In fact, Gandhi too acknowledged the reason for the rapid implementation of these administrative reforms. When asked in an interview, if the Secretary of State Lord Morley’s reforms were driven by the fear of the revolutionaries, Gandhi candidly admitted that: ‘The English are both a timid and a brave nation. England is, I believe, easily influenced by the use of gunpowder. It is possible that Lord Morley has granted the reforms through fear, but what is granted under fear can be retained only so long as the fear lasts.’ 144
The questioner was confused with the self-contradiction in the reply and pointed that out:
Will you not admit that you are arguing against yourself? You know that what the English obtained in their own country they obtained by using brute force. I know you have argued that what they have obtained is useless, but that does not affect my argument. They wanted useless things and they got them. My point is that their desire was fulfilled. What does it matter what means they adopted? Why should we not obtain our goal, which is good, by any means whatsoever, even by using violence? Shall I think of the means when I have to deal with a thief in the house? My duty is to drive him out anyhow. You seem to admit that we have received nothing, and that we shall receive nothing, by petitioning. Why, then, may we not do so by using brute force? And, to retain what we may receive, we shall keep up the fear by using the same force to the extent that it may be necessary. You will not find fault with a continuance of force to prevent a child from thrusting its foot into fire? Somehow or other we have to gain our end. 145
In response, he was given an extremely long-winding series of justifications, theological and philosophical constructs that largely contradicted each other, forcing him to move on to another question.
~
Exactly three years after their first meeting in October 1906, Gandhi met Vinayak again on 24 October 1909. The Indian community gathered to celebrate the festival of Vijayadashami, the tenth day following the nine-day festivities and fasting of Navaratri. To avoid British surveillance, Englishmen were also invited. Nearly seventy Indians participated. Gandhi was invited to preside over the meeting. He agreed on the condition that ‘no controversial politics were to be touched upon’ 146 and that he would rather speak on the greatness of the Ramayana. He was dressed in a swallow-tailed coat and stiff front shirt. In his address, Gandhi mentioned that the occasion of Vijayadashami that marked the victory of Lord Shri Ramachandra was a momentous one and that He needed to be honoured by every Indian as a historical personage. Gandhi went on:
Everyone, whether Hindu, Muslim or Parsi, should be proud of belonging to a country, which produced a man like Shri Ramachandra. To the extent that he was a great Indian, he should be honoured by every Indian. For the Hindus, he is a god. If India again produced a Ramachandra, a Sita, a Lakshmana and a Bharata, she would attain prosperity in no time. It should be remembered, of course, that before Ramachandra qualified for public service, he suffered exile in the forest for 12 years. Sita went through extreme suffering and Lakshmana lived without sleep all those years and observed celibacy. When Indians learn to live in that manner, they can, from that instant count themselves as free men. India has no other way of achieving happiness for herself. 147
It was then Vinayak’s turn to speak. Indirectly puncturing holes in Gandhi’s arguments, he said that it would be worthwhile to remember that Vijayadashami is preceded by a nine-day fast to propitiate Goddess Durga, who is a symbol of war and annihilation of evil. He concurred with Gandhi that Ramachandra was the life and soul of India but urged the audience to remember that even he could not establish Rama Rajya (his kingdom) without slaying Ravana who symbolized tyranny, aggression and injustice. If Ramachandra had merely sat on a fast, it was unlikely that his kingdom could have been established. He went on:
Hindus are the heart of Hindustan. Nevertheless, just as the beauty of the rainbow is not impaired but enhanced by its varied hues, so also Hindustan will look all the more beautiful across the sky of future by assimilating all the best from the Muslim, Parsee, Jewish and other civilizations. 148
Vinayak’s stirring speech won him many accolades from the audience. Barrister Asaf Ali who was present at the event described Vinayak as being as ‘fragile as an anemic girl, restless as a mountain torrent, and keen as the edge of a torpedo blade’. He later wrote that it was not an exaggeration to say that Vinayak was ‘one of the few really effective speakers I have known and heard, and there is hardly an orator of the first rank either here or in England whom I have not had the privilege of hearing’. 149
The clash between the ideologies of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar had only just begun.
~
As a consequence of the Dhingra episode and Curzon Wyllie’s murder, the attitude of the British government toward Indian students in London became harsher. It was a deeply embarrassing incident for Scotland Yard and the British intelligence community. People wondered how Dhingra managed to take rifle-shooting lessons for months, with no detective ever being able to trace it. After the assassination, the letters exchanged between Morley and Minto convey their frustration and their disappointment especially with Sir Edward Henry, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. ‘I much fear,’ Morley wrote, ‘that Henry has no real grasp of a situation that has caught him entirely by surprise . . . On the whole the police frame of mind strikes me as extremely casual; either making needless fuss or else not making serious fuss enough.’ 150
Scotland Yard’s response to the crisis was to put Morley and Lord Curzon under protective surveillance. Within three weeks of the assassination, Morley had his own personal retinue of three Special Branch detectives follow him to and from work at the India Office. 151 These additional agents and increased surveillance were cosmetic changes that were deemed inadequate by the British government, press and the public alike.
In the aftermath of Curzon Wyllie’s assassination, the British government ordered a closure of India House as it was seen as the nerve centre of revolutionary activity. In the last meeting held at the House on 4 July 1909 before it was shut down, Vinayak made a speech eulogizing Dhingra’s bravery. In a reference to Harishchandra Krishnarao Koregaonkar who had shadowed Dhingra during the assassination, Vinayak said: ‘There was one man to watch and guide the whole thing and he says that Dhingra stood cool, and calm firing at the prostrate figure of his country’s enemy, Wyllie.’ 152 On 21 July 1909, a farewell meeting was held at an Indian restaurant at No 17, Red Lion Passage, Holborn, that was attended by all the India House inmates. They had gathered to wish Koregaonkar well, as he was on his way back to India, and to thank him for his contributions. Vinayak and others personally saw him off at Victoria Station.
The British were conscious that with the closure of India House and in view of heightened police surveillance, a flight of the revolutionaries abroad was imminent. Most revolutionaries would now find safer havens in other European cities, especially Paris. In October 1909, Sajani Ranjan Banerjee, or Sukhsagar Dutt, was employed specifically for the purpose of a twenty-four-hour surveillance on Indian students who seemed suspicious. He was to act as a conduit between the DCI in India and Scotland Yard in London. It was decided to create an Indian secret service to facilitate easy communication and sharing of information between these two organizations spread across continents.
John Arnold Wallinger, who was to head this new secret service, began coordinating operations between the DCI, Scotland Yard and also the Paris Police Force. 153 Wallinger had earlier served as the superintendent of the Bombay Police and had an excellent grasp over several Indian languages. This appointment and the decision to work in coordination with Paris were to prove fortuitous when it came to Vinayak in the following year.
With India House closing down, Vinayak moved to Bipin Chandra Pal’s house. But after the Dhingra episode, Pal suddenly shifted his priorities to side with the moderates in their denunciation of Dhingra. This made Vinayak’s stay at his house untenable. He was chased from lodge to lodge, s
ometimes two in the course of a single day due to police pressure. On one such occasion where he had already changed two lodges and had just checked into the third and was beginning to lie down, the owner asked him to vacate since the detectives seemed to have posted themselves around the place. He was exhausted and was on the verge of physical collapse. At this point, a German lady accepted him as a boarder in a room ‘over a small and extremely dirty Indian restaurant in Red Lion Passage’. 154 A police officer noted that this lady was not only a ‘bit of an anarchist herself’ but also ‘German’. 155 They saw proof of her subversive orientation in the fact that on one instance she had warned Vinayak, who was holding a meeting with fellow Indians in his room, about detectives lurking around. Consequently, one of the Indians was sent outside to distract the agents and after a second warning knock, the meeting ‘dispersed in some evident haste and trepidation’. 156
Vinayak interestingly shared the room with a certain Sukh Sagar Dutt. It is not clear whether this Dutt was the same British informant or if they were different individuals—though the latter seems more likely.
Garnett describes how the windows of the room that Vinayak and Dutt shared looked across the filthy alleys of one of the dirtiest London slums. The room opposite theirs was occupied by a lady with four children and she kept ‘screaming and (was) frequently drunk’. But Vinayak seemed totally at peace and ‘was indifferent to her existence and indeed oblivious to his environment. He was wrapped in visions.’ And what were these visions? Garnett speculates:
India was a volcano, which had erupted violently during the Mutiny and which could be made to erupt again and that every act of terrorism and violence would beget further violence and further terrorism until Indians regained their manliness and their mother country her freedom. All the sufferings involved were a fitting sacrifice to her. 157
Vinayak knew that his days in London were now numbered.
Unfortunately for Vinayak, bad news did not seem to cease. In November 1909, the viceroy, Lord Minto, was on a tour of the princely states of Gujarat and was to visit Ahmedabad. The British feared that Abhinav Bharat members might cause disturbances and hence heightened the security in and around the viceroy’s travel route. Brahmagiri Bua of the Poona branch of Abhinav Bharat was indeed planning to throw bombs at the viceroy’s cavalcade and they were in regular touch with the Ganganath Bharatiya Vidyalaya in Baroda. Despite the tight security, the revolutionaries managed to hurl a bomb at the viceroy’s procession, although he managed to escape unhurt.
The accused, Mohanlal Pandya, was a close associate of Barin Ghose and Narayanrao Savarkar. Consequently, Vinayak’s seventeen-year-old brother was also arrested on suspicion of involvement in the crime. It was later, on the evidence of his high school headmaster, that Narayanrao was in Poona on the day of the explosion that he was released after a few days. His arrest shattered Yesu Vahini who was already suffering the consequences of Babarao’s transportation to the Andamans. She wrote a heart-wrenching letter to Vinayak, who was her best friend and confidant, conveying her utter despair and grief at these developments. The poet in Vinayak burst forth. The year 1909 had been particularly harsh. Little did he know that the years following it would only be worse. He wrote a deeply moving poem to Yesu titled ‘Santvana’ (Consolation). The rough translation of the Marathi poem is as follows:
(1)
My loving salutations to thee, O my sister!
Whose love hath so tenderly nursed me as to make me forget
The early loss of my mother.
Received your letter of blessing, have taken to heart what you hath written
Thy letter gladdened my heart and made me feel truly blessed,
Blessed indeed is this family of ours in as much as it is
Thus privileged to serve Lord Ram and administer to his Will!
(2)
Many a flower blooms and withers away
Who has kept their count or note
But behold, the lotus flower that was plucked by Gajendra’s trunk
And offered at the feet of Sri Hari and thus withered away there
Became immortal and holy; effecting moksha
Thus is our Mother Bharat like the pious Gajendra seeking deliverance
Let her come to our garden and offer our dark blue-black lotus flower
And pluck it from the bough to offer it at the feet of Sri Rama.
Blessed indeed is our family tree, definitely touched by the divine
In as much as it is privileged to serve Sri Rama
(3)
Let then the rest of our flowers too be plucked thus
And offered at the feet of Sri Rama
Let this mortal body be put to good use
Immortal is the family tree that has extinguished itself for the nation
Its fragrance of human welfare spreads all around
O Mother, weave a garland of all in bloom for the
Festival of the Nine Nights
Once the momentous Ninth Night passes
And the ninth garland is woven and offered
Kali the Terrible will reveal Herself
And grant Victory to her votaries
(4)
Sister! Thou hast ever been the symbol of courage,
The source of my inspiration.
Thou too art a consecrated and avowed votary to Ram’s noble mission
Thy consecration to this great and noble cause
Calls upon thee to be great and noble thyself.
Behold! On one side stand watching the past souls of sages and saints
Of our race gone before and on the other side the
Future generations yet unborn!
May we be able to acquit ourselves today in a manner
As to evoke universal approval from these godly spectators. 158
Physically and emotionally exhausted and broken, Vinayak left London for Brighton, a seaside town. On the evening of 10 December 1909, he was sitting by the Brighton beach with his friend Niranjan Pal, Bipin Chandra Pal’s son. All around him, happy families, parents and their children were enjoying the lovely weather, the sea, surf and sand. Vinayak was overwhelmed with intense pathos and longing for his Motherland. Everything suddenly seemed to have been shattered. His professional and personal lives were in tatters. But more importantly he felt that he had been a colossal failure in the sacred mission—armed struggle to liberate his motherland—that he had set out upon. Dhingra’s execution, the public ostracism and shaming that followed, and constantly being on the run were taking their toll on Vinayak.
Niranjan Pal described that poignant moment:
Presently he commenced to hum a song, he sang as he composed. It was a Marathi song, describing the pitiable serfdom of India. Forgetful of all else Savarkar went on singing . . . Presently, tears began to roll down his cheeks . . . His voice became choked. He sobbed . . . but he still sang. The song remained unfinished . . . he burst and began to weep like a child. 159
This catharsis manifested itself in the form of that immortal melody that has haunted innumerable people ever since—Ne majasi ne parat matrubhoomila, sagara, prana, talamalalaa. The classic poem and its translation are as follows:
Ne majasi ne parata matrubhumila, sagara prana talamalalaa
Bhumatecha charana tala tujha doota, mee nitya pahila hota
Maja vadalasi anya deshi chala jaaoo, srishtichi vividhata pahoo
Tayi janani hrid viraha shankitahi jhaale, pari tuva vachan tija didhale
Margagya swaye meecha prushti vahina, twarita ya parata aneena
Vishwasalo ya tava vachani mee, jagadanubhavayoge banuni mee
Tava adhika shakta uddharani mee, Yeyina tware, kathuni sodile tijala,
Sagara prana talamalalaa (1)
Shuka panjara vaa harina shirava pashi, he phasagata jhali taishi
Bhuviraha kasa satata sahu ya pudhati, dashadisha tamomaya hoti
Gunasumane mi vechiyali ya bhave, ki tine sugandha ghyave
Jari uddharani, vyaya na tichya
ho sacha, ha vyartha bhara vidyecha
Ti amra vriksha vatsalata re, navakusumayuta tya sulata re
To bala gulabahi ata re, phulabaga mala, haaye parakha jhala
Sagara prana talamalalaa (2)
Nabhi nakshatre bahuta eka pari pyara, majha bharatabhumicha tara
Prasada ithe bhavya pari majha bhari, aaichi jhopdi pyari
Tijavina nako rajya maja priya sacha, vanavasa tichya jari vanicha
Bhulavine vyartha he ata re, bahu jivalaga gamate chitta re
Tuja saritpate ri sarita re, tvadvirahachi shapata ghalito tujala
Sagara prana talamalalaa (3)
Ya phenamishe hasasi nirdaya kaisa, ka vachana bhangisi aisa?
Tvat swamitva samprata ji miravite, bhiuni ka angla bhumite
Manmatela abala mhanuni phasavisi, maja vivasanate deshi
Tari angla bhumi bhayabheeta re, abala na majhi hi mata re
Kathila he agastisa ata re, jo achamani ek kshani tuja pyala
Sagara prana talamalalaa (4)
Oh Ocean, take me back to my Motherland!
My soul in so much torment be!
Lapping worshipfully at my mother’s feet
So always I saw you
Let us visit other Lands to see
The abounding nature, said you.
Seeing my Mother’s heart full of qualms
A sacred oath you did give to her,
Knowing the way home, upon your back
My speedy return you promised her.
Fell for your promise did I!
That worldly-wise n’ able be I
Her deliverance better serve do I
Upon returning, so saying I left her.
Oh Ocean, my soul in so much torment be! (1)
Savarkar Page 26
