Bande Mataram

The Bagbazar Meeting

14-May-1907

We do not clearly understand what has been gained by the Bagbazar meeting held on Sunday under the auspices of the leading lights of Bengal. There were one or two speeches made which said certain obvious things and there were certain resolutions passed in which we condoled, sympathised, demanded and protested. But when the meeting dispersed, we were not one whit more forward than we had been a few hours before. What we want to know, what the country wants to know, is not what we think—there is no doubt or difference of opinion about that, everybody is thinking the same thing,—but what are we going to do? The right of public meeting is to be allowed to us in future only on sufferance; students of schools are not to be permitted to think about politics; students of colleges, schoolmasters, professors are to be suffered to take interest in politics only so long as they do not do or say anything unpleasant or objectionable to the authorities; Nationalist agitation has been practically forbidden on penalty of arrest, deportation or exposure to police or Mahomedan goondaism. What the Government means to do, is plain enough. It intends to put down Nationalism with the high hand and crush every attempt of the nation to raise its head, every aspiration to breathe, to grow and to live. The question now is, what do we mean to do in reply?

There were four subjects before the meeting on Sunday. The deportation of Lajpat Rai came first in importance, because it shows to what extremes the bureaucracy is prepared to go in order to crush Nationalism. Merely to express indignation and sympathy in answer to such a step, is absurd; it has all the bathos and futility of a foreseen commonplace. Of course we are

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indignant, of course we sympathise, but what afterwards? Have we no duty to perform except the expression of these very natural, unavoidable and entirely useless emotions? Yes, we demand that the charges against Lajpat Rai should be formulated and proved. From whom do we make this demand? In the case of the Natu brothers it was just possible that pressure in Parliament might induce the Government in England to undo what the Government in Bombay had done in a moment of panic. Here there is no such possibility. Mr. Morley has publicly identified himself with this act of arbitrary oppression and his mind is too stiff and rigid with age to change. The deportation of Lajpat Rai is therefore an action for which the Liberal Government has become responsible and, as such, is bound to have the support of almost the whole Liberal party, while it will certainly have the support of the whole Conservative party. Who then is likely to listen to this empty "demand"? We could have understood it, if the demand had been coupled with a resolution that the campaign of Boycott, Swadeshi and Swaraj should be pursued with tenfold vigour, that Srijut Bipin Chandra Pal should be asked to return to Madras and complete his programme with additions and Srijut Surendranath Banerji should proceed at once to the North for the same purpose and should take in Gujarat and the Central Provinces in his return journey, and that meanwhile every nerve should be strained to promote and organise the movement in Bengal. The resolution would then have had a meaning and the nation would have been inspirited to draw fresh resolve and energy from what would otherwise be a national calamity. As it stands, this "demand" rings hollow and savours of empty braggadocio.

The second question before the meeting was the state of things in Eastern Bengal, and here again the meeting dispersed after passing an utterly empty and unpractical resolution. There are various ways in which the situation might be met. It might have been resolved to arrange a meeting with the leading Mahomedans of Bengal and call upon them to dissociate themselves publicly from Nawab Salimullah and take active steps in order to put a stop to the anti-Hindu ferment which its misbegetters are

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now attempting to spread westward. Or, we might have decided in consultation with the Hindu Zamindars in the east to arrange adequate self-defence at every defensible point of the affected areas and withdraw the Hindu element from villages where they were too few to render a good account of themselves. This would either have compelled the hooligans to throw themselves upon well-defended points and meet the risk of a salutary defeat which they have hitherto avoided, or else left the conflagration to die for want of material to prey upon—unless it turned upon those who had kindled it. But merely to lament the situation and express an astonishment which nobody really feels at the action of the local authorities, is neither helpful nor sincere.

A third subject for consideration was the University Coercion Circular. This was a crucial point; from the way in which it was dealt with, the country could understand how far the sincerity and resolution of its leaders would go. It would perhaps be too much to expect of these gentlemen that they would respond to the insult that has been put upon them by a dignified resolution to sever connection with an enslaved and degraded University and take the education of the country into their own hands. In the present development of public feeling this would be perfectly practicable and we believe it would be welcomed with enthusiasm by the whole of Bengal; but it requires an amount of enthusiasm and courage which we have ceased to expect from the men who lead us. Surely, however, they might at least have definitely assured the public that they would offer a firm passive resistance to the provisions of the Circular and leave the Government, if it dared, to inflict the penalty of disaffiliation with or without the consent of the Senate. Even this was not done. "We protest," and there is an end of the matter.

The same course was followed with regard to the Ordinance restricting the right of public meeting. Under this Ordinance the Government reserves to itself the power of putting an extinguisher on the Nationalist agitation whenever and wherever it pleases. The agitation has been a public one and had nothing in it secret or underground; but if we submit to the Ordinance, it must lose its public character and adopt other methods. Are

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we prepared to accept this eventuality? We had given up petitioning as proved by experience to be futile and cannot return to it without acknowledging defeat and enslaving India for ever to the bureaucracy. Passive resistance has become our chosen weapon and this it is sought to strike out of our hands. We must, therefore, either oppose an organised passive resistance to this Ordinance, a resistance in which leaders like Srijut Surendranath must court imprisonment and deportation, or we must find other methods. It was light on this question that we expected from Sunday's meeting, but it has left us only darkness visible. It seems to be the policy of our leaders to "protest"—and submit.