How to reconstruct these industries and restore a portion of our ancient affluence? We must have no traffic with industrialism, for our simple industries are powerless to cope with the dynamic force of western industrialism. In the first place we have to give up our luxury and licence. They have filtered down even to the cottage of the cultivator. We must give them up if we wish to awaken the powers of our latent self and so invigorate the whole of our social and national life. Home-spun and coarse clothes should not prickle us. The temperance and restraint which will be necessary in order to sacrifice our luxury will be healthful and beneficent for our soul. Curtailment of luxuries which means non-importation of foreign articles will conserve our wealth and give a chance of new life to our dying industries and starved handicrafts.
As a true patriot Chitta Ranjan foresaw as early as the year 1917 that our national regeneration lay in the curtailment of our luxuries. To get rid of the materialism of Europe we must turn to our home industries. He advised his countrymen to fall back upon the spinning wheel and to weave their own clothes, be they coarse or fine. He has often said that until we, as a nation, are purged of the impurities consequent upon western license, all our healthy growth must become impossible. For it is certain, that
"Nation grown corrupt Love bondage more than liberty-- Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty."
Chitta Ranjan's life may well be compared to an Æolian harp which gives out different notes as different gusts of feelings play on it. With the internment of Mrs. Annie Besant it sounded a new note--a note inspired by an ardent love of humanity. From this time dates his real entry into practical politics. At a meeting held on the 25th July 1917 to protest against the internment of Mrs. Annie Besant, Chitta Ranjan delivered a speech in course of which he remarked:--
"The Prime-Minister said the other day--'The development of India is not only an economic but a political necessity, the British Empire is founded not only upon the freedom of the individual but upon autonomy of its parts uniting in one common-wealth people differing immensely from one another in race, language, religion and colour.' The utterances of His Majesty's Ministers are at once a promise and a hope. Every order of internment is a protest against the redemption of that promise and the fulfilment of that hope. I protest against these internment orders because whether any promises have been made or not every order of internment is a violation of natural justice and an outrage on humanity.... I do not think that the God of Humanity was crucified only once. Tyrants and oppressors have crucified humanity again and again and every outrage on humanity is a fresh nail driven through His sacred flesh.... The Anglo-Indian Press is never tired of saying to us: "Do not be impatient, there is plenty of time." There is no nation on the face of the Earth more patient than the Indian Nation. But there is a limit to human patience and I say to those doubtful friends, 'As soon as you transgress that limit, you forfeit the right of asking us to be patient.' When we find the utterances of our officials are at variance with their action, have we not right to say, "What is the good of your making promises?--You do not really mean what you say."... What are we that we should say "peace, peace," when there is none."