoured home of religion and spirituality to 
 attempt to do so. Whatever be the value of his 
 exposition and doctrine, it was quite a unique 
 presentation of Hinduism, proclaiming it as the 
 world's premier religion, as embodying a system of 
 doctrine and an outlook on life that was in its essence 
 profoundly spiritual. Contemporary cultures and 
 religious traditions may have many redeeming 
 qualities, but in point of spiritual perception and 
 intuition into the bases of reality, there was nothing 
 to compare in the annals of religious experiences with 
 the gospel of Vedantism. 
 
 This was the message that he dinned into the ears 
 
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 143 
 
 of his countrymen, exhorting them to be mission- 
 aries of the Vedantic faith, to take pride in its sublime 
 teaching, and to realise that this was India's contri- 
 bution to the philosophical and religious thought of 
 the world. In this he excelled his Master Rama 
 Krishna, who simply preached the harmony 
 of all religions, that there were elements of truth 
 common to all beliefs, and that every one should 
 preserve his loyalty to the faith in which he was born. 
 His famous article of faith ran as follows : "A truly 
 religious man should think that other religions also 
 are paths leading to the truth. . Every man 
 should follow his own religion. A Christian should 
 follow Christianity, a Muhammadan should follow 
 Muhammadanism and so on. For the Hindus, the 
 ancient path, the path of the Aryan Rishis is the 
 best." (Max Miiller : " Rama Krishna " 153, 177). 
 The special significance of Vivekananda's addresses 
 was that during times when everything Indian was 
 
 : customarily branded as possessing an inferior value, 
 and the enthusiasm of the people in cherishing 
 
 i their ancient heritage was paralysed both by the 
 systematic iconoclasm of a few narrow-minded 
 
 - Christian missionaries and the reforming zeal of 
 bodies like the Brahma Samaj, Vivekananda had 
 the audacity to proclaim Hinduism as a world-ideal, 
 every element of whose teaching must be zealously 
 preserved against the attacks of reformers. His 
 epigrammatic way of expressing this truth was in 
 words, which his English disciple Sister Nivedita 
 (Miss Margaret Noble) has preserved for us in 
 " My Master as I saw him," (p. 13.) 
 
144 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 " The old ideas may be all superstition, but within 
 these masses of superstition are nuggets of gold and 
 truth. Have you discovered means by which to 
 keep that gold alone, without any of the dross ? " 
 Of course, we must remember that when Vivekananda 
 engaged in public activity, the theosophist propa- 
 ganda was in full swing and the monumental 
 researches of Western orientalists into Vedic and 
 Upanishadic texts and the schools of Hindu philo- 
 sophy were within the grasp of educated Indians. The 
 West was gradually recognising the claims of 
 ancient Hindu faiths, and a new pride in their past 
 was instilled into the minds of young and old alike 
 by the sympathetic and to India highly compli- 
 mentary conclusions in reference to the treasures of 
 knowledge buried in India's past. Theosophists 
 were, likewise, declaring with a fan-fare of trumpets 
 both the primacy of the Hindu faith and the unique 
 value of its teachings. So it is rather difficult to say, 
 for certain, whether Vivekananda had developed his 
 teachings without being in any way influenced by 
 either of the two powerful agencies operative 
 towards securing a world-recognition for Hinduism. 
 But one thing is certain. Namely, that Vivekan- 
 anda' s English education coupled with a satisfactory 
 knowledge of Sanskrit made him a very able exponent 
 of truths that had gripped his mind and towards the 
 realisation of which extraneous influences may have, 
 indirectly, served as contributory causes. 
 
 In 1893, the Parliament of Religions was to 
 be held in Chicago, U.S.A. Many prominent 
 Hindus felt that no abler exponent of the Hindu 
 
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 145 
 
 faith could be sent over, and accordingly Vivekananda 
 went as an accredited representative. He was 
 indisputably admitted as the greatest personality 
 of all the members of that distinguished assemblage. 
 He rose to heights of eloquence while expounding 
 the inner core of truth in Hinduism and his 
 novel presentation of Hinduism produced a pro- 
 found impression. The American audiences were 
 swayed by an impulse of uncontrollable appreciation. 
 The New York and other prominent journals rang 
 with a chorus of approbation. India acquired a 
 highly dignified status in the estimation of those who 
 previously had heard only a prejudiced version of 
 her past history. He made a few disciples in 
 America, started a number of Vedanta societies, 
 accepted numerous invitations to engage in lecturing 
 and propaganda work and was acclaimed there as an 
 exceptionally brilliant champion of the Hindu faith. 
 His return to India was a triumphal progress. He 
 received deep homage as one that had vindicated the 
 verities of the Hindu faith, and had thus elevated the 
 dignity of an ancient civilisation in the eyes of the 
 Western world. 
 
 To Western readers, all this may convey only a 
 sensational, theatrical effect. But we have seen how 
 the visit to the West broadened the Swami's vision, 
 and though his religious convictions remained 
 unshaken, he acquired a new zeal for social service 
 and organised work of a humanitarian nature. 
 
 10 
 

 VIII 
 
 GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 
 (1866-1915) 
 
 IN the muster-roll of Indian publicists that have 
 nobly served their country, the late Mr. Gokhale 
 occupied a very conspicuous position, indeed, a 
 position which, if not unequalled, has never been 
 surpassed, by the foremost of his contemporaries. 
 It were idle or at any rate premature to predict, at 
 this stage, of the coming leader of New India, whose 
 attainments and record of service might eclipse 
 Gokhale' s unique contributions to the Indian cause. 
 For Gokhale placed on the altar of patriotic duty, not 
 simply his talents, energies and abounding enthu- 
 siasm, but his very all. Politics were to him not a 
 hobby, to be ridden to death during moments of 
 relaxation from the strenuous duty of piling up 
 riches ; nor yet a pastime when other pursuits 
 became cumbersome and boring, to while away the 
 tedium of an aimless existence ; but an exalted 
 form of duty which demanded sacrifice and study, 
 and intelligent and continuous interest of a life-time. 
 Politics to Gokhale were coeval with life and religion 
 and the most intimate verities of personal life. 
 
GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 147 
 
 These were, for him, synonymous with useful citizen- 
 ship and national duty. 
 
 Without the slightest attempt at exaggeration it 
 may be said of him that ever since he took his B.A. 
 degree, from Elphinstone College, Bombay, at the 
 early age of eighteen, right up to the date of his 
 retirement practically in 1904, from the professoriate 
 of Fergusson College, Poona, self-dedication to India 
 has been the most dominant motive of his life. And 
 when, in 1906, we see him emerge on the political 
 arena at the termination of his two years' furlough, 
 secured after an uninterrupted educational work for 
 eighteen years, we find the capacity for service and 
 self-sacrifice that was a normal feature of his life, 
 enhanced and intensified. This spirit of self- 
 abnegation never forsook him. At a time when he 
 was at the zenith of fame, having the possibility of 
 lucrative careers well within his grasp, he preferred 
 an arduous sphere with a bare subsistence allowance 
 attached to it, because of his conviction that this 
 sphere would afford wider opportunities for unosten- 
 tatious service, and because he felt that he would 
 thereby be laying the foundations deep of that spirit 
 of co-operation which is essential to true success in 
 nation-building. 
 
 Gokhale kindled a rare enthusiasm in his pupils 
 and taught various subjects, for example, history, 
 mathematics and economics, in the indigenous 
 institution, on whose Board of Control, so to speak, 
 he was himself a distinguished member. The very 
 fact that his services were successfully utilised in 
 the teaching of such diverse subjects bears witness 
 
148 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 to his versatility which never compromised his 
 efficent discharge of the duties thrust on him. His 
 colleagues would often chaff him and designate him 
 as " a professor to order " who would step into the 
 breach as emergency arose. He had a fine ear for 
 English style, and would devour with great avidity 
 brilliant master-pieces by English authors of renown. 
 And he was always thorough almost to a fault, in 
 his preparation of lectures and addresses. But 
 though his mental powers were quite capacious 
 and his memory of brilliant retentiveness, the des- 
 tinies had not ordained that his great successes 
 should be won on the academic battlefield. His 
 services as professor were quite successful, but by no 
 means of unique distinction. He would exercise 
 great discrimination in selecting pupils of exceptional 
 merit for special interest. 
 
 His father, who held a small post in Kagal, a state 
 in Kolapur, died when the hero of our sketch 
 was only twelve years old. At the early age of 
 eighteen, Gopalrao had to decide on his life work, 
 having passed his matriculation from the Raja Ram 
 High School in 1881, his " previous " from Raja Ram 
 College in the year following, his first B.A. from the 
 Deccan College in part, and his final B.A. from 
 Elphinstone College, Bombay. So at an age when 
 the minions of fortune are safely cradled behind 
 parental care, and the pampered sons of luxury 
 take a breathing-space before some prosperous 
 berths are found for them, Gokhale was completely 
 thrown on his own resources. But, needless to say, 
 this strenuous discipline bred in him habits of 
 
GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 149 
 
 industry, foresight and self-reliance which did 
 splendid service for him, throughout his life and left 
 its imprint on his personality. It is, of course, true 
 that the hard struggles of his early life somewhat 
 contributed to his premature death, if also to his 
 precocity and mental vigour. But we shall express 
 no great surprise at this, if we bear in mind that, with 
 a few exceptions, most of India's illustrious men have 
 had, since his day and before, to smash their way 
 through adversity. 
 
 One word more about his teaching work. It is 
 said that though as professor of English literature 
 he took considerable pains in cultivating in his pupils 
 a desire for correct and luminous style, and took an 
 active interest in debates, recitations and the like, 
 he was at his best when teaching history and more 
 especially economics. From his master, Mahadeva 
 Govinda Ranade, he had learnt how to grasp economic 
 principles and apply them to conditions prevailing in 
 India, thus making the study of economics a matter 
 of lively human interest and national utility. We 
 also learn that Gokhale was very eager in his study 
 of European history, and particularly of English 
 history, because the latter impressed him as neither 
 more nor less than the gradual triumph of democratic 
 struggles, and the slow but sure overthrow of dynastic 
 and oligarchic conceptions. No one could take greater 
 pride in Indian history than he, but somehow he 
 felt depressed to think that there were epochs in 
 Indian history which registered bare chronicles of 
 autocratic beneficence or commercial prosperity or 
 religious triumph, but did not tingle with the keen 
 
150 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 zest for the democratic idea whose gradual evolution 
 was to Gokhale the very life-blood of the British 
 constitution. 
 
 It is rather unfortunate that his versatility and 
 many-sided activities should serve as a formidable 
 barrier to specialisation in any one department of 
 knowledge. For it must be confessed that Gokhale 
 has left behind him almost nothing, by way of 
 original reflections on Indian economics or fresh 
 impressions of even the history of India, which might 
 serve as a fitting monument to his scholarship and 
 erudition, that were very extensive, though by no 
 means profound. We shall have to modify our 
 regrets, however, when we bear in mind, as well we 
 may, that Gokhale's life was always crammed full of 
 useful and altruistic activities, leaving very limited 
 scope for research or feats of learning. During 
 the time that he was fully engrossed with College 
 work he continued as Secretary of the Sarvajanik 
 Society from 1888 to 1896. 
 
 We have referred to Gokhale's appearance on the 
 political arena as taking place somewhere in 1906. 
 By this we only mean his exclusive and whole-time 
 preoccupation with politics. But his political 
 activities carry us to a much earlier date, 
 for we have only to remind ourselves that as 
 early as 1895 Gokhale was nominated as Secretary 
 of the Reception Committee for the Poona Session of 
 the Indian National Congress, and that on the advice 
 of such experts as Ranade and others, he was deputed 
 to give evidence before the Welby Commission in 
 1896, in the interests of India and, therefore, to a 
 
GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 151 
 
 large extent, as a representative of the Indian 
 Congress. 
 
 In 1908 we find him win the greatly coveted dis- 
 tinction of being elected the President of the Congress 
 that held its sitting in Poona ; an honour that lay, in 
 his own mind, quite beyond his fondest dreams as he 
 requested his elders for a seat on the coach-box, 
 when Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji was being driven through 
 Indian streets twelve years earlier. Gokhale has 
 been intimately associated with the Congress al- 
 most since its inception in 1884. 
 
 He was always an advocate of popular causes, 
 and movements aiming at a larger measure of 
 political emancipation and the betterment of the 
 masses, but not being a demagogue or willing to play 
 to the gallery, he was seldom very popular either 
 among the Intelligentsia that were disappointed 
 because of his constant love of compromise, or among 
 those that were not quite articulate and conscious 
 politically, because of Gokhale's extreme re- 
 straint and caution both in his utterances and 
 demands. 
 
 Nevertheless, beyond the least shadow of a doubt, 
 Gokhale has fully vindicated his title to be a very 
 influential and prominent tribune of the people. 
 Having broken away from the parochial views and 
 petty bickerings that gather round caste restrictions, 
 narrow religious orthodoxy and petty provincial 
 rivalries, he could not command the same amount 
 of respect and homage that fall to the lot of those 
 that summon the masses to rally round banners 
 emblazoned with popular catchwords. His intellec- 
 
152 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 tual pursuits and absorption in the larger, fuller 
 vision of India's future, combined with unceasing 
 endeavour slowly to realise the vision by means 
 of concentrated effort, incapacitated him from 
 untrammelled intercourse with admirers, or critics, 
 which counts a great deal towards popularity in 
 leaders. 
 
 We thus always find him studiously dissociating 
 himself from membership of Gaurakshini Sabhas 
 (i.e., societies for the protection of cows) or partner- 
 ship in anti-cow-killing agitations, that perfectly 
 harmless in themselves and even laudable because of 
 the sympathies shown therein to hoary religious 
 traditions, might occasionally be used by political 
 enthusiasts as a powerful leverage for arousing 
 racial animosities. If he believed in eventual 
 self-government for India as the goal of political 
 endeavour, he would prefer that his countrymen work 
 ed incessantly, honourably, and hopefully by consti- 
 tutional means, if possible, in co-operation with the 
 Government, instead of arousing the baser passions 
 of an excitable populace through violent appeals 
 to a divinity of implacable hatred. Lord Morley 
 tells us in his " Recollections " published quite 
 recently ''(Macmillian and Co. : 255. net) that in 
 his interviews apropos of the then contemplated 
 Minto-Morley Reforms, Gokhale made no secret of his 
 identification with the demand for full fiscal and 
 political autonomy within the empire, and that he 
 (i.e., Lord Morley), was equally frank in his repudia- 
 tion of the idea as then lying beyond the region of 
 practical politics. The said " Reforms " being then 
 
 
GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 153 
 
 on the anvil, Lord Morley tells us that he invited 
 Gokhale to co-operate with him by offering sugges- 
 tions and advice. And never was co-operation 
 more prolific of better results or more honourable in 
 its professed aims. But to quote Morley 's exact 
 words : "I had a farewell talk with Gokhale. . . . 
 On the whole his tone both attracted and impressed 
 me. He promises very confidently a good reception 
 for our Reforms by the Congress. . . . But 
 whether dealing with Parnell, Gokhale, or any other 
 of the political breed, I have a habit of taking them 
 to mean what they say until and unless I find out 
 a trick. Parnell always so long as we were friends or 
 allies, treated me perfectly honourably. . . . 
 Mr. Gokhale is to stay in London until the end of the 
 session, and I am in good hopes of finding him a 
 help to me, and not a hindrance, in guiding the strong 
 currents of democratic feeling that are running 
 breast high in the House of Commons. (" Recol- 
 lections," pp. 171, 286, 321). 
 
 We are now referring to the events that passed 
 with such dramatic rapidity in the course of the year 
 1909. India was then seething with political excite- 
 ment and vague hopes of a more promising future. 
 There were sporadic outbreaks of uncontrollable 
 feeling, but not of any appreciable magnitude to 
 alarm level-headed statesmen, at the helm of affairs. 
 Those were feelings of disappointment over pledges 
 that lay unredeemed and brilliant flourishes of 
 rhetoric that led neither to political reform worth 
 mentioning nor even to amelioration of the sad lot 
 of the peasantry and the masses. 
 
154 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 The ground-'down peasantry were overburdened 
 with new and in a measure oppressive impositions 
 in the Chenab Canal Colony. The volume of dis- 
 content was swelling because of the sad havoc caused 
 by the repeated visitations of plague and famine, 
 whose memories still lingered and rankled in the 
 minds of prince and peasant alike ; 50,000,000 
 people carried away, in a little over two decades, by 
 famine and plague alone, in spite of famine-relief 
 operations and the discovery of the rat-flea ! So 
 much for the masses. As for the educated classes, 
 their minds were being burdened, tortured, driven 
 forward by new ambitions concerning India. They 
 were dreaming dreams and seeing visions. Some saw 
 India exalted on a temple-throne. Others thought 
 of the honourable place she was destined to take 
 among the nations. But the actual realisation 
 bore no analogy to the dreams or the tragic 
 suffering mentally endured by those in whose 
 blood burned the consuming fires of patriotism or 
 whose imaginations were electrified by Japan's 
 astounding victories over Russia, as if these were 
 symbols that Asia's age-long secular slavery to 
 Europe was coming to an end. Before Lord Minto's 
 assumption of Viceroy alt y, it was young India's 
 misfortune to be saddled with a Viceroy, ablest no 
 doubt among any on whose shoulders the burden of 
 government has fallen, and possessing great capacity 
 for work, but impatient of new ideals that throbbed 
 in the heart of new India ; imperious and dictatorial 
 to a degree ; disdainful of public opinion and with 
 political vision tainted with the worst ideals of 
 
GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 155 
 
 unscrupulous imperialism. It is hardly necessary to 
 mention the name of this distinguished individual. 
 Never before or since has Indian self-respect been 
 more remorselessly crushed or legitimate Indian 
 ambitions more contemptuously scouted. When a 
 history of the repressive measures directed against 
 the renascent sense of nationhood in India comes to 
 be written surely a whole page must be dedicated to 
 this chauvinistic viceroy, who in other respects, has 
 no doubt rendered remarkable services to India. 
 
 It is to Gokhale's credit that passing through the 
 ordeals of these highly critical and trying times, 
 and sharing, to a large degree, the experiences and 
 emotions that were pulsating in the breasts of his 
 countrymen, he never let fall one word from his 
 lips that might be construed as a counsel of despair, 
 nor encouraged another to send round a word that 
 might unlock the floodgates of passion and rancour. 
 He seldom broke faith or went back on his word, 
 unless he was convinced that he had taken a false 
 step or the facts on which he relied were tainted at 
 their source or misinterpreted in the heat of the 
 moment. 
 
 It is true that at the Surat Congress of 1906, he 
 condemned the lettres de cachet issued by Lord 
 Curzon as reminiscent of Aurangzeb's severity, and 
 that, moreover, he fully upheld and supported the 
 now historic resolution on boycott of Lancashire 
 goods. But in all this, we see no divergence from his 
 normal behaviour. He would always urge the 
 adoption of mild and moderate measures until the 
 resources of human patience were exhausted, and he 
 
156 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 saw no ground for hope that the authorities were likely 
 to yield to the reasonable and persistent pressure of 
 moderate appeal. Besides, in his economic creed he 
 was a convinced and consistent protectionist, as 
 most Indian capitalists and publicists are, and 
 from his place in the Imperial Council his speeches 
 urged the abolition of excise duty on Indian 
 cotton. But under the tension of those times, the 
 transition from a mild form of protection for nascent 
 industries to the wholesale boycott of all goods of 
 foreign origin, was very much accelerated by the 
 trying episodes of the Curzonian regime. Besides, 
 the sentiments he then expressed were not so much 
 individual as one of a group of related convictions 
 that heralded the advent of a new industrial India. 
 Mr. M. K. Gandhi has been, no doubt, the 
 veteran protagonist of the rights of Indian Labour 
 in the colonies of the Empire. And it is only for 
 the last few years, since the outbreak of war, that he 
 has retired, having won the brightest laurels open to 
 meritorious and effective service of a patriotic nature. 
 His propaganda, organised as it was, of passive resist- 
 ance, achieved partial success occasionally when 
 appeals and entreaties appeared futile and the 
 pressure, reluctantly exerted by Home authorities 
 was quietly ignored or speciously explained away. 
 But it must be here recorded that though Mr. Gandhi 
 was the veteran leader on the spot, Mr. Gokhale was 
 an equally earnest and convinced advocate of the 
 grievances of Indentured Labour in the Council 
 Chamber, nor must it be forgotten that on his election 
 to the Viceregal Council, after the inauguration of the 
 
GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 157 
 
 Minto-Morley Reforms, the first brilliant speech that 
 he delivered, and which was conspicuous for its 
 reasonableness and masterly presentation of facts, 
 was one that eloquently and with great emotion 
 championed the cause of the Indian labourer, whose 
 indignities and oppressions make very sad reading. 
 
 Just as memorable was the visit arranged by the 
 Indian Government for the purpose of enabling him 
 to make personal investigations on the spot in 
 South Africa. Gokhale on his arrival there was 
 received with the utmost cordiality and respect 
 by Generals Botha, Smuts and others, was given 
 every facility for studying the facts for himself, 
 and for the due investigation of the phenomena 
 concerned. Even those who suggest that the 
 warm and enthusiastic reception given him by 
 the South African Government, and the honour 
 and confidence bestowed on him by the Home 
 Government led him to make a dangerous com- 
 promise at least in theory, in respect of the right of 
 free entry enjoyed by all British subjects into any 
 colony of the Empire, will have to concede that an inch 
 of solid advance made in fact is preferable, to say the 
 least about it, to a mile of problematic advance in 
 theory. Gokhale must be fully conscious that the 
 right to migrate to and from component parts of the 
 Empire was the potential birthright of his country- 
 men. But he was also aware of the disturbing fact 
 that public opinion in the colony was not amenable 
 to philosophical considerations, that racial prejudice 
 existed, that the composite character of the popula- 
 tion there complicated matters still more, and that 
 
158 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 even among European colonists there were people in 
 different stages of civilisation ; and finally that such 
 embarrassing considerations as differences in standards 
 of comfort, and racial characteristics, could not 
 be revolutionised by a stroke of the pen or a single 
 word of mouth. So he welcomed the opportunities 
 where his mediation could bear fruit, and instead of 
 wasting time on an academic discussion of the rights 
 of British citizenship, which might only exist on 
 paper, he tried to improve the situation enough to 
 cause immediate relief, even though the difficulties 
 and disabilities that yet remain afford plentiful 
 material for the exercise of bold statesmanship, 
 and the sustaining of organised agitation on the 
 part of leaders and followers alike. We see in all 
 this, evidence of practical instincts, which led him 
 beyond the subtleties of a mere discussion of theories, 
 and theories which might have left others despair- 
 ing and despondent, stimulated Gokhale's efforts 
 towards the achievement of the practical, even 
 though his idealism had to be tempered with what 
 were only hard unwelcome facts of an ugly 
 situation. 
 
 But the achievement of Gokhale's which will lift 
 him- to the highest pinnacle of fame, was his failure 
 (or what seemed like failure) in getting his Education 
 Bill for free and compulsory instruction for the 
 masses passed by the Imperial Council ! He no 
 doubt failed in his objective, but by his heroic efforts 
 towards stimulating public opinion and even edu- 
 cating the official mind out of indifference to the 
 stupendous volume of India's illiteracy, and the moral 
 
GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 159 
 
 and material helplessness which it connotes, he has 
 done more than perhaps, he himself had sufficiently 
 thought. For to-day people have begun to realise 
 that the problem is an urgent one, and needs diplo- 
 matic and even generous handling. To-day, if a 
 similar bill were to be manoeuvred through the 
 Council, even nominated members would vote in its 
 favour, and even the Moslem League would heartily 
 endorse its soundness and desirability. It was no 
 revelation of Gokhale's that after a century and a 
 half of British rule, only ten per cent, of men and 
 one per cent, of women had derived the benefits of 
 rudimentary instruction. 
 
 But, even so, the focussing of public interest on 
 this question, and on the recognition that no sub- 
 stantial political progress or even social advance is 
 possible apart from the upliftment of the masses, has 
 been encouraged as the necessary sequel to Gokhale's 
 passion for this much needed reform. 
 
 The Government of India, we understand, viewed 
 this modest measure with sympathy and even 
 approval, if only because of the progressive views 
 entertained by Sir Harcourt Butler, the Member for 
 Education. But the Provincial Governments were 
 not so advanced as to welcome this step big with 
 meaning and promise for the future of India. 
 Besides, there were even popular bodies that had not 
 sufficiently intelligently grasped the import of this 
 proposal. Still it has stung the Government into 
 strenuous activity and it has discouraged lethargy 
 and indifference, on the part of the people, 
 
 No less admirable was his able marshalling of 
 
i6o INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 
 statistics and his moderate though exceedingly 
 convincing presentation of fact and argument. 
 
 His command over the English language, his 
 mastery of the methods of debate, his appreciation 
 of friends, and fairness towards opponents, called 
 forth the admiration and respect of all that had 
 dealings with him. 
 
 Even such a past-master in literary style and 
 adept at handling figures as Lord Curzon, declared in 
 Council not once or twice but repeatedly that it 
 was a rare honour " to cross swords with the 
 Honourable Mr. Gokhale." Sir Guy Fleetwood 
 Wilson, the late Finance Minister of the Government 
 of India, used to compare him to Mr. Gladstone in 
 point of his great ability in the accurate handling 
 of data, and the right interpretation of statistics. 
 When owing to his unavoidable absence from the 
 Council chamber, occasioned by his nomination to a 
 membership of the Royal Commission on the public 
 services of India, his unique qualities of " Leader of 
 His Majesty's Opposition " were greatly missed, 
 Sir Guy frankly confessed before the Members that 
 the discussion of the Annual Budget without the 
 presence of Mr. Gokhale was " like the study of 
 Hamlet with Hamlet left out." 
 
 No less conspicuous were Gokhale' s efforts while 
 member of the Royal Islington Commission to press 
 forward Indian claims, to plead for the removal 
 of racial bars and colour bars and the fuller concession 
 to them of positions of trust and responsibility ; 
 for the initiation of a generous policy which will 
 recognise the primacy of the claims of Indians in their 
 
GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 161 
 
 own country ; for a fairer recognition of Indian 
 talent and administrative capacity by giving to them 
 higher appointments than the narrow-minded 
 policy of the day had made possible. By skilful 
 thrust-and-parry in cross-questioning ; by offer- 
 ing information where desirable ; by combating 
 ingenious subterfuges and specious arguments offered 
 by the Bureaucracy in India as a reason for 
 shutting out Indians from the higher rungs 
 of the official ladder, Mr. Gokhale did splendid 
 service to the Indian cause. And though Mr. 
 Bhupendra Nath Basu, the present Indian Member 
 of the Council for India, has already characterised 
 the final Report of the Commission as " a mere scrap 
 of paper fit for the waste-basket," in the presence of 
 Lord Chelmsford, it is also true that whatever 
 embodied in the Commission's Report points to the 
 dawning of an ampler day for the youth of India is 
 mainly owing to Gokhale's able and expert advocacy 
 of legitimate claims, in the teeth of the organised 
 resistance opposed by the vested interests in India. 
 Gokhale was by no means an imperialist, but he 
 was genuinely loyal to the Imperial economy, partly 
 because of his conviction that a strong and stable 
 government was essential to the Indian development ; 
 partly because he thought of the British connection 
 as, in the judgment of the more desirable element 
 among the Empire-builders, consisting of a feder- 
 ation of races engaged in achieving common ends ; 
 but mainly because of the feeling that as the British 
 democracy takes an increasing interest in the affairs 
 of the Dependency, it will be possible for Indians, 
 
 11 
 
162 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 
 within the economy of the Empire, to rise to the full 
 stature of their height. He was fully sensible of the 
 humiliations to which a subject-race is submitted. 
 And as a member of a race that shortly before the 
 establishment of British ascendancy wielded the 
 reins of Empire, he must certainly be looking forward 
 to India's entering on her fuller inheritance, on an 
 equality with the sister-nations of the Commonwealth. 
 
 In the meanwhile, he acquiesced in India's present 
 anomalous predicament as a part of the discipline of 
 growth, so that she may thus learn to set her house 
 in order and acquire that spirit of unity, catholicity 
 and co-operation, without which no nation can ever 
 stand on her own feet. 
 
 But friendly and genial as Gokhale ever was, 
 he could pour out vials of wrath on measures which 
 he held to be inconsistent with liberty or justice. 
 Only he would never let his speech degenerate into 
 venomous diatribes or caustic personal attacks. 
 He had the fully developed instincts of a perfect 
 gentleman. 
 
 Gokhale was fond of manly out-door sports like 
 cricket and football, though he never excelled in 
 either, also of billiards and other indoor games, cards 
 included. He was thorough in his work always, 
 but he would let work accumulate for a season, and 
 then when the humour for industrious application 
 seized him, he would start to clear off whole piles 
 of arrears, and would not rest till the task was quite 
 accomplished. 
 
 His death on 20th February, 1915, removed a ver} 
 striking personality and a restraining influence frorr 
 
GOPALA KRISHNA GOKHALE 163 
 
 Indian politics. Shortly before his death, he very 
 politely and with great dignity declined the offer of 
 a K. C.S.I., communicated through Lord Crewe, then 
 Secretary of State for India, as he sincerely felt that 
 the acceptance of this great personal distinction 
 might hamper his public activities. 
 
IX 
 M. K. GANDHI 
 
 GANDHI comes of an influential family of noble 
 lineage, and was born in Porbander, on the 2nd of 
 October, 1869, where his father, Karam Chand, was 
 Prime Minister to the Thakur Sahib of Rajkot. 
 He was the youngest of three children in the 
 Dewan Sahib's family. After matriculating from 
 Ahmedabad, Mohan Das, the subject of the present 
 sketch, wanted to graduate from the Bhavnagar 
 College, but a shrewd Brahmin friend, who was 
 Gandhi's adviser, suggested that he should proceed 
 to London and qualify for the Bar, if he meant to 
 acquire influence and fame. Mohan Das' brother, 
 with characteristic generosity, sold the greater part 
 of his property to supply the younger brother with 
 funds that would make the contemplated adventure 
 possible. But his mother, who had heard of the 
 numerous temptations to which youth may succumb 
 in London, was greatly perturbed in her mind, and 
 consented only when the young Mohan Das took a 
 solemn vow a threefold vow of renunciation that 
 he would on principle abstain from meat, wine and 
 women. 
 
 In spite of strong incitements to the contrary, 
 Gandhi refused to touch meat even on social functions, 
 though he took rather kindly to dancing and violin 
 
M. K. GANDHI 165 
 
 playing, which he soon gave up as being a not quite 
 congenial recreation. It must have been an amusing 
 sight when Gandhi, dressed in coloured flannels, arrived 
 at Hotel Victoria, one September morning, in 1888, 
 and was puzzled to see so many Londoners' gaze 
 fixed on his picturesque dress ! He was convinced 
 that some very rough weather was in store for him 
 in London ! 
 
 Throughout his stay in London he scorned delights 
 and lived laborious days, and his joy knew no bounds 
 when in 1891 he was called to the Bar as member of 
 the Inner Temple, one of the most exclusive of the 
 Inns of Court. He always lived frugally, seldom 
 letting his weekly expense exceed i, and carefully 
 abstaining from every form of luxury. 
 
 He made numerous English friends in London. 
 He was very fond of listening to Archdeacon Farrar's 
 sermons, but Dr. Parker of the City Temple was his 
 favourite preacher, of whom he never tired. A friend 
 asked him to promise to read the Bible he presented 
 to Gandhi, but by the time he finished Exodus, 
 Gandhi gave it up in despair, as he did not understand 
 a word of what he read. 
 
 Gandhi met with the first serious disappointment 
 in his life, when on his return from London in 1891, 
 he learnt that his mother was dead. It was a cruel, 
 stunning shock which his friends and relatives tried 
 to withhold from Gandhi, concealing the news from 
 him. Gandhi was duly received back into the family 
 after submitting to the purificatory rites, secretly 
 performed by the priests, even though the members 
 of his community were at first so indignant over 
 
166 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 his contemplated visit to England that they entirely 
 washed their hands of him. He wanted to settle 
 down to legal practice in Kathiawar, when a famous 
 Indian firm engaged his services, to defend an 
 important law-suit to be launched in South Africa. 
 
 His experiences with the people in South Africa 
 were very unpleasant and embittering, and greatly 
 disillusioned him. For the first time, he felt that, as 
 an Asiatic, he was looked down upon as member of 
 a race that had no political standing. He was often 
 offered insult while travelling, his furniture being 
 pitched out after him. Ridicule and insult would be 
 poured on him because of the dark pigmentation of 
 his skin. Later, when he applied to be enrolled as 
 Advocate of the Supreme Court, the Law Society of 
 South Africa resisted the application on the ground 
 that coloured barristers could not be given that 
 status. But wiser counsels prevailed with the 
 Supreme Court authorities, and the barrister of Inner 
 Temple, London, was actually enrolled as Advocate. 
 
 After having met with a most cordial reception in 
 London, these tragic and humiliating incidents sent 
 cold shivers through his blood. But his courtesy 
 and humility never forsook him, and he would often 
 disarm opposition by the force of his genial and 
 affable disposition. 
 
 When Gandhi first visited South Africa, he found 
 that the Indian labourers and others had no sense of 
 dignity, were perfectly contented with their lot, and 
 did not even resent the shameful treatment 
 accorded to them. It was mainly through Gandhi's 
 efforts that the proposed disfranchisement of Indians 
 
M. K. GANDHI 167 
 
 failed to receive the Royal assent. But he did not 
 propose to stay on in South Africa and wanted to 
 return as soon as possible to India. 
 
 When the Indians in South Africa requested 
 him, with one voice, to assume their leadership, he 
 yielded to their entreaties, deciding to earn his 
 livelihood by the practice of law. 
 
 Gandhi has evidently inherited the spirit of passive 
 resistance from his father, who ever stubbornly refused 
 to obey unreasonable orders. Once he fell out with 
 the British Political Agent in Kathiawar for having 
 passed some strictures on the Thakur Sahib. The 
 Resident soon found out that tying Karam Chand 
 to a tree would produce no apology from him. He 
 had once his house bombarded by the State troops, 
 because of his refractory behaviour towards the 
 Raja, who wanted Karam Chand to carry out some 
 instructions contrary to the latter's judgment 
 
 Gandhi approves of passive resistance as being 
 superior in quality to resistance with physical force, 
 and as connoting a higher stage of development. But 
 the success of the movement depends, according to 
 him, on the reasonableness of the cause for whose 
 vindication it is organised, and the reality of the 
 grievances whose redress it seeks. 
 
 It is sometimes pointed out that political move- 
 ments in India have, as their objective, the ameliora- 
 tion of the status of educated Indians and men of the 
 upper classes, and are positively indifferent to the 
 interests of the proletariat. The very mention of 
 Mr. Gandhi's name is enough to dispel the erroneous 
 impression. Gandhi may quite properly be called 
 
168 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 Uhe greatest Labour Leader of India, even though the 
 sphere of his activities has been South Africa, for 
 *.the most part, and he has not yet organised a Labour 
 movement, constructive in its aims and aggressive 
 in its demands of the type that obtains in Western 
 countries. In fact, Gandhi would be the last person 
 to inspire the same ideals into an Indian organisation 
 as are operative in Western labour movements in 
 their persistent struggles with powerful capitalistic 
 interests. Being an uncompromising Tolstoyan, 
 and completely other-worldly in all affairs, he 
 would abstain, on principle and in virtue of 
 his passivist and quiescent temperament, irom 
 driving the demands of labour to their logical con- 
 clusion. Besides, the masses of Indian labourers 
 being illiterate, it would be difficult, under existing 
 circumstances, even to expound to them the first 
 principles involved in the fiercer struggles, in more 
 progressive countries for the capture of power and 
 political control, for the abolition of capitalism itself, 
 for the conscription of wealth or for the national- 
 isation and state-control of industries. 
 
 The problems that Gandhi has had actually to 
 face have been of a different nature, quite remote 
 from the region of Socialism or even that of an 
 industrial revolution. In passing judgments on 
 Gandhi's work, therefore, we must appreciate the 
 nature of the problems that he has had to face and 
 also the solutions towards which he has helped. 
 And we must, likewise, bear in mind that the utility 
 of Gandhi's services, apart from their intrinsic worth, 
 consists in his complete identfi cation as an intellectual 
 
M. K. GANDHI 169 
 
 and as a member of the upper middle class, with the 
 struggles, risks and hardships of skilled and unskilled 
 labour. He has been for the proletariat, though not 
 of them. Nor has his work consisted of mere plat- 
 form oratory. He has had to suffer with the poor 
 and the oppressed. On more than one occasion he has 
 had to face the ugly passions of excitable and hostile 
 crowds in South Africa. Once the timely inter- 
 vention of an English lady saved him from being 
 kicked to death by some hooligans in a mob. On 
 numerous occasions has he been sent to prison, where 
 he had to submit to the indignities and roughness of 
 Kafir warders, who would offer him food that was 
 most repugnant to him. 
 
 When we remember that Gandhi is physically 
 very delicate, though capable of great powers of 
 endurance, we get some notion of how his severe 
 handling by the authorities in South Africa must have 
 affected him. Often he would politely decline 
 preferential treatment by the South African courts, 
 and being tried as an ordinary indentured labourer 
 would accept the hard lot that was bound up with 
 his ill-starred position. Once, on his return from 
 India, the passengers of his ship were not allowed to 
 land, the populace issuing the threat that should 
 they disembark, they would certainly be put to 
 death. But Gandhi was not to be bluffed. He 
 insisted on his rights, and on those of his fellow- 
 passengers, and made the authorities yield to his 
 pressure, and on landing was given the protection of 
 law, which however did not keep him immune from 
 the fierce onslaughts of the populace. 
 
170 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 But the tragi-comic nature of the whole struggle 
 carried on for over a quarter of a century is obvious 
 from the fact that the Indian labourers were denied 
 the ordinary rights of British citizens, were treated 
 as little better than helots ; often subjected to the 
 lash, and the sjambok for the paltriest of offences, 
 sent to prison for real or alleged slackness in work, 
 and their economic status was such as would provoke 
 only farcical smiles in civilised countries as well 
 as indignation. 
 
 The seriousness of their predicament was enhanced 
 by their being sent to South Africa, under the assur- 
 ances from the Home and Indian Governments that 
 in point of treatment they will not be considered 
 " One whit inferior to European settlers " and their 
 rights will be zealously safeguarded. But the flam 
 boyant promises of Lord Rosebery and Lord Curzon 
 were one thing, and the complete disillusionment of 
 the immigrants, quite another. It was their virtues 
 of thrift, industry and prudence that aroused the 
 bitter antipathy of the labourers and retail shop- 
 keepers in South Africa and not their vices. They 
 saw in these honest, frugal and hard-working Indian 
 labourers their potential rivals. 
 
 But the grievous anomalies with which the Indian 
 labourers have been visited in South Africa spring 
 out of the evil system whose hidden menace was 
 either not anticipated by the Government or else 
 quietly ignored under the pressure of powerful 
 interests. That evil system was one of indentured 
 labour. Under this system contracts ratified 
 between employer and employee could not be revoked 
 
M. K. GANDHI 171 
 
 for seven or ten years, however unsatisfactory the 
 working of the contract might be to the parties 
 involved. It left no scope for revision, amendment 
 or termination. Whatever the difficulties issuing 
 from the agreement, its revocation was not possible, 
 and, further, its avoidance could be penalised as a 
 criminal offence. 
 
 But a still more hideous feature of these business 
 transactions if such they might be called was 
 that on the termination of the " indenture " the 
 employers would neither undertake to repatriate the 
 labourer, nor yet allow him to settle down to some 
 business of his own, but would only bully him into 
 indenture again, so that he might again be compelled 
 to work on nominal wages two or three shillings a 
 week for an indefinite period, the issue of shop- 
 licences being denied him. So the labourers soon 
 discovered that they had not landed on a soil that 
 was flowing with milk and honey, as the Employment 
 Agents canvassing for recruits and unofficially 
 co-operating with the Government had told them 
 before leaving India. The most inhuman feature 
 of this brutal system was the arrangement by 
 which "fags" were added on, on the ground of 
 bad work done. A " slacker " would be told that to 
 compensate for slowness or slovenliness in to-day's 
 work, he must put in an extra seven days ! ! ! Thus 
 a labourer would find that slackness in five days' 
 work meant an extra fifty or even five hundred 
 days, while the original contract stood as valid 
 as ever ! No wonder, then, that these " slaves " 
 were put in allotments, refused entrance in public 
 
172 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 trams and carriages or admission into public 
 parks. 
 
 But incredible as all these modes of ill-treatment 
 seem to be, there was apparently no limit to the 
 savageries that might, with impunity, be heaped on 
 the heads of these British subjects of the Empire. 
 It is to be presumed that our Cabinet ministers knew 
 of these unsavoury facts, but either felt their incom- 
 petence to interfere with the affairs of the self- 
 governing colony or perhaps realised that the sense of 
 solidarity was not sufficiently awakened in Indians 
 to lead them to express resentment at these indig- 
 nities. In all probability it was the former idea 
 that was obsessing their minds. But when to add to 
 the above atrocities, certain courts of competent 
 jurisdiction in Durban and elsewhere, found that even 
 properly solemnised and legal marriages contracted 
 by Hindus and Muhammadans could not be recog- 
 nised as valid in South Africa because polygamous 
 unions were, at times, resorted to by them, and when 
 on the ground of this plea even monogamous unions 
 were declared to be illicit, for purposes of admission 
 to the colony, the Indian colony of labourers was 
 provoked beyond the utmost limits of endurance. 
 
 It was during all these crises that Gandhi preserved 
 his equanimity of mind, took his stand on the citizen- 
 ship of the Empire, memorialised the authorities for 
 the redress of their grievances, and when all his 
 resources failed him, organised the passive resistance 
 movement. 
 
 He remained leader of the Indians from year the 
 1893 to 1914, when on the outbreak of war he 
 
M. K. GANDHI 173 
 
 organised an ambulance corps recruited by Indians 
 resident in London, most of them being students. 
 
 It is a welcome sign of the times that owing to 
 Lord Hardinge's bold intervention on behalf of 
 Indians in South Africa, some legislation has been 
 introduced which has swept away the worst forms of 
 the evil. Lord Chelmsford has since announced that 
 indentured labour has already been abolished in the 
 colonies of the Empire, though we do not, at the time 
 of writing, know definitely, whether in actual 
 practice or as a contemplated step, to take effect 
 gradually. 
 
 It is also to be hoped that the spirit of camaraderie 
 which the common defence of Empire has fostered 
 among the colonials will make the prevalence of 
 cordial and harmonious relations a normal feature of 
 the meeting of the races within the Empire. 
 ,^/y, W^ Uc Ire 
 
 
X 
 KALI CHARAN BANURJI 
 
 IT is sometimes suggested, with a poignant sense of 
 disappointment, that Indian Christians as a body 
 have not brought themselves into full accord with 
 national aspirations and ideals. But if we analyse 
 this statement we shall discover how superficial 
 it is. In the first place, no Indian community as 
 such has, in its entirety, subscribed to the political 
 ideals that are being formulated and asserted in the 
 India of to-day with an increasing degree of dignity 
 and self-consciousness. In fact, political thinkers 
 and leaders have found it an uphill task, even among 
 Hindus and Moslems, the two dominant sister com- 
 munities, to swell the number of those that have 
 broken away from petty, parochial, communal 
 ideas and from the pursuit of self-interest. The 
 conversion of the All-India Moslem League to the 
 ideals of the Congress party, in itself the happiest 
 augury of the times, is only a matter of recent 
 growth. Even among the Hindus, who have contri- 
 buted the ablest and most outstanding leaders to 
 the national cause, it would be inaccurate to say that 
 every educated member is in full agreement with the 
 ideal of Home Rule, for instance. 
 
 All that might be legitimately pointed out is that 
 
 174 
 
KALI CHARAN BANURJI 175 
 
 Indian Christians have not given to the national 
 cause the number of thinkers and leaders, as might 
 have been expected from a community that has 
 publicly repudiated the evils that hamper national 
 unification and which, therefore, ought, in consist- 
 ency, to be politically progressive. But when we 
 remember that an overwhelmingly large percentage 
 of the converts consists of men and women that have 
 been kept under, through the centuries, denied 
 opportunities for education and culture and are 
 to-day in economic dependence on foreign missionary 
 enterprise, we shall have formed some idea of the 
 difficulties that beset their path. Besides, even in 
 the most progressive countries in the West, the 
 politicians have, in the past, almost invariably 
 sprung from the leisured classes, or the go-ahead 
 middle class. So that it is hardly reasonable to 
 point the finger of scorn at the converted pariahs in 
 India, that they do not keep abreast of the most 
 progressive movements, just as it would scarcely be 
 reasonable to pour ridicule on honest, hard-working 
 chimney-sweepers or green-grocers that they do not 
 take sufficiently intelligent interest in Mr. Fisher's 
 Education Bill. How can they with their hands full 
 of the immediate needs of the hour and the grim 
 struggles for mere existence ? 
 
 As Mr. Justice Abdur Rahim rightly points out 
 in his Minority Report appended to the Report of 
 the Royal Islington Commission that as many of the 
 Indian Christian community as are politically arti- 
 culate are in the fullest sympathy with the ideals of 
 their fellow-countrymen, it is obvious that among 
 
176 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 them there is no paucity of men with vision and 
 ideals : only such men are mainly recruited from 
 the better classes, conventionally so-called ; men, 
 moreover, with education and capacity for thinking 
 and with their status in life secure and guaranteed 
 against financial dependence on people that may 
 be critical of Indian views. It has been the 
 writer's privilege to see on the Congress platform, 
 from year to year, a large number of lawyers, 
 doctors, professors, and men belonging to other walks 
 of life, and to the Christian Community, sent as 
 delegates by their Hindu and Muhammadan brethren, 
 especially from Madras and Bengal. 
 
 Among the politicals that the Christian community 
 has produced, Kali Charan is the most prominent, not 
 only because of his complete identification with and 
 life-long loyalty to the Indian cause, but also by 
 reason of his persistent refusal to allow Westernisation 
 in manners to stand in the way of unhindered social 
 intercourse with his friends. An Indian to the back- 
 bone, Kali Charan always strove to raise the general 
 tone of public life in Calcutta, and his intense 
 spiritual earnestness, combined with suave manners 
 and an unimpeachable character, lent especial weight 
 to his advocacy of Indian demands. He even strove 
 to the best of his ability to nationalise the Indian 
 Church and rid it of financial and intellectual depend- 
 ence on the West, and his short-lived Christo-Sama; 
 (Church of Christ) was a brilliant experiment alon^ 
 placing corporate religious life on Indian founda 
 tions^ From its very inception Kali Charan was th< 
 chief guiding spirit of the National Missionary 
 
KALI CHARAN BANURJI 177 
 
 Society, which sprang up under the impetus of the 
 Nationalist spirit, as the community was overborne 
 with the conviction that spiritual autonomy and 
 control of religious organisations under Indian 
 auspices was just as important as asserting right- 
 ful political claims. 
 
 Kali Charan Banurji was born on gth February, 
 1847, of Kulin Brahmin parentage, and invested with 
 the sacred thread when he was only eight years old. 
 When only twelve, he was prepared for the entrance 
 examination, but was not allowed to sit for it till the 
 next year, when he passed with distinction and was 
 awarded a scholarship and a silver medal. In 1862, 
 he sat for the First Arts, and won a scholarship again. 
 He was thus enabled not only to prosecute his studies 
 but also to support his people, who were very poor. 
 His father, Harra Chandra Banurji, was very affection- 
 ate towards him and anxious to make any sacrifice 
 for the sake of the promising son. When only an 
 undergraduate he was appointed tutor to the son-in- 
 law and grandson of Prosanna Coomar Tagore, in 
 preference to many brilliant graduates, by reason of 
 his ability, honesty and outstanding integrity of 
 character. In 1868 he was successful in the B.A. 
 degree examination, and stood fourth in order of 
 j merit, in the company of such eminent men as Sir Guru 
 :Dass Banurji, Sir Rash Behari Ghose and others. 
 
 He won a gold medal, and was appointed by Dr. 
 I Duff as professor in the Free Church institution and 
 (the next year he took his M.A. degree in mental and 
 Loral philosophy, when he was promoted to a senior 
 >rofessorship. 
 
 12 
 
178 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 His public activities were varied and unceasing. 
 He undoubtedly did the same service towards 
 cleansing public life of baser motives and inspiring 
 high ideals of civic responsibility,,^ Calcutta, as Sir 
 Narayan Chandavarkar and the late Mr. Justice 
 Ranade have done for Bombay. Throughout his life 
 he never surrendered his political convictions, but he 
 strongly felt that purity in personal and national 
 life was essential to efficiency in political propaganda. 
 
 He would frequently lecture on religious subjects 
 in Calcutta and Bombay, and once even went to 
 America to represent what was best in Indian 
 religions and to interpret the East to the West. 
 He would let his ambitions of success in legal 
 practice be subordinated to the passion for presenting 
 the highest elements of the Christian religion to his 
 Hindu and Muhammadan compatriots. 
 
 He exercised a tremendous influence over the 
 students, and to come into his presence was to be 
 lifted into a lofty plane of spirituality and to acquire 
 a new consciousness of national dignity. His 
 political and religious presentations were alike free 
 from racial bias or acrinomy and exhibited, at theii 
 best, his catholicity of temper and unflinching 
 loyalty to definite convictions. A short time before 
 his death he was selected as delegate to the conven 
 tion of the World's Student Christian Federation ii 
 1906 but his failing health prevented him iron 
 attending. 
 
 On his death on February 6th, 1907, the whole c I 
 Calcutta was plunged in grief. All communitic 5 
 united to honour his memory as that of a devote 1 
 
KALI CHARAN BANURJI 179 
 
 public servant and saint. The whole of political 
 India went into mourning over the tragic event. 
 
 " I learned to love him," writes Sir Andrew Fraser, 
 " for his deep spirituality, his personal loyalty to 
 God . . . and his unselfish interest in all good 
 work. It was specially delightful to see how 
 thoroughly he remained identified in interest with his 
 fellow-countrymen, for whom, despite the persecution 
 which followed his conversion, he ever retained 
 undiminished, passionate love." 
 
 The Amrita Bazaar Patrika paid the following 
 compliment : "A profound scholar, a fervent 
 patriot, a born orator, a man of stainless character, 
 deep purity and sweet manners." 
 
 Mr. Surendra Nath Bannerjea, the eminent poli- 
 tician, addressing a crowded meeting said : "I have 
 never come across in the whole of my life a greater, 
 higher or a nobler soul than the soul of the late Kali 
 Charan Banurji. He was the very personification 
 of gentleness. He had no self-assertion, no desire 
 to obtrude himself into places where he was not 
 wanted. Humility a Christian, child-like humility 
 was incarnated in that guiltless personality." 
 
 Sir Rash Behari Ghose, in the course of his presi- 
 dential address before the twenty-third session of the 
 Indian National Congress, paid the touching tribute : 
 ' When we think of the lonely Scotch cemetery in 
 Koraya where the remains were laid, we cannot help 
 feeling, how much learning, how much modest and 
 unassuming simplicity, how much piety, how much 
 unassuming tenderness, and how much patriotism lie 
 buried in the grave of Kali Charan Banurji. True, 
 
i8o INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 he no longer lives in bis own person, but he lives in us 
 and will live in those who succeed us, enjoying an 
 immortality that is not given to many sons of men.' 7 
 
 When at a full meeting in Overtown Hall, in 
 Calcutta, Dr. Kenneth S. MacDonald said that Mr. 
 Banurji represented the Christian community, Sir 
 Guru Das Banurji at once rose to his feet, and amidst 
 deafening cheers said that he represented all 
 communities. 
 
 Kali Charan Banurji, in his capacity as member of 
 the Bengal Legislative Council, as vice-chairman of 
 the Calcutta Corporation, and as one of the presidents 
 of the National Missionary Society, rendered eminent 
 services in the most unassuming of ways and has 
 exerted an influence on public life, far beyond the 
 confines of Bengal, which lives even to-day as a 
 potent moulding factor of national importance. 
 
XI 
 BAL GANGADHAR TILAK 
 
 " In spite of the verdict of the jury, I maintain that I am 
 innocent. There are higher powers that rule the destiny of 
 things, and it may be the will of providence that the cause 
 which I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by 
 my remaining free." (22nd July, 1908). 
 
 " Mr. Tilak is fully cognisant of the benefits that have 
 accrued from the British connection and acknowledges them 
 frankly. But he demands the transference of the political 
 power from the bureaucracy to the people." Summary of the 
 High Court finding, when the bonds which Tilak had to execute 
 for being of good behaviour, were cancelled in 1917. 
 
 IT is to Gokhale's credit that he successfully applied 
 western methods of study and discussion while facing 
 particular difficulties and suggested a solution of 
 individual problems. It is also to be admitted that 
 he performed skilful and brilliant debating 
 manoeuvres when threshing out Indian questions in 
 the Council Chamber or on the public platform, as 
 emergency arose. It is just as really to Tilak' s 
 credit that he has created, through his untold suffer- 
 ings and remarkable powers of organisation, a 
 new environment of self-reliance, wherein free and 
 frank discussion is possible, be the problems what 
 they may, and has infused into all political dis- 
 cussion that spirit of virility and robust self-respect 
 without which mere academic discussions degenerate 
 into an invertebrate verbosity. Gokhale has, owing 
 mainly to his spirit of sensible compromise, hammered 
 
 itt 
 
i8a INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 out Indian issues and given them a visible tangible 
 expression. Tilak has called into being the attitude 
 of audacity and adventure, without which the facing 
 of live political issues becomes a hollow mockery. 
 Gokhale may aptly be characterised as the chief 
 guiding spirit of political movements in India, 
 whereas Tilak has fully vindicated his claim to be 
 the soul of Indian politics, in Western India, at the 
 very least. Tilak's fame and influence have 
 travelled far, far beyond his domiciliary limits, and 
 dominate the minds of the rising generation of 
 educated Indians as well as those of the illiterate 
 and inarticulate masses. His adherents are not, by 
 any means, confined to Western India or the Hindu 
 masses. Without Gokhale, who was not a popular 
 hero, political forces could not be wisely controlled ; 
 . but without Tilak these will not be generated at all. 
 Gokhale had the dignity and the aloofness of a 
 Cabinet Minister, Tilak has the geniality, the easy 
 accessibility, if also the imperious disposition of the 
 leader of popular movements. Gokhale would exert 
 diplomatic pressure for being given a few concessions 
 if these were obtainable, regarding these temporary 
 expedients as the roadway leading to self-government. 
 Tilak boldly proclaimed that freedom is the coping- 
 stone of nationality and that a people " knuckling 
 under " to a repressive bureaucracy has its spiritual 
 unity mutilated and its growth stunted. Bat to the 
 best of the writer's knowledge Tilak believes in the 
 Imperial economy, and only demands that India 
 should, in the near future, be given autonomy 
 like the sister-nations of the British Commonwealth 
 
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK 183 
 
 Thus Tilak begins where Gokhale would end ; he 
 thus asks to-day, as India's inherent birthright, 
 what Gokhale believed to be possible after a series of 
 concessions or favours, say twenty-five to fifty years 
 hence, if not longer. It falls beyond the scope of this 
 book to discuss the relative merits of these two 
 different attitudes, reflecting a somewhat different 
 mentality. Suffice it to say that during the present 
 war, the national idea is being thrust into the fore- 
 ground of international recognition, and people are 
 realising that Imperialism is an unpardonable sin, 
 since it involves the submergence, if not the entire 
 suppression of distinct nationalities, to which 
 civilisation and freedom must concede the right 
 to work out their own destinies unfettered by the 
 vested interests of foreign bureaucracies and 
 reactionary military cliques. That being so, we 
 find it rather difficult to see the consistency or 
 even the intelligence of those who would fain 
 accuse Bal Gangadhar Tilak of political anarchism. 
 Granted, that the Indian bureaucracy find in him a 
 most inconvenient customer, with a large and grow- 
 ing following, gifted with an unflagging zeal for 
 service, dowered with an amazing capacity for suffer- 
 ing, and yet anxious to pursue his intellectual pur- 
 suits in his leisure. But vague accusations and 
 sweeping generalisations are no proof. Every one, 
 will, of course, admit that the manner in which he 
 used to express his views, has not always been discreet 
 or conciliatory ; but this is due not to his anarchist 
 tendencies, but to the strength of his convictions and 
 the corresponding incapacity for tempering the 
 

 i&l INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 severity of his expressions. Compared to the 
 moderate views of Mr. Gokhale which, by the way, 
 were just as inconvenient to officialism in India 
 : he may rightly be called an extremist, but since he is 
 ! not out to subvert British authority in India, the 
 1 writer quite fails to appreciate the fairness or honesty 
 of those who brand him as an anarchist. If his 
 approval of the boycott resolution and of those passed 
 in favour of National education and Swaraj or Home 
 Rule for India at the Surat Congress of 1907, were 
 interpreted as " seditious," then even Mr. Gokhale 
 would fall under the category of seditionists, since 
 he wholeheartedly supported the resolution on 
 boycott of Lancashire goods. The truth of the 
 matter, however, is that the years iga^jto^ ioj.2 
 marked an era of political unsettlement, when India 
 was passing through an acute crisis. Unfortunately, 
 certain things were done, probably in good faith, but 
 in a provocative and irresponsible manner, for 
 example the partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon, 
 which added fueljjto the fire of overwrought passions. 
 But when the visit of the king and the announcement 
 of reforms in 1912, provided a safety-valve for the 
 pent-up feelings and the torturing suspense of the 
 people, the excitement slowly subsided, and to-day 
 we find that the keen enthusiasm for independence 
 that arose with the growing sense of confidence 
 is slowly seeking out channels of expression 
 through co-operation with the government, and 
 in working out a scheme of reforms that will 
 lay the foundations of self-government within the 
 Empire. 
 
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK 185 
 
 Tilak was born on the 8th of January, 1856, in the 
 Ratnagiri District, of a family of Chitpavan Brahmins, 
 that led the Marathas against Moghul invaders, and 
 which provided the Peshwas or prime ministers 
 to Maratha rulers. His father, who was Assistant 
 Deputy Educational Inspector for the districts of 
 Poona and Thana, in the Bombay presidency, died 
 when Bal Gangadhar was only sixteen, and 
 was about to matriculate from school. This 
 tragic event, instead of depressing the spirits of 
 the little boy, spurred him on to complete his educa- 
 tion. He was fortunate in winning scholarships, 
 without which the slender means of the family would 
 be hardly enough to bear his maintenance. In 1876, 
 at the early age of twenty, we find him take first- 
 class honours in the B.A. degree examination, which 
 he passed as a student of the Deccan College. Three 
 years later, he took the LL.B. degree with 
 distinction. 
 
 From the first, Tilak had a natural aversion to 
 being in the trammels of Government service. He 
 loved the freedom which would provide wider oppor- 
 tunities for serving his country. Having a fertile 
 imagination and great capacity for work he soon dis- 
 covered that the most effective way of helping his 
 country on to a higher stage of evolution would be 
 through the establishment of English primary and 
 secondary schools that might serve as feeders for 
 English Colleges, manned and financed by Indians. 
 
 In all his plans and resolutions he had an able and 
 distinguished sympathiser and supporter in Agarkar, 
 who later became principal of the Fergusson 
 
i86 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 College, Poona. It might be mentioned here, in 
 passing, that it was Messrs. Tilak, Chiplunker, 
 Agarkar and perhaps V. S. Apte (who joined Tilak 
 a little later than the others) that founded the Deccan 
 Education Society in 1880, in furtherance of whose 
 policy the Fergusson College at Poona came into 
 being. These were all highly-educated men, with 
 keen social enthusiasm and fired with a zeal for 
 service, Tilak being the chief personality in all their 
 deliberations. Mr. V. S. Apte, M.A., was a brilliant 
 Sanskrit scholar his book on Sanskrit composition 
 being still considered a useful book and a dis- 
 tinguished graduate in arts and law besides. The 
 Sarvajanik Sabha was founded in 1888, mainly 
 through Tilak' s efforts, the object being to promote 
 social reform and to keep the Government informed 
 in regard to the requirements of the people. 
 
 Unfortunately, some minor differences in regard to 
 the general policy to be pursued in College work, 
 became sharp and acute, and led to Agarkar' s desert- 
 tion of his colleague, for whom he had unbounded 
 respect. Differences affecting details of social reform 
 came, likewise, to a head, and created further 
 divisions in the friendly camp, resulting in the with- 
 drawal of Messrs. Chiplunkar and V. S. Apte from 
 co-operation with Tilak. Chiplunkar was a most 
 valuable helper in Tilak' s journalistic propaganda, 
 I in the interests of which he had established the 
 Maratha and the Kesari. It is said that Tilak' s 
 attitude towards social reform in general led to this 
 wholesale alienation of valuable lieutenants and 
 colleagues. Tilak's friends tell us that he is not, by 
 
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK 187 
 
 any means, a reactionary in social matters, that he 
 never gave his daughters in marriage till they had 
 exceeded the limits prescribed by the Hindu Shastras, 
 and that he is a radical thinker all round. His 
 antagonism to social legislation to be initiated by 
 Government, however, arises owing to his conviction 
 that coercion in social matters is as demoralising as 
 repression in the political sphere, and that, while 
 approving of the main principle of reform, he would 
 rely, almost exclusively, on prevailing common- 
 sense and on the building up of public opinion. His 
 critics , however, tell us that he is fond of tub-thump- 
 ing and producing a sensational, theatrical effect on 
 the populace, by bandying popular catchwords. 
 
 In case of a less powerful personality, this wholesale 
 estrangement from fellow-workers, with whom Tilak 
 had discussed the dreams of his life, and with whose 
 assistance he had materialised his plans, would have 
 meant the complete shattering of his life-work. Not 
 so with Tilak. His courage rose with danger. And 
 right till the end, he stuck to his guns. He soon 
 found himself in charge of both the papers, Kesari 
 and the Maratha. It was for him to dictate their 
 policy and conduct their management. We are not, 
 by any means, blind followers of Tilak, nor have we 
 the slightest desire to extenuate his occasional lack of 
 discretion or to hold him up as an ideal of political 
 sagacity. We certainly view with astonishment his 
 attitude towards social reform, especially as we 
 realise that he always has been an advanced thinker, 
 not only politically, but also in the domain of religion 
 and social development. But no one, unless party 
 
i88 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 bias, has completely wrecked his judgment, can help 
 admiring his courage. And the spirit of courage is 
 his bequest to political life in India. There 
 are abler politicians in India, as also men gifted 
 with better constructive statesmanship, but no 
 politician or publicist comes up to him in point 
 of tenacity of purpose and a " bull-dog " deter- 
 mination. And none will more loyally stand 
 by his colleages in the hour of danger or contumely 
 or persecution. 
 
 Nor can we consistently hold Tilak up to a charge 
 of apostasy in matters of social reform, when we 
 remember that he considered the infusing of a manly 
 spirit in the people as the culture-ground of all social 
 progress, and he viewed with alarm the swamping of 
 political enthusiasm by a mere agitation for arti- 
 ficially stimulated reform. He has, rightly or 
 wrongly, been always opposed to playing into the 
 hands of officialdom, and he therefore stongly felt 
 and we presume still feels that all healthy and 
 vigorous reform must be spontaneous, and be the 
 direct expression of political emancipation. Some 
 of his best friends call him narrow, orthodox, and 
 we are by no means convinced of his progressive 
 tendencies in the past, in religious and social 
 matters. But what we have said above, will very 
 probably be the substance of Tilak' s reply to those 
 who enter a caveat against him on the above grounds. 
 Besides his shrewd instincts must have prompted 
 him to take the largest possible audiences with him 
 in political matters, and it is the merest commonplace 
 to remind our readers that popular and shall we 
 
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK 189 
 
 say ? ambitious leaders must understand the psy- 
 chology of their adherents and exploit flamboyant 
 catchwords that would ensure success and swell the 
 numbers of followers. For is it not true that highly 
 cultivated, heterodox leaders, controlled in their 
 expression and sober in their judgments, have at 
 best a limited scope in any country, leave alone highly 
 conservative countries where politicians have an up- 
 hill task, because of the comparative absence, among 
 the masses, of those political conceptions and 
 ambitions of which leaders may make much 
 patriotic capital ? Are leaders to suspend political 
 action till the masses have been educated and 
 politically trained ? But that consummation may 
 only be hastened by strenuous political demands. 
 And those demands will only prevail, when the 
 authorities feel that the masses do, in some measure, 
 back them up. Those who are prone to condemn 
 Tilak because of his organising celebrations of 
 Sivaji's birthday, may well bear in mind, that 
 in countries where political training of the people 
 is almost neglected, some such expedient may 
 be necessary to arouse the illiterate masses to 
 vigorous political action. Besides, an endeavour 
 to keep the memories of a historic past green,, 
 is only natural. And we admire patriotism 
 and national fervour in other countries. We 
 naturally do not take much account of those countries 
 where people despise their national heritage. We 
 call them decadent, unprogressive and traitrous. 
 Why should we, then, condemn the spirit of national 
 self-consciousness in India, if its inevitable con- 
 
I 9 o INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 comitants are a revival of pride in the past which 
 can serve as a guide in future activities, simply 
 because of her political antecedents? 
 
 We quite appreciate that the Government must 
 also feel, in these matters, a serious sense of re- 
 sponsibility. And it is for them to direct this national 
 enthusiasm, by providing legitimate outlets for it, 
 instead of striving to suppress it. 
 
 But to continue. The appointment in 1890, of 
 Mr. G. K. Gokhale as Secretary of the Sarvajanik 
 Society severed Tilak's last link with old 
 friends. The organisation was later recaptured 
 by Tilak, but the Government considered his 
 views as rather intemperate and inconvenient. 
 And the result was that short and curt replies 
 were sent by Government departments, and 
 on Tilak's continuance of his bold, if sometimes 
 irresponsible criticisms, the organisation was 
 suppressed altogether. The only silver-lining 
 to these sombre clouds, was K. C. Kelkar's 
 unflinching loyalty to Tilak in all his journalistic 
 enterprises. 
 
 During the famine of 1896, he rendered yeoman's 
 service to the country, opening cheap grain shops for 
 the famine-stricken. His papers demanded that the 
 provisions of the Famine Code be generously applied, 
 and offered suggestions to the Government which 
 if accepted, would certainly have diminished the 
 volume of distress. When a virulent epidemic of 
 plague broke out in the Bombay presidency, he 
 offered to visit the homes of the people as a volunteer in 
 the company of Government Inspectors and risked 
 
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK 191 
 
 his life, more than once by offering to stay with the 
 plague-stricken, and during times when his " Social 
 reform " opponents fled away in sheer panic, Tilak 
 offered his services unreservedly to the government 
 and the people. 
 
 On the 22nd June, 1897, Mr. Rand and Lieutenant 
 Ayerst were murdered by some unknown assassin 
 in Poona. On the 26th July, the Government gave 
 sanction to prosecute Mr. Tilak, as if his propaganda 
 were indirectly responsible for this outburst of 
 fanaticism. Tilak was sentenced to eighteen months' 
 rigorous imprisonment, and denied even the right of 
 appeal, by Mr. Justice Strachey. But some time 
 later, Mr. H. H. Asquith now the Right Honourable 
 Mr. Asquith, late Premier of Great Britain pleaded 
 misdirection of the Jury, while defending Tilak 
 before the Lord Chancellor, in London. Nothing 
 came of the appeal. Soon after, Professor 
 Max Miiller and others presented a powerful peti- 
 tion to Queen Victoria, imploring her to grant 
 reprieve to the distinguished scholar. Tilak was, 
 accordingly, released on the 6th of September, 
 1898. 
 
 In 1908, we again find him awaiting his trial 
 before Mr. Justice Davar, his advocate in the previous 
 case. He was charged with " sedition, " the 
 implications of that rather comprehensive word not 
 being made clear, and the various charges being as 
 vague as vague could be. Certainly, no disturbances 
 had taken place in Poona, as the sequel to his articles 
 or speeches, nor were the passages specified to 
 which exception was taken. 
 
192 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 After a long trial, throughout which Mr. Tilak 
 conducted his own case with ability and with a re- 
 markable legal acumen, the sentence of six years' 
 imprisonment with hard labour was delivered by 
 Mr. Justice Davar, the Parsee gentleman who, 
 during his previous trial, was Tilak' s advocate. But 
 wiser counsels prevailed with the Government, who 
 recognised the ultra-severity of hard labour in a 
 political offence, and commuted it to six years' 
 simple imprisonment. Tilak's final statement to the 
 jury after they pronounced their verdict of " guilty " 
 has already become part of Indian history. 
 
 Seven days' riots took place after the imprison- 
 ment of Tilak, and Lord Sydenham realised for the 
 first time the amount of Tilak's influence in the 
 presidency, after resort to severe measures adopted 
 to suppress the riots. 
 
 When, however, on the expiry of this long term 
 of imprisonment Tilak came out, there was great 
 rejoicing throughout India. Instead of this crush- 
 ing sentence during whose currency he lost his 
 affectionate and devoted wife bringing about the 
 "downfall of Tilak" as Chirol inaptly puts it 
 it actually helped his uprise in Indian esteem ; and 
 to-day Tilak is, beyond doubt, the " uncrowned 
 king" of political India. He is the stormy petrel 
 of the Indian revolutionary spirit ; not the spirit of 
 rebellion that is based on hatred of the British con- 
 nection, but the wholesome spirit of revolt against 
 the strait-jacket of bureaucracy, the spirit which 
 demands neither more nor less than a really 
 autonomous India within the Empire. And even 
 
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK 193 
 
 those of \is that deeply regret his occasional outbursts 
 of injudicious utterance, find that in him India has a 
 pillar of strength that can stand four-square to the 
 winds of controversy and persecution. 
 
 But Tilak is no mere politician. He is a profound 
 Sanskrit scholar besides. His " Artie home of the 
 Vedas," and" Orion or researches into the antiquity 
 of the Vedas," have commanded the respect and 
 attention of such well-known orientalists as Professor 
 Max Miiller and Professor Warren, President of 
 Boston University. Indeed, his friendship with 
 Professor Max Miiller was based on the latter 's 
 appreciation of his marvellous scholarship. Dr. 
 Bloomfield, of the Johns Hopkins University, 
 refeiing to Tilak's Vedic researches, said in the 
 course of an anniversary address : 
 
 "But a literary event of even greater importance 
 has happened within the last two or three months 
 an event which is certain to stir the world of science 
 far more than the beatific reminiscences. Some ten 
 weeks ago, I received from India a small duodecimo 
 volume in the clumsy get-up and faulty typography 
 of the Native Anglo-Indian press . . . nor was 
 the preface at all encouraging. . . . But soon 
 the amused smile gave way. ... I was 
 first impressed with something leonine in the way 
 in which the author controlled the Vedic literature 
 and the occidental works on the same. ... I 
 confess that the author had convinced me on all the 
 essential points. The book is unquestionably the 
 literary sensation of the year just before us ; history 
 the chronic readjuster, shall have her hands 
 
 is 
 
I 9 4 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 uncommonly full to assimilate the results of Tilak's 
 discovery, and arrange her paraphernalia in the new 
 perspective." 
 
 While professor at Fergusson College, Poona, Tilak 
 was well-known for thoroughness. He is a brilliant 
 mathematician, but he used to teach science and 
 Sanskrit too. 
 
 During the war, Tilak gave loyal assistance to the 
 Indian authorities in the matter of recruiting. He 
 eloquently said that at this supreme crisis, all differ- 
 ences must be forgotten, that even in their own 
 interests Indians should rally round the British flag. 
 But, as ill-luck would have it, the Indian Head- 
 quarters Staff wanted only mercenary sepoys ; they 
 were not then willing to accept the loyal offers of 
 service from those who expected to be treated as the 
 equals of their British comrades. The military 
 authorities in India did not desire to mobilise the 
 youth and generosity of India for the defence of the 
 Empire ; they wanted so much old-fashioned fighting 
 material that could be more conveniently handled. 
 But so far as in him lay, Tilak co-operated with the 
 authorities, and asked for recruitment to the Defence 
 of India Force. We have not had access to Tilak's 
 articles, written during the war, but from reliable 
 sources we learn that the general purport of his 
 appeals has been 
 
 i. That in spite of serious differences of a domestic 
 nature still awaiting solution, there has been 
 sufficient good understanding created between the 
 British and Indians that could serve as vantage- 
 ground for future progress. 
 
 
BAL GANGADHAR TILAK 195 
 
 2. That Indians must learn how to defend India, for 
 a time may come when they must defend their hearths 
 and homes against a powerful and highly organised 
 Eastern or Western foe. 
 
 But in spite of his assurances and help, the Indian 
 bureaucracy, quite heedless that the old man had 
 just emerged from a six-year's imprisonment again 
 restricted his movements and, later, asked him 
 to execute bonds for being of good behaviour. 
 This meant among other things that he could 
 not come over to England to fight his case 
 against Sir Valentine Chirol, passports for England 
 being refused to Tilak. On appeal, however, the 
 Judge of the Bombay High Court cancelled the 
 bonds. ' 
 
 It is remarkable that the person who enjoys such 
 questionable reputation at the hands of the bureau- 
 cracy as " sedition-monger " and the like, should be 
 a distinguished member of the deputation that 
 waited on the Right Honourable Mr. E. S. Montagu, 
 some weeks ago in India. 
 
 Mrs. Annie Besant could have no better colleague 
 in the working out of her Home Rule propaganda 
 in Bombay, than Mr. Bal Gangadhar Tilak. The 
 authorities knew this, and hence Sir Benjamin 
 Robertson^ Order in Council that was promulgated 
 some time ago, prohibiting Mrs. Besant's entry into 
 Bombay, or Poona. In spite of previous differences 
 with Mrs. Besant, Tilak recognises that the launching 
 of the Home Rule Movement augurs well for India, 
 and so in a generous spirit the old Maratha warrior- 
 politician is quite willing, we understand, to help 
 
196 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 forward, so far as possible, Mrs. Besant's praise- 
 worthy activities. 
 
 Tilak has had throughout his stormy career, 
 intense sympathy with the poor ryots of India, and 
 has ever shown himself a zealous advocate of India's 
 voiceless millions. If others have served India 
 through their success, Tilak has indisputably helped 
 India through his failures and sufferings. 
 
 
XII 
 BEPIN CHANDRA PAL 
 
 We take the liberty to expound Bepin Chandra Pal's 
 views and state his contribution to the national move 
 ment, first because of our conviction that Bepin 
 Chandra Pal is not a revolutionary extremist accor 
 ding to any intelligible interpretation of that word ; 
 and secondly, because of Pal's open declaration 
 before his last departure from England in 1912, 
 that " should providence offer him the choice of abso- 
 lute independence for India with one hand, and the 
 alternative of self-government within the Empire with 
 the other, I would unhesitatingly accept the latter." 
 The very fact that even during the operation of 
 the Defence of India Act, he enjoys his freedom 
 in India, though some time ago we learnt that his 
 movements were somewhat restricted, would give 
 the direct lie to the suggestion that Bepin Chandra 
 Pal is an anarchist. And of all places, India would 
 be the last to give asylum to men of pronounced 
 revolutionary tendencies, especially to those who 
 occupy a prominent place in public life and have 
 some measure of influence over both intellectuals 
 and the masses. 
 
 Sir Valentine Chirol gives the following character- 
 isation of Pal, in his book " The Indian Unrest " : 
 
 197 
 
198 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 " Now if Swaraj, or colonial self-government, 
 represents the minimum that will satisfy Indian 
 nationalists, it is important to know exactly what 
 in their view it really means. . . . Some data 
 of indisputable authority . . . are furnished 
 in the speeches of an ' advanced ' leader who 
 does not rank among the revolutionary extremists (the 
 italics are ours), though his refusal to give evidence 
 in the trial of a seditious newspaper brought him in 
 1907 within the scope of the Indian Criminal Code. 
 Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal, a high-caste Hindu and a 
 man of great intellectual force and high character, 
 has not only received a Western education, but has 
 travelled a great deal in Europe and in America," 
 (page 9). 
 
 In our opinion, it would be much nearer the truth 
 to call him an Indian nationalist whose political 
 idealism leads him to accept no compromise with the 
 pressing emergencies of the Indian transition. But 
 it is to his credit that he has made possible the first 
 beginnings of an Indian Theory of the State. He is 
 one of the foremost thinkers political thinkers in 
 India. 
 
 It is as a thinker that Pal has made a profound 
 impression on the rising generation of Indians. 
 Agreement with his conclusions is no component of 
 admiration for his thinking. He has made young 
 India think furiously on nationality, self-determina- 
 tion and self-help. Not that he has organised a 
 movement through which his ideas may materialise in 
 action. Nor are the ideals that he upholds realisable 
 except through some sweeping and dramatic changes 
 
BEPIN CHANDRA PAL 199 
 
 in social conditions and political organisation among 
 the people. Let us quote one significant utterance of 
 his: 
 
 " There is a creed in India to-day which calls 
 itself Nationalism. It is not a mere political pro- 
 gramme, but a religion, it is a creed in which all who 
 follow it will have to live and suffer. Let no man 
 call himself a nationalist to-day with a sort of intel- 
 lectual conceit. To be a nationalist in India means 
 to be an instrument of God, and to live in the Spirit. 
 For the force that is awakening the nation is not of 
 man, it is divine. We need not be a people who are 
 politically strong ; we need not be a people sound in 
 physique ; we need not be a people of the highest 
 intellectual standing, but we must be a people 
 who believe. . . . Nationalism is a divinely 
 appointed power of the eternal, and must do its 
 God-given work before it returns to the universal 
 energy from whence it came." 
 
 Pal would not organise a rebellion against the 
 existing system of control, but he would mentally 
 revolt against its alien origin, as it does not leave 
 sufficient scope for the initiative and energies of the 
 people. To him self-government is not something 
 that can be conferred on India ab extra, it is something 
 that must be the spontaneous expression of. India's 
 reawakened energies and returning youth. In quite 
 a happy phraseology he somewhere remarks that if 
 the destinies offered India self-government, on her 
 behalf, he would say " No, thank you. We shall not 
 have what we have not deserved." 
 
 Though in practice, the ideal of self-government 
 
200 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 within the Empire would be quite acceptable to him, 
 in theory he sees in the so-called " Reforms " nothing 
 but a westernising of Indian standards and institu- 
 tions, unless the whole bureaucratic machinery is 
 swept away, and the government is remodelled along 
 lines in conformity with Indian ideals, and the 
 national genius for government. Apropos of the 
 tinkering reforms demanded by political agitators he 
 says : 
 
 " The whole Civil Service might be Indian, but 
 the civil servants have to carry out orders they 
 cannot direct, the}' cannot dictate the policy. 
 . . . One civilian, 100 or 1,000 civilians in the 
 service of the British government will not make that 
 Government Indian. There are traditions, there are 
 Jaws, there are policies to which every civilian, be he 
 black or brown or white, must submit, and as long 
 as these traditions have not been altered, as long as 
 these principles have not been amended, as long as 
 that policy has not been radically changed, the 
 supplanting of European for Indian agency will not 
 make for self-government in this country." 
 
 His opposition to bureaucracy in India springs out 
 of his suspicion of bureaucracy in any part of the 
 world. And he would rather have a tyrannical and 
 conservative exponent of bureaucracy so that the 
 evils of the system may be driven home into the 
 people's imagination rather than a liberal and 
 sympathetic representative whose beneficence might 
 render people callous in regard to the insidious work- 
 ings of an evil system. On this point Professor 
 Graham Wallas observes : 
 
BEPIN CHANDRA PALS 201 
 
 " A Hindu agitator, again, Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal, 
 who also had read psychology, imitated Lord 
 Lansdowne a few months ago by saying : ' Applying 
 the principles of psychology to the consideration of 
 political problems we find it is necessary that we 
 . . . should do nothing that will make the 
 Government a power for us. Because if the Govern- 
 ment becomes easy, if it becomes pleasant, if it 
 becomes good government, then our signs of separa- 
 tion from it will be gradually lost.' Mr. Chandra 
 PaJ, unlike Lord Lansdowne, was imprisoned shortly 
 afterwards, but his words have had an important 
 political effect in India." Human Nature in 
 Politics, p. 177) . 
 
 Pal's most effective weapon which he has seldom 
 employed would be passive resistance. In a 
 country of teeming millions like India, a revolution 
 based on physical force is unnecessary. For the 
 achievement of political liberty, according to him 
 passive resistance is enough. Boycott Manchester 
 dhotis that drape your bodies and Western institu- 
 tions that drug your souls and you are free. To 
 the writer's best knowledge, Pal has always 
 repudiated physical force as a solvent of political 
 difficulties and has insisted on the need for moral 
 regeneration and the development of self-respect. 
 From an article that he contributed in 1915 to the 
 Amrita Bazaar Patrika, entitled " The Coming of 
 Surendra Nath," it seems that he had then relin- 
 quished his previous Utopian idea that the machinery 
 of government could be easily paralysed through the 
 systematic boycott by the people of British courts of 
 
202 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 justice, colleges and schools. He called the period 
 of severe unrest, when forces of anarchism reared 
 their heads in India, as the kindergarten stage of the 
 Indian political life when people did not take the 
 right orientation of things and did not know how 
 to use the new-born forces. 
 
 But it must not be considered that Pal is reaction- 
 ary in his attitude towards the progressive elements 
 in modern culture. Being one of the finest products 
 of Western culture Pal feels more at home in London 
 than even in Calcutta. Besides, he is free from the 
 social trammels that impede freedom of movement 
 and efficiency in action. 
 
 Pal believes or used to believe that the key to 
 the future lies in the hands of the people themselves. 
 This point he elucidates in these trenchant words : 
 
 " If the Government were to come and tell me 
 to-day ' take Swaraj/ I would say thank you for the 
 gift, but I will not have that which I cannot acquire 
 by my own hand. Our programme is that we shall 
 so work in the country, so combine the resources of 
 the people, so organise the forces of the nation, so 
 develop the instincts of freedom in the community, 
 that by this means we shall shall in the imperative, 
 compel the submission to our will of any power that 
 may set itself against us." 
 
 Pal is thus no fire-brand, but a visionary with 
 a hatred of shams and deep instinctive love 
 for reality. But he has initiated no practical 
 experiments whereby his ideals could, even in part, be 
 transmuted into action. At the same time, he is the 
 chief pioneer in a movement of ideas according to 
 
BEPIN CHANDRA PAL 203 
 
 which self-respect is better than supplication and 
 national freedom better than the so-called political 
 reforms that may be nothing more than a lubrication 
 of the wheels of the bureaucratic machinery. 
 
 Pal is thus a philosopher of the political renaissance, 
 a Mazzini of the Indian stage of transition. His 
 ideals have spread their contagious influence through 
 the ranks of moderates and extremists alike, and 
 much of the virility of the Indian National Congress 
 propaganda to-day is due to its permeation with the 
 teachings he vigorously delivered during the period 
 of severe tension in India, both in Bengal and in 
 Madras, even though for years he has studiously 
 abstained from attending meetings of the Congress. 
 
 His coldness towards the Congress is not so much 
 due to his extremist leanings, as to the thread-bare 
 discussions that formed the sequels to the moving 
 of resolutions at the annual sittings of the Congress. 
 The sight of venerable delegates mounting the 
 Congress platform, and reading learned dissertations 
 or delivering perfervid orations, once a year, would 
 only move Pal's ridicule. He would feel that the 
 Congress resolutions left the authorities quite 
 unmoved, and that it were sheer waste of breath to 
 deliver learned speeches to which those at the helm of 
 affairs were not even willing to lend an attentive ear. 
 He would rather see the evolution of a superior type 
 of character and self-confidence in the people which 
 would urge the Government to advance, or rather 
 demand that it should progress. 
 
 Pal is a powerful journalist and wields a very facile 
 pen. He writes to various Indian periodicals and 
 
204 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 to some English and American journals besides. 
 He is at his best while writing of the forces that have 
 created new India. 
 
 During his last visit to England he delivered 
 several lectures on India, but though his speeches 
 were learned and instinct with fervour, his blunt, 
 tactless presentation of truths did not win for him 
 many new converts. With his transparent sincerity 
 he lacks the rare gift of judicious utterance. A mere 
 intellectual presentation of opinions, tinged with 
 burning conviction, but regardless of the psychology 
 of the people addressed, is not always a successful 
 operation, however rich the content, or brilliant the 
 method of delivery. 
 
 He is, beyond dispute, one of the ablest orators 
 /of New Bengal : while his love for the Motherland 
 * borders on religious frenzy. 
 
 Apropos of his programme for passive resistance 
 he says : " We can make the Government impossible 
 without entirely making it impossible for them to 
 find people to serve them. The administration may be 
 made impossible in a variety of ways. It is not 
 actually that every Deputy Magistrate should say : 
 I won't serve in it. But if you create this spirit in 
 the country the Government service will gradually 
 imbibe this spirit, and a whole office may go on strike. 
 This does not put an end to the Administration, but 
 it creates endless complications in the work of 
 Administration, and if these complications are 
 created in every part of the country, the Adminis- 
 tration will have been brought to a deadlock, and 
 made none the less impossible, for the primary thing 
 
BEPIN CHANDRA PAL 205 
 
 is the prestige of the government and the boycott 
 strikes at the root of that prestige. . . . We can 
 reduce every Indian in Government service to the 
 position of a man who has fallen from the dignity of 
 Indian citizenship. . . . Passive resistance is 
 recognised as legitimate in England. It is legitimate 
 in theory even in India, and if it is made illegal by 
 new legislation, these laws will infringe on the 
 primary rights of personal freedom. . . . With- 
 out positive training no self-government will come 
 to the boycotter. It will come through the organ- 
 isation of our village life ; of our Taluks and districts. 
 Let our programme include the setting up of 
 machinery for popular administration, and running 
 parallel to, but independent of, the existing adminis- 
 tration of the Government." 
 
 We are of opinion that during the initial stages of 
 the political agitation in India, Pal's views and ideas 
 have been of considerable utility in arousing the 
 people from the slumber of centuries. But under 
 existing conditions in India when political self -con- 
 sciousness is expressing itself in definite demands, 
 only organisation along peaceful lines would achieve 
 what intellectually, Pal has stated with such precision 
 and force. Propaganda must become systematic, 
 practical and be conducted on intelligent lines, with 
 the hard-headedness of a bank manager and the 
 specialised aptitude of the expert. 
 
XIII 
 ARABINDA GHOSE 
 
 " Truth is with us, Justice is with us, nature is with us, and 
 the law of God, which is higher than human law justifies our 
 action." From ARABINDA GHOSE 's manifesto on Indian 
 Nationalism. 
 
 LIKE Bepin Chandra Pal, Ghose stands for a new 
 movement of ideas, and not as leader of a political 
 organisation. But if Pal's ambition has been to 
 impregnate the minds of the young with a new 
 vision ; Ghose's ambition was to capture existing 
 organisations for the spread of his ideas. Pal has 
 been anxious to see the triumph of high ideals 
 over petty details ; Ghose strongly felt that only 
 through action could enthusiasm be reinforced or 
 vision enlarged. 
 
 Thus we see that right up to the moment of his 
 tragic retirement from public life into political exile 
 in Pondicherry, Ghose was anxious to capture the 
 Indian National Congress, together with other 
 " extremist " leaders, and to change it into an 
 institution for educating public opinion and as a 
 training ground for political thinkers. He also felt 
 the need for reorganising the district and provincial 
 conferences, so that work may be continuous through- 
 out the year, that the delegates may really represent 
 
 206 
 
ARABINDA GHOSE 207 
 
 the people, and that the new spirit of self-confidence 
 may be enthused into the masses, among whom 
 systematic propaganda must be carried on through- 
 out the year. He felt that the anaemic intellectuals 
 of the Congress only represented themselves, so long 
 as the masses were not well-grounded in ideas of 
 public rights and duties. He was convinced that the 
 annual efforts of the Congress were ridiculously 
 inadequate, and their suppliants' attitude only 
 betokened moral inertia that disguises lack both of 
 training and of vigour. 
 
 His emergence into the political arena was like 
 a meteoric flash. We find him in 1905 resign his 
 educational appointment in the Baroda State, to 
 seize on the opportunities which the serious turmoil 
 in Bengal over the partition by Lord Curzon, had 
 freshly created. He saw his chance and felt that no 
 sacrifice was too great when the service of the mother- 
 land demanded it. He helped in the organisation of 
 the National Council of Education in Bengal, which 
 provided indigenous schools, and also encouraged 
 able and enterprising youth to proceed to Japan, 
 America and Europe, for scientific and technical 
 pursuits. 
 
 He was anxious to reorganise the district 
 and provincial conferences so that these might 
 develop into media for the stimulation of interest 
 in public matters in ever-widening circles. He 
 infused fresh life into journalism in Bengal. This is 
 not the time nor the place to point out indiscreet 
 utterances in the papers edited by him. We 
 only wish to point out his valuable services in 
 
208 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 arousing people from their lethargy into vigorous 
 action. 
 
 In point of intellectual ability, powers of organisa- 
 tion and leadership, and religious earnestness, 
 Arabinda Ghose stands in solitary splendour in 
 political India. His simplicity, his excessive 
 puritanism, his love of contemplation and his 
 charming manners, enhanced ten-fold the hypnotic 
 hold that he had on his followers and admirers. But 
 differences of opinion with his colleagues on the 
 nature of national education came to a head, with 
 the result that Arabinda Ghose resigned both his 
 professorship in Calcutta and membership of the 
 Council. His strongly-worded articles in the Bande 
 Matram brought him into open conflict with the 
 Government, but he escaped with impunity. Along 
 with his brother Barendra he was charged with 
 complicity in the famous Manicktola bomb case. 
 
 Before Mr. Beachcrof t, a prisoner in the dock was 
 awaiting his trial in handcuffs who a few years 
 before had established his intellectual superiority to 
 the presidency magistrate in the classical tripos, at 
 King's College, Cambridge. That prisoner was no 
 other than Arabinda Ghose, the brilliant scholar 
 that had easily floored the Indian Civil Service 
 Examination in London, but failed to pass the riding 
 test. After this disappointment Ghose went to 
 Cambridge, where he won a scholarship and later 
 took first-class honours in classics. 
 
 Mr. Beachcrof t could find no incriminating 
 evidence against Arabinda. So he was honourably 
 acquitted. But the police would constantly shadow 
 
ARABINDA GHOSE 209 
 
 him, and later we find him flee into the French 
 possessions with a view to evade a warrant of arrest 
 issued against him. 
 
 Arabinda Ghose's strenuous political activities 
 not only synchronised with the rising to flood-tide of 
 the Bengalees' indignation over the partition fiasco, 
 but with the coming to birth of a new philosophy of 
 
 | life, based mainly on the teachings of theBhagvadgita, 
 that affirmed the supremacy of action over mere 
 passivity and quiescence, and issued a trumpet-call, 
 in the name ot Dharma, to deeds of heroic self- 
 sacrifice, renouncing the lower objects of desire and 
 the hope of reward or fear of consequences. For the 
 first time in modern Indian history, there was a 
 resurgent tide of self-confidence that swept over 
 Bengal and other parts too leading people to- 
 recognise, as never before, that contemplation should 
 
 I be a mere hand-maid of action, profoundly religious 
 in content and altruistic in aim. 
 
 Arabinda, no doubt, derived some of his inspiration 
 from Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who, after his elaborate 
 researches into the Vedas and the Gita had come, long 
 before to similar conclusions, and whom Arabinda 
 admired as a courageous political leader. It is also 
 known that at various conferences, they would meet 
 and have intimate association with each other on 
 various important problems. 
 
 At the famous Congress in Surat, Arabinda read 
 his now historic manifesto on Indian Nationalism, 
 which is a masterpiece both in point of style and 
 lucidity of exposition. In the manifesto Ghose 
 makes it as clear as possible that hatred of the 
 
 14 
 
210 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 English is quite alien to true nationalist propaganda, 
 but that the present bureaucratic regime leaves no 
 scope for full development to the heirs of an ancient 
 civilisation, spiritually superior to all forms of 
 Western culture. And the right note is sounded 
 when he delivers the assurance : " Truth is with us ; 
 nature is with us ; justice is with us, and the law of 
 God which is higher than human law justifies our 
 action." 
 
 In a series of articles on Karma yogin (realisation 
 through action) Arabinda issued the new gospel of 
 self-sacrifice in thrilling accents and in a manner 
 that electrified the imagination of the rising genera- 
 tion. But in spite of his organising power and con- 
 sciousness of the need for action, Ghose reaches the 
 summits of spiritual exaltation when absorbed in 
 meditation. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, in his 
 " Awakening of India " draws a graphic picture of 
 Arabinda Ghose or some one exactly resembling 
 him : Mr. MacDonald in the course of an interview 
 was impressed with the tranquility of mind combined 
 with the aggressive political outlook of one who saw 
 India " exalted on a temple throne," and " across 
 whose path the shadow of the hangman falls," and 
 who believes that India's future is as much bound up 
 with the success of political organisations as on the 
 intensification of spiritualfe rvour. 
 
 During the war, Arabinda Ghose is reported to 
 have sent messages of sympathy to the Government 
 of India, from his political exile. Interviewed by 
 a correspondent of a Madras paper, Arabinda is said 
 to have ex pressed satisfaction, in 1916, at the increas- 
 
ARABINDA GHOSE 211 
 
 ing friendliness prevailing between the British and 
 the Indians, admired the presidential address of Sir 
 S. P. Sinha, and expressed his conviction that Indian 
 politics should not be petty or parochial, but worthy 
 of the grand traditions of a great nation. 
 
 Arabinda has a magnetic personality, which com- 
 bined with a sturdy independence of thought and 
 breadth and freshness of outlook singled him out, 
 during his short-lived career in India, for unique and 
 distinguished leadership. It is said by his admirers 
 \ that even to-day he is helping India, if only through 
 contemplative exercises, and is sending currents of 
 spiritual energy through the life of the nation. This 
 might be a matter of opinion but even so, it gives 
 one some idea of how potent is the influence that he 
 exercises on those that come under his spell. 
 
 When the history of the Indian Revolution not 
 anarchism comes to be written, there must be full 
 two pages dedicated to Bepin Chandra Pal and 
 Arabinda Ghose. 
 
 Referring to Ghose, Sir Valentine Chirol says : 
 (" Indian Unrest," p. 90) " With this gospel of 
 active self-sacrifice none can assuredly quarrel. 
 . . . For him British rule and Western civilisa- 
 tion for which it stands threaten the very life of 
 Hinduism. . . . That Mr. Arabinda Ghose 
 holds violence and murder to be justifiable forms of 
 activity for achieving that purpose cannot properly be 
 alleged, for though he has several times been placed 
 on his trial, and in one instance for actual complicity 
 in political crime namely in the Manicktolla bomb 
 case the law has so far acquitted him." 
 
212 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 In fact, Ghose holds that spiritual communion and 
 utmost freedom from earthly entanglements lead 
 not only to individual emancipation but to the 
 galvanising of the national consciousness to deeds of 
 high heroism. He is a Swarajist and Vedantist, 
 believing that the achievement of Swaraj will develop 
 Indian spirituality, and that constant absorption in 
 prayer and meditation and the realising of one's 
 unity with the primal consciousness through self- 
 less action, will facilitate the coming of Swaraj. 
 
XIV 
 
 LALA LAJPAT RAI 
 
 NONE among Indian politicians has been less under- 
 stood and more misunderstood both by friends and 
 hostile critics than Lajpat Rai, whose political record 
 marks a series of what appear like petty persecutions, 
 and a whole farrago of blundering accusations. 
 It has been his sad lot to be condemned without 
 being tried, and to suffer without any tangible 
 evidence being produced against him. On the 
 other hand, whenever he has launched a suit 
 against his maligners, as, for example, against some 
 powerful Anglo-Indian dailies, he has always come 
 out triumphant. Suspected on the basis of secret 
 reports concerning himself, watched under secret 
 instructions by reason of his unpopularity with the 
 powers that be ; deported without trial in 1907 
 under the express sanction of the Liberal Lord 
 Morley : such are some of the unhappy episodes in the 
 long tragedy of Laj pat's Rai's career. 
 
 Lord Morley in approving of Lajpat Rai's depor- 
 tation wrote back to Lord Minto : " The only comfort 
 is that my immediate audience will be not at all 
 unfriendly in any quarter of it, though radical 
 
 213 
 
214 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 supporters will be critical, and Tory opponents will 
 scent an inconsistency between deporting Lajpat, 
 and my old fighting of Balfour for locking up 
 William O'Brien. I shall not, however, waste much 
 time about that. I have always said that Strafford 
 would have made a far better business of Ireland than 
 Cromwell did, but then that would be an awkward 
 doctrine to preach just now." (See Lord Morley's 
 "Recollections," p. 218: Macmillan & Co.). In 
 
 another passage Morley remarks : " I see that 
 
 says that this drastic power of muzzling an agitator 
 will save the necessity of * urging deportation.' He 
 must have forgotten that I very explicitly told him, 
 that I would not sanction deportation except for a 
 man of whom there was solid reason to believe that 
 violent disorder was the direct and deliberately 
 planned result of his action." 
 
 It may, perhaps, be quite relevant here to press 
 home the consideration, with all due deference to 
 Morley's judgment, that if there was " solid reason 
 to believe that violent disorder was the direct and 
 deliberately planned result " of Laj pat's action, 
 he could certainly be tried according to law, under the 
 provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code or any 
 other code, instead of being denied justice and the 
 opportunity of defending himself. 
 
 In the course of the present discussion we must 
 necessarily confine our review of Lajpat Rai's 
 activities to the period prior to his departure for 
 America, for we have no means of finding out what 
 changes, if any, have come over his convictions 
 or methods. For prior to Sir George Cave's 
 
LALA LAJPAT RAI 215 
 
 discovery that Lajpat Rai's allegiance has been 
 suborned from the Empire, we knew of him both in 
 India and in this country as, no doubt, radical in his 
 views, and occasionally rather injudicious in his 
 utterance, but always a constitutional agitator and 
 opposed to methods of physical violence. On the 
 outbreak of war, he was in this country and issued 
 eloquent and forcible appeals to young Indians in 
 England, asking them to rise to the occasion and 
 loyally serve the Mother Country, in any capacity 
 that was possible, in her hour of danger. In fact, 
 we understand that he travelled throughout England 
 and Scotland, inviting recruitment to the Ambulance 
 Corps organised by Mr. Gandhi, for the benefit of 
 Indian soldiers, in the earlier stages of the war. 
 
 Lajpat Rai was born in the Tehsil of Jagraon, 
 of poor but intelligent and self-respecting parents. 
 His father came early under the influence of 
 Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Laj pat's Rai's 
 mother was very affectionate and sensible, and 
 through her strong personality, fostered in the 
 son habits of frugality, simplicity and straight- 
 forwardness in speech and behaviour. It is but fair 
 to say that she had a prominent share in moulding 
 the young boy's character, and whatever impresses 
 us to-day in Laj pat's life as of dour strength and 
 bearing the impress of sincerity may, in part, 
 be traced quite consistently to his mother's dominat- 
 ing influence on him. Equally potent, as a formative 
 influence in Lajpat Rai's life, was his father's love 
 of truth and country. We learn that Laj pat's 
 father was a great admirer of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, 
 
216 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 before the latter adopted reactionary views on Indian 
 politics and assumed a position of indifference, if not 
 of hostility, towards the legitimate claims and the 
 constitutional demands of the Indian National 
 Congress. 
 
 It is said that he was very fond of discussing 
 important Indian subjects with as many villagers 
 as came under his influence, and that he instilled 
 into their unsophisticated minds fondness for free 
 and frank discussion, and interest in matters that 
 affected India's well-being. Young Lajpat matricu- 
 lated from a school in Jullundhur, and won a scholar- 
 ship that enabled him to take his B.A. degree from 
 the Government College, Lahore, with distinction. 
 Later he took the diploma of Licentiate-in-Law 
 from the Lahore Law College and soon after 
 settled down to legal practice in Jullundhar. It is 
 ample credit to his legal acumen, industry and 
 popularity that in a comparatively short span of years 
 he built up a large practice and amassed a modest 
 fortune. During this period, he was always eager to 
 promote religious and social reform in his spare time, 
 and was always solicitous for the welfare of the masses. 
 It is true of Lajpat Rai that he was seldom engrossed 
 in schemes of personal self-interest, and that he 
 always exhibited a ponderous capacity for public 
 spirit without whose development he felt that 
 political and social discussions were mere moonshine. 
 
 But success and talent naturally gravitate towards 
 large metropolitan cities that offer abundant scope for 
 initiative and genius, and Lajpat Rai soon became 
 the centre of attraction in Lahore, the capital of the 
 
LALA LAJPAT RAI 217 
 
 Punjab. Having already served his probation and 
 made considerable headway, he did not at all find 
 it an up-hill task to establish himself as a 
 prominent member of the local bar, so to speak. 
 At the same time, it must be remembered, 
 that even during his palmiest days Lajpat Rai never 
 came up, in point of intellectual brilliance and 
 forensic aptitude to the doyens of the Bar. The 
 unique position which Lajpat Rai for long con- 
 tinued to occupy in the public life of the Punjab 
 is due more to the transparent honesty of 
 his character and his abounding enthusiasm for 
 service, rather than to any unique capacities 
 of thought and mind. It is more as a political 
 and social reformer of the advanced type that 
 Lajpat Rai has attained pre-eminence ; not as 
 a scholar, jurist, lawyer or even constructive political 
 thinker. He takes life too seriously, is endowed 
 with but little sense of humour and scores more 
 through his saintly manner of life than through any 
 more conspicuous individual qualification. 
 
 It also has to be remembered that the Government 
 of India are mainly responsible for placing Lajpat 
 Rai on a pedestal of distinction, through their con- 
 tinuous suspicion of him and a prolonged persecution, 
 which to Western readers may appear as a strange 
 perversion of humour. Deported without trial ; 
 suspected without any formal production of corro- 
 borative evidence ; branded as a fire-eater wielding 
 tremendous influence over the masses ; such treat- 
 ment is enough to convert any mediocrity into a 
 national hero. And when we realise that on the 
 
218 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 \ eve of Laj pat's deportation, the Lahore Arya Samaj 
 
 itself repudiated any friendly associations with 
 
 him, and denounced his tactics as extremist and 
 
 lacking sanity a treatment to which Laj pat Rai 
 
 later responded with the chivalry, characteristic of 
 
 him can we express astonishment at the natural 
 
 revulsion of popular feeling in his favour that 
 
 \ acclaimed him as a political martyr and converted 
 
 ; him from an innocuous political reformer to a 
 
 1 political enthusiast ? 
 
 Laj pat Rai was considerably aggrieved, in 
 the earlier stages of his political career over 
 Syed Ahmad's political apostasy, after his 
 knighthood by Lord Lytton, more especially be- 
 cause he was prepared by his father to look upon 
 the Syed as a prophet of sweeping political 
 reforms. As a result he wrote a series of 
 "Open Letters" to the Syed. These letters are 
 characterised by his usual earnestness and 
 burning conviction, though not by any great felicity 
 in expression. 
 
 During the Rawal Pindi and Lahore disturbances 
 Laj pat Rai strove, to the best of his ability, to con- 
 vince, the authorities that the best method of treat- 
 ing unrest was to remedy the grievances that 
 fostered it, and that mere drastic suppression was at 
 best futile. But the powers that be brushed aside 
 his recommendations as only calculated to promote 
 further discontent, and saw in him not one that was 
 anxious to throw oil over troubled waters, but one 
 whose only aim was to intensify discontent and rally 
 round him the forces of rebellion. 
 
LALA LAJPAT RAI 219 
 
 We are far from suggesting La j pat's impeccability 
 as a political leader and from impugning the motives 
 of the authorities. The Government may have in 
 their possession abundant evidence that might have 
 justified even a more vigorous mode of punishment 
 than was actually meted out to him. All that we 
 say is that the evidence, if any, at the disposal of the 
 authorities was never marshalled, the public have 
 had no chance to judge of the character of that 
 evidence, and the courts of law where he could be 
 brought to justice, under existing provisions dealing 
 with disaffection of varying magnitudes, were never 
 used. And we are certainly within our rights, without 
 holding any brief for La j pat Rai, to allege that the 
 mere whispering, in vague and nebulous words, of the 
 most serious accusations of appalling criminality, 
 without resort to courts of competent jurisdiction, 
 leaves us rather unconvinced and conveys the 
 impression that the men on the spot were not only 
 ill-informed in regard to the causes engendering dis- 
 content, but were seized with panic, a phenomenon 
 by no means uncommon where Governments are not 
 responsible to the people themselves. 
 
 Finally : we must bear in mind that when the 
 oppressive canal rates in the Chenab colony were 
 rescinded, there was considerable abatement of 
 resentful feeling. Even Lord Morley was strongly 
 of opinion that these taxes gave rise to grave 
 discontent. 
 
 In reference to his other activities, Lajpat Rai may, 
 without any exaggeration, be called the soul of the 
 Arya Samaj. Though it has not fallen to his lot to 
 
220 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 be a whole-time worker like Principal Hans Raj of 
 the D.A.V. College, Lahore, or Mahatma Munshi 
 Ram of the Gurukul at Hardawar, he has organised 
 numerous branches of the Arya Samaj ; collected 
 funds for the college and general propaganda work ; 
 delivered courses of lectures and generally infused a 
 new spirit of earnestness and social service among the 
 educated young Arya Samaj ists. During the 
 famines of 1897-1898, and 1899-1900, Lajpat Rai, at 
 considerable personal risk and inconvenience, organ- 
 ised a famine relief party and administered relief to 
 at least 1,700 distressed Hindu orphans in Rajputana, 
 Kathiawar, parts of Bombay and the Central Pro- 
 provinces. The first orphanage at Ferozepur, 
 opened under the auspices of the Arya Samaj, 
 and in healthy rivalry to Christian mission ary 
 organisations, was established principally at the 
 suggestion of Lajpat Rai. Appeals issued on behalf 
 of the Hindu Orphan Relief movement were generally 
 responded to, by all sects and castes of Hindus. 
 As a direct sequel to these philanthropic activities, 
 numerous orphanages were established in various 
 parts of the Punjab, new industries were started for 
 the benefit of the famine-stricken, and young 
 college graduates offered their services most gener- 
 ously, bore the chief burden of responsibility, taking 
 considerable risks and accepting no remuneration. 
 The philanthropic work referred to was not 
 confined to famine relief, but included medical 
 relief. It gained from the Government recognition as 
 an organised movement with definite aims and a high 
 standard ol efficiency and success to its credit. 
 
LALA LAJPAT RAI 221 
 
 Further it brought together the normally divergent 
 sects and creeds and threw the upper classes and the 
 poor people together. Mr. Lajpat Rai in his pub- 
 lished report of the Arya Samaj's relief work makes 
 the following significant statement : "But still 
 more blessed are those who paid for their own bread 
 and did not spend even a pie of public money on 
 their own food. Personally, my gratefulness to 
 them is beyond words. They have earned the ever- 
 lasting gratitude of their people by setting such a 
 good and noble example of self-sacrifice to the other 
 members of the rising generation. Let us hope that 
 these services are an earnest of what may be expected 
 of them in the future. This record of their work is 
 a bright ray in the sunshine of Hindu revival, to 
 which we all look with hope and pleasure " (" Arya 
 Samaj : an Indian Movement," p. 218). 
 
 Even on his return from the now historic deporta- 
 tion, Lajpat Rai did not relax his philanthropic 
 efforts. To quote from Lajpat Rai's own account 
 of his work. 
 
 " Famine Relief in 1908. 
 
 " In 1908, however, the movement was expanded 
 and general relief was aimed at. The following 
 extracts from the Census Report of the United 
 provinces of Agra and Oude will give some idea of 
 the extensive scale on which work was done during 
 the famine : 
 
 ' The emissary of a well-known Arya leader came 
 round distributing relief during the famine of 1907-8 
 an<J visited a certain village near which I had 
 encamped. After his visit, the recipients of his 
 
222 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 
 bounty, being not quite sure whether they were doing 
 right in accepting private chanty, when Government 
 was looking after them, sent a deputation to ask me 
 whether they might keep his gifts. I, of course, told 
 them to take all they could get ; and then their 
 leader asked me who was the man (the Arya leader) 
 who was distributing money in this wholesale way." 
 (cf. 'The Arya Samaj : an Indian Movement," 
 by Lajpat Rai, pp. 218-219). 
 
 Since his deportation, he has once been on a 
 political mission to this country in the company of 
 Messrs. Jinnah, Bhupendra, Nath Busu, the late 
 G. K. Gokhale and others. 
 
 Mrs. Annie Besant pays him the following 
 compliment : 
 
 " Lajpat Rai is a ' whole-hogger ' in his political 
 attitude, impatient of compromise and not heedful 
 of questions of detail. It is difficult to satisfy him 
 with illusory schemes of mere tinkering reforms, 
 since he is a shrewd, hard-headed thinker, not easily 
 carried away by sentiment, unless it be love for the 
 mother-land." The writer's own impression about 
 Lajpat Rai's speeches is that they breathe out sin- 
 cerity and the spirit of self-reliance, but they lack 
 dignity and balance. They arouse high spirits 
 among friends, but only bitter animosity in the hearts 
 of critics. He lacks the tact, the power of appeal to 
 the generous and chivalrous emotions of his critics 
 that was so eminently shown in Gokhale, and which 
 won for the latter numerous converts even from the 
 ranks of stout opponents. 
 
 In spite of his keen patriotism and various services 
 
 
LALA LA'JPAT RAI 223 
 
 to India, in the domain of politics, Lajpat Rai is at 
 his best in the social and religious sphere. It has 
 been the writer's privilege to attend several meetings 
 of the Arya Samaj when he would speak on ethics 
 and metaphysics of religion. Laj pat's extensive 
 study of English philosophical literature, his grasp 
 of the fundamental issues and his able, if also some- 
 what ingenious exposition of Vedic texts was always 
 a real intellectual treat. Like his master Swami 
 Dayananda Saraswati he would read back into the 
 Vedas the latest discovery of science and the latest 
 exposition of metaphysical doctrine. But this 
 ought to surprise no one. Even in this country, the 
 race of mid- Victorian divines is by no means extinct, 
 who would either try to place under the ban modern 
 and progressive movements, or trace their origins 
 to some text in the Book of Genesis or to some vague 
 prophecy in the Book of Revelation. 
 
 Lajpat Rai has been a pillar of strength to the 
 Arya Samaj. Though most of the Samaj 's propa- 
 ganda owes its inception to the inspiring teachings 
 and personality of Dayananda, it is difficult to 
 exaggerate the value of Lajpat Rai's co-operation 
 in maintaining the Samajic activities at a high 
 level. 
 
 Finally, no one has striven more to induce his 
 co-religionists as individuals not as members of a 
 corporate body to accept the political ideals as 
 formulated by progressive India. He has always 
 felt that though the Arya Samaj, as resting on 
 definitely religious foundations, must always assume 
 neutrality in political matters, yet if individual 
 
224 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 Arya Samajists refrained from identifying themselves 
 with healthy, peaceful, political developments, the 
 Samaj itself may degenerate into an obscurantist 
 body. To quote his own words : ' The harder the 
 fight, the greater the opportunities of showing the 
 strength which our forefathers have bequeathed to- 
 us. These Samaj es, Colleges, Sabhas, Leagues, 
 Associations, Congresses and Conferences are all 
 means to an end. They mark the various stages in 
 our onward march to nation-hood. . . . The 
 Arya Samaj has to remember that the India of 
 to-day is not exculsively Hindu. Its prosperity and 
 future depend upon the reconciliation of Hinduism 
 with that greater " ism " Indian nationalism which 
 alone can secure for India its rightful place in the 
 comity of nations. Anything that may prevent, 
 or even hinder, that consummation is a sin for which 
 there can be no expiation." (" The Arya Samaj,'* 
 
 P . 283). 
 
SURENDRA NATH BANNERJEA 
 
 " We are the subjects of the proudest Empire in the world. 
 We glory in that Imperial connection which makes us the 
 participators of that noble heritage of freedom, which is the 
 birthright of every Englishman. Let the Russians* come 
 if they choose. They will find behind the serried ranks of one 
 of the grandest armies in the world, the countless millions 
 of a loyal people, united by contentment, by gratitude, by 
 willingness for self-sacrifice, ready to guard an Empire that has 
 meant in India, the establishment of peace, the diffusion of 
 knowledge, and which I trust, will yet mean the political 
 enfranchisement of her vast people." 
 
 SURENDRA NATH BANNERJEA. 
 
 *The substitution of " Germans " for " Russians " will bring this 
 old quotation quite up to date. [The author.] 
 
 IT is the barest justice to the Edmund Burke of 
 Bengal, for that would be a very apt characteri- 
 sation of the famous political leader and nation- 
 builder with whom we are now dealing that very 
 few surpass him, even if some equal him, in point of 
 the vigorous appeal he directs to the emotions. The 
 writer has had the privilege of attending meetings 
 of the Indian National Congress and public gather- 
 ings of a political or quasi-political nature, where 
 Banner] ea's powerful and burning eloquence had 
 electrified vast audiences and swayed their feelings 
 as does the powerful gust of wind sway the blades 
 of corn in a field. But it must also be said to 
 Bannerj ea's credit that when the feelings of his 
 audience are raised to a pitch of intense excitement, 
 
226 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 he strikes the right note of moderation and sanity, 
 realising that the reason why feelings should be 
 purged of their dross in the fiery furnace of idealism, 
 is that they should become a motive force in con- 
 stitutional agitation. " Evolution and not Revo- 
 lution " was the burden of his political counsels to 
 the radical and ardent spirits of young Bengal, when 
 demands for the reversal of the partition were grow- 
 ing insistent and even clamorous, and when Boycott 
 and Swadeshi were the only ringing war-cries, whose 
 echoes drowned every other interest. 
 
 Banner jea's is pre-eminently a restraining influence 
 in the sphere of Indian politics not the restraint 
 whose exercise involves a surrender of independent 
 action or suggests a playing for governmental favours, 
 but that which tempers idealism with sanity and 
 which foresees the futility of irresponsible action. 
 He would always warn his countrymen of the dangers 
 implicit in " playing with the fire " and in allowing 
 their imagination to run away with itself. But he 
 would never allow the counsels of restraint to 
 degenerate into mere reactionary influences or to 
 serve as a Wet blanket on the newly awakened enthu- 
 siasm of the young. His sound political instincts 
 tell him that new-born forces that make for freedom 
 and progress cannot be suppressed, but should be 
 wisely harnessed to well-considered schemes of 
 reform. His persistent refusal, on the one hand, 
 to inflame the dangerous passions of an excitable 
 crowd and his equally sustained opposition to the 
 reactionary attitude shown, from time to time, by the 
 conservative bureaucracy in India, have in the past 
 
SURENDRA NATH BANNERJEA 227 
 
 somewhat compromised the position which he would 
 worthily fill under a liberal regime. His unique 
 service consists in his placing himself at the head of 
 the agitation against the partition of Bengal and in 
 favour of encouraging Indian industries which 
 laudable resolution took an organised shape under 
 the Swadeshi movement. 
 
 From his place in the Imperial and provincial 
 Councils he has always lifted his voice in favour of 
 reforms well-known to students of the National 
 Congress propaganda. Thus whether the demand 
 is for enlisting Indian volunteers on terms of 
 equality with Europeans, for the defence of their 
 country, or whether the request formulated is for 
 separating judicial functions from executive control, 
 or whether the demand be for the retrenchment of 
 military expenditure and the diversion of revenue 
 to more constructive purposes, Banner jea's attitude 
 has been uncompromisingly liberal and consistent 
 throughout his long and honourable career. Never 
 has he deviated one iota from the principles that 
 he imbibed in his earlier years, and whose appli- 
 cation to India gave promise, according to him, of her 
 future greatness. Being at times extreme in his 
 moderation and at others moderate in his extrem- 
 ism, he has somehow missed that popularity that falls 
 to unscrupulous fire-brands or those that see visions 
 of governmental patronage after a short-lived 
 political activity. But still, without doubt, he 
 occupies a very prominent place in the esteem and 
 affection of both old and young Bengal. 
 
 Technically, Banner jea may not be considered a 
 
 15a 
 
228 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 whole-time worker in the service of India. But if 
 only we tried and penetrated below appearances, we 
 shall discover that whether as proprietor and editor- 
 in-chief of the Bengalee or as founder of the Ripon 
 College and now as its principal, Banner jea's time 
 and attention have been fully occupied in the pro- 
 motion of objects that have profound national 
 importance. True, he has not practised the 
 austerities of Gokhale, or Jesuit-fashion renounced 
 emoluments and position, yet efficiency in the 
 political sphere may remain quite unimpaired even 
 if the leader does not submit to privations or extreme 
 simplicity. Besides, Banner jea's whole tenor of life 
 is and has been, quite simple and unostentatious: 
 any means that he may have amassed have been 
 by sheer exertion and conspicuous ability, and quite 
 apart from his engagement in any commercial enter- 
 prise that has not a direct bearing on his political 
 propaganda. In the Council chamber as on the 
 public platform, in his capacity as editor or while 
 playing the role of principal, Banner jea's one all- 
 engrossing passion has ever been to engage in the 
 service of the mother-land. 
 
 Unlike some other political enthusiasts, included 
 in this series, Bannerjea has, from the beginning 
 been quite untrammelled by conservative social 
 tradition or narrow religious orthodoxy. Though 
 Hindu to the back-bone, Bannerjea has always 
 appreciated deeply the beautiful and inspiring teach- 
 ings and ethics of Christianity, and being a life-long 
 member of that progressive Hindu denomination 
 called the Brahma Samaj, has ever insisted on the 
 
SURENDRA NATH BANNERJEA 229 
 
 need for maintaining a conciliatory attitude towards 
 other religions. B esides, he has been j ust as unrelent- 
 ing and unintermittent in his attempts at reforming 
 the Hindu religion, as he has been in insisting that 
 the fresh breath of British Liberalism may blow on 
 the surface of the stagnant waters of bureaucracy. 
 He married a wife of his own choice, who fully entered 
 into the spirit of his life-work, and to whom he showed 
 the spontaneous loyalty that springs from a happy 
 and suitable selection. His sense of public duty 
 may be judged from the interesting little incident 
 that on the day when his heart was filled with a sense 
 of utter bereavement over his wife's death he pulled 
 himself together and dictated his usual leader for 
 The Bengalee newspaper. His general attitude 
 towards social reform may be summed up in the brief 
 excerpt that we take from The Bengalee : 
 
 " We have worshipped the goddess of Sakti 
 (i.e., energy) for centuries ; how is it that through 
 those very centuries we have remained so weak and 
 helpless as a nation ? We are the devout wor- 
 shippers of ' Saras vati ' (the goddess of learning), 
 and at the same time have received a scant share of 
 her blessings. The priests who are the monopolists 
 of the religious rites and ministrations are for the 
 most part as innocent of Vedic knowledge at the 
 present day as the ' Sudra ' was in the days when 
 the gates of knowledge were shut against him by the 
 iron rules of caste. We offer our devotions to 
 ' Lakhshmi ' (the goddess of wealth) every recurrent 
 year ; and we remain none the less a nation of 
 paupers. 
 
230 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 " The orthodox Hindu makes a fetish of certain 
 rules of hygiene formulated by his ancestors in the 
 dim past ; he regards it as sin, for instance, to take 
 his meals without bathing, or to remain in unwashed 
 clothes for more than a day ; but with all his religious 
 devotion to the traditional rules of cleanliness, he 
 betrays a strange indifference to the principles of 
 sanitation evolved by modern science. ... It 
 requires little reasoning to convince oneself that 
 the extreme conservatism of the orthodox section of 
 the Hindu community . . . which looks upon 
 the least modification of existing institutions as a 
 profanity and desecration is necessarily the negation 
 of progress." 
 
 Mr. Bannerjea came into touch with the champions 
 of British Liberalism, during the formative years of 
 undergraduate life in London, and the influence 
 exercised on his mind by such illustrious Liberals as 
 Gladstone, Bright, Cobden and others, during these 
 impressionable years, has produced in him a men- 
 tality that is at once friendly disposed towards the 
 great traditions of democracy and freedom in 
 England, and is suspicious of the secret intrigues 
 and the intricate diplomatic juggleries practised 
 by bureaucratic governments. Professor Henry 
 Morley, of University College, London, took an 
 especial interest in Bannerjea while the latter was, 
 in 1869, qualifying for the I.C.S. competitive 
 examination in London. Banner jea's gratitude for 
 the numerous little acts of kindness shown by 
 the professor was quite enthusiastic and forged 
 links of affection for England. Like the late Sir 
 
SURENDRA NATH BANNER JEA 231 
 
 Pheroz Shah Mehta, Gokhale and others, Banner] ea 
 would seriously read " devour " may be the right 
 word best English masterpieces, not simply to 
 acquire cultured style, but also to imbibe ideas that 
 burned with such radiant glow in the pages of Burke, 
 Macaulay, Mill, Spencer, and Morley, to mention only 
 a few from among the Intellectuals that were 
 Banner] ea's favourites. It is surprising how much 
 he learned from these men, and especially what 
 valuable asistance he almost subconsciously derived 
 in the matter of command over style from these 
 past-masters in style. English admirers of Mr. 
 Banner jea almost instinctively liken him to Burke 
 and Gladstone. And when in 19 10 he came as India's 
 delegate to the Imperial Press Conference, and later 
 delivered a series of lectures on India, English literary 
 critics compared him to Cicero, Burke, Macaulay 
 and Gladstone, not only having regard to his mastery 
 over style, but also his vigour of thought and the 
 high moral platform which he always took. 
 
 Clearness of political aim and the concentration of 
 all energy, and intelligence on the achievement of 
 that aim, be the obstacles ever so formidable, is 
 another outstanding strain in Bannerjea's character. 
 While on a political mission to England, he very 
 politely but quite firmly repudiated Lord Morley's 
 dictum that the partition of Bengal was " a settled 
 fact." And the tenacity with which he held on to 
 his hopes that the partition would yet be annulled, 
 when British statesmanship awoke from its dogmatic 
 slumbers, called forth from the late Mr. W. T. Stead 
 the compliment that he was Mr. " Surrender-not 
 
232 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 Bannerjea." Equally firm and polite was he in 
 airing his views on the Indian situation to Lord 
 Haldane on the same occasion as above and his 
 lordship was quite impressed with the strength of his 
 conviction and his invincible faith that things will 
 work out all right in the end. 
 
 There is a little romance connected with his visit 
 to England. It is said that his mother did not 
 approve of his voyage to England, but Bannerjea 
 seized the opportunity when Romesh Chunder 
 Dutt and Behari Lai Gupta were sailing for England, 
 and ran away from home ! The illustrious trio 
 were an acquisition to University College, London, 
 and showed remarkable powers of industry, intelli- 
 gence and general reliability in character. They soon 
 competed for the Civil Service Examination and 
 passed with credit, if not with distinction, Bannerjea, 
 Dutt and Gupta taking high places. By a curious 
 misfortune, which for India turned out to be a lasting 
 blessing in disguise, Bannerjea was, after three years 
 of service as Assistant Commissioner of Sylhet, asked 
 to resign because of the following unfortunate 
 incident. 
 
 A commission was appointed to enquire into cer- 
 tain irregularities alleged to be done by Bannerjea, 
 while the latter was an Assistant Commissioner. 
 Their report was adverse. Those were days when 
 encroachment on the sanctum of the service by 
 Indians was zealously guarded against. The lenient 
 view entertained by his brother officers was that as 
 a young officer, Bannerjea was rather lazy and 
 careless. But the stricter interpretation of his fail- 
 
SURENDRA NATH BANNERJEA 233 
 
 ing was that he deliberately made wrong entries in 
 official documents. In any case, a stern rebuke or 
 suspension of promotion for a short period might 
 well have been an adequate penalty. But officialdom 
 surpassed itself by demanding the instant dismissal of 
 such a brilliant acquisition to the service, for his first 
 dereliction of duty. 
 
 He appealed to the Secretary of State for India 
 personally, who refused to intervene, and upheld the 
 decision of the Indian authorities. Banner jea faced 
 this great calamity he was quite impecunious by 
 this time with great fortitude, never allowing this 
 unpleasant memory to influence his views or com- 
 promise the friendship he has always cherished with 
 England's great men. 
 
 Mr. Bannerjea is a confirmed believer that per- 
 manent friendship between England and India is 
 necessary for the welfare of both, and hence he has 
 never swerved from his ideal of political autonomy 
 within the Empire. Yet no one has offered a more 
 scathing indictment of that Neo-Imperialism 
 represented by such able and influential exponents 
 as e.g., Lord Curzon which teaches that Asiatic 
 nations must sit for all time at the footstool of 
 European civilisations, and that Indians must 
 " think imperially," that is to say, according to Lord 
 Curzon, that they should hug and kiss their chains as 
 if these were symbols of distinction and regard their 
 captors as if they were a guard of honour. 
 
 But this reactionary policy and purblind vision 
 should not, according to Bannerjea harden the hearts 
 of Indians against the more progressive and enlight- 
 
234 INDIA'S NATION BUILDERS 
 
 ened views concerning Empire which obtain in 
 democratic circles throughout Britain. 
 
 No one has given saner advice or lent more power- 
 ful support to the cause of Swadeshi in Bengal as 
 elsewhere. He had sufficient political sagacity to 
 see that the particular occasion when resentful 
 feelings against the partition rose to fever-heat and 
 Sir Bamfylde Fuller's policy of " Divide and rule " 
 produced very unhappy, if not tragic consequences 
 in its train that that was the psychological moment 
 when the swollen volume of political unrest should be 
 diverted along profitable channels, to fertilise many 
 a barren field of action, as also to provide legitimate 
 outlets for energies which might easily become 
 dangerous, if not properly utilised. His advocacy of 
 Swadeshi disarmed the boycott propaganda carried 
 on by the National Volunteers. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
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 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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 University of Gffifornia 
 Berkeley