{"id":2878,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2878"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:20","slug":"215-bande-mataram-7-4-08-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\/215-bande-mataram-7-4-08-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-215_Bande Mataram 7-4-08.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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

\n

\n\t
\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, April 7th, 1908 } <\/b> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nThe New Ideal
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe need of a great ideal was never more keenly felt than it is in India at the present day. Nowhere have so many weaknesses
\ncombined to stand in the way of a nation in the whole range of history. Nowhere have the rulers reduced their subjects to so
\ncomplete, pervading and abject a material helplessness. When the Mogul ruled, he ruled as a soldier and a conqueror, in the
\npride of his strength, in the confidence of his invincible greatness, the lord of the peoples by natural right of his imperial character
\nand warlike strength and skill. He stooped to no meanness, hedged himself in with no army of spies, entered into no relations with foreign powers, but, grandiose and triumphant, sat on the throne of a continent like Indra on his heavenly seat,
\nmaster of his world because there was none strong enough to dispute it with him. He trusted his subjects, gave them positions
\nof power and responsibility, used their brain and arm to preserve his conquests and by the royalty of that trust and noble pride in
\nhis own ability to stand by his innate strength, was able to hold India for over a century until Aurangzeb forgot the
\nkuladharma<\/i>
\nof his house and by distrust, tyranny and meanness lost for his descendants the splendid heritage of his forefathers. The present
\ndomination is a rule of shopkeepers who are at the same time bureaucrats, a combination of the worst possible qualities for
\nimperial Government. The shopkeeper rules by deceit, the bureaucrat by the use of red tape. The shopkeeper by melancholy
\nmeanness alienates the subject population, the bureaucrat by soulless rigidity deprives the administration of life and human
\nsympathy. The shopkeeper uses his position of authority to push his wares and fleece his subjects, the bureaucrat forgets his duty
\n   <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

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\nand loses his royal character in his mercantile greed. The shopkeeper becomes a pocket Machiavel, the bureaucrat a gigantic retail trader. By this confusion of
\ndharmas<\/i>, varnashankara <\/i>is
\nborn in high places and the nation first and the rulers afterwards go to perdition. This is what has happened in India under the
\npresent regime. The bureaucracy has ruled in the spirit of a mercantile power, holding its position by aid of mercenaries,
\nafraid of its subjects, with no confidence in its destiny, with no trust even in the mercenaries who support it, piling up gold with
\none hand, with the other holding a borrowed sword over the head of a fallen people. It has sought its strength not in the
\nmission with which God had entrusted it, nor in the greatness of England, her mastery of the ocean, her pride of unconquered
\nprowess, her just and sympathetic principle of government, but in the weakness of the people. The strength of England has been
\nheld as a threat in the background, not as a source of quiet and unostentatious self-confidence which enable the rulers to be
\ngenerous as well as just. The liberal principles of English rule have been chanted as a sort of magic
\nmantra <\/i>to hypnotise the
\nnation into willing subjection, not used as a living principle of government. What have been the real sources of bureaucratic
\nstrength? An arms act, a corrupt and oppressive police, an army of spies, a mercenary military force officered by Englishmen, a
\npeople emasculated, kept ignorant, out of the world’s life, poor, intimidated, abjectly under the thumb of the police constable or
\nthe provincial prefect. Such a principle of rule cannot endure. It contradicts the law of God and offends the reason of man; it is
\nas unprofitable as it is selfish and heartless.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe nation which has passed through a century of such a
\nmisgovernment must necessarily have degenerated. The bureaucracy has taken care to destroy every centre of strength not
\nsubservient to itself. A nation politically disorganised, a nation morally corrupted, intellectually pauperised, physically broken
\nand stunted is the result of a hundred years of British rule, the account which England can give before God of the trust which
\nHe placed in her hands. The condition of the people is the one answer to all the songs of praise which the bureaucrats sing
\n   
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\n <\/p>\n

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\n\tof their rule, which the people of England chorus with such a
\nsmug self-satisfaction and which even foreign peoples echo in the tune of admiration and praise. But for us the people who
\nhave suffered, the victims of the miserable misuse which bureaucrats have made of the noblest opportunity God ever gave to a
\nnation, the song has no longer any charm, the mantra <\/i>has lost its hypnotic force, the spell has ceased to work. While we could
\nwe deceived ourselves, but we can deceive ourselves no longer. Pain is a terrible disillusioner and the pangs which had come
\nupon us were those of approaching dissolution. It was at the last moment, when further delay would have meant death, that
\na higher than earthly physician administered through a proud viceroy the potent poison of Partition and saved the life of India.
\nThe treatment of the disease has been drastic and will continue to be drastic. There are those who dream of mild remedies,
\nwhose beautiful souls will not bear to think of the fierceness of strife, hatred and agony which a revolution implies; but strong
\npoisons are the only salvation in desperate diseases and we fear that without these poisons India will not easily or ever recover
\nfrom the fatal and consuming disease which has overtaken her. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tWhat will support her under the stress of the agony she will
\nhave to undergo? What strength will help her to shake off the weaknesses which have crowded in on her? How will she raise
\nherself from the dust whom a thousand shackles bind down? Only the strength of a superhuman ideal, only the gigantic force
\nof a superhuman will, only the vehemence of an effort which transcends all that man has done and approaches divinity. Where
\nwill she find that strength, that force, that vehemence? In herself. We have seen Ramamurti, the modern Bhimasen, lie motionless,
\nresistant, with a superhuman force of will power acting through the muscles while two carts loaded with men are driven over
\nhis body. India must undergo an ordeal of passive endurance far more terrible without relaxing a single fibre of her frame.
\nWe have seen Ramamurti break over his chest a strong iron chain tightened round his whole body and break it by the sheer
\nforce of will working through the body. India must work a similar deliverance for herself by the same inner force. It is not
\n   <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\tby strength of body that Ramamurti accomplishes his feats, for
\nhe is not stronger than many athletes who could never do what he does daily, but by faith and will. India has in herself a faith of
\nsuperhuman virtue to accomplish miracles, to deliver herself out of irrefragable bondage, to bring God down upon earth. She has
\na secret of will power which no other nation possesses. All she needs to rouse in her that faith, that will, is an ideal which will
\ninduce her to make the effort. That ideal is now being preached by Srijut Bipin Chandra Pal in every speech he delivers and never
\nhas it been delivered with such beauty of expression, such a passion of earnestness and pathos, such a sublimity of feeling as at
\nUttarpara on Sunday when he addressed a meeting of the people in the compound of the Uttarpara Library. The ideal is that of
\nhumanity in God, of God in humanity, the ancient ideal of the sanatana dharma
\n<\/i>but applied as it has never been applied before
\nto the problem of politics and the work of national revival. To realise that ideal, to impart it to the world is the mission of
\nIndia. She has evolved a religion which embraces all that the heart, the brain, the practical faculty of man can desire but she
\nhas not yet applied it to the problems of modern politics. This therefore is the work which she has still to do before she can
\nhelp humanity; the necessity of this mission is the justification for her resurgence, the great incentive of saving herself to save
\nmankind is the native power which will give her the force, the strength, the vehemence which can alone enable her to realise
\nher destiny. No lesser ideal will help her through the stress of the terrible ordeal which she will in a few years be called to
\nface. No hope less pure will save her from the demoralisation which follows revolutionary strife, the growth of passions, a
\nviolent selfishness, sanguinary hatred, insufferable licence, the disruption of moralities, the resurgence of the tiger in man which
\na great revolution is apt to foster. Srijut Bipin Chandra speaks under an inspiration which he himself is unable to resist. The
\npublic wish to hear him on Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education,\u2014 the old subjects of his unparalleled eloquence,\u2014 and he himself may desire to speak on them, but the voice of a prophet is not his own to speak the thing he will, but another’s
\n   
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

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\n

\n\tto speak the thing he must. India needed the gospel of Swaraj,
\nSwadeshi, Boycott and National Education to nerve her to her first effort, but now that she is drawing nearer to the valley of
\nthe shadow of Death she needs a still mightier inspiration, a still more enthusiastic and all-conquering faith. The people have not
\nyet understood, but the power to understand is in them, and if any voice can awake that power, it is Bipin Chandra’s.
\n    <\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 1018<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 7th, 1908 }   The New Ideal   The need of a great ideal was never more keenly felt than…<\/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-2878","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\/2878","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=2878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}