Canto 2Reflections of Srinath Paul, Rai Bahadoor, on the Present Discontents
Book 4. Part Four - Calcutta and Chandernagore 1907 – 1910
Reflections of Srinath Paul, Rai Bahadoor,
on the Present Discontents
(The Address of a Perspiring Chairman Rendered
Faithfully into the Ordinary English Vernacular.)
5Councillors, friends, Rai Bahadoors and others,
Gentlemen all, my bold and moderate brothers!
This Conference’s revolutionary course
(By revolution, sirs, I mean of course
The year’s, — not anything wicked and Extremist;)
10Has brought us here, and like a skilful chemist
Mixed well together our victorious batches
Bearing triumphant scars and famous scratches
Of a year’s desperate fight. Behold, the glooms
Are over! See, our conquering Suren comes!
15Dream not that when I talk of scars and fighting,
I really mean King Edward to go smiting
And bundle dear Sir Andrew out of Ind.
Nothing, nothing like that is in the wind.
Ah no! what has not Britain done for us?
20Were we not savage, naked, barbarous?
Has she not snatched and raised us from the mire?
Taught us to dress, eat, talk, write, sneeze, perspire,
Like Europeans, giving civilisation
To this poor ignorant degraded nation?
25Was not our India full of cuts and knocks?
’Twas Britain saved us from those hideous shocks.
No matter if our poor of hunger die,
Us she gave peace and ease and property.
Were’t not for Clive, Dalhousie, Curzon, all,
30You never would have heard of Srinath Paul.
But is this then good cause we should not meet,
Kiss their benevolent and booted feet,
Remonstrate mildly, praise and pray and cry,
Calcutta and Chandernagore, 1907–1910
35“Have sympathy, great Minto, or we die”?
If he’ll not hear, let then our humble oration
Travel with Gokhale to the British nation.
To be industrious, prayerful, tearful, meek
Is the sole end for which we meet this week.
40Yet are there men, misunderstanding whites,
Who much misconstrue these our holy rites
Deeming it a bad criminal consultation
How best to free — O horrid thought! — our nation,
And send the English packing bag and baggage,
45Polo and hockey stick, each scrap of luggage.
They think we are rank and file and proletariat
Fit to be throttled with the hangman’s lariat.
Fie, sirs! that we should be confused with the mob,
We who with Viceroys and great men hobnob!
50To be mistook, — Oh faugh! for the mere people,
Things that eat common food and water tipple,
Mere men, mere flesh and blood! — we, the elect,
The aristocracy of intellect
To be thus levelled with the stinking crowd!
55No, sirs, I dare pronounce it very loud,
We are the sober, moderate wise men, needing
Scope only to be famed for light and leading,
Full of co-operative amorous loyalty
To Minto, Morley and Britannic Royalty.
60O some there are impatient and too wild,
To that Curzonian lash unreconciled,
Repudiate with violence unchancy
Our gospel proud of futile mendicancy.
Strange that they can’t perceive the utility
65And nobleness of absolute futility!
O sirs, be moderate, patient, persevering;
Shun, shun the extremists and their horrid sneering.
O sirs, from loyalty budge not an inch;
What if your masters love your throats to pinch?
70It’s pure affection. Even if they kick,
Is that sufficient reason to feel sick?
Reflections of Srinath Paul
No, though they thrash and cudgel, kick and beat,
Cling like the devil to their sacred feet!
75Where are we? Is this the French Revolution
Infects our sacred Ind with its pollution?
Is Minto Louis? Kitchener Duke Broglie?
Away, away with revolutionary folly!
What, is this France or Russia? Are we men,
80Servitude to reject and bonds disdain?
No, we are loyal, good religious dogs,
Born for delightful kicks and pleasant shogs.
It is a canine gospel that I preach.
Be dogs, be dogs, and learn to love the switch.
85Whatever the result, be loyal still
To Minto, Morley and their mighty will.
Be loyal still, my prosperous countrymen,
Nor heed the moaning of the million’s pain.
For serfdom in our very bones is bred,
90And our religion teaches us to dread, —
Shivaji’s creed and Pratap’s though it be, —
More than the very devil disloyalty.
O constitutionally agitate your tails
And see whether that agitation fails.
95The course of true love never did run smooth!
Morley will still relent, — that gracious youth.
Beg for new Legislative Councils, sirs,
Or any blessed thing your mind prefers.
The Shah’s agreeable, why not the British?
100Then there’s Mysore — Great Scott! I feel quite skittish.
Local self-government we’ll beg that’s now
A farce, — (I’m getting quite extreme, I vow!)
And many other things. Prayers let us patter;
Whether we get them or not, can’t really matter.
105But one thing let me tell you, countrymen,
That clubs a boon and blessing are to men,
Where white with black and black can mix with white
And share a particoloured deep delight.
Great thanks we owe then, loyalists, to “Max”,
110Calcutta and Chandernagore, 1907–1910
Who his capacious brain the first did tax.
Behold the great result! Apollo Paean!
The holy club, the Indo-European!
Approach, approach the holy precincts, come
115And chat with Risley of affairs at home;
With Fraser arm-in-arm like friends we’ll walk,
To Luson and to Lee familiarly talk.
Mind! trousers and a hat. They keep good whiskey
And we shall feel particularly frisky.
120As for Comilla, it was sad and bad,
But Minto’s sympathy o’er that fell raid
Dropped like the gentle dew from heaven to heal;
No longer for our injured kin we feel.
And now think not of politics too much.
125Three days or four is quite enough for such.
Much better done to store substantial honey
Of commerce, taste the joys that roll in money.
Be rich, my friends! who cares then to be free
In hard uncomfortable liberty?
130Of boycott talk but not of Swaraj, sirs,
And if of independence you’ld discourse,
Let it of economic independence be.
For that the law proscribes no penalty,
Nor will your gentle hearts grow faint and sick
135At shadow of the fell policeman’s stick.
What folly to disturb our comfort fatty
And cudgelled be with regulation lathi?
Such the reflections, sirs — Well, let it drop.
Don’t hiss so much, dear friends! for here I stop.