TRUE BROTHERHOOD.

Sarojini Naidu

    The following is a lecture delivered at a Public

    Meeting held under the auspices of the Historical

    Society, Pachaiyappas College, 1905:


    You know that you are provincial — and you are

    more limited than that —because your horizon is 

    bounded almost by your city, your own community,

    your own sub-caste, your own college, your own homes,

    your owm relations, your own self. (Loud cheers,)

    I know I am speaking rightly, because I also in my

    earlier youth was afflicted with the same sort of

    short-sightedness of the love. Having travelled,

    having conceived having hoped, having enlarged my love,

    having widened my sympathies, having come in contact

    with different races, different communities, different 

    religions,different civilisations, friends, my vision

    is clear. I have no prejudice of race, creed, caste

    or color. Though, as is supposed, every Brahmin is 

    an aristocrat by instinct, I am a real democrat,

    because to me there is no difference between a king on

    his throne and a beggar in the street. And until, you,

    students have acquired and mastered that spirit of

    brotherhood, do not believe it possible that you will

    ever cease to be provincial, that you will cease to

    be sectarian — if I may use such a word—" that you 

    will ever be national. If it were otherwise, there 

    should have been no necessity for all those Resolutions

    in the Social Conference yesterday. I look to you and

    not to the generation that is passing ; it is the young

    that would have the cour- age to cast aside that bondage

    to make it impossible for the Social Conference of ten

    years hence to proclaim its disgrace in the manner in

    which it was proclaimed yester- day and in which I took

    part {continued I cheers). Students, if facilities come

    in your; way, travel; because the knowledge that comes

    rom living contact with men and It minds, the

    inestimable culture that comes - through interchange

    of ideas, can never be equalled and certainly not 

    surpassed by that knowledge between the covers of

    textbooks. You read the poems of Shelley on Liberty.”

    You read the lecture of Keats on the “ Brotherhood of Man,”

    But do you put them all in practice? Reading is one

    thing, It is a very different thing to put it into practice

    by your deeds. It is difficult to follow in reality the

    proverb that all men are brethren. Therefore, to you,

    young men, we look for the fulfilment of the dreams 

    that we have dreamed. To you we look to rectify the 

    mistakes we have made. To you we look to redeem the pledges

    we have given to posterity. I beg of you, young men, nay,

    I enjoin upon you that duty that you dare not, if you are men,

    separate from your hearts and mind and spirit. I say that

    it is not your pride that you are a Madrassee, that it

    is not your pride that you are a Brahmin, that it is not

    your pride you belong to the South of India, that it is

    not your pride you are a Hindu, but that it is your

    pride that you are an Indian. I was born in Bengal.

    I belong to the Madras Presidency. In a Mahorae- dan 

    city I was brought up and married and there I lived; still

    I am neither a Bengalee, nor Madrassee, nor Hyderabadee

    but I am an Indian, {cheers) not a Hindu, not a Brahmin,

    but an Indian to whom my Mahomedan brother is as dear

    and as precious as my Hindu brother. I was brought

    up in a home, that would never have tolerated the 

    least spirit of difference, in the treatment given to

    people of different classes. There you will find that

    genuine spontaneous love shown to them, I was brought up

    in a home over which presided one of the greatest men of

    India and who is an embodiment of all great lores and an

    ideal of truth, of love, of justice and. patriotism. 

    That great teacher of India, had come to us to give 

    immortal inspiration. That is a home of Indians and not 

    of Hindus or Brahmins. It is because that my beloved 

    father said, “ Be not limited even to the Indians, but 

    let it be your pride that you are a citizen of the world,”

    that I should love my country. I am ready to lay down 

    my life for the welfare of all India. I beg of you, 

    my brothers, not to limit your love only to India, 

    because it is better to aim at the sky, it is better 

    that your ideals of patriotism should extend for the 

    welfare of the world and not be limited to the prosperity

    of India and so to achieve that prosperity for your 

    country; because, if the ideals be only for the prosperity

    of your country, it would end where it began, by 

    being a profit to your own community and very probably

    to your own self. You have inherited great dreams. 

    You have had great duties laid upon you. You have

    been bequeathed legacies for- whose suffrage and 

    whose growth and accumulation you are responsible. 

    It does not matter where you are and who you cire. 

    Even a sweeper of streets can be a patriot. You can 

    find in him a moralising spirit that can inspire your

    mind. There is not one of you who is so humble and so

    insignificant that can evade the duties that belong

    to you, that are predestined to you and which nobody

    but you can perform.. Therefore each of you is bound

    to dedicate his life to the up-lifting of his country.


    

Sarojini Naidu's, "Love and Death" comes from her collection "The Bird of Time"