"Any number of people, who all kept shouting __Bande Mataram__. Sandip was also there. He took up some of the ashes, crying: 'Brothers! This is the first funeral pyre lighted by your village in celebration of the last rites of foreign commerce. These are sacred ashes. Smear yourselves with them in token of your __Swadeshi__ vow.'"
"Panchu," said I, turning to him, "you must lodge a complaint."
"No one will bear me witness," he replied.
Sandip came out of his room at my call. "What is the matter?" he asked.
"Won't you bear witness to the burning of this man's cloth?"
Sandip smiled. "Of course I shall be a witness in the case," he said. "But I shall be on the opposite side."
"What do you mean," I exclaimed, "by being a witness on this or that side? Will you not bear witness to the truth?"
"Is the thing which happens the only truth?"
"The things that ought to happen! The truth we must build up will require a great deal of untruth in the process. Those who have made their way in the world have created truth, not blindly followed it."
"And so I will bear what you people are pleased to call false witness, as they have done who have created empires, built up social systems, founded religious organizations. Those who would rule do not dread untruths; the shackles of truth are reserved for those who will fall under their sway. Have you not read history? Do you not know that in the immense cauldrons, where vast political developments are simmering, untruths are the main ingredients?"
"Political cookery on a large scale is doubtless going on, but--"
"Oh, I know! You, of course, will never do any of the cooking. You prefer to be one of those down whose throats the hotchpotch which is being cooked will be crammed. They will partition Bengal and say it is for your benefit. They will seal the doors of education and call it raising the standard. But you will always remain good boys, snivelling in your corners. We bad men, however, must see whether we cannot erect a defensive fortification of untruth."
"It is no use arguing about these things, Nikhil," my master interposed. "How can they who do not feel the truth within them, realize that to bring it out from its obscurity into the light is man's highest aim--not to keep on heaping material outside?"