A Point of Honour

 

                                IT IS a point of honour in more senses than one, to stoutly refuse to approach the Secretary of State with a fresh petition for the reopening of the Partition Question. Mr. Morley has publicly said his last word. He has repeatedly refused to listen to our prayers; and it cannot be consistent with our dignity as a civilised and ancient people to go a-begging to him once more on this very subject. But Mr. Morley, it is suggested, is himself willing to reopen the question. The confidential letter from London upon which this proposal for a fresh memorial is professedly based, bears internal evidence of this fact. "I am not at liberty," the writer says, "to speak about conferences I had just before leaving London. All that I can tell you is to advise you to have an influential and representative meeting, say, early in September, to adopt a strong, well-reasoned memorial, suggesting alternative schemes of Partition based on racial and linguistic grounds etc., etc." "There are indications," he says again, "that the Cabinet are willing to reconsider the Partition Question on its merits." The writer had "conferences in London", evidently with the Indian Secretary and other members of the Government. He is not at liberty to say what he heard; but he advises us to send a memorial, and holds out the hope that it will be successful. It does not take much intelligence to see that the suggestion of a fresh memorial must have come thus from the Government themselves. It happened last year also. When Mr. Morley was asked by Mr. Gokhale to reconsider the Partition Question, he raised a preliminary objection asking how a settled matter could be reconsidered. Mr. Gokhale replied that if a memorial came from Bengal, that would justify a reopening of the question. Mr. Morley said that that, of course, was a feasible plan. A great deal of inspiration for the submission of the last memorial was drawn from the report of this conversation of Mr. Gokhale with the new Secretary of State for India. That memorial has been rejected, we think. If it has not been rejected as yet,

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as simply been thrown away silently, it may easily be taken up now  by the Secretary of State, and thus find a decent plea for reconsideration of his settled fact. That memorial was our last on this subject. The alternative scheme suggested by the London writer was there, we believe. What better arguments can we give in a fresh memorial today? The fact seems, indeed, to be as clear as daylight that if what the writer of the confidential on letter says be true, the Government want a fresh petition from us to save their prestige. Would it be politic for us to help them in this? There is a conflict of forces in the country. It is a moral conflict. The issue is: who is the stronger, morally, the Government or the people? Our future depends on our capacity to prove our superior strength. Our relations with the Government are such that every increase in their prestige means so much loss of strength to us. It is, therefore, that we consider this attempt to send such a fresh petition to Government on this Partition Question, an act of fatal folly, and are so bitterly opposed
to it.

               It is not a mere matter of sentiment, but of sound and faring policy, whether we should go again to Government with a prayer for the revocation or modification of the Partition, question; and those who are secretly working for getting up a memorial to the Secretary of State do not seem to have d the nature of the problem they have been called upon to solve.

               But the most serious objection to this new memorial comes the boycott movement. How shall we keep up the boycott,  can we honourably do so, if, in response to this fresh lion, the Partition of Bengal is removed or modified to suit wishes? Babu Surendranath Banerji says in. his confidential circular letter:

            Knowing as we do how careful and cautious a man X is, I we should act wisely in following his advice. Of course the rigours of the boycott are not to be relaxed in the smallest degree. We must continue the boycott as before. It is our great weapon will help our representation."

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The language here is not very clear. Mr. Banerji asks us not to relax the rigours of the boycott; he urges us to continue the boycott as before. But he does not say if we are not only to do it while sending our petition, and while this petition is being considered by the Indian State Secretary, or we are also to do so even after this prayer is granted and the Partition is removed. This confusion is increased by his last sentence: - "It is our great weapon and will help our representation." Are we to take it, then, that we are to keep the boycott up as a great weapon, to help our representation? The weapon then must be laid down after the fight is over, the objective is gained; the boycott is to be given up after the representation has succeeded. This is the logic of what Babu Surendranath says. Is this his real opinion? The public have a right to get a definite statement of policy from him on this question. We have a right to know if, after our representation succeeds and the Partition is revoked, Babu Surendranath will still lead the boycott, keep up its rigours, extend and strengthen it, as he is doing now. We want a clear, definite, unequivocal statement on this point from him.

                But, as we have already pointed out in these columns, we fail to see how Babu Surendranath or anyone else who subscribes to this new memorial, can, after, - and if, - it is granted, honestly keep the boycott up, or press for its expansion. The boycott-vow has always been associated in Babu Surendranath's propaganda, though not in the opinion of the people, with the Partition Question, - until Partition is removed, is one of its conditions. How, then, can it be kept up when Partition is re- moved? There is such a thing as honour" among thieves: shall there be no honour between a subject people and their rulers? If we send a memorial again, and in consequence of this memorial, the Partition is revoked or modified accordingly as we ourselves suggest in this memorial, and we still refuse to withdraw the present boycott of British goods, with what face shall we, in the future, condemn the Government for their broken pledges?

              Indeed, Babu Surendranath is, we know, very strong on the boycott, and if it is bluntly put to him whether he wants the boycott to be given up or the Partition of Bengal to be removed, we

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are confident that he will prefer to have the continuance of the boycott to the removal of the Partition. But it is more than what can perhaps, be said of those who are pulling the wires from London, whether they are our own men, Mr. Gokhale or Mr. Romesh Chandra Dutt, or whether they are our British friends .like sir  Henry Cotton or Sir William Wedderburn and other librerals. The School to which Mr. Gokhale belongs, - the Meheta- Wacha school of Indian politics, - has never expressed sympathy with the boycott. Messrs. Mehta and Wacha are known to be dead against it. Mr. Wacha, it is notorious, would not help us in our sorest hour of need, this time last year the Bombay Mills pushed up prices most greedily in view increased demand for country-goods in Bengal, and when Mr.Tilak  went from door to door trying to induce the Bombay Millers to  help the Bengal boycott, and succeeded in arranging a meeting of them; the meeting was rudely dispersed, our informant ,by the General Secretary of the Congress. For some years past attempts have been made, especially by Babu Baikunthanath Sen of Berhampur, to pass a Resolution recommending the use swadeshi goods, but Mr. Mehta has always managed hitherto to prevent its inclusion in the agenda of the Congress. Mr.Gokhale's pronouncement on the boycott, in his Benares address, is very halting and, from our point of view, extremely unsatisfactory. He spoke in an apologetic tone about it, justifying it, not larger economic grounds as a protective tariff; nor on larger political grounds, as an effective instrument for awakening self-consciousness  in the people; but simply as a protest against the ,lee of the Partition and as a last means left to a subject people to arouse the conscience of their rulers to their duties and responsibilities towards them. Mr. Gokhale would surely not support the continuance of the boycott if Partition is revoked, or if British conscience is awakened, - whatever that may mean, the duties and responsibilities in India. The writer of the London letter on which this proposal for sending a fresh memorial is based, himself does not seem to view the boycott with much favour; and this is indicated by a sinister sentence given parenthetically in his letter: -

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"Bengal will have to work a little longer - not hysterically, but rationally and strongly - making it clear that she will not accept the present Partition."


          The italics are ours, and this sentence shows that, in the opinion of the writer, our agitation during the last year has been hysterical and irrational to some extent. If so, where and how? Our own suspicion is that even this writer would recommend a withdrawal of the boycott as soon as Partition is withdrawn. Are we prepared to do so? If not, how can we send in a fresh memorial to the Indian Secretary of State on this subject, knowing and believing that if he reopens it and revokes the Partition, he will do so not out of regard for our feelings, but out of fear for the awful complications that the present boycott agitation has created in the administration of this country; and that if, in response to our prayer, the Partition is revoked, it will be a point of honour with us to withdraw the boycott at once. We do not care to argue with those who hold that truth and honour are not obligatory on us in our dealings with the Government.

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