{"id":2827,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2827"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:03","slug":"56-bande-mataram-17-4-07-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\/56-bande-mataram-17-4-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-56_Bande Mataram 17-4-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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

\n

\n\t
\n\t{ CALCUTTA, April 17th, 1907 }<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nA Vilifier on Vilification
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nOur Bombay contemporary the Indu Prakash <\/i>is very wroth with the Nationalist party for their want of sweet reasonableness.
\nHe accuses them of rowdyism “which would put the East End rowdy to shame,” and adds, “Their forte seems to be abuse,
\nvilification, impertinence and superlative silliness, and these are exhibited alternately.” It strikes us that the
\nIndu Prakash <\/i>has
\nbeen guilty of “abuse, vilification, impertinence and superlative silliness” not alternately but in a lump within the brief space of
\nthese two sentences. This sort of phraseology is however part of the ordinary Moderate rhetoric which is usually the reverse
\nof moderate in its temper. Unable to meet the Nationalists in argument, they make up for it in invective, denouncing them
\nas “maniacs”, “rowdies”, “merest school boys”. We have already answered the charge of rowdiness and we will only add
\nhere that violent personal attack is not confined to one party. But the Moderates have their own methods. They attack individual members of our party behind their backs or else in meetings to which the public are not admitted, like those of
\nthe Subjects Committee, but not usually in public. They vilify them in the correspondence columns of their papers and ignore
\nthem or only abuse the party generally in the leading articles. This they call the decency and “high dignity of public life”.
\nWe prefer to call it want of straightforwardness and courage. The Indu <\/i>thinks that personal attacks and violent outbreaks of
\ntemper have no part in English politics. This is indeed a holy simplicity; and it is not for nothing that the Bombay journal
\ncalls itself Indu Prakash<\/i>, “moonshine”. It is true, of course, that English politicians do not carry their political wranglings and 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013
\n\t320<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nacerbities into social life to anything like the extent that the
\nContinental peoples do or we do in India; and this is a most praiseworthy feature of English public life. We do not agree
\nwith the Indu <\/i>that the differences which divide us are smaller than those which exist between English parties; but small or
\ngreat, we agree that they should not generate hatred, if it can be avoided. But if the Moderates are so anxious to avoid the
\nacerbation of feelings, why should they not set the example? Let them avoid autocracy and caucus tactics, frankly recognise
\nthe Nationalists as a party whose opinions must be consulted, be conciliatory and constitutional in their procedure; and what
\nthe Indu <\/i>misterms “Extremist rowdyism” will die a natural death.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n_______<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nBy the Way <\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nA Mouse in a Flutter <\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPoor Mr. N. N. Ghose! When we dealt with him faithfully in our By the Way column, we did so in the belief that it would do
\nhim good; the wounds given by a friend are wholesome though painful. We expected that if we painted him in his true colours,
\nhe would recognise the picture, grow ashamed and reform; but it is possible we did wrong to pluck out so cruelly the heart of
\nour Sankaritola Hamlet’s mystery. Certainly we did not anticipate that the sight of his own moral lineaments would drive
\nhim into such an exhibition of shrieking and gesticulating fury as disfigures the
\nIndian Nation <\/i>of the 15th April. Such self-degradation by a cultured and respectable literary gentleman is very distressing, and we apologise to the public for being
\nthe cause of this shocking spectacle. We will devote our column today to soothing down his ruffled plumes. By the way, we assure
\nMr. Ghose that when we talk of his ruffled plumes we are not thinking of him in his capacity as a mouse at all. We are for a
\nmoment imagining him to be a feathered biped\u2014 say, a pelican  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 321<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n solitary in the wilderness or else, if he prefers it, a turtle-dove
\ncooing to his newly-found mate in Colootola.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n \t*
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n What is it that Mr. Ghose lays to our charge? In the first place he accuses us of having turned him into a mouse. In the second place
\nhe complains that after turning him into a mouse, we should still treat him as a human being. “I am a mouse”, he complains;
\n“how can I have an arm of succour or a fully organised heart? I am a mouse, ergo I am neither a politician nor a cynic.” We
\nplead not guilty to both charges. We do not profess to have any magical power whatever and when we casually compared our
\nrevered contemporary to the mouse in the fable, we had not the least idea that we were using a powerful
\nmantra <\/i>which could
\ndouble the number of Mr. Ghose’s legs and change him into a furtive “rhodent”. The rest of our remarks we made under the
\nimpression that he was still a human being; why he should so indignantly resent being spoken of as a human being, we fail to
\nunderstand. No, when we made the allusion, we did not mean to turn Mr. Ghose into a mouse any more than when we compared
\nhim to Satan reproving sin we intended to turn him into the devil. But the Principal of the Metropolitan College seems as
\nskilful in mixing other people’s metaphors as in mixing his own.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n \t*
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n If, after this explanation, he still persists in his “mouse I am and mouse I remain” attitude, we cannot help it. The worthy
\npublicist seems to have had mice on his brain recently. The other day he discovered a winged or fluttering species of the rodent;
\nnow the mere mention of a mouse has engendered the delusion that he is one himself. We do not believe in the existence of
\nfluttering mice,\u2014 but after Mr. Ghose’s recent exhibition we can well believe in the existence of a mouse in a flutter. This
\ntime he seems to have discovered a new species which he calls “rhodents”! There was much discussion in our office as to this
\nnew animal. Some thought it a brilliant invention of the printer’s devil; others opined that in his wild excitement the editor’s 
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 322<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tcockney-made pen had dropped an “h”; others held that our
\nCalcutta Hamlet, unlike the Shakespearian, cannot distinguish between a mouse and a rhododendron. A learned Government
\nprofessor assures us, however, that rhodon <\/i>is Greek for a rose and that Mr. Ghose has found a new species of mouse that not
\nonly flutters but flowers,\u2014 of which he believes himself to be the only surviving specimen. However that may be, we have
\nlearned our lesson and will never compare him to a “rhodent” again. A rose by another name will smell as sweet and a mouse
\nby any other name will gnaw as hard.  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 323<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 17th, 1907 }   A Vilifier on Vilification   Our Bombay contemporary the Indu Prakash is very wroth with the…<\/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-2827","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\/2827","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=2827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}