of Lajpat Rai, described him as the leader of a deep-laid revolutionary movement, every detail of which passed through his fingers. He was said to have a following of “ 100,000 desperadoes.” The Englishman, at Calcutta, charged him with having tampered with the loyalty of the Indian army, and having incited the King of Afghanistan to invade India. As a result of adding, as they did, insult to the injury of deportation, the country was ablaze with indignation. The step was condemned by the unanimous voice of the people. All differences of opinion were forgotten and the whole country joined in protest. The extreme wing of the nationalists, however, decided to take the next step. They decided to use force and began to think of bomb and revolver and of a guerilla warfare against the established despotism. The older people, though they sympathised, would not agree to take any part in the movement using physical force, nor would they give their sanction to such a course.
It is possible that some sort of secret organisation existed in Bengal in 1906, but force did not enter into their programme till after May, 1907, i. e., until after the deportation of Lajpat Rai. The deportation decided them. Yet the first shot was not fired until December, 1907, and the first bomb was not thrown until April or May, 1908. The split[1]at Surat in December, 1907, irrevocably divided the Nationalists into two parties, and confirmed the younger party in their programme of force. The
- ↑ For an account of this split see H. W. Nevinson’s New Spirit in India, Chap. XIII.
