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modified, at the same time urging our people not to lose heart, but to continue the agitation.
Having dictated the article and revised it, I went downstairs, preparing to leave office, when I was summoned back to the tele- phone and heard the news that the Partition had been modified. There was quite a crowd at the Bengalee office at the time. The news spread like wildfire. People came in throngs to the office. A huge gathering had assembled in College Square, and I was seized by my friends, put into a carriage, and literally carried by force to College Square. There I witnessed a wild scene of excitement. It was quite dark—there were no lights—we could not see one another, but we could hear voices shouting with joy and occasionally inter- jecting questions. A voice from crowd cried out, "What do you think of the transfer of the capital to Delhi?' I said at once, 'We are not likely to lose very much by it.' Subsequent events have demonstrated that I was substantially right in my impromptu answer.
I returned home from the meeting happy at the thought that for six long years my friends and myself had not worked in vain, and that our efforts to restore to the Bengalee-speaking population their ancient union and solidarity were crowned with success. The secret is told in less than half-a-dozen words. We were persistent, we were confident of success; we religiously avoided unconstitu- tional methods and the wild hysterics that breed and stimulate them. Even when attacked by the police, we did not retaliate. We shouted Bande-Mataram at each stroke of the police lathi, and then appealed to the constituted courts of law for redress. Passive resistance we practised. Soul-force we believed in; but we never were under the delusion that it could be employed to any useful or national pur- pose, except by men trained in the practice of self-restraint and the discipline of public life. It is the acceptance of naked principles, without reference to the circumstances of their application, which is responsible for many of the deplorable events that have darkened the pages of recent Indian history.
It is a pity that the Partition of Bengal was not modified in 1906, when Mr. John Morley denounced it from his place in the House of Commons as a measure which went wholly and decisively against the wishes of the majority of the people concerned', at the same declaring it to be 'a settled fact'. A pronouncement in which the conclusion was so wholly inconsistent with the premises only served to add to the irritation and intensify the agitation. The Partition and the policy that was adopted to support it were the root