Page:A Nation in Making.djvu/193

public mind. The Swadeshi movement had already come into existence. At any rate the Swadeshi spirit was abroad. It was in the air. There was a growing party among the educated community who espoused it. Our industrial helplessness was attracting attention in an increasing measure; and it was readily perceived that the boycott would be a double-edged weapon, industrial and political, in its scope and character.

The idea of a boycott was anxiously discussed for days together at our conferences. There was, as the result of these discussions, a pretty general unanimity of feeling amongst us. It was recognized that in the state of public feeling which then prevailed the move- ment would meet with general support; and the result fully justified this anticipation.

The only objection that was felt and seriously discussed was, how it would affect our English friends. Would they approve of it? Would they sympathize with it? Might they not regard it as an open avowal of ill will? For, as I have already observed, there were many Englishmen in Calcutta who strongly disapproved of the Partition, and of the form and the manner in which it was carried out. They were helping us with their advice and the weight of their moral support. We were anxious that we should do nothing to alienate them, and that we should continue to receive their sympathy, which proved so helpful. Further, our appeal lay to the British public against the decision of the Government of India. We knew that Lord Curzon and the India Office would do all that lay in their power to prevent a revision of the orders passed. We felt some doubt as to how the movement would be viewed by the British public.

Thus the movement was not anti-British in its origin, nor even in its subsequent developments, though our official critics tried to make out that it was so; and we wanted to know what the British standpoint was likely to be, from Englishmen who might be presumed to be in closer touch than we could be with the temper and opinion of their countrymen at home. How foolish it would have been to have made an appeal to the British public for the reversal of an order of the Government of India by starting an anti- British movement! The organizers of the movement were presumab- ly men of common sense, and they were not going to begin business by an act of folly that would make the British public turn a deaf ear to their appeals.