“Resistance to aggression is not only justifiable but imperative. Non-resistance hurts both egoism and altruism”.
- Herbert Spencer
Even while on board the ship Mr. Savarkar lay not idle though for a man of his tender heart and loving and lovable nature homesickness was bound to weigh heavily on his mind yet in spite of the dear memory of devoted friends and favourites and relations that made him pine and often moved him to tears he immediately opened his patriotic campaign amongst the few Indian students who sailed by the same steamer. A characteristic reminiscence was relate to us by one of them now a distinguished Barrister in Northern India, which will illustrate the inner working of Savarkar’s mind this gentleman was then, like Mr. Savarkar himself, a raw youth of some 21 years of age and the only son of his mother. He came off a rich and respectable family. Naturally he was so overpowered by the trying experience of being left alone amidst strangers and the insolent foreigners who generally from the majority of the passengers that return to England by those statements after their stay in the “Dependency”, and physically so weakened by the terrible sea sickness to which he like many an Indian unused for generation to sea voyages fell a victim, that he once actually thought of returning home as soon as the steamer touched the first port of her voyage.
One night he happened to leave his cabin and went up to the deck where he saw Savarkar intently looking at the blue and beautiful sky bedecked with stars and lisping some lines by himself. On being roused from that reverie, Mr. Savarkar admitted to his friend that he was so deeply touched by the natural beauty of the scene and the assuring calmness of the sea that poetry flowed and numbers came unasked to his lips. Glad to discover that in his young companion he had the luck to come in his young companion he had the luck to come in conduct with a poet, the gentleman in question pressed Mr. Savarkar to recite and translate some of the Marathi verses to him. They were so lovely that the gentleman formed a very high opinion of Mr. Savarkar and felt powerful drawn towards him. Their attachment grew and confidently he consulted Mr. Savarkar whether he should return to India as soon as he reached Aden. Why?” Asked Savarkar in astonishment. Is it the sea sickness or the home sickness, or both? Look here friend, how unmanly our race is daily growing. Not a couple of centuries have passed when Maratha women not only sailed the waters of Bombay but even commanded flotillas. Then look at the English boys: when they came to India in Clive’s time it took six months to reach our land, so that their relations in England had to wait for a year even to get news of their safe arrival in India. But that did not dismay them. They came to strange lands and amidst the hostile millions not only lived, but fought and won, and became masters of an Empire. While we young men tremble to sail even amidst these luxurious conveniences of a first class voyage and with rich arrangements made in advance by our parents to smoothen an easy course of life in the lands to which we are bound. No! No! You must not go back. You say your mother is rich and cares not a jot for a Barrister’s practice. But friend, the mother of our mothers—our motherland is not so rich. She wants her sons to go to foreign lands for a while, that they may learn what the world is like, what the strength of their foes and what the weaknesses of themselves. She wants them to grow strong and manly and daring. We must go to England, France and Russia and learn how to organize a Revolution, win back our Freedom. If not the petty personal financial necessity, then, this Grand ideal at least ought to stop thee from returning home. The memory of our dear ones? Friend, it grieves none more acutely then it does me. But then we must not only bear the anguish of our separation from them, but if need be even bear to witness them and ourselves rather crucified than betray the sacred mission of our life. Our mother is dear. But dearer, by far, ought to be, our motherland—the mothers of our race.‟
We have cited this anecdote almost as the gentleman told us, so far as he could relate it recollecting Mr. Savarkar’s words. It was in this spirit that he ever worked. As soon as he reached England he was welcomed by Pandit Shamji, the patriotic and distinguished Indian leader who then was advocating the Home rule propaganda in England which was considered as too advanced and dangerous an activity by the then leading lights of the National Congress and even the Nationalist party. But within a year of Savarkar’s reaching London things moved so rapidly that even the Home Rule by pacific means became a discarded and meaningless cry. Savarkar first prove to many of the advanced politically minded Indian youths in London that Peaceful Revolution is more or less a misnomer when applied to the solution of such questions as the Indian political one. He started a society named “Free India society‟ to whose weekly sittings all Indians were admitted and whose proceedings were openly conducted. On these occasions he used to deliver masterly speeches on history of Italy, France and America and the revolutionary struggles they had to undergo, and was never tried of pointing out how white the words Peaceful Evolution, had a meaning and a sense, peaceful revolution had neither. His spirited style erudition the force of his arguments evidently bore and the passionate sincerity which made even those who deferred from him, listen to him with attention and respected soon enabled him to carry the youthful and impressionable student world with him. Out of those then who felt attracted towards him and admitted they were convinced of the soundness of his views he used to pick out the best and initiate them into the inner-circle of the Abhinava Bharat Society. Thus Indian Students at Cambridge, Oxford, Edinborough, Manchester and other centre of education, were rapidly brought under the influence of the Revolutionary tenets.
Pandit Shamji himself was frank and brave enough to publicly proclaim his joining the revolutionary ranks and after writing an article in India Sociologist his well-known paper, on the bomb and the Russian secret societies closed the Home Rule society and withdrew to Paris. He was the first of the most prominent Indian leaders to publicly demand absolute Independence and declare that as nothing short of such Ideal could be the political aim of a nation, especially of India, she could never come to her own, never win political Freedom without embarking on a relentless war, having recourse to force. He handed over the India House to Savarkar’s management and came not only to trust but to cherish a loving and paternal the youthful leaders of the Abhinava Bharat. Mr. Savarkar too felt, but complimented by being styled by the English press which soon began to howl and bark at him as Shamji’s Lieutenant. If some of his friends resented it on the ground that Panditji himself was a later addition to the Revolutionary ranks and took no prominent active part in the work, Mr. Savarkar used to remark that the bold and open advocacy of the Revolutionary activities by such prominent leaders as Panditji was in itself an active piece of work. There are several interesting stories and incidents related to us as to the conversations and co-operation between these two remarkable men, one a veteran bordering even then on sixty, the other heroic youth not more than twenty-five. But the limitations of this sketch as well as the present political situation in India bar from recording them all here.
For the identical reasons we cannot exactly ascertain and describe the manifold activities of the Abhinava Bharat in England. Enough to say that men like Lala Hardayal, the brilliant scholar who went England for I. C. S., there took upon himself the vow of dedicating himself to the cause of Indian Independence, resigned his Government and University Scholarship and ever since that day to this remains an exile in foreign lands, now conducting the Gadar and setting a flame the young Indians in America, then moving in the high and imperial circles of Germany and Turkey in the days of war to if Germany could provide means to foment rebellion in India just when England was caught in a nap in the first days of the war; Mr. Chattopadhyaya: the gifted brother of Mr. Sarojini Naidu who though less known to fame and though his ways and methods being illegal may seem to many of us of questionable character has yet worked far more rigorously and even recklessly than his renowned sister has done in the cause of Indian Independence and who therefore is entitled to be remembered by his countrymen, and yet lives forgotten in exile in Germany and other lands for the last twenty years or so; Mr. V.V. S. Aiyer whose name is a household word in Madras: these and several other able men whose names it is impossible to mention here, were one after another won over to the Revolutionalist party, worked hand in hand with Mr. Savarkar and soon rendered the Abhinava Bharat a forces to be seriously counted within Indian politics that for years a greater part of the energy of the Indian Government had be chiefly directed in combating it.
In the meanwhile the agitation in India that originated in the partition of Bengal but had now assumed dimensions far wider than that issue and was raised by the Revolutionists participation in it to touch the very fundamental question of the political emancipation of India, became intense. In the Punjab the deportation of Lala Lajpatrai and Sardar Ajit singh felt on the people like a thunderbolt. The mews reached London and became the most powerful argument in the hands of the Revolutionists. Where, they asked, was thenceforth any hope of your winning your rights through mere wordy agitations and resolutions when your primary rights could at any time be trampled underfoot in such high-handed fashion and the most popular demands on constitutional lines were thus met by throwing all laws and constitutions to the wind! In a meeting that was held to record the usual protest resolutions, these arguments of the Revolutionists proved most telling and the resolution failed. Then what are we to do? Asked the people. A member of the Abhinava Bharat who since has become one of the distinguished patriots well-known to fame and has only very recently been sent to jail for using force in defending the rights of Indian peasants rose and openly proclaimed that he, a graduate, would throw away his chances of a splendid University career in England and go to Russia to study the art of explosives and meet the Government in India even as the Russians met the Czarists in Europe, if but financially assisted. He was, enthusiastically cheered-subscription flowed in, there and then, on the express condition that no accounts should be asked or kept. That very week the Maratha youth along with one from Bengal and another from Madras, started for Paris and a hunt for a Russian Revolutionist who would initiate them into the mysteries of bomb making began. Even before this incident, experiments in bomb making were being carried out by youthful Indian Revolutionists here and there. Terrible was the price they had at times to pay for their inexperienced ventures. Several instances happened when premature explosions blew off the hand or the eye and the youthful experimenters left terribly managed on the floor. Even in Paris many a bogus Russian professors duped and deceived and filched away as much money as they could. It seemed almost hopeless forget clue. At last a real man was found. He was in exile and wanted for by the Russian Government. He taught the best way to utilize it in Revolutionary work, handed over an authoritative book-let describing and illustrating all sorts of bombs and their applications—and took not a pie. This bomb manual, the police assert, was later on cyclostyled by Mr. Savarkar and his colleagues in the India House and distributed in India. It contained more than fifty long pages. Its copies were found in searches that later on took place in the conspiracy cases in India at such widely distant places as the Manicktola garden in Calcutta, in Allahabad, in London, in Nashik and several other places. Side by side with printing and distributing this dangerous treatise in India, lessons were regularly given to the chosen membership of the Abhinava Bharat in London and Paris in manufacturing the bomb. Mr. Savarkar, the police reports assert, himself at times conducted these experiments and gave secret lessons in bomb-making in India House and in Paris in the afternoon and without a minute’s rest came down to the Free India Society’s hall to deliver open lecture on History, politics, economy and other cognate subjects to packed Indian audience.
The first impulse of the Revolutionists was to try the bomb in England. But Mr. Savarkar dissuaded them from doing that, for the reason that would expose them to the police before they were able to take the art to India. It was therefore agreed to send out three or four men to different provinces in India to instruct the Indian Revolutionists in the art and when several had learnt it then being the dreadful campaign of terrorizing all over the country. Accordingly they were dispatched to India and went to different provinces. Soon the news came that a bomb was thrown at Mr. Kingsford’s carriage in Bengal and missing him, the Kenedies were killed. India was shocked, no less was the India Government. The bomb brought in with it so dangerous a factor in the Indian politics as to effect a fundamental change in its aspect and value and meaning.
Thrilling are the stories that are told about the activities of the conspirators at this stage in England. The reckless daring, the unscrupulous scheme they undertook to carry out their design, the dangerous plots to blow up a few bombs in England itself and the eagerness to dare and die for the Motherland, that like a heroic mania possessed these enthusiasts so strongly, that it became difficult for the leaders to persuaded them to live a little longer! But space and circumstances deter us from relating them all here. The activity of the India House grew really amazing. Besides the weekly meetings, the daily discussions, the ceaseless work of writing, printing, packing and posting thousands of revolutionary pamphlets and booklets addressed to hundreds of places in India, the lessons in explosives and the dreadful experiments at their actual manufacture—besides taking the leading and labouring part in all these activities Mr. Savarkar managed to do scholarly work of first class magnitude in writing two voluminous historical works. No sooner he reached London he began the translation of Mazzini’s writings in Marathi and within a year of his departure from India had it finished to secure a record sale in Marathi literature. All leading newspapers reviewed “Savarkar’s Mazzini” in leading articles. Students were made by their teachers, and sons by their fathers, to commit whole passages to memories from the masterly introduction which Mr. Savarkar wrote for the book. In some places the volume was taken out with religious books in procession, and when years after it secured the last distinction which is the general fate of such books and was proscribed by the Government hunted out and destroyed, people hid copies at imminent risk and preserved them as a precious relic to be handed down to posterity.
If his first book created such a stir in Maharashtra alone, his second book “The War of Independence” or the history of the national rising of 1857 was to carve out a name throughout India as well as England. After having related to his countrymen the story of a European war of Independence in his Mazzini, Mr. Savarkar thought of relating the story of the Indian national rising in 1857 with a view to instruct the people how a revolution could be organized on a vast scale even under the peculiar Indian environments and limitations. The Governments soon got an inkling of the affair and dreaded the effects of Savarkar’s writings to such an extent that they proscribed the book before it was fully written. This singular course, which perhaps is the only one of its kind in the history of printing, was rightly resented by some of the English paper themselves. Mr. Savarkar wrote a spirited letter in protest of this procedure and poured vials of ridicule on the nervousness of the authorities. But let the authorities do what they liked the book was printed and published on the continent; not only that but by the most ingenious means the Revolutionists succeeded in smuggling it into India too. Hundreds of copies found their way to Indian homes and hostels bound neatly under such innocuous covering as “Pick Wick papers” or “Scott’s works.” Even Sir Valentine Chirole could not but admit the literary excellence and remarkable scholarship that the book displayed. It indisputably proved that the so called mutiny was in fact a national rising whose war-cry was India for Indians. As one scholar observed the book revolutionized the conception as to the nature of the Revolutionary rising of 1857. From the stupid accidental, ideal-less mutiny of unprincipled fanatics and rogues on account of their discontents as to the order of using a certain pattern of cartridges, the research of Mr. Savarkar reinstated the great revolts of 1857 to its real dignity of being a life and death struggle of nation and people to win back their political freedom. It was truly as great a discovery as any in the realms of historical scholarship. No wonder that it grew immensely popular. Down to this day you can often find enthusiastic men travelling and inquiring just to have a copy of it. A Sikh gentleman had seen a race copy sold in South America for 130 rupees.
In 1907 the English people took it into their head to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of their victory over the mutineers of 1857. Dramas and lectures and special numbers of daily leading papers in India and in England vied with each other to revive the memory of 1857 and revile the so called mutineers in the most scurrilous manner that hatred could conceive. To counteract this vilifying campaign and relate the story of the national rising faithfully and truly Mr. Savarkar organized a counter campaign to honour the memory of Indian leaders of 1857 - Nana Saheb, the Queen of Zansi, Tatya Tope, KumarSing, Maulavi Ahmed Saheb and the rest. It was so bold a step to take, in the very heart of the British capital to honour Nana Saheb and Tatya Tope whom the common run of Englishmen thought some species of demoniacal order that almost all noted Indian leaders instinctively shrank from it. But Mr. Savarkar had the youths by him. A great and memorable meeting was held at India House, fasts were observed, a vow to undergo a week of self denial was taken, pamphlets named “Oh Martyrs “were distributed in thousands in England and India, students boldly appeared in Oxford and Cambridge and the Inns of court wearing beautifully carved badges of “Honours to the martyrs of 1857” on their breasts. In streets and trains individual scuffle ensued. Even in a College the English professors lost their temper and ejaculated at the sight of the badge borne by the Indian students “Martyrs? They were murderers! Remove the badge.” Thereupon the Indian students demanded an apology from the said professors for insulting their national heroes and as a protest left the College in a body. Some lost their scholarships, same voluntarily resigned it; some were recalled by their partners. The political atmosphere in England grew daily more and more electrical. The Indian Government began to feel restless.
Then a virulent campaign began in the English press obviously organized and paid by unseen hands. The Times itself took the lead. The meeting held in honour of the memory of the national rising of 1857, the Free India Society meetings, the loads of revolutionary pamphlets weekly dispatched to India through hundreds and one channels to avoid police and censorial detection and several other open and secret activities of the Abhinava Bharat were violently attacked and Savarkar’s name was openly associated with them in the columns of the English press—from the Times to the John Bull. Representatives came to interview Mr. Savarkar and pecked him with questions. Sometimes funny scenes ensued. The representative of one of the leading dailies once called upon Mr. Savarkar. The house maid took him the waiting room where Mr. Savarkar was sitting absorbed in reading a book. The press representative, on observing that the maid was retiring demanded “But where is Mr. Savarkar?‟ Surprised a little the maid politely replied. “There is he: That is Mr. Savarkar.‟ Upon this the gentlemen once more eyed the figure that sat reading by the table and refusing to believe that thin, young, pleasant looking person could be that much-dreaded Indian Revolutionist. Savarkar could not conceal his annoyance and protested that the maid should make a fun of him in that ungentlemanly manner, But the timely intervention of Mr. Savarkar who just then happened to look up, saved the maid from further embarrassment. Stepping forth he gently welcomed the representative who now a bit confused, politely asked if he was really Mr. Savarkar. The latter smiled and said yes! “To be frank, Mr. Savarkar: I must express we had a very queer nation of your size, and age and manners, said the representative. “Well; then I hope you will excuse me for having disappointed you, in your expectations of me, Mr. Savarkar humourously put in. the gentleman laughed and said in a complimentary way that their staff could never dream they had all along been busy in vigorously opposing the activities of a beardless youth!‟ “Never mind,‟ Savarkar smiled, “now they know it and so should cease opposing me any longer.‟ Of course the English press was not going to do anything of that sort. The John Bull asserted “youth and intelligence seem stamped upon his face‟ and hared Mr. Savarkar all the more on that account. The Manchester Guardian, the Daily News and other liberal papers used to call him an idealist and though antagonistic, used a polite and often admiring pen.
Mr. Savarkar lost no opportunity of coming in contact with the Sein Fein and other Irish Revolutionary parties. He kept writing articles to the Gaelic American in New York, and other revolutionary papers which used to be often translated and wildly circulated by the revolutionary organs in India such as the Yugantar of Calcutta, the Vihari of Bombay and several other national papers. Beside this he had under his consideration a scheme—a little beginning too was made to put it in practice of organizing all the anti-British disaffected nations of the world and link together the Irish, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian and Turkish revolutionist societies of the world with a view to prepare for a simultaneous rising. In order to advertise the national cause and defeat the indefatigable English campaign to paint India and her people in their darkest aspects alone on the canvas of the “World opinion”, Mr. Savarkar got articles written and translated into German, French, Portuguese, Chinese and Russian papers besides himself writing to Irish and other papers conducted in English. There cannot be two opinions on the point that the credit of attracting the attention of the educated world to India Political problem, and registering their sympathies with the India nationalist struggle to free themselves from the fetters of slave is due primarily to the most strenuous pioneering work done by the Abhinava Bharat in Europe in 1906 to 1910 under the guidance of Mr. Savarkar. Later on the assassination of Mr. Curzon Willie, the consequent trial, statement and execution of Dhingra, Mr. Savarkar’s escape at Marseilles, made the Indian question a living issue, in European and world politics. The enemies of England all over the world began to take the Indian revolutionists seriously, and opened negotiations with their leaders. Pandit Shamji, Madame Cama and other leaders in Paris, Lala Hardayal with his Gadar in America, Mr. Chattopadhyaya in Germany and others yet not to be named, out but equally zealous and able workers in Russia, Turkey. South America and other parts of the world-all these trained in the traditions of the Abhinava Bharat Society carried on the campaign so vigorously that at last in Great German War, India became an international issue and in the famous letter formulated by the Kaiser in reply to the demands of President Wilson the question of complete Political Independence of India was openly and authoritatively broached as one of the indispensable conditions of world peace.