Bande Mataram

For a subject people there is no royal road to emancipation. They must wade to it through struggle, sacrifice, slaughter, if necessary. History suggests no short-cut. Other nations also were weak, disunited and denationalized like ourselves. It is the rallying cry of freedom that combined their scattered units, drawing them together with a compelling and magical attraction. Those who would win freedom, must first imbue the people with an overpowering conviction that freedom is the one thing needful. Without a great ideal there can be no great movement. Small baits of material advantages will not nerve them to high endeavour and heroic self-sacrifice; it is only the idea of national freedom and national greatness that has that overmastering appeal. We must not bend the knee to others but try to be worthy of our past here is an ideal which, if set forth with conviction and power, cannot fail to inspire self-sacrificing action. We need faith above all things, faith in ourselves, faith the in the nation, faith in India’s destiny. A dozen men rendered invincible by a strong faith in their future, have in other times, spread the contagion of nationalism to the remotest corner of vast countries. Unbelief is blind – it does not see far ahead, neither stimulates strength nor inspires action. The lack of this faith has kept our moderate politicians tied down to a worn-out ideal, which has lost its credibility. No man can lead a rising nation unless he has this faith first of all that what other great men have done before him, he also can do as well, if not better, – that the freedom other nations have won, we also can win, if only we have the faith, the will.