Page:The Life and Work of Sir Jagadis C. Bose.djvu/18

4 they develop more or less of that type of people described by an old traveller as 'difficult and dangerous to deal with; for when you attack them they defend themselves.' Modern government, with its magistracy and police, has long abated this defensive necessity; yet its best instruments for maintaining security are obviously the picked local men who in earlier times were such village defenders; while the best of local magistrates is the man who would have been their leader, at once by natural and acquired qualities. Here then in this Faridpur district we see, though in too scanty outline, other main factors, besides those of Vikrampur, in the child Jagadis' early surroundings and upbringing. These factors were operative in eliciting that note of strenuous and persistent courage in facing dangers and adversities, and of untiring combativeness against every difficulty, which we shall find throughout his youthful and maturing years.

For Bose's father—Bhagaban Chunder Bose, Deputy Magistrate of Faridpur—was the active defender, not only of the townlet, but of the scores of villages around as well. The modern magistrate is mainly settled between his courthouse and his home; but here in those days a man was needed, picked not only for judicial capacity, intelligence and local knowledge, but for active initiative and courage, and thus prepared at any moment to assume command of his own police and his people as well, and be ready even to raid the raiders. Of this readiness various stories might be told. As a single example, hearing of a gang of dacoits in his neighbourhood, Mr. Bose mounted an elephant and, with the very few police available, rode straight into the very heart of the dacoits' camp. Taken by surprise, they broke and scattered; the ready magistrate dropped down, captured the leader with his own hands, and took him back for trial.

Such vigour of action, with total freedom from those elements of tacit compromise between police and crime which had sometiin« existed before (and are said even now