A ROAD-SIDE INTERLUDE

JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

(Reproduced from Triveni, Vol. IX. No. 4. October 1936)

We had had a heavy day full of meetings 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 awake. 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 Ai 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 probably 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 peasants like themselves, with the same problems to face, much the same difficulties and burdens, and 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 long 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 the mountains and rivers and deserts and trees and stones of Hindustuan? ‘No,’ they answered, but they could give me no positive reply.

“Surely our jai is 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 own 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.

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