{"id":2735,"date":"2013-07-13T01:43:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2735"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:43:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:32","slug":"147-bande-mataram-28-9-07-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\/147-bande-mataram-28-9-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-147_Bande Mataram 28-9-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n

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

\n

\n

\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, September
\n\t28th, 1907 } <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe Statesman <\/i>in Retreat
\n<\/b><\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe strong censures which the Statesman<\/i>‘s article on the Bande<\/i>
\nMataram <\/i>case has called forth from the Bengali Press in Calcutta, have forced that journal to enter into some explanation of its conduct. While professing to stand by every word it had
\nwritten, it manages under cover of the plea that it has been misunderstood, to unsay much that it had said. The article was
\non the face of it a malignant attack on the Bande Mataram <\/i>, an attempt to create the impression that this paper was either
\na journal managed on a dishonest, disreputable and impossible principle or else that its staff were a gang of liars and cowards
\nwith an Editor who made a false or practically false defence in order to avoid the responsibility for his political propaganda.
\nWe were told that from this dilemma there was no possible escape. The Statesman
\n<\/i>has now considerably altered its tone. In
\norder that we may not be accused of wilfully misinterpreting our very Liberal contemporary, we will give his explanation of his
\nown meaning in his own words and answer him point by point. “We maintained”, he says, “that there had been in essence a
\nmiscarriage of justice in the Bande Mataram <\/i>case, since the trial had resulted in the conviction of the Printer, whereas the real
\noffender\u2014 the author of the article or articles complained of\u2014 was not brought to book. We pointed out in the next place, that
\nin England the person really responsible for the articles could readily have been found, for no attempt would have been made
\nto evade the issue on the divided liability principle adopted in the Bande Mataram
\n<\/i>office, still less to make a scapegoat of an
\nignorant workman. We maintained lastly that unless every public journal had a responsible head of some sort, the liberty of the
\n\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n

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\n

\n\tPress would degenerate into a licence under which no institution
\nof organised society, no man’s reputation would be safe.”
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWe do not for a moment deny that there was a very serious
\nmiscarriage of justice in the Bande Mataram <\/i>case, but we are certainly astonished at the malignity of the
\nStatesman <\/i>in trying
\nto fasten the responsibility for the Printer’s conviction on the Bande Mataram
\n<\/i>or on the other accused. It writes as if it were
\nwe who took out a warrant against the Printer, knowing him to be nothing but an ignorant workman, or who sentenced him
\nto three months’ rigorous imprisonment in spite of the evidence that he knew nothing of the matter and could not have had
\nany criminal knowledge or intention, or as if we had asked the Printer to take any responsibility upon himself for the articles.
\nDoes the Friend of India find anywhere in the records of the case or out of them either that any of the accused tried to shield
\nhimself by putting the responsibility on the Printer? The blame for the miscarriage of justice must rest on the unjust British law
\nwhich makes an ignorant workman responsible, on the bureaucrats who sanctioned his prosecution and on the Magistrate who
\nsentenced him, and the attempt to fasten it on our shoulders is as grotesque as it is malicious. The
\nStatesman <\/i>is, farther, much
\nexercised because the real author of the offending article has escaped punishment, but this is not a calamity over which we
\ncan affect to be greatly grieved. After all, miscarriages of justice, whether in the shape of the conviction of innocent Indians or
\nthe immunity from punishment of European criminals, are not so rare in this country that society will be shattered to pieces
\nbecause the writer of a chance letter disagreeable to the sacred feelings of the bureaucracy has not been sent to turn the oil-mill
\nfor a couple of years. “In England the person really responsible for the article could readily have been found.” If the real writer is
\nmeant, we deny this altogether. In England it would be absolutely impossible to discover the true writer of an unsigned article, for
\nit is not considered binding on him to come forward even if another suffers for his offence or his indiscretion; and when the
\nStatesman <\/i>claims a chivalrous sense of honour for English writers political or other and asserts that they always come forward
\n   
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\n\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\tto claim their handiwork it is trading on the ignorance of English
\nlife which is prevalent in this country. If, on the other hand, the Editor is meant, we would advise our contemporary to study
\nthe history of the English Press more minutely. He will find that English editors have not always been so enamoured of legal
\npenalties as to forego any opportunity of evading responsibility which the law allowed them. We will admit that ordinarily in
\nEngland there is a single responsible head of some kind, though he is not always the writer of the articles, but this is not the
\ncase in every country nor with every newspaper, and we cannot admit that any such arrangement is necessary in the interests of
\nsociety. When the Statesman <\/i>says that no man’s reputation is safe unless every paper has its one responsible head, it is talking and
\nknows that it is talking pure nonsense. A man who thinks himself libelled has always his remedy in civil law and it cannot matter
\nto him whether he gets his damages from the actual writer of the libellous matter or from the proprietor or from a company or
\nsyndicate owning the paper. Was Mr. Lever’s reputation unsafe because his damages were paid by the Harmsworth Trust and
\nnot by the actual libeller? If the proprietor happens to be a corporate body, the aggrieved person is no doubt deprived of
\nthe vindictive pleasure of sending his critic to prison, but we hardly think it can be said that society is mortally wounded
\nby his loss. But of course what the Statesman <\/i>is really troubled about is the safety of the bureaucratic groups who administer
\nthe country at present and whom it dignifies and disguises by describing as “institutions of organised society”. This anxiety of
\nthe Statesman<\/i>‘s is rather humorous. The bureaucracy has armed itself with such liberal powers of repression that a journalist
\nattacking it is like a man with no better weapon than a pebble assailing a Goliath panoplied from head to foot, armed with a
\nrepeating rifle and supported by howitzers and maxim guns. For a backer of the giant to complain because the unarmed assailant
\nthrows his pebble from behind a bush or wall is, to say the least of it, a trifle incongruous.
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tThe gravamen of the Statesman<\/i>‘s charge, however, lies in the question it triumphantly posits at the end of its rejoinder as
\n   
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\n

\n\ta final settler for its critics. The impugned “articles in the Bande<\/i>
\nMataram <\/i>must have been written by someone; is it courageous and honourable conduct on the part of their unknown author,
\nthis precious `patriot’, that he should elect to remain in hiding and let a poor unfortunate Printer go to jail in place of himself?” And our contemporary asks its critics either to affirm that it is right for a journalist to allow an innocent man to suffer
\nin his place,\u2014 or else be silent. We admit our contemporary’s luminous suggestion that someone must have written the article
\n“Politics for Indians” and the better to clear up the confusion of his ideas we will add that the someone must have been either a
\nmember of the staff or an outside correspondent. The evidence showed that he must have been the latter, and, if so, his conduct
\nin not coming forward was in accordance with those traditions of English journalism by which the
\nStatesman <\/i>sets such store. It
\nmay not have been ethically the most heroic or exalted conduct possible, but it does not lie in the mouth of an Englishman
\nto question it. And we presume that the Statesman <\/i>will not seriously suggest that it was our duty, even if we had recorded
\nthe name, to peach against a correspondent in order to save our own man, or that such a betrayal would have been either
\ncourageous or honourable. If, on the other hand, the real writer were a journalist on the staff, he must have been someone other
\nthan Aurobindo Ghose to whom no one in his senses would attribute such a half-baked effusion. He would then be one
\nwho was not accused and could only take the responsibility by giving evidence against himself as a witness for the defence.
\nNo Englishman in a similar situation would have done it unless actually put in the witness box, but for an Indian patriot, we
\nadmit, it would have been the natural course if the Printer could have been saved by his self-devotion but it is perfectly obvious
\nthat the Printer would still have been liable under the statute and got his three months. The imputation made by the
\nStatesman <\/i>is
\nnot true in fact, as it was an outside contributor who wrote the article, but even were it otherwise, it is absurd in theory. It was
\nthe bureaucracy and the Magistrate who made a scapegoat of the Printer and not the
\nBande Mataram <\/i>or anyone on its staff.
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\tThe Statesman <\/i>is intelligent enough to understand this without
\nhaving it pointed out and malice alone prompted its dishonest attempt to discredit us.
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe Khulna Appeal <\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\tYesterday we published the appeal of the Khulna National
\nSchool Committee for funds to assist in the capital outlay necessary to establish the institution on a sound footing according to the requirements of the system formulated by the National Council of Education. The Khulna School is the first
\nof its kind started in pursuance of the national policy by a district organisation formed in accordance with the scheme of
\norganisation foreshadowed at the last Congress. But Khulna is a poor district and the few rich men it possesses are absentees
\nwho care little to benefit the locality and the people from whom they draw their means of luxury. The district has also
\nbeen unfortunate in being exposed to an especial share of the storms of official wrath and persecution ever since the holding
\nof the District Conference. The expenditure necessitated by these persecutions and prosecutions has farther restricted the
\nsum which might have been otherwise set apart for the School. Khulna is therefore entitled to especial consideration from the
\npatriotic public and we hope the appeal will meet with an ungrudging response.
\n    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 700<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, September 28th, 1907 }   The Statesman in Retreat   The strong censures which the Statesman‘s article on the Bande Mataram…<\/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-2735","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\/2735","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=2735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}