{"id":2865,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2865"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:16","slug":"66-bande-mataram-30-4-07-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\/66-bande-mataram-30-4-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-66_Bande Mataram 30-4-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n

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

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, April 30th, 1907 }
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nShall India Be Free?
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nWe are arguing the impossibility of a healthy national development under foreign rule,\u2014 except by reaction against that rule.
\nThe foreign domination naturally interferes with and obstructs the functioning of the native organs of development. It is therefore in itself an unnatural and unhealthy condition, a wound, a disease, which must result, unless arrested, in the mortification
\nand rotting to death of the indigenous body politic. If a nation were an artificial product which could be made, then it might
\nbe possible for one nation to make another. But a nation cannot be made,\u2014 it is an organism which grows under the stress of
\na principle of life within. We speak indeed of nation-building and of the makers of a nation, but these are only convenient
\nmetaphors. The nation-builder, Cavour or Bismarck, is merely the incarnation of a national force which has found its hour and
\nits opportunity, of an inner will which has awakened under the stress of shaping circumstances. A nation is, indeed, the outward
\nexpression of a community of sentiment, whether it be the sentiment of a common blood or the sentiment of a common religion
\nor the sentiment of a common interest or any or all of these sentiments combined. Once this sentiment grows strong enough
\nto develop into a will towards unity and to conquer obstacles and make full use of favouring circumstances, the development
\nof the nation becomes inevitable and there is no power which can ultimately triumph against it. But the process, however rapid it
\nmay be, is one of growth and not of manufacture. The first impulse of the developing nation is to provide itself with a
\ncentre, a means of self-expression and united action, a chief organ or national nerve-centre with subsidiary organs acting
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 367<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tunder and in harmony with it. If the need of self-protection is
\nits first overpowering need, the organization may be military or semi-military under a single chief or a warlike ruling class;
\nif the pressure from outside is not overpowering or the need of internal development strongly felt, it may take the shape of some
\nform of partial or complete self-government. In either case the community becomes a nation or organic State.
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tWhat, then, is the place of foreign rule in such an organic development? The invasion of the body politic by a foreign
\nelement must result either in the merging of the alien into the indigenous nationality or in his superimposition on the latter in a
\nprecarious position which can only be maintained by coercion or by hypnotizing the subject people into passivity. If the alien and
\nthe native-born population are akin in blood and in religion, the fusion will be easy. Even if they are not, yet if the former settles
\ndown in the conquered country and makes it his motherland, community of interests will in the end inevitably bring about
\nunion. The foreigners become sons of the country by adoption and the sentiment of a common motherland is always a sufficient
\nsubstitute for the sentiment of a common race-origin. The difficulty of religion may be solved by the conversion of the foreigner
\nto the religion of the people he has conquered, as happened with the ancient invaders of India, or by the conversion of the
\nconquered people to the religion of their rulers, as happened in Persia and other countries conquered by the Arabs. Even if no
\nsuch general change of creed can be effected, yet the two religions may become habituated to each other and mutually tolerant, or
\nthe sentiment of a common interest and a common sonhood of one motherland may overcome the consciousness of religious
\ndifferences. In all these contingencies there is a fusion, complete or partial; and the nation, though it may be profoundly affected
\nfor good or evil, need not be disorganized or lose the power of development. India under Mahomedan rule, though greatly
\ndisturbed and thrown into continual ferment and revolution, did not lose its power of organic readjustment and development.
\nEven the final anarchy which preceded the British domination, was not a process of disorganization but an acute crisis,\u2014 the
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\tattempt of Nature to effect an organic readjustment in the body
\npolitic. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately the crisis was complicated by the presence
\nand final domination of a foreign body, foreign in blood, foreign in religion, foreign in interest. This body remains superimposed
\non the native-born population without any roots in the soil. Its presence, so long as it is neither merged in the nation nor
\ndislodged, must make for the disorganization and decay of the subject people. It is possible for a foreign body differing in blood,
\nreligion and interest, to amalgamate with the native organism but only on one of two conditions; either the foreign body must
\ncut itself off from its origin and take up its home in the conquered country,\u2014 a course which is obviously impossible in the
\npresent problem,\u2014 or it must assimilate the subject State into the paramount State by the removal of all differences, inequalities, and conflicting interests. We shall point out the insuperable difficulties in the way of any such arrangement which will at
\nonce preserve British supremacy and give a free scope to Indian national development. At present there is no likelihood of the
\nintruding force submitting easily to the immense sacrifices which such an assimilation would involve. Yet if no such assimilation
\ntakes place, the position of the British bureaucracy in India in no way differs from the position of the Turkish despotism as it
\nexisted with regard to the Christian populations of the Balkans previous to their independence or of the Austrians in Lombardy
\nbefore the Italian Revolution. It is a position which endangers, demoralizes and eventually weakens the ruling nation as Austria and Turkey were demoralized and weakened, and which disorganizes and degrades the subject people. A very brief consideration of the effects of British rule in India will carry this truth home. 
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tPage \u2013 369<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram   { CALCUTTA, April 30th, 1907 }   Shall India Be Free?   We are arguing the impossibility of a healthy national development…<\/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-2865","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\/2865","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=2865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}