{"id":314,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=314"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:16","slug":"060-the-thunderers-challenge-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\/060-the-thunderers-challenge-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-060_The Thunderer’s Challenge.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nThe Thunderer’s
\n\t\tChallenge<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/b> London Times <\/i>has thrown out to
\nus a far more comprehensive and significant challenge than the deportation of
\nLajpat and all the series of repressions accomplished or contemplated. This
\nThunderer has all this time been watching the growth of national sentiments in
\nthe East with increasing mortification and has at last called out to the surging
\nwaves: "Thus far and no further."<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The British sword, which like King Arthur’s Excalibur should have been
\nthrown into these waves because its work in India, if it had any, is fulfilled
\nand done with, is on the contrary being flourished vigorously as if its mere
\nglitter would frighten the ocean back within its limits. Agitators are menaced
\nand the whole East warned against her discontent with the overlordship of the
\nWest. The Times <\/i>has done well to see the ongoings in the East in their
\nproper perspective and not to belittle them as temporary and sporadic
\ndisturbances. It would have done better still if it had not talked of putting
\nback a world-movement by the suppression of agitation or the waving of a sword
\nin Fleet Street. The
\nsuccess of the "agitators" in bringing such a movement <\/span>
\nto<\/span>
\na <\/span>head should have convinced the Times <\/i>that they are being aided
\nby a higher power than any that Lala Lajpat or Ajit Singh can wield. The Times
\n<\/i>has got a superabundance of faith in its sword. But if it really thinks this
\nmuch-flourished weapon a security against Indian progress, it should keep it
\nwaiting in the scabbard till the time for use. Familiarity breeds contempt and
\nit is scarcely dignified for a power filling so important a place in the eyes of
\nthe world to indulge in puerile vauntings of its own strength in season and out
\nof season. Let it strike at the right moment, if that will help, but
\nunseasonable flourishings and proddings only give strength and speed to a
\nmovement which it is the Englishman’s interest to weaken.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>But England’s folly is India’s advantage. Imprudence and wrong-headedness
\non the part of the one nation are the sure pro-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-365<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nvocatives
\nto courage and manliness on the part of the other. It is in these challenges
\nthat the hope of our speedy salvation lies. National regeneration would have
\nbeen quite an uphill work for us if the alien bureaucracy had continued unmoved
\nin their profession and begun the actual practice of sympathy. But their
\nincreasingly militant attitude is helping the attainment of that solidarity
\nwhich we could hardly have achieved but for this pressure from without.
\nNationalism which is a creed of faith, love and knowledge has no longer to creep
\nin the petty pace of argument and persuasion, but is making rapid strides
\ntowards recognition by the whole people in the overwhelming reaction for which
\nthe present bullying by journals like the Times <\/i>and hasty acts of
\nrepression like those in the Punjab are responsible. The whole of India is
\nturning Nationalist by one swift revolution of feeling. When the Partition
\nagitation of Bengal has created a universal unrest throughout India, when the
\ncry of resistance that emanated from the small district town of Dinajpur in
\nBengal has been adopted by the whole country, united India can no longer be
\ncalled an impossibility. The scepticism about our fitness, the superstition of
\nphilanthropy in politics, are fast disappearing before a dawning
\nrace-consciousness. The insolence of the ruling race and their constant talk of
\nour inability have touched into life even our atrophied amour-propre<\/i>. <\/i>The
\ncovert and open resistance to the Swadeshi-boycott movement has revealed to us
\nthe true nature of foreign sympathy. The events of the last two years have
\ncompleted our political education.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>We used to be much exercised how to bring on that struggle which alone
\ncan call forth the energies of body and soul in a subject people. For
\ncircumstanced as we are, we cannot act on the offensive, but if others goad us
\nby attack, then only can this degenerate race be saved. Misguided bureaucrats
\nand virulent publicists have created our opportunity. We have only to make the
\nright use of the challenges which are coming in quick succession, and we shall
\nbe able to effect in a few years a work which would otherwise take centuries.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-366<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nAn Irish Example<\/a><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n


\n <\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nThe
\nrefusal of the Irish Parliamentary Party under Mr. Redmond’s leadership to have
\nanything to do with the sham the Liberal Government has offered them in the
\nplace of Home Rule, is a step on which we may congratulate the Irish people. Had
\nthey been deluded into swallowing the bait which was devised for them with such
\nunscrupulous skill by Mr. Birrell, they would have committed a false step of the
\nworst kind and seriously compromised the Home Rule Movement. It is much better
\nthat Ireland should have to wait longer for any measure of self- government,
\nthan that she should commit political suicide by accepting Mr. Birrell’s Bill.
\nWe call it Mr. Birrell’s Bill but in reality it is Sir Antony Macdonnell’s and
\nhas the stamp of "Liberal" Anglo-Indian upon it. Its object is
\nobviously to kill the Home Rule Movement by kindness, to break up Irish unity
\nand take the sting out of Irish Nationalism by a sham concession skilfully
\ncalculated to corrupt the natural leaders of the people. The measure proposed
\nwas a sort of bastard cross between a Colonial Parliament and an
\nIndian-Legislative Council. Its acceptance would have committed Irish
\npoliticians to the abandonment of the policy of Parnell and to cooperation in
\nfuture with the British Government. The Irish people were openly told
\nthat
\nthe concession of further self-government would depend on <\/span>the
\nway in which they used this precious opportunity, in other words, on their
\nabandoning passive resistance and their principle of aloofness from Government
\nand its favours and co-operating with it in a mutilated and ineffectual scheme
\nof self-government. What would have been the result, if the Irish people had
\nclosed with this very bad bargain? They would not have got Home Rule which
\nEngland is determined never to give them unless she has no other choice. The
\nlocal self-government offered to Ireland would have been extended to Scotland
\nand Wales and when Ireland demanded Home Rule, she would have been told to be
\nsatisfied with a measure of self-government which had satisfied the other parts
\nof the United Kingdom. The British Government would by that time have broken the
\nsolid phalanx of Irish Nationalism and by the bribe of office, position and
\ninfluence,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font><\/span>367<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nsucceeded
\nin detaching from the cause a great number of the natural leaders of the people,
\nmen of intelligence, ability and ambition, whose talents would be used by
\nEngland in keeping the people contented and combating true Nationalism. In this
\nway the great ideal of an Irish Nation for which Emmett died, for which
\nO’Connell and Parnell planned and schemed and which the Sinn Fein movement is
\nmaking more and more practicable, would either have been entirely frustrated or
\npostponed for another century. Instead of a separate nationality with its own
\nculture, language, government, the Irish would have ended by becoming a big
\nEnglish county governed by a magnified and glorified Parish Council. The same
\nkind of bait was offered to the Boers, but that shrewd people resolutely refused
\nto associate themselves
\nwith any form of<\/span>
\n<\/span>self-government
\nshort of absolute <\/span>colonial Self-Government.
\nThe same kind of bait is promised to the Moderates in India by Honest John and
\nthe honest Statesman<\/i>, <\/i>if they will only consent to dissociate themselves
\nfrom the New Spirit and all its works and betray their country. The Statesman
\n<\/i>says that Mr. Redmond has been forced to the refusal by the necessity of
\ndeferring to the Sinn Fein Party in Ireland, and hopes that the Indian Moderates
\nwill not commit the same mistake. Our sapient contemporary opines that the
\nNationalists in India are not really so strong as they seem, and that the
\nModerate leaders, if they desire to betray the country, can do so with impunity,
\nwithout losing their influence and position. Well, we shall see.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande
\nMataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> May 24, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font>368<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Thunderer’s Challenge                   THE London Times has thrown out to us a far more comprehensive and significant challenge than the deportation of Lajpat…<\/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-314","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\/314","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=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}