Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

Echoes and Intersections I 119
were astounded to hear the missionaries explained as those
who "represent the Militarism of Nirvana." The workers
took up a collection simply to induce this nuisance,
"ambassador of the Son ofBibi Miriam;' to go away.
Back at the university in fall 1912, Mukerj i now fo und
that all the Indian students he encountered there-more
than there had ever been-were nationalists. "They wanted
to free India. As if a politically free India meant an India
traditionally and uniquely herself!" But despite his own
family history, he quarreled bitterly with many of these radical
students, who "thought that ifIndia had factories and
a government as well as an army and navy of her own, she
would be one of the civilized countries of the earth."
Here is Mukerji's portrayal of his encounter with the
quintessential Indian radical nationalist, a person he said
many would still remember in San Francisco, though here
unnamed:
He wanted to cut the throat of every English official
just as he wanted to cut the throat of every
Indian traitor. He meditated such a gigantic
slaughter that he seemed to me like an epic poet
of death. He contemplated vast holocausts as
magnificent offerings to the god of Patriotism. He
devised ingenious plans to blow up garrisons of
English soldiers as a disinfectant and a preventive
of political hells, and once in a while he would
grow lyrical about the joy of belonging to a free
people. He imagined very suave massacres, and
delicate assassinations.