{"id":1038,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1038"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:11","slug":"32-facts-and-opinions-11-9-1909-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\/32-facts-and-opinions-11-9-1909-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-32_Facts and Opinions 11-9-1909.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\nFacts and Opinions<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\nVolume I – Sept. 11, 1909 – Number 12<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tImpatient
\n Idealists<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

                   
\nT<\/font>he President of the Hughly Conference, in reference to the
\nformal statement by Sj. Aurobindo Ghose of the adherence
\nof the Nationalist Party to the policy of self-help and passive
\nresistance in spite of their concessions to the Moderate minority,
\nadvised the party of the future under the name of impatient
\nidealists to wait. The reproach of idealism has always been
\nbrought against those who work with their eye on the future
\nby the politicians wise in their own estimation who look only to
\nthe present. The reproach of impatience is levelled with equal
\nease and readiness against those who in great and critical times
\nhave the strength and skill to build with rapidity the foundations
\nor the structure of the future. The advice to wait is valueless
\nunless we know what it is that we have to wait for and why it is
\ncompulsory on us to put off the effort which might be made at
\nthe present. If we can progress quickly there must be adequate
\nreasons given us for preferring to progress slowly or to stand still. We have not yet heard those adequate reasons. As far as we
\nhave gone, the only reason we have been able to find is that the
\nfears and hesitations of our Moderate countrymen stand in our
\nway. The whole Asiatic world is moving forward with enormous
\nrapidity. In Persia, in Turkey, in Japan the impatient idealists
\nhave by means suited to the conditions of the country effected
\nthe freedom and are now busy building up the dignity and
\nstrength of their motherland. Constitutional Government has
\nbeen everywhere established or is being prepared for consciously
\nand with a steady eye to its establishment in the immediate future.
\nEven in Russia a Duma has been established with however restricted an
\nelectorate. Of all the great nations of the world India alone is bidden to wait.
\nIt is bidden by Lord Morley and Anglo-India to wait for ever. It is bidden by
\nits own leaders to wait till the rulers are induced by prayers and petitions to
\nconcede a<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 192<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

constitutional government and we have been told by those rulers
\nwhen that will be \u2014 never. We have been told not by conservative statesmen but
\nby the chief teacher of Radicalism and Democracy. Under the circumstances, which is the more unpractical
\nand idealistic, the impatience of the Nationalist or the supine
\nand trustful patience of the President of the Hughly Conference ?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n The
\n Question of Fitness<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is possible the President had his eye on the question of fitness
\nor unfitness which is the stock sophistry of the opponents of progress. One of the delegates strangely enough selected the occasion of moving the colonial self-government resolution for airing
\nthis effete fallacy. The storm of disapprobation which his lapse
\nevoked proves that in Bengal at least that superstition is dead in
\nthe minds of the people, and it is well, for no nation can live
\nwhich at the bidding of foreigners consents to despise itself and
\ndistrust its capacities. We freely admit that no nation can be fit
\nfor liberty unless it is free, none can be wholly capable of self-government until it governs itself. We freely admit that if we were
\ngiven self-government we should commit mistakes which we
\nwould have to rectify, as has been done even by nations which
\nwere old in the exercise of free and self-governing functions.
\nWe freely admit that the liberated nation would have to face
\nmany and most serious problems even as Turkey and Persia have
\nto face such problems today, as Japan had to face them in the
\nperiod of its own revolution. But to argue from these propositions to the refusal of self-government is to use a sophistry which
\ncan only impose on the minds of children. In the nineteenth century owing to a
\nstupefying education we had contracted the trustfulness, naivety and incapacity to think for itself of the childish
\nintellect and we swallowed whole the sophisms which were administered to us. But we have thrown off that spell and if the
\nimpatient idealists of the Nationalist party had done nothing
\nelse for their country this would be sufficient justification for their
\nexistence that they have made a clean sweep of all this garbage
\nand purified the intellect and the morale of the nation. It is<\/p>\n

\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 193<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

enough if the capacity is there in the race and if we can show by
\nour action that it is not dead. This we have shown by organised
\nsuccessful and national action under circumstances of unprecedented difficulty. If the success is now jeopardised, it is because
\nof the temporary revival of the weaknesses of our nineteenth
\ncentury politics and the desire to fall back into safe and easy
\nmethods in spite of their unfruitfulness. That is a weakness which
\nis not shared by the whole nation, but is only temporarily
\nsuffered because a situation of unprecedented difficulty has been
\ncreated in which it was not easy to see our way and in the silence
\nthat was unfortunately allowed to fall on the country and deepen
\nthe uncertainty, the forces of reaction found their opportunity.
\nIn times of difficulty to stop still for a long time is a cardinal error,
\nthe best way is to move slowly forward, warily watching each
\nstep but never faltering. Action solves the difficulties which
\naction creates. Inaction can only paralyse and slay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n Public
\n Disorder and Unfitness<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A favourite
\ndevice of the opponents of progress is to point to the frequent ebullitions of
\ntumult and excitement which have recently found their way into our political
\nlife and argue from them to our unfitness.<\/p>\n

In the mouths of our own countrymen the use of this argument arises partly from political prejudice but still more from
\ninexperience of political life and the unexamined acceptance of
\nAnglo-Indian sophistries. But in the mouths of Englishmen this
\nkind of language cannot be free from the charge of hypocrisy.
\nThey know well of the much worse things that are done in political life in the west and accepted as an inevitable feature of party
\nexcitement. The rough horseplay of public meetings which is a
\nfamiliar feature of excited times in England, would not be tolerated by the more self-disciplined Indian people. As for really
\nserious disturbance the worst things of that kind which have
\nhappened in India occurred at Surat when Sj. Surendranath
\nBanerji was refused a hearing and on the next day when Mr.
\nTilak was threatened on the platform by the sticks and chairs of<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 194<\/font><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Surat loyalists and the Mahratta delegates charged and after a
\nfree fight cleared the platform. The refusal to hear a speaker by
\ndint of continuous clamour, hisses and outcries is of such frequent occurrence in England that it would indeed be a strange
\nargument which would infer from such occurrences the unfitness
\nof the English race for self-government. We may instance the University meeting
\nat which Mr. Balfour was once refused a hearing and at the end of an inaudible speech two undergraduates
\ndressed as girls danced up to the platform and gracefully offered
\nthe Conservative statesman a garland of shoes which was smilingly accepted. As for the storming of platforms and turning out
\nof the speakers and organisers, that also is a recognised and not
\naltogether infrequent possibility of political life in England. A
\ncase remarkable for its sequel happened at Edinburgh when a
\nfaith-healer attempted to speak against Medicine and the undergraduates forced
\ntheir way in, attacked and wounded the police, smashed all the chairs, hurled a
\nruined piano from the platform and hooted the discreetly absent orator in his
\nhotel and challenged him to come out with his speech. On complaint the
\nChancellor of the University declared his approval of this riot and in a court
\nof law the students were acquitted on the plea of justification. It may well be
\nsaid that such a view of what is permissible in political life ought not to be
\nintroduced into India, but it is the worst hypocrisy for the citizens of a
\ncountry where such things not only happen but are tolerated and sometimes
\napproved by public opinion, to turn up the whites of their eyes at Indian
\ndisorderliness and argue from it to the unfitness of the race for democratic
\npolitics. And it must be remembered that worse things happen on the Continent,
\nfree fights occurring even in august legislatures, yet it has not been made an
\nargument for the English people going over to the Continent to govern the 
\nunfit and inferior European races.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 195<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facts and Opinions Volume I – Sept. 11, 1909 – Number 12 Impatient Idealists                       The President of the Hughly Conference, in reference to…<\/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-1038","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\/1038","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=1038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}