BEPIN CHANDRA PAL take the liberty to expound B epin Chandra Pal's views and state his contribution to the national move ment, first because of our conviction that Bepin Chandra Pal is not a revolutionary extremist accor ding to any intelligible interpretation of that word ; and secondly, because of Pal's open declaration before his last departure from England in 1912, that" should providence offer him the choice of abso lute independence for India with one hand, and the alternative of self-government within the Empire with the other, I would unhesitatingly accept the latter." The very fact that even during the operation of the Defence of India Act, he enjoys his freedom in India, though some time ago we learnt that his movements were somewhat restricted, would give the direct lie to the suggestion that Bepin Chandra Pal is an anarchist. And of all places, India would be the last to give asylum to men of pronounced revolutionary tendencies, especially to those who occupy a prominent place in public life and have some measure of influence over both intellectuals and the masses.
Sir Valentine Chirol gives the following character isation of Pal, in his book " The Indian Unrest " : " Now if Swaraj, or colonial self-government, represents the minimum that will satisfy Indian nationalists, it is important to know exactly what in their view it really means. . . . Some data of indisputable authority . . . are furnished in the speeches of an advanced ' leader who does not rank among the revolutionary extremists (the italics are ours), though his refusal to give evidence in the trial of a seditious newspaper brought him in 1907 within the scope of the Indian Criminal Code. Mr. B epin Chandra Pal, a high-caste Hindu and a man of great intellectual force and high character, has not only received a Western education, but has travelled a great deal in Europe and in America," (page 9).
In our opinion, it would be much nearer the truth to call him an Indian nationalist whose political idealism leads him iro accept no compromise with the pressing emergencies of the Indian transition. But it is to his credit that he has made possible the first beginnings of an Indian Theory of the State. He is one of the foremost thinkers—political thinkers—in India.
It is as a thinker that Pal has made a profound impression on the rising generation of Indians. Agreement with his conclusions is no component of admiration for his thinking. He has made young India think furiously on nationality, self-determina tion and self-help. Not that he has organised a movement through which his ideas may materialise in action. Nor are the ideals that he upholds realisable except through some sweeping and dramatic changes in social conditions and political organisation among the people. Let us quote one significant utterance of his : " There is a creed in India to-day which calls itself Nationalism. It is not a mere political pro gramme, but a religion, it is a creed in which all who follow it will have to live and suffer. Let no man call himself a nationalist to-day with a sort of intel lectual conceit. To be a nationalist in India means to be an instrument of God, and to live in the Spirit. For the force that is awakening the nation is not of man, it is divine. We need not be a people who are
politically strong ; we need not be a people sound in physique ; we need not be a people of the highest intellectual standing, but we must be a people who believe. . . . Nationalism is a divinely appointed power of the eternal, and must do its God-given work before it returns to the universal energy from whence it came." Pal would not organise a rebellion against the existing system of control, but he would mentally revolt against its alien origin, as it does not leave sufficient scope for the initiative and energies of the people. To him self-government is not something that can be conferred on India ab extra, it is something that must be the spontaneous expression of India's reawakened energies and returning youth. In quite a happy phraseology he somewhere remarks that if the destinies offered India self-government, on her behalf, he would say " No, thank you. We shall not have what we have not deserved." Though in practice, the ideal of self-government within the Empire would be quite acceptable to him, in theory he sees in the so-called " Reforms " nothing but a westernising of Indian standards and institu tions, unless the whole bureaucratic machinery is swept away, and the government is remodelled along lines in conformity with Indian ideals, and the national genius for government. Apropos of the tinkering reforms demanded by political agitators he says : " The whole Civil Service might be Indian, but the civil servants have to carry out orders—they cannot direct, they cannot dictate the policy. . . . One civilian, too or I,000 civilians in the service of the British government will not make that Government Indian. There are traditions, there are laws, there are policies to which every civilian, be he black or brown or white, must submit, and as long as these traditions have not been altered, as long as these principles have not been amended, as long as that policy has not been radically changed, the supplanting of European for Indian agency will not make for self-government in this country." His opposition to bureaucracy in India springs out of his suspicion of bureaucracy in any part of the world. And he would rather have a tyrannical and conservative exponent of bureaucracy so that the evils of the system may be driven home into the people's imagination—rather than a liberal and sympathetic representative whose beneficence might render people callous in regard to the insidious work ings of an evil system. On this point Professor Graham Wallas observes : " A Hindu agitator, again, Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal, who also had read psychology, imitated Lord Lansdowne a few months ago by saying : ' Applying the principles of psychology to the consideration of political problems we find it is necessary that we . . . should do nothing that will make the Government a power for us. Because if the Govern ment becomes easy, if it becomes pleasant, if it becomes good government, then our signs of separa tion from it will be gradually lost.' Mr. Chandra Pal, unlike Lord Lansdowne, was imprisoned shortly afterwards, but his words have had an important political effect in India." Human Nature in Politics, p. 177).