Page:Anandamath, The Abbey of Bliss - Chatterjee.djvu/14

 for the provincialism in his patriotism, it is difficult to believe that BamkimBankim [sic] Chandra was a stranger to the idea of greater nationality which is the goal of cultured Indians of to day. The explanation is rather to be sought in his romantic temperament which was deeply stirred by it, as much as was that of Sir Walter Scott by the parochial patriotism of his Highlanders and by the Scottish patriotism which even now makes itself felt in after-dinner orations in the St. Andrews Dinner.

As to the religious tone of his patriotism he perceived that the strongest sentiment of the Indian, as well as the most pronounced element in the Eastern civilisation, is the religious sentiment. To acclamatiseacclimatise [sic] Western culture in the Eastern soil then, we have to dip it full in the well of spiritualism. Nothing in Western culture can take root in the East unless it is inspired with the religious sentiment. The attempt to bring about this synthesis led him, not only to imbue patriotic sentiments with religion but also conceive nationality itself under the category of religion. He evidently thought that the only nationality India was capable of was a religious nationality;—the sentiment probably which inspires people who talk about a Hindu Nation and a Mussulman Nation in the same Indian soil. To say the least, such an idea is absurd. We must have one Indian nation or no nation at all. Sectarian sentiments are ill dignified by being named in the lofty vocabulary of patriotism.

Two very sinister consequences are seen to flow from this conception of a religious basis of nationality in the present work. The first is the attempt to rehabilitate the Hindu Pantheon with new-fangled patriotic gods and goddesses, and the second is the morbid dislike of Mussulmans that seems to be indicated in this work. Neither would seem to be the least