India for Indians: Enlarged EditionDas, Chitta Ranjan
History
India for Indians: Enlarged Edition
Das, Chitta Ranjan
India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947
Mark the words--"unscrupulous methods and audacious claims." Our
claims are audacious because we want to govern ourselves because we
say that for the last 150 years there has been a bureaucratic form
of government--bureaucracy has been tried and found wanting. This
is an admitted fact now, admitted by politicians in England and by
politicians in India--admitted by implication in the statement of
the Secretary of State and the speech of His Excellency the Viceroy.
That the Bureaucracy will no longer do and because we saw that the
bureaucracy must be replaced by some sort of government which is
self-government and which is responsible to the people of this country.
We are told of the unscrupulous methods and the audacious claims
of a few noisy agitators. That again is language of moderation and
calculated to create (A voice: and preserve)--yes and preserve a "calm
atmosphere." The idea of these Anglo-Indian agitators is this: that
when they speak of us they can use the most violent language, they can
incite racial bitterness, they can say whatever they like with the most
perfect impunity but if any agitators, if any Indian patriot refers in
the slightest degree to the evils of bureaucratic government in this
country, they are at once a noisy lot who must be punished by the
government.
ADDING INSULT TO INJURY
I give you another passage from Sir Archy Birkmyre again:--
"Of the loyalty and devotion of the fighting races of the Punjab,
Sir Michael Odwyer has spoken in terms which everyone of us in this
room will cordially endorse. But the spirit of the Punjab has not
been manifested in other provinces." Gentlemen, so far as Bengal is
concerned--and this speaker was speaking amidst Bengalees, so far as
Bengal is concerned, I say, for anybody to charge that Bengal has not
contributed to the war by money or by manpower is a libel on the whole
Bengalee race. I say it is adding insult to injury. When did you allow
the Bengalees to wear arms? When was it for the first time that you
called upon them to wear arms and to go and fight our enemy? It was
only the other day. Do you expect, does any reasonable man who wants
to put forward reasonable argument expect that a whole people who have
suddenly been called upon to take arms and march against an enemy,
that they will at once, as if by a magic, turn out a very large army?
Whose is the fault? Is it the fault of Bengal that to-day you do not
find thousands and thousands, lacs and lacs of Bengalees fighting for
the empire? Whose is the fault? You deprive them of their arms, you
tell them that they are enemies (shame, shame), you declare to the
world that they were never fit for military service and when suddenly
you call upon them to take arms and fight, can anybody say that Bengal
has not responded to the call sincerely, earnestly and if I may say,
valiantly? I say a speech of this description is adding insult to
injury. That is what these speakers say of the people of Bengal. Let me
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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