Education -- India; India -- Politics and government -- 1857-1919; India -- Social conditions
We know that the hero possessed Browning pistols. Now
these pistols are not manufactured in India, but in Europe.
How have they been imported by the revolutionaries? It
is clear that this fact is a testimony to the efficiency of our
organization and the secrecy of our activity. Besides, the
imported arms are not the only weapons on which we have
to rely. Daggers can be manufactured in India out of sharp
nails to stab all vile agents of the British Government, English
or Indian.
Increased vigilance in this country as well as in the Indian Customs and
Post Offices is, however, beginning to check these importations, and
only two months later the _Bande Mataram_ was already compelled to
strike a less exuberant note. It declares, of course, that "our movement
cannot be repressed so long as there are patriotic Indians living under
other flags than the Union Jack," but it recognizes that the situation
"gives rise to anxious thought," and it winds up in a somewhat depressed
tone:--
We admit that for the present all active propaganda among
the young men of India with a view to the acquisition of new
workers is exceedingly difficult. But there are hundreds of
patriotic Indian students in America and Japan who can be
inspired with apostolic fervour if only some capable workers
are sent among them. The harvest is plenteous, but the
labourers are few. We should now realize that, even if the
Government succeeds in checkmating us in India at every
step, there is ample scope for work for several years among
Indians living abroad. We should reflect that steady work
is its own reward. We must not imagine that the Idea
is not making progress because our particular journal cannot
be circulated, or because those workers whom we know
personally have been lost. Again, we must not fancy that if
heroic exploits of political assassination do not occur every
week the movement will die out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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