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, April 25th, 1908 }
The One Thing Needful
A sort of atavism is at work in the Indian consciousness at the present moment which is drawing it back into the spirit of the fathers of the race who laid the foundations of our being thousands of years ago. Perhaps as a reaction from the excessively outward direction which our life had taken since the European invasion, the spirit of the race has taken refuge in the sources of its past and begun to bathe in the fountains of its being. A reversion such as this is the sole cure for national decay. Every nation has certain sources of vitality which have made it what it is and can always, if drawn upon in time, protect it from disintegration. The secret of its life is to be found in the recesses of its own being. The root of the past is the source from which the future draws its sap and if the tree is to be saved it must constantly draw from that source for sustenance. The root may be fed from outside, but that food will have to be assimilated and turned to sap in the root before it can nourish the trunk. All nations therefore when they receive anything from outside steep it first in their own individuality before it can form part of their culture and national life. India has always done this with all outside forces which sought to find entry into her silent and meditative being. She has suffused them with her peculiar individuality so completely that their foreign origin is no longer recognizable. If she had done the same with European civilization, she would have been the first Asiatic nation to rise and show the way to her congeners. But at the time when Europe forced itself upon her, her political life was at its nadir. Exhausted by the long struggle to substitute a new centre of national life for the effete
Page – 1066 Mogul, she was too weak and void of energy to bring her once robust individuality to bear upon the alien thought of the West. She allowed it to enter her being whole and undigested. The result was a rapid disintegration of her own individuality and a hastening of the process of decay which had set in as a result of the prolonged anarchy of the post-Mogul period. If there had been no reaction, the process would have been soon over and, whatever race finally occupied India, it would not have been the Indian race. For that race would have slowly perished as the Greek, when he parted with the springs of his life, perished and gave way to the Slav, or as the Egyptian perished and gave way to the Berber. This fate has been averted, because a great wave of reaction passed over the country and sent a stream of the old life and thought of India beating into the veins of the country and brought it to bear on the foreign matter which was eating up the body of the nation. That process of assimilation has just begun and its effects will not be palpable for many years to come. It will first effect its purpose on the political life of the people, then on its society, last on its literature, thought and speech. The effect on the political life is already visible, but it cannot fulfil itself until the political power is in the hands of the people. No political change can work itself out until the forces of change have taken possession of the government, because it is through the government that the functions of political life work. This is their organ and there can be no other. The possession of the Government by the people is therefore the first condition of Indian regeneration. Until this is attained, nothing else can be attained. The new forces will no doubt work quietly on society and on literature, but in an imperfect fashion from which no great results can be anticipated. Society lives by the proper harmony of its parts and bases that harmony on the centre of power in which the whole community is summed up, the State. If the State is diseased, the community cannot be healthy. If the State is foreign and inorganic, the community cannot live an organic life. If the State be hostile, the community is doomed. The first want of a subject people is the possession of the State, without which it can neither be socially
Page – 1067 sound nor intellectually great. It was for this reason that Mazzini whose natural tendencies were literary and poetic, turned away from literature and denied his abilities their natural expression with the memorable words, "The art of Italy will flourish on our graves." No great work can be done by a community which is diseased at the centre or deprived of a centre. The hope of social reform divorced from political freedom, unless by social reform we mean the aping of European habits of life and social ideas, is an illogical hope which ignores the nature of social life and the conditions of its well-being. All expectation of moral regeneration which leaves freedom out of the count is a dream. First freedom, then regeneration. This is a truism which we have been obliged to dwell on because there are still remnants of the first delusive teachings which have done so much harm to India by trying to realise social reform without providing the element in which alone any reform is possible.
To recover possession of the State is therefore the first business of the awakened Indian consciousness. If this is so, then it is obvious that the political liberation of India cannot be put off to a distant date as a thing which can be worked out at leisure, with the slow pace of the snail, by creeping degrees of senile caution. It must be done now. It is the first condition of life which must be satisfied if the nation is to survive. On this the whole energies of the people must be concentrated and no other will-o'-the-wisp of social reform, moral regeneration, educational improvement ought to be allowed to interfere with the stupendous, single-souled effort which can alone effect the political salvation of the country. No reasonable reformer ought to be put out by the demand for the precedence being given to political salvation, because it is obvious that the political resurgence of the nation involves and necessitates a regeneration of the society by the great change of spirit and environment which it will bring about. When the whole life of the nation is full of the spirit of freedom and it lives in the great life of the world, then only can the work of the reformer be successful. The preoccupation with politics which seized Bengal after the Partition was a healthy symptom. Recently there has been a tendency in some quarters
Page – 1068 to revive the old dissipation of energies, to put social reform first, education first or moral regeneration first, and leave freedom to result from these. The mistake should be checked before it gains ground. Whatever reform, social, moral or educational, is necessary to bring about freedom, the effort of the whole people to bring about freedom will automatically effect. More is impossible until freedom itself is attained. No attempt to effect social reform for its own sake has any chance of success, because it will at once reawaken the old bitter struggle between the past and the present which baffled the efforts of the reformers. What the nation needs, it will carry out by the force of its necessity; but it is vain to expect it to dissipate its energies on what is for the moment superfluous. First we must live, afterwards we can learn to live well. The effort to survive must for some years command all our energies and absorb all our time. Page – 1069 |