{"id":2730,"date":"2013-07-13T01:43:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2730"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:43:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:30","slug":"203-bande-mataram-24-3-08-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\/203-bande-mataram-24-3-08-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-203_Bande Mataram 24-3-08.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n

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

\n

\n\t
\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, March 24th, 1908 } <\/b> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nExclusion or Unity?
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nWe dealt yesterday with the question of the function of the Congress, whether it should be merely to focus public opinion
\nand proceed no farther or to gather up the life of the nation and deploy its strength in a struggle for national self-assertion.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWhen this question is decided the next which arises is that of the aim towards which the Congress is to work. If its function
\nis merely to focus public opinion, its aim can only be to submit grievances to the Government for redress, to beg for privileges
\nand to petition for favours. It will then admit the absolute authority of the bureaucracy and fulfil the purpose of collective
\npetitioning instead of leaving each individual class or community to approach the omnipotent seat of power by itself. The absolute
\nrule of the Moguls admitted this right of petition; it recognized no status in the applicant; it offered no promise of justice, but
\ndecided according to the will of the sovereign. The position of the Congress in that case is no better than that of the suitor at
\nthe justice seat of Akbar or Aurangzeb. To ask without strength, to aspire without effort, to submit if refused by the sovereign
\npower, will be the limit of its duties. The negation of national life which this attitude implies, is too reactionary to have a chance
\nof acceptance. If the few who cling to these mediaeval notions desire to keep the Congress to a role so beggarly, they must,
\nwhen they enter the Congress Pandal, leave the nation outside. For a time by raising party cries and confusing issues they may
\nget the bulk of the Moderate party to follow them, but the moment they show their hand there will be a second split and
\nthey will be left alone with a handful of well-to-do men on the Congress platform.
\n   <\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 958<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe function of the Congress must obviously be to gather
\nthe life of the nation together for the purpose of national self-assertion. The question which divides us is as to the nature and
\nextent of that self-assertion. Whether we are to carry the self-assertion to its logical conclusion or to stop halfway, whether
\nwe are to separate ourselves from association with the Government or combine association with opposition, whether we are
\nto use boycott as a local protest against a local grievance or a grand universal means of establishing a State within the State,
\nthese are the points at issue between the Moderate party and the Nationalists. The Nationalists desire Swaraj, the Moderates
\ndesire Colonial self-government. The Nationalists wish to exclude all petitionary resolutions, all, that is to say, which depend
\non the will of the bureaucracy for their execution and not on our own exertions; they would keep the deliberative side of the
\nCongress for ascertaining the sense of the nation as to the work which should be done and the principles which should govern
\nit, and would add a working or executive side to review the work already done, settle the future programme and supervise
\nits execution. The Moderates wish to keep the petitionary side of the Congress as its chief function, but to admit a certain amount
\nof self-help as a subordinate feature. Finally the Nationalists proclaim the boycott as a movement of secession by which the
\nnation can gradually withdraw itself from association with a control in which it has no voice or share and assert its own and
\nseparate life; the Moderates will not have a boycott movement <\/i>at any price and are prepared only to admit a commercial boycott
\nas temporary local action to bring about the redress of local grievances. The minor questions which divide the parties have
\nno importance by themselves and would not give any trouble if there were not acute feeling engendered by these important
\ndifferences of opinion or principle.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe importance of these differences cannot be denied and
\nought not to be belittled. We cannot agree with those who try to smooth over difficulties by saying that they do not exist or
\nthat there are no parties. This evasion of great political issues, this attempt to slink away from disagreeable facts and shirk the
\n   
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 959<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tinevitable is likely to discourage the growth of a robust political
\nsense in the people. Peoples with a sound political instinct always take care to recognise and give their proper importance to great
\nissues; they welcome keen discussion and even contention and eager struggle over them, but they do not allow these differences
\nto override the sense of national unity or the struggle of parties to degenerate into a war of factions. This is the only sound way
\nto deal with the difficulty, not by the principle of exclusion, not by breaking apart into sectional bodies and destroying the
\nchance of a regular progression towards a single coherent and self-conscious political life, but by the principle of inclusion,
\nby admitting differences of opinion, regulating procedure and accepting the result. The Nationalists are not in favour of Colonial self-government as an ultimate ideal, but they accepted the resolution on self-government as an expression of the immediate
\naim of the Congress at Calcutta, because they knew that the bulk of the nation was not yet prepared to accept Swaraj as an
\nimmediate purpose. They are in favour of boycott as an universal movement throughout India, but they accepted its restriction to
\nBengal because other provinces were not yet ready to declare in favour of boycott. They are always ready in principle to accept
\nthe decision of the Congress for the time being, reserving the right to get that decision altered in the future. The severity of
\nthe struggle at Surat was due to the attempt to use a local majority in order to effect a revolution in the Congress constitution,
\nwhich would turn it into a Moderate Congress and exclude the Nationalist element altogether. They took strong exception to
\nany use of this local majority for altering the mutual composition arrived at by common consent at Calcutta, and decided to
\nrecord their protest by opposing on all contested points beginning from the election of the President, but they had no intention
\nof seceding even if the Calcutta resolutions were dropped or modified; they would simply have strained every nerve to get
\nthe wrong redressed at the next session. This attitude which was clear from the speech and action of the Nationalist leaders
\nthroughout, has been obscured by the cry raised against them of wrecking the Congress and the falsehoods which not only
\n   <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 960<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tattributed the whole blame of the second day’s disturbance to
\nthem but represented it as preconceived by them and deliberately planned. The Nationalist party recognises only one sufficient
\nground for secession, a resolution, constitution or procedure expressly or practically excluding them from the pale of the
\nCongress. Temporary withdrawal as a protest, not against the nature of the resolutions passed but against unconstitutional
\nprocedure, stands on a different footing and has been often practised, by the Punjab, for instance, when it abstained for
\nseveral years from the Congress because of the arbitrary refusal to allow the question of the constitution to be dealt with or
\nproperly raised.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThis we hold to be the only possible attitude if an organised
\npolitical unity is to be achieved. Full right of discussion, free use of every legitimate means of protest, but not secession on
\naccount of opinions. The Moderate party outside Bengal is, at present, keen for separation. It holds the view, loudly preached
\nby the Bombay papers, that if certain resolutions are passed, if a certain colour is given to the proceedings of the body or to
\nagitation carried on by any section of its members in the country, they are not only entitled but bound to withdraw if they are in
\nthe minority or to expel the Nationalists if they are in the majority. They seem to base this view on two grounds, first, that they
\ncannot allow opinions not their own to be expressed in Congress resolutions, secondly, that such opinions or political association
\nwith those who hold them, will discredit Congress in the eyes of the Government. The first presupposes either a claim to hold
\nthe Congress as their personal property or an intolerance which is inconsistent with the essential conditions of a self-governing
\nbody; the second, either a dependence on bureaucratic in place of public opinion which is also incompatible with the spirit of
\nself-government or an implied right of control by bureaucratic influence which no patriot will admit. We assert the right of
\nthe Congress to determine its own aims, functions, aspirations, constitution; we do not admit the right of any party sitting in
\nconvention to determine them for the Congress. If the Moderates desire to have the creed of the Congress fixed, they must get it
\n   
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 961<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tdone by the Congress, which is alone competent to decide the
\nquestion, and must not couple it with a proviso of exclusion against those who cannot subscribe to every article of the creed.
\nThe ideal of the Congress may be complete self-government or it may be partial, its methods may be petitionary or they may
\nbe self-assertive. That is a question not of constitution but of the balance of opinion. The only constitutional question to be
\ndecided in connection with the determination of the aim or ideal is whether those who pitch their ideal either higher or lower than
\nthe precise key settled at a particular session are to be excluded in future or admitted, whether the Congress is to be a stationary
\nand sectional body or comprehensiveness is to be aimed at and progress and movement to be allowed.
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tHow the Riot Was Made <\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\tThe statement of the Public Prosecutor that the cause of the Tinnevelly riots was that Mr. Chidambaram Pillai was remanded to custody and that Mr. Pillai had himself quelled a disturbance
\nwhich was likely to take place at Tuticorin station, is only additional and independent evidence to support a self-evident fact.
\nThe best way to bring about a riot, if the authorities want one, is to remove the leaders when public feeling is at white heat. It
\nserves to bring the excitement to exploding point and yet remove those who can alone prevent the explosion or give it a legitimate
\nchannel of escape. No intelligent leader in India, Moderate or Nationalist, would use his influence to precipitate a collision
\nbetween the authorities and the people on the physical plane in which the people can only act with a temporary strength while
\nthe bureaucracy can exercise a settled and at present irresistible pressure. In the moral struggle where determination, unity and
\nself-sacrifice on the one side can outweigh organized power and the prestige of authority on the other, the people hold the winning cards. Mr. Pillai and his helpers fought the good fight at Tuticorin in this knowledge and restrained all violence while they
\nencouraged the people to assert their manhood and test their   <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 962<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tunity by passive resistance. The statement in some Anglo-Indian
\npapers that the strike was accompanied by rowdyism seems to be the usual baseless fabrication. The people were strong, but
\nperfectly orderly and calm. It was only after the removal of the restraining influence of the leaders that they broke out into
\nviolence. The fact is significant for the popular leaders also, as we have already pointed out; it shows the necessity of a democratic
\norganization which will prevent the removal of the one or two strong men from bringing about an outburst or a collapse.
\n    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 963<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, March 24th, 1908 }   Exclusion or Unity?   We dealt yesterday with the question of the function of the Congress,…<\/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-2730","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\/2730","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=2730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}