{"id":260,"date":"2013-07-13T01:26:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=260"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:26:57","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:57","slug":"093-the-martyrdom-of-bepin-chandra-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/093-the-martyrdom-of-bepin-chandra-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-093_The Martyrdom of Bepin Chandra.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nThe Martyrdom of Bepin Chandra<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/p>\n

               
\n<\/span>W<\/font><\/b>E<\/b> HAVE<\/b>
\nfelt considerable delicacy hitherto in writing on the prosecution of Srijut
\nBepin Chandra Pal for refusing to take the oath in the Bande Mataram <\/i>Case,
\nas that prosecution has arisen directly out of our own. In fact, all the more
\nimportant events of recent occurrence in Calcutta have been so closely
\nconnected, directly or indirectly, with this case that we have been practically
\ncompelled to keep our lips closed on current public affairs. The imprisonment
\nof the Nationalist orator and propagandist, the most prominent public figure of
\nthe New Party in
\nBengal, is nevertheless a matter of capital importance on which we cannot remain
\nsilent. Without touching on the relations of this affair with the Bande
\nMataram <\/i>Case we shall say what we have to say on the political aspect of the
\nvindictive sentence passed by the third Presidency Magistrate, an obscure
\nservant of the bureaucracy, on the man with a great and historic mission whom
\nthe strange incongruous humour of Fate brought before his petty judgment-seat.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Srijut Bepin Chandra Pal has been condemned to six months’ simple
\nimprisonment, the maximum penalty permitted by the law for the crime of
\npossessing a conscience, Mr. Hume asked for a conviction on the ground that
\nBepin Babu had baulked the prosecution in the Bande Mataram <\/i>Case. Apart
\nfrom the large assumption involved in the assertion that his evidence would have
\nmaterially assisted the prosecution, this appears to us a singular plea for a
\nlawyer to put forward. It has not yet been made a crime punishable under the
\nPenal Code to baulk a Government prosecution and if it was the intention to draw
\nthe Magistrate’s attention to the political bearings of the case, it was at
\nleast maladroit to allow the suggestion to be palpable. We will take it,
\nhowever, that the Magistrate sentenced Bepin Babu for a breach of the law which
\nthe defendant did not deny, not for an action of which there was no evidence and
\nwhich is not an offence under the law. What then was Bepin Babu’s offence?
\nCertainly<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-529<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nit
\nwas not that he carried the policy of Boycott beyond the limits of legality and
\npreferred adhesion to his own political programme before the dictates of the
\nalien’s law. That would have been an action which, however pardonable or
\npraiseworthy in the eyes of patriots engaged in a life and death struggle with
\nthe bureaucracy, must necessarily figure as a serious offence in the eyes of the
\nbureaucracy itself and we could hardly quarrel with its servant for trying to
\nserve the interests of his employers by the infliction of a severe punishment.
\nBut it was distinctly declared by Bepin Babu that it was not as a boycotter, not
\nwith the political intention of making the working of the bureaucratic law
\ncourts impossible, that he declined to give evidence or take the oath. The
\nboycott in
\nBengal
\n has not yet been extended in practice to the law courts, and even in theory it
\nis proposed to extend it only to voluntary resort to the protection of the alien
\nauthorities and not to cases in which one is compelled to them by a warrant or a
\nsummons. A few men like Bhupendranath Dutt who have realised freedom in their
\nsouls and refuse to be bound by any limitations of an alien making, may decline
\nto have anything to do with the law which the nation had no hand in framing and
\nthe courts over which the nation has no control, but this has not yet become the
\naccepted policy of the New Party and there was no moral compulsion on its leader
\nto make any such refusal. If it had been an ordinary case of crime, he would not
\nhave refused to give evidence. It was, in fact, as an individual case of
\nconscience that he regarded the question. In his first statement Bepin Babu
\ndeclared that it was the duty of a citizen to refuse to take any part in such
\ncases which are manifestly unjust and injurious to society and the peace of the
\ncountry. In his later statement the expression about the duty of the citizen
\nwas, wisely we think, dropped: for we in <\/p>\n

India<\/p>\n

are not citizens and having no rights of citizenship cannot be saddled with any
\nduties of citizenship. The members of a subject nation absolutely destitute of
\nany inalienable rights cannot have any moral obligations as citizens: they can
\nonly have moral obligations as patriots and subject to their patriotic
\nobligations, as members of a social order. If therefore we recognise any
\nobligation to respect and<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-530<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nobey
\nthe law, it is not as citizens but as members of the social order who are
\ninterested in its maintenance and in the maintenance of peace and order so long
\nas, and no longer than, that order and peace do not militate against the
\nwell-being of the society instead of promoting it. The moment obedience to the
\nlaw involves a wound to society, the individual is brought face to face with a
\ndifficult case of conscience.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>It was in such a difficult situation that Bepin Babu found himself. He
\n<\/i>was called on to associate himself as a prosecution witness with a political
\npolicy carried on under the forms of law, a policy which he considered fatal to
\nthe well-being and peace of the nation, but which he had no means of challenging
\nexcept by the passive protest of refusing to perform the function required of
\nhim. He had to obey either the dictates of his conscience or the requirements
\nof the law and he held the imperative command of his conscience a more sacred
\nand binding law than the Penal Code. The law had a right to assert itself by
\ninflicting on him a nominal or slight penalty, it had no right to punish a man
\nvindictively for obeying his conscience. The Magistrate thought perhaps that he
\nwas serving the interests of the present system and ensuring its stability by
\nputting Bepin Pal in prison for six months, but what has he really done? Merely
\nmade people believe that the bureaucracy is so savage in its repression, so enamoured of power, that for its sake it will not even allow a man to possess a
\nconscience, that an honest and reluctant protest on the part of a distinguished
\nand honourable man against a misuse of the law will be punished by it with eager
\nseverity if it happens to conflict with its own interests or its repressive
\npolicy.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The country will not suffer by the incarceration of this great orator and
\nwriter, this spokesman and prophet of Nationalism, nor will Bepin Chandra
\nhimself suffer by it. He has risen ten times as high as he was before in the
\nestimation of his countrymen: if there are any among them who disliked or
\ndistrusted him, they have been silenced, for good we hope, by his manly,
\nstraightforward and conscientious stand for the right as he understood it. He
\nwill come out of prison with his power and<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-531<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ninfluence
\ndoubled, and Nationalism has already become the stronger for his
\nself-immolation. Posterity will judge between him and the petty tribunal which
\nhas treated his honourable scruples as a crime.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font>
\nSeptember 12, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n

Page-532<\/font><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Martyrdom of Bepin Chandra                     WE HAVE felt considerable delicacy hitherto in writing on the prosecution of Srijut Bepin Chandra Pal for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","wpcat-8-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","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=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}