instinctive dislike of the foreigner as ruling in their land, have
caused a marvellous awakening. The strength of the Home Rule movement is
rendered tenfold greater by the adhesion to it of large numbers of
women, who bring to its helping the uncalculating heroism, the
endurance, the self-sacrifice, of the feminine nature. Our League's best
recruits are among the women of India, and the women of Madras boast
that they marched in procession when the men were stopped, and that
their prayers in the temples set the interned captives free. Home Rule
has become so intertwined with religion by the prayers offered up in the
great Southern Temples, sacred places of pilgrimage, and spreading from
them to village temples, and also by its being preached up and down the
country by Sadhus and Sannyasins, that it has become in the minds of the
women and of the ever religious masses, inextricably intertwined with
religion. That is, in this country, the surest way of winning alike the
women of the higher classes and the men and women villagers. And that is
why I have said that the two words, "Home Rule," have become a Mantram.

THE AWAKENING OF THE MASSES.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III.

WHY INDIA DEMANDS HOME RULE.

India demands Home Rule for two reasons, one essential and vital, the
other less important but necessary: Firstly, because Freedom is the
birthright of every Nation; secondly, because her most important
interests are now made subservient to the interests of the British
Empire without her consent, and her resources are not utilised for her
greatest needs. It is enough only to mention the money spent on her
Army, not for local defence but for Imperial purposes, as compared with
that spent on primary education.

I. THE VITAL REASON.

What is a Nation?

Self-Government is necessary to the self-respect and dignity of a
People; Other-Government emasculates a Nation, lowers its character, and
lessens its capacity. The wrong done by the Arms Act, which Raja Rampal
Singh voiced in the Second Congress as a wrong which outweighed all the
benefits of British Rule, was its weakening and debasing effect on
Indian manhood. "We cannot," he declared, "be grateful to it for
degrading our natures, for systematically crushing out all martial
spirit, for converting a race of soldiers and heroes into a timid flock
of quill-driving sheep." This was done not by the fact that a man did
not carry arms--fe