{"id":2892,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2892"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:25","slug":"120-bande-mataram-19-7-07-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\/120-bande-mataram-19-7-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-120_Bande Mataram 19-7-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n

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

\n

\n\t
\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, July 19th, 1907 }
\n\t<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nA Plague o’ Both Your Houses
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe mellay between the Anglo-Indian Press and the Bengal Government over the dead body of Ganga Uriya shows no sign of
\ndiminishing in intensity. The indignation meeting which was foreshadowed by the
\nDaily News <\/i>is, we are told, to come off in
\nthe Town Hall. We can have no possible objection so long as our only share in this civil strife is to look on as interested spectators
\nand shout “Charge, Fraser, charge! On, Digby, on!” according as our sympathies are enlisted on one side or the other by the
\nmerits of the case or our personal predilections or the gallant bearing of the high and mighty combatants. But it becomes a
\nserious matter when we are asked to join in as allies of Anglo-India and ourselves take a share in the chances of battle. Some
\nof our public men are deceiving themselves into the notion that we ought to make common cause with our natural enemies in
\nthis struggle. We should have thought that the reasons against this suicidal course were too plain to even need formulating; but
\nthen many of our countrymen allow the over-subtlety of their brains acting in a complete void of political experience to cheat
\nthem into strangely foolish courses. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe claim for Indian support to the Anglo-Indians in the Police libel case rests on the assumption that both communities are alike citizens of the same state with the same rights and disabilities on the whole and therefore equally interested in preserving those rights or removing those disabilities. If this were true, we
\nshould freely admit the desirability of supporting our fellow citizens against bureaucratic injustice. We do not indeed consider
\nthat the Daily News <\/i>has been unjustly mulcted, if justice and law be identical and convertible terms. The judgment of Justice
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 601<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tChitty seems to us to be a fair and judicial application of the law
\non the subject to the particular case. But then a large part of the law in India is unjust, repressive and even monstrously severe,
\nand it is to the interest of the people, if they cannot get these laws altered, at least to insist on seeing that they are administered not
\nin the letter but under the modifying influence of the spirit of equity. The Anglo-Indians are therefore justified in challenging
\nthe action of the Government and the spirit in which the case has been engineered and decided. But unfortunately, this which
\nwould be the whole matter in a free country, is a very small part of it in India. What is it that Anglo-India is fighting for? What
\nis it that we shall be helping to establish if we support her? It is not the independence of the Press, it is not the common rights of
\nthe citizen. Anglo-India is a determined enemy of the freedom of the Indian Press, she is always howling for the repression of
\nfree speech in matters political and for savage punishments to be meted out to Indian speakers and journalists; and even in
\nnon-political matters, if it were only Indian journals that were being prosecuted, she would not care a button or stir a finger
\nto help them. Anglo-India is equally a determined opponent of the rights of citizens being extended to Indians, a consistent
\nsupporter of despotic and personal rule. And she is so because she has felt confident that the Press repression and administrative coercion she advocated would not be applied against her, rather she would herself be the power behind the throne. This
\nconfidence has received a rude and startling shock. Hence her rage and outcry, hence this howling of wolves for the blood
\nof Sir Andrew Fraser. What Anglo-India is fighting for is the independence of the Anglo-Indian Press, and that only as part
\nof the Anglo-Indian supremacy. She is fighting for her exemption from the laws and the administrative severity which she desires
\nto see savagely applied to us. She is fighting against her being put on the same level as her Indian fellow-subjects. Is this an
\nobject in which we can support her? She wishes us to support her in vindicating her independence and supremacy which she
\nwill use in binding the chains tighter on ourselves. Are we going to be such idiots as to help her in her game?
\n   
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 602<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\tThe spirit in which Anglo-India is fighting has hardly been
\nconcealed. The Daily News <\/i>has frankly said that despotism is necessary as against the people of India, but that it is limited as
\nagainst men of English birth by the ultimate supremacy of the English people of whom, it is hinted, the Anglo-Indians are a
\npart. The question is not so easy as all that. The supreme power, the sovereignty, maker of the laws and above the laws, in India
\nis the conjoint power of the British Parliament and the Anglo-Indian bureaucracy, the latter receiving its authority from the
\nformer, but in practice exercising the whole sovereignty. Every sovereign, however, rests his sovereignty on some support in the
\ncountry or outside it, and our sovereign the bureaucracy rests on the support, for extraordinary occasions, of the people of
\nEngland and for ordinary purposes on that of the Indian police and army and the Anglo-Indian community. If the Indian police
\nand military revolt or are unable to maintain the sovereign, a life and death crisis supervenes and the British army has to be called
\nin to restore the balance. But ordinarily the Indian police and military and especially the former are of supreme importance,
\nmuch more so than the unofficial Anglo-Indians who can only give a valuable but not indispensable moral support. In order
\ntherefore to secure and make the most of its chief support, the sovereign bureaucracy must itself support the police even against
\nAnglo-India. But Anglo-India is not satisfied with this position; she puts a high value on her support and desires to share the
\nsovereignty informally, through the Press and the Chambers of Commerce. This is a natural desire, but why should we help her
\nto attain it? If the bureaucracy is supreme, we suffer, but if the weight of a triumphant and dominant Anglo-India is added to
\nthe weight of the bureaucracy we shall be oppressed indeed. Our business is to develop our own strength so that we may get the
\nsovereignty for ourselves and not help either of our enemies to our own hurt. A plague o’ both our houses is the only sensible
\nattitude for us in the question between the Government and the Anglo-Indian community which the Police Libel Case has raised.
\n    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 603<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, July 19th, 1907 }   A Plague o’ Both Your Houses   The mellay between the Anglo-Indian Press and the Bengal…<\/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-2892","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\/2892","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=2892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}