extremists; his father’s moderacy began to embarrass him. Motilal was
sympathetic to the campaign for indigenous manufactures and educational
institutions, but could not see the point of boycotting political and
educational institutions. Indians, he felt, still had much to learn from
British practices and institutions. Moreover, he did not believe in extra-
legal forms of agitation. A certain internalisation of British prejudices
against the ‘oily babu’, as he called the Bengalis,^13 went alongside a
grudging admiration for their ability to get a large movement going; but
Motilal was convinced of the ultimate goodwill of the British government,
and put his faith in its liberal impulses.
Following events from the point of view of the British press, Jawaharlal
had been less able to maintain the illusion of British good intentions.
Jawaharlal sought to argue with and to educate his father. He reported to
his father that an evening paper had described Indians as ‘invertebrates’,
who could not evolve towards self-government before a few aeons of
geological time.^14 His travels in the summer of 1907, before he went up
to university, had included a stay in Dublin with his cousin Brijlal, where
he followed the Irish nationalist movement with some interest. Writing
to his father from Cambridge, he recommended to him the model of
struggle of the Sinn Fein – ‘ourselves alone’: ‘Have you heard of the Sinn
Fein in Ireland? It is a most interesting movement and resembles very
closely the so-called extremist movement in India. Their policy is not to
beg for favours but to wrest them.’^15 The moderates, Jawaharlal believed,
were becoming irrelevant and would soon cease to exist. Motilal was
unconvinced; politics apart, he was also unwilling to sacrifice his lifestyle
for the ideal of swadeshi– in 1907, at the height of the movement, he
bought himself a motor car. The swadeshipress promptly labelled him a
bideshi(foreigner); Motilal, annoyed, could not see the point. ‘Would you
advise me to wait till motor cars are manufactured in India[?],’^16 he wrote
to his son. (He later sold the car on to the Raja of Amethi as it was too
expensive to run; but he bought himself a cheaper one later, arguing
that once he was used to motoring, he could hardly be expected to
stop.) Impatient and embarrassed by his father, Jawaharlal tried to provoke
him into a more self-respecting attitude. Political criticism turned
to taunts: ‘I wonder if the insulting offer of a Rai Bahadurship or some-
thing equivalent to it would make you less of a moderate than you
are.’^17 This one struck home – the government only offered such titles to
Indians whose loyalist credentials were unquestionable. Motilal, suitably
THE MAKING OF A COLONIAL INTELLECTUAL 21