{"id":3176,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3176"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:29","slug":"31-the-country-and-nationalism-vol-writings-in-bengali-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/writings-in-bengali-translation\/31-the-country-and-nationalism-vol-writings-in-bengali-translation","title":{"rendered":"-31_The Country and Nationalism.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nThe Country and Nationalism <\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nThe country and nothing but the country is the
\nfoundation. of Nationalism, neither the nation, nor religion, nothing else
\nmatters. All other elements are secondary and contributory, it is the country
\nalone that is primary and essential. Many mutually exclusive races live in the
\nland. perhaps there never was enough goodwill, unity or friendliness. What is
\nthere in that to worry about ? When it is one country, one Mother\u2014 there is
\nbound to be unity one day, and out of the union of many races shall emerge a
\nstrong and invincible nation. Our religious views may differ, there might be
\nendless conflict among the communities, neither concordance nor any hope of
\nconcordance, still one need not have any misgivings. By the powerful magnetic
\nattraction of the Mother embodied in the country, by fair means or foul\u2014whether
\nby mutual understanding, or by force or by appeasement\u2014harmony will be achieved;
\ncommunalism, separation will be drowned in fraternal feelings, in a common love
\nand worship of the Mother. In a land of many languages brother is unable to
\nunderstand brother, we do not sympathise with each other’s feelings, between
\nheart and heart there are immense barriers. These have to be overcome with much effort. Yet one
\nneed not fear. There is the same current of thought in every
\nmind, of one country, one life, and under pressure of need a
\ncommon language is bound to evolve, either one of the
\nexisting languages will come to be accepted, else a new
\nlanguage will be cremated. In the Mothers temple all will use
\nthat language. There is nothing permanent about these
\nobstacles. The Mother’s need, her attraction and deeper
\ndesire are not to be frustrated, these will surmount all <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-224<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nobstacles and conflicts. Born of the same Mother, on her lap
\nwe live, in her five elements we merge and melt, in spite of a
\nthousand real dissensions we shall unite at Her call. This is a
\nlaw of Nature, the lesson of history everywhere: the country
\nis the base of nationalism, an inevitable bond. Where there is\/
\na country of one’s own, nationalism is bound to be there. On
\nthe other hand, if the country is not one, even if the race, the
\nreligion and the language are the same, nothing will come of
\nthat. One day a separate race is sure to appear. By yoking
\ntogether separate countries a great empire may be built. But
\nthat is not how a great nationality comes about. When the
\nempire declines, separate nations spring up. Very often it is
\nthis inherent separativeness that causes the empire to crash. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nBut even if the result is inevitable, the speed or delay with
\nwhich it materialises will depend on human effort, human
\nintelligence or the absence of it. In our country there never
\nwas unity before, but there had always been a pull, a current
\ntending towards unity, towards welding the different parts
\ninto some kind of unity. There were some major obstacles
\nregarding this natural attempt: first, the provincial differences; secondly, the Hindu-Muslim conflict; thirdly, the jack.
\nof a vision of the country as Mother. Its vast area, the delays
\nand ditficuities of communication, and the differences in
\nlanguage are some of the primary factors responsible for i
\nprovincial disunity. Thanks to modern science, except for the
\nlast factor, the rest have lost their separative vigour. In spite
\nof Hindu-Muslim differences, Akbar did manage to unify
\nIndia. And had Aurangzeb not been a victim of lowly
\nimpulses, the Hindus and Muslims of India, like the Catholics and Protestants of England, would have long been united
\nthanks to the time factor, habit and the threat of foreign
\ninvasion. Due to Aurangzeb’s folly and the instigation of
\nsome of our English diplomats, the fire of conflict, fanned
\nonce more, refuses to go out. Our chief obstacle, however, is <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-225<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nan absence of vision of the country as our Mother. For the
\nmost part our politicians have been incapable of a close and
\nfull vision of the Mother. Ranjit Singh or Guru Gobind
\nSingh had seen only the Mother of the Land of the Five
\nRivers instead of Mother India; Shivaji or Baji Rao had seen  <\/i>a Mother of the Hindus instead of Mother India. The other \\
\n<\/i>Maharashtrian statesmen had seen only a Mother for the
\nMaharashtrians. At the time of the Partition we ourselves
\nhad been blessed with a vision of Mother Bengal, that was a
\nvision of unity, hence the future unity and progress of Bengal
\nis assured. But the unified image of Mother India is yet to be
\nrealised. In the Congress, the Mother India that we hymned,
\nadored and worshipped was a figure of fancy, a companion
\nand obliging maid of the British Raj, an undivine illusion in
\noccidental outfit. She was indeed not our Mother. All the
\nsame, hid in a deep or vague murkiness our true Mother
\ndrew our heart and soul. The day we see Her true indivisible
\nimage, struck by Her beauty and grace, we shall eagerly lay
\ndown our lives in Her service. Then this obstacle will be
\ngone, and India’s unity, freedom and progress be easier to
\nachieve. The barrier of language will no longer divide.
\nAccepting Hindi as a link language but with due regard for
\none’s own regional language, we shall get rid of the disability. We shall succeed in finding a true solution of the
\nHindu-Muslim conflict. For want of a vision of the country as
\nthe Mother, the urge to do away with these obstacles has not
\nbeen strongly felt. That is why the means has not been found
\nand the conflict been growing worse. What is required is an
\nimage of the country, true and indivisible. But if, under the
\nillusion of that true vision, we still cherish only the Mother of
\nthe Hindus or Hindu nationalism we shall fall for the old error and deprive
\nourselves of the full flowering of Nationalism itself. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-226<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Country and Nationalism   The country and nothing but the country is the foundation. of Nationalism, neither the nation, nor religion, nothing else matters….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings-in-bengali-translation","wpcat-64-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3176","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=3176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}