{"id":2795,"date":"2013-07-13T01:43:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2795"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:43:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:52","slug":"76-bande-mataram-14-5-07-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\/76-bande-mataram-14-5-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-76_Bande Mataram 14-5-07.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, May 14th, 1907 }
\n\t<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Bagbazar Meeting
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nWe do not clearly understand what has been gained by the Bagbazar meeting held on Sunday under the auspices of the
\nleading lights of Bengal. There were one or two speeches made which said certain obvious things and there were certain resolutions passed in which we condoled, sympathised, demanded and protested. But when the meeting dispersed, we were not one
\nwhit more forward than we had been a few hours before. What we want to know, what the country wants to know, is not what
\nwe think\u2014 there is no doubt or difference of opinion about that, everybody is thinking the same thing,\u2014 but what are we going
\nto do? The right of public meeting is to be allowed to us in future only on sufferance; students of schools are not to be permitted
\nto think about politics; students of colleges, schoolmasters, professors are to be suffered to take interest in politics only so long
\nas they do not do or say anything unpleasant or objectionable to the authorities; Nationalist agitation has been practically forbidden on penalty of arrest, deportation or exposure to police or Mahomedan goondaism. What the Government means to do, is
\nplain enough. It intends to put down Nationalism with the high hand and crush every attempt of the nation to raise its head,
\nevery aspiration to breathe, to grow and to live. The question now is, what do we mean to do in reply?
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThere were four subjects before the meeting on Sunday. The deportation of Lajpat Rai came first in importance, because
\nit shows to what extremes the bureaucracy is prepared to go in order to crush Nationalism. Merely to express indignation
\nand sympathy in answer to such a step, is absurd; it has all the bathos and futility of a foreseen commonplace. Of course we are
\n   
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\nindignant, of course we sympathise, but what afterwards? Have
\nwe no duty to perform except the expression of these very natural, unavoidable and entirely useless emotions? Yes, we
\ndemand<\/i>
\nthat the charges against Lajpat Rai should be formulated and proved. From whom do we make this demand? In the case of the
\nNatu brothers it was just possible that pressure in Parliament might induce the Government in England to undo what the
\nGovernment in Bombay had done in a moment of panic. Here there is no such possibility. Mr. Morley has publicly identified
\nhimself with this act of arbitrary oppression and his mind is too stiff and rigid with age to change. The deportation of Lajpat
\nRai is therefore an action for which the Liberal Government has become responsible and, as such, is bound to have the support
\nof almost the whole Liberal party, while it will certainly have the support of the whole Conservative party. Who then is likely
\nto listen to this empty “demand”? We could have understood it, if the demand had been coupled with a resolution that the
\ncampaign of Boycott, Swadeshi and Swaraj should be pursued with tenfold vigour, that Srijut Bipin Chandra Pal should be
\nasked to return to Madras and complete his programme with additions and Srijut Surendranath Banerji should proceed at
\nonce to the North for the same purpose and should take in Gujarat and the Central Provinces in his return journey, and
\nthat meanwhile every nerve should be strained to promote and organise the movement in Bengal. The resolution would then
\nhave had a meaning and the nation would have been inspirited to draw fresh resolve and energy from what would otherwise be
\na national calamity. As it stands, this “demand” rings hollow and savours of empty braggadocio.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe second question before the meeting was the state of things in Eastern Bengal, and here again the meeting dispersed
\nafter passing an utterly empty and unpractical resolution. There are various ways in which the situation might be met. It might
\nhave been resolved to arrange a meeting with the leading Mahomedans of Bengal and call upon them to dissociate themselves
\npublicly from Nawab Salimullah and take active steps in order to put a stop to the anti-Hindu ferment which its misbegetters are
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\tnow attempting to spread westward. Or, we might have decided
\nin consultation with the Hindu Zamindars in the east to arrange adequate self-defence at every defensible point of the affected
\nareas and withdraw the Hindu element from villages where they were too few to render a good account of themselves. This would
\neither have compelled the hooligans to throw themselves upon well-defended points and meet the risk of a salutary defeat which
\nthey have hitherto avoided, or else left the conflagration to die for want of material to prey upon\u2014 unless it turned upon those
\nwho had kindled it. But merely to lament the situation and express an astonishment which nobody really feels at the action
\nof the local authorities, is neither helpful nor sincere. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tA third subject for consideration was the University Coercion Circular. This was a crucial point; from the way in which it was dealt with, the country could understand how far the
\nsincerity and resolution of its leaders would go. It would perhaps be too much to expect of these gentlemen that they would
\nrespond to the insult that has been put upon them by a dignified resolution to sever connection with an enslaved and degraded
\nUniversity and take the education of the country into their own hands. In the present development of public feeling this would be
\nperfectly practicable and we believe it would be welcomed with enthusiasm by the whole of Bengal; but it requires an amount
\nof enthusiasm and courage which we have ceased to expect from the men who lead us. Surely, however, they might at least
\nhave definitely assured the public that they would offer a firm passive resistance to the provisions of the Circular and leave the
\nGovernment, if it dared, to inflict the penalty of disaffiliation with or without the consent of the Senate. Even this was not
\ndone. “We protest,” and there is an end of the matter.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThe same course was followed with regard to the Ordinance
\nrestricting the right of public meeting. Under this Ordinance the Government reserves to itself the power of putting an extinguisher on the Nationalist agitation whenever and wherever it pleases. The agitation has been a public one and had nothing
\nin it secret or underground; but if we submit to the Ordinance, it must lose its public character and adopt other methods. Are
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\twe prepared to accept this eventuality? We had given up petitioning as proved by experience to be futile and cannot return to it without acknowledging defeat and enslaving India for ever
\nto the bureaucracy. Passive resistance has become our chosen weapon and this it is sought to strike out of our hands. We
\nmust, therefore, either oppose an organised passive resistance to this Ordinance, a resistance in which leaders like Srijut Surendranath must court imprisonment and deportation, or we must find other methods. It was light on this question that we expected
\nfrom Sunday’s meeting, but it has left us only darkness visible. It seems to be the policy of our leaders to “protest”\u2014 and submit.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

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

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tA Treacherous Stab <\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tWe have seldom read anything more disgraceful, more unpatriotic, more opposed to all ideas of decency than the sneering and ill-natured attack on Lala Lajpat Rai which the
\nTribune<\/i>
\nhas chosen this particular moment to deliver. It is a time when all over India men of all shades of opinion, except the worshippers of the bureaucracy, are putting aside their differences with this modest and self-sacrificing patriot in order to express
\ntheir unanimous fellow-feeling with him in his hour of trial. It is precisely this moment that the
\nTribune <\/i>chooses for its stab at
\nLala Lajpat Rai who is no longer there to speak for himself. If this unseemly conduct is dictated by a desire to dissociate itself from
\nthe exiled patriot in order to save its own skin, it can only be characterised as the basest cowardice; if by envy, party spirit and
\nsecret jubilation at the removal of a powerful Nationalist, it is indecent and unpatriotic. In ordinary times the
\nTribune <\/i>was free
\nto criticise and abuse Lajpat Rai and nobody would have cared, but when a man is suffering for his country, no one pretending to
\nbe a patriot has a right to vent on him either a private spleen or a dislike on public grounds. We have our own differences with
\nMr. Gokhale and Srijut Surendranath Banerji, but were either of these leaders to become the objects of official persecution, we
\nshould consider ourselves eternally disgraced if we remembered   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\tanything but the one fact that he was suffering for the sake of
\nour common Motherland. The sneers of the Tribune <\/i>would not in themselves be worth noticing; it is as an example of the utter
\nwant of true patriotism that it calls for condemnation.    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 408<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, May 14th, 1907 }   The Bagbazar Meeting   We do not clearly understand what has been gained by the Bagbazar…<\/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-2795","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\/2795","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=2795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}