By the Indian National movement we mean the political movement started and led by the Indian National Congress for the freedom of India. Its spirit and scope are determined by the constitution and accepted official policy of the Congress, and not by the teachings and activities of Mahatma Gandhi who has attempted with considerable success to supply the deficiencies of the original Corigress scheme and supplement it with some new organisations for constructive work. But we cannot say that the Congress itself has been saved from the inevitable perils of its inevitable constitution. In the first place there are many aspects of the problem of national regeneration which are not touched by the Congress or Mahatma Gandhi,’ and which the people themselves have to tackle if the country is to obtain its true freedom. In the second place even those constructive efforts initiated by Mahatmaji have not become a vital part of the national programme in popular psychology. Therefore, it is very likely that when Mahatrnaji’s personal guidance is lost to the Congress—God grant that it may continue for many years more the Congress and the people will relapse into the more convenient narrow groove of the strictly Congress policy and lose the benefit of the progress that has been already made under Mahatmaji’s leadership. This will mean an indefinite prolonging of the period of agony and struggle. It is therefore necessary to consider the Congress by itself, apart from Mahatmaji, in order to detect its deficiencies. Mahatmo’s work and teachings stand as a distinct contribution of that saint. The nation has not yet proved its worth to claim credit for most of the things that its leader is doing. Let us examine ourselves and see where we stand without him, and then only we shall be able to put our finger on the weak points of our system. Some of the drawbacks we have ventured to point out are inevitable under the peculiar circumstances in which we are working at present and are mentioned only to emphasise the need for devising a remedy, and not in a spirit of condemnation.
The Congress is committed to a purely political programme, strictly eschewing social and religious matters, and this is necessary as a practical measure, though unsupportable on principle. Our life, individual as well as collective, is one homogeneous and organic whole and cannot be cut up into watertight compartments, such as politics, religion and society.
As the late Ranade put it so eloquently “The liberation that has to be sought is not in one department of life, or one set of activity, or in one sphere ,of thought, but it is an alhound work in which you cannot dissociate one activity from another. You cannot have a good social system when you find yourself low in the scale of political rights, nor can you be fit to exercise political rights and privileges unless your social system is based on reason and justice. You cannot have a good economic system when your social arrangements are imperfect. If your religious ideals are low and grovelling, you cannot succeed in social, economical or political spheres. This interdependence is not an accident but is the law of our nature. It is a mistaken view which divorces considerations political from those social and economical, and no man can be said to realise his duty in one aspect who neglects his ‘duties in the other directions.”
We would go a step further and say that the very idea of separate compartments is erroneous and harmful. There is really only one big problem, so clearly interconnected and interdependent in all its aspects, that to treat one part of it as materially different from another would be a fundamental mistake. To the nationalist who wants to see the country free and united, there are no distinct things like religion and politics, but they are included in the one question of organising the national life for its supreme fulfillment. Religion no less than politics has to justify itself by its helpfulness in achieving this aim. Social institutions have a value or significance only to the extent that they serve to promote national welfare., A truly national, state or government cannot shirk responsibility in any of these spheres of life and must be able to exercise its power for the common good as much in so-called religious matters as in political affairs. The reason for excluding social problems from the Congress platform is one of mere expediency or practical politics.
The president-elect of the Congress in his message to the Social Conference of 1895 wrote thus: “The raison detre for excluding social questions from our deliberations is that if we were to take up such questions, it may lead to serious differences ultimately culminating in a schism, and it is a matter of the first importance to prevent a split.” While the Congress is thus justified in its attitude, it at the same time confesses the dangerous potentialities of our social life, and its incapacity for the time, at any rate, to do anything to improve the situation. For the Hindus this is a very serious affair for various reasons.
The most potent evil of our past which ultimately led to the downfall of the Hindus and the loss of the country’s freedom, was the estrangement of society from the state, the creation of two independent governing entities or souls within the same body of the people. A distinguished Indian historian of the present generation writes: “The fact is, India presents the rare and remarkable phenomenon of the state and society co-existing apart from, and in some degree of independence of each other as independent centres of national, popular and collective life and activity.” It was not only a rare and remarkable phenomenon but also a disastrous one in the evolution of the nation’s lift. The Aryan invaders for some time kept themselves aloof from the mass of the people as a superior race, and later on the priests succeeded in putting a stop to intermingling by their caste rules. , The Brahmanical regulations condemned the large body of the early inhabitants of India to complete exclusion from the civilisation of the rulers. The state, then, recognized no duty to its Indian subjects. At a later stage, when the priestly and the warrior classes established themselves as two rival powers as Brahmans and Kshatriyas, the Kshatriya ruler was not to interfere with social and religious matters except on the advice of the Brahmans. The Brahmans represented the highest social and religious authority, the de facto rulers. The Kshatriya state was only a military power subordinate to the Brahman, and its function was confined to conquering expeditions and amassing wealth to be shared between the priests and the warriors. The separation of the -Kshatriya state from the society was thus an essential element of the scheme of Brahmanical ordination. Later still, when the Muharnmadans and the English became rulers, as foreigners in culture and religion, they kept aloof from the communal life of the Hindus who were left to take care of themselves, as best as they could, under- Brahman leadership. In this way for many centuries now, the Hindus have been subject to two imperialisms the imperialism of the foreign ruler represented by the state and the lmperialism of the priest represented by the society. As Sir R. G. Bhandarkar said: “We have been subject to a threefold tyranny; political tyranny, priestly tyranny and social tyranny or the tyranny of caste. (The last two are really one.) Crushed by this no man has dared to stand up and assert himself. Even religious reformers have shunned the legitimate consequences of their doctrines to avoid coming into conflict with the established order of things. . . At present, however, though we live under a foreign Government, we enjoy a freedom of thought and actions such as we never enjoyed before under our own Hindu princes. But have we shown a capacity to shake ourselves free from priestly and social tyranny? I am afraid not much?’ This then is the secret of the punctilious separation of politics from social matters observed by the Congress. Like former Hindu reformers and teachers who preached liberal ideals but were afraid to touch the existing order of things, the great Congress also, for fear of antagonizing powerful vested interests, has preferred to circumvent the danger by chalking out an exclusively political path of its own. The results have not been all for the good.
(a) The Congress is becoming a body of professional politicians or agitators or fighters, a new race of Kshatriyas who are willing to submit to the Brahmanical order with a view to facilitate a speedy victory over the foreign rulers. Just as the ancient Kshatriyas, the Rajputs and the Mahrattas were made use of to .oppose successive invaders in the name of religion and the nation, so the Congress is now leading a struggle as an army of politicians with -little inclination or power to concern itself with the social life of the people. As has repeatedly happened in the past, when. the victory is won, real power instead of passing to the Congress Kshatriyas, will continue in the hands of the native imperialists.
(b) True Indian Nationalism is not a new thing nor can it be purely political in the restricted sense: From time immemorial as we have shown in previous chapters—Hilndu Nationalism has stood for certain fundamental rights and truths, and its struggles were invariably characterised in all stages, cen-tury after century, by a passionate opposition to caste and priestcraft and an earnest yearning to assimilate other peoples and cultures. It is admitted that
Indian Nationalism has its root in Hindu Nationalism. If that is so, by divorcing politics from social matters, Indian Nationalism has abandoned Hindu National-ism and thus cut its own root. The continuity of the national movement is lost, its positive significance to the Hindus is considerably reduced, its link with the past and the present actualities of Hindu life is broken ; its vital contact with its own followers is made extremely flimsy. Nationalism is made to hang on the thin shred of opposition to the foreign rulers.
(c) Just as the policy of non-interference followed by the British with regard to the social and religious life of the people has contributed to strengthen and perpetuate all the ills and vices of society, the Congress policy certainly tends to give another lease of life to the social evils which are sucking the nation’s blood every moment. Silence is taken as approbation by the people. When the Congress refuses to put its hand to the work of social and religious emancipation, nay piously keeps aloof from all such activities by prohibiting the use of its pavilion for social conferences, it is by that very act, throwing cold water on Hindu liberalism and strengthening the forces of orthodoxy. In fact the Congress policy has created an impression that national regeneration has nothing to do with society and religion which may be left to their fate, good or bad. It has killed the spirit of Hindu Protestantism and strengthened the orthodox forces. While all the good Hindu workers have been drawn into the Congress circle and their services thus lost to the social movements, the rich and the orthodox Hindus have set up their organisations to thwart the national aspirations. These anti-national, exploiting, imperialistic Hindu associations are now standing out as representatives of Hindu society and religion; the Congress does not dare to speak for the Hindus, and the Hindu proletariat have no means of ventilating their grievances and yearnings. The Congress has thus crushed, in effect, its allies, the social reformers, and left the field entirely to its enemies, the orthodox Hindu Party.
(d) After all, the Government of independent India has to be carried on by the people and not by a few saintly leaders. One great object of all political agitation should be to train the people to organize themselves, fight for and preserve their rights when they are gained in a truly democratic spirit. As president of the Congress the Hon. Mr. Sinha said “It is the people Whom we want to be capable of self-government, not merely Indians like ourselves but the people in the villages who toil with the sweat of their brow . . You have got to work. day and night, patiently and strenuously, if you desire to achieve the object which you profess—Government of the people for the people and by the people.” The educative value of a political movement is considerably lost when it is reduced to a mere struggle with the rulers. The real fight is with ourselves, with the disintegrating tendencies in our own social organism and not with the foreigners. Nations are themselves responsible for their fate. The people of modern India have to thank themselves if they have allowed their freedom to be destroyed, first by their priestly masters and then by foreign adventurers.
Unless we drive this truth home to the people and enable them to stand on their own lgs, to resist exploitations of every kind, to assert their manliness in all spheres of life, in fact to make them a nation of free men, political independence will be hardly worth fighting for. When the masses are left to be sat upon, ridden upon and spat upon by their own leaders, they are not likely to prove worthy of holding the reins of administration when the victory is won. Indian Nationalism loses its value as a popular, educative, regenerative and democratic self, expansion when its operation is restricted to politics. Much of the good influence exerted by the Congress is destroyed by the’ overwhelming counter forces under which the people are daily labouring. The high hopes and righteous fervor created by Mahatmaji in the popular mind have been all but lost because there was no organisation spread among the masses to divert their enthusiasm to practical reform and reconstruction of life. Ma.hattnaji roused them from their age-long lethargy, infused a new courage into their hearts and they were ready to take marching orders, but there was no one to give the order. There was no competent agency to utilise the national awakening to any permanent benefit and the people fell back into their traditional in-difference and submission to evils. Unless the progress that is made in the political sphere is consolidated by corresponding improvement in social conditions, the energy and resources of the political organisation will be spent in repeated attempts to overcome the same evil, in going over the same ground again and again. The Hindu-Muslim, the Harijan, the Brahman—Non-Brahman, Temple entry and similar problems are all old ones, and we are no nearer their solution than when the political work was started. At every crisis they crop up with deadly effect and thwart further progress. A more sustained endeavour to arrive at durable settlements in these directions has to be made by the Hindu com-munity. Unless the people are habituated by the discipline and ideals of daily life to exercise their independence and cherish democratic principles, there will always be the danger that the victory over one foe may turn out to be the defeat by another. It has happened in the past, and the same old causes are operating now in the same way. It may happen again if we are not sufficiently on our guard. The national life should be purified and strengthened and consolidated for permanent existence and progress much more than for a temporary success over a present enemy. Unless we set our home in order, freedom gained somehow will only open the door for another conqueror with greater appetite for exploitation, or power will pass, instead of to the people, to the exploiters of the people within the country.
(e) Political agitation cannot always provide work for the thousands of young men and women who have responded to the call of the country and probably abandoned their ordinary pursuits to join the army of martyrs. There are many more such who are keeping back because there is nothing to be done. If useful avenues of service are not opened for them all over the country and in varied directions they will naturally get disheartened, take to undesirable ways and instead of proving a help to the national cause will endanger it. A wider field of constructive service has to be provided, and opportunity afforded to local talent and enterprise to initiate and carry out nation-building activities subject to a general programme and policy. In a Congress camp every soldier can wait for the orders of the commanding officer as in an army in the battlefield. There is no need for originality. The whole nation cannot be converted into a military camp for any length of time. When the pressure of
