same time ready to give millions of farmers some other occupation in their homes.
The Irish analogy does not take us very far. It is perfect in so far as it enables us to realise the necessity of economic co-operation. But Indian circumstances being different, the method of working out co-operation is necessarily different. For Indian distress every effort at co-operation has to centre round the Charkha if it is to apply to the majority of the inhabitants of this vast peninsula 1900 miles long and 1500 miles broad. A Sir Gangaram may give us a model farm which can be no model for the penniless Indian farmer who has hardly two to three acres of land which every day runs the risk of being still further cut up.
Round the Charkha, that is, amidst the people who have shed their idleness and who have understood the value of co-operation, a national servant would build up a programme of anti-malaria campaign, improved sanitation, settlement of village disputes, conservation and breeding of cattle and hundreds of other beneficial activities. Wherever Charkha work is fairly established, all such ameliorative activity is going on according to the capacity of the villagers and the workers concerned.
It is not my purpose to traverse all the Poet’s arguments in detail. Where the differences between us are not fundamental- and these I have endeavoured to state—there is nothing in the Poet’s argument which I cannot endorse and still maintain my position regarding the Charkha. The many things about the Charkha which he has ridiculed I have never said. The merits I have claimed for the Charkha remain undamaged by the Poet’s battery.
One thing, and one thing only, has hurt me, the Poet’s belief, again picked up from table talk that I look upon Ram Mohun Rai as a ‘pygmy’. Well, I have never anywhere described that great reformer as a pygmy much less regarded him as such. He is to me as much a giant as he is to the Poet. I do not remember any occasion save one when I had to use
