Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

7

The Government's Dilemma

That the Government was extremely agitated at the situation developing in the country is well brought out by the following news item in the Modern Review of March 1909.

"Human Pawns? The report comes from Berlin that Great Britain has entered into an understanding with the Sultan (of Turkey) by which in consideration for British support in the Near East, he shall cast his influence with his coreligionists in India in favour of the British rule." (Boston Evening Transcripts)

"This extraordinary announcement, if true, would seem to betoken a curious nervousness on the part of the British in India The people we wonder at, are those who seem to think that different communities in India are mere pawns on the chess-board of politics to be moved hither and thither at the wish and judgement of the players. We are human beings—whether Hindus or Mohammedans. And India is our motherland. We experience hunger together in summer, when the harvests fail. We rejoice together when the seasons are good. We think of the same places when in some foreign land we are assailed by the pangs of home-sickness." Such was the sentiment expressed by the magazine's editor, Ramananda Chatterji.

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The warrant of arrest was the fruit of much debate in the highest administrative circles. Letters and telegrams, proposals and counter-proposals had been triangularly exchanged between the governments of Bengal, of India, and the Secretary of State for India.

The fact of the matter is that the Indo-British government was scared of Babu Arabindo Ghose. True, it was now able to breathe a little more easily, since most of the known 'terrorists' like Barin, Upen, Ullaskar etc., had been banished for life to the Andamans. Other 'troublemakers' had been safely put behind bars. Bal Gangadhar Tilak was rotting in a jail in Mandalay (Burma). Bepin Pal had left India. As 'leaders' only men like G. K. Gokhale and Pherozshah Mehta were acting out like puppets the part assigned to them by the wily British. India was more or less manageable. Even in Bengal, which continued to give the rulers a headache, the government could quite handle a Moderate leader like Surendra Nath Banerji, although he too was rather unreliable. Always seeking popularity, he swam with the fish. He hid the truth and called it 'diplomacy'!

But the root cause of the Indian government's headache was Babu Arabindo Ghose, an analyzer par excellence. He was "the most dangerous of our adversaries now at large" as the Chief Secretary to the government of Bengal put it. Here was a man who had a backbone, who always spoke out. Arabindo Babu was not just a run-of-the-mill politician, he was a statesman. He knew and acted on the principle that "truth has a greater hold on the imagination of the common people than the polished lies of a silver-tongued orator."

What's more, Babu Arabindo Ghose was a gentleman. He

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was "the fountain of moral and intellectual energy," to borrow the words of the British administration. Arabindo Babu refused to stoop low. Remember the Hooghly Conference in September 1909? The Extremists were a democratic party. The policy makers presented their decisions to the rank and file, who adopted or amended them. Just before the start of the official conference, the Nationalist policy makers met. Several of them were for bringing down the Moderate party. 'You must bring down the Moderates by any means fair or foul...." Do you know what Sri Aurobindo replied? "No, I shall never agree to that. Do you have any idea what great work Surendranath Banerji and his Moderate Party have done in Bengal politics? We are standing on their shoulders and because of that we appear tall." He added calmly, "Besides this, whatever be anybody's work, I shall not be a party to bringing down their downfall by foul means........."

The government was fully aware of all that. But what caused consternation among the bureaucrats was to feel that Babu Arabindo Ghose could easily see through their moves and countermoves, and expose to the public the underlying scheme so as to offset their plans. Therefore the urgent question before the British bureaucrats was: how to get rid of this 'dangerous' obstacle?

Judge Beachcroft had dismissed the sedition case against this 'most dangerous man' to use the words of the Viceroy. Dare the government go on an appeal against that verdict? Did they have enough judicially sustainable evidence to clinch the charge against him? What if a court of law were once again to acquit Babu Arabindo Ghose? Won't that make them a

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laughing-stock? Realizing the weakness of their case the government reluctantly abandoned the idea of an appeal.

A second option was to deport Babu Arabindo without trial. Just as they had done to K.K. Mitra and others in December 1908. But then the Alipore Bomb Case trial was still going on. But now? What excuses could the government find? Rather it risked evoking an outcry by the English public. Fearing the public opinion, the Secretary of State, Lord Morley, put his foot down: "As for deportation, I will not listen to it."

There remained a third option.

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