{"id":269,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=269"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:00","slug":"144-freedom-of-speech-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\/144-freedom-of-speech-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-144_Freedom of Speech.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nFreedom of Speech<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>T<\/font><\/span>HE<\/font><\/b>
\nquestions in Parliament about the change of the existing law and Mr. Morley’s
\nanswers seem to point to a coming repressive measure intended to suppress the
\nsmall amount of free speech still existing in India. The rights of free speech
\nand free meeting were once reckoned among the priceless blessings which British
\nrule had brought to India. Nowadays one can with difficulty put oneself back
\ninto the frame of mind which made such a conception possible. The entire
\ndependence on British protection, the childlike faith in the machinery of
\nEuropean civilisation, the inability to perceive facts or distinguish words from
\nrealities, the facile contentment with
\nthe liberties of the slave to which that conception testified, <\/span>are
\nhappily growing obsolete. They persist in the survivors of the old generation
\nand in those of the present generation who cannot open themselves to new ideas,
\nbut are dead in the minds of those who will be the future people of India. In
\nthe course of another fifty years men will look back to the times when such
\nideas were possible, in the same spirit that the nineteenth century looked back
\nto the Middle Ages, as a period of absolute ignorance and darkness when the
\nnational mind and consciousness were in a state of total eclipse. The blessings
\nof British rule have all been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The Pax
\nBritannica is now seen to be the cause of our loss of manliness and power of
\nself-defence, a peace of death and torpor, security to starve in, the ease of
\nthe grave. British law has been found to be a fruitful source of demoralisation,
\nan engine to destroy ancient houses, beggar wealthy families and drain the poor
\nof their little competence. British education has denationalised the educated
\ncommunity, laid waste the fertile soil of the Indian intellect, suppressed
\noriginality and invention, created a gulf between the classes and the masses and
\ndone its best to kill that spirituality which is the soul of India. The petty
\nprivileges which British statecraft has thrown to us as morsels<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-790<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfrom
\nthe rich repast of liberty, have pauperised us politically, preserved all that
\nwas low, weak and dependent in our political temperament and discouraged the old
\nrobust manhood of our forefathers. Every Municipal or District Board has been a
\nnursery of dependence and pampered slavery, and the right of public meeting and
\nfreedom of the Press only served to complete this demoralisation, while at the
\nsame time cheating us into the belief that we were free.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The ancient Romans had a class of slaves born in the family and pampered
\nin their childhood by their masters, who were called vernae <\/i>and enjoyed a
\npeculiar position of mingled licence and subjection. They were allowed to speak
\nwith the most unbounded licence, to abuse their masters, to play tricks
\nsometimes of a most
\ninjurious character and were yet indulged <\/span>
\n\u2014<\/span>
\nso long as the <\/span>master was in a good humour;
\nlet the master’s temper turn sour or break into passion and the lash was called
\ninto requisition. The freedom of speech enjoyed by us under the bureaucratic
\nrule has been precisely of this kind. It depended on the will of a despotic
\nadministration, and at any moment it could be withdrawn or abridged, at any
\nmoment the lash of the law could be brought down on the back of the critic. This
\nfreedom of speech was worse than the Russian censorship; for in Russia the
\neditor laboured under no delusion, he knew that freedom of speech was not his,
\nand if he wrote against the administration, it was at his own risk; there was no
\npretence, no dissimulation on either side. But our freedom of speech has
\ndemoralised us, fostered an ignoble mixture of servility and licence, of
\ncringing and impudence, which are the very temperament of the slave. We were
\nextravagantly pleased with the slightest boons conceded to us and poured out our
\nfeelings with fulsome gratitude, or we grew furious at favours withheld and
\nabused the withholders in the same key. Our public expressions were full of
\nevasions, falsehoods, flatteries of British rule coupled with venomous and
\ndamaging attacks on that which in the same breath we lauded to the skies. A
\nhabit of cowardly insincerity became ingrained in us, which was fatal to the
\nsoundness of the heart, an insincerity which refused to be confined to our
\nrelations with the rulers and pursued us into our relations with our own
\ncountrymen. The same dry rot<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-791<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof
\ninsincerity vitiated all our public action and even our private lives, making a
\nfarce of our politics, a comedy of our social reform, and turning us from men
\ninto masks. The strenuous attempt to live what we believed, which was the result
\nof the ancient Indian discipline, left the educated class altogether and a gulf
\nwas placed between our practice and our professions, so that the heart of India
\nbegan to beat slower and slower and seemed likely to stop.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>It was the proud privilege of the Nationalist Party to strike at the root
\nof this terrible evil. From the first outburst of the Swadeshi movement, their
\nspeakers and writers decided to be no longer masks but men, to speak and write
\nthe truth that was in their minds, the feeling that was in their hearts without
\ndisguise, without equivocation, as freemen vindicating their freedom, \u2014 a
\nfreedom not bestowed but inborn. The poison passed out of the national system
\nand the blood began to circulate freely in our veins. Once more we stood up as
\nmen and not as gibbering spectres of a vanished humanity. The attitude of the Sandhya
\n<\/i>and Yugantar<\/i>, <\/i>consistently maintained in the dock, stood for a
\nrevival of Indian sincerity, truthfulness, manliness, fearlessness; it was the
\nresurgence of the Arya, the ideal of honour and quiet manhood which made our
\nforefathers great. But when the prosecutions failed to crush the papers for
\nwhich the martyrs offered themselves as a sacrifice, the cry was raised that
\nthey were being sacrificed by designing men who kept themselves in the
\nbackground. The persistence of the same tone and the same writings showed that
\nthose who maintained the spirit of the paper were untouched, and it was obvious
\nthat only by putting them under lock and key, could the journal itself be
\nsnuffed out. So the threat of a change in the law which would hunt out the real
\nculprits, has been persistently held before our eyes, and, if disregarded, may
\nbe carried out. The threat is an empty one, because no change of law can find
\nout those whom the nation is determined to save, lest the light of truth be
\nprematurely put under eclipse. Only by the abrogation of all law, by an
\narbitrary measure extinguishing the freedom of speech altogether can these
\njournals be snuffed out of being by the hand of Power. Such a measure may at any
\nmoment be hurried through the Legislative<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font><\/span>792<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nCouncil,
\nand the fear of it troubles our Moderate friends and sometimes finds expression
\nin objurgations against our past indiscretions or our policy of protecting our
\nwriters and contributors coupled with more or less bland invitations to commit
\nsuicide so that their journals may survive. But the existence of one paper which
\ndoes not shrink from expression of the heart and mind of the nation is of a
\nhigher value than that of many journals which fill their columns with
\ninsincerities and platitudes. The freedom of speech which the Moderate Party are
\nso anxious to save from extinction is a badge of slavery, a poison to the
\nnational health, a perpetuation of servitude, and it is better that it should be
\nextinguished than that the recovered freedom of a nation’s soul should cease.
\nGod will find out a way to spread the movement, even as it was found out in
\nRussia, if the bureaucracy are so ill-advised as to gag the Press. This voice is
\nabroad and what law shall prevail against it?<\/font><\/p>\n


\nThe Comedy of Repression<\/font><\/a><\/h1>\n

\nThe
\ncampaign of repression proceeds merrily in Madras. Srijuts Chidambaram Pillai
\nand Subramaniya Shiva are to be prosecuted for sedition, (we notice, by the way,
\nthat Srijut Pillai was not allowed to see his Vakils in jail, a typical piece of
\nbureaucratic "justice") the Tuticorin lawyers are being bound down to
\nkeep the peace, and "it is reported that instructions have been issued to
\nthe Sub-Magistrate, Tinnevelly, to issue warrants for the arrest of persons
\nshouting ‘Bande Mataram’ within the Municipal limits of Tinnevelly and
\nPalancotta." The bureaucrats of Madras are profiting by lessons in
\nRussianism both from East Bengal and from the Punjab. Meanwhile the people crowd
\nround the jail gates and line the roads to get a glimpse of the faces of their
\nimprisoned leaders, and Chidambaram Pillai, agent of the Swadeshi Steam
\nNavigation Company, whose name yesterday was little known outside one corner of
\nMadras, is now a popular hero; his name will be a household word; his photograph
\nwill hang on the walls of private houses as one of the family gods; and when he
\ncomes out from the term of imprisonment which is<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-793<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nnow
\na foregone conclusion, he will be a man of mighty influence and, where he swayed
\nthousands before, will sway millions of men throughout his native Presidency. It
\nis the old story, so old, so hackneyed, so certain in its d\u00e9nouement that one
\nwonders the despotisms of the world do not get tired of playing it.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> March 26, 1908<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font>794<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freedom of Speech                   THE questions in Parliament about the change of the existing law and Mr. Morley’s answers seem to point to a…<\/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-269","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\/269","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=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}