The following is, an extract from Tagore’s latest letters to shantiniketan published in the ‘Servants’: - Of the politics of our own country, I get some news in occasional hints and suggestions but cannot understand everything distinctly from such a distance. So I cannot make bold to judge of them. Recently a presidential address of Bepin Baba has reached my hands, from which I have got the version of one side, but as yet I have not had the opportunity of bearing the version of the other side fully and clearly. After comparing the Swadeshi movement of Bengal with the present movement, Bepin Baba has remarked that our movement was not a destructive (nastika) but constructive one (astika). To me this appears to be an exaggeration. For my complaint was just this at that time and I was abused for it by my countrymen. A perusal of my writings of that period will make this clear. At that time it was the aim of Bengal to do injury to Englishmen by having recourse to boycott. Only I myself protested against it and held that the foundation of self-government in the country was to be laid with our own efforts.
