"Toilers of the Spirit, companions, scattered all over the world, separated from one another for five years by armies, by censorship and hate of nations at war, we take this opportunity, when barriers are falling and frontiers are reopening, of making an appeal to you to reform your faternal union , - but let it be a fresh union, firmer and stronger than the one which existed before.
Arise ! Let us extricate the spirit from these compromises, these humiliating alliances, the secret slavery ! The spirit is the servant of none. It is we who are servants of the spirit. We have no other master.... We serve truth alone which is free, with no frontiers, with no limits, with no prejudices of race or caste. Ofcourse we shall not disassociate ourselves from the interests of Humanity ! We shall work for it, but for it, as a whole. We donot recognise nations. We recognise the people - one and universe - the people who suffer, who struggle who fall and rise again, ...the people comprising all men, all equally our brothers. And it is in order to make them, like ourselves, aware of this fraternity, that we raise above their blind battles the Arch of Alliance, of the Free Spirit, oneandmanifold, eternal.
Rabindranath was late in replying he letter. In reply to the letter of Rabindranath dated 24th june Rolland said on 26th Aug, 1919. Which was again rplied by Rabindranath ;
" When my mind was steeped in the gloom of thought , that the lesson of the war had been lost, and that people were trying to perpetuate their hatred and angerinto the same organised menace for the world which threatened themselves with disaster, your letter came and cheered me with message of hope. The truths that have always been utteredby the few and rejected by many and have triumped through their failures. It is enough fof me to know that the higher conscience of Europe has been able to assert itself in one of her choicest spirits throgh the ugly clamours of passionate politics., and I gladly hastened to accept your invitation to join the ranks of those free souls, who in Europe have conceived the project of a Declaration of Independence of the Spirits...
Then Rabindranath asked for pewrmission to publish the English translation of his letter and the Declaration of Independence in local papers . The letter of Rolland and the Declaration was published in ' The Modern Review, July/80-82.
From india Kentish Kumaraswami signed the Declaration of Independence. Gandhiji and other Indian leaders were not interested in this Declaration.
Rolland's did not get any success.
Rabinranath remarked' ;
The truths that save us have always been uttered by the few and rejected by the many..
