{"id":1052,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:16","slug":"14-exit-bibhishan-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\/14-exit-bibhishan-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-14_Exit Bibhishan.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n                                                         Exit Bibhishan<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nM<\/b><\/font>R<\/b><\/span>. Gopal Krishna Gokhale has for long been the veiled prophet
\nof Bombay. His course was so ambiguous, his sympathies so divided and
\nself-contradictory that some have not hesitated to call him a masked Extremist.
\nHe has played with Boycott, "that criminal agitation"; he has gone so far in
\npassive resistance as to advocate refusal of the payment of taxes. Eloquent
\nspokesman of the people in the Legislative Council, luminous and ineffective
\ndebater scattering his periods in vain in that august void, he has been at once
\nthe admired of the people and the spoilt darling of The Times of India<\/i>,
\nthe trusted counsellor of John Morley and a leader of the party of Colonial
\nself-government. For some time the victim of his own false step during the
\ntroubles in Poona he was distrusted by the people, favoured by the authorities,
\nsome of whom are said to have canvassed for him in the electoral fight between
\nhim and Mr. Tilak. The charge of cowardice which he now hurls against his
\nopponents was fixed on his own forehead by popular resentment. So difficult was
\nhis position that he refrained for some years from speech on the platform of
\nthe Congress. But his star triumphed. His own opponents held out to him the
\nhand of amity and re-established him in the universal confidence of the people.
\nGifted, though barren of creative originality, a shrewd critic, a splendid
\ndebater, a good economist and statistician, with the halo of self-sacrifice for
\nthe country over his forehead enringed with the more mundane halo of
\nLegislative Councillorship, petted by the Government, loved by the people, he
\nenjoyed a position almost unique in recent political life. He was not indeed a
\nprophet honoured in his own country and black looks and black words were thrown
\nat him by those who distrusted him, but throughout the rest of India his name
\nstood high and defied assailants.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In his
\nrecent speech at Poona the veiled prophet has unveiled himself. The leader of
\nthe people in this strange and at-<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n


\ntractive
\ndouble figure is under sentence of elimination and the budding Indian Finance
\nMinister has spoken. The speech has caused confusion and searchings of the heart
\namong the eager patriots of the Bengal Moderate school, rejoicing in the ranks
\nof Anglo-India. The Bengalee<\/i> labours to defend the popular cause without
\ninjuring the popular leader, the Statesman<\/i> rejoices and holds up the
\nspeech even as Lord Morley held up the certificate to him as the Saviour of
\nIndia for the confusion of rebels in Parliament and outside it. Covered by a
\nreprobation of the London murders it is a sweeping, a damning philippic against
\nthe work of the last four years and a call to the country to recede to the
\nposition occupied by us previous to 1905. It is a forcible justification of
\nrepression and a call to Government and people to crush the lovers and preachers
\nof independence. The time at which it comes lends it incalculable significance.
\nThe Morleyan policy of crushing the new spirit and rallying the Moderates has
\nnow received publicly the imprimatur of the leading Moderate of western India
\nand that which was suspected by some, prophesied by others at the time of the
\nSurat Congress, the alliance of Bombay Moderatism with officialdom against the
\nnew Nationalism, an alliance prepared by the Surat sitting, cemented by
\nsubsequent events, confirmed by the Madras Convention, is now unmasked and
\npublicly ratified.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The most odious part of the Poona speech is that in
\nwhich Mr. Gokhale justifies Government repression and attempts to establish by
\nargument what Mr. Norton failed to establish by evidence, the theory that
\nNationalism and Terrorism are essentially one and, under the cloak of passive
\nresistance, Nationalism is a conspiracy to wage war against the King. This
\nproposition he seeks to establish by implication with that skill of the debater
\nfor which he is justly famous. By taking the London murders as the
\nsubject-matter for the exordium of a speech directed against the forward party
\nhe introduces the element of prejudice from the very outset. After reviewing
\npast political activities he takes up the clue he had thus skilfully thrown down
\nand pursues it. In his view, the ideal of independence was the beginning of all
\nevil. The ideal of independence is an insane ideal; the men who hold it even as
\nan ultimate goal, Tilak, Chidambaram, Aswini<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

Kumar,
\nManoranjan, Bepin Chandra, Aurobindo, are madmen outside the lunatic asylum. Not
\nonly is it an insane ideal, it is a criminal ideal. "It should be plain to the
\nweakest understanding that towards the idea of independence the Government
\ncould adopt only one attitude<\/i>, that of stern and relentless repression<\/i>, for
\nthese ideas were bound to lead to violence<\/i> and as a matter of fact they
\nhad, as they could all see<\/i>, resulted in violence." Farther, in order to
\nleave no loophole of escape for his political opponents, he proceeds to assert
\nthat they were well aware of this truth and preached the gospel of independence
\nknowing that it was a gospel of violence and "physical conflict with the
\nGovernment". We again quote the words of the reported speech. "Some of their
\nfriends were in the habit of saying that their plan was to achieve independence
\nby merely peaceful means, by a general resort to passive resistance. The speaker
\nfelt bound to say that such talk was ridiculous nonsense and was a mere cloak
\nused by these men to save their own skins<\/i>." In other words we are charged
\nwith having contemplated violence such as we all see, viz<\/i>., the murders
\nin London and the assassinations in Bengal, as inevitable effects of our
\npropaganda, and physical conflict with the Government, in other words
\nrebellion, as the only possible means of achieving independence. We are charged
\nwith preaching this gospel of violence and rebellion while publicly professing
\npassive resistance, with the sole motive of cowardly anxiety for our personal
\nsafety. The accusation is emphatic, sweeping, and allows of no exception. All
\nthe men of the Nationalist party revered by the people are included in the
\nanathema, branded as lunatics and cowards, and the country is called upon to
\ndenounce them as corruptors and perturbers of youth and the enemies of progress
\nand the best interests of the people.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Gokhale stops short of finding fault with European
\ncountries for being free and clinging to their freedom. He is good enough not to
\nuphold subjection as the best thing possible for a nation, and we must be
\ngrateful to him for stopping short of the gospel of the Englishman<\/i> whose
\nabusive style he has borrowed. But man is progressive and it may be that Mr.
\nGokhale before he finishes his prosperous career, will reach the Hare Street
\nbeatitudes. At present he adopts the philosophy of his ally and<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

teacher,
\nLord Morley, and wraps himself in the Canadian fur coat. The love of
\nindependence may be a virtue in Europe, it is crime and lunacy in India.
\nAcquiescence in subjection is weakness and unmanliness in non-Indians, in this favoured country it is the only path to salvation. In the West the apostles of
\nliberty have been prophets when they succeeded, martyrs when they failed; in
\nthis country they are corruptors and perturbers of youth, enemies of progress
\nand their country. Mendicancy, euphoniously named co-operation, can bring about
\ncolonial self-government in India although<\/i>
\nthere is no precedent in history, but passive resistance, although, when most
\nimperfectly applied and hampered by terrorism from above and below, it gave the
\nseed of free institutions to Russia, cannot bring about independence in India
\neven if it be applied thoroughly and combined with self-help, because<\/i>
\nthere is no precedent in history. As has often been pointed out by Nationalist
\nwriters, both mendicancy and self-help plus passive resistance are new methods
\nin history; both are
\ntherefore experiments; but while mendicancy is an isolated experiment which
\nhas been fully tried, failed thoroughly and fallen into discredit, self-help and
\npassive resistance are methods to which modern nations are more and more
\nturning, but they have been as yet tried only slightly and locally. It must be
\nadmitted that in India, so tried, their only result so far has been the Morley
\nreforms. But was it not Mr. Gokhale who to defend mendicancy declared that the
\nbook of history was not closed and why should not a new chapter be written ? But
\nthe book is only open to the sacred hands of the Bombay Moderate; to the
\nNationalist it seems to be closed. But according to Mr. Gokhale we ought in any
\ncase to acquiesce because England has not done so badly in India as she might
\nhave done. His argument is kin to the Anglo-Indian logic which calls upon us to
\nbe contented and loyal because England is not Russia and repression here is
\nnever so savage as repression there; as if a serf were asked to be contented
\nwith serfdom because his master is kind or else his whip does not lacerate so
\nfiercely as the other master’s next door. Mr. Gokhale cannot be ignorant that
\nour ideal of independence has nothing to do with the badness or goodness of the
\npresent Government in its own kind. We object to the present system<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

because it
\nis a bureaucracy, always the most narrow and unprogressive kind of Government,
\nbecause it is composed of aliens, not Indians, and subject to alien control, and
\nmost essentially because it is based on a foreign will imposed from outside and
\nnot on the free choice and organic development of the nation.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

We might go on to expose the other inconsistencies and
\nsophistries of Mr. Gokhale’s speech. We might well challenge the strangeness of
\na sweeping and general charge of cowardice against the nation’s leaders
\nproceeding from the "broken reed" of Poona. But we are more concerned with the
\nsignificance of his attitude than with the hollowness of his arguments. Lord
\nMorley the other day quoted Mr. Gokhale’s eulogium of the Asquith Government,
\nsaviours of India from chaos, as a sufficient answer to the critics of
\ndeportation. There was some indignation against Lord Morley for his
\ndisingenuousness in suppressing Mr. Gokhale’s condemnation of the deportations;
\nbut it now appears that the British statesman did not make the mistake of
\nquoting Mr. Gokhale without being sure of the thoroughness of the latter’s
\nsupport. As if in answer to the critics of Lord Morley Mr. Gokhale hastens to
\njustify the deportations by his emphatic approval of stern and relentless
\nrepression as the only possible attitude for the Government towards the ideal of
\nindependence even when its achievement is sought through peaceful means. Mr. Gokhale’s phrase is bold and thorough; it includes every possible weapon of
\nwhich the Government may avail itself in the future and every possible use of
\nthe weapons which it holds at present. On the strength of Mr. Gokhale’s
\npanegyric Lord Morley mocked at Mr. Mackarness and his supporters as more
\nIndian than the Indians. We may well quote him again and apply the same
\nridicule, the ridicule of the autocrat, to Mr. Beachcroft, the Alipur judge,
\nwho acquitted an avowed apostle of the ideal of independence. Mr. Gokhale, at
\nleast, has become more English than the English. A British judge, certainly not
\nin sympathy with Indian unrest, expressly admits the possibility of peaceful
\npassive resistance and the blamelessness of the ideal of independence. A leader
\nof Indian Liberalism denounces that ideal as necessarily insane and criminal and
\nthe advocates of passive resistance as lunatics and hypocritical cow-<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n
\n

ards, and
\ncalls for the denunciation of them as enemies of their country and their removal
\nby stern and relentless repression. Such are the ironies of born co-operation.
\nIt is well that we should know who are our enemies even if they be of our own
\nhousehold. Till now many of us regarded Mr. Gokhale as a brother with whom we
\nhad our own private differences, but he has himself by calling for the official
\nsword to exterminate us removed that error. He publishes himself now as the
\nrighteous Bibhishan who, with the Sugrives, Angads and Hanumans of Madras and
\nAllahabad, has gone to join the Avatar of Radical Absolutism in the India
\nOffice, and ourselves as the Rakshasa to be destroyed by this new Holy Alliance.
\nEven this formidable conjunction does not alarm us. At any rate Bibhishan has
\ngone out of Lanka and Bibhishans are always more dangerous there than in the
\ncamp of the adversary.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Page \u2013 80<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n\tHOME<\/span><\/a><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                                                         Exit Bibhishan   MR. Gopal Krishna Gokhale has for long been the veiled prophet of Bombay. His course was so ambiguous, his sympathies so…<\/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-1052","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\/1052","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=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}