A ROAD-SIDE INTERLUDE
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU
We had had a
heavy day full of meeting and processions.
From Ambala we had gone to Karnal and Panipat and Sonepet and, last of
all, Rohtak. The Punjab tour with all
its enthusiasm and crowds was at last over.
A sense of relief came over me after the long strain, and a weariness
which demanded sleep from which there would be no quick awakening.
Night had
fallen, and we rushed along the Rohtak-Delhi road, for we had to catch a train
at Delhi that night. I could hardly
keep wake. Suddenly we had to pull up,
for right across the road sat a crowd of men and women, some with torches in
their hands. They came to us and when
they had satisfied themselves as to who we were, they told us that they had
been waiting there since the afternoon.
They were a lot of hefty Jats, petty zamindars most of them, and it was
impossible to go on without a few words to them. We got out and sat there in the semi-darkness surrounded by a
thousand or more Jat men and women.
Quami nara, said someone and a
thousand throats answered lustily, three times, Bande Mataram. And then, we had Bharat Mata ki jai,
and other slogans.
“What was all
this about,” I asked them, “this Bande Mataram and Bharat Mata ki
jai?”
No
answer. They looked at me and then at
one another and seemed to feel a little uncomfortable at my questioning. I repeated my question: “What did they mean by shouting out those
slogans?” Still no answer. The Congress
worker in charge of that area was feeling unhappy. He volunteered to tell me all about it and I did not encourage
him.
“Who was this
Mata, whom they saluted and whose jai they shouted?” I persisted
in questioning. Still they remained
silent and puzzled. They had never been
asked these strange questions. They had
taken things for granted and shouted when they had been told to shout, not
taking the trouble to understand. If the
Congress people told them to shout, why they would do so, loudly and with vigour. It must be a good slogan. It cheered them and proudly it brought
dismay to their opponents.
Still I
persisted in my questioning and then one person, greatly daring, said that Mata
referred to dharti, the earth. The peasant mind went back to the soil,
his true mother and benefactor.
“Which dharti,”
I asked further, “the dharti of their village area, or of the Punjab, or
of the whole world?” they were troubled and perplexed by the intricate
questioning, and then several voices arose together asking me to tell them all
about it. They did not know and wanted
to understand.
I told them
what ‘Bharat’ was and Hindusthan, how this vast land stretched from Kashmir and
the Himalayas in the north to Lanka in the south, how it included great
provinces like the Punjab, and Bengal, and Bombay and Madras. How all over this great land they would find
millions of peasant like themselves, with the same problem to face, much the
same difficulties and burdens, crushing poverty and misery. This vast country was Hindusthan, Bharat
Mata for all of us who lived in it and were her children. Bharat Mata was not a lady, lovely
and forlorn, with along tresses reaching to the ground, as sometimes shown in
fanciful pictures.
Bharat
Mata Ki Jai. Whose jai then did we shout? Not of that
fanciful lady who did not exist. Was it
then of then of the mountains and rivers and deserts and trees and stones of
Hindusthan? ‘No,’ they answered, but they could give me no positive reply.
“Surely our jai
for the people who live in India, the many millions who live in her villages
and cities,” I told them, and the answer was pleasing to them and they felt
that it was right.
“Who are
these people? Surely, you and the like of you. And so when you shout Bharat
Mata Ki jai, you shout your own Jai,” as well as the jai of our brothers and sisters all
over Hindusthan. Remember that Bharat
Mata is you and it is your jai.”
They listened intently and a great light seemed to dawn on their heavy
peasant minds. It was a wonderful thought-that this slogan they had shouted for
so long referred to them, yes to themselves, the poor Jat peasants of a village
in Rohtak district. It was their Jai. Why then let us shout it again,
all together and with right goodwill: Bharat Mata ki jai.
And so on
into the darkness to Delhi city and the train, and then a long sleep.
Allahabad
September 16, 1936.