{"id":345,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=345"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:27","slug":"053-the-crisis-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\/053-the-crisis-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-053_The Crisis.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n


\n
\nThe Crisis<\/span><\/b><\/font><\/P>
\n


\n <\/P>
\n


\n               
\nT<\/b><\/font><\/SPAN>HE<\/font><\/b>
\nlast action of the Minto-Morley Government has torn every veil from the situation and the policy
\nof the British rulers. Whatever else may be the result of this vigorous
\nattempt to crush Nationalism in the Punjab, it has the merit of clearing the
\nair. We have no farther excuse for mistaking our position or blundering into
\nineffective policies. The bureaucracy has declared with savage emphasis that
\nit will tolerate a meekly carping loyalism, it will tolerate an ineffective
\nagitation of prayer, protest and petition, but it will not tolerate the New
\nSpirit. If the Indian harbours aspirations towards freedom, towards
\nindependence, towards self-government in his mind, let him crush them back and
\nkeep them close-locked in his heart; for from English Secretary or Anglo-Indian
\npro-consul, from Conservative or from Liberal they can expect neither concession
\nnor toleration. Indian aspirations and bureaucratic autocracy cannot stall
\ntogether; one of them must go. The growth of the New Spirit had been so long
\ntolerated in Bengal because the rulers, though alarmed at the new portent, could
\nnot at once make up their mind whether it was a painted monster or a living and
\nformidable force. Even when its real nature and drift had become manifest, they
\nwaited to see whether it was likely to take hold of the people. They were not
\nprepared for the enormous rapidity with which like a sudden conflagration in
\nthe American prairies, the New Spirit began to rush over the whole of India. By
\nthe time they had realised it, it was too late to crush it in Bengal by
\nprosecuting a few papers or striking at a few tall heads. For the New Spirit
\nin Bengal does not depend on the presence of a few leaders or the inspiration
\nfrom one or two great orators. It has embraced the whole educated class with one
\nunquenchable flame. If Srijut Bepin Chandra Pal were deported, and the Bande
\nMataram<\/I>, Sandhya <\/I>and other Nationalist journals suppressed, the fire would
\nonly become silent, pervading, irresistible. A hundred hands would catch
\nthe<\/font><\/P>
\n

 <\/P>
\n


\nPage-333<\/SPAN><\/P>
\n

<\/p>\n

banner of Nationalism as it fell from the hands of the
\nstandard-bearer and a hundred fiery spirits rush to fill the place of the
\nfallen leader. In Bengal,
\ntherefore, other measures have been adopted. But the moment the bureaucrats were
\nsure that the fire had caught in the Punjab, they hastened to strike, hoping by
\nthe suppression of a few persons to suppress the whole movement. The first
\nblow at the Punjabee <\/I>was a disastrous failure. The second has been
\ndelivered with extraordinary precautions to ensure its success. The whole might
\nof the British Empire has been summoned to drive it home. The pomp and
\nprestige of its irresistible might, the tramp of its armies and the terror of
\nits guns, the slow mercilessness of its penal law and the swift fury of its
\narbitrary statutes have all been gathered round two small cities, not to put
\ndown a formidable rebellion or affect the capture of dangerous military leaders,
\nbut to arrest a few respectable and unwarlike pleaders and barristers. Enveloped
\nwith a surge of cavalry under the mouths of British siege-guns, these fortunate
\nindividuals, most of whose names were till then hardly known outside their own
\nprovince, — have been hurried to British jails and one eminent pleader whirled
\nout of India with a panic haste. All this pomp and apparatus can evidently have
\nno object but to terrify the New Spirit throughout India into quiescence by a
\ndisplay of the irresistible power of Britain. It is an emphatic warning from Mr.
\nMorley and Lord Minto that they will not suffer the Indian to aspire to freedom
\nor to work by peaceful self-help and passive resistance for national
\nautonomy.
        In this grave crisis of
\nour destinies let not our people lose their fortitude or suffer stupefaction and
\ndepression to seize upon and unnerve their souls. The fight in which we are
\nengaged is not like the wars of old in which when the King or leader fell, the
\narmy fled. The King whom we follow to the wars today, is our own Motherland, the
\nsacred and imperishable; the leader of our onward march is the Almighty Himself,
\nthat element within and without us whom sword cannot slay, nor water drown, nor
\nfire burn, nor exile divide from us, nor a prison confine. Lajpat Rai is
\nnothing, Tilak is nothing, Bepin Pal is nothing: these are but instruments in the
\nmighty Hand that is shaping our destinies and if these go, do you think that God
\ncannot find others to do<\/font><\/P>
\n

 <\/P>
\n


\nPage-334<\/SPAN><\/P>
\n

<\/p>\n

His will? Lala
\nLajpat Rai has gone from us, but doubt not that men stronger and greater than he
\nwill take his place. For when a living and rising cause is persecuted, this is
\nthe sure result that in the place of those whom persecution strikes down, there
\narise, like the giants from the blood of Raktabij, men who to their own strength
\nadd the strength, doubled and quadrupled by death or persecution, of the martyrs
\nfor the cause. It was the exiled of Italy, it was the men who languished in
\nAustrian and Bourbon dungeons, it was Poerio and Silvio Pellico and their
\nfellow- sufferers whose collected strength reincarnated in Mazzini and Garibaldi
\nand Cavour to free their country.
        Let there be no fainting of heart and no
\ndepression, and also let there be no unforeseeing fury, no blindly-striking
\nmadness. We are at the beginning of a time of terrible trial. The passage is not
\nto be easy, the crown is not to be cheaply earned. India is going down into the
\nvalley of the shadow of death, into a great horror of darkness and suffering.
\nLet us realise that what we are now suffering, is a small part of what we shall
\nhave to suffer, and work in that knowledge, with resolution, without hysteria.
\nA fierce and angry spirit is spreading among the people which cries out for
\nviolent action and calls upon us to embrace death. We say, let us be prepared
\nfor death but work for life, — the life not of our perishable bodies but of our
\ncause and country. Whatever we do, let it be with knowledge and foresight. Let
\nour first and last object be to help on the cause, not to gratify blindly our
\nangry passions. The first need at the present moment is courage, a courage which
\nknows not how to flinch or shrink. The second is self-possession. God is helping
\nus with persecution; we must accept it with joy and use that help calmly,
\nfearlessly, wisely. On the manner and spirit in which we shall resist and repel
\noutrage and face repression, while not for a moment playing into the hands of
\nthe adversary, will depend the immediate success or failure of our
\nmission.<\/font><\/P><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/I>, <\/I>May
\n11, 1907<\/SPAN><\/P>
\n

 <\/P>
\n


\nPage-335<\/SPAN><\/P>
\n

<\/p>\n


\nThe Praise
\nof the Government<\/a><\/font><\/b>
<\/font><\/b>
                    <\/font>
\nW<\/font><\/SPAN>e cannot sufficiently
\nadmire the vigorous and unselfish efforts of the British Government to turn all
\nIndia into a nation of Extremists. We had thought that it would take us long
\nand weary years to convert all our countrymen to the Nationalist creed. Nothing
\nof the kind. The Government of India is determined that our efforts shall not
\nfail or take too long a time to reach fruition. It will not suffer us to preach
\nnationalism to the people, but in its noble haste and zeal is resolved to
\npreserve the monopoly of the Nationalist propaganda to itself. "Alone I will
\ndo it," they have evidently said to themselves, even as Louis XVI said to his
\npeople when he resolved to take the work of reform out of the hands of the
\nStates General into his own. The Government of India also has resolved to take
\nthe work of inculcating nationalism into its own hands. There is no further
\nneed of the inspiring oratory or compelling logic of a Bepin Chandra, the fine
\nand vigorous lucidity and competent organisation of a Tilak, the attractive
\ncharm, self-sacrifice, moral force and steady, quiet work of a Lajpat Rai. The
\nGovernment will brush them aside and take their place. We cannot deny that the
\nmethods of the Government far excel our poor efforts. Our methods are long,
\nwordy, weary and when all is said and done, only half-effective; those of the
\nGovernment are magnificent, brief, laconic, decisive, triumphantly effective. By its
\npolicy of leaving the Mymensingh Mahomedans for weeks together to inflict the
\nutmost horrors of rapine and brigandage on a Hindu population sedulously
\ndisarmed and terrorised by official severity, they have convinced the country
\nthat the Pax Britannica is an illusion and no peace worth having which is not
\nmaintained by our own strength and manhood. By the deportation of Lala Lajpat
\nRai, they have destroyed the belief in British justice. By their Resolution for
\nthe prohibition of meetings they have convinced everyone that we possess the right of
\nfree speech, not as a right, not as a possession, but
\nas a temporary and conditional favour depending for its continuance on despotic
\ncaprice. We await with confidence fresh developments of this admirable
\nNationalist propaganda.<\/SPAN><\/P>
\n


\nBande Mataram<\/I>,
\n<\/I>May 13, 1907<\/SPAN><\/P><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage-336<\/SPAN><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Crisis                   THE last action of the Minto-Morley Government has torn every veil from the situation and the policy of the British rulers….<\/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-345","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\/345","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=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}