{"id":1085,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1085"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:27","slug":"15-the-right-of-association-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\/15-the-right-of-association-vol-02-karmayogin-volume-02","title":{"rendered":"-15_The Right of Association.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nThe Right of Association*<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nM<\/b><\/font>Y<\/b><\/span>
\nFRIEND<\/b> Pandit Gispati Kavyatirtha has somewhat shirked today
\nhis duty as it was set down for him in the programme and left it to me. I hope
\nyou will not mind if I depart a little from the suggestion he has made to me. I
\nwould like, instead of assuming the role of a preacher and telling you your
\nduties which you know well enough yourselves, to take, if you will allow me, a
\nsomewhat wider subject, not unconnected with it but of a wider range. In
\naddressing you today I wish to say a few words about the general right of
\nassociation especially as we have practised and are trying to practise it in
\nIndia today. I choose this subject for two reasons, first, because it is germane
\nto the nature of the meeting we are holding, and secondly, because we have seen
\narbitrary hands laid upon that right of association which is everywhere
\ncherished as a sign and safeguard of liberty and means of development of a
\ncommon life.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

There are three rights which are particularly
\ncherished by free nations. In a nation the sovereign powers of Government may be
\nenjoyed by the few or the many, but there are three things to which the people
\nin European countries cling, which they persistently claim and after which, if
\nthey have them not, they always aspire. There are first, the right of a free
\nPress, secondly, the right of free public meeting and, thirdly, the right of
\nassociation. There is a particular reason why they cling to these three as
\ninherent rights which they claim as sacred and with which authority has no
\nright to interfere. The right of free speech ensures to the people the power
\nwhich is the greatest means for self-development, and that is the power of
\nspreading the idea. According to our philosophy it is the idea which is building
\nup the world. It is the idea which expresses itself in matter and takes to
\nitself bodies. This is true also in the life of humanity; it is true in
\npolitics, in the progress and life of a nation. It is the idea which shapes<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n* A speech
\ndelivered at the annual meeting of the Howrah People’s Association on Sunday,
\nthe 27th June, 1909 at the Howrah Town Hall.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

material
\ninstitutions. It is the idea which builds up and destroys administrations and
\nGovernments. Therefore the idea is a mighty force, even when it has no physical
\npower behind it, even when it has not organised itself in institutions and
\nassociations. Even then the idea moves freely abroad through the minds of
\nthousands of men and becomes a mighty force. It is a power which by the very
\nfact of being impalpable assumes all the greater potency and produces all the
\nmore stupendous results. Therefore the right of free speech is cherished because
\nit gives the idea free movement, it gives the nation that power which ensures
\nits future development, which ensures success in any struggle for national life,
\nhowever stripped it may be of means and instruments. It is enough that the idea
\nis there and that the idea lives and circulates. Then the idea materialises
\nitself, finds means and instruments, conquers all obstacles and goes on
\ndeveloping until it is expressed and established in permanent and victorious
\nforms.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

This right of free speech takes the form first of a
\nfree Press. It is the Press which on its paper wings carries the idea abroad
\nfrom city to city, from province to province until a whole continent is bound
\ntogether by the links of one common aspiration. The right of public meeting
\nbrings men together. That is another force. They meet together on a common
\nground, moved by a common impulse, and as they stand or sit together in their
\nthousands, the force of the idea within moves them by the magnetism of crowds.
\nIt moves from one to another till the hidden Shakti, the mighty force within,
\nstirred by the words thrown out from the platform travels from heart to heart
\nand masses of men are not only moved by a common feeling and common aspiration,
\nbut by the force of that magnetism prepared to act and fulfil the idea. Then
\ncomes the right of association, the third of these popular rights. Given the
\ncommon aspiration, common idea, common enthusiasm and common wish to act, it
\ngives the instrument which binds men to strive towards the common object by
\ncommon and associated actions; the bonds of brotherhood grow, energy increases,
\nthe idea begins to materialise itself to work in practical affairs and that
\nwhich was yesterday merely an idea, merely a word thrown out by the eloquence of
\nthe orator,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

becomes a
\nquestion of practical politics. It becomes work for it begins to work and fulfil
\nitself. Therefore the people prize these rights, consider them a valuable asset,
\ncling to and cherish and will not easily sacrifice them. Therefore they resent
\nthe arbitrary interference which takes from them what they consider
\nindispensable for the preparation of national life.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Association is the mightiest thing in humanity; it is
\nthe instrument by which humanity moves, it is the means by which it grows, it is
\nthe power by which it progresses towards its final development. There are three
\nideas which are of supreme moment to human life and have become the watchwords
\nof humanity. Three words have the power of remoulding nations and Governments,
\nliberty, equality and fraternity. These words cast forth into being from the
\ngreat stir and movement of the eighteenth century continue to act on men
\nbecause they point to the ultimate goal towards which human evolution ever
\nmoves. This liberty to which we progress is liberation out of a state of
\nbondage. We move from a state of bondage to an original liberty. This is what
\nour own religion teaches. This is what our own philosophy suggests as the goal
\ntowards which we move, mukti<\/i>
\nor moksa<\/i>. <\/i>We are bound in the beginning by a lapse from pre-existent
\nfreedom, we strive to shake off the bonds, we move forward and forward until
\nwe have achieved the ultimate emancipation, that utter freedom of the soul, of
\nthe body or the whole man, that utter freedom from all bondage towards which
\nhumanity is always aspiring. We in India have found a mighty freedom within
\nourselves, our brother-men in Europe have worked towards freedom without. We
\nhave been moving on parallel lines towards the same end. They have found out the
\nway to external freedom. We have found out the way to internal freedom. We meet
\nand give to each other what we have gained. We have learned from them to aspire
\nafter external as they will learn from us to aspire after internal freedom.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Equality is the second term in the triple gospel. It
\nis a thing which mankind has never accomplished. From inequality and through
\ninequality we move, but it is to equality. Our religion, our philosophy set
\nequality forward as the essential condition of emancipation. All religions send
\nus this message in a different<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

form but
\nit is one message. Christianity says we are all brothers, children of one God.
\nMahomedanism says we are the subjects and servants of one Allah, we are all
\nequal in the sight of God. Hinduism says there is One without a second. In the
\nhigh and the low, in the Brahmin and the Sudra, in the saint and the sinner,
\nthere is one Narayana, one God and he is the soul of all men. Not until you have
\nrealised him, known Narayana in all, and the Brahmin and the Sudra, the high and
\nthe low, the saint and the sinner are equal in your eyes, then and not until
\nthen you have knowledge, you have freedom, until then you are bound and
\nignorant. The equality which Europe has got is external political equality. She
\nis now trying to achieve social equality. Nowadays their hard-earned political
\nliberty is beginning to pall a little upon the people of Europe, because they
\nhave found it does not give perfect well-being or happiness and it is barren of
\nthe sweetness of brotherhood. There is no fraternity in this liberty. It is
\nmerely a political liberty. They have not either the liberty within or the full
\nequality or the fraternity. So they are turning a little from what they have
\nand they say increasingly, "Let us have equality, let us have the second term of
\nthe gospel towards which we strive." Therefore socialism is growing in Europe.
\nEurope is now trying to achieve external equality as the second term of the
\ngospel of mankind, the universal ideal. I have said that equality is an ideal
\neven with us but we have not tried to achieve it without. Still we have learned
\nfrom them to strive after political equality and in return for what they have
\ngiven us we shall lead them to the secret of the equality within.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Again there is fraternity. It is the last term of the
\ngospel. It is the most difficult to achieve, still it is a thing towards which
\nall religions call and human aspirations rise. There is discord in life, but
\nmankind yearns for peace and love. This is the reason why the gospels which
\npreach brotherhood spread quickly and excite passionate attachment. This was the
\nreason of the rapid spread of Christianity. This was the reason of Buddhism’s
\nrapid spread in this country and throughout Asia. This is the essence of
\nhumanitarianism, the modern gospel of love for mankind. None of us have achieved
\nour ideals, but human society has always attempted an imperfect and limited
\nfulfilment of them.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

It is the
\nnature, the dharma<\/i> of humanity that it should be unwilling to stand
\nalone. Every man seeks the brotherhood of his fellow and we can only live by
\nfraternity with others. Through all its differences and discords humanity is
\nstriving to become one.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

In India in the ancient times we had many kinds of
\nassociation, for our life was much more complex and developed than it became
\nafterwards. We had our political associations. We had our commercial
\nassociations, our educational, our religious associations. As in Europe, so in
\nIndia men united together for many interests and worked in association for
\ncommon ideals. But by the inroads of invasion and calamity our life became
\nbroken and disintegrated. Still, though we lost much, we had our characteristic
\nforms in which we strove to achieve that ideal of association and unity. In our
\nsociety we had organised a common village life. It was a one and single village
\nlife in which every man felt himself to be something, a part of a single
\norganism. We had the joint family by which we tried to establish the principle
\nof association in our family life. We have not in our social developments
\nfollowed the path which Europe has followed. We have never tended to break into
\nscattered units. The principle of association, the attempt to organise
\nbrotherhood was dominant in our life. We had the organisation of caste of which
\nnowadays we hear such bitter complaints. It had no doubt many and possibly
\ninherent defects, but it was an attempt, however imperfect, to base society upon
\nthe principle of association, the principle of closely organising a common life
\nfounded on common ideas, common feelings, common tendencies, a common moral
\ndiscipline and sense of corporate honour. Then we had an institution which in
\nits form was peculiar to India, which helped to bind men together in close
\nbrotherhood who had a common guru<\/i> or the initiation into a common
\nreligious fraternity. All these we had. Then the impact of Europe came upon us
\nand one by one these institutions began to be broken. Our village life is a
\nthing of the past. The village has lost its community, it has lost its ideals,
\nhas lost that mutual cordiality and binding together by an intimate common life
\nwhich held it up and made its life sweet and wholesome. Everywhere we see in the
\nvillage moral deterioration and material decay. Our joint family has been<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

broken. We are scattering into broken units and
\nbrother no longer looks upon brother. There is no longer the bond of love which
\nonce held us together, because the old ties and habit of association are being
\nbroken up. Our caste has lost its reality. The life has gone from within it and
\nit is no longer an institution which helps towards unity, a common life or any
\nkind of brotherhood. For once the idea is broken, the ideal within, which is
\nthe principle of life, is impaired, the form breaks up and nothing can keep it
\ntogether. Therefore we find all these things perishing.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Well, we
\nhave been losing these things which were part of our associated life. But on the
\nother hand we looked at the civilised nations of the West who are rushing upon
\nus and breaking our society to pieces, and we saw that in those nations there
\nwere other centres of association, other means of uniting together. However
\nimperfectly we began to seize upon them and try to use them, our life in the
\nnineteenth century was a weak and feeble life. It had no ideals, no mighty
\nimpulses behind to drive or uplift it. It was bewildered and broken by the
\nforces that came upon it; it did not know how to move and in what direction to
\nmove. It tried to take whatever it could from the life of the rulers. It strove
\nto take their political associations and develop that principle of association.
\nBut our political associations had a feeble life bound together only by a few
\ncommon interests which by ineffective means they tried to establish or protect.
\nPolitical association among us led to very little action, for it was an
\nassociation which looked mainly to others for help and did not look to the
\nsources of strength within. These and other kinds of associations which we then
\ntried to form tended mainly in one direction. They were institutions for the
\nexchange of thought, associations for the spread of knowledge, by which we
\ninstinctively but imperfectly tried to encourage and express the growing idea
\nthat was within us. This was the one real value of most of our political
\nassociations. Then there came the flood of national life, the mighty awakening
\nwhich appeared first in Bengal. The principle of association began to take a new
\nform, it began to assume a new life. It no longer remained a feeble instrument
\nfor the expression of the growing idea within us, it began to become an
\ninstrument indeed. It began to become a power. How did this new<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

kind of association grow and to what objects did it
\naddress itself ? The movement was not planned by any human brain, it was not
\nforeseen by any human foresight. It came of itself, it came, as a flood comes,
\nas a storm comes. There had been slow preparations which we did not institute or
\nunderstand. These preparations were mainly among the young men, the rising
\ngeneration, the hope of India. There the spirit first awoke. At first it was not
\nwhat we would call an association; it was only a temporary union of young men
\nfor a temporary cause. They called themselves by a name which has since become
\nterrible to many of our friends of the Anglo-Indian Press. They called
\nthemselves volunteers. For what did they volunteer ? They volunteered for
\nservice to the representatives of the nation who came together to deliberate for
\nthe good of the people. This is how it first came, as an idea of service, the
\nidea of service to those who worked for the motherland. Out of that grew the
\nidea of service to the Mother. That was the first stage and the root from which
\nit grew into our political life. Then there was another stream which rose
\nelsewhere and joined the first. Our Anglo-Indian brothers to whom we owe so much
\nand in so many ways did us this service also that they always scoffed at us as
\nweaklings, men who were doomed to perpetual slavery and had always been a race
\nof slaves because the people of Bengal had no martial gift, because they are not
\nphysically strong, because whoever chooses to strike them can strike and expect
\nno blow in return. Therefore they were unfit for self-government, therefore they
\nmust remain slaves for ever.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Our
\nAnglo-Indian friends do not proclaim that theory now. They have changed their
\ntone. For the spirit of the nation could bear the perpetual reproach no longer,
\nthe awakening Brahman within our young men could bear it no longer. Associations
\ngrew up for physical exercise and the art of self-defence and grew into those
\nSamitis which you have seen flourishing and recently suppressed. We were
\ndetermined to wash the blemish away. If this was the blemish, to be weak, if
\nthis was the source of our degradation, we determined to remove it. We said,
\n"In spite of our physical weakness we have a strength within us which will
\nremove our defects. We will be a race of brave and strong men. And that<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

we may be so, we will establish everywhere these
\nassociations for physical exercise." That, one would think, was an innocent
\nobject and had nothing in it which anyone could look upon with suspicion. In
\nfact we never thought that we should be looked upon with suspicion. <\/b> It <\/b> is
\nthe Europeans who have trumpeted physical culture as a most valuable national
\nasset, the thing in which the English-speaking nations have pre-eminently
\nexcelled and which was the cause of their success and energy. That was the
\nsecond seed of association.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nThere was
\na third seed and it was the thing for which our hearts yearned, the impulse
\ntowards brotherhood. A new kind of association came into being. That was the
\nassociation which stood by labour and service and self-sacrifice, whose object
\nof existence was to help the poor and nurse the sick. That was the flowering out
\nof the Hindu religion. That was what Swami Vivekananda preached. That was what
\nAswini Kumar Dutt strove to bring into organised existence. That was what the
\nRamakrishna Mission, the Little Brothers of the Poor at Barisal tried to effect.
\nThis was the third way in which the new association established itself, the
\nthird seed of union, the third stream of tendency seeking fulfilment. All these
\nstreams of tendency came together, they united themselves and have been in their
\nbroad united purifying current the glory of our national life for the last three
\nyears. These Samitis of young men by labour, by toil for the country, worship of
\nthe motherland held themselves together and spread the habit of association and
\nthe growth of brotherhood over the land. That is their spirit and ideal and
\nthat the way in which these associations have been established.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

These are
\nthe associations which have now been crushed out of existence under a charge
\nwhich cannot be and has not been maintained, a charge which has been disproved
\nover and over again. It is a monstrous charge. The charge is that these
\nassociations are associations of hatred and violence, associations for
\nrebellion and dacoity. That is the charge under which these associations have
\nbeen suppressed. I have come back recently from Barisal. While I was there I
\nheard and read something of the work of the young men’s association called the
\nSwadesh Bandhab Samiti which with its network covered the whole district of<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

Backergunge. This association grew out of a much
\nsmaller association started by Aswini Kumar Dutt called the Little Brothers of
\nthe Poor. What was the work commenced by these Little Brothers of the Poor ? When
\nan epidemic broke out, when cholera appeared in all its virulence, the young
\nmen of Barisal Brajamohan College went out in bands. They nursed the sick, they
\ntook charge of those who had been abandoned, they took up in their arms those
\nwhom they found lying on the roadside. They were not deterred in those moments
\nby the prejudice of caste or by the difference of creed. The orthodox Brahmin
\ntook up in his bosom and nursed the Mahomedan and the Namasudra. They did not
\nmind the epidemic or fear to catch the contagion. They took up and nursed them
\nas brother nurses brother, and thus they rescued many from the grasp of death.
\nAswini Kumar Dutt is in exile. How did he establish that influence which caused
\nhim to be thought dangerous ? By philanthropy, by service. While ordinary
\ncolleges under the control of the Government were mere soulless machines where
\nthey cram a few packets of useless knowledge into the brain of the student, Aswini Kumar breathed his own lofty and noble soul into the Brajamohan College
\nand made it an engine indeed out of which men were turned, in which hearts and
\nsouls were formed. He breathed his noble qualities into the young men who grew
\nup in the cherishing warmth and sunlight of his influence. He made his college
\nan institution which in the essentials of education was a model for any
\neducational institution in the world. This is how he built up his influence
\namong the educated class. They followed him because he had shaped their souls
\nbetween his hands. It is therefore that they loved him, it is therefore that
\nthey saw no fault in him. His influence among the common people was built up by
\nlove, service and philanthropy. It was out of the seed he planted that the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti grew.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

What was the work of this Samiti, the existence of
\nwhich could no longer be tolerated in the interests of the peace and safety of
\nthe Empire ? First of all it continued with that blessed work which the Little
\nBrothers of the Poor had begun, nursing, serving, saving the poor, the sick and
\nthe suffering. They made it their ideal to see that there was no sick man or
\nsick woman of<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

however low a class or depressed a caste, of whom it
\ncould be said that they went unhelped in their sickness in the Backergunge
\ndistrict. That was the first crime the association committed.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The second
\ncrime was this. These young men went from house to house seeking out the
\nsuffering and the hungry when famine broke out in the country. To those who were
\npatiently famishing they brought succour, but they did more. There were many
\npeople who belonged to the respectable classes on whom the hand of famine was
\nlaid. They would not go for help to the relief works; they would not complain
\nand show their misery to the world. The young men of Barisal sought out these
\ncases and secretly, without injuring the feelings of the suffering, they gave
\nhelp and saved men and women from starvation. This was the second crime of the
\nSwadesh Bandhab Samiti.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Then there
\nwas another. The social life of Bengal is full of discord and quarrels. Brother
\nquarrels with brother and quarrels with bitter hatred. They carry their feud to
\nthe law-courts; they sin against the Mother in themselves and in others; they
\nsow the seed of lasting  enmity and hatred between their families. And beyond
\nthis there is the ruin, the impoverishment of persistent litigation. The young
\nmen of the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti said, "This should not be tolerated any more.
\nWe will settle their differences, we will make peace between brother and
\nbrother. We will say to our people, ‘If there is any dispute let us try to
\nsettle it first. If you are dissatisfied with our decision you can always go to
\nthe law-courts; but let us try first.’ "  They tried, and hundreds of cases were
\nsettled out of court and hundreds of these seeds of enmity and hatred were
\ndestroyed. Peace and love and brotherhood began to increase in the land. This
\nwas their third crime.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Their
\nfourth offence is a great crime nowadays. These young men had the hardihood to
\norganise and help the progress of Swadeshi in the land. There was no violence.
\nBy love, by persuasion, by moral pressure, by appeals to the Samaj and the
\ninterests of the country, they did this work. They helped the growth of our
\nindustries; they helped it by organising the condition for their growth, the
\nonly condition in which these infant, these feeble and languishing industries
\ncan grow, the general<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

determination to make use of our own goods and not the
\ngoods of others, to give preference to our Mother and not to any stranger. In
\nno other district of Bengal, in no other part of India was Swadeshi so well
\norganised, so perfectly organised, so peacefully and quietly organised as in
\nBarisal. That was the last and worst crime they committed. For these crimes they
\nhave been proclaimed, they have been forbidden to exist. This Swadesh Bandhab
\nSamiti carried organisation to a perfection which was not realised in other
\ndistricts because it is not every district which can have an Aswini Kumar Dutt
\nor a Satish Chandra Chatterjee. But the same impulse was there, the same
\ntendencies were there. I do not know any single society of the kind in Bengal
\nwhich has not made some attempt to help the people in times of famine or to
\nbring succour to the sick and suffering or to remove quarrels and discord as
\nwell as to help the growth of Swadeshi by organising that exclusive preference
\nto which we have given the name of Boycott. These were general offences, common
\ncrimes.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

But there
\nwas another thing that led to the suppression. This was an association that had
\nthat very dangerous and lethal weapon called the lathi. The use of the lathi as
\na means of self-defence was openly taught and acquired, and if that was not
\nenough there was the imagination of a very highly imaginative police which saw
\nhidden behind the lathi the bomb. Now nobody ever saw the bombs. But the police
\nwere quite equal to the occasion; they thought there might be bombs. And what
\nif there were not ? Their imagination was quite equal to realising any bomb that
\ncould not be materialised, \u2014 in Baithakkhanas and elsewhere. The police
\nsuspected that the lathi was the father of the bomb. Their procedure was simple
\nwith the simplicity of the highest detective genius. When they heard of a
\nrespectable-sized dacoity, they immediately began to reason it out. They said,
\n"Now why are there so many dacoities in the land ? Obviously, the lathi fathered
\nthe bomb and the bomb fathers the dacoities. Who have lathis ? The Samitis.
\nTherefore it is proved. The Samitis are the dacoits." Our efficient police have
\nalways shown a wonderful ability. Generally when a dacoity is committed, the
\npolice are nowhere near. They have not altered that; the golden rule still
\nobtains. They are not to be found when the dacoity<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n

takes place. They only come up when the dacoity is
\nlong over and say, "Well this is the work of the National volunteers." They look
\nround to see what is the nearest Samiti and, if they find any which has been
\nespecially active in furthering Swadeshi, they say, "Here is the Samiti." And if
\nthere is anyone who was somewhat active in connection with the work of the
\nSamiti they say at once, "Well, here is the man." And if he is a boy of any age
\nfrom twelve upwards, so much the better. The man or boy is instantly arrested
\nand put into Hajat. After rotting there some days or weeks, the police can get
\nno evidence and the man has to be released. That does not frighten the
\ncourageous police: they immediately arrest the next likely person belonging to the
\nSamiti. So they go on persevering until they lose all hope of finding or
\ncreating evidence. Sometimes they persist, and members of the Samitis,
\nsometimes mere boys, have to rot in Hajat until the case goes up to a court of
\njustice and the judge looks at the case and after he has patiently heard it out
\nhas to ask, "Well, but where is the evidence ?"<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Formerly, you may remember, those of you who have
\nlived in the villages, that wherever there was any man in a village who was
\nphysically strong the police wrote down his name in the black book of Badmashes.
\nHe was at once put down as an undesirable. That was the theory, that a man who
\nis physically strong must be a hooligan. Physical development was thus stamped
\nout of our villages and the physique of our villagers began to deteriorate until
\nthis movement of Akharas and Samitis came into existence to rescue the nation
\nfrom absolute physical deterioration and decay. But this was an immoral idea in
\nthe mind of our police and it successfully effected transmigration. It took this
\nform, that these Samitis encourage physical education, they encourage
\nlathi-play, therefore they must be the nurseries of violence and dacoity and
\nfactories of bombs. Our rulers seem to have accepted this idea of the police. So
\nperhaps this is the crime these Samitis have committed. Nothing has been proved
\nof all this easy theorising. It is yet to be known when and where the bomb has
\nbeen associated with the work of the Samitis in Eastern Bengal. There was indeed
\na great dacoity in Eastern Bengal and the theory was started that it was done by
\none of the Samitis, but even our able<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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detective police were unable to prove any association
\nin that case. They did catch hold of some young men apparently on principle.
\nThere is a confidential rule, \u2014 it is confidential but the public have come to
\nknow of it, \u2014 that "somebody must be punished for the day’s work". That was the
\ncircular of a Lieutenant-Governor of this province and the police no doubt
\nthought it ought to be observed faithfully. So they caught hold of some likely
\nmen and the people so charged were about to be "punished for the day’s work";
\nbut fortunately for them a judge sat upon the High Court Bench who remembered
\nthat there was such a thing as law and another thing called evidence, things
\nwhose existence was in danger of being forgotten in this country. He applied the
\nlaw, he insisted on having the evidence, and you all know the result.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

These associations, which were the expression of our
\ngrowing national life and the growing feeling of brotherhood among us, did such
\nwork as I have described, and these were the ways of the law in which they did
\ntheir work. Still they have been suppressed not because they were criminal, but
\nbecause their existence was inconvenient. It has always been the case that when
\nestablished institutions of government were unwilling to move with the times,
\nthey have looked with suspicion upon the right of association and the right of
\nfree speech, they have discouraged the right of a free Press and the right of
\npublic meeting. By destroying these instruments they have thought to arrest the
\nprogress which they did not love. This policy has never permanently succeeded,
\nyet it is faithfully repeated with that singular stupidity which seems natural
\nto the human race. The sword of Damocles hangs over our Press.
\n<\/b> It is nominally free, but we never know when even that simulacrum of freedom
\nmay not be taken from it. There is a law of sedition so beautifully vague and
\ncomprehensive that no one knows when he is committing sedition and when he is
\nnot. There is a law against the preaching of violence which enables a
\nMagistrate, whenever he chooses to imagine that your article advocates violence,
\nto seize your machine. The Press is taken away and of course the case goes up to
\nthe High Court, but by that time the paper suffers so much that it becomes
\ndifficult or impossible for it to rear its head again. There is a noti-<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n

fication by which, as I pointed out in Beadon Square
\nthe other day, a meeting becomes peaceful or criminal not according to the
\nobjects or to the behaviour of the people assembled but according as the sun is
\nup or the sun is down. There is a law of Proclamation by which our right of
\nassociation can be taken from us whenever they please by a stroke of the pen.
\nThe British people have certain traditions, they have certain ways of thinking
\nand fixed ideas of which they cannot entirely get rid. It is for that reason
\nthey have not yet passed a law entirely and expressly suppressing the freedom of
\nthe Press or the right of public meeting. But even that may come. What should we
\ndo under these circumstances ? We see the sword of Damocles hanging lower and
\nlower over our heads. Our association may be declared criminal and illegal at
\nany moment. The Executive can at any moment it pleases confiscate our Press. We
\nourselves are liable to be arrested and harassed at a moment without evidence,
\n"on suspicion", by an irresponsible and apparently unpunishable police. Under
\nwhatever difficulties and whatever restric\u00adtions may be put upon us, we must of
\ncourse go on. But the restrictions may be greater in future. The sword is
\nhanging lower and lower over our heads. Still we cannot stop in our work. The
\nforce within us cannot be baulked, the call cannot be denied. Whatever penalty
\nbe inflicted on us for the crime of patriotism, whatever peril we may have to
\nface in the fulfilment of our duty to our nation, we must go on, we must carry
\non the country’s work.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

After all what is an association ? An association is
\nnot a thing which cannot exist unless we have a Chairman and a Vice-Chairman
\nand a Secretary. An association is not a thing which cannot meet unless it has
\nits fixed meeting-place. Association is a thing which depends upon the feeling
\nand the force within us. Association means unity, association means brotherhood, association means binding together in one common work. Where
\nthere is life, where there is self-sacrifice, where there is disinterested and
\nunselfish toil, where there are things within us, the work cannot stop. It
\ncannot stop even if there be one man who is at all risks prepared to carry it
\non. It is only after all the question of working, it is not a question of the
\nmeans of work. It is simply<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n

a question of working together in common in one way or
\nin another. It is a matter of asking each other from time to time what work
\nthere is to be performed today and what is the best way of performing it, what
\nare the best means of helping our countrymen, what work we shall have to do
\ntomorrow or the day after, and having settled that to do it at the appointed
\ntime and in the appointed way. That is what I mean when I say that it is a
\nquestion of working and not of means. It is not that these things cannot be done
\nexcept by the forms which our European education has taught us to value.
\nWhatever may be the difficulties we can go on with the work. The association
\nthat we shall have will be the association of brothers who are united heart to
\nheart, of fellow-workers joined hand-in-hand in a common labour, the
\nassociation of those who have a common motherland. It is the association of the
\nwhole country to which every son of India and every son of Bengal ought by the
\nduty of his birth to belong, an association which no force can break up, the
\nassociation of a unity which grows closer day by day, of an impulse that comes
\nfrom on high and has drawn us together in order that we might realise
\nbrotherhood, in order that the Indian nation may be united and united not merely
\nin the European way, not merely by the common self-interest, but united by love
\nfor the common country, united by the ideal of brotherhood, united by the
\nfeeling that we are all sons of one common Mother who is also the manifestation
\nof God in a united humanity. That is the association which has been coming into
\nbeing, and has not been destroyed, since the movement came into existence. This
\nis the mighty association which unites the people of West Bengal with the people
\nof East and North Bengal and defies partition, because it embraces every son of
\nthe land, \u2014 bhai bhai ek thain<\/i>,
\nor brother and brother massed inseparably together. This is the ideal that is
\nabroad and is waking more and more consciously within us. It is not merely a
\ncommon self-interest. It awakens God within us and says, "You are all one, you
\nare all brothers. There is one place in which you all meet and that is your
\ncommon Mother. That is not merely the soil. That is not merely a division of
\nland but it is a living thing. It is the Mother in whom you move and have your
\nbeing. Realise God in the nation, realise God in your<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n
\n

brother, realise God in a wide human association."
\nThis is the ideal by which humanity is moved all over the world, the ideal which
\nis the dharma<\/i> of the Kaliyuga, and it is the ideal of love and service
\nwhich the young men of Bengal so thoroughly realised, love and service to your
\nbrothers, love and service to your Mother, and this is the association we are
\nforming, the great association of the people of Bengal and of the whole people
\nof India. It increases and will grow for ever in spite of all the obstacles that
\nrise in its way. When the spirit of Aswini Kumar Dutt comes into every leader of
\nthe people and the nation becomes one great Swadesh Bandhab Samiti then it will
\nbe accomplished. This is for ever our national ideal and in its strength our
\nnation will rise whatever law they make; our nation will rise and live by the
\nforce of the law of its own being. For the fiat of God has gone out to the
\nIndian nation, "Unite, be free, be one, be great."<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n

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

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

The Right of Association*   MY FRIEND Pandit Gispati Kavyatirtha has somewhat shirked today his duty as it was set down for him in 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-1085","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\/1085","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=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}