{"id":2743,"date":"2013-07-13T01:43:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2743"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:43:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:35","slug":"205-bande-mataram-26-3-08-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\/205-bande-mataram-26-3-08-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-205_Bande Mataram 26-3-08.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 26th, 1908 } <\/b> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nFreedom of Speech
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe questions in Parliament about the change of the existing law and Mr. Morley’s answers seem to point to a coming repressive
\nmeasure intended to suppress the small amount of free speech still existing in India. The rights of free speech and free meeting
\nwere once reckoned among the priceless blessings which British rule had brought to India. Nowadays one can with difficulty
\nput oneself back into the frame of mind which made such a conception possible. The entire dependence on British protection,
\nthe childlike faith in the machinery of European civilisation, the inability to perceive facts or distinguish words from realities, the
\nfacile contentment with the liberties of the slave to which that conception testified, are happily growing obsolete. They persist
\nin the survivors of the old generation and in those of the present generation who cannot open themselves to new ideas, but are
\ndead in the minds of those who will be the future people of India. In the course of another fifty years men will look back to the
\ntimes when such ideas were possible in the same spirit that the nineteenth century looked back to the Middle Ages, as a period
\nof absolute ignorance and darkness when the national mind and consciousness were in a state of total eclipse. The blessings of
\nBritish rule have all been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The Pax Britannica is now seen to be the cause of our
\nloss of manliness and power of self-defence, a peace of death and torpor, security to starve in, the ease of the grave. British
\nlaw has been found to be a fruitful source of demoralisation, an engine to destroy ancient houses, beggar wealthy families and
\ndrain the poor of their little competence. British education has denationalised the educated community, laid waste the fertile
\n   
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 969<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tsoil of the Indian intellect, suppressed originality and invention,
\ncreated a gulf between the classes and the masses and done its best to kill that spirituality which is the soul of India. The petty
\nprivileges which British statecraft has thrown to us as morsels from the rich repast of liberty, have pauperised us politically,
\npreserved all that was low, weak and dependent in our political temperament and discouraged the old robust manhood of
\nour forefathers. Every Municipal or District Board has been a nursery of dependence and pampered slavery, and the right of
\npublic meeting and freedom of the Press only served to complete this demoralisation, while at the same time cheating us into the
\nbelief that we were free. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tThe ancient Romans had a class of slaves born in the family
\nand pampered in their childhood by their masters who were called vernae <\/i>and enjoyed a peculiar position of mingled licence
\nand subjection. They were allowed to speak with the most unbounded licence, to abuse their masters, to play tricks sometimes
\nof a most injurious character and were yet indulged\u2014 so long as the master was in a good humour; let the master’s temper
\nturn sour or break into passion and the lash was called into requisition. The freedom of speech enjoyed by us under the
\nbureaucratic rule has been precisely of this kind. It depended on the will of a despotic administration, and at any moment it could
\nbe withdrawn or abridged, at any moment the lash of the law could be brought down on the back of the critic. This freedom
\nof speech was worse than the Russian censorship; for in Russia the editor laboured under no delusion, he knew that freedom of
\nspeech was not his, and if he wrote against the administration, it was at his own risk; there was no pretence, no dissimulation
\non either side. But our freedom of speech has demoralised us, fostered an ignoble mixture of servility and licence, of cringing
\nand impudence, which are the very temperament of the slave. We were extravagantly pleased with the slightest boons conceded to
\nus and poured out our feelings with fulsome gratitude, or we grew furious at favours withheld and abused the withholders
\nin the same key. Our public expressions were full of evasions, falsehoods, flatteries of British rule coupled with venomous and
\n  <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\tdamaging attacks on that which in the same breath we lauded
\nto the skies. A habit of cowardly insincerity became ingrained in us, which was fatal to the soundness of the heart, an insincerity
\nwhich refused to be confined to our relations with the rulers and pursued us into our relations with our own countrymen.
\nThe same dry rot of insincerity vitiated all our public action and even our private lives, making a farce of our politics, a comedy
\nof our social reform, and turning us from men into 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 was placed between our practice and our professions,
\nso that the heart of India began to beat slower and slower and seemed likely to stop.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIt was the proud privilege of the Nationalist party to strike at the root of this terrible evil. From the first outburst of the
\nSwadeshi movement, their speakers and writers decided to be no longer masks but men, to speak and write the truth that was in
\ntheir minds, the feeling that was in their hearts without disguise, without equivocation, as free men vindicating their freedom,\u2014 a freedom not bestowed but inborn. The poison passed out of the national system and the blood began to circulate freely in
\nour veins. Once more we stood up as men and not as gibbering spectres of a vanished humanity. The attitude of the
\nSandhya<\/i>
\nand Yugantar<\/i>, consistently maintained in the dock, stood for a revival of Indian sincerity, truthfulness, manliness, fearlessness; it was the resurgence of the Arya, the ideal of honour and quiet manhood which made our forefathers great. But when the
\nprosecutions failed to crush the papers for which the martyrs offered themselves as a sacrifice, the cry was raised that they
\nwere being sacrificed by designing men who kept themselves in the background. The persistence of the same tone and the same
\nwritings showed that those who maintained the spirit of the paper were untouched, and it was obvious that only by putting
\nthem under lock and key, could the journal itself be snuffed out. So the threat of a change in the law which would hunt out the
\nreal culprits, has been persistently held before our eyes, and, if disregarded, may be carried out. The threat is an empty one,
\n   
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 971<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tbecause no change of law can find out those whom the nation
\nis determined to save, lest the light of truth be prematurely put under eclipse. Only by the abrogation of all law, by an arbitrary measure extinguishing the freedom of speech altogether can these journals be snuffed out of being by the hand of Power.
\nSuch a measure may at any moment be hurried through the Legislative Council, and the fear of it troubles our Moderate
\nfriends and sometimes finds expression in objurgations against our past indiscretions or our policy of protecting our writers
\nand contributors coupled with more or less bland invitations to commit suicide so that their journals may survive. But the
\nexistence of one paper which does not shrink from expression of the heart and mind of the nation is of a higher value than that
\nof many journals which fill their columns with insincerities and platitudes. The freedom of speech which the Moderate party
\nare so anxious to save from extinction is a badge of slavery, a poison to the national health, a perpetuation of servitude, and
\nit is better that it should be extinguished than that the recovered freedom of a nation’s soul should cease. God will find out a way
\nto spread the movement, even as it was found out in Russia, if the bureaucracy are so ill advised as to gag the Press. This voice
\nis abroad and what law shall prevail against it?    <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 972<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, March 26th, 1908 }   Freedom of Speech   The questions in Parliament about the change of the existing law and…<\/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-2743","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\/2743","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=2743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}