{"id":351,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=351"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:29","slug":"157-indian-resurence-and-europe-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\/157-indian-resurence-and-europe-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-157_Indian Resurence and Europe.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nIndian Resurgence and Europe<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n                       
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>I<\/font><\/span>N
\nMANY<\/font><\/b> of the European countries in which
\ndemocracy is at present not fully developed, the monarchy and the people are
\nstill in a position of armed neutrality with regard to each other. The people
\nlook with distrust on the ruler, the ruler with fear and antipathy on the
\npeople. If the ruler takes a step in the direction of absolutism the bomb is
\nready in the hands of the people to put an end to his life. If the people seem
\nto be inclined towards Republicanism or Socialism the whole energies of the
\nruler are bent towards the discovery of some means by which the tide of
\ndemocracy can be kept in check or turned back. When we look to democratic
\ncountries we find a similar attitude between capital and labour, property and
\npoverty. Distrust is the atmosphere of modern politics, mutual suspicion and
\nhatred the secret spring of action. Under the fair outside of its material
\ncivilisation, a deep-seated moral disease is at work eating into the vitals of
\nEuropean society of which a thousand symptoms strike the eye, from the extreme
\nof bomb-throwing Anarchism to the other extreme of Tolstoy’s Utopianism. Is
\nIndia to be infected with the disease? The present conditions of Government in
\nthis country are full of the germs of the occidental malady, and if India is to
\nescape from it, it must be, first, by getting rid of these conditions and
\nsecondly, by seeking refuge in its own superior civilisation. The work of
\nNationalism is therefore twofold. It has to win Swaraj for India so that the
\npresent unhealthy conditions of political life, full of the germs of that social
\nand political phthisis which is overtaking Europe, may be entirely and radically
\ncured, and it has to ensure that the Swaraj it brings about shall be a Swadeshi
\nSwaraj and not an importation of the European article. It is for this reason
\nthat the movement for Swaraj found its first expression in an outburst of
\nSwadeshi sentiment which directed itself not merely against foreign goods, but
\nagainst foreign habits, foreign dress and manners, foreign education, and sought
\nto bring the people back to their own civi-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-860<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nlisation.
\nIt was the instinctive protest of Nature against the malady that was eating its
\nway into the national system and threatening to corrupt its blood and disturb
\nthe soundness of its organs. If there were some irrational features in the
\nrevolt of the people against foreign things, it was the violence of the malady
\nwhich necessitated the violence of the reaction. The late Upadhyaya
\nwas
\nthe type and champion of this feature of the National move<\/span>ment.
\nHe was never weary of harping on the necessity of stripping from ourselves every
\nrag of borrowed European thought and habits and becoming intensely,
\nuncompromisingly Indian. When we put aside all the mannerisms of that strong
\npersonality and seek its kernel, we find that this was his message and the
\nmeaning of his life. After himself going through all the phases of Europeanised
\nthought and religion, he returned like his country with a violent rebound to the
\nreligion, the thoughts, the habits and the speech of his forefathers. It is the
\nspirit of old Bengal which incarnated itself in him with the strength, courage,
\npassionate adherence to conviction which was the temperament of old Bengal and
\nwhich modern Bengal had for a period lost. His declaration in Court and his
\ndeath put a seal upon the meaning of his life and left his name stamped
\nindelibly on the pages of history as a saint and martyr of the new faith. It
\nwashed out all human weakness and impurity with the wave of a great spiritual
\nact of devotion and renunciation and left the soul of the man only for posterity
\nto cherish. We have to take up his work and incorporate the essence of it into
\nthe accomplished heritage of the nation.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The return to ourselves is the cardinal feature of the national movement.
\nIt is national not only in the sense of political self-assertion against the
\ndomination of foreigners, but in the sense of a return upon our old national
\nindividuality. It is significant that all those who are out of touch with this
\nfeature of the movement are losing their position at its head, while those who
\nkeep in its forefront are being more and more suffused with the spirit of "Indianity"
\nand overcome with the spell of India, the magic of her thought and civilisation,
\nthe overpowering touch of her religion. The highest qualities of head and heart
\ncannot keep the lead for men who have not the saving grace of openness to this
\npassion for India as she was, is and will be. On the other hand,<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-861<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nmen
\nperhaps of inferior calibre are likely to do better work for the country, who
\nhas the power to respond. The secret of this peculiar feature of the movement is
\nto be found in its essential nature and in the purpose which God intends it to
\nserve. If India follows in the footsteps of Europe, accepts her political
\nideals, social system, economic principles, she will be overcome with the same
\nmaladies. Such a consummation is neither for the good of India nor for the good
\nof Europe. If India becomes an intellectual province of Europe, she will never
\nattain to her natural greatness or fulfil the possibilities within her. Paradharmah
\nbhayā<\/font>vahah<\/i>, <\/i>to accept the dharma <\/i>of another is perilous; it deprives
\nthe man or the nation of its secret of life and vitality and substitutes an
\nunnatural and stunted growth for the free, large and organic development of
\nNature. Whenever a nation has given up the purpose of its existence, it has been
\nat the cost of its growth. India must remain India if she is to fulfil her
\ndestiny. Nor will Europe profit by grafting her civilisation on India, for if
\nIndia, who is the distinct physician of Europe’s maladies, herself falls into
\nthe clutches of the disease, the disease will remain uncured and incurable and
\nEuropean civilisation will perish as it perished when Rome declined, first by
\ndry rot within itself and last by irruption from without. The success of the
\nNational movement, both as a political and a spiritual movement, is necessary
\nfor India and still more necessary for Europe. The whole world is interested in
\nseeing that India becomes free so that India may become herself.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nOm
\nShantih<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

The impending promotion of John Morley, the philosopher,
\nto the House of Lords is one of the crimes of present day politics. The Radical
\nphilosopher, the biographer of Voltaire and Rousseau, the admired bookman of
\nheterodoxy, is to end his days in that privileged preserve of all that is
\nantiquated, anomalous, conservative and unprogressive, that standing negation of
\ndemocratic principles, that survival of old-world privilege, the House of Lords.
\nHonest John is to end his days as Lord John. It is a<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-862<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfitting
\nreward for the work he has done as Secretary of State for India, the apostasy,
\nthe turning of his back on every principle for which he had stood in his books
\nand speeches, the unctuous upholding of tyranny, the final consummation of the
\nself-righteous Pharisee of liberty, the unrepentant oppressor of a rising
\nnationality and a great resurgent civilisation. The culmination suits the
\nbeginning as a gargoyle suits a Gothic building; for the life of John Morley is
\na mass of contradictions, the profession of liberalism running hand in hand with
\nthe practice of a bastard Imperialism which did the work of Satan while it
\nmouthed liberal Scripture to justify its sins. Mr. John Morley, the principal
\nspurrer-on of Gladstone when Egypt was enslaved, the Chief Secretary whom the
\nIrish feared and distrusted, the Secretary of State who has begun in India what
\nno Tory statesman could have lightly undertaken, the attempt to stifle Indian
\naspirations by sheer force and put back the clock of progress from the
\nnineteenth century into the middle ages, could not find a fitter heaven in which
\nto spend his old age than the House of Lords.
\nIf anything could add to the just felicity of his translation,<\/span>
\n<\/span>it is that there will be no Cottons and
\nRutherfords to vex his honest soul with irreverent questions. Om Shantih,
\nShantih, Shantih.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> April 14, 1908<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font>863<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indian Resurgence and Europe                           IN MANY of the European countries in which democracy is at present not fully developed, the monarchy and the…<\/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-351","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\/351","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=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}