The Modern Review/Volume 38/Number 1/On the Death of Mr. C. R. Das
ON THE DEATH OF MR. C. R. DAS
By PROFESSOR JADUNATH SARKAR
The great newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe, when visiting Singapore, wrote:—
‘Here the climate is so damp and enervating that newly opened Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits feel like putty and the air around is one vast vapour bath. And yet here Englishmen and Englishwomen are driving, riding, playing golf and dancing as vigorously as at Home. What splendid vitality has our race.‘
And our race? Mr. C. R. Das died at the age of 54 after less than 36 hours of a simple fever. Sir Ashutosh Mukherji, Mr. Gokhale, and Mr. M. Bhattacharya (once Accountant-General of the Panjab) all passed away prematurely (judging by English standards of longevity) and nearly all so quickly that the best medical treatment could not be given to them, and their real disease could not be satisfactorily ascertained. They were all well-to-do and highly educated men, free from vice; none of them died of an accident. They had no vital power of resistance, no reserve of strength,—and, in the case Sir Ashutosh and Mr. C. R. Das at least, not even the habit and spirit of insisting on careful scientific treatment from the first onset of the disease.
Are such tragedies possible in any country of Europe,—except Soviet Russia? And these were our leaders, men pre-eminently at the top of different branches of our national life. The inference of national inefficiency from such events is obvious and needs no labouring.
A still greater proof of our national weakness (compared with our European and Japanese competitors in the broad world of action) is the true character of Mr. C. R. Das’s influence over the country—(which was as practically of the same type as Sir Ashutosh Mukherji’s). It was purely personal magnetism and one-man,—rule not, as in Europe, the appeal to clear impersonal principles, the organisation of a party. united by allegiance to one ideal, the deliberate rearing up of worthy lieutenants trained in responsibility and trusted with command in subordinate positions, so as to be able to take the leader’s place at his death. No; we are still Orientals, in academic matters as well as in politics even of the latest European type: we worship gurus, we love to surrender our moral judgment and human will to the one-man ruler, we look to him and him alone for guidance and order at every step; the organs of our body politic (like the body academic in College Square, Calcutta) have been taught to function only at the bidding of the sole autocrat at the head,—in fact they are not organs possessed of life and nerves, but dead machines set going by a master-machanic.” And this assemblage of “spare parts”, hopes to combat the free living national organisations of Europe!
Nothing can be done, no opinion expressed even on the smallest matter; unless we run for light and order to Sabarmati or disturb Mr. Das’s sorely needed rest-cure at Patna and Darjiling. He must canvas every voter at Bhawanipur or they would not vote for the Swaraj party’s chosen candidate.
Mr. Das must run back half-dead from Patna and personally lobby every M. L. C. or they would not throw out the ministers’ salaries in Bengal. These are the clearest examples that the guiding motive among us is “men not measures,” personal influence and not moral principle. Did Gladstone or Gambetta feel it necessary to resort to personal canvassing (as distinct from platform speeches) for any follower? If not, then there is still at least one difference between Europe and India.
What happens where the guiding force is personality, not principles? The formidable-looking party is dissolved by the death of the one superman leader, or personal rivalry among the many leaders (where there is no outstanding commander-in-chief) prevents the formation of party ministry (based on community of principles), as has happened at Nagpur. Such parties are purely patched-up groups, and make the nation politically not a whit stronger than we were in the Mughal times.
A thoughtful critic asked the Irish Nationalists, “Why do you make a necrology of your country’s history and even current politics?” Like the Irish, we too, are solely united by the emotional worship of dead leaders, we love to dote on our “martyrs”—and do not care to train our party through action and by directing our attention and energy to living men and living issues.
The history of Bengal during the next few months will furnish the answer to the question whether we have utilised the century and a half of British peace, British administrative example, English education, and the preaching and sacrifice of a succession of national leaders, and acquired the one indispensable basis of popular government, or whether we still retain the spirit of the Kartabhaja and Maharaja sects. Have we learnt that the nation is greater than the individual? Have we acquired the spirit of ancient Sparta which refused to mourn even for the death of a consummate soldier-statesman like Brasidas, saying “Sparta hath many a worthier son than he,”—the spirit of republican Rome which refused to be crushed by the crushing defeat at Cannae? Or, are we still the Orientals whose victorious army dispersed in terror and confusion as soon as its supreme general was shot dead?
The shouting and the tumult dies,
The Lokmanyas and the Deshbandhus depart,
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice—
The future conduct of our countrymen will show whether Mr. C. R. Das’s life, with its great sacrifice, has been lived in vain.
Darjiling,
June 17, 1925,