Word: das
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...heard him? Only a few thousands out of India's few hundred millions. Only in Bengal, the Punjab and the Bombay Presidency did the numbers amount to anything; and even at that the "teeming millions," of which Mr. Das was so fond of speaking, were untouched, hopelessly disinterested in politics...
After the War came the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms?dyarchy.? The Amritsar affair in which hundreds of Indians were wantonly butchered caused Gandhi to begin his noncooperation movement. For a time, Das was heart and soul with Gandhi, and his fervor caused his incarceration for a brief spell at Alipore. Noncoöperation was soon proved to be leading nowhere. Of the 46 million Bengalese, not 10% voluntarily supported the movement; while an insignificant but dangerous section of the population thought non-coöperation the mildest and most absurd of protests. So long as the masses could bathe uninterruptedly...
...Das soon realized the ineffectiveness of non-cooperation. He broke with Gandhi, started a cooperation movement with the object of entering the Councils to prevent them from functioning. Then he began to see the futility of his own tactics, in view of sporadic terrorist activities. He saw that Swaraj could be obtained only through supporting the dyarchical system and the lawful suppression of violence. He asked the Government to cooperate by abrogating its arbitrary powers to arrest and punish agitators. Gandhi joined him last autumn, and non-coöperation came...
After this, Lord Reading, the Viceroy, went to London. Mr. Das was to have followed. In his own words, "a favorable atmosphere had been created for further discussions...
Beyond. With the death of Das, what is to become of Swaraj? It was, and probably still is, a vital question for all Anglo-Indians. Will Swaraj and its non-violence fall by the red sword of violent revolution? Who could stop it? Not Gandhi, for he has lost most of his following. But perhaps the Pandit Motilal Nehru, the next greatest disciple of Swaraj and always the most formidable intellect of the party...