to work off your irritation, to keep up your fanaticism. You are well off, you need not mind the cost. The poor do not want to stand in your way, but you insist on their submitting to your compulsion. As it is, every moment of theirs is a life-and-death struggle for a bare living; you cannot even imagine the difference a few pice means to them,—so little have you in common. You have spent your whole past in a superior compartment, and now you come down to use them as tools for the wreaking of your wrath. I call it cowardly.'
They were all old pupils of my master, so they did not venture to be disrespectful, though they were quivering with indignation. They turned to me. 'Will you then be the only one, Maharaja, to put obstacles in the way of what the country would achieve?'
'Who am I, that I should dare do such a thing? Would I not rather lay down my life to help it?'
The M.A. student smiled a crooked smile, as he asked: 'May we enquire what you are actually doing to help?'
'I have imported Indian mill-made yarn and kept it for sale in my Suksar market, and also sent bales of it to markets belonging to neighbouring zamindars.'
'But we have been to your market, Maharaja,' the same student exclaimed, 'and found nobody buying this yarn.'
'That is neither my fault nor the fault of my market. It only shows the whole country has not taken your vow.'
'That is not all,' my master went on. 'It shows that what you have pledged yourselves to do is only to pester others. You want dealers, who have not taken your vow, to buy that yarn; weavers, who have not taken your vow, to make it up; then their wares eventually to be foisted on to consumers who, also, have not taken your vow. The method? Your clamour, and the zamindars' oppression. The result: all righteousness yours, all privations theirs!'
'And may we venture to ask, further, what your share of the privation has been?' pursued a science student.
'You want to know, do you?' replied my master. 'It is Nikhil himself who has to buy up that Indian mill yarn; he has had to start a weaving school to get it woven; and to judge by his past brilliant business exploits, by the time his cotton fabrics leave the loom their cost will be that of cloth-of-gold; so they will only find a use, perhaps, as curtains for his drawing-room, even though their flimsiness may fail to screen him. When you get tired of your vow, you will laugh the loudest at their artistic effect. And if their workmanship is ever truly appreciated at all, it will be by foreigners.'
I have known my master all my life, but have never seen him so agitated. I could see that the pain had been silently accumulating in his heart for some time, because of his surpassing love for me, and that his habitual self-possession had become secretly undermined to the breaking point.
'You are our elders,' said the medical student. 'It is unseemly that we should bandy words with you. But tell us, pray, finally, are you determined not to oust foreign articles from your market?'
'I will not,' I said, 'because they are not mine.'
'Because that will cause you a loss!' smiled the M.A. student.
'Because he, whose is the loss, is the best judge,' retorted my master.
With a shout of Bande Mataram they left us.
CHAPTER VI
NIKHIL'S STORY
VIII
A few days later, my master brought Panchu round to me. His zamindar, it appeared, had fined him a hundred rupees, and was threatening him with ejectment.
'For what fault?' I enquired.
'Because,' I was told, 'he has been found selling foreign cloths. He begged and prayed Harish Kundu, his zamindar, to let him sell off his stock, bought with borrowed money, promising faithfully never to do it again; but the zamindar would not hear of it, and insisted on his burning the foreign stuff there and then, if he wanted to be let off. Panchu in his desperation blurted out defiantly: "I can't afford it! You are rich; why not buy it up and burn it?" This only made Harish Kundu red in the face as he shouted: "The scoundrel must be taught manners, give him a shoe-beating!" So poor Panchu got insulted as well as fined.'
'What happened to the cloth?'
'The whole bale was burnt.'
'Who else was there?'
'Any number of people, who all kept shouting Bande Mataram. Sandip was also there. He took up some of the ashes, crying: "Brothers! This is the first funeral pyre lighted by your village in celebration of the last rites of foreign commerce. These are sacred ashes. Smear yourselves with them in token of your Swadeshi vow.'
'Panchu,' said I, turning to him, 'you must lodge a complaint.'
'No one will bear me witness,' he replied.
'None bear witness?—Sandip! Sandip!'
Sandip came out of his room at my call. 'What is the matter?' he asked.
'Won't you bear witness to the burning of this man's cloth?'
Sandip smiled. 'Of course I shall be a witness in the case,' he said. 'But I shall be on the opposite side.'
'What do you mean,' I exclaimed, "by being a witness on this or that side? Will you not bear witness to the truth?'
'Is the thing which happens the only truth?'
'What other truths can there be?'
'The things that ought to happen! The truth we must build up will require a great deal of untruth in the process. Those who have made their way in the world have created truth, not blindly followed it.'
'And so—'
'And so I will bear what you people are pleased to call false witness, as they have done who have created empires, built up social systems, founded religious organizations. Those who would rule do not dread untruths; the shackles of truth are reserved for those who will fall under their sway. Have you not read history? Do you not know that in the immense cauldrons, where vast political developments are simmering, untruths are the main ingredients?'
'Political cookery on a large scale is doubtless going on, but—'
'Oh, I know! You, of course, will never do any of the cooking. You prefer to be one of those down whose throats the hotchpotch which is being cooked will be crammed. They will partition Bengal and say it is for your benefit. They will seal the doors of education and call it raising the standard. But you will always remain good boys, snivelling in your corners. We bad men, however, must see whether we cannot erect a defensive fortification of untruth.'
'It is no use arguing about these things, Nikhil,' my master interposed. 'How can they who do not feel the truth within them, realize
