{"id":2894,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2894"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:25","slug":"70-bande-mataram-6-5-07-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\/70-bande-mataram-6-5-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-70_Bande Mataram 6-5-07.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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

\n

\n\t
\n\t{
\n\tCALCUTTA, May 6th, 1907 }
\n\t<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nLook on This Picture, Then on That
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nBritain, the benevolent, Britain, the mother of Parliaments, Britain, the champion of liberty, Britain, the deliverer of the
\nslave,\u2014 such was the sanctified and legendary figure which we have been trained to keep before our eyes from the earliest years
\nof our childhood. Our minds imbued through and through with the colours of that legend, we cherished a faith in the justice
\nand benevolence of Britain more profound, more implicit, more a very part of our beings than the faith of the Christian in
\nChrist or of the Mahomedan in his Prophet. Officials might be oppressive, Viceroys and Lieutenant-Governors reactionary, the
\nSecretary of State obdurate, Parliament indifferent, the British public careless, but our faith was not to be shaken. If
\nAnglo-India was unkind, we wooed the British people in India itself. If the British people failed us, we said that it was because the Conservatives were in power. If a Liberal Secretary showed himself no less obdurate, we set it down to his personal failings and
\nconfidently awaited justice from a Liberal Government in which he should have no part. If the most Radical of Radical Secretaries
\ncondemned us to age-long subjection to a paternal and absolute bureaucracy, we whispered to the people, “Wait, wait; Britain,
\nthe true Britain, the generous, the benevolent, the lover and giver of freedom, is only sleeping; she shall awake again and we
\nshall see her angelic and transfigured beauty.” Where precisely was this Britain we believed in, no man could say, but we would
\nnot give up our faith. “Credo quia impossibile”;\u2014 I believe because it is impossible, had become our political creed. Other
\ncountries might be selfish, violent, greedy, tyrannical, unjust; in other countries politics might be a continual readjustment 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n of conflicting interests and clashing strengths. But Britain, the
\nBritain of our dreams, was guided only by the light of truth and justice and reason; high ideals, noble impulses, liberal instincts,
\nthese were the sole guides of her political actions,\u2014 by the lustre of these bright moral fires she guided her mighty steps through
\nan admiring and worshipping world. That was the dream; and so deeply had it lodged in our imaginations that not only the
\nprofessed Loyalists, the men of moderation, but even the leading Nationalists, those branded as Extremists, could not altogether
\nshake off its influence. Only recently Srijut Bipin Chandra Pal at Rajamundry told his hearers that those who thought the British
\nGovernment would crush us if we tried by passive resistance to make administration impossible, held too low an opinion
\nof British character and British civilisation. We fancy Srijut Bipin Chandra watching from the south the welter of official
\nanarchy in East Bengal and the Punjab must have modified to a certain extent his trust in the bearing-power of British
\nhigh-mindedness. We ourselves, though we had our own views about British character and civilisation, have allowed ourselves
\nto speculate whether it was not just possible that the British bureaucracy might be sufficiently tender of their reputation to
\navoid extreme, violent and arbitrary measures.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n \tThat was the dream. The reality to which we awake, is
\nRawalpindi and Jamalpur. The events in the Punjab are an instructive lesson in the nature of bureaucratic rule. The Punjab
\nhas, since the Mutiny, been a quiet, loyal and patient province; whatever burdens have been laid on it, its people have borne
\nwithout complaint; whatever oppression might go on, it gave rise to no such clamour and agitation as the least arbitrary act
\nwould be met with in Bengal. How have the bureaucracy treated this loyal and quiet people? What fruit have they reaped from
\ntheir loyalty, the men who saved the British Empire in 1857? Intolerable burdens, insolent treatment, rude oppression. The
\nAnglo-Indian cry is that disloyal Bengal has infected loyal Punjab with the virus of sedition. Undoubtedly, the new spirit which has
\ngone out like a mighty fire from Bengal lighting up the whole of India, has found its most favourable ground in the Punjab; but 
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\ta fire does not burn without fuel, and where there is the most
\nrevolutionary spirit, there, we can always be sure, has been the most oppression. The water tax, the land laws, the Colonisation
\nAct legalising the oppressions and illegalities under which the Punjab landholders and peasantry have groaned, had generated
\nthe feeling of an intolerable burden, and when a few fearless men brought to the people the message of self-help, the good
\ntidings that in their own hands lay their own salvation, the men of the Punjab found again their ancient spirit and determined to
\nstand upright in the strength of their manhood. They committed no act of violence, they broke no law. They confined themselves
\nto sending in a statement of their grievances to the Government and passively abstaining from the use of the Canal water so
\nthat the bureaucracy might not benefit by an iniquitous tax. The rulers of India know well that if passive resistance is permitted,
\nthe artificial fabric of bureaucratic despotism will fall down like the walls of Jericho before mere sound, with the mere breath of
\na people’s revolution. To save the situation, they resorted to the usual device of stifling the voice of the people into silence. On
\na frivolous pretext they struck at the Punjabee<\/i>. The only result was that the calm resolution of the people received its first tinge
\nof fierce indignation. Then the bureaucracy hurriedly resolved to lop off the tall heads\u2014 the policy of the tyrant Tarquin which
\nis always the resort of men without judgment or statesmanship. Lala Hansraj, one of the most revered and beloved of the Punjab
\nleaders, a man grown grey in the quiet and selfless service of his country, Ajit Singh, the nationalist orator, and other men
\nof repute and leading were publicly threatened with prosecution and imprisonment as criminals and an enquiry begun with
\ngreat pomp and circumstance. Then followed a phenomenon unprecedented, we think, in recent Indian history. For the first
\ntime the man in the workshop and the man in the street have risen in revolt for purely political reasons in anger at an attack
\non purely political leaders. The distinction, which Anglo-India has striven to draw between the `Babu class’ and the people, has
\nin the Punjab ceased to exist. It was probably the panic at this alarming phenomenon which hurried the Punjab Government 
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\ninto an extraordinary <\/span>
\n coup d’\u00e9tat<\/i><\/span>, also unprecedented in recent Indian history. The result is that we have a strange companion
\npicture to that dream of a benevolent and angelic Britain,\u2014 a city of unarmed men terrorised by the military, the leaders of the
\npeople hurried from their daily avocations to prison, siege-guns pointed at the town, police rifles ready to fire on any group of five
\nmen or more to be seen in the street, bail refused to respectable pleaders and barristers from sheer terror of their influence. Look
\non this picture, then on that!
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n And what next? It is too early to say. This much only is
\ncertain that a new stage begins in the struggle between democracy and bureaucracy, a new chapter opens in the history of the
\nprogress of Indian Nationalism.  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 384<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, May 6th, 1907 }   Look on This Picture, Then on That   Britain, the benevolent, Britain, the mother of Parliaments,…<\/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-2894","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\/2894","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=2894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}