It was not without great
diffidence that I undertook to speak to you at all. And I was hard put to it in
the selection of my subject. I have chosen a very delicate and difficult
subject. It is delicate because of the peculiar views I hold upon Swadeshi, and
it is difficult because I have not that command of language which is necessary
for giving adequate expression to my thoughts. I know that I may rely upon your
indulgence for the many shortcomings you will no doubt find in my address, the
more so when I tell you that there is nothing in what I am about to say that I
am not either already practising or am not preparing to practise to the best of
my ability. It encourages me to observe that last month you devoted a week to
prayer in the place of an address. I have earnestly prayed that what I am about
to say may bear fruit and I know that you will bless my word with a similar
prayer.
After much thinking I have
arrived at a definition of Swadeshi that, perhaps, best illustrates my meaning.
Swadeshi is that spirit in us which restricts us to the use and service of our
immediate surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote. Thus, as for
religion, in order to satisfy the requirements of the definition, I must
restrict myself to my ancestral religion. That is the use of my immediate
religious surrounding. If I find it defective, I should serve it by purging it
of its defects. In the domain of politics I should make use of the indigenous
institutions and serve them by curing them of their proved defects. In that of
economics I should use only things that are produced by my immediate neighbours
and serve those industries by making them efficient and complete where they
might be found wanting. It is suggested that such Swadeshi, if reduced to
practice, will lead to the millennium. And, as we do not abandon our pursuit
after the millennium, because we do not expect quite to reach it within our
times, so may we not abandon Swadeshi even though it may not be fully attained
for generations to come.
Let us briefly examine the three
branches of Swadeshi as sketched above. Hinduism has become a conservative
religion and, therefore, a mighty force because of the Swadeshi spirit
underlying it. It is the most tolerant because it is non-proselytising, and it
is as capable of expansion today as it has been found to be in the past. It has
succeeded not in driving out, as I think it has been erroneously held, but in
absorbing Buddhism. By reason of the Swadeshi spirit, a Hindu refuses to change
his religion, not necessarily because he considers it to be the best, but
because he knows that he can complement it by introducing reforms. And what I
have said about Hinduism is, I suppose, true of the other great faiths of the
world, only it is held that it is specially so in the case of Hinduism. But
here comes the point I am labouring to reach. If there is any substance in what
I have said, will not the great missionary bodies of India, to whom she owes a
deep debt of gratitude for what they have done and are doing, do still better
and serve the spirit of Christianity better by dropping the goal of proselytising
while continuing their philanthropic work? I hope you will not consider this to
be an impertinence on my part. I make the suggestion in all sincerity and with
due humility. Moreover I have some claim upon your attention. I have
endeavoured to study the Bible. I consider it as part of my scriptures. The
spirit of the Sermon on the Mount competes almost on equal terms with the
Bhagavad Gita for the domination of my heart. I yield to no Christian in the
strength of devotion with which I sing "Lead kindly light" and
several other inspired hymns of a similar nature. I have come under the
influence of noted Christian missionaries belonging to different denominations.
And enjoy to this day the privilege of friendship with some of them. You will
perhaps, therefore, allow that I have offered the above suggestion not as a
biased Hindu, but as a humble and impartial student of religion with great
leanings towards Christianity. May it not be that "Go ye unto all the
world" message has been somewhat narrowly interpreted and the spirit of it
missed? It will not be denied, I speak from experience, that many of the
conversions are only so-called. In some cases the appeal has gone not to the
heart but to the stomach. And in every case a conversion leaves a sore behind
it which, I venture to think, is avoidable. Quoting again from experience, a
new birth, a change of heart, is perfectly possible in every one of the great
faiths. I know I am now treading upon thin ice. But I do not apologise in
closing this part of my subject, for saying that the frightful outrage that is
just going on in Europe, perhaps shows that the message of Jesus of Nazareth,
the Son of Peace, had been little understood in Europe, and that light upon it
may have to be thrown from the East.
I have sought your help in
religious matters, which it is yours to give in a special sense. But I make
bold to seek it even in political matters. I do not believe that religion has
nothing to do with politics. The latter divorced from religion is like a corpse
only fit to be buried. As a matter of fact, in your own silent manner, you
influence politics not a little. And I feel that, if the attempt to separate
politics from religion had not been made as it is even now made, they would not
have degenerated as they often appear to have done. No one considers that the
political life of the country is in a happy state. Following out the Swadeshi
spirit, I observe the indigenous institutions and the village panchayats hold
me. India is really a republican country, and it is because it is that, that it
has survived every shock hitherto delivered. Princes and potentates, whether
they were Indian born or foreigners, have hardly touched the vast masses except
for collecting revenue. The latter in their turn seem to have rendered unto Caesar
what was Caesar's and for the rest have done much as they have liked. The vast
organisation of caste answered not only the religious wants of the community,
but it answered to its political needs. The villagers managed their internal
affairs through the caste system, and through it they dealt with any oppression
from the ruling power or powers. It is not possible to deny of a nation that
was capable of producing the caste system its wonderful power of organisation.
One had but to attend the great Kumbha Mela at Hardwar last year to know how
skilful that organisation must have been, which without any seeming effort was
able effectively to cater for more than a million pilgrims. Yet it is the
fashion to say that we lack organising ability. This is true, I fear, to a
certain extent, of those who have been nurtured in the new traditions. We have
laboured under a terrible handicap owing to an almost fatal departure from the
Swadeshi spirit. We, the educated classes, have received our education through
a foreign tongue. We have therefore not reacted upon the masses. We want to
represent the masses, but we fail. They recognise us not much more than they
recognise the English officers. Their hearts are an open book to neither. Their
aspirations are not ours. Hence there is a break. And you witness not in
reality failure to organise but want of correspondence between the
representatives and the represented. If during the last fifty years we had been
educated through the vernaculars, our elders and our servants and our
neighbours would have partaken of our knowledge; the discoveries of a Bose or a
Ray would have been household treasures as are the Ramayan and the Mahabharat.
As it is, so far as the masses are concerned, those great discoveries might as
well have been made by foreigners. Had instruction in all the branches of
learning been given through the vernaculars, I make bold to say that they would
have been enriched wonderfully. The question of village sanitation, etc., would
have been solved long ago. The village panchayats would be now a living force
in a special way, and India would almost be enjoying self-government suited to
its requirements and would have been spared the humiliating spectacle of
organised assassination on its sacred soil. It is not too late to mend. And you
can help if you will, as no other body or bodies can.
And now for the last division of
Swadeshi, much of the deep poverty of the masses is due to the ruinous
departure from Swadeshi in the economic and industrial life. If not an article
of commerce had been brought from outside India, she would be today a land
flowing with milk and honey. But that was not to be. We were greedy and so was
England. The connection between England and India was based clearly upon an
error. But she does not remain in India in error. It is her declared policy
that India is to be held in trust for her people. If this be true, Lancashire
must stand aside. And if the Swadeshi doctrine is a sound doctrine, Lancashire
can stand aside without hurt, though it may sustain a shock for the time being.
I think of Swadeshi not as a boycott movement undertaken by way of revenge. I
conceive it as religious principle to be followed by all. I am no economist,
but I have read some treatises which show that England could easily become a
self-sustained country, growing all the produce she needs. This may be an
utterly ridiculous proposition, and perhaps the best proof that it cannot be
true, is that England is one of the largest importers in the world. But India
cannot live for Lancashire or any other country before she is able to live for
herself. And she can live for herself only if she produces and is helped to
produce everything for her requirements within her own borders. She need not
be, she ought not to be, drawn into the vertex of mad and ruinous competition
which breeds fratricide, jealousy and many other evils. But who is to stop her
great millionaires from entering into the world competition? Certainly not
legislation. Force of public opinion, proper education, however, can do a great
deal in the desired direction. The hand-loom industry is in a dying condition.
I took special care during my wanderings last year to see as many weavers as
possible, and my heart ached to find how they had lost, how families had
retired from this once flourishing and honourable occupation. If we follow the
Swadeshi doctrine, it would be your duty and mine to find out neighbours who
can supply our wants and to teach them to supply them where they do not know
how to proceed, assuming that there are neighbours who are in want of healthy
occupation. Then every village of India will almost be a self-supporting and
self-contained unit, exchanging only such necessary commodities with other
villages where they are not locally producible. This may all sound nonsensical.
Well, India is a country of nonsense. It is nonsensical to parch one's throat
with thirst when a kindly Mahomedan is ready to offer pure water to drink. And
yet thousands of Hindus would rather die of thirst than drink water from a
Mahomedan household. These nonsensical men can also, once they are convinced
that their religion demands that they should wear garments manufactured in
India only and eat food only grown in India, decline to wear any other clothing
or eat any other food. Lord Curzon set the fashion for tea-drinking. And that
pernicious drug now bids fair to overwhelm the nation. It has already
undermined the digestive apparatus of hundreds of thousands of men and women
and constitutes an additional tax upon their slender purses. Lord Hardinge can
set the fashion for Swadeshi, and almost the whole of India forswear foreign
goods. There is a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, which, freely rendered, means,
masses follow the classes. It is easy to undo the evil if the thinking portion
of the community were to take the Swadeshi vow even though it may, for a time,
cause considerable inconvenience. I hate legislative interference, in any
department of life. At best it is the lesser evil. But I would tolerate,
welcome, indeed, plead for a stiff protective duty upon foreign goods. Natal, a
British colony, protected its sugar by taxing the sugar that came from another
British colony, Mauritius. England has sinned against India by forcing free
trade upon her. It may have been food for her, but it has been poison for this
country.
It has often been urged that
India cannot adopt Swadeshi in the economic life at any rate. Those who advance
this objection do not look upon Swadeshi as a rule of life. With them it is a
mere patriotic effort not to be made if it involved any self-denial. Swadeshi,
as defined here, is a religious discipline to be undergone in utter disregard
of the physical discomfort it may cause to individuals. Under its spell the
deprivation of a pin or a needle, because these are not manufactured in India,
need cause no terror. A Swadeshist will learn to do without hundreds of things
which today he considers necessary. Moreover, those who dismiss Swadeshi from
their minds by arguing the impossible, forget that Swadeshi, after all, is a goal
to be reached by steady effort. And we would be making for the goal even if we
confined Swadeshi to a given set of articles allowing ourselves as a temporary
measure to use such things as might not be procurable in the country.
There now remains for me to
consider one more objection that has been raised against Swadeshi. The
objectors consider it to be a most selfish doctrine without any warrant in the
civilised code of morality. With them to practise Swadeshi is to revert to
barbarism. I cannot enter into a detailed analysis of the position. But I would
urge that Swadeshi is the only doctrine consistent with the law of humility and
love. It is arrogance to think of launching out to serve the whole of India
when I am hardly able to serve even my own family. It were better to
concentrate my effort upon the family and consider that through them I was
serving the whole nation and, if you will, the whole of humanity. This is
humility and it is love. The motive will determine the quality of the act. I
may serve my family regardless of the sufferings I may cause to others. As for
instance, I may accept an employment which enables me to extort money from
people, I enrich myself thereby and then satisfy many unlawful demands of the
family. Here I am neither serving the family nor the State. Or I may recognise
that God has given me hands and feet only to work with for my sustenance and
for that of those who may be dependent upon me. I would then at once simplify
my life and that of those whom I can directly reach. In this instance I would
have served the family without causing injury to anyone else. Supposing that
everyone followed this mode of life, we should have at once an ideal state. All
will not reach that state at the same time. But those of us who, realising its
truth, enforce it in practice will clearly anticipate and accelerate the coming
of that happy day. Under this plan of life, in seeming to serve India to the
exclusion of every other country I do not harm any other country. My patriotism
is both exclusive and inclusive. It is exclusive in the sense that in all
humility I confine my attention to the land of my birth, but it is inclusive in
the sense that my service is not of a competitive or antagonistic nature. Sic
utere tuo ut alienum non la is not merely a legal maxim, but it is a grand
doctrine of life. It is the key to a proper practice of Ahimsa or love. It is
for you, the custodians of a great faith, to set the fashion and show, by your
preaching, sanctified by practice, that patriotism based on hatred
"killeth" and that patriotism based on love "giveth life."
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Address delivered before the
Missionary Conference on February 14, 1916.