{"id":2828,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2828"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:03","slug":"156-bande-mataram-4-11-07-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\/156-bande-mataram-4-11-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-156_Bande Mataram 4-11-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n

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

\n

\n\t
\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, November 4th, 1907 }
\n\t<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nDifficulties at Nagpur <\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe difficulties experienced at Nagpur in bringing about the compromise which at one time seemed on the point of being
\neffected, do not strike a mind outside the whirlpool of local excitement and controversy as either obvious or insurmountable; yet it is evident that so much importance is being attached to them as to seriously imperil the chance of a Congress session
\nbeing held at all this year. It is imperative that some decision should be arrived at in the course of the next few days either
\none way or the other. Both sides lay the blame of the failure to arrive at an agreement on its opponents. The Nationalists say
\nthat the Moderate party will not accept any reasonable terms and the Moderates charge the Nationalists with backing out of
\nthe compromise on the question of the money subscribed to the Rashtriya Mandali. It appears that the Nationalists are willing
\nto co-operate if Srijut Surendranath Banerji be nominated as President in lieu of Mr. Tilak. The reasons for this proposal and
\nits rejection are not far to seek. Sj. Surendranath is recognised all over India as the acknowledged leader of one of the two great
\nparties in Bengal, a man with a great name and a great following in the country and, what is more important from the Nationalist
\nstandpoint, one who, whatever vagaries his ideas of policy may lead him into, is believed to be a thorough-going Boycotter and
\nSwadeshist and in no sense a Government man. Dr. Rash Behari Ghose on the other hand is a dark horse in politics. All that
\nthe rest of India knows of him is that he is a distinguished jurist, the Chairman of last year’s Reception Committee and\u2014 a Legislative Councillor. None of these titles to distinction is sufficient to justify his being suddenly put forward as President
\n    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\nof the National Congress; for the time has passed away, not to
\nreturn, when appointment to the Legislative Councils, provincial or imperial, was sufficient to raise a successful man of
\nintellectual distinction or social influence not before politically notable, to the position of a leader or at least a sort of Congress
\ngrandee entitled to the respect of the common herd. A seat on the Legislative Council is nowadays an obstacle and not a help
\nto leadership, a cause of distrust and not of trust: the man to whom the bureaucracy lends ear is not one whom the people can
\ntrust and follow, and one who consents to sit in a Council where he is not listened to and can command no influence, has not
\nthe self-respect and backbone which are necessary to a popular leader\u2014 in days of stress and struggle. To us Nationalists a seat
\non the Council is not merely an obstacle but an absolute bar to popular leadership, for it means that the man has one foot in the
\nenemy’s camp and one in the people’s. It is easy to understand therefore why the Nagpur Nationalists are opposed to the idea
\nof Dr. Ghose’s Presidentship, specially as his political views are not understood nor has he, like Mr. Gokhale, a record of past
\nservices and self-sacrifice to set against the disqualification of a seat on the Legislative Council. Nor is it difficult to understand
\nwhy the Moderates of Nagpur have shied at the idea of Srijut Surendranath’s Presidentship. The Moderatism of Western India
\nis much more Loyalist than Moderate, unlike that of Bengal, where except in the case of a small minority Moderatism wears
\nloyalty more or less loosely as a sort of cloak or garment of respectability than as an essential part of its politics. This tendency is exaggerated in places like the Central Provinces where before the Nationalist upheaval the pulse of political life beat
\ndull and slow. For a Moderate of the Nagpur Rai Bahadur type to be asked to take Surendranath as a substitute for Tilak is as
\nif they were asked to exchange Satan for Beelzebub; both are to them, as to the
\nEnglishman<\/i>, devils of Extremism, one only less
\nobjectionable than the other.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBut the rights of this question are so simple that there is
\nno excuse for allowing the Congress to break up over it. If the Moderates want Dr. Rash Behari Ghose or any other Loyalist or
\n   
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\tLegislative Councillor as President they must be satisfied with
\ntheir three-fourths majority on the Reception Committee and pay the bulk of the expenses of the session. If they desire a larger
\nco-operation on the part of the Nationalists, they should meet them halfway by accepting the nomination of Surendranath or
\nany other President acceptable to both parties as a compromise. And if they will take neither course, they should leave it to the
\nNationalists to arrange for the holding of the Congress with Mr. Tilak as President. But for them to insist on the Rashtriya Mandali funds, raised on the clear understanding that they should only be devoted to Congress purposes if Mr. Tilak were nominated President, being given into their hands to hold a Congress with a Loyalist President in the chair is a preposterously childish and unreasoning obstinacy. We cannot understand how the Rashtriya Mandali could take this step even if they wished,
\nsince it would be a distinct contravention of the condition on which the money was given and a misuse of public money. Yet
\nit is because the Rashtriya Mandali will not comply with this unreasonable demand that the Moderates of Nagpur seem to  have given the coup de grace to the Nagpur session. The plea of
\nthe fear of schoolboy rowdyism is plainly disingenuous, for these gentlemen were willing to face that terrible danger provided the
\nNationalists paid in their funds to the Reception Committee and accepted their nominee as President; these therefore are the real
\npoints on which the Moderate party is unwilling to compromise and the plea of rowdyism is only a convenient if undignified
\nexcuse to cover an untenable position. For our part we do not think the question of the Presidentship need be made a cause
\nof final cleavage. Dr. Rash Behari Ghose is pledged like most public men in Bengal to Swadeshi and Boycott and this is still
\nthe most important issue before the Congress. If therefore the Loyalists can still be got to listen to reason in the matter of the
\nRashtriya Mandali funds, we think the Nationalists might give way on this point to avoid a national scandal. If on the other
\nhand the Rai Sahebs and Rai Bahadurs are obdurate, it is time for Nationalists
\n\tall over the country to consult together as to the course they will follow
\n\tin the two possible contingencies of  <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\tno session being held or of the Moderate party deciding to hold
\nthe Congress in another province. The situation in the country is a critical one and it is our action with regard both to the
\nbureaucracy and the Congress at this juncture that will chiefly determine the course of the future.
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 735<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, November 4th, 1907 }   Difficulties at Nagpur   The difficulties experienced at Nagpur in bringing about the compromise which at…<\/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-2828","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\/2828","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=2828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}