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Swadeshism and 'Bande-Mataram'
Non-Co-operation: a comparison—my ideals in public life—campaign in the country: roughing it for the cause—Kabyavisarad:journalist, composer and patriot—beginning of repression: Government circulars—Bande-Mataram forbidden—a pan-Indian cry its meaning and origin.
We have heard a great deal about the Non-Co-operation movement. To-day the vernacular Press is far more widespread in its influence than it was at the time of the Swadeshi movement; and the vernacular Press in its utterances distinctly leans towards Non-Co-operation. But the truth cannot be gainsaid that Non-Co-operation is nowhere as compared to the influence that Swadeshism exercised over our homes and our domestic life. Non-Co-operation, even in its strongest centres (and they are not many in Bengal), is not a social force, such as Swadeshism was in the days of its power and influence. There are innumerable villages in Bengal where the charka and the khaddar are unknown. I wish it were otherwise; but the truth must be stated. An industrial movement linked with a political controversy may receive a momentary impulse which may send it far forward, but in the long run it suffers by such association. An industry must be conducted on business lines; and business considerations must, in the long run, guide and dominate its course and progress. Capital, organization and expert knowledge—these constitute the basic foundations of an industrial enterprise. A patrictic impulse will certainly help it; but only for a time, and will cease to be operative when normal conditions are restored.
It is sometimes said that our public movements are soulless, and that they are so because we do not always take the masses of our people with us. This is perhaps neither the time nor the place to discuss this question. The masses do not actively associate themselves with any public movement unless their own particular interests are vitally concerned. All great movements originate with and are guided and controlled by, the intellectual leaders of the community, the masses more or less sympathizing with them and lending them the weight of their moral support. They are vocal only on great occasions, demonstrative and sometimes uncontrollable when their deeper feelings have been roused, and the memories of past wrongs, or the sense of present oppression, are