{"id":264,"date":"2013-07-13T01:26:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=264"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:26:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:59","slug":"113-about-unmistakable-terms-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\/113-about-unmistakable-terms-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-113_About Unmistakable Terms.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nAbout Unmistakable Terms<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n 
\n<\/font><\/b>               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>W<\/font><\/b>E<\/font><\/span>
\n answered yesterday in general terms the claim
\nadvanced in the columns of the Bengalee <\/i>to implicit and blind obedience
\nfrom all Bengalis to the Calcutta Moderate leaders and to any local
\nrepresentatives of loyalty and moderation whom they may be pleased to erect to
\nthe gaze of an adoring public. But the Bengalee<\/i>‘s <\/i>article contained also
\ncertain passages which demand more direct and plain-spoken answers and this
\ntoday we will give. The Bengalee<\/i>, <\/i>not contented with its arrogant demand
\nfor submission, goes on to declare that the Nationalists, because they refuse
\nthis claim, are traitors to their country, that the men who opposed Mr.
\nChitnavis’ autocracy at Nagpur or Sir Pherozshah’s at Calcutta or Mr. K. B.
\nDutt’s at Midnapur are rowdies and the Nationalist leaders, Mr. Tilak and Mr.
\nKhaparde in the West of Srijuts Bepin Pal, Aurobindo Ghose or Brahmabandhab
\nUpadhyay in Calcutta have been abettors of rowdies, and it calls on the whole
\ncountry to speak out in unmistakable terms against us. Unmistakable terms?
\nWell, then, let us have an understanding about terms, to begin with. What is the
\ndefinition of a traitor to his country? Are men traitors who have exposed
\nthemselves to persecution, imprisonment and harassment for the sake of their
\ncountry? Are those traitors who have made large sacrifices and devoted
\nthemselves to the cause of the Motherland? Or are those young men traitors who
\nhave stood in the forefront of the battle of boycott, braving the full fury of
\nthe bureaucrats and their police, and but for whom the boycott agitation would
\nhave flagged and perished after the first six months of excitement? The Bengalee
\n<\/i>says they are: for they may have done all these things, and yet if they
\noppose Mr. K. B. Dutt or Srijut Surendranath, they are traitors to their
\ncountry. On the other hand, have not those rather the complexion of traitors who
\nare ready to call in police assistance against their countrymen in a Swadeshi
\nconference although there has been no riot or violence, who boast that the
\npolice are<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-634<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

in
\ntheir hands and they can get all arrested who oppose them, who are ready to
\nforget all the oppression from Barisal till now and call in Magistrates and
\npolice superintendents to the place of honour in national meetings, who are
\nready to take the lathis out of the hands of volunteers to please a District
\nofficial? Or those, to take other examples, who wrote with brilliant success to
\nAnglo-Indian papers to get Mr. Tilak prosecuted at the time of the Poona
\nmurders? Or those who pointed out Lala Lajpat Rai to the bureaucracy as the man
\nto strike at when the Punjab was in a ferment over the Colonisation Bill? But,
\nby the Bengalee<\/i>‘s <\/i>reasoning, men may be the moral descendants of Mir
\nJafar and Jagat Seth and yet be excellent patriots so long as they obey Moderate
\nleaders and respect age and authority.<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>The second term we want to see so defined as to be unmistakable, is the
\nterm "leaders". The Bengalee <\/i>calls for discipline and
\nsubmission to leadership, but who are the leaders to whom we are to yield this
\nunquestioning military obedience? What is the qualification in Mr. K. B. Dutt of
\nMidnapur, for instance, by virtue of which we are called upon to sacrifice for
\nhis sake our national self-respect, our convictions, and our natural right to a
\nfree exercise of our individual reason and conscience? The Bengalee <\/i>talks
\nof age, but it is preposterous to set up age by itself as the claim to
\nleadership in politics; nor did the Moderate leaders themselves show an
\noverwhelming deference to age when they were themselves younger and more ardent.
\nRespect for age as a part of social discipline we can understand, but leadership
\nby seniority is a new doctrine. Then again the Bengalee <\/i>talks of
\nauthority. What authority? The authority of social position, wealth,
\nprofessional success? Are we to obey Mr. K. B. Dutt because he is the leader of
\nthe Midnapur bar just as the East Bengal Mahomedans obey Salimullah because he is
\nthe Nawab of Dacca? We decline to accept any such law of obedience. Authority is
\nalways a delegated power which does not rest in the individual but proceeds to
\nhim from a definite source and returns to that source. Official authority
\nproceeds from an organised government executing the law which can both delegate
\nits power to individuals and take them away again as it pleases. In popular
\nmovements the people are the only source from which authority<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-635<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

can
\nproceed. The people follow a leader because he best interprets their ideas, aims
\nand feelings or because he shows himself the best fitted to organise and lead
\nthe popular forces to the realisation of popular aspirations and ideals, and the
\nmoment their confidence is shaken, the moment they begin to think he does not
\nrepresent their best ideas and aspirations or that his methods of leadership are
\nmistaken, the authority begins to depart out of him. There can be no other kind
\nof authority in democratic politics, nor can popular leadership be
\nself-constituted. Those who demand military obedience to self-constituted
\nleaders are not preparing self-government but killing it, striking at its very
\nroots. If what the Moderate leaders want is to replace bureaucracy not by
\npopular self-government but by the government of particular persons or classes,
\nif they want the movement to be not democratic but oligarchic, or plutocratic,
\nlet them say so clearly, in God’s name and let us have done with this juggling
\nwith words, and henceforward on both sides "speak in unmistakable
\nterms".<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>Finally, while we are about defining terms, let us know when a man
\nbecomes President of a Conference or Congress session. The Bengalee <\/i>says,
\n"The attempt that was made to heckle the President and to bring into
\ncontempt his position as the head of the Conference was unique in the history of
\nour Conferences and Congresses. We never witnessed in the whole course of our
\npublic life a proceeding…so derogatory to the authority of the
\nPresident." The "heckling" took place before Mr. K. B. Dutt was
\nelected, when the President’s chair was vacant. Are we then to suppose that a
\nman becomes President before he is elected? It is curious that Mr. K. B. Dutt
\nhimself made this unwarrantable claim when the trouble first began. By custom
\nthe Reception Committee designates a President but the decision of the Committee
\nhas no binding force on the delegates of the Conference who have always the
\npower to elect any one else whom they may prefer and not till a public
\nconfirmation by the votes of the delegates, has the President designated by
\nthe Reception Committee any authority or tenure of office. Until then he is
\nmerely a public man nominated for a particular function and the public have
\nevery right to "heckle" him so as to be sure that he will properly
\nrepresent them before they give him their votes. Because till now<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-636<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

this
\nright has not been enforced, it does not follow that the public has forfeited
\nits right, nor are we bound by "traditions" which mean simply the
\nabsence of lively popular interest and have no sanction in any reasonable
\nprinciple of procedure.<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>The Bengalee <\/i>sets up discipline as the one requisite of a popular
\nmovement and to back up its proposition it is so ill-advised as to quote the
\nexample of Parnell and his solid Irish phalanx. The choice of this example shows
\na singular ignorance of English politics. Before Parnell’s advent, the Irish
\nParty in Parliament was a moderate party of Irish Liberals of very much the same
\nnature as the old Congress Party before the Boycott. It was balanced in Ireland
\nby a revolutionary organisation using the most violent means employed by secret
\nsocieties. When Parnell first appeared on the scene, his first action was to
\nrevolt against the leader of the Irish Party and make a party of his own.
\nConsisting at first of a mere handful it soon captured the whole of Ireland and
\ncreated the solid phalanx. But what was the secret of Parnell’s success?
\nParnell, unlike our Moderate leaders, did not dwarf the ideal of a national
\nmovement but always held the absolute independence of his country as the goal:
\nhe made it a fixed principle to accept no half-way house between independence
\nand subjection short of an Irish Parliament with independent powers; he suffered
\nno man to enter his party who did not pledge himself to refuse all office,
\nhonour or emolument from the alien government and he showed his people a better
\nway of agitation than mere dependence on England on one side and secret outrage
\non
\nthe other <\/span>\u2014<\/span>
\nthe way of passive resistance, obstruction in <\/span>Parliament and refusal of
\nrent in the country. Only so could Parnell succeed in creating
\nthe solid phalanx, and when it was broken, it was by the folly of his adherents
\nwho receded from his principles and sacrificed their leader at the bidding of an
\nEnglish statesman. If Srijut Surendranath wishes to have the country solid
\nbehind him, he must be a Parnell first and not shrink from a Parnellite policy
\nand ideals. Only clear principles and unambiguous conduct can secure implicit
\nobedience.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tBande
\nMataram<\/i>, <\/i><\/font>December 12, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-637<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About Unmistakable Terms                     WE answered yesterday in general terms the claim advanced in the columns of the Bengalee to implicit and blind…<\/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-264","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\/264","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=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}