sociated itself so
intimately with a political movement directed against British rule is
one of the many anomalies presented by the problem of Indian unrest.

Many Aryas, indeed, deny strenuously that the Samaj is disaffected, or
even that it concerns itself with politics, and the president of the
Lahore branch, Mr. Roshan Lal, assured me that it devotes itself solely
to moral and religious reform. I do not question that assurance, as far
as Mr. Roshan Lal is himself personally concerned, and it may be true
that the Samaj has never committed itself as a body to any political
programme, and that many individual members hold aloof from politics;
but the evidence that many others, and not the least influential, have
played a conspicuous part in the seditious agitation of the last few
years, both in the Punjab and in the neighbouring United Provinces, is
overwhelming. In the Rawal Pindi riots in 1907 the ringleaders were
Aryas, and in the violent propaganda which for about two years preceded
the actual outbreak of violence none figured more prominently than Lala
Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh, both prominent Aryas. The immediate effect
produced by their deportation in restoring order is in itself
corroborative evidence of the share they were believed to have taken in
producing lawlessness. Ajit Singh himself is at the present moment a
fugitive from justice, against whom proceedings _in absentia_ were
instituted this winter in Lahore for translating and publishing
seditious books that dealt with the making of bombs, the taking of life,
the destruction of buildings, &c. In the course of these proceedings
letters from Lajpat Rai were produced in Court showing that just about
the time of the disturbances he had been in communication with Shyamji
Krishnavarma, of _Indian Sociologist_ fame, for a supply of books
"containing true ideas on politics" for the students of Lahore, as well
as for assistance towards defraying the cost of "political
missionaries." In one of these letters also Lajpat Rai, after remarking
that "the people are in a sullen mood" and that "the agricultural
classes have begun to agitate," adds significantly that his "only fear
is that the bursting out may not be premature." Lajpat Rai's
correspondent was another prominent Arya, Bhai Parmanand, who, whilst he
was Professor at the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College, was found in
possession of various formulae for the manufacture of bombs, including
the same manual that was