{"id":2850,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2850"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:11","slug":"166-bande-mataram-12-12-07-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\/166-bande-mataram-12-12-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-166_Bande Mataram 12-12-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tBande Mataram<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, December 12th, 1907 }
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\n

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\n
\nAbout Unmistakable Terms
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\nWe answered yesterday in general terms the claim advanced in the columns of the
\nBengalee <\/i>to implicit and blind obedience
\nfrom all Bengalis to the Calcutta Moderate leaders and to any local representatives of loyalty and moderation whom they may
\nbe pleased to erect to the gaze of an adoring public. But the Bengalee<\/i>‘s article contained also certain passages which demand
\nmore direct and plain-spoken answer and this today we will give. The Bengalee<\/i>, not contented with its arrogant demand for submission, goes on to declare that the Nationalists, because they refuse this claim, are traitors to their country, that the men who
\nopposed Mr. Chitnavis’ autocracy at Nagpur or Sir Pherozshah’s at Calcutta or Mr. K. B. Dutt’s at Midnapore are rowdies and the
\nNationalist leaders, Mr. Tilak and Mr. Khaparde in the West or Srijuts Bipin Pal, Aurobindo Ghose or Brahmabandhab Upadhyay in Calcutta have been abettors of rowdies, and it calls on the whole country to speak out in unmistakable terms against
\nus. Unmistakable terms? Well, then let us have an understanding about terms, to begin with. What is the definition of a traitor
\nto his country? Are men traitors who have exposed themselves to persecution, imprisonment and harassment for the sake of
\ntheir country? Are those traitors who have made large sacrifices and devoted themselves to the cause of the Motherland? Or are
\nthose young men traitors who have stood in the forefront of the battle of boycott, braving the full fury of the bureaucrats and
\ntheir police, and but for whom the boycott agitation would have flagged and perished after the first six months of excitement? The
\nBengalee <\/i>says they are: for they may have done all these things, and yet if they oppose Mr. K. B. Dutt or Srijut Surendranath, they 
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\n are traitors to their country. On the other hand, have not those
\nrather the complexion of traitors who are ready to call in police assistance against their countrymen in a Swadeshi conference
\nalthough there has been no riot or violence, who boast that the police are in their hands and they can get all arrested who oppose
\nthem, who are ready to forget all the oppression from Barisal till now and call in Magistrates and police superintendents to
\nthe place of honour in national meetings, who are ready to take the lathis
\n<\/i>out of the hands of volunteers to please a District official? Or those, to take other examples, who wrote with brilliant success to Anglo-Indian papers to get Mr. Tilak prosecuted at
\nthe time of the Poona murders? Or those who pointed out Lala Lajpat Rai to the bureaucracy as the man to strike at when the
\nPunjab was in a ferment over the Colonisation Bill? But, by the Bengalee<\/i>‘s reasoning, men may be the moral descendants of Mir
\nJafar and Jagat Seth and yet be excellent patriots so long as they obey Moderate leaders and respect age and authority.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n The second term we want to see so defined as to be unmistakable, is the term “leaders”. The
\nBengalee <\/i>calls for discipline
\nand submission to leadership, but who are the leaders to whom we are to yield this unquestioning military obedience? What is
\nthe qualification in Mr. K. B. Dutt of Midnapore, for instance, by virtue of which we are called upon to sacrifice for his sake
\nour national self-respect, our convictions, and our natural right to a free exercise of our individual reason and conscience? The
\nBengalee <\/i>talks of age, but it is preposterous to set up age by itself as the claim to leadership in politics; nor did the Moderate
\nleaders themselves show an overwhelming deference to age when they were themselves younger and more ardent. Respect for age
\nas a part of social discipline we can understand, but leadership by seniority is a new doctrine. Then again the
\nBengalee <\/i>talks
\nof authority. What authority? The authority of social position, wealth, professional success? Are we to obey Mr. K. B. Dutt
\nbecause he is the leader of the Midnapore bar just as the East Bengal Mahomedans obey Salimullah because he is the Nawab
\nof Dacca? We decline to accept any such law of obedience. Authority is always a delegated power which does not rest in 
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\n\tthe individual but proceeds to him from a definite source and
\nreturns to that source. Official authority proceeds from an organised government executing the law which can both delegate
\nits power to individuals and take them away again as it pleases. In popular movements the people are the only source from which
\nauthority can proceed. The people follow a leader because he best interprets their ideas, aims and feelings or because he shows
\nhimself the best fitted to organize and lead the popular forces to the realisation of popular aspirations and ideals, and the
\nmoment their confidence is shaken, the moment they begin to think he does not represent their best ideas and aspirations
\nor that his methods of leadership are mistaken the authority begins to depart out of him. There can be no other kind of
\nauthority in democratic politics, nor can popular leadership be self-constituted. Those who demand military obedience to
\n\tself-constituted leaders are not preparing self-government but killing it, striking at its very roots. If what the Moderate leaders want
\nis to replace bureaucracy not by popular self-government but by the government of particular persons or classes, if they want the
\nmovement to be not democratic but oligarchic or plutocratic, let them say so clearly, in God’s name, and let us have done
\nwith this juggling with words, and henceforward on both sides “speak in unmistakable terms”.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tFinally, while we are about defining terms, let us know when a man becomes President of a Conference or Congress session.
\nThe Bengalee <\/i>says, “The attempt that was made to heckle the President and to bring into contempt his position as the head
\nof the Conference was unique in the history of our Conferences and Congresses. We never witnessed in the whole course of our
\npublic life a proceeding . . . so derogatory to the authority of the President.” The “heckling” took place before Mr. K. B. Dutt
\nwas elected, when the President’s chair was vacant. Are we then to suppose that a man becomes President before he is elected? It
\nis curious that Mr. K. B. Dutt himself made this unwarrantable claim when the trouble first began. By custom the Reception
\nCommittee designates a President but the decision of the Committee has no binding force on the delegates of the Conference 
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\n who have always the power to elect anyone else whom they may
\nprefer and not till a public confirmation by the votes of the delegates, has the President designated by the Reception Committee
\nany authority or tenure of office. Until then he is merely a public man nominated for a particular function and the public have
\nevery right to “heckle” him so as to be sure that he will properly represent them before they give him their votes. Because till now
\nthis right has not been enforced, it does not follow that the public has forfeited its right, nor are we bound by “traditions” which
\nmean simply the absence of lively popular interest and have no sanction in any reasonable principle of procedure.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n The Bengalee <\/i>sets up discipline as the one requisite of a popular movement and to back up its proposition it is so
\n\till-advised as to quote the example of Parnell and his solid Irish phalanx. The choice of this example shows a singular ignorance
\nof English politics. Before Parnell’s advent, the Irish party in Parliament was a moderate party of Irish Liberals of very much
\nthe same nature as the old Congress party before the Boycott. It was balanced in Ireland by a revolutionary organisation using the most violent means employed by secret societies. When Parnell first appeared on the scene, his first action was to revolt
\nagainst the leader of the Irish party and make a party of his own. Consisting at first of a mere handful it soon captured the
\nwhole of Ireland and created the solid phalanx. But what was the secret of Parnell’s success? Parnell, unlike our Moderate leaders,
\ndid not dwarf the ideal of a national movement but always held the absolute independence of his country as the goal: he
\nmade it a fixed principle to accept no half-way house between independence and subjection short of an Irish Parliament with
\nindependent powers, he suffered no man to enter his party who did not pledge himself to refuse all office, honour or emolument
\nfrom the alien government and he showed his people a better way of agitation than mere dependence on England on one side
\nand secret outrage on the other,\u2014 the way of passive resistance, obstruction in Parliament and refusal of rent in the country. Only
\nso could Parnell succeed in creating the solid phalanx, and when it was broken, it was by the folly of his adherents who receded 
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\n\tfrom his principles and sacrificed their leader at the bidding of
\nan English statesman. If Srijut Surendranath wishes to have the country solid behind him, he must be a Parnell first and not
\nshrink from a Parnellite policy and ideals. Only clear principles and unambiguous conduct can secure implicit obedience. 
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\n\t785<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, December 12th, 1907 }   About Unmistakable Terms   We answered yesterday in general terms the claim advanced in the columns…<\/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-2850","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\/2850","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=2850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}