{"id":2802,"date":"2013-07-13T01:43:54","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2802"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:43:54","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:43:54","slug":"165-bande-mataram-6-12-07-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\/165-bande-mataram-6-12-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-165_Bande Mataram 6-12-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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

\n

\n\t
\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, December 6th, 1907 }
\n\t<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nCaste and Representation
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe policy of the bureaucracy in the face of the national movement, so far as it is anything more than crude repression, is a
\npolicy of makeshifts and dodges, and, though skilful in a way, it shows throughout an extraordinary ignorance of the country
\nthey rule. The latest brilliant device is an attempt to reshuffle the constituent elements of Indian politics and sort them out afresh
\non the basis not only of creed, but of caste. The Pioneer <\/i>has come out with an article in its best style of businesslike gravity,
\nin which it settles the basis on which representation should be given to India. For two years of unrest have brought us so far
\nthat Anglo-India is awakened to the necessity of giving some kind of representation to the Indians, and petty details of administrative reform, the demand for which was then considered as much a crying for the moon as the cry for Swaraj nowadays,
\nare fast coming into the range of “practical politics”. Great are the virtues of unrest! Of course it is only representation and not
\nrepresentative government which Anglo-India is bending itself to think within the range of possibility; for government means
\ncontrol and control is the last thing which they will consent to yield to us. When Viceroys and Law Members talk of giving
\nus a larger share in the government of our country, they mean of course not control but what they call a voice, and they will
\ntake good care that this voice shall be vox et praeterea nihil<\/i>, a voice and nothing more. But even a voice may be a serious
\ninconvenience to an absolute government and pains are therefore to be taken to substitute an echo for a voice, an echo of
\nbureaucratic whisperings for the living utterance of a nation. In the representative institutions which the bureaucracy are likely 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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\n

\n to give us, it is the drone of many notables and the mechanical
\nsqueaking of officially manipulated puppets that we shall hear, and this, the world will be told, is the voice of the Indian people.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n \tBut Anglo-Indian statesmanship will not rest satisfied with reducing the ineffective voice with which they desire to delude
\nour aspirations, to the character of a flat and foolish echo; they will farther make every arrangement to turn it into a source of
\nfresh weakness to the growing nationality instead of a source of strength. They began of course, long ago, the attempt to
\nmake capital of the religious diversities of Indian society and recently the policy of setting the Mahomedans as a counterpoise
\nto the Hindus has been openly adopted. In the new Legislative Councils the Mahomedans are to have representation not as
\nchildren of the soil, an integral portion of one Indian people, but as a politically distinct and hostile interest which will, it
\nis hoped, outweigh or at least nullify the Hindus. The bureaucratic Machiavels have not realised that the conditions of the
\nnew struggle which has begun, are of so different a kind from any yet known in British India that the Mahomedans cannot be
\nturned into an effective tool in the hands of the bureaucracy without becoming at the same time a danger to the artisan
\nof discord who uses them. For the field of the struggle is not nowadays in Simla or on the floor of the House of Commons
\nor on any lists where outside opinion can have a decisive or even a material influence. It is not a voice which they have to
\nset against a voice or a show which they have to outface with a better show, but a force which they will have to call into being
\nto oppose a force. The Hindus have become self-conscious, they have heard a voice that cries to them, “Arise from the dead, live
\nand follow me,” and they are irresistibly growing into a living and powerful political force. Unless the Mahomedans can be
\nbuilt up also into a self-conscious, living and powerful political force, their assistance to the rulers will be a mere handful of dust
\nin the balance. But the moment they become a living and self-conscious power the doom of bureaucracy will be sealed. For
\nno self-conscious community aware of its strength and separate life will consent to go on pulling chestnuts out of the fire for 
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\tAnglo-Indian Machiavels. Even if they do not coalesce with the
\nHindus, they will certainly demand a share of the power which they maintain. Not in that direction lies any permanent hope of
\nsalvation for the absolute power of the bureaucracy. Perhaps the more thinking part of Anglo-India perceives this truth, hence the
\ndesire to find additional points of support and other principles of discord by which Indian Nationality can be hopelessly divided
\nand cut to pieces in the making.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tOf course the Pioneer <\/i>does not avow the real object of
\nthis scheme for creating and perpetuating as political entities divisions which every healthful political organism progresses by
\nsubordinating and discharging of all political significance; but it is obvious enough. If it were possible for the bureaucracy
\nto turn the social divisions of the community into political divisions, there could be no more fatal instrument of political
\ndisorganisation, and just as a natural indigenous rule finds its safety in better political organisation, so an unnatural alien rule
\nfinds its safety in disorganisation of what it preys upon. If it can, it destroys all centres of political organisation except itself;
\notherwise it tries to create unnatural centres whose action will hamper and distract the organic growth. Caste with the proper
\nsafeguards is an admirable means of social organisation and conservation, but it has not and should not be allowed to have
\nany political meaning. In India with the exception of Maharashtra it has had no political meaning at all. In the old times it
\nwas different. All the executive power and functions of war and politics were in the hands of the Kshatriyas for the good reasons
\nthat the whole work of war and protection of the country from internal and external disorder was assigned by society to them,
\nand classes which did not give of their blood to preserve the peace and freedom of their country could not claim a direct
\ncontrol of administration. The Brahmin legislated, but legislation was then a religious function which implied no political
\npower or position, and the people at large exercised only an indirect control by the pressure of a public opinion which no
\nruler could afford to neglect. Afterwards when Chandragupta and Asoka had created the tradition of a powerful absolutism 
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n with a strong bureaucratic organisation to support it, things
\nchanged, but not in the direction of a polity based on caste. On the contrary all classes, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra,
\ncould and did rise to any position of political power, even the throne itself, and except in Rajasthan where the Kshatriya ideals
\nand institutions were preserved, caste came to count less rather than more in politics as time went on. All the great
\n\tnation-builders have ignored caste as a political factor and it was only when the national spirit of the Mahrattas declined after Panipat
\nthat a cleavage on the lines of caste took place which is still a slight danger to Nationalism in the South. It is curious to find
\nthe British rulers who have done their best to undermine caste as a social institution now dreaming of perpetuating and using it as
\na political instrument. We do not think they will make much by this move. The centripetal impulse in Hindu society is already
\ntoo strong and with most of us political division by castes is too foreign to our habits of thought to take root. The very idea of
\nmaking a constituency of Bengal Kayasthas or Bengal Brahmins is absurd. Only where certain classes are much depressed and
\nsubmerged a temporary strife may be created, but the onward sweep of the national movement, profoundly democratic as it
\nis, will lift these classes to a nobler function in society and give them prizes which a Government post or title cannot hope to
\nrival. If we listened to our Loyalists and continued to depend on alien favours and look on them as the crown of our political
\nlife, then indeed discord might be sown and castes learn to view themselves as distinct and hostile political interests, but
\nagainst the force of the national movement such devices will array themselves in vain; its democratic and unifying spirit will
\nmake light of all such feeble attempts to divide.  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 780<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, December 6th, 1907 }   Caste and Representation   The policy of the bureaucracy in the face of the national movement,…<\/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-2802","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\/2802","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=2802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2802\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}