Bande Mataram

A Danger to the State

28-June-1907

Mr. Morley has declared from his high archangel's seat that Lajpat Rai was a danger to the State. We wonder what Mr. Morley means by the State. The biographer of Burke must certainly know enough of political science to be aware that a temporary and forcible subjugation of three hundred millions of people by a handful of alien bureaucrats does not constitute an organized state. It is an unnatural condition which can only last so long as the diseases of the body politic engendered by it do not become critical. The people of India, thrilled with new ideas and aspirations, reawakened to self-knowledge and bent on ensuring the continuity in development of their ancient civilization, cannot see their way to assimilate themselves to the alien handful. They demand that the system of government shall be so rearranged that an organized State may again be constituted in India. The leaders in that attempt are the hope of the future State and a danger only to the morbid and unnatural bureaucratic cancer which prevents its growth. Lajpat Rai, says Mr. Morley, may have devoted his time and means to religious and social reforms, but he could not therefore expect immunity for the actions which render him a danger to the State. Now, Lajpat Rai devoted himself to politics in the very same spirit as he devoted himself to religious and social reform. His

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whole aim was to assist the healthy and free development of this ancient nation and its distinctive civilization. If he subordinated his social and religious activity for the time being to the political, it was from the conviction that the causes of his country's sufferings are political. If he erred, he has erred in company with Mr. Morley. It was the present hope of Anglo-India who tried to refute Professor Seeley and show that the striking amount of happiness which America began to enjoy after her secession from the British Empire was the consequence of that secession. Independence, Mr. Morley argued, not only put the Americans on their mettle, but it left them with fresh views, with a temper of unbounded adaptability, with an infinite readiness to try experiments and free room to indulge it as largely as ever they pleased. Independence alone, he held, and Mr. Chaudhuri and others of his way of thinking should take note of it, can give a stimulus to all the nonpolitical forces which make for the happiness of man. Australia and Canada cannot approach the United States in vigour, originality and spirit, because their national life is circumscribed and provincial. If, therefore, Lajpat Rai devoted himself to the political regeneration of his country and the attainment of autonomy, he was merely carrying out in practice Mr. Morley's political teachings. Why, then, does the teacher turn round and deport his pupil?