Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/21

 the risks and benefits of the journey. The whole position may be put in a nut shell in this statement:—England has been taking care of us so well that prolonged, we may ever hereafter become incapable of taking care of ourselves. What we need is to be taken care of in such a way as will enable us to dispense with external help. "We have done everything for India and yet they complain"—is the attitude of mind of the Anglo-Indian who has not stood in our shoes and has not known where they pinch, bite, and inflame, who does not know that we have come to dread "this doing everything for us." It is like the grievance of the vacuous minded person who puts the bird in a cage, feeds it, cleanses its barred habitation, talks to it endearingly and wonders why he is told that it cannot be happy under this state of protection. Doing everything for another is doing him in fact the worst service—and under this philanthropic guardianship, the nation has become fit only to dream of its past glories, wallowing in foreign good offices, aimless and nerveless. Barren in everything that makes a people respected by others, we have become habitual seekers of salvation in another