Page:Heroes of the hour- Mahatma Gandhi, Tilak Maharaj, Sir Subramanya Iyer.djvu/295

 policy of repression by securing signatures of men who have never counted as a force for progress and who, leading a life of self-sufficient isolation, have found in the handshake of a European official the beatitude of earthly existence. It gazed on petty prosecutions of those who put up "flags"—as though these flags were a standard of revolt against the Crown of India. Like the fanatical Vishnavite lady who began purifying the place where a Saivite had sat in her house and unconsciously uttered the name of Siva, and thereafter falling a victim to the malicious humour of the follower of the Trident, who cried out "Siva to the pial, Siva to the pillar and Siva to your head" poured a thick and copious solution of cow-dung on all these objects not excluding herself—like this sectarian fanatical "female"—wherever a piece of bambo with a red and green cloth tied to it was hoisted, the zealous loyalists, ready to profit by timely service, pounced upon the occasion as though they were putting to route a Turkish contingent that had made its way from Mesopotamia into the thick of the southern presidency. These were the ways and means by which the political atmosphere had become unnaturally