{"id":2853,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:12","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2853"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:12","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:12","slug":"29-bande-mataram-17-9-06-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\/29-bande-mataram-17-9-06-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-29_Bande Mataram 17-9-06.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{ CALCUTTA, September 17th, 1906 }<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tLast Friday’s Folly
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tEven at the risk of being branded as social reactionaries, we must, we feel, enter our protest against the notions and ideals
\nthat lay, evidently, under the so-called national dinner, celebrated at the Albert Hall on Friday last. The function, in itself, was too
\ninsignificant to deserve any notice. Two hundred and fifty men and boys meeting and dining together in public, regardless of
\ncaste-restrictions and old orthodoxy, is not even a new thing in Calcutta Society. Hindus and Mahomedans had dined publicly
\nin Calcutta, on special occasions, before now. Dinners had repeatedly been given at the India Club in honour of prominent
\nmembers in which members of all castes and creeds joined. Subscription dinners had been organised in honour of prominent
\npublic men, even outside that Club, the last one being less than two years old, when the friends of Sir Henry Cotton met him
\nat a dinner at the Calcutta Town Hall. Babu Narendranath Sen organised a public dinner some years back, to celebrate
\nthe birthday of Buddha, where people of all castes and more than one creed, sat down on mats and dined together on simple
\nloochie <\/i>and dal<\/i>. These dinners had all been publicly announced and publicly reported; but no one cared to publicly condemn
\nthem. Had last Friday’s dinner been associated with some specific public function, or been held in honour of any particular
\npublic men, no one would have, we believe, taken any serious notice of it. The folly of it lay in the idea that interdining was a
\nnecessary condition of nation building in India; and it deserves condemnation for propounding the foolish and suicidal ideal
\nthat social and religious differences must first of all be destroyed before India can ever hope to realise her own true civic life.
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 167<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tThis is the Anglo-Indian and the British idea. It is the main
\nplea upon which the present despotism supports and justifies itself. It is the plea upon which even our own old-school patriots
\nproclaim the fatal doctrine that India is not, and will never for a very long period be, fitted for self-government, and, therefore,
\nthe strong hand of the foreigner must be over her, to prevent her various castes and creeds flying at each others’ throats, and thus
\nfalling a prey to some other and infinitely worse foreign yoke, if the present one is removed; and that, therefore, the highest
\npolitical wisdom demands that we should, as long as there are diversities of creeds and castes among us, cultivate with care
\nthe present servitude, trying to make it easy to bear for the nation, and profitable for the individual, by adopting the policy
\nof “association with and opposition to the Government”. This plea must be knocked on the head, therefore, before we can
\nexpect to make out a reasonable case for that propaganda of national freedom and autonomy which has been taken up by
\nthe new party in the country. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tThose who say that caste and religious differences must first
\nof all be destroyed before India can ever rise to the status of a nation, have very hazy and confused notions regarding the
\ncharacter and constitution of that nation. Our history has been different in many respects from the history of other peoples.
\nThe composition of the Indian people has been unique in all the world. Nations grew in the past by the accretion and assimilation
\nof different tribes. This is an earlier process. But India has not been a mere meeting place of tribes, but a meeting place of
\ngrown up nations with developed social and religious lines of their own, and with original castes and types of cultures peculiar
\nto them. The character and composition of the coming Indian nation, therefore, will differ very materially from those of the
\nEuropean nations, the process of unification among whom took place at a much earlier and comparatively more nebular stage
\nof their growth. This is a fact which our old school politicians and social reformers do not seem as yet to have had any time to
\nthink of, and we are not hopeful that even now, after it is pointed out to them, in the plainest language possible, they will have the
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 168<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t<\/i>
\n\tpatience to do so and recognise this essential peculiarity of our
\ninfant national life. The nation-idea in India will realise itself, in all its departments, along what may be called federal lines,\u2014 it will be a union of different nationalities, each preserving its own specific elements both of organisation and ideal, each
\ncommunicating to the others what they lack in either thought or character, and all moving together towards one universal end,
\nboth in civic and social life, progressively realising that end along its own historic and traditional lines, and thus indefinitely drawing near to each other, without, for an equally indefinite period, actually losing themselves in any one particular form of that life,
\nwhether old or new. The Mahomedan, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Christian in India will not have to cease to be Mahomedan,
\nHindu, Buddhist, or Christian, in any sense of the term, for uniting into one great and puissant Indian nation. Devotion to
\none’s own ideals and institutions, with toleration and respect for the ideals and institutions of other sections of the community,
\nand an ardent love and affection for the common civic life and ideal of all\u2014 these are what must be cultivated by us now, for
\nthe building up of the real Indian nation. To try to build it up in any other way will be impossible, whether that way be the way of
\nthe Brahmo, the Christian, or the propagandist Mahomedan. To make any attempt along any of these lines, will not make for but
\nwork against national unity; and the reckless men who organised this so-called national dinner will, if they persist in their folly,
\ninstead of bringing the different races and religions together, only help to arouse the opposition of orthodoxy everywhere,
\nand drive the great forces that range always with orthodoxy to an attitude of open hostility to the great national movement, and
\nbring about a reaction that will seek to accentuate those very differences and tighten those very bonds of caste and custom
\nwhich in their unphilosophic and unscientific zeal they are trying by these wrong and obtrusive methods to obliterate and loosen.
\nIt is in this view that we condemn the folly that was perpetrated on Friday last under the name of a National Dinner.
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t_________<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 169<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t
\n\tStop-gap Won’t Do
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tEven India <\/i>has sometimes a ray of light in the midst of its twilight obscurity and crass lack of insight. Thus saith the organ of the
\nCottons and Wedderburns: “Mr. Morley will not be Secretary of State for India for ever and a day. So long as he is at the
\nhelm, the prow of the ship will be set in the right direction. But what will happen when his controlling hand is removed?”
\nPrecisely so, Mr. Morley may set the prow in the right direction, but it is perfectly evident from his public statements that he is
\nnot prepared to travel fast or far; on the contrary he is utterly against any decision and effective treatment of the intolerable
\nsituation in India. He is simply going to repeat an experiment which has failed and is out of date. We shall therefore gain
\nlittle during his lease of power\u2014 and afterwards? Who shall secure us against another Curzonian reaction? We therefore say
\nthat an instalment of effective self-government is the one thing which the Congress should insist on because it is the one thing
\nwhich will make reaction impossible. We farther contend that an effective instalment of self-government not only ought to be
\nbut must inevitably be the first step towards complete autonomy. For the statement of these plain and indisputable truths we must,
\nforsooth, be dubbed “seditionists” and “extremists”, not only by Anglo-Indian papers for whose opinion we do not care a straw,
\nbut by Indian journals professing to be nationalist. There could not be a greater evidence of the dull servility of attitude, the fear
\nof truth and the unworthy timidity which has become ingrained in our habits of mind by long acquiescence in servitude. If these
\nthings are sedition, then we are undoubtedly seditious and will persist in our sedition till the end of the chapter.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t________<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tBy the Way <\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Bengalee <\/i>came out on Sunday with an extraordinary leader
\nin which it appeals to its opponents to sink all personal differences and unite in one common cause. The better to further
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 170<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t<\/i>
\n\tthis desirable end it kicks them severely all round so as to bring
\nthem into a reasonable state of mind. The opponents of the Bengalee <\/i>are all actuated by base personal motives; their organs
\nof opinion are upstart journals trying to create a sensation; their championing of advanced political principles is a trick of the
\ntrade, etc. etc. And therefore <\/i>the Bengalee <\/i>appeals to them to be friendly, toe the line and follow faithfully in the wake of Babu
\nSurendranath Banerji. Does our contemporary really think that this is the sort of appeal which is likely to heal the breach?
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

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

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tThe praise and approval of the Anglo-Indian papers, says the
\nBengalee <\/i>wisely, is a sure sign that we are on the wrong road. Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. On this
\nprinciple, we ought to go on our way rejoicing. If there is one pleasing feature of the present situation, it is the remarkable
\nunanimity with which the Anglo-Indian Press has greeted our appearance in the field with a shriek of denunciation and called
\non Heaven and Earth and the Government and the Moderates to league together and crush us out of existence.
\nStatesman<\/i>
\nand Englishman<\/i>, Times <\/i>and Pioneer<\/i>, all their discordant notes meet in one concord on this grand swelling theme. The “moderate” papers of all shades, pro-Government or advocates of association with Government or advocates of association-cum-opposition, have all risen to the call. The Hindu Patriot <\/i>rejoices at our lack of influence, the
\nMirror <\/i>threatens us with the prison
\nand the scaffold, the Bengalee <\/i>mutters about upstart journals and warns people against the morass which is the inevitable
\ngoal, in its opinion, of a forward policy. Well, well, well! Here is an extraordinary and most inexplicable clamour about an
\nupstart journal and a party without influence or following in the country.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

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

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Statesman <\/i>is taking its cue from the Mirror <\/i>and is growing
\nvery truculent and minatory. It is not going to give us any quarter, this merciless “Friend of India”, but will abolish, expunge and
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 171<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tblot us out of existence in no time. It will not consent to support
\nIndian aspirations unless we consent to perform harakiri<\/i>. It will advise its friend Mr. Morley to make no concession, no, not even
\nincrease the number of our Legislative Honourables, until even the very scent of a “sedition” can no longer be sniffed in the
\nIndian breezes.    <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 172<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, September 17th, 1906 }   Last Friday’s Folly   Even at the risk of being branded as social reactionaries, we must,…<\/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-2853","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\/2853","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=2853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}