Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/212

 Judge at Mozufferpore struck Mrs. and Miss Kennedy leaving them killed on the spot. This incident created a panic, intensified by the rapid arrests of a number of Bengali youths. The fury of the Anglo-Indian Community knew no bounds and some fanatics like the Pioneer and the Asian began to cry for blood. The Moderates and the Loyalists were terrified and lost all sense of proportion. The Government was panic-stri- ken. The delicate duty of warning the Government of the dangers of repression, the Terrorists of the utter futility of their doings and the Moderates of the neces- sity of keeping their heads cool, fell upon the " Extre- mists " and this duty Mr. Tilak discharged with his usual candour. He did not " speak of murders with approval " nor did he " hail the advent of the bomb in India as if something had come to India for its good." He did not, like Mathew Arnold, refuse to call a man murderer who "for some great public cause, without love or hate, austerely raised his arm against a power exempt from common checks." On the contrary he considered it to be " the country's misfortune " that the bomb had come ; and he called upon the Government, with all the fervour at his command to uproot this ' poisonous tree ' by giving larger political rights to the people. He clearly saw through the attempts made to fasten the responsibility of such events upon the much- disliked agitator. But really speaking " the ultimate cause of terrism in Bengal must be sought in the utterly selfish, high-handed and tyrannical policy of the Govern- ment and in the contemptuous and insulting manner in which most official and non-official Anglo-Indians have spoken of and treated the Bengalees. They have