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By-issues of the 'Swadeshi' Movement

A stimulus to journalism—industrial activity: Government's neglected opportunity—the Banga Luxmi Cotton Mill—banking and insurance—public inauguration the ball set a-rolling.

The Swadeshi movement gave an impetus to all our activities, literary, political and industrial. Literature felt the full impact of the rising tide of national sentiment, which bodied itself forth in prose and verse. Journalism received a stimulus such as it had not felt for a long time. The speeches made in Bengalee at Swadeshi meetings, under the inspiration of the new ideas, were models of eloquence and it is a pity they have not been preserved. Where do we see the like of it in the Non-Co-operation movement, at least in Bengal? Where is the universal movement of uplift throbbing in the heart of the Bengalee, raising him to a higher plane of social and moral life? Or where now do we find in literature or in journalism the inspiration of a patriotic impulse brushing aside all that is mean or contemptible or spiteful, leading national life up- wards and onwards towards the fulfilment of a nobler destiny? We see none of it. It is all words from start to finish, or ill will and hatred, robed in the garb of patriotism. Or at the best, it is separation, isolation from the larger interests of humanity. As a nation we are to live, prosper and flourish, by detachment from the wider concerns of mankind. The sap that feeds humanity is to be cut off from us, and we are to flow down the stream of life, unfed, unsupported by the culture, the art and the civilization of the rest of mankind, rejoicing in our isolation, taking pride in our aloofness. To me the thought is intolerable. It must stunt our national growth, make us dwarfs where others are giants.

But let me pass on from these reflections, and dwell upon the many-sided development of the Swadeshi movement in the zenith of its influence. It is, however, in the industrial line that the national activities received an unprecedented stimulus. Soap and match factories and cotton mills were started one after another. The weaving industry received an impetus all its own. The weavers were a dying class; Manchester goods had killed their trade. But now there was a revival. I went to Haripal in the Hughli district