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The Settled Fact

The Partition takes effect—proposal for a Federation Hall: analogy of Alsace-Lorraine—the stone-laying: swan-song of Ananda Mohan Bose—Sir Gurudas Banerjee—our proclamation—Sir Bampfylde Fuller's administration—strictures by the High Court.

The month of October was rapidly approaching. The 16th October was to be the day on which the Partition of Bengal was to take effect. For Bengal it was to be a day of national mourning. We were resolved to observe it as such, and the country warmly responded to our call. The programme of mourning was fixed in consultation with the mofussil leaders, and was widely circulated. There was to be: (1) The Rakhi-Bandhan ceremony—the red band of brotherly union was to be tied round the wrists of all whom we welcomed as brothers. It was to be the revival of an ancient Indian custom, and was to be emblematic of the new brotherly bond between the sundered province and old Bengal, (2) The 16th of October was to be observed as a day of fasting. The domestic hearth was not to be lit; food was not to be cooked except for the sick and the invalid; the shops were to be closed, business was to be suspended; people were to walk barefooted, and bathe in the Ganges in the early morning hours for purposes of purification. It was a self-denying ordinance, but it was cheerfully accepted, and, as the sequel showed, the heart and soul of the nation were in it.

But this was not all. The day was to be marked by the inauguration of a plan of constructive work. I proposed the building of a Federation Hall, which, assuming that the Partition was not undone or modified, was to be the meeting-ground of the old province and its severed parts, the mark and symbol of their indivisible union. The idea suggested itself to me from what I saw at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, where round the tomb of the great Napoleon are laurelled statues, representative of the different provinces. Those of Alsace and Lorraine were at the time veiled and shrouded. To me it seemed that we should have a memorial of that sort, statues of all the districts in Bengal, those of the sundered districts being shrouded until the day of their reunion. The Hall would serve other purposes of a public nature. It would keep alive

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