{"id":313,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=313"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:16","slug":"011-its-necessity-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\/011-its-necessity-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-011_Its Necessity.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nTHREE<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nIts Necessity<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/font>
\n                 <\/font><\/span>      
\n<\/font> <\/font><\/span>W<\/font><\/span><\/b>E
\nHAVE<\/b> defined, so far, the occasion and the ultimate object of the passive
\nresistance we preach. It is the only effective means, except actual armed
\nrevolt, by which the organised strength of the nation, gathering to a powerful
\ncentral authority and guided by the principle of self-development and self-help,
\ncan wrest the control of our national life from the grip of an alien
\nbureaucracy, and thus, developing into a free popular Government, naturally
\nreplace the bureaucracy it extrudes until the process culminates in a
\nself-governed India, liberated from foreign control. The mere effort at
\nself-development unaided by some kind of resistance, will not materially help us
\ntowards our goal. Merely by developing national schools and colleges we shall
\nnot induce or force the bureaucracy to give up to us the control of education.
\nMerely by attempting to expand some of our trades and industries, we shall not
\ndrive out the British exploiter or take from the British Government its
\nsovereign power of regulating, checking or killing the growth of Swadeshi
\nindustries by the imposition of judicious taxes and duties and other methods
\nalways open to the controller of a country’s finance and legislation. Still less
\nshall we be able by that harmless means to get for ourselves the control of
\ntaxation and expenditure. Nor shall we, merely by establishing our own
\narbitration courts, oblige the alien control to give up the elaborate and
\nlucrative system of Civil and Criminal Judicature which at once emasculates the
\nnation and makes it pay heavily for its own emasculation. In none of these
\nmatters is the bureaucracy likely to budge an inch from its secure position
\nunless it is forcibly persuaded. The control of the young mind in its most
\nimpressionable period is of vital importance to the continuance of the hypnotic
\nspell by which alone the foreign domination manages to subsist; the exploitation
\nof the country is the<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-95<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nchief reason for its existence; the control of the judiciary is one of its chief
\ninstruments of repression. None of these things can it yield up without bringing
\nitself nearer to its doom. It is only by organised national resistance, passive
\nor aggressive, that we can make our self-development effectual. For if the
\nself-help movement only succeeds in bringing about some modification of
\neducational methods, some readjustment of the balance of trade, some alleviation
\nof the curse of litigation, then, whatever else it may have succeeded in doing,
\nit will have failed of its main object. The new school at least have not
\nadvocated the policy of self-development merely out of a disinterested ardour
\nfor moral improvement or under the spur of an inoffensive philanthropic
\npatriotism. This attitude they leave to saints and philosophers, \u2014 saints like
\nthe editor of the Indian Mirror <\/i>or philosophers like the ardent Indian
\nLiberals who sit at the feet of Mr. John Morley. They for their part speak and
\nwrite frankly as politicians aiming at a definite and urgent political object by
\na way which shall be reasonably rapid and yet permanent in its results. We may
\nhave our own educational theories; but we advocate national education not as an
\neducational experiment or to subserve any theory, but as the only way to secure
\ntruly national and patriotic control and discipline for the mind of the country
\nin its malleable youth. We desire industrial expansion, but Swadeshi without
\nboycott, \u2014 non-political Swadeshi, \u2014 Lord Minto’s "honest" Swadeshi
\n\u2014<\/span>
\n<\/span>has no attractions for us; since we know that it can bring no safe and
\npermanent national gain; \u2014 that can only be secured by the industrial and fiscal
\nindependence of the Indian nation. Our immediate problem as a nation is not how
\nto be intellectual and well-informed or how to be rich and industrious, but how
\nto stave off imminent national death, how to put an end to the white peril, how
\nto assert ourselves and live. It is for this reason that whatever minor
\ndifferences there may be between different exponents of the new spirit, they are
\nall agreed on the immediate necessity of an organised national resistance to
\nthe state of things which is crushing us out of existence as a nation and on the
\none goal of that resistance, \u2014 freedom.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Organised national resistance to existing conditions, whether directed
\nagainst the system of Government as such or against<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-96<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nsome particular feature of it, has three courses open to it. It may attempt to
\nmake administration under existing conditions impossible by an organised passive
\nresistance. This was the policy initiated by the genius of Parnell when by the
\nplan of campaign he prevented the payment of rents in Ireland and by persistent
\nobstruction hampered the transaction of any but Irish business in Westminster.
\nIt may attempt to make administration under existing conditions impossible by an
\norganised aggressive resistance in the shape of an untiring and implacable
\ncampaign of assassination and a confused welter of riots, strikes and agrarian
\nrisings all over the country. This is the spectacle we have all watched with
\nsuch eager interest in Russia. We have seen the most absolute autocrat and the
\nmost powerful and ruthless bureaucracy in the world still in unimpaired
\npossession of all the most effective means of repression, yet beaten to the
\nknees by the determined resistance of an unarmed nation. It has mistakenly been
\nsaid that the summoning of the Duma was a triumph for passive resistance. But
\nthe series of strikes on a gigantic scale which figured so largely in the final
\nstages of the struggle was only one feature of that widespread, desperate and
\nunappeasable anarchy which led to the first triumph of Russian liberty. Against
\nsuch an anarchy the mightiest and best-organised Government must necessarily
\nfeel helpless; its repression would demand a systematic and prolonged course of
\nmassacre on a colossal scale the prospect of which would have paralysed the
\nvigour of the most ruthless and energetic despotism even of mediaeval times.
\nOnly by concessions and compromises could such a resistance be overcome. The
\nthird course open to an oppressed nation is that of armed revolt, which instead
\nof bringing existing conditions to an end by making their continuance impossible
\nsweeps them bodily out of existence. This is the old time-honoured method which
\nthe oppressed or enslaved have always adopted by preference in the past, and
\nwill adopt in the future if they see any chance of success; for it is the
\nreadiest and swiftest, the most thorough in its results, and demands the least
\npowers of endurance and suffering and the smallest and briefest sacrifices.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The choice by a subject nation of the means it will use for vindicating
\nits liberty, is best determined by the circumstances of<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-97<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nits servitude. The present circumstances in India seem to point to passive
\nresistance as our most natural and suitable weapon. We would not for a moment be
\nunderstood to base this conclusion upon any condemnation of other methods as in
\nall circumstances criminal and unjustifiable. It is the common habit of
\nestablished Governments and especially those which are themselves oppressors, to
\nbrand all violent methods in subject peoples and communities as criminal and
\nwicked. When you have disarmed your slaves and legalised the infliction of
\nbonds, stripes and death on any one of them, man, woman or child, who may dare to
\nspeak or to act against you, it is natural and convenient to try and lay a moral
\nas well as a legal ban on any attempt to answer violence by violence, the knout
\nby the revolver, the prison by riot or agrarian rising, the gallows by the
\ndynamite bomb. But no nation yet has listened to the cant of the oppressor when
\nitself put to the test, and the general conscience of humanity approves the
\nrefusal. Under certain circumstances a civil struggle becomes in reality a
\nbattle and the morality of war is different from the morality of peace. To
\nshrink from bloodshed and violence under such circumstances is a weakness
\ndeserving as severe a rebuke as Sri Krishna addressed to Arjuna when he shrank
\nfrom the colossal civil slaughter on the field of Kurukshetra. Liberty is the
\nlife-breath of a nation; and when the life is attacked, when it is sought to
\nsuppress all chance of breathing by violent pressure, any and every means of
\nself-preservation becomes right and justifiable,
\n<\/span>\u2014<\/span>
\n<\/span>just as it is lawful for a man who is being strangled to rid himself of
\nthe pressure on his throat by any means in his power. It is the nature of the
\npressure which determines the nature of the resistance. Where, as in Russia, the
\ndenial of liberty is enforced by legalised murder and outrage, or, as in Ireland
\nformerly, by brutal coercion, the answer of violence to violence is justified
\nand inevitable. Where the need for immediate liberty is urgent and it is a
\npresent question of national life or death on the instant, revolt is the only
\ncourse. But where the oppression is legal and subtle in its methods and respects
\nlife, liberty and property and there is still breathing time, the circumstances
\ndemand that we should make the experiment of a method of resolute but peaceful
\nresistance which, while less bold and aggressive than<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-98<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nother methods, calls for perhaps as much heroism of a kind and certainly more
\nuniversal endurance and suffering. In other methods, a daring minority purchase
\nwith their blood the freedom of the millions; but for passive resistance it is
\nnecessary that all should share in the struggle and the privation.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>This peculiar character of passive resistance is one reason why it has
\nfound favour with the thinkers of the New Party. There are certain moral
\nqualities necessary to self-government which have become atrophied by long
\ndisuse in our people and can only be restored either by the healthy air of a
\nfree national life in which alone they can permanently thrive or by their
\nvigorous exercise in the intensity of a national struggle for freedom. If by any
\npossibility the nation can start its career of freedom with a fully developed
\nunity and strength, it will certainly have a better chance of immediate
\ngreatness hereafter. Passive resistance affords the best possible training for
\nthese qualities. Something also is due to our friends, the enemy. We have
\nourselves made them reactionary and oppressive and deserved the Government we
\npossess. The reason why even a radical opportunist like Mr. Morley refuses us
\nself-government is not that he does not believe in India’s fitness for
\nself-government, but that he does not believe in India’s determination to be
\nfree; on the contrary, the whole experience of the past shows that we have not
\nbeen in earnest in our demand for self-government. We should put our
\ndetermination beyond a doubt and thereby give England a chance of redeeming her
\nancient promises, made when her rule was still precarious and unstable. For the
\nrest, circumstances still favour the case of passive resistance. In spite of
\noccasional Fullerism, the bureaucracy has not yet made up its mind to a Russian
\nsystem of repression. It is true that for India also it is now a question of
\nnational life or death. Morally and materially she has been brought to the verge
\nof exhaustion and decay by the bureaucratic rule and any farther acquiescence in
\nservitude will result in that death-sleep of centuries from which a nation, if
\nit ever awakes at all, awakes emaciated, feeble and unable to resume its true
\nrank in the list of the peoples. But there is still time to try the effect of an
\nunited and unflinching pressure of passive resistance. The resistance, if it is
\nto be of any use, must be united and un-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-99<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\nflinching. If from any timidity or selfishness or any mistaken ideas of caution
\nand moderation, our Moderate patriots succeed in breaking the unity and
\nweakening the force of the resistance, the movement will fail and <\/p>\n

India<\/p>\n

will sink into those last depths of degradation when only desperate remedies
\nwill be of any utility. The advocates of self-development and defensive
\nresistance are no extremists but are trying to give the country its last chance
\nof escaping the necessity of extremism. Defensive resistance is the sole
\nalternative to that ordeal of sanguinary violence on both sides through which
\nall other countries, not excepting the Moderates\u2019 exemplar <\/p>\n

England, have been compelled to pass, only at last "embracing <\/p>\n

Liberty<\/p>\n

over a heap of corpses".<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-100<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THREE Its Necessity                              WE HAVE defined, so far, the occasion and the ultimate object of the passive resistance we preach. It is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","wpcat-8-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313","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=313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}