Bande Mataram
CONTENTS
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Part One Writings and a Resolution 1890 1906 |
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India and the British Parliament
The Proposed Reconstruction of Bengal On the Bengali and the Mahratta Resolution at a Swadeshi Meeting |
Part Two
Bande Mataram under the Editorship of Bipin Chandra Pal 6 August 15 October 1906
Darkness in Light 20.8.06
Our Rip Van Winkles
20.8.06
Indians Abroad 20.8.06
Officials on the Fall of Fuller
20.8.06
Cow Killing: An Englishman's Amusements in Jalpaiguri
20.8.06
Schools for Slaves 27.8.06
By the Way
27.8.06
The Mirror and Mr. Tilak
28.8.06
Leaders in Council 28.8.06
Loyalty and Disloyalty in East Bengal
30.8.06
By the Way 30.8.06
Lessons at Jamalpur
1.9.06
By the Way 1.9.06
By the Way
3.9.06
Partition and Petition 4.9.06
English Enterprise and Swadeshi
4.9.06
Sir Frederick Lely on Sir Bampfylde Fuller 4.9.06
Jamalpur
4.9.06
By the Way 4.9.06
The Times on Congress Reforms
8.9.06
By the Way 8.9.06
The Pro-Petition Plot
10.9.06
Socialist and Imperialist 10.9.06
The Sanjibani on Mr. Tilak
10.9.06
Secret Tactics 10.9.06
By the Way
10.9.06
A Savage Sentence
11.9.06
The Question of the
Hour 11.9.06
A Criticism 11.9.06
By the Way 11.9.06
The Old Policy and
the New 12.9.06
Is a Conflict
Necessary? 12.9.06
The Charge of Vilification 12.9.06
Autocratic Trickery
12.9.06
By the Way 12.9.06
Strange
Speculations 13.9.06
The Statesman under
Inspiration 13.9.06
A Disingenuous
Defence 14.9.06
Last Friday's Folly
17.9.06
Stop-gap Won't Do
17.9.06
By the Way 17.9.06
Is Mendicancy
Successful? 18.9.06
By the Way 18.9.06
By the Way 20.9.06
By the Way 1.10.06
By the Way 11.10.06
Part Three
Bande Mataram under the Editorship of Sri Aurobindo
24 October 1906 27 May 1907
The Famine near Calcutta
29.10.06
Statesman's Sympathy Brand 29.10.06
By the Way. News from Nowhere
29.10.06
The Statesman's Voice of Warning 30.10.06
Sir Andrew Fraser
30.10.06
By the Way. Necessity Is the Mother of Invention
30.10.06
Articles Published in the Bande Mataram in November and December 1906
The Man of the Past and the Man of the
Future 26.12.06
The Results of the Congress
31.12.06
Yet There Is Method in It 25.2.07
Mr. Gokhale's Disloyalty
28.2.07
The Comilla Incident 15.3.07
British Protection or Self-Protection
18.3.07
The Berhampur Conference 29.3.07
The President of the Berhampur Conference
2.4.07
Peace and the Autocrats 3.4.07
Many Delusions
5.4.07
By the Way.
Reflections of Srinath Paul, Rai Bahadoor, on the Present Discontents
5.4.07
Omissions and Commissions at Berhampur 6.4.07
The Writing on the Wall
8.4.07
A Nil-admirari Admirer 9.4.07
Pherozshahi at Surat
10.4.07
A Last Word 10.4.07
The Situation in East Bengal
11.4.07
The Doctrine of Passive Resistance 11 23.4.07
I.
Introduction
II.
Its Object
III.
Its Necessity
IV.
Its Methods
VI.
Its Limits
VII.
Conclusions
The Proverbial Offspring
12.4.07
By the Way 12.4.07
By the Way
13.4.07
The Old Year 16.4.07
Rishi Bankim Chandra
16.4.07
A Vilifier on Vilification 17.4.07
By the Way. A Mouse in a Flutter
17.4.07
Simple, Not Rigorous 18.4.07
British Interests and British Conscience
18.4.07
A Recommendation 18.4.07
An Ineffectual Sedition Clause
19.4.07
The Englishman as a Statesman 19.4.07
The Gospel according to Surendranath
22.4.07
A Man of Second Sight 23.4.07
Passive Resistance in the Punjab
23.4.07
By the Way 24.4.07
Bureaucracy at Jamalpur
25.4.07
Anglo-Indian Blunderers 25.4.07
The Leverage of Faith
25.4.07
Graduated Boycott 26.4.07
Instinctive Loyalty
26.4.07
Nationalism, Not Extremism 26.4.07
hall India Be Free? The Loyalist Gospel
27.4.07
The Mask Is Off 27.4.07
Shall India Be Free? National Development
and Foreign Rule 29.4.07
Shall India Be Free?
30.4.07
Moonshine for Bombay Consumption
1.5.07
The Reformer on Moderation 1.5.07
Shall India Be Free? Unity and British Rule
2.5.07
Extremism in the Bengalee 3.5.07
Hare or Another
3.5.07
Look on This Picture, Then on That 6.5.07
Curzonism for the University
8.5.07
Incompetence or Connivance 8.5.07
Soldiers and Assaults
8.5.07
By the Way 9.5.07
Lala Lajpat Rai Deported
10.5.07
The Crisis 11.5.07
Lala Lajpat Rai
11.5.07
Government by Panic 13.5.07
In Praise of the Government
13.5.07
The Bagbazar Meeting 14.5.07
A Treacherous Stab
14.5.07
How to Meet the Ordinance 15.5.07
Mr. Morley's Pronouncement
16.5.07
The Bengalee on the Risley Circular 16.5.07
What Does Mr. Hare Mean?
16.5.07
Not to the Andamans! 16.5.07
The Statesman Unmasks
17.5.07
Sui Generis 17.5.07
The Statesman on Mr. Mudholkar
20.5.07
The Government Plan of Campaign 22.5.07
The Nawab's Message
22.5.07
And Still It Moves 23.5.07
British Generosity
23.5.07
An Irish Example 24.5.07
The East Bengal Disturbances
25.5.07
Newmania 25.5.07
The Gilded Sham
Again 27.5.07
National Volunteers
27.5.07
Part Four
Bande Mataram under the Editorship of Sri Aurobindo 28 May 22 December 1907
The True Meaning of the Risley Circular 28.5.07
Cool Courage and Not Blood-and-Thunder
Speeches 28.5.07
The Effect of Petitionary Politics
29.5.07
The Sobhabazar Shaktipuja 29.5.07
The Ordinance and After
30.5.07
A Lost Opportunity 30.5.07
The Daily News and Its Needs
30.5.07
Common Sense in an Unexpected Quarter 30.5.07
Drifting Away
30.5.07
The Question of the Hour 1.6.07
Regulated Independence
4.6.07
A Consistent Patriot 4.6.07
Holding on to a Titbit
4.6.07
Wanted, a Policy 5.6.07
Preparing the Explosion
5.6.07
A Statement 6.6.07
Law and Order
6.6.07
Defying the Circular 7.6.07
By the Way. When
Shall We Three Meet Again? 7.6.07
The Strength of the Idea
8.6.07
Comic Opera Reforms 8.6.07
Paradoxical Advice
8.6.07
An Out-of-Date Reformer 12.6.07
The Sphinx
14.6.07
Slow but Sure 17.6.07
The Rawalpindi Sufferers
18.6.07
Look on This Picture and Then on That 18.6.07
The Main Feeder of Patriotism
19.6.07
Concerted Action 20.6.07
The Bengal Government's Letter
20.6.07
British Justice
21.6.07
The Moral of the Coconada Strike 21.6.07
The Statesman on Shooting
21.6.07
Mr. A. Chaudhuri's Policy 22.6.07
A Current Dodge
22.6.07
More about British Justice 24.6.07
Morleyism Analysed
25.6.07
Political or Non-Political 25.6.07
Hare Street Logic
25.6.07
The Tanjore Students' Resolution 26.6.07
The Statesman on Mr. Chaudhuri
26.6.07
"Legitimate Patriotism" 27.6.07
Khulna Oppressions
27.6.07
The Secret Springs of Morleyism 28.6.07
A Danger to the State
28.6.07
The New Thought. Personal Rule and Freedom of Speech and Writing
28.6.07
The Secret of the Swaraj Movement 29.6.07
Passive Resistance in France
29.6.07
By the Way 29.6.07
Stand Fast
1.7.07
The Acclamation of the House 2.7.07
Perishing Prestige
2.7.07
A Congress Committee Mystery 2.7.07
Europe and Asia
3.7.07
Press Prosecutions 4.7.07
Try Again
5.7.07
A Curious Procedure 9.7.07
Association and Dissociation
9.7.07
Industrial India
11.7.07
From Phantom to Reality 13.7.07
Audi Alteram Partem
13.7.07
Swadeshi in Education 13.7.07
Boycott and After
15.7.07
In Honour of Hyde and Humphreys 16.7.07
Angelic Murmurs
18.7.07
A Plague o' Both
Your Houses 19.7.07
The Khulna Comedy
20.7.07
A Noble Example 20.7.07
The Korean Crisis
22.7.07
One More for the Altar 25.7.07
Srijut Bhupendranath
26.7.07
The Issue 29.7.07
District Conference at Hughly
30.7.07
Bureaucratic Alarms 30.7.07
The 7th of August
6.8.07
The Indian Patriot on Ourselves 6.8.07
Our Rulers and Boycott
7.8.07
Tonight's Illumination 7.8.07
Our First Anniversary
7.8.07
To Organise 10.8.07
Statutory Distinction
10.8.07
Marionettes and Others 12.8.07
A Compliment and Some Misconceptions
12.8.07
Pal on the Brain 12.8.07
Phrases by Fraser
13.8.07
To Organise Boycott 17.8.07
The Foundations of Nationality
17.8.07
Barbarities at Rawalpindi 20.8.07
The High Court Miracles
20.8.07
The Times Romancist 20.8.07
A Malicious Persistence
21.8.07
In Melancholy Vein 23.8.07
Advice to National College Students [Speech]
23.8.07
Sankaritola's Apologia 24.8.07
Our False Friends
26.8.07
Repression and Unity 27.8.07
The Three Unities of Sankaritola
31.8.07
Eastern Renascence 3.9.07
Bande Mataram 12-9-07
The Martyrdom of Bipin Chandra
12.9.07
Bande Mataram 14-9-07
Sacrifice and Redemption 14.9.07
Bande Mataram 20-9-07
The Un-Hindu Spirit
of Caste Rigidity 20.9.07
Bande Mataram 21-9-07
Caste and Democracy 21.9.07
Bande Mataram Prosecution
25.9.07
Pioneer or Hindu Patriot? 25.9.07
The Chowringhee Pecksniff and Ourselves
26.9.07
The Statesman in Retreat 28.9.07
The Khulna Appeal
28.9.07
A Culpable Inaccuracy 4.10.07
Novel Ways to Peace
5.10.07
"Armenian Horrors" 5.10.07
The Vanity of Reaction
7.10.07
The Price of a Friend 7.10.07
A New Literary Departure
7.10.07
Protected Hooliganism -A Parallel 8.10.07
Mr. Keir Hardie and India
8.10.07
The Shadow of the Ordinance in Calcutta 11.10.07
The Nagpur Affair and True Unity
23.10.07
The Nagpur Imbroglio 29.10.07
English Democracy Shown Up
31.10.07
Difficulties at Nagpur 4.11.07
Mr. Tilak and the Presidentship
5.11.07
Nagpur and Loyalist Methods 16.11.07
The Life of Nationalism
16.11.07
By the Way. In Praise of Honest John 18.11.07
Bureaucratic Policy
19.11.07
About Unity 2.12.07
Personality or Principle?
3.12.07
More about Unity 4.12.07
By the Way
5.12.07
Caste and Representation 6.12.07
About Unmistakable Terms
12.12.07
The Surat Congress 13.12.07
Misrepresentations about Midnapore
13.12.07
Reasons of Secession 14.12.07
The Awakening of
Gujarat
17.12.07
"Capturing the
Congress" 18.12.07
Lala Lajpat Rai's
Refusal 18.12.07
The Delegates' Fund
18.12.07
Part Five
Speeches 22 December 1907 1 February 1908
Speeches 13-1-08
Speeches 15-1-08
Speeches 19-1-08
Speeches 24-1-08
Speeches 26-1-08
Speeches 29-1-08
Speeches 30-1-08
Speeches 31-1-08
Speeches 1-2-08
Part Six
Bande Mataram
under the
Editorship of Sri Aurobindo with
Speeches Delivered during the Same Period 6
February 3 May 1908
Revolutions and Leadership
6.2.08
Speeches 12-13-2-08
waraj 18.2.08
The Future of the
Movement 19.2.08
Work and Ideal
20.2.08
By the Way 20.2.08
The Latest Sedition
Trial 21.2.08
Boycott and British
Capital 21.2.08
Unofficial
Commissions 21.2.08
The Soul and
India's Mission 21.2.08
The Glory of God in
Man 22.2.08
A National
University 24.2.08
Mustafa Kamal Pasha
3.3.08
A Great Opportunity
4.3.08
Swaraj and the
Coming Anarchy 5.3.08
The Village and the
Nation 7.3.08
Welcome to the
Prophet of Nationalism 10.3.08
The Voice of the
Martyrs 11.3.08
Constitution-making
11.3.08
What Committee?
11.3.08
An Opportunity Lost
11.3.08
A Victim of
Bureaucracy 11.3.08
A Great Message
12.3.08
The Tuticorin
Victory 13.3.08
Perpetuate the
Split! 14.3.08
Loyalty to Order
14.3.08
Asiatic Democracy
16.3.08
Charter or No
Charter 16.3.08
The Warning from
Madras 17.3.08
The Need of the
Moment 19.3.08
Unity by
Co-operation 20.3.08
The Early Indian
Polity 20.3.08
The Fund for Sj.
Pal 21.3.08
The Weapon of
Secession 23.3.08
Sleeping Sirkar and
Waking People 23.3.08
Anti-Swadeshi in
Madras 23.3.08
Exclusion or Unity?
24.3.08
How the Riot Was
Made 24.3.08
Oligarchy or
Democracy? 25.3.08
Freedom of Speech
26.3.08
Tomorrow's Meeting
27.3.08
Well Done,
Chidambaram! 27.3.08
The Anti-Swadeshi
Campaign 27.3.08
Spirituality and
Nationalism 28.3.08
The Struggle in
Madras 30.3.08
A Misunderstanding
30.3.08
The Next Step
31.3.08
India and the
Mongolian 1.4.08
Religion and the
Bureaucracy 1.4.08
The Milk of Putana
1.4.08
Swadeshi Cases and
Counsel 2.4.08
The Question of the
President 3.4.08
The Utility of
Ideals 3.4.08
Speech at Panti's
Math 3.4.08
Convention and
Conference 4.4.08
By the Way 4.4.08
The Constitution of
the Subjects Committee 6.4.08
The New Ideal
7.4.08
The Asiatic Role
9.4.08
Love Me or Die
9.4.08
The Work Before Us
10.4.08
Campbell-Bannerman
Retires 10.4.08
Speech 10-4-08
The Demand of the
Mother 11.4.08
Speech 12-4-08
Peace and Exclusion
13.4.08
Indian Resurgence
and Europe 14.4.08
Om Shantih 14.4.08
Conventionalist and
Nationalist 18.4.08
Speech 20-4-08
The Future and the
Nationalists 22.4.08
The Wheat and the
Chaff 23.4.08
Party and the
Country 24.4.08
The Bengalee Facing
Both Ways 24.4.08
The One Thing
Needful 25.4.08
New Conditions
29.4.08
Whom to Believe?
29.4.08
By the Way. The
Parable of Sati 29.4.08
Leaders and a
Conscience 30.4.08
An Ostrich in
Colootola 30.4.08
By the Way 30.4.08
Nationalist
Differences 2.5.08
Ideals Face to Face
2.5.08
Part Seven
Writings from Manuscripts
1907 1908
Appendixes
Incomplete Drafts of Three
Articles
Draft of the Conclusion of
"Nagpur and Loyalist Methods"
Draft of the Opening of "In
Praise of Honest John"
Incomplete Draft of an
Unpublished Article
Writings and
Jottings Connected with the Bande Mataram 1906 1908
"Bande Mataram"
Printers & Publishers, Limited.
Draft of a
Prospectus of 1907
Notes and Memos
Nationalist Party
Documents
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Bande Mataram
{ CALCUTTA, September
26th, 1907 }
The Chowringhee Pecksniff and Ourselves
The collapse of the Bande Mataram prosecution and acquittal of Srijut Aurobindo Ghose, which have been welcomed with relief and joy by our countrymen all over India, are naturally gall and wormwood to the opponents of Indian Nationalism; but to none has the fiasco caused bitterer disappointment than to the Friend of India in Chowringhee. Sharing the common but mistaken impression that our paper depends on the writings of one man for its continued existence, the Statesman had evidently hoped that with the incarceration of Srijut Aurobindo Ghose the one paper in Bengal which it fears and which has ruthlessly exposed the falsehood and duplicity of its sanctimonious Liberalism, would be removed out of its path. It cannot conceal its chagrin and mortification at the disappointment of its cherished hopes, and as a pis aller, it tries to discredit the Bande Mataram and informs our subscribers that they ought not to support us any longer because it has been proved that we are either guilty of having put forward a false defence or of the unpardonable immorality of having an editorial staff instead of a single Editor. The tone and method of this attack are worthy of this unctuous and mealy-mouthed Pecksniff of Anglo-Indian journalism. It un scrupulously supports its malicious insinuations by calling the witnesses summoned by the prosecution "defence witnesses" as if the accused had put men into the witness-box to tell a false story: and it shelters itself from the charge of libel by the use of `if's and `or's. Yet it has the impudence to claim a superior sense of honour for English pamphleteers and editors! "The great English political writers", it says, "have never been afraid to own their handiwork and we cannot recall a single instance
Page – 692 in which an English pamphleteer or Editor has endeavoured to evade the law by raising technical difficulties as to his share of responsibility." There are three separate insinuations in this carefully written sentence; first, it is hinted that Srijut Aurobindo Ghose was the real writer of the correspondence, "Politics for Indians", but falsely denied his handiwork; secondly that he was the responsible Editor of the paper and his denial of responsibility was "technical" and untrue; thirdly, that any writer for the paper was morally bound to accept responsibility for anything that might appear in the paper as a part of the political propaganda in which he was engaged and Aurobindo Ghose, knowing himself to be so bound, evaded his responsibility out of fear. Certainly the writer of this article need not disown his handiwork or evade his responsibility, for he has brought the art of safe slander to its utmost possible perfection. We have no hesitation in saying that if we had invented a system of divided responsibility with the object of baffling a possible bureaucratic prosecution, we should have been entirely within our rights. In England a publicist or propagandist has always had the advantage of being tried by a jury of his own peers and in all but rare cases enjoyed every reasonable chance of a fair trial, but the reverse is the case in countries circumstanced as India is circumstanced today. Where the whole armoury of an absolute power is arrayed against him, the Judge a servant of his prosecutor, the law an instrument specially designed for his suppression, the wealth and power of a despotic executive and the activity of a not over-scrupulous police his pursuers, and his only supporters are his own patriotism and the sympathy of his people, the Nationalist is entitled to use any means for his own self-defence which will not be inconsistent with his mission nor injure his claim to national sympathy and support. He owes no moral obligation of quixotic candour to antagonists who themselves recognise no moral obligation in their struggle with him. Whatever he owes, is to his people and the mission he has to discharge. If he will serve his country best by leaping into the fire, that is his duty; if self-defence is more to the interests of the country and the cause, no other consideration
Page – 693 ought to weigh with him. The primary object of the Nationalist organs must be to keep up their propaganda until it is rendered physically impossible by the growing severity of bureaucratic enactments. Bhupendranath and Basanta deliberately exposed themselves to the worst effects of bureaucratic wrath in order to give an example to the country of heroic self-sacrifice and a living demonstration of the spirit of Swarajism; but they did it in the full confidence that the Yugantar would continue undaunted and unchanged in the course it conceived to be its duty to the nation. Had they exposed themselves with the knowledge that their disappearance would have meant the death of the paper, their action would have been heroic but foolish, an outburst of patriotic sentiment but not an act of patriotic wisdom. To allow the voice of Nationalism to be silenced would be to play into the hands of the adversary to whom we owe no duty. The gospel of National ism has to be preached with unflinching candour, but Nationalist organs will be perfectly within their rights if they protect their writers so long as it is humanly possible to protect them and so prolong their own career of propagandist usefulness. No such arrangement was made in the case of the Bande Mataram. Had we intended to protect ourselves, we would have done it by the simple and convenient Japanese device of a jail editor. The device imputed to us would be neither illegal nor immoral, but it would be cumbrous and unsafe. It is perfectly true that it throws great difficulties in the way of the prosecution, but it is equally obvious that it leaves the bureaucracy free to single out anyone they choose for harassment and does not protect him at all, since the police have only to be clever enough in their choice of witnesses and the arrangement of the evidence, and the accused, whether really responsible or not, is doomed. Everybody can feel that if Anukul Mukherji had had more backbone and lied more cleverly in the cross-examination, Srijut Aurobindo Ghose would now be a convict in the Central Jail. Had we thought of putting forward a false defence, we could have done it very effectively by producing an Editor on the spot. There were at least three men on the staff who were anxious to immolate themselves in this manner, and it was only
Page – 694 prevented by the refusal of the accused to accept any such sacrifice and by the singular conduct of the prosecution in calling the officers of the Company as their witnesses. The moment Srijut Sailendranath Ghose entered the witness box, there was no course left open to the defence but to take their stand on the facts as elicited by the prosecution. For a member of the staff to come forward and by a splendid falsehood take upon himself the responsibility of the matter complained of, if not of the whole editorial function, would have been morally permissible; but it was obviously impossible for the Secretary of the Company to perjure himself by fixing a non-existent responsibility on any particular individual. The one defect in the conduct of the defence was that the circumstances which brought about the state of things described by the Secretary, were not elicited in cross-examination. When we come to deal with the facts of the case in detail, we shall mend that deficiency and our readers will see that the evolution of that arrangement was natural and even inevitable. In the diatribe of the Chowringhee Pecksniff against us there is one bit of Pecksniffian logic which we fail to appreciate. He seems to think that a paper cannot be respectable unless it has a single autocratic Editor and that the readers of a paper not so blessed must be disreputable. Why, pray? We had always thought that what one man could do in the way of management, could be done as well by a board or committee of men acting in unison and with one clearly understood policy; we used even to think that such conjoint management was in politics the characteristic of democratic times. But Chowringhee liberalism evidently thinks no arrangement respectable which does not involve absolute control by a single master-mind. It argues that the Bande Mataram policy being the joint product of several minds must be the result of distracted counsels, since only an autocrat can think clearly. After that we can hardly be surprised at the affection of the Friend of India for absolutism and absolutist methods or the support it has given to the new Grand Mogul who now governs India on mediaeval principles from Westminster.
Page – 695 |