|
Partition of Bengal
IT SEEMS strange that few of our old leaders are able to realise the very simple fact that the bearings of this question have undergone a most radical change in the course of the last few months. We objected so strongly to this measure because it was calculated to strike a serious blow at the political power of the Bengalee-speaking race. Our second objection was that it was professedly wanted by the Government to create a Mahomedan province with Dacca as its capital, and the evident object of it was to sow discord between the Hindus and the Mahomedans in a Province that had never known it in the whole history of the present British connection. The first object of the Government has failed most egregiously. The political power of the Bengalee people is a hundred times greater today, divided though they are administratively now, than it was before the Partition of their Province, and the continuance of the Partition will in- crease instead of in any way-abating this power. Those who fear that the present ferment will soon settle down as people become accustomed to the new order, have misread the whole situation. The present agitation has clearly touched much deeper grounds than these men seem to have any idea of. There is in this agitation a consciousness of a new strength, the quickening of a new life, the inspiration of a new ideal. This agitation is not an agitation merely against Partition or against any other particular measure of the Government; it is an agitation for the coming of the people to their own in the political life of their country. Not the revocation of Partition or any modification of it such as will place the Bengalee nation under one administration, but the attainment of absolute national autonomy, - it is this alone that will settle down this movement. This is the one absolutely un- questionable fact that stands out clearly of the history of Bengal for the last twelve months; and it proves the complete failure of one at least of the evil objects with which the Partition of Bengal was effected. And the other object is also bound to fail as egre Page-20 giously. The Government has, to some slight extent, succeeded in creating a breach between the Hindus and the Mahomedans in the New Province; but signs are not wanting of the total and collapse of this evil endeavour also. In some places, as at Comilla for instance, the Mahomedan populations misled just a. while by interested leaders, have already come to recognise ,the identity of their political interests with those of the Hindu populations, and they have, therefore, already joined the present agitation almost in full force. At Dacca and other places the folly of their present anti-Hindu attitude is being brought home to them by sterner means, and it will not be long before they too come to realise that they must sink or swim with their Hindu fellow-countrymen and that isolation from or opposition to the present movement will necessarily spell their serfdom and subordination in the coming era of India’s national autonomy and national progress. The fatal folly of the Anglo-Indian Press who are trying to incite racial animosities will also be discovered to their own authors as it has already been to the general intelligent public all over India. The idea that by encouraging Mahomedan rowdyism, the present agitation may be put down, is preposterous; and those who cherish this notion forget that the bully is neither the strongest nor the bravest of men; and that because the self-restraint of the Hindu, miscalled cowardice, has been a prominent feature of his national character, he is absolutely incapable of striking straight and striking hard when any sacred situation demands this. Nor has it been proved even in recent British-concocted disputes between Hindus and Mahomedans in different parts of India, that the mild Hindu is so absolutely helpless and incapable of defending his rights and liberties he is painted to be by his foreign enemies. Even in Bengal, and more particularly in East Bengal, it must not be supposed that the fighting capacity of the Mahomedan is greater than that of the Hindu, The upper classes, both among Mahomedans and Hindus, are equally weak and they do not constitute anywhere the rowdiest element of society. It is the lower classes alone who find its rowdyism to every society; and the lower class of Hindus, notably the Namasudras, than whom a finer set of fighting materials can hardly be found anywhere, are as strong and as brave as the Page-21
lower class of Mahomedans, and in the frequent fights between rival Zemindars
these Hindus form as strong an element as the Mahomedans. There is no desire
among any responsible Hindu leader in Bengal or elsewhere to set up the Hindu
against the Mahomedan, and the influence of educated leadership has always been
exerted in the past, as it is being done even now, on the side of amity and
peace; but if the larger interests of the nation, which means the larger
interests of both the Hindus and the Mahomedans alike, ever demand that the
Hindu should show his hand, if only to take the conceit of superior physical
courage or physical force out of any opposing faction in the country, there will
be no hesitancy to do it. The Anglo-Indian publicist who harps constantly on the
weakness of the Babu, forgets that the Babu stands no longer by himself, but has
the whole country, and more particularly the whole of the Hindu population, at
his back. The present movement has welded the masses and the classes together;
and it is therefore not likely to be cowed down by any threat of violence from
any quarter. And all these tend to show that both the evils which the Partition
was designed to work, have no chance of being realised, whether the Partition is
kept up or it is revoked and modified. Page-22 |