{"id":286,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:06","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=286"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:06","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:06","slug":"091-sankharitolas-apologia-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/091-sankharitolas-apologia-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-091_Sankharitola’s Apologia.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\nSankharitola’s Apologia<\/b><\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\n                       
\n<\/font>T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/b> omniscient editor of
\nthe Indian Nation <\/I>exposed himself last week to a well-deserved
\ncastigation at our hands by trespassing into history, of which he evidently
\nknows less than a fifth form schoolboy in an English public school. We gave him
\nhis deserts, but were careful to couch our criticism, however deservedly severe,
\nin perfectly courteous language. We find, however, that the
\ncourtesy was thrown<\/font><\/SPAN> <\/font> away <\/font>
\non the most hysterically foul-mouthed
\npublicist in the whole Indian Press. The late Sambhunath Mukherji ironically
\ndescribed Mr. N. N. Ghose as a thundering cataract of law: he might more aptly
\nhave described him as a thundering cataract of billingsgate. He has attempted to
\nanswer our criticism in this week’s Indian Nation<\/I>, <\/I>but the answer is so
\nmuch befouled with an almost maniacal virulence of abuse that most of our
\nfriends have advised us to ignore his frenzies and never again give him the
\nnotoriety he desires by noticing him in our columns. It is true that the
\nIndian Nation <\/I>addresses itself to a microscopic audience and expresses
\nthe personal vanities, selfishness, jealousies of a single man, but so long as
\nit enjoys a false reputation for learning and wisdom even
\nwith a limited circle or trades on that reputation to attack and discredit the
\nNational movement, it is our duty to expose its pretensions, and we shall not be
\ndeterred by any abuse, however foul.
        Mr. N. N. Ghose’s
\nreply falls into three parts, of which one consists merely of rancorous
\nvituperation, another of a feeble attempt to wriggle out of the uncomfortable
\nposition he has got into by his failure to consult a few historical primers
\nbefore writing, and the third
\nis a restatement of his opinions about nationality formulated this time in the
\nshape of general ideas without any basis either of historical fact or of
\nMetropolitan College fiction. As to the abuse we can only say that it might have
\nbeen more skilfully done. At least it might have been more coherent. The
\naggrieved sage of Sankharitola picks out from all the <\/font>
\nBande<\/font><\/I><\/SPAN><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\nPage-51<\/font><\/SPAN>8<\/font><\/P>
\n

<\/p>\n


\nMataram <\/I>writers
\nSrijut Aurobindo Ghose for the object of his wrath and among other elegant terms <\/SPAN>
\nof abuse calls him a prig and a Graeculus esuriens<\/i>. <\/i>
\nTo those who may not be such accomplished Latin scholars as the Principal of the
\nMetropolitan College, we may explain that the last expression means a starving
\nand greedy scholar who is prepared to commit any vileness for the sake of
\nearning a livelihood. We will not stop to ask whether this description applies
\nto Srijut Aurobindo Ghose or to a Principal who daily exhorts his students to
\nsubordinate honour, high feeling and patriotism to the supreme consideration of
\nbread and himself practises the lofty philosophy he preaches. We will only ask
\nMr. Ghose whether a man can be at once a prig and an esurient Greekling<\/i>.
\n<\/i>Srijut Aurobindo Ghose may be one or the other or neither, but he can hardly
\nbe both. Either Mr. N. N. Ghose’s knowledge of Latin is as distinguished and
\ncorrect as his knowledge of history, or else he is so ignorant of English as to
\nbe even ignorant what the word prig means. We can understand his being in a rage
\nat the merciless exposure of pretended scholarship, but that does not excuse his
\nincoherence; nor is it a sufficient reason for what was once a fair counterfeit
\nof a gentleman and a scholar turning himself into the image of a spitting and
\nswearing tom-cat. And with that we leave Mr. N. N. Ghose the fishwife and pass
\non to Mr. N. N. Ghose the historian. <\/font><\/P>
\n


\n            
\nHe does not try to justify his blunders, — that would be hopeless — but he
\ndoes try to excuse them. He practically admits that his Italian republics are a
\nblunder and that he was thinking of the Middle <\/i>Ages when he was writing
\nof the nineteenth century. But he pleads that Burke uses the word commonwealth
\nin the sense of state and therefore Mr. N. N. Ghose can use the word republic in
\nthe same sense. This is Metropolitan College logic and Metropolitan College
\nknowledge of English. Does Mr. Ghose really think that republic and commonwealth
\nmean the same thing precisely or that Burke would have talked of the Russian
\nrepublic when he meant the Russian monarchy? But, says Mr. Ghose, it does not
\nmatter, as I was not talking <\/i>about forms of government. But if Mr. Ghose
\nin his class was to talk about adjectives when he meant nouns, would it be an
\nexcuse to say that he was not talking about the difference between various<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\nPage-519<\/font><\/P><\/p>\n

\n


\nparts of speech? His defence of his other blunders is
\nstill more <\/font> amusing.<\/font><\/SPAN><\/P>
\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/SPAN>Says the Oracle: “To combat our proposition
\nabout ancient Greece an academic commonplace is trotted out, namely, that the
\npeople of Greece never developed a panhellenic sentiment.” Really this is enough
\nto take one’s breath away. Mr. Ghose told us last week that the Greeks became an
\nunited nation under the pressure of the Persian invasion; this week he coolly
\ntells us that it is an academic commonplace that the Greeks never even developed
\na panhellenic sentiment. We certainly never said anything of the sort. The
\nGreeks, as any tyro in history knows, did develop a panhellenic sentiment but it
\nwas never strong enough <\/SPAN>
\n\u2014<\/SPAN> and <\/SPAN>that was all we said <\/SPAN>
\n\u2014<\/SPAN> <\/SPAN>to unite them into a nation. But Mr. Ghose flounders
\nstill deeper into the mire in the next sentences. “What does it signify whether
\nthey did or not? The whole question is, could the Greek states have been set
\nagainst one another? Athens and Sparta, for instance, against each other? And if
\nnot, why not?” Really, Mr. Ghose, really now! Is it possible you do
\nnot<\/SPAN> know that soon after the
\nPersian invasion which you say <\/SPAN>made Greece
\nan united nation, Athens and Sparta were at each other’s throats and the whole
\nof the Greek world by land and sea turned into one vast battlefield on which the
\nHellenic cities engaged in a murderous internecine strife? What would we think
\nof a “scholar” who pretended to know Indian history and yet asserted that the
\nHindus became an united nation under the pressure of the Mahomedan invasion and
\nthat it was impossible to set the Hindu states against each other, Mewar and
\nAmber for instance? Yet this is precisely the blunder Mr. Ghose has committed
\nwith respect to Greek history. But he pleads bitterly that his facts are no
\ndoubt all wrong, but the conclusions he bases on them are right. What do facts
\nmatter? It is only Mr. N. N. Ghose’s opinions which matter.<\/font><\/P>
\n

           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/SPAN>Mr. Ghose accuses us of incapacity to understand the substance of his
\narticle. We quite admit that it is difficult to understand the mystic wisdom of
\na sage who asserts that the soundness of his premises has nothing to do with the
\nsoundness of his conclusions. Mr. Ghose stated certain facts as supporting a
\nconclusion otherwise unsupported. We have proved that his<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\nPage-520<\/font><\/SPAN><\/P>
\n

<\/p>\n


\nfacts are all childish blunders. He must therefore
\naccept one of the two horns of a dilemma: either his facts had nothing to do
\nwith his “truism” or his “truism” itself is an error. But we had another object
\nin view in exposing the pretentious sciolism of this arrogant publicist. Our
\nbusiness with him is not so much to disprove his opinions as to convince the few
\nwho still believe in him of the hollowness of his pretensions. It was for this
\nreason that we dwelt on his blunders last week and have done the same this week,
\n\u2014 in order to show that this gentleman who claims a monopoly of culture and
\nwisdom in India, is a half educated shallow man whose boasted mastery of the
\nEnglish language even is imperfect and who in other subjects, such as history
\nand politics, is an ignoramus pretending to knowledge.<\/font><\/P>
\n


\nBande Mataram<\/I>,
\n<\/I> <\/font> August 24, 1907<\/font><\/P>
\n


\nOur False Friends<\/a><\/font><\/b><\/P>
\n


\n <\/font> <\/font>
\n<\/P>
\n


\nThe Englishman <\/I>has been warning us against our
\nfalse friends. We have been asked to avert our eyes from those Indian delegates
\nwho have asked the socialistic Conference at Stuttgart to liberate one-fifth of
\nthe human race from serfdom. The Englishman <\/I>unblushingly calls these
\nIndian delegates our enemies and perhaps points to himself as our only friend,
\nguide and philosopher. With the Englishman <\/I>for our friend, and the
\nCivil and Military Gazette <\/I>for our ally and the rest of the Anglo-Indian
\nPress for our well-wishers it is no doubt sinful to long for a change for
\nthe
\n<\/SPAN>paradise of
\nuniversal brotherhood. India is the freest of lands, <\/SPAN>retorts the Hare Street Journal to the misrepresentation
\nof our false friends in the above socialistic Conference. Here under British
\nrule the people enjoy religious freedom, they are allowed to stick to their
\nabsurd social customs, they are not denied food, clothing and luxuries. What is
\nthere wanting to their freedom the Englishman <\/I>is at a loss to discover.
\nDoes our contemporary seriously desire enlightenment on the point? Or is he
\nindulging in a bit of Hare Street humour at our expense? Is it owing to this
\nfreedom of which we are the enviable possessors that he himself as well as his
\nprototype in Lahore enjoy the monopoly of pour-<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\nPage-521<\/font><\/SPAN><\/P>
\n

<\/p>\n


\ning daily vile abuses on us with perfect safety and
\nimmunity? Is it due to this freedom that we are threatened with imprisonment for
\nrepublishing the articles of the Yugantar <\/I>and they are supported and
\npatronised for the very same offence? Is it for this enviable freedom that some
\ninnocent men of Comilla were very near being hanged and transported without a
\nshred of evidence against them? Is it in consequence of this freedom that a
\nhighly respectable accused at Rawalpindi is taking his trial on a sick bed? Is
\nit in the exercise of their rights as free citizens of the British Empire that Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh have been deported without even the mention of
\nthe charge against them? This freedom is perhaps responsible for the banishment
\nof an Arya Samajist from his country though the trying magistrate has declared
\nhim quite innocent of the charge brought against him. Is it a tangible
\ndemonstration of our freedom that we cannot keep our food grains for our own use
\neven when there is a terrible famine in the land? Is it because we are free to
\nthink and act that the Partition of Bengal has been carried out in the teeth of
\nan unanimous and protracted opposition? The disarming of a whole people is
\nanother incontrovertible evidence of their freedom. They are not allowed the use
\nof arms because they are free. Their manhood is repressed because they are free.
\nThey are converted into so many harmless cattle because their Mother-country is
\nthe freest of all countries! If we had even a jot of freedom the Englishman
\n<\/I>could not have flung in our face such a mocking statement. The world has
\ncome to know of India’s true condition, and these interested and shameless
\nperversions of truth can deceive nobody.<\/font><\/P>
\n


\nBande Mataram<\/I>,
\n<\/I> <\/font> August 26, 1907<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/font> <\/font>
\n
\nRepression and Unity<\/font><\/a><\/SPAN><\/B><\/P>
\n


\n <\/font> <\/font>
\n<\/B><\/P>
\n


\nOne of the most encouraging signs of the present times
\nis the effect of repression in bringing together men of all views who have the
\nfuture welfare and greatness of their country at heart. At this time last year
\nthe great fight between the old and new parties was just beginning to pass from
\nthe stage of loose occasional<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\nPage-522<\/font><\/SPAN><\/P>
\n

<\/p>\n


\nskirmishes into a close and prolonged struggle. The
\nemergence of Nationalism as a self-conscious force determined to take shape and
\nfight for the domination of the national mind was indicated by the appearance of
\nthe Bande Mataram <\/I>as the first out and out Nationalist daily in the
\nEnglish tongue published in India. For the first time a gospel of undiluted
\nNationalism without any mitigating admixture of prudent concealment or
\ndiplomatic reservation was poured daily into the ears of the educated class in
\nIndia. At first the Bande Mataram <\/I>and the cause it came to champion had
\nto make a hard fight for existence and for a voice in the country, and in the
\nstruggle which culminated in the last session of the Congress, many hard words
\nwere used on both sides, strong animosities aroused and what seemed incurable
\nmisunderstandings engendered. Those times are now fading into a half-remembered
\npast. The second year of the paper’s existence has begun with a prosecution for
\nsedition, but circumstances have so changed that in its hour of trial it has the
\nsympathy of the whole of Bengal at its back. We note with satisfaction and
\ngratitude that all classes of men, rich and poor, all shades of opinion,
\nmoderate or extremist, the purveyors of ready made loyalty alone excepted, have
\ngiven us a sympathy and support which is not merely emotional. This growing
\nunity is mainly due to the action of the bureaucracy in attempting to put down
\nby force a movement which has now taken possession of the nation’s heart beyond
\nthe possibility of dislodgment. This is the last and crowning blessing of
\nBritish rule.<\/font><\/P>
\n


\nBande Mataram<\/I>,
\n<\/I> <\/font> August 27, 1907<\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\nPage-523<\/font><\/SPAN><\/P>\n\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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