Bande Mataram

Unity by Co-operation

20-March-1908

Of all the little bodies which we are trying to build up for the regeneration of the country, those are the true centres of strength which come nearest to the ideal of love and justice, which bind their members together in a close and affectionate unity, which form a league of brotherhood and mutual help, which without attempting to absorb all into themselves are always ready to come to the assistance of similar societies and of everyone who is in need of help. The country is a large one, the difficulties of organization are enormous, and no single organization can hope to monopolise the work. What we need is not a single all-embracing organization, but a number of smaller ones harmoniously co-operating together, free from jealousy, willing to give the first place to the others, provided the work progresses. The various Samitis which have sprung into existence in Calcutta are all doing good work, as has been shown by the success of the Ardhodaya Yog arrangements, and they form a source of energy, little units of strength which are bound to become the basis of the future organization of the country. But these Samitis are at present disconnected and without a connecting bond. They join together when some great occasion calls for their united action, but they again fall apart as soon as the call is over, and pursue their isolated path. What is needed now is a machinery which will keep them in touch with each other without permitting any mutual interference; each unit should be independent in its work and its constitution, but the leaders should be in constant communication so that all the Samitis may be cognizant of each other's work and ready to help whenever help is needed. Moreover when occasion calls for united action the leaders should

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be in a position to take advantage of each other's help without loss of time; they should feel that they can immediately lay their hands on the strength they stand in need of and apply it at the right place and moment. If this can be done, the recent success at the Ardhodaya Yog will be a starting-point for the better organization of the country and for the beginning of a series of similar successes which will gradually make the nation feel the source of strength within itself and learn to utilise it in every department of activity. We are apt to get each absorbed in his own little sphere of action, to set an exaggerated value upon it and try to carry it out by our own unaided and isolated strength, so that the work progresses slowly, is partial, limited and halting in its success and carried on under crushing difficulties which interfere with its perfection and usefulness. There are several Nationalist journals which are doing each in its own line a great work for the country, but they are working in an isolated fashion, each absorbed in its own struggle to survive, each exposed to attack from the same powerful adversary, yet careless of the other,—a condition of things which gives enormous advantages to the enemy who is already powerful enough to crush them and would have crushed them long ago if there had not been a greater Power which willed that these little flickering lights should not be extinguished. During the Nationalist Conference at Surat it was decided to set on foot a Press Conference for the better preservation of and mutual assistance and constant communication between the papers which are struggling under heart-breaking difficulties, with the constant threat of prosecution hanging over them, to keep the lamp of hope and faith burning in the temple of the Mother. No further step has been taken in this direction, at least in Bengal, and it is time that it should be taken up in earnest and a Conference of the Nationalist Press in Calcutta arranged by which that Press should become a common body associated for mutual assistance and support. A typical instance of the difficulties which result from the absence of such a Conference is the temporary disappearance of New India while Srijut Bipin Chandra Pal was in jail. That disappearance should never have been allowed; as a point of honour, if nothing else, the paper

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should have been maintained at any cost; but there was no common body, no common action. Each organ of Nationalism was struggling with its own difficulties, absorbed in itself and oblivious of the advantages of co-operation.

There are many other departments of work which are suffering from the same want of co-operation between the workers, and it is unnecessary to enumerate them. Each of them should be organised separately on the basis not of an impossible centralisation, but of harmonious co-operation. When each is united within itself, the higher unity for which we are hoping will naturally come into existence. That organization will be most vital, lasting and sound which comes as a natural growth, developing in answer to growing needs and formed by the closer union of units which have grown up independently and preserved their separate life within the general unity. Life is organic because it evolves from the separate to the united, from the individual to the group, from the cell to the organism, and what we require in India is political life, not a manufactured unity. All our previous attempts at union have been failures because we did not recognize this law of growth.