{"id":1035,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:10","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1035"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:10","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:10","slug":"23-facts-and-opinions-14-8-1909-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/02-karmayogin-volume-02\/23-facts-and-opinions-14-8-1909-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-23_Facts and Opinions 14-8-1909.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n\tFacts and Opinions<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Volume I – August
\n14,1909 – Number 8<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The
\n "Englishman" on Boycott<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t                <\/font>
\n\tT<\/font>he<\/font><\/b> speech of Sj. Bhupendranath Bose at the Boycott celebration and the
\nOpen Letter of Sj. Aurobindo Ghose have put the Englishman<\/i> in a difficulty. It has been the habit of this paper to
\nlay stress on any facts or suggestions real or imaginary which it could
\ninterpret as pointing to violence and so persistently damn the movement as one
\nnot only revolutionary in the magnitude of the changes at which it aims but
\nviolently revolutionary in its purposed methods. The speech and the open
\nletter have cut this imaginary ground away from under its feet. As a matter of
\nfact there is nothing new in the attitude of either the Moderate or the
\nNationalist leader. What they say now they have said always. The Moderate party
\nhave always been in favour of constitutional methods which, whatever be the
\nprecise meaning of that phrase in a country where no constitution exists, must
\ncertainly exclude illegality and violence. The Nationalists on their side have
\nalways, while repudiating the principle that men are under all circumstances
\nbound to obey unjust or injurious laws imposed without national consent,
\nadvocated observance of the law in the circumstances of India both on grounds
\nof policy and in the interests of sound national development. Passive
\nresistance to arbitrary edicts and proclamations in order to assert civic
\nrights, test illegal ukases or compel their recall is not breach of the law but
\na recognised weapon in the defence of civic liberty. Yet the Englishman<\/i>
\nchooses to save its face by imagining a change of front in the Boycott policy.
\nThere is no change. The Boycott has always been a movement within the law and
\nsuch it remains. If there have been some individual excesses, that no more
\ndetracts from the legality of the movement than the excesses of individual
\nstrikers would affect the legality of a strike. The Englishman<\/i> is full
\nof anxiety as to the best way to meet the imagined change of front. With great sapiency it<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n\u2013 143<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\tsuggests
\nto the Government the free use of deportation, for which it has been for some
\ntime clamouring in vain, and threatens the boycotters
\nwith an antiboycott. One does not quite see
\nhow this mighty movement could be engineered. If a boycott of Indians by
\nEnglishmen is suggested, we would remind our contemporary that in life in this
\ncountry Indians might conceivably do without Englishmen but Englishmen cannot
\ndo without Indians. That is precisely the strength of our position. The
\nmisfortune is that we ourselves still fail to realise it.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\t
\n\t
\n Social Boycott<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It seems to be
\nespecially the Boycott President’s able defence of social boycott as opposed to
\nviolent constraint that has alarmed the Englishman<\/i>. Here also there is
\nnothing new. The social boycott is a weapon absolutely necessary for the
\nenforcement of the popular will in this matter, the power of using fiscal law
\nfor the same purpose being in the hands of authorities who have been publicly declared
\nby Lord Curzon to be active parties in
\nBritish exploitation of the resources of India. It means the coercion of a very
\nsmall minority by a huge majority in the interests of the whole nation; it consists merely in a passive abstinence from
\nall countenance to the offender, \u2014 sending him to Coventry, in the English
\nphrase; it is effective and, if properly applied, instantaneously effective; it involves, as the
\n\tEnglishman <\/i>has been
\nobliged to see, no violence, no disregard of public order, no breach of the
\npeace. The only weapon the Englishman <\/i>can find against it is
\ndeportation, and after all you cannot deport a whole town, village or
\ncommunity. The Nationalist Party have always struggled for and often obtained
\nthe recognition of the social boycott at various District Conferences and it
\nhas been freely and effectively applied in
\nall parts, though mostly in East Bengal. It is gratifying to find the most
\nmoderate of Bengal Moderate leaders supporting and justifying it in a carefully
\nprepared and responsible utterance on an occasion of the utmost public
\nimportance.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage
\n\u2013 144<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n


\n\t
\n National
\n or Anti-National<\/a><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We have long
\nnoticed with the deepest disapprobation and indignation the equivocal conduct
\nof the National Council authorities with regard to matters of great national
\nimportance, but we have held our peace from unwillingness to hurt an
\ninstitution established with such high hopes and apparently destined to play
\nan important part in the development of the nation. We can hold our peace no
\nlonger. The action of the authorities in forbidding their students to attend a
\nnational festival commemorating the inception of the movement by which the
\nCollege and Council were created, \u2014 a prohibition extended by them to the mofussil schools, \u2014 is only the crowning act of a
\npolicy by which they are betraying the trust reposed in them by the nation,
\ncontradicting the very object of the institution and utterly ruining a great
\nand salutary movement. They imagine that by being more servile than the most
\nservile of the ordinary institutions and flaunting their high academical
\npurpose they will save themselves from official repression and yet keep the
\nsupport of the people. They are wrong. Already there is such deep
\ndissatisfaction with the Council that the mofussil schools are dying of
\ninanition and people are turning away from the new education as differing in no
\nessential from the old. If the authorities persist in their evil course, the
\npublic mind will write Anti-national instead of National over their signboard
\nin Bow Bazar and their schools be left empty of students. We shall return to
\nthis subject in a future issue.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 145<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facts and Opinions Volume I – August 14,1909 – Number 8 The "Englishman" on Boycott                   The speech of Sj. Bhupendranath Bose at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-02-karmayogin-volume-02","wpcat-23-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}