CO-OPERATION AMONG COMMUNITIES.
At the First Annual Conference of the Madras Presidency Association on Dec. 22, 1917, in moving a Resolution on the above subject, Mrs. Sarojni Naidu said:
President and Members of the Madras Presidency Association, — It sometimes happens that when one’s thoughts and energies have become concentrated in and consecrated to one single purpose, in course of time, one’s name becomes associated with certain cause, one’s name becomes identified with a certain purpose. And to-day if I have been honoured, I, a mere stranger in Madras, with the proposal of a resolution, which, in my opinion, is the most vital resolution of this Conference, it is because in my humble way I have always sought for that unity which this resolution seeks to embody. (Cheers.) The resolution runs thus:— “That this Conference would appeal to the various communities of South India to sink their local differences in this supreme moment in the history of India and sincerely cooperate with one another for the general uplift of the Motherland.”
It is very curious that last evening, when I went home from the Special Provincial Conference, I found a letter awaiting me which was meant to reach me in time before I came to the Special Conference. It was not from any section of the Hindu community at all, but it was from a community of Southern India. It contained an appeal to me as a friend of every community, whether in the South or in the North, to use my influence—if I should have any—to use my persuasion—if I should have the power to persuade—for greater cooperation among us all just at this moment. I might ask the great Hindu community of the South, in the name of my Mussalman brethern to build up this unity of which we all speak on a real brotherly basis of give and take. The day before yesterday I was present at the meeting of the Muslim League and it was my great privilege to be allowed to speak there on the same great question, the one question on which I am able to speak. I spoke to them adequately in your name.
I asked my Mussalman brethren of the South to learn the brotherly task of give and take, always to work in harmony, in co-operation, without resentment. I pointed out to them that had the Hindu Community not been brotherly, the division of loaves and fishes that have yet to come would not have been so generous. To-day I should stand as an ambassador of the great Mussalman community and ask in their name before I begin my proper task of supporting the resolution, that if you are sincere in wishing to pass this resolution of sinking differences and of bringing about co-operation and harmony into your lives, you will start not with smaller divisions but first learn to heal the big cleavage that still exists to-day between the two great races, between the two great faiths.
I, a friend of the Mussalmans, would ask my brother Hindus not to raise any objection if the Mussalmans who respect our feelings, ask that the Hindus should respect their feelings. There is sympathy. They want you to prove that you are truly brotherly. If you truly wish India to be united and not divided, even as you value your religious beliefs, even as you cherish your religious faiths and your prejudices, if they ask that as a token of the gift of your love, you will not object to the little thing they demand that when our Hindu processions pass the Moslem mosques they shall not violate one of the primary mandates of Islam, that there should not be sound to break the silence of the mosque. It seems to me that the existence of an Association like this presupposes not a show of a wide division between the two races and the two creeds, a sharp bitter division originally but now happily by patriotic love grown narrower and narrower, a division between the children of the same race, the sons of the same race, only a little divided by one having the birthright of spirit and the other the birthright of material things.
Both in the speech of the Chairman of the Reception Committee and the speech of your President today we find that though the Madras Presidency Association was started as a sort of speaker of the non-Brahman community, though it was founded as a channel of the expression of the community of non-Brahmanas determined to have a responsible voice in the shaping of the national destiny, they have been able by their patriotism to rise above their own petty personal needs and desires. “This is a supreme moment in our history” says the text of the resolution. It is a supreme moment in our history, because today we Indians not only of the South but the Indians of the united India are asking for that which is the birth right of every civilized nation. We are asking for the right to live within our own land. We are the children of the soil whose flesh is made out of the clays and waters India, whose spirits have been kindled by the eternal stars of India, we are asking for a right not to be exiles in our own land. (Cheers)
But unless that cry of the exiled children of the mother goes forth as one voice of many million chords, one indivisible voice of many million chords, rising out of one undivided, indivisible heart of India, how dare we say, “give us freedom because we are united.” I have been told on good authority which I cannot divulge that the great Viceroy, in the course of these few weeks when India has been knocking at his doors, has never been so puzzled as in this historic city because the heart is divided here. One little rift might make him say that the music of unity is not perfect. I ask you, friends in the South of India, to remember the great traditions of your great province. They say to-day in the north—and I have heard it over and over again with pride because remember that you have adopted me, by marriage I belong to you—“is it to the South that we must turn for inspiration, to that South which we for years and years looked at as something apart, alone, asleep, unrelated to the manifold progress of which we are proud”? Yes, it is true to-day.
I think the lamp burns very brightly in the South of yours with a flame that sheds lustre far and reaches even the historic North. But where that historic North has already achieved unity, the bitter antagonisms and animosities which filled the North have come through the crucible of many centuries of hate into a period of harmony and peace, here in the South, where the lamp burns brightly, the house is divided against itself. How great the dissolution and how great the despair? No despair is so deadly as the despair of an injured faith. If you to whom the eyes of the rest of India are turned today hurt that faith in your unity, that faith in your power, you have done wrong not to yourselves alone but to the cause of the Indian Unity which you should embody and inspire. (Cheers.) I ask you, therefore, without entering into details that are technical, without elaborating about representations and proportions, to consider the ideal that I would hold out before you, the ideal of co-operation.
Why should there be division between caste and caste? What was the meaning, the purpose, the significance, and the power of the caste division in the old days? What was it but a division of labour for the glory of the Motherland, so that each within his own sphere could contribute perfect service that should enrich the wide diversity of life? It was to build up, to create and foster national culture and national consciousness. Was that great system subtly built of a knowledge of human functions and possibilities meant to bring division? Were the law makers enemies of their Motherland that they brought about this division of sects and castes? No. It was built up so that India might be served, each community honouring itself and finding its perfect expression through some service which would be best suited to its own way of thought, to its own capacity of achievement, its own sources of inspiration and its own opportunity of realisation. Have we grown so civilised that we have become untrue to our own social, intellectual and spiritual principles? (Cheers) Have we become so alienated from the inner meanings of our evolution that what was meant to be a source of richer unity has become to-day a source of disunion, disintegration, degradation that affected the honour and progress of the Motherland? You have all made separate demands for reform, Brahmans, non-Brahmans, Mussalmans and Panchamas have gone on deputations. But what good are all these deputations, all these divided attempts? Let there be a hundred thousand deputations. If they can go in one united spirit with their different forms of expression of the cause, then each fresh demand freshly reiterated would mean the emphasising of the same demand.
To-day we stand so that if the Angels of Heaven would sit in judgment, as to the real meaning and link between demand and demand, very different in fact, he might be puzzled to know what was just and what was unjust. But we need not call the Angels of Heaven, nor need we await the leisure of another nation for justice. (Cheers) Justice is within the soul of a nation, justice is the treasure of a nation, justice is the honour of a nation. If a nation chooses to rob itself, to dishonour itself, to be untrue to itself, not the Angels of Heaven, not the ministers of the King shall stay it. But if a nation chooses to honour itself, fulfil its duty and rise to the height of its own ambition, what prevents it but its own desires, what prevents it but its own folly, what prevents it but its own personal animosities and personal cleavages? I ask you, children of the immortal South, during the forthcoming years to be true to yourself, just to yourself, sink all divisions, obliterate all differences, forget all feuds, annihilate all hatreds, become one in the service of the Motherland, for, as I said, your flesh, Brahman or non-Brahman, is made out of the clays and waters of the South and your spirit is filled by the breath of Her who is Bharata Mata, Bharata Mata, Bharata Mata.