If we find that we are not to get Self-Government, we have at least the right to get an honest answer. Let the British Democracy say, if it likes, that this war is a war of liberation of humanity, but liberation of humanity does not include the liberation of India. When I consider the objections put forward to the grant of Self-Government, I can hardly keep my patience. They say we are not educated enough to get Self-Government. My answer is: whose fault is it? For the last 150 years you have been governing this country and yet you have not succeeded in educating the people of this country to such an extent that they may be fit for governing themselves. Do we not know that Japan was made only in 50 years? You have had 150 years. Why is it that at the end of that period we are told that we are not fit to govern ourselves? Nobody really believes that the time has not come.... We are further told that we are divided between many sects. We follow different religions, we have got different interests to serve and so on. If you say that we are not fit for Self-Government, because we are divided in our interests, and in our religions, my answer is that Self-Government and Self-Government alone is the remedy of that." It has in season and out of season, been dinned into our ears that a subject people has no politics. It was therefore that political discussions, had hitherto been carried on in the spirit of singing laudation to the administration of Government, however palpable its defects seemed to be. This mendicant spirit in politics has been overthrown by the exertions of Chitta Ranjan and his compatriots in the field of national work in this country. Chitta Ranjan's ideal of political life was neither Utopian nor Quixotic. All that he demanded was, that all men are entitled to have equal opportunities without which the progress of human society and consequently the progress of a nation comes to a stand-still. He wanted for his countrymen the opportunities for self-realisation which would render pointless and inappropriate at the present-day Matthew Arnold's remarks:-- "The East bowed low before the blast, In patient deep disdain; She heard the legions thunder past, And plunged in thought again." CHAPTER VIII. Chitta Ranjan's Part in the Non-Co-operation Movement.