{"id":294,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:09","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=294"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:09","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:09","slug":"130-swaraj-and-the-coming-anarchy-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/130-swaraj-and-the-coming-anarchy-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-130_Swaraj and the Coming Anarchy.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nSwaraj and the Coming Anarchy<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>W<\/font><\/span>HOEVER<\/font><\/b>
\ntries to read the signs of the time, will be no little perplexed at first by
\ntheir complexity. The beginnings of a great revolution which is destined to
\nchange the whole political, social, and economic life of a great country, are
\nalways full of ebb and flow, perplexing by the multitude of details and their
\ncontinual interaction. The struggle going on at Tuticorin exemplifies this
\nremarkable diversity and intermingling of numerous tendencies each of which
\nwould, in ordinary times, be a separate movement. Society is full of anomalies
\nwhich clash and jostle together in an inextricable chaos of progress and
\nreaction; economic India is in the throes of a violent transition from the old
\nmediaeval basis of life to the modern; politics is at a parting of the ways. All
\nthese various and independent activities of the Indian body politic unite into a
\nhuge and confused movement of which the main impulse is political and the others
\nare largely inspired, if not motived, by the passions which are at the root of
\nthe political upheaval. Great issues of economics wear the guise of a political
\nconflict; immense political aspirations become mixed up with a purely industrial
\nstruggle between indigenous labour and foreign capital. So also in society the
\nold reform movement which was a separate and ineffectual attempt to transform
\nour society according to European ideas, has given place to disquiet and
\naspiration in the society itself. So long the educated men of the upper castes
\ndebated among themselves about the better ordering of society, and outside
\nBengal and the Punjab it was no better than an academic dispute on the Social
\nConference platform or between the reforming and orthodox Press. Even in Bengal
\nand the Punjab, the movement was sectional, a revolt of a small minority of the
\neducated few, and did not touch the heart of the people. So far as society as a
\nwhole was affected, it was by the new environments of the nineteenth century
\nbringing an irresistible pressure to bear on its outworks, and sometimes by the
\nforce of economical necessity born of the mo-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-728<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\ndern
\nconditions of India under British rule. The change was from outside and
\ntherefore injurious rather than beneficial, for an organism is doomed which,
\nincapable of changing from within, answers only to the pressure of environment.
\nBut this immobile state of Hindu society has now begun to pass away and we see
\nthe beginning of a profound and incalculable life in the heart of the great
\norganism. Yesterday we hardly needed to reckon with the lower strata of society
\nin our political life; today they are beginning to live, to move, to have a dim
\ninarticulate hope and to grope for air and room. That is a sign of coming social
\nrevolution in which neither the conservative forces of society nor the liberal
\nsympathies of the educated few will have much voice. The forces that are being unprisoned will upheave the whole of our society with a volcanic force and the
\nshape it will take after the eruption is over does not depend on the wishes or
\nthe wisdom of men. These social stirrings also are mingling with the political
\nunrest to increase the confusion. The question of the Namasudras in Bengal has
\nbecome a political as well as a social problem and in other parts of the country
\nalso the line between politics and social questions is threatened with
\nobliteration.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The future is not in our hands. When so huge a problem stares us in the
\nface, we become conscious of the limits of human discernment and wisdom. We at
\nonce feel that the motions of humanity
\nare determined by forces and not by individuals and <\/span>that
\nthe intellect and experience of statesmen are merely instruments in the hands of
\nthe Power which manifests itself in those great incalculable forces. In ordinary
\ntimes, we are apt to forget this and to account for all that happens as the
\nresult of this statesman’s foresight or that genius dynamic personality. But in
\ntimes like the present we find it less easy to shut our eyes to the truth. We do
\nnot affect to believe, therefore, that we can discover any solution of these
\ngreat problems or any sure line of policy by which the tangled issues of so
\nimmense a movement can be kept free from the possibility of inextricable anarchy
\nin the near future. Anarchy will come. This peaceful and inert nation is going
\nto be rudely awakened from a century of passivity and flung into a world-shaking
\nturmoil out of which it will come transformed,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-729<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nstrengthened
\nand purified. There is a chaos which is the result of inertia and the prelude of
\ndeath, and this was the state of India during the last century. The British
\npeace of the last fifty years was like the quiet green grass and flowers
\ncovering the corruption of a sepulchre. There is another chaos which is the
\nviolent reassertion of life and it is this chaos into which India is being
\nhurried today. We cannot repine at the change, but are rather ready to welcome
\nthe pangs which help the storm which purifies, the destruction which renovates.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>One thing only we are sure of, and one thing we wear as a life-belt which
\nwill buoy us up on the waves of the chaos that is coming on the land. This is
\nthe fixed and unalterable faith in an over-ruling Purpose which is raising India
\nonce more from the dead, the fixed and unalterable intention to fight for the
\nrenovation of her ancient life and glory. Swaraj is the life-belt, Swaraj the
\npilot, Swaraj the star of guidance. If a great social revolution is necessary,
\nit is because the ideal of Swaraj cannot be accomplished by a nation bound to
\nforms which are no longer expressive of the ancient and immutable Self of India.
\nShe must change the rags of the past so that her beauty may be readorned. She
\nmust alter her bodily appearance so that her soul may be newly expressed. We
\nneed not fear that any change will turn her into a second-hand Europe. Her
\nindividuality is too mighty for such a degradation, her soul too calm and
\nself-sufficient for such a surrender. If again an economical revolution is
\ninevitable, it is because the fine but narrow edifice of her old industrial life
\nwill not allow of Swaraj in commerce and industry. The industrial energies of a
\nfree and perfect national life demand a mightier scope and wider channels.
\nNeither need we fear that the economic revolution will land us in the same
\ndiseased and disordered state of society as now offends the nobler feelings of
\nhumanity in Europe. India can never so far forget the teaching which is her life
\nand the secret of her immortality as to become a replica of the organised
\nselfishness, cruelty and greed which is dignified in the West by the name of
\nIndustry. She will create her own conditions, find out the secret of order which
\nSocialism in vain struggles to find and teach the peoples of the earth once more
\nhow to harmonise the world and the spirit.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-730<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nIf
\nwe realise this truth, if we perceive in all that is happening a great and
\nmomentous transformation necessary not only for us but for the whole world, we
\nshall fling ourselves without fear or misgivings into the times which are upon
\nus. India is the guru <\/i>of the nations, the physician of the human soul in
\nits profounder maladies; she is destined once more to new-mould the life of the
\nworld and restore the peace of the human spirit. But Swaraj is the necessary
\ncondition of her work and before she can do the work, she must fulfil the
\ncondition.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> March 5, 1908<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font>731<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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