{"id":2867,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2867"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:16","slug":"102-bande-mataram-22-6-07-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\/102-bande-mataram-22-6-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-102_Bande Mataram 22-6-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n

\n\tBande
\n\tMataram<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t
\n\t{ CALCUTTA, June 22nd, 1907 }
\n\t<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nMr. A. Chaudhuri’s Policy
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nMr. Ashutosh Chaudhuri has used
\nthe opportunity given to him by his selection for the chair of the Pabna
\nConference to make a personal pronouncement of policy. This is the second time
\nthat Mr. Chaudhuri has had an opportunity of this kind, the first being the
\nProvincial conference at Burdwan. On that occasion he made a pronouncement which
\nindicated a new departure in politics and created some flutter in the Congress
\ndovecotes. It would not be accurate to say that the Burdwan pronunciamento
\ninfluenced the course of affairs; the propounder of the new policy, if such it
\ncould be called, had not sufficient weight of personality to become the leader
\nof a new party, nor was his policy either definite enough or sound enough to
\nattract a following. But it had a certain importance. It was the immature
\nself-expression of ideas and forces which had been gathering head in the country
\nand groping about for means of entry into the ordinary channels of political
\naction and expression. It was rather the prophecy of a new turn in Indian
\npolitics than itself a policy already understood and matured. The prophet
\nhimself was perhaps the one who least understood his own prophecy. The confusion
\nof his ideas was shown soon afterwards by his identifying himself with the old
\ncurrent of Congress politics and thus turning his back on the two main positions
\nin his Burdwan speech, the repudiation of mendicant politics and the dictum that
\na subject nation has no politics. He left it to others to develop the political
\nideas he had dimly and imperfectly outlined and give them a definite shape
\nembodied in a clear political programme. Still more forcibly is this lack of
\ncomprehension evidenced by Mr. Chaudhuri’s attempt to revert, with
\nmodifications, to his    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 523<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tBurdwan ideas even after the
\n\tmomentous changes of the last three years. He has once more reverted to his
\n\tdictum that a subject nation has no politics; he once more proposes that we
\n\tshould give up our political agitation; once more he puts forward self-help
\n\tas a substitute. When he spoke at Burdwan, industrial expansion was the idea
\n\tof the day and Mr. Chaudhuri offered it to us as a substitute for political
\n\tmendicancy. Today Swadeshi, Boycott and National Education are the ideas of
\n\tthe day and Mr. Chaudhuri offers them as a substitute for the struggle for
\n\tSwaraj. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\tWe do not wish to
\n\t\toverrate the importance of Mr. Chaudhuri’s pronouncements. Mr. Chaudhuri
\n\t\tis not a political leader with a distinct following in the country who
\n\t\tare likely to carry out his ideas. He is a sort of Rosebery of Bengal
\n\t\tpolitics, a brilliant, cultured amateur, who catches up certain thoughts
\n\t\tor tendencies that are in the air and gives them a more or less striking
\n\t\texpression, but he has not the qualities of a politician\u2014 robustness,
\n\t\tbackbone, the ability to will a certain course of action and the courage
\n\t\tto carry it out. He has intellectual sensitiveness, but not intellectual
\n\t\tconsistency. Suave, affable, pliable, essentially an amiable and
\n\t\tcultured gentleman, he is unfit for the rough and tumble of political
\n\t\tlife, especially in a revolutionary period; no man who shrinks from
\n\t\tstruggle or is appalled by the thought of aggression can hope to seize
\n\t\tand lead the wild forces that are rising to the surface in
\n\t\ttwentieth-century India. But this very knack of catching up however
\n\t\tpartially the moods of the moment gives a certain interest to Mr.
\n\t\tChaudhuri’s pronouncements which make them worth examining. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\tWhen Mr. Chaudhuri at
\n\t\tBurdwan pronounced against the mendicant policy he was voicing two
\n\t\tdistinct and various currents of political tendency. The opprobrious
\n\t\tterm of mendicancy was applied to the old Congress school of politics
\n\t\tnot because remonstrance and protest are in themselves wrong and
\n\t\tdegrading, but because in the circumstances of modern India a policy of
\n\t\tprayer, petition and protest without the sanction of a great
\n\t\tirresistible national force at its back was bound to pauperise the
\n\t\tenergy of the nation and to accustom it to a degrading   
\n\t\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\tdependence. It was not only a
\n\twaste of energy but a sapping of energy, and it was ruinous to manhood and
\n\tself-respect. But the recognition of this fact only led to another problem.
\n\tIf we did not sue to others for help, we must help ourselves; if we did not
\n\tdepend on the alien’s mercies, we must depend on our own strength. But how
\n\twas that strength to be educated? Again, when we had decided that a subject
\n\tnation has no politics, what then? Were we to renounce the birthrights
\n\tinherent in our manhood and leave the field to the bureaucratic despotism or
\n\twere we to resolve to cease to be a subject nation so that we might recover
\n\tthe right and possibility of political life and activity? There were two
\n\tcurrents of political thought growing up in the country. One, thoughtful,
\n\tphilosophic, idealistic, dreamed of ignoring the terrible burden that was
\n\tcrushing us to death, of turning away from politics and educating our
\n\tstrength in the village and township, developing our resources, our social,
\n\teconomic, religious life regardless of the intrusive alien; it thought of
\n\tinaugurating a new revolution such as the world had never yet seen, a moral,
\n\tpeaceful revolution, actively developing ourselves but only passively
\n\tresisting the adversary. But there was another current submerged as yet, but
\n\tactively working underneath, which tended in another direction,\u2014 a
\n\tsprinkling of men in whom one fiery conviction replaced the cultured
\n\tbroodings of philosophy and one grim resolve took the place of political
\n\treasoning. The conviction was that subjection was the one curse which
\n\twithered and blighted all our national activities, that so long as that
\n\tcurse was not removed it was a vain dream to expect our national activities
\n\tto develop themselves successfully and that only by struggle could our
\n\tstrength be educated to action and victory. The resolve was to rise and
\n\tfight and fall and again rise and fight and fall waging the battle for ever
\n\tuntil this once great and free nation should again be great and free. It was
\n\tthis last current which boiled up to the surface in the first vehemence of
\n\tthe anti-Partition agitation, flung out the challenge of boycott and plunged
\n\tthe Bengali nation into a struggle with the bureaucracy which must now be
\n\tfought out till the end. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tAll were carried away in the
\n\ttide of that great upheaval;    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 525<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tbut it is needless to say
\n\tthat this was not what the advocates of self-help pure and simple had
\n\tcontemplated, Mr. Chaudhuri least of all. He very early identified himself
\n\twith the small knot of older leaders who from time to time struggled with
\n\tthe tide and tried to turn it back; but until now the tide was too strong
\n\tfor them. For a moment, however, the rush has been checked by superhuman
\n\tefforts of repression on the part of the panic-stricken bureaucracy and it
\n\tis natural that those who were not with their whole heart and conviction for
\n\tthe struggle for Swaraj, should begin to revert to their old ideas, to long
\n\tto give up the struggle, to retreat into the fancied security of their
\n\tfortress of unpolitical Swadeshism and a policy of self-help which seeks to
\n\tignore the unignorable. The tendency is to cry, "The old policy is a
\n\tfailure, the Briton has revealed his true nature; the new policy is a
\n\tfailure, we have not strength to meet the giant power of the bureaucracy;
\n\tlet them have the field, let us quietly pursue our own salvation in the
\n\tpeaceful Ashrams of Swadeshism and self-help." Mr. Ashutosh Chaudhuri with
\n\this keen intellectual sensitiveness has felt this tendency in the air and
\n\tgiven it expression. It is a beautiful and pathetic dream. We will develop
\n\tour manufacture, boycott foreign goods, of course in a quite friendly and
\n\tnon-political spirit, and England will look quietly on while its trade is
\n\tbeing ruined! We will ignore the Government and build up our own centres of
\n\tstrength in spite of it, a Government the whole principle and condition of
\n\twhose existence is that there shall be no centre of strength in the country
\n\texcept itself! Mr. Chaudhuri’s policy would be an excellent one if he could
\n\tonly remove two factors from the political problem, first, Indian
\n\tNationalism, secondly, the British Government. And how does he propose to
\n\tremove them? By shutting his eyes to their existence. Ignore the Government,
\n\tdissociate yourselves from the men of violence\u2014 and the thing is done. Such
\n\tis the political wisdom of Mr. Ashutosh Chaudhuri.    <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\t__________<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 526<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t
\n\tA Current Dodge
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tReferring to the transfer to
\n\tother places of Mr. Barneville and Maulavi Faizuddin Hossein who tried cases
\n\tof looting in Jamalpur and recorded as their opinion that the riots were not
\n\tprovoked by Hindu boycotters and National volunteers, even the Hindu
\n\tPatriot <\/i>which has never been friendly to the Nationalist movement
\n\twrites\u2014 <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t"Transferring judges and
\n\tmagistrates whose decisions differ from the settled policy or preconceived
\n\tviews of the Executive officials, is a current dodge whereby the ends of
\n\tjustice are sought to be subordinated to political or other considerations.
\n\tAnd this is but another very forcible illustration of the evils of the
\n\tcombination of Judicial and Executive functions, and it also explains the
\n\treason why there is so much opposition to the separation of the duties. All
\n\tthe same however, we may frankly observe here that any attempt to destroy
\n\tthe integrity of the law-courts will deepen the anxiety which is being
\n\tmanifested on all sides. It is the proverbial impartiality of British
\n\tjustice which is prized more than anything else." <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t\tBut this current dodge is
\n\t\tplayed not by the local executive officials but by the higher
\n\t\tbureaucracy and need not be an argument in favour of the separation of
\n\t\tJudicial and Executive functions. Our contemporary’s attempt to smother
\n\t\tfacts in a profusion of side-issues cannot deceive those who can read
\n\t\tbetween the lines. We must congratulate him all the same on this sudden
\n\t\tflash of intelligent outspokenness. But our contemporary need not feel
\n\t\tanxious about "the proverbial impartiality of British justice". The
\n\t\tproverb is badly in need of a change. And as we said yesterday when
\n\t\treferring to many cherished shibboleths of the people departing into the
\n\t\tlimbo of forgotten follies, the greatest fall has been the fall of the
\n\t\tbelief in the imperturbable impartiality of British justice. The
\n\t\ttransfer of Mr. Barneville and the Maulavi is only another count in the
\n\t\tindictment.    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 527<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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