Bande Mataram

The Times Romancist

20-August-1907

The London Times has developed a new Newmaniac all to itself. The original Newmaniac of Calcutta had the National Volunteers for his special monomania: the Times specimen seems to have got the Arya Samaj on his brain. In a long and elaborate article he has traced the genesis of this dangerous group, its control over the bourgeoisie, its deadly seditious attempts to make use of the masses, and the final extinction of the rebellious movement by the strong and masterly policy of Sir Denzil Ibbetson. All this reads well as the romance of history, but when it is given us as a serious attempt to account for the situation in the Punjab, we begin to see what a plentiful lack of wisdom and knowledge governs us in India. For we may be sure that the diet of lies which the Times correspondent serves up as a dainty dish for the British public, is merely a daintily-seasoned version of the official view in the Punjab. It is not to be questioned that the present struggle is a contest between the intellectuals of India who are recruited mainly from the middle class, and the alien officials. In the struggle the former are attempting to range all classes under the common banner of liberty and Indian resurgence, just as the same class has done in Russia, and there is nothing in the aim or the movement which is illegitimate or immoral. If there is any immorality, it is surely on the side of the ruling class which is fighting for monopoly and privilege while the bourgeoisie are fighting for their own self-preservation and the life and expansion of their race and nation. The Times correspondent speaks acutely enough when he says that the middle class are trying to make their will the will of the nation and the object of the bureaucracy must be to prevent that consummation. But when the writer begins to trace all evil to the Arya Samaj, he at once passes into the regions of romance. No doubt the lion's share of the political spirit and

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genius in the Punjab belongs to the Aryas, but that is the result of the manliness of the creed preached by Dayananda and the admirable working power, self-sacrifice and gift of organisation which the Samaj has fostered among its members. But self-sacrifice, energy, organisation are precisely what most terrify the panic-stricken Anglo-Indian, and nothing will convince him that where these are, there is not a dangerous conspiracy against the British Raj. We may tell this new Newmaniac that if there were such a serious and skilfully engineered movement as the one he affects to describe,—well, the special correspondent of the Times would not be touring at his ease and writing nonsense at the present moment. Whatever has happened in India has been the result of great spontaneous forces without organisation or even conscious purpose: those who have seen where they were going, have been a small minority.

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