Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/20

 national enervation there is no room for initiative, but ample scope for imitation; no motive for self-protection, but every reason for punishing lese Majesty; no need for inventions, research, discovery, but every necessity to forthwith become a market for all of them.

We are not masters, and have not the responsibility of masters; obedience is our duty and safety is our reward. Others protect our shores, take steps to irrigate our lands, to decide our disputes, to interpret the intentions of our lawgivers, to tell us how we should teach our babes, and, verily and verily, spell our names! Our part and lot in life is to have the benefit of all these kindly endeavours on our behalf in return for merely accepting these gifts. Such a gift as this may bless the giver; but it leaves the taker worse than cursed—leaves him unworthy of a curse even. Indian Nationalism, which is directed not even against foreign influence as such, but against its tendency to deaden the roots of race-consciousness, has psychologically nothing to do with our political allegiance. England we need as the navigator needs the lode star. But we need it, not to perform for us all our physiological functions, but to share with us