THE COLONY
9
"Dear boy," Bapu had replied, which was all he had to say, for
his moral command over his followers was such that any one who
accused
him
of pride thereby stood accused of greater pride. The old
man had never failed to illustrate his beliefs through his own character.
He had shown the extraordinary force that resides in gentleness, the
obduracy of the sweet and self-effacing smile, the tyranny of sacrifice.
While he had inspired the greatest love and reverence even in non–
religious men, while simple souls had proclaimed him a saint, and
complex, and more modem souls, had secretly agreed, he had, never–
theless, by a universal but timid acknowledgment, also been con–
sidered something of a crank. Thousands had willingly died for him,
but never, thought Satya, without a trace, a spoor, a particle of
resentment.
But Satya did not question his indebtedness to Bapu. He had
accepted the doctrines laid down by the old man and defended them
in the party. There was, in fact, very little criticism of Bapu's work.
A few extremists, who had always dissented, argued that the growth
of government oppression confirmed their views. But the majority of
the party held that the old man's policy had been sound, and that
no one could have foreseen, he least of all, the drastic changes in the
country's administration that had been introduced after
his
death.
The strategy Bapu had followed-refusing to call it a strategy,
he had sought only moral justification for it-was correct not only
morally, thought Satya, but politically. It was, he admitted, a curious
political counsel that turned to a study of Scripture rather than eco–
nomics; and yet, saintliness had succeeded where mere political
shrewdness would have failed. No other doctrine would have gained
such a large following among the superstitious and illiterate masses.
Even the lowest peasants in the remotest comers of the country, men
so degraded arid stupefied by oppression that the most elementary
significance of political struggle remained inaccessible to them, never–
theless venerated Bapu's name and, regarding him as a God, im–
provised through the devotions of a cult, some of the very measures
he would have had them adopt by reason alone.
Bapu had feared in his youth that the country was not ready
for liberation. Several times he had called off the resistance move–
ment, doubting that his followers were prepared for the struggle. In
his
later years the old man had seen that freedom would not be
achieved in his
lifet~e.
It had, perhaps, been a kind of vanity-an
extraordinary vanity, for no ordinary trait could find lodgment in an
extraordinary character-that had led him, toward the end of
his
