{"id":274,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=274"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:02","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:02","slug":"012-its-methods-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\/012-its-methods-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-012_Its Methods.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\nFOUR<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\nIts Methods<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n

 
\n<\/font>
\n               
\n<\/span>T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/font><\/span>
\nessential difference between passive or defensive and active or aggressive
\nresistance is this, that while the method of the aggressive resister is to do
\nsomething by which he can bring about positive harm to the Government, the
\nmethod of the passive resister is to abstain from doing something by which he
\nwould be helping the Government. The object in both cases is the same, \u2014 to
\nforce the hands of the Government; the line of attack is different. The passive
\nmethod is especially suitable to countries where the Government depends mainly
\nfor the continuance of its administration on the voluntary help and acquiescence
\nof the subject people. The first principle of passive resistance, therefore,
\nwhich the new school have placed in the forefront of their programme, is to make
\nadministration under present conditions impossible by an organised refusal to do
\nanything which shall help either British commerce in the exploitation of the
\ncountry or British officialdom in the administration of it, \u2014 unless and until
\nthe conditions are changed in the manner and to the extent demanded by the
\npeople. This attitude is summed up in the one word, Boycott. If we consider the
\nvarious departments of the administration one by one, we can easily see how
\nadministration in each can be rendered impossible by successfully organised
\nrefusal of assistance. We are dissatisfied with the fiscal and economical
\nconditions of British rule in <\/p>\n

India, with the foreign exploitation of the country,
\nthe continual bleeding of its resources, the chronic famine and rapid
\nimpoverishment which result, the refusal of the Government to protect the people
\nand their industries. Accordingly, we refuse to help the process of exploitation
\nand impoverishment in our capacity as consumers, we refuse henceforth to
\npurchase foreign and especially British goods or to condone their purchase by
\nothers. By an organised<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-101<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

and
\nrelentless boycott of British goods, we propose to render the further
\nexploitation of the country impossible. We are dissatisfied also with the
\nconditions under which education is imparted in this country, its calculated
\npoverty and insufficiency, its antinational character, its subordination to the
\nGovernment and the use<\/span> made of that subordination for the discouragement
\nof patriotism and the inculcation of loyalty. Accordingly we refuse to send our
\nboys to Government schools or to schools aided and controlled by the Government;
\nif this educational boycott is general and well-organised, the educational
\nadministration of the country will be rendered impossible and the control of its
\nyouthful minds pass out of the hands of the foreigner. We are dissatisfied with
\nthe administration of justice, the ruinous costliness of the civil side, the
\nbrutal rigour of its criminal penalties and procedure, its partiality, its
\nfrequent subordination to political objects. We refuse accordingly to have any
\nresort to the alien courts of justice, and by an organised judicial boycott propose to make the bureaucratic administration of justice impossible while these
\nconditions continue. Finally, we disapprove of the executive administration, its
\narbitrariness, its meddling and inquisitorial character, its thoroughness of
\nrepression, its misuse of the police for the repression instead of the
\nprotection of the people. We refuse, accordingly, to go to the executive for
\nhelp or advice or protection or to tolerate any paternal interference in our
\npublic activities, and by an organised boycott of the executive propose to
\nreduce executive control and interference to a mere skeleton of its former self.
\nThe bureaucracy depends for the success of its administration on the help of the
\nfew and the acquiescence of the many. If the few refused to help, if Indians no
\nlonger consented to teach in Government schools or work in Government offices,
\nor serve the alien as police, the administration could not continue for a day.
\nWe will suppose the bureaucracy able to fill their places by Eurasians, aliens
\nor traitors; even then the refusal of the many to acquiesce, by the simple
\nprocess of no<\/span> longer resorting to Government
\nschools, courts of justice or magistrates’ Katcherries, would put an end to
\nadministration.<\/font><\/p>\n

       
\nSuch
\nis the nature of passive resistance as preached by the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font>102<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

new
\nschool in <\/p>\n

India. It is at once clear that self-development and
\nsuch a scheme of passive resistance are supplementary and necessary to each
\nother. If we refuse to supply our needs from foreign sources, we must obviously
\nsupply them ourselves; we cannot have the industrial boycott without Swadeshi
\nand the expansion of indigenous industries. If we decline to enter the alien
\ncourts of justice, we must have arbitration courts of our own to settle our
\ndisputes and differences. If we do not send our boys to schools owned or
\ncontrolled by the Government, we must have schools of our own in which they may
\nreceive a thorough and national education. If we do not go for protection to the
\nexecutive, we must have a system of self-protection and mutual protection of our
\nown. Just as Swadeshi is the natural accompaniment of an industrial boycott, so
\nalso arbitration stands in the same relation to a judicial boycott, national
\neducation to an educational boycott, a league of mutual defence to an executive
\nboycott. From this close union of self-help with passive resistance it also
\nfollows that the new politics do not contemplate the organisation of passive
\nresistance as a temporary measure for partial ends. It is not to be dropped as
\nsoon as the Government undertakes the protection of indigenous industries,
\nreforms its system of education, improves its courts of justice and moderates
\nits executive rigour and ubiquity, but only when the control of all these
\nfunctions is vested in a free, constitutional and popular Government. We have
\nlearned by bitter experience that an alien and irresponsible bureaucracy cannot
\nbe relied upon to abstain from rescinding its reforms when convenient or to
\nmanage even a reformed administration in the interests of the people.<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>The possibilities of passive resistance are not exhausted by the refusal
\nof assistance to the administration. In Europe its more usual weapon is the
\nrefusal to pay taxes. The strenuous political instinct of European races teaches
\nthem to aim a direct blow at the most vital part of the administration rather
\nthan to undermine it by slower and more gradual means. The payment of taxes is
\nthe most direct assistance given by the community to the administration and the
\nmost visible symbol of acquiescence and approval. To refuse payment is at once
\nthe most emphatic protest possible short of taking up arms, and the sort of
\nattack<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-103<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

which
\nthe administration will feel immediately and keenly and must therefore parry at
\nonce either by conciliation or by methods of repression which will give greater
\nvitality and intensity to the opposition. The refusal to pay taxes is a natural
\nand logical result of the attitude of passive resistance. A boycott of
\nGovernment schools, for example, may be successful and national schools
\nsubstituted; but the administration continues to exact from the people a certain
\namount of revenue for the purposes of education, and is not likely to relinquish
\nits claims; the people will therefore have doubly to tax themselves in order to
\nmaintain national education and also to maintain the Government system by which
\nthey no longer profit. Under such circumstances the refusal to pay for an
\neducation of which they entirely disapprove, comes as a natural consequence.
\nThis was the form of resistance offered by the Dissenters in England to the
\nEducation Act of the last Conservative Government. The refusal to pay rents was
\nthe backbone of the Irish Plan of Campaign. The refusal to pay taxes levied by
\nan Imperial Government in which they had no voice or share, was the last form of
\nresistance offered by the American Colonists previous to taking up arms.
\nUltimately, in case of the persistent refusal of the administration to listen to
\nreason, the refusal to pay taxes is the strongest and final form of passive
\nresistance.<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>This stronger sort of passive resistance has not been included by the new
\nparty in its immediate programme, and for valid reasons. In the first place, all
\nthe precedents for this form of resistance were accompanied by certain
\nconditions which do not as yet obtain in <\/p>\n

India. In the Irish instance, the refusal was not to
\npay Government taxes but to pay rents to a landlord class who represented an
\nunjust and impoverishing land system maintained in force by a foreign power
\nagainst the wishes of the people; but in India the foreign bureaucracy has
\nusurped the functions of the landlord, except in Bengal where a refusal to pay
\nrents would injure not a landlord-class supported by the alien but a section of
\nour own countrymen who have been intolerably harassed, depressed and burdened by
\nbureaucratic policy and bureaucratic exactions and fully sympathise, for the
\nmost part, with the national movement. In all other parts of <\/p>\n

India<\/p>\n

the re-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-<\/font>104<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

fusal
\nto pay rents would be a refusal to pay a Government tax. This, as we have said,
\nis the strongest, the final form of passive resistance, and differs from the
\nmethod of political boycott which involves no breach of legal obligation or
\ndirect defiance of administrative authority. No man can be legally punished for
\nusing none but Swadeshi articles or persuading others to follow his example or
\nfor sending his boys to a National in preference to a Government school, or for
\nsettling his differences with others out of court, or for defending his person
\nand property or helping to defend the person and property of his neighbours
\nagainst criminal attack. If the administration interferes with the people in the
\nexercise of these legitimate rights, it invites and compels defiance of its
\nauthority and for what may follow, the rulers and not the people are
\nresponsible. But the refusal to pay taxes is a breach of legal obligation and a
\ndirect defiance of administrative authority precisely of that kind which the
\nadministration can least afford to neglect and must either conciliate or crush.
\nIn a free country, the attempt at repression would probably go no farther than
\nthe forcible collection of the payments refused by legal distraint; but in a
\nsubject country the bureaucracy, feeling itself vitally threatened, would
\nnaturally supplement this legal process by determined prosecution and
\npersecution of the advocates of the policy and its adherents, and, in all
\nprobability, by extreme military and police violence. The refusal to pay taxes
\nwould, therefore, inevitably bring about the last desperate struggle between the
\nforces of national aspiration and alien repression. It would be in the nature of
\nan ultimatum from the people to the Government.<\/font><\/p>\n

       
\n<\/span>The case of the English Dissenters, although it was a refusal to pay
\ntaxes, differed materially from ours. The object of their passive resistance was
\nnot to bring the Government to its knees, but to generate so strong a feeling in
\nthe country that the Conservative Government would be ignominiously brushed out
\nof office at the next elections. They had the all-powerful weapon of the vote
\nand could meet and overthrow injustice at the polling-station. In India we are
\nvery differently circumstanced. The resistance of the American colonists offers
\na nearer parallel. Like ourselves the Americans met oppression with the weapon
\nof boy-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-105<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

cott.
\nThey were not wholly dependent on <\/p>\n

England<\/p>\n

and had their own legislatures in local affairs;
\nso they had no occasion to extend the boycott to all departments of national
\nlife nor<\/span> to attempt a general policy of national
\nself-development. Their boycott was limited to British goods. They had however
\nto go beyond the boycott and refuse to pay the taxes imposed on them against
\ntheir will; but when they offered the ultimatum to the mother country, they were
\nprepared to follow it up, if necessary, and did finally follow it up by a
\ndeclaration of independence, supported by armed revolt. Here again there is a
\nmaterial difference from Indian conditions. An ultimatum should never be
\npresented unless one is prepared to follow it up to its last consequences.
\nMoreover, in a vast country like India, any such general conflict with dominant
\nauthority as is involved in a no-taxes policy, needs for its success a close
\norganisation linking province to province and district to district and a
\npowerful central authority representing the single will of the whole nation
\nwhich could alone fight on equal terms the final struggle of defensive
\nresistance with bureaucratic repression. Such an organisation and authority has
\nnot yet been developed. The new politics, therefore, confines itself for the
\ntime to the policy of lawful abstention from any kind of co-operation with the
\nGovernment, \u2014 the policy of boycott which is capable of gradual extension,
\nleaving to the bureaucracy the onus of forcing on a more direct, sudden and
\ndangerous struggle. Its principle at present is not "no representation, no
\ntaxation," but "no control, no assistance".<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font><\/span>106<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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