{"id":353,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=353"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:30","slug":"112-caste-and-representation-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\/112-caste-and-representation-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-112_Caste and Representation.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nCaste and Representation<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                       
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>T<\/font><\/span>HE<\/font><\/b> <\/span>
\npolicy of the Bureaucracy in the face of the national movement, so far as it is
\nanything more than crude repression, is a policy of makeshifts and dodges, and,
\nthough skilful in a way, it shows throughout an extraordinary ignorance of the
\ncountry they rule. The latest brilliant device is an attempt to reshuffle the
\nconstituent elements of Indian politics and sort them out afresh on the basis
\nnot only of creed, but of caste. The Pioneer <\/i>has come out with an article
\nin its best style of business-like gravity, in which it settles the basis on
\nwhich representation should be given to India. For two years of unrest have
\nbrought us so far that Anglo-India is awakened to the necessity of giving some
\nkind of representation to the Indians, and petty details of administrative
\nreform, the demand for which was then considered as much a crying for the moon
\nas the cry for Swaraj nowadays, are fast coming into the range of
\n"practical politics". Great are the virtues of unrest! Of course it is
\nonly representation and not representative government which Anglo-India is
\nbending itself to think within the range of possibility; for government means
\ncontrol and control is the last thing which they will consent to yield to us.
\nWhen Viceroys and Law Members talk of giving us a larger share in the government
\nof our country, they mean of course not control but what they call a voice, and
\nthey will take good care that this voice shall be vox et praeterea nihil<\/i>, <\/i>a
\nvoice and nothing more. But even a voice may be a serious inconvenience to an
\nabsolute government and pains are therefore to be taken to substitute an echo
\nfor a voice, an echo of bureaucratic whisperings for the living utterance of a
\nnation. In the representative institutions which the bureaucracy are likely to
\ngive us, it is the drone of many notables and the mechanical squeaking of
\nofficially manipulated puppets that we shall hear, and this, the world will be
\ntold, is the voice of the Indian people.
\n       
\nBut Anglo-Indian statesmanship will not rest satisfied with<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-630<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

tuning
\nthe ineffective voice with which they desire to delude our aspirations, to the
\ncharacter of a flat and foolish echo; they will farther make every arrangement
\nto turn it into a source of fresh weakness to the growing nationality instead of
\na source of strength. They began of course long ago, the attempt to make capital
\nof the religious diversities of Indian society and recently the policy of
\nsetting the Mahomedans as a counterpoise to the Hindus has been openly adopted.
\nIn the new Legislative Councils the Mahomedans are to have representation not as
\nchildren of the soil, an integral portion of one Indian people, but as a
\npolitically distinct and hostile interest which will, it is hoped, outweigh or
\nat least nullify the Hindus. The bureaucratic Machiavels have not realised that
\nthe conditions of the new struggle which has begun, are of so different a kind
\nfrom any yet known in British India that the Mahomedans cannot be turned into an
\neffective tool in the hands of the bureaucracy without becoming at the same time
\na danger to the artisan of discord who uses them. For the field of the struggle
\nis not nowadays in Simla or on the floor of the House of Commons or on any lists
\nwhere outside opinion can have a decisive or even a material influence. It is
\nnot a voice which they have to set against a voice or a show which they have to
\noutface with a better show, but a force which they will have to call into being
\nto oppose a force. The Hindus have become self-conscious, they have heard a
\nvoice that cries to them, "Arise from the dead, live and follow me,"
\nand they are irresistibly growing into a living and powerful political force.
\nUnless the Mahomedans can be built up also into a self-conscious, living and
\npowerful political force, their assistance to the rulers will be a mere handful
\nof dust in the balance. But the moment they become a living and self-conscious
\npower the doom of bureaucracy will be sealed. For no self-conscious community
\naware of its strength and separate life will consent to go on pulling chestnuts
\nout of the fire for Anglo-Indian Machiavel. Even if they do not coalesce with
\nthe Hindus, they will certainly demand a share of the power which they maintain.
\nNot in that direction lies any permanent hope of salvation for the absolute
\npower of the bureaucracy. Perhaps the more thinking part of Anglo-India
\nperceives this truth, hence the desire to find addi-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-631<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

tional
\npoints of support and other principles of discord by which Indian Nationality
\ncan be hopelessly divided and cut to pieces in the making.<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>Of course the Pioneer <\/i>does not avow the real object of this scheme
\nfor creating and perpetuating as political entities divisions which every
\nhealthful political organism progresses by subordinating and discharging of all
\npolitical significance; but it is obvious enough. If it were possible for the
\nbureaucracy to turn the social divisions of the community into political
\ndivisions, there could be no more fatal instrument of political disorganisation,
\nand just as a natural indigenous rule finds its safety in better political
\norganisation, so an unnatural alien rule finds its safety in disorganisation of
\nwhat it preys upon. If it can, it destroys all centres of political organisation
\nexcept itself; otherwise it tries to create unnatural centres whose action will
\nhamper and distract the organic growth. Caste with the proper safeguards is an
\nadmirable means of social organisation and conservation, but it has not and
\nshould not be allowed to have any political meaning. In India with the exception
\nof Maharashtra it has had no political meaning at all. In the old times it was
\ndifferent. All the executive power and functions of war and politics were in the
\nhands of the Kshatriyas for the good reasons that the whole work of war and
\nprotection of the country from internal and external disorder was assigned by
\nSociety to them, and classes which did not give of their blood to preserve the
\npeace and freedom of their country could not claim a direct control of
\nadministration. The Brahmin legislated, but legislation was then a religious
\nfunction which implied no political power or position, and the people at large
\nexercised only an indirect control by the pressure of a public opinion which no
\nruler could afford to neglect. Afterwards when Chandragupta and Asoka had
\ncreated the tradition of a powerful absolutism with a strong bureaucratic
\norganisation to support it, things changed, but not in the direction of a polity
\nbased on caste. On the contrary all classes, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra
\ncould and did rise to any position of political power, even the throne itself,
\nand except in Rajasthan where the Kshatriya ideals and institutions were
\npreserved, caste came to count less rather than more in politics<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-632<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

as
\ntime went on. All the great nation-builders have ignored caste as a political
\nfactor and it was only when the national spirit of the Marathas declined after
\nPanipat that a cleavage on the lines of caste took place which is still a slight
\ndanger to Nationalism in the South. It is curious to find the British rulers who
\nhave done their best to undermine caste as a social institution now dreaming of
\nperpetuating and using it as a political instrument. We do not think they will
\nmake much by this move. The centripetal impulse in Hindu society is already too
\nstrong and with most of us political division by castes is too foreign to our
\nhabits of thought to take root. The very idea of making a constituency of Bengal
\nKayasthas or Bengal Brahmins is absurd. Only where certain classes are much
\ndepressed and submerged a temporary strife may be created, but the onward sweep
\nof the national movement, profoundly democratic as it is, will lift these
\nclasses to a nobler function in society and give them prizes which a Government
\npost or title cannot hope to rival. If we listened to our Loyalists and
\ncontinued to depend on alien favours and look on them as the crown of our
\npolitical life, then indeed discord might be sown and castes learn to view
\nthemselves as distinct and hostile political interests, but against the force of
\nthe National movement such devices will array themselves in vain; its democratic
\nand unifying spirit will make light of all such feeble attempts to divide.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\nBande
\nMataram<\/i>, <\/i><\/font>December 6, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-633<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caste and Representation                           THE policy of the Bureaucracy in the face of the national movement, so far as it is anything more than…<\/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-353","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\/353","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=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}