{"id":2861,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2861"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:14","slug":"155-bande-mataram-31-10-07-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\/155-bande-mataram-31-10-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-155_Bande Mataram 31-10-07.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{
\n\tCALCUTTA, October 31st, 1907 }
\n\t<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nEnglish Democracy Shown Up
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nScratch an Englishman and you will find an Anglo-Indian,\u2014 this is what we said in these columns sometime ago. The Anglophilous Indian enthusiast who goes to England saturated with the old Congress poison of a morbid faith in the native generosity
\nof English character, in the innate amenability of Englishmen to reason and persuasion regarding matters Indian, is doomed to
\na very rude awakening. He has not to stay long in the country before he finds every Englishman he may come across turning
\na deaf ear to his story of grievance and injustice. He is no doubt loudly applauded and called a “true Briton” when he
\ndeclaims against the tyranny in Russia, but is invariably called “ungrateful” if he happens to tell home truths about England’s
\ndominion in Hindustan. He meets with the same callous disapprobation from all Englishmen alike, from the Liberal whose
\nmotto is “Government with consent” just as much as from the Tory whose principle avowedly is “let things be.” On the Indian
\nquestion the Englishman will tell you his position is that of a “patriot”, not of a “partisan”. Imperialism is far above party;
\nevery Englishman therefore is an Imperialist when he is thinking of the Indian question, he has then ceased to be either a Liberal
\nor a Conservative. To this rule there are some exceptions, a few old ladies here and there (who however hardly count in
\npolitics yet), and some truly noble men who hold humanity far higher than Imperialism. These men certainly frankly admit that
\nEngland’s arbitrary and tyrannous tenure of power in India is a standing libel on herself, a gross violation of those political
\nprinciples which she proclaims from the housetops to the whole of Europe. The voice of such men however is hardly heard in
\n   
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 727<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tthe Councils of the Empire, and if ever heard, contemptuously
\nignored. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tThe hasty, hideous, indecent, savage yell that has been raised
\nby the whole of the English Press against Mr. Keir Hardie because he has dared to tell the truth about the present situation
\nin this country is a striking confirmation of what we have said above, and what we stated before in the
\nBande Mataram <\/i>. We
\nmust not commit the mistake of supposing that the English Press is indignant because it doubts the truth of Mr. Hardie’s
\nstatements against the Indian Government; not that at all; they know very well, one and all of that yelling throng, that every
\nword of what he has said is true, and that Reuter has wired a grossly mendacious version of his statements; but they are full
\nof wrath because the leader of the Independent Labour Party has told the unvarnished truth respecting the character of the
\nrule that England has established here. They are bursting with rage because their long and unscrupulously kept-up fiction of
\na just and benevolent Indian rule has been exposed in all its ugliness at last by one who happens to be an
\nEnglishman<\/i>, (oh,
\nthe sting of it!) and an Englishman of power and prestige too, who easily has the ear of the civilised world. He is a traitor,
\nshout the impious fraternity of the British Press, because he has the nobleness of mind, the honesty of conviction, to be able to
\ntell the truth against his own country when he finds it attempting without a blush to perpetuate an outrage upon humanity.
\nHe is no longer a statesman because he could not deliberately suppress a truth in consideration of the reasons of state, which
\nin the present instance means, in the interest of the sickening British lie\u2014 repeated
\nad nauseam <\/i>before Europe and America\u2014 that England governs India for the benefit of the Indians. The paper which so often contains articles from the pen of Sir Henry
\nCotton joins in this infamous chorus of denunciation no less than the Daily News
\n<\/i>which always so overflows with the pure
\nmilk of undiluted Liberalism, that is to say British Liberalism. Let us hope this at least will serve to open wide the eyes of
\nthose of our countrymen who are still troubled now and then with the visitings of their old faith in England. England
\nwill not<\/i>
\n   <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 728<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tgive us anything unless we can force her to her knees, this is
\nthe only moral to which the present outrageous clamour of the English Press points. We may present our case with as much
\neloquence, logic and precision as we please; they in England will always brush our representations insolently aside as mere
\n“Babu rodomontade”. If an Englishman with a disengaged mind has the courage to take up our cause, and tell the world the
\nmost elementary facts about the wrong England is doing us, his voice is drowned in the roar of the ruling nation whose one
\naim is mercilessly to exploit India and let the rest of the world know as little about their real Indian policy as possible, and
\neven to deceive it whenever opportunity offers. How humane it sounded, how extremely Christian, when Lord Lansdowne
\ndeclared in the House of Lords with that supreme unction of which Englishmen alone are capable, that one of
\nthe <\/i>motives
\nof the war with the Boers was the righting of the grievous wrongs to which “our
\nIndian fellow-subjects <\/i>were forced to
\nsubmit in the Transvaal”. That grandiose declaration was not without its effect in the international world, though we know
\nonly too well that the Transvaal Indians live under infinitely more humiliating conditions now than they ever did under the
\nGovernment of Paul Kruger. And one need not feel surprised if one hears an Englishman, even at the present day, repeating the
\npronouncement of Lord Lansdowne in all solemnity in order to prove England’s constant anxiety and watchfulness on behalf of
\nher Indian subjects.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThere can hardly be any doubt that the Press has been
\nshamelessly encouraged in its campaign of foul misrepresentation against Mr. Keir Hardie by Mr. Morley’s speech at Arbroath. The philosopher-Secretary betrayed not a little ruffling of his philosophic calm in his undisguisedly hostile and somewhat petulant references to Mr. Keir Hardie’s opinion that India should be given the same autonomy that is enjoyed by Canada.
\nThe wonderful allegory of the fur-coat, though hardly giving us an encouraging indication of any power of imagination or
\nperception, of any historical insight, of any sense of humour or relevancy on the part of its author, certainly furnishes abundant
\n   
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 729<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tproof of his ill-natured impatience of the generous ideal that the
\nlabour leader cherishes for the people of this country. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tBut, after all, we perhaps do the Indian Secretary an injustice
\nin charging him with lack of historical insight; in one sense, it may be said, he shows an abundance of it. For we learn from
\nReuter, that “he paid a tribute to the courage, patience and fidelity of the House of Commons, from which he augured that
\nthe democracies were going to show their capacity to tackle difficult and complicated problems.” The one remarkable feature of European democracies from the days of Athens to those of England, has throughout been that whilst they always most
\njealously keep vigil over the integrity of their own republican constitution, they revel at the same time in the despotic sway of
\nunlimited power over the peoples they conquer. This is strictly true of the Pagan republics of Hellas and Rome as well as of
\nthe Christian communes and country-states of Mediaeval and Modern Europe. The ideal that has shaped the polity of Europe is
\nalways consciously or unconsciously Hellenic and not Hebraic; the Christian ideal of human brotherhood the European is apt
\nto regard as part of the privilege of his citizenship, is not to be extended to a conquered people. This is strictly true, the Christian missions and missionaries of Europe notwithstanding. In other words Christian Europe flings her Christianity aside in her
\ntreatment of those who have had the misfortune to come under her rule; these she looks upon as Athens and Rome did on their
\nsubject peoples. Mr. Morley whilst congratulating the English democracy on the determination they have shown to keep their
\nIndian Empire their own, might very well have been feeling the secret glow of an historic enthusiasm in insensibly thinking of
\nsimilar figures in ancient and modern European history extolling their countrymen on similar occasions.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat we meant by taxing him with want of historic perception was that he has betrayed a sad ignorance of Asiatic history.
\nAsia has never embraced an ideal without universalising it. To profess the Christian faith and persist in confining the Christian
\nideal of human brotherhood to one’s own nation strikes the Asiatic as a monstrous hypocrisy. Nor, as we have had occasion
\n    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 730<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tto remark before, has an ideal had to win its way to the heart
\nof the Orient through a welter of its martyrs’ blood, as has been the case with all kinds of ideals in Europe. This is the secret of
\nthe willingness and readiness with which the monarchies of Asia are democratising the constitutions of their country. The period
\nof English History dating from 1066 and ending with 1832, the Shah of Persia has had the magnanimity to summarise into
\na few years of Persian History. It is therefore that the average Indian who has studied England’s history and literature feels so
\nextremely perplexed, and is just now beginning to feel indignant at her strenuous and persistent refusal to give India that liberty
\nwhich she has so prized all through her history.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tEngland, on the other hand, and quite consistently enough,
\nthinks she is rightly acting in withholding from the Indian the citizenship of the British Empire, for in so doing she is strictly in
\nthe wake of European tradition, and has the full justification of history as she has known and understood it. And consequently
\nJohn Morley hastens to remind Indians of the “weary steps” necessary before they can attain liberty, the weary steps that the
\ncountries of Europe have had to traverse before they secured it.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWe fully understand the import of the latest speech of the
\nIndian Secretary, and of the latest outburst of the British democracy\u2014 India will only have liberty when she has the strength,
\nphysical and moral, to wrench it from the selfish grasp of the ruling country.
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 731<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, October 31st, 1907 }   English Democracy Shown Up   Scratch an Englishman and you will find an Anglo-Indian,\u2014 this is…<\/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-2861","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\/2861","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=2861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2861\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}