{"id":1053,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:16","slug":"22-youth-and-the-bureaucracy-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\/22-youth-and-the-bureaucracy-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-22_Youth and the Bureaucracy.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
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\nYouth and the Bureaucracy<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

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\nS<\/b><\/font>IR
\n<\/b><\/span>Edward Baker is usually a polite and careful man and a diplomatic official. It is not his fault if the policy he is
\ncalled upon to carry through is one void of statesmanship and contradictory of
\nall the experience of history. Neither is it his fault if he lacks the
\nnecessary weight in the counsels of the Government to make his own ideas
\nprevail. He carries out an odious task with as much courtesy and discretion as
\nthe nature of the task will permit and, if we have had to criticise severely
\nthe amazing indiscretion foreign to his habits which he was guilty of on a
\nrecent occasion, it was with a recognition of the fact that he must have
\nforgotten himself and spoken on the spur of the moment. But as the
\nAnglo-Indian bureaucracy is now constituted,
\nSir Edward’s personal superiority to his own predecessors is of no earthly use
\nto us. We acknowledge the politeness and self-restraint of the wording in his
\nrecent advertisement to the educational authorities and the public at large of
\nthe inadvisability of allowing students to
\nmix in the approaching Boycott celebration. But his reserve of language cannot
\nsucceed in blinding the public, still less the parties addressed, to the real
\nnature of this promulgation. To parties circumstanced like the authorities of
\nthe Bengal Colleges official or private it is one of those hints which do not
\ndiffer from orders. The whole Calcutta University has been placed under the
\nheel of the Executive authority and no amount of writhing or wry faces will
\nsave Principals and Professors from the humiliating necessities proper to this
\nservile and degraded position. They have sold themselves for lucre and they
\nmust eat the bitter bread of their self-chosen servitude. If they are asked to
\ndo the spy’s office or to be the instruments for imposing on young men of
\neducation and respectability restrictions unexampled outside Russia, it is not
\ntheirs to reject the demand instantly as free men would indignantly reject such
\ndegrading proposals. They must remember that the affiliation
\nof their colleges and the grants<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n\twhich
\nalone can enable them to satisfy the arduous conditions of affiliation depend
\non the fiat of those who make the demand. These things are in the bond. For the
\nrest, the unwisdom of the wise men and the imprudence of the prudent who stopped
\nthe students’ strike is becoming more and more apparent. Prudence and wisdom
\nfor the proprietors of private schools, for the country it was the worst
\nimprudence and unwisdom. It has turned the training ground of our youth into a
\nmeans of restraining the progress of our people and denying them that liberty
\nwhich the other nations of the world enjoy. An university in which the
\nrepresentatives of academic culture are only allowed to keep their position on
\ncondition of forfeiting their self-respect and the pen of the pedagogue
\nsupplements the baton of the policeman, is no longer worth keeping.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tBut there are other considerations affecting a wider circle than the
\neducational world, which arise immediately out of this notice. Ever since the
\nbeginning of this movement the opponents of progress have with an admirable
\ninstinct hit upon the misleading and intimidation of the youth of this country
\nas the best means of thwarting the movement. Their direct attempts having
\nfailed, they are now trying to keep down the rising spirit of young India by objurgations addressed to the guardians and by playing on their selfishness and
\nfears. Once the National Education movement was thwarted of its natural course
\nand triumphant success by the leaders, it was easy for the bureaucrats to
\nenforce this policy by gathering up all the authority of the Universities into
\ntheir hands and using it as a political lever. The loss of education and a
\ncareer, \u2014 this was the menace which they held over the guardians and young men
\nof the country and by the continual flourishing of this weapon they have
\nsucceeded in putting back for a while the hour of our national fulfilment. The
\nunwholesome and dangerous effects of denying the aspirations of youth a
\npeaceful outlet, as dangerous to the government as they are unwholesome to the
\ncountry, the arbiters of official policy in spite of their experience are too
\nblind to realise. Bad leadership, bad because marred by selfishness and
\ntimidity, has aided the political experience and insight of the English rulers
\nin inflicting upon the cause a check which still works to hamper<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n\tus
\nin our progress. We do not propose to waste space by answering the sophistries
\nwhich our opponents advance to cover their interested suggestions. It is enough
\nto say in answer that in all civilised countries young men are freely permitted
\nto take part in politics and their want of interest in the chief national
\nactivity would be considered a mark of degeneration. It is not the arguments
\nof adversaries but their own personal and class interests which actuate those
\namong us who at the bidding of Anglo-Indians official or unofficial deter our
\nyoung men from attending public meetings or mixing in the national movement. To
\nthese also we can say nothing. Men who can prefer the selfish gratification of
\ntheir transitory individual needs and interests to the good of the nation are
\nnot needed in the new age that is coming. They are there only to exhaust a
\ndegraded and backward type which the world and the nation are intended soon to
\noutgrow. If some of them still pose as men of weight and leading, it is only
\nfor a moment. They will vanish and the whole earth heave a sigh of relief that
\nthat type at least is gone for ever.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tBut to the young men of Bengal we have a word to say. The future
\nbelongs to the young. It is a young and new world which is now under process of
\ndevelopment and it is the young who must create it. But it is also a world of
\ntruth, courage, justice, lofty aspiration and straightforward fulfilment which
\nwe seek to create. For the coward, for the self-seeker, for the talker who goes
\nforward at the beginning and afterwards leaves his fellows in the lurch there
\nis no place in the future of this movement. A brave, frank, clean-hearted,
\ncourageous and aspiring youth is the only foundation on which the future nation
\ncan be built. This seventh of August in this year 1909 is not an ordinary
\noccasion. It is a test, a winnowing-fan, a
\nseparator of the wheat and the chaff. Because it is so, Sir Edward Baker has
\nbeen inspired by an overruling Providence to publish his notification and the
\nauthorities of colleges to act according to their kind. The question is put not
\nto these but to the young men who are asked under pain of academical penalties
\nto abstain from an activity which is both their right and their duty. Let them
\nremember that they disobey no law of the land and no provision of morality if
\nthey attend the celebration of the new nation’s birthday. They<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n\twill
\nonly disobey what professes to be an exercise of school discipline, but is
\nnothing of the kind. It does not fall within the province of a schoolmaster to
\ndictate what shall be the political opinions or activities of his pupils, nor
\nare College professors concerned with what their students may do outside the
\nprecincts of College and hostel in the hours of their lawful liberty, so long
\nas there is no infringement of law or morality. The attempt is an usurpation of
\nthe rightful authority of guardians or, in the case of those who have come of
\nage, of their right to govern their own personal action. There only remains the
\nquestion of self-interest. That is a point we leave to their hearts and
\nconsciences, whether they shall prefer their own interests or their country’s.
\nBut if once they decide for the nobler part, let them stand by the choice they
\nhave made. God does not want falterers and flinchers for his work, nor does he want unstable
\nenthusiasts who cannot maintain the energy of their first movements. Secondly,
\nlet them not only stand by their choice but stand by their comrades. Unless
\nthey develop the corporate spirit and the sense of honour which refuses to save
\noneself by the sacrifice of one’s comrades in action when that sacrifice can be
\naverted by standing together, they will not be fit for the work they will have
\nto do when they are a little older. Whatever they do let them do as a body,
\nwhatever they suffer let them suffer as a body, leaving out the coward and the falterer but once they are compact, never
\nlosing or allowing anything to break that compactness. If they can act in this
\nspirit, heeding no unpatriotic counsels from whatever source they come, then
\nlet them follow their duty and their conscience, but let them do nothing in a
\nlight even if fervent enthusiasm, moving forward without due consideration and
\nthen showing a weakness unworthy of the nation to which they belong and the
\nwork to which they have been called.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\nHOME<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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

Youth and the Bureaucracy   SIR Edward Baker is usually a polite and careful man and a diplomatic official. It is not his fault if…<\/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-1053","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\/1053","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=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}