Bande Mataram
CONTENTS
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
Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 7th, 1908 }
The New Ideal
The need of a great ideal was never more keenly felt than it is in India at the present day. Nowhere have so many weaknesses combined to stand in the way of a nation in the whole range of history. Nowhere have the rulers reduced their subjects to so complete, pervading and abject a material helplessness. When the Mogul ruled, he ruled as a soldier and a conqueror, in the pride of his strength, in the confidence of his invincible greatness, the lord of the peoples by natural right of his imperial character and warlike strength and skill. He stooped to no meanness, hedged himself in with no army of spies, entered into no relations with foreign powers, but, grandiose and triumphant, sat on the throne of a continent like Indra on his heavenly seat, master of his world because there was none strong enough to dispute it with him. He trusted his subjects, gave them positions of power and responsibility, used their brain and arm to preserve his conquests and by the royalty of that trust and noble pride in his own ability to stand by his innate strength, was able to hold India for over a century until Aurangzeb forgot the kuladharma of his house and by distrust, tyranny and meanness lost for his descendants the splendid heritage of his forefathers. The present domination is a rule of shopkeepers who are at the same time bureaucrats, a combination of the worst possible qualities for imperial Government. The shopkeeper rules by deceit, the bureaucrat by the use of red tape. The shopkeeper by melancholy meanness alienates the subject population, the bureaucrat by soulless rigidity deprives the administration of life and human sympathy. The shopkeeper uses his position of authority to push his wares and fleece his subjects, the bureaucrat forgets his duty
Page – 1014 and loses his royal character in his mercantile greed. The shopkeeper becomes a pocket Machiavel, the bureaucrat a gigantic retail trader. By this confusion of dharmas, varnashankara is born in high places and the nation first and the rulers afterwards go to perdition. This is what has happened in India under the present regime. The bureaucracy has ruled in the spirit of a mercantile power, holding its position by aid of mercenaries, afraid of its subjects, with no confidence in its destiny, with no trust even in the mercenaries who support it, piling up gold with one hand, with the other holding a borrowed sword over the head of a fallen people. It has sought its strength not in the mission with which God had entrusted it, nor in the greatness of England, her mastery of the ocean, her pride of unconquered prowess, her just and sympathetic principle of government, but in the weakness of the people. The strength of England has been held as a threat in the background, not as a source of quiet and unostentatious self-confidence which enable the rulers to be generous as well as just. The liberal principles of English rule have been chanted as a sort of magic mantra to hypnotise the nation into willing subjection, not used as a living principle of government. What have been the real sources of bureaucratic strength? An arms act, a corrupt and oppressive police, an army of spies, a mercenary military force officered by Englishmen, a people emasculated, kept ignorant, out of the world's life, poor, intimidated, abjectly under the thumb of the police constable or the provincial prefect. Such a principle of rule cannot endure. It contradicts the law of God and offends the reason of man; it is as unprofitable as it is selfish and heartless. The nation which has passed through a century of such a misgovernment must necessarily have degenerated. The bureaucracy has taken care to destroy every centre of strength not subservient to itself. A nation politically disorganised, a nation morally corrupted, intellectually pauperised, physically broken and stunted is the result of a hundred years of British rule, the account which England can give before God of the trust which He placed in her hands. The condition of the people is the one answer to all the songs of praise which the bureaucrats sing
Page – 1015 of their rule, which the people of England chorus with such a smug self-satisfaction and which even foreign peoples echo in the tune of admiration and praise. But for us the people who have suffered, the victims of the miserable misuse which bureaucrats have made of the noblest opportunity God ever gave to a nation, the song has no longer any charm, the mantra has lost its hypnotic force, the spell has ceased to work. While we could we deceived ourselves, but we can deceive ourselves no longer. Pain is a terrible disillusioner and the pangs which had come upon us were those of approaching dissolution. It was at the last moment, when further delay would have meant death, that a higher than earthly physician administered through a proud viceroy the potent poison of Partition and saved the life of India. The treatment of the disease has been drastic and will continue to be drastic. There are those who dream of mild remedies, whose beautiful souls will not bear to think of the fierceness of strife, hatred and agony which a revolution implies; but strong poisons are the only salvation in desperate diseases and we fear that without these poisons India will not easily or ever recover from the fatal and consuming disease which has overtaken her. What will support her under the stress of the agony she will have to undergo? What strength will help her to shake off the weaknesses which have crowded in on her? How will she raise herself from the dust whom a thousand shackles bind down? Only the strength of a superhuman ideal, only the gigantic force of a superhuman will, only the vehemence of an effort which transcends all that man has done and approaches divinity. Where will she find that strength, that force, that vehemence? In herself. We have seen Ramamurti, the modern Bhimasen, lie motionless, resistant, with a superhuman force of will power acting through the muscles while two carts loaded with men are driven over his body. India must undergo an ordeal of passive endurance far more terrible without relaxing a single fibre of her frame. We have seen Ramamurti break over his chest a strong iron chain tightened round his whole body and break it by the sheer force of will working through the body. India must work a similar deliverance for herself by the same inner force. It is not
Page – 1016 by strength of body that Ramamurti accomplishes his feats, for he is not stronger than many athletes who could never do what he does daily, but by faith and will. India has in herself a faith of superhuman virtue to accomplish miracles, to deliver herself out of irrefragable bondage, to bring God down upon earth. She has a secret of will power which no other nation possesses. All she needs to rouse in her that faith, that will, is an ideal which will induce her to make the effort. That ideal is now being preached by Srijut Bipin Chandra Pal in every speech he delivers and never has it been delivered with such beauty of expression, such a passion of earnestness and pathos, such a sublimity of feeling as at Uttarpara on Sunday when he addressed a meeting of the people in the compound of the Uttarpara Library. The ideal is that of humanity in God, of God in humanity, the ancient ideal of the sanatana dharma but applied as it has never been applied before to the problem of politics and the work of national revival. To realise that ideal, to impart it to the world is the mission of India. She has evolved a religion which embraces all that the heart, the brain, the practical faculty of man can desire but she has not yet applied it to the problems of modern politics. This therefore is the work which she has still to do before she can help humanity; the necessity of this mission is the justification for her resurgence, the great incentive of saving herself to save mankind is the native power which will give her the force, the strength, the vehemence which can alone enable her to realise her destiny. No lesser ideal will help her through the stress of the terrible ordeal which she will in a few years be called to face. No hope less pure will save her from the demoralisation which follows revolutionary strife, the growth of passions, a violent selfishness, sanguinary hatred, insufferable licence, the disruption of moralities, the resurgence of the tiger in man which a great revolution is apt to foster. Srijut Bipin Chandra speaks under an inspiration which he himself is unable to resist. The public wish to hear him on Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education,— the old subjects of his unparalleled eloquence,— and he himself may desire to speak on them, but the voice of a prophet is not his own to speak the thing he will, but another's
Page – 1017 to speak the thing he must. India needed the gospel of Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott and National Education to nerve her to her first effort, but now that she is drawing nearer to the valley of the shadow of Death she needs a still mightier inspiration, a still more enthusiastic and all-conquering faith. The people have not yet understood, but the power to understand is in them, and if any voice can awake that power, it is Bipin Chandra's.
Page – 1018 |