{"id":2897,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:26","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2897"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:26","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:26","slug":"128-bande-mataram-7-8-07-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\/128-bande-mataram-7-8-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-128_Bande Mataram 7-8-07.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, August 7th, 1907 }
\n\t<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nOur Rulers and Boycott
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nIt is often paradoxically urged that every step or policy which does not conduce to good feeling between the rulers and the
\nruled, the exploiters and the exploited, should be eschewed as both immoral and impolitical. And because Boycott certainly is
\nnot intended as a soothing potion for the rulers, there are some men of an unctuous humanity who look on it with alarm and
\ndistrust. We should love our country, they say, but should not allow that love to generate hatred against other nationalities;
\nwe should prefer our own manufactures and try to improve and extend them, but to eschew foreign goods is damnable. No
\nnation, so runs the cant, can thrive on hatred and ill will,\u2014 though from the facts of History one might much more cogently
\nargue that no nation has ever yet in its international relations thriven on love and philosophy and cosmopolitanism. These
\ncopybook maxims are, of course, meant for the especial benefit of the under-dog in the struggle. They are sometimes trotted out
\nfor the benefit of the rulers, but that is merely as a literary exercise or to fill up the orthodox amount of space required for the
\nleading articles. Nobody seriously expects the English in India to forego any of the manifold and material advantages that are
\nbound up with their despotic possession of the country, merely out of a philanthropic tenderness for the feelings, affections or
\ninterests of the ruled. Nobody really expects them to help the development of indigenous industry at the expense of British
\ncommerce merely because the millions of India are starving and ground down with poverty and miserable and discontented.
\nNobody sincerely thinks that they are going to part with an atom of their arbitrary and absolute power merely because our
\n   
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\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\nabject and servile condition awakes in our people anger and a
\nsettled bitterness and ill-feeling. No, it is only the down-trodden and suffering people of India who are expected to refrain from
\nfollowing the straight line of their national interest and welfare out of a noble and sensitive unwillingness to excite hatred and
\nstrife.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWe have repeatedly said that Boycott is not a gospel of hatred. It is simply an assertion of our independence, our national separateness. But neither do we pretend that we can ask the
\nrulers to overflow with feelings of benevolence for the Boycott or to regard it with kindly neutrality. Boycott has come among
\nus not to bring peace but a sword. And this was inevitable. Until now the discontent, the ill-will, the suffering were all on one
\nside. When one side is depressed, miserable, suffering, while the other thrives and prospers by means of that misery and suffering,
\nwhen one side is denied the use of its capacities and the satisfaction of its aspirations, and the other grows great and glorious
\nand robust by the exercise of the usurped opportunities it has taken from its neighbour, there must be resentment, there must
\nbe antagonism and therefore strife and ill-will and anger. No amount of pious and ethical exhortation will prevent it. When
\na just equality is denied, when the possibility of equal opportunities and equal accomplishment is rigidly excluded, there can
\nbe no real love and good feeling except such as exists between man and some of the lower animals. If there is insensibility on
\none side and indulgent masterfulness on the other, there can be an insulting patronage and a degrading loyalty, but these are
\nanimal emotions rather than the higher ethical feelings. It is only where liberty and a just equality are established that true good
\nfeeling can reign. Those who deny liberty have no right to appeal to the higher feelings or to morality at all, for they are trying
\nto perpetuate for their own selfish ends an essentially immoral condition of things. So long as liberty is denied, there must be
\nthe hatred which the slave always cherishes for his master, and when the attempt to throw off the yoke comes, there must be the
\nyet bitterer hatred which the master feels for his revolted slave. The denial of liberty is therefore doubly and trebly immoral and
\n   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\trestoration of liberty the first condition of peace and good-will.
\nThere has been good feeling between Austria and a free Italy, but between Austria dominant and Italy enslaved it was impossible.
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\tThe English have long been boycotting us in our own country. They boycotted our industries out of existence, they boycotted our noblest capacities into atrophy by denying us any share in the higher activities of national life, they boycotted
\nus in the management of our affairs, in the defence of our country, in the making of its laws. And India impoverished,
\ndegraded, demoralized, did not look with love upon the spoiler. Now the Boycott has commenced upon the other side, but it is
\nnot an act of retaliation merely; it is much more an unravelling of the English
\n\tweb, a retracing of the steps towards perdition which we were forced or
\n\tinduced to take. Shall we continue our course to perdition, shall we refuse
\n\tto retrace our steps because it cannot be done without strife and
\n\till-feeling, because it must temporarily result in a growth of enmity
\n\tbetween class and class? Shall we consent to lie for ever stifled in the
\n\tfatal web because the unweaving of it must enrage the master of the web? No,
\n\tthe curse of alien domination must be worked out, the doom which compels it
\n\tto create hatred in its making and hatred in its unmaking. When natural
\n\trelations have been restored, England and India may stand side by side as
\n\tequals, comrades and allies in the world’s work, but until that is done, it
\n\tis hypocrisy or folly to suppose that we can escape God’s law which makes
\n\tstrife the straight rough way to peace and enmity the father of union. Every
\n\tredeemer or redeeming force has always been compelled to say in the first
\n\tstages of his mission, "I come to bring among you not peace but a sword."
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

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

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tTonight’s Illumination <\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tWe have been asked to intimate to the public that
\n\tilluminations will be a part of the celebration today. We hope that every
\n\thouseholder will illuminate his house as a sign of rejoicing on the birthday
\n\tof Nationalism. 
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
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\n

\n\t
\n\tOur First Anniversary
\n<\/b>
\n\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Bande Mataram <\/i>has completed the first year of its existence. It was started on the 6th of August last year and its anniversary
\nfalls strictly on that date. But it is only in the fitness of things that the organ of Indian Nationalism should choose the birthday
\nof Nationalism in the country for the purpose of observing its anniversary. The 7th of August, therefore, has another importance to the Nationalists of Bengal who brought into existence their accredited journal just in time to hail that historic date.
\nWe shall only be telling the truth if we notice here that the birth of our paper took place under the most favourable auspices. It
\ncame into being in answer to an imperative public need and not to satisfy any private ambition or personal whim; it was born in
\na great and critical hour for the whole nation and has a message to deliver which nothing on earth can prevent it from delivering.
\nThe Bande Mataram <\/i>has been before the public for a year and it has, we believe, rendered a tolerably fair account of itself. It
\nclaims that it has given expression to the will of the people and sketched their ideals and aspirations with the greatest amount
\nof fidelity. It is for this reason that it has received a splendid reception in almost all the provinces of India. The amount of
\nsupport it has got in the first year of its existence surpasses all previous records in Indian journalism. The political ideal of the
\npeople has changed, the desire for freedom is a force to be reckoned with and if anybody has any doubt on the point, success
\nof the Bande Mataram <\/i>should set it at rest. Our constituents are aware of the difficulties in our way and we hope they will stand
\nby us till we shall have fulfilled our mission.   
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 629<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, August 7th, 1907 }   Our Rulers and Boycott   It is often paradoxically urged that every step or policy which…<\/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-2897","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\/2897","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=2897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}