India will revert to the Village Panchayat system while at the same time accepting some form of co-operation such as is outlined in “A. E.”-’s book, and which has been carried into effect by “A. E.” himself and by Sir Horace Plunkett.
But whatever form the new Government of India by Indians may take, it will be of far less importance than the positive work undertaken by the people who desire to serve her. An unbounded confidence in what its humanity can do is the necessary precursor of a nation’s greatness. The fact that thousands of students in Bengal, and other parts of India, have this unbounded confidence is the most hopeful sign of the present times. But this confidence must be expressed in co-operation. Non-co-operation with the present Government is undoubtedly necessary as a preliminary act for freeing ourselves from the fettering shackles of the past, but “to be positive is always better than to be negative” and co-operation between those who desire to serve India will do more for the attainment of Swaraj than any amount of negative action.
In a leading article in “The Servant” early in January these words occurred —
“We believe that the non-co-operation movement has now arrived at a point where the most pressing need is for a decentralized programme. The nation lives in the villages and not in the towns and cities, it is therefore among the villagers that the great work of national reconstruction must be begun.”
There is nothing negative about this, and this need has been recognised by many ever since the Swadeshi movement many years ago. But until now every effort to serve the village communities has been frustrated by the suspicions of the police and the activities of the C. I. D. We can now look forward to a time when such obstacles will have ceased to exist, but the obstacles will now be internal rather than external and possibly we shall find these even more difficult to overcome. Our efforts will have to be directed towards conquering our own weaknesses and sustaining our endeavour at the level of our first enthusiasm.
It is to the young men of Bengal that we look for the regeneration of the country. They have the moving force of youthful enthusiasm and faith in the infinite possibilities of their country. But there lies before us a long road of effort and endeavour in which feelings alone will not be sufficient to carry us over the rough and toilsome places. Will and thought must take the place of enthusiasm, and excited political controversies must give way to persistent and constant effort.
“A. E.” warns us of this danger when he writes as follows —
“What too many people in Ireland mistake for thoughts are feelings. It is enough to them to vent likes or dislikes, inherited prejudices or passions, and they think when they have expressed feeling they have given utterance to thought. The nature of our political controversies provoked passion, and passion has become dominant in our politics. Passion truly is a power in humanity, but it should never enter into national policy. It is a dangerous element in human life, though it is an essential part of our strangely compounded nature. But in national life it is the most dangerous of all guides. There are springs of power in ourselves which in passion we draw on and are amazed at their depth and intensity, yet we do not make these the master light of our being, but rather those divine laws which we have apprehended and brooded upon, and which shine with clear and steady light in our souls. Now the State is higher in the scale of being than the individual, and it should be dominated solely by moral and intellectual principles. These are not the outcome of passion or prejudice, but of arduous thought. National ideals must be built up with the same conscious deliberation of purpose as the architect of the Parthenon conceived its lofty harmony of shining marble lines, or as the architect of Rheims Cathedral designed its intricate magnificence and mystery.”
What then, according to “A. E.”, is the necessity laid upon all those who, whether in India or in Ireland, want to build up the new civilisation? It is to work so that “their external life correspond in some measure to their internal dream.”
With regard to Ireland he writes —
“We may say with certainty that the external circumstances of people are a measure of their inner life. Our mean and disordered little country towns in Ireland, with their drink-shops, their disregard for cleanliness or beauty, accord with the character of the civilians who
