Young India; an interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within . at had caused the people and the country tohave faith not only in the omnipotence of their rul-ers, but also in their altruism. In the words of oneof the leaders of the Nationalist thought (Babu B. ,^^ The Spirit of Indian Nationalism, page42), the people had been hypnotised to believe in thealtruism of their foreign rulers: * Untrained in the crooked ways of civilised di-plomacy, they had believed what their rulers hadsaid, either of themselves or of their subjects, asgospel truth. They had been told t
Young India; an interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within . at had caused the people and the country tohave faith not only in the omnipotence of their rul-ers, but also in their altruism. In the words of oneof the leaders of the Nationalist thought (Babu B. ,^^ The Spirit of Indian Nationalism, page42), the people had been hypnotised to believe in thealtruism of their foreign rulers: * Untrained in the crooked ways of civilised di-plomacy, they had believed what their rulers hadsaid, either of themselves or of their subjects, asgospel truth. They had been told that the people ofIndia were unfitted to manage their ov/n affairs, andthey believed it to be true. They had been told thatthe people were weak and the Government wasstrong. They had been told that India stood on alower plane of humanity and Englands mission wasto civilise the semi-barbarous native. The Na-tionalist school took it upon themselves to expose thehollowness of all these pretensions. They com-menced to make what are called counter-passes in 18 An eminent Bengalee Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak INDIA FROM 1857 TO 1905 163 hypnotism, and at once awoke the people to a senseof their own strength, an appreciation of their ownculture. In the second place, the object was to create apassionate love of liberty, accompanied by a spiritof sacrifice and readiness to suffer for the cause ofthe country. This was to be done more by examplethan precept. What the programme was may bet-ter be stated in the words of the leader whom wehave quoted above: Boycott both economic and political, boycott offoreign and especially British goods, and of allhonorary associations with the administration, na-tional education implying a withdrawal of theyouths of the nation from the officialised universi-ties and government-controlled schools and colleges,and training them up in institutions conducted onnational lines subject to national control and calcu-lated to help the realisation of the national
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