{"id":2713,"date":"2013-07-13T01:43:24","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2713"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:43:24","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:24","slug":"84-bande-mataram-25-5-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/06-07-bande-mataram\/84-bande-mataram-25-5-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-84_Bande Mataram 25-5-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\tBande Mataram<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t
\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, May 25th, 1907 }
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\n

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\n
\nThe East Bengal Disturbances
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nWe have said that the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai brings no new element into the situation beyond hastening the processes
\nof Nationalism and bringing us from a less to a more acute stage of our progress to independence. The second disturbing element
\nhas been the culmination of the alliance between Salimullah of Dacca and the bureaucracy in the anarchy and the outrages in the
\nMymensingh district. These disturbances are now almost over for the time being, though we must take full advantage of the lull
\nallowed to us, so as to put our house in order against a possible recrudescence after the jute season. We should now seriously
\nconsider how far these disturbances have altered the situation and what we should do in order to meet these new conditions.
\nWe must first notice that neither the disturbances themselves nor their cause are in their nature a new element in the situation.
\nThe Salimullahi campaign, the use of Mahomedan budmashes to terrorise Swadeshi Hindus, the official inactivity and sympathy
\nwith the lawbreakers, these have all been with us even before. The conclusions we arrived at at the time, the warnings and
\nexhortations we addressed to the people have been proved to the hilt, justified beyond dispute, enforced in red letters of rapine,
\nbloodshed and outrage. Our reading of the situation then was that no serious apprehension of trouble between Hindus and
\nMahomedans need be entertained except within that tract of country immediately under the influence of Nawab Salimullah,\u2014 Mymensingh, Dacca, Tipperah and possibly parts of Pabna. This is precisely what has happened. In Comilla the trouble was
\nstopped before it could do real mischief, by the resolute spirit of the Hindus; in Dacca, in spite of small skirmishes, individual
\n   
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\n <\/p>\n

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\n\tharassment and a minor outbreak or two, it never gathered to
\na head, because the great strength and early preparations of the Hindus overawed the prime movers and their instruments;
\nMymensingh alone felt the full force of the storm, while Pabna still hovers on the brink of it. It is not that the Nawab’s campaign
\nwas not vigorously pursued in other parts. The Red Pamphlet has been ubiquitous throughout Eastern and Northern Bengal;
\nthe preachings of the Nawab’s Mullahs have been as persistent, as malignant in Barisal, in Calcutta, in every strong centre of
\nSwadeshism. But though there have been alarms and excursions even as far west as Allahabad and Benares, the campaign has for
\nthe present signally failed outside the limits of Nawab Salimullah’s kingdom. This is a fact to be noted. We do not say that
\nSalimullahism carries no dangers with it of general disruption and disunion between the two communities; an unscrupulous
\nagitation of this kind aided by official backing is always dangerous. But in the rest of the country the blind faith in the Nawab
\nand his Mullahs is absent and other conditions and forces exist which, if properly used by the Nationalists, will permanently
\ncounteract the promoters of disunion. Even of themselves, they have been sufficient to prevent the Mahomedans from siding
\nwith the self-elected leader against the Swadeshists. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tBut however limited the area of the disturbances might be,
\nwe warned the country that Comilla was not the first and would not be the last of such outbreaks and we called upon it to be
\nready in time to follow the example of the Comilla Hindus. Moderate politicians, blind leaders of the blind, were rejoicing over
\nthe end of the disturbances brought about, they said, by their mysterious efforts\u2014 and crying peace, peace where there was no
\npeace. We pointed out that the Comilla affair was not an isolated outbreak, but part of a policy and we knew the men we had to
\ndeal with too well to suppose that they would be put off their machinations by a single defeat. Beaten at Comilla, they were
\ncertain to try their luck again in Mymensingh. We warned the country also that when the disturbances came, it would be idle to
\nlook for protection to the officials and the police. By announcing Swaraj as our ideal we had declared war against the existence
\n   
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\n

\n\tof the bureaucracy and we could not expect the bureaucracy
\nto help us by making our efforts to put it out of existence safe and easy. On the contrary the Nawab and his hooligans were,
\npractically if not avowedly, the allies of the bureaucracy in their war against Swadeshism and must therefore command sympathy
\nand helpful inactivity if not actual assistance from their friends. In all these respects our reading of the situation has been proved
\ncorrect beyond cavil or dispute. The extent to which the Nawab has succeeded in turning the baser passions of the mob to his
\nuses; the extent to which the Anti-Swadeshi army has gone in its outrages, not scrupling even to desecrate temples and violate
\nwomen; the extent to which the officials carried their connivance with the excesses, an European police official actually leading
\nthe mob and the looting being carried on under the eyes of the police; these things were new, but the Salimullahi campaign
\nitself, the use of the hooligans (our Indian Black Hundred), and the sympathy of the officials are elements which are old, of which
\nthe country had been warned and against which the leaders of the movement should have provided.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tEven the extent to which these things were carried, was due entirely to a feature of the Mymensingh occurrences which we
\nhad already warned the country to avoid\u2014 the non-resistance of the Hindus of Jamalpur. There are some who say that the
\nrecent events in India are a proof of the impracticability of the Nationalist programme. We do not follow the reasoning of these
\nlogicians. The Jamalpur incidents and their sequel are a terrible proof of the soundness of the Nationalist ideas and the utter
\nunsoundness of the Moderate theories of our relations with the bureaucracy and the best way of enforcing the Swadeshi
\npropaganda. The people of Comilla followed the Nationalist programme with brilliantly successful results. They boycotted
\nthe courts, schools and every other element of the bureaucratic scheme of things and announced their intention of continuing
\nthe boycott so long as the Nawab of Dacca was allowed to remain in Comilla\u2014 and the Nawab was packed off without
\nceremony. They met force with force and the hooligan army of Anti-Swadeshism underwent a crushing defeat. On the other
\n   
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\n\thand the people of Jamalpur did everything which the Nationalist programme excludes; they trusted to the promises of the alien, they chose to go to the
\nmela <\/i>unarmed, like defenceless sheep,
\nrelying not on their own strong arm but on the protection of the British shepherd. At the order of the alien they laid down the
\nlathis <\/i>they carried for self-defence, at the order of the alien they trooped to the
\nmela<\/i>, from which they had resolved to absent
\nthemselves, to be thrashed by Mahomedan cudgels. Then when their sheepish trustfulness had had its reward, that one lesson
\nwas not enough; again they trusted to British protection and sent away the volunteers who stood between them and further
\noutrage. And when the second storm came, they could think of nothing better than wholesale flight from the field of battle.
\nThroughout we see the working of the old political superstitions, the old unworkable compromise which tried to oppose
\nthe bureaucracy and yet co-operate with it, to combine vigorous opposition with meek submission, to build up a nation under the
\nmost adverse circumstances and against the strongest opponents and yet be, first and foremost, docile, peaceful and law-abiding.
\nThese superstitions exploded in the explosions at Jamalpur, and the conflagration that followed meant the collapse of a policy.
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tThe hooligan disturbances in East Bengal bring therefore no new elements into the situation, but, like the deportation
\nof Lala Lajpat Rai, merely make it more acute and hasten the processes of Nationalism. They create no new conditions, but
\nthey have caused certain truths to be newly appreciated. The first is that the Pax Britannica is Maya and, if we mean to be
\nSwadeshists and Swarajists, we must rely in future not on British protection but on self-protection. The second is that, as we have
\nlong insisted, our present means of self-defence are inadequate and better means and organisation are a pressing need. The third
\nis the seriousness and true nature of the Mahomedan problem which our older politicians have always tried to belittle or ignore. Anyone who wishes to deal successfully with the crisis in the country, must recognise these three lessons of experience and
\nshape his methods accordingly.   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t__________<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\t
\n\tNewmania
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tYesterday the Special Correspondent of the Englishman <\/i>finished his shilling shocker in many chapters,
\nThe Dreadful Boy Desperadoes of Dacca <\/i>or The Violent Volunteers of Barisal<\/i>. We have had many new things recently, the new Hinduism, the new
\nSchool, the new Politics, the new Province, the new John Morley and now we have Newmania in the
\nEnglishman<\/i>. The peculiarly
\ndelirious character of this disease can be easily understood from the Khulna telegram of the Secretary, People’s Association. Mr.
\nNewman had published from Barisal a peculiarly blood and thunder incident of the villainous drowning and stabbing of
\nBritish goods by whiskerless young desperadoes of Khulna. The Magistrate of Khulna seems to have been so far taken in by
\nthe life-like vividness of Mr. Newman’s style as to take this bit of heroic romancing quite seriously. He actually enquired into
\nthe alleged murder and sudden death and naturally found that nothing of the kind had happened. It is clear that we need a
\nspecial liturgy for India. “From Denzil Ibbetson and deportation, from the stick of the Constable and the gun of the Gurkha,
\nfrom sunstroke and the Civil and Military Gazette<\/i>, from Pax Britannica and the Nawab of Dacca, from Sir Henry Cotton and
\nMr. Rees, from Fuller, Morley and Shillong Hare, Good Lord deliver us! From lesser plague and pestilence, from cholera and
\nmotor-cars, from measles and moderation, Good Lord deliver us! But most of all from the friendship of the
\nStatesman <\/i>and the
\nravings of Newmania, Good Lord deliver us!”   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 445<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, May 25th, 1907 }   The East Bengal Disturbances   We have said that the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai brings…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-06-07-bande-mataram","wpcat-54-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713","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=2713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}