{"id":2904,"date":"2013-07-13T01:44:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2904"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:44:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:44:29","slug":"162-bande-mataram-3-12-07-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\/162-bande-mataram-3-12-07-vol-06-07-bande-mataram","title":{"rendered":"-162_Bande Mataram 3-12-07.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, December 3rd, 1907 }
\n\t<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n
\nPersonality or Principle?
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nOur contemporary, the Punjabee<\/i>, has in its last issue a balanced and carefully impartial comment on the Congress trouble and
\nthe action of the All-India Congress Committee, or rather of Sir Pherozshah Mehta in the exercise of his role of Congress
\nLion and Dictator. There is one remark of our contemporary’s, however, which seems to us unfair to the Nationalist party and
\nwith which therefore we feel bound to join issue. He censures the Nagpur Nationalists for forcing on a division in the camp over
\na personal question like the election of Mr. Tilak as President. The question of the Presidentship is, in his opinion, not only a
\npurely personal issue but also extremely trivial, as the President has no function of importance and a democratic body like the
\nCongress ought not to make a vital issue out of a nomination to a purely honorific post. We have already given our reasons
\nfor originally raising and still persisting in this question and we again assert that we are not swayed in the slightest degree by
\npersonal questions. It will not raise Mr. Tilak in our eyes if he becomes President, it will not lower him in our eyes if he is never
\nnominated. To a certain extent the Presidentship is a position of honour, and so far as it is so, a man of ability and reputation, an
\nacknowledged leader and moulder of opinion who has suffered courageously for the country is entitled to that honour. But that
\nis not the position we take. The Presidentship is in our view much more a position of responsibility and service. We cannot
\nagree that it is of no importance who is chosen to fill the chair, even if the Congress be a democratic body, which, as at present
\nconstituted and conducted, it is not. In no democratic assembly is the choice of the President, whether he be a virtual ruler, as 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 765<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n in America, or only a moderator, as in France, a question of no
\nimportance. Our Congress is not as yet either a deliberative or a legislative body, but even so the Presidentship is a function of
\nconsiderable importance. The President is the embodiment to all observers of the dignity and personality of that year’s session and
\nas such his address, though it may not be binding on the whole body, is an utterance of great weight and is or ought to be largely
\nindicative of the national temper and policy. The Congress shows the importance it attaches to his address by devoting the first
\nday to it, an arrangement which, if the address has no weight or value as a manifesto of Congress views and policy, is an
\nabsurd and reprehensible waste of time. Besides, the President is a moderator of debate in the Subjects Committee, and of
\nrule and decorum in the public sitting. When divided views are before the national gathering it depends on him whether all
\nsides shall get a fair hearing and a chance of impressing their views on the Congress. We raised the question of Mr. Tilak’s
\nPresidentship at a time when Swadeshi was the question before the country partly in order that the most powerful Swadeshi
\nworker in the country might pronounce for Swadeshi from the President’s chair and the Congress by electing him might show
\nits sympathy with the movement. We made no secret of our object at the time and it was certainly not of a personal nature.
\nBut there was a second point at issue which was in the minds of all though it was never formulated, and this too was a point
\nof principle, viz. that the Congress should not in any of its actions be influenced by the desire of bureaucratic favour or
\nthe fear of bureaucratic displeasure, that it should declare its complete independence as a body which looked to the people
\nalone and not to the bureaucracy. This could not be better done than by the election of a great man and leader who was not a
\npersona grata with the bureaucrats and had undergone sentence of imprisonment for the crime of patriotism. That is the real
\ndifficulty in the way of the Moderates’ accepting Mr. Tilak and it is equally the reason why the Nationalists refuse to give up
\ntheir point. An apparently personal question often conceals one of essential principle, even when the person is not as in this case 
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 766<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n\ta great patriot and leader. It was not for profligate John Wilkes
\nthat the people of Middlesex fought in the eighteenth century but for the liberty of the Press which was attacked in his person.
\nWe too fight not for honour to be done to a man however great and noble, but for the liberty of the Congress from all shadow of
\nbureaucratic influence and its new-creation as an independent, popular and democratic assembly. 
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n  <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tPage \u2013 767<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, December 3rd, 1907 }   Personality or Principle?   Our contemporary, the Punjabee, has in its last issue a balanced and…<\/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-2904","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\/2904","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=2904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}