{"id":356,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=356"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:31","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:31","slug":"102-english-democracy-shown-up-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\/102-english-democracy-shown-up-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-102_English Democracy Shown Up.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nEnglish Democracy Shown Up<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n        <\/font>
\n        S<\/font>CRATCH<\/font><\/b>
\nan Englishman and you will find an
\nAnglo-Indian, \u2014 this is what we said in these columns sometime ago. The Anglophilous Indian enthusiast who goes to England saturated with the old
\nCongress poison of a morbid faith in the native generosity of English character,
\nin the innate amenability of Englishmen to reason and persuasion regarding
\nmatters Indian, is doomed to a very rude awakening. He has not to stay long in
\nthe country before he finds every Englishman he may come across turning a deaf
\near to his story of grievance and injustice. He is no doubt loudly applauded and
\ncalled a "true Briton" when he declaims against the tyranny in Russia, but is
\ninvariably called "ungrateful" if he happens to tell home truths about England’s
\ndominion in Hindusthan. He meets with the same callous disapprobation from all
\nEnglishmen alike, from the Liberal whose motto is "Government with consent"
\njust as much as from the Tory whose principle avowedly is "let things be". On
\nthe Indian question the Englishman will tell you his position is that of a
\n"patriot", not of a "partisan". Imperialism is far above party; every Englishman
\ntherefore is an Imperialist when he is thinking of the Indian question, he has
\nthen ceased to be either a Liberal or a Conservative. To this rule there are
\nsome exceptions, a few old ladies here and there (who however hardly count in
\npolitics yet), and some truly noble men who hold humanity far higher than
\nImperialism. These men certainly frankly admit that England’s arbitrary and
\ntyrannous tenure of power in India is a standing libel on herself, a gross
\nviolation of those political principles which
\nshe proclaims from the housetops to the whole of Europe. The voice of
\nsuch men however is hardly heard in the Councils of the Empire, and if ever
\nheard, contemptuously ignored.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            The hasty, hideous, indecent,
\nsavage yell that has been raised by the whole of the English Press against Mr.
\nKeir Hardie because he has dared to tell the truth about the present situation<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-573<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nin this country is a striking confirmation
\nof what we have said above, and what we stated before in the Bande Mataram<\/i>.
\n<\/i>We must not commit the mistake of supposing that the English Press is
\nindignant because it doubts the truth of Mr. Hardie’s statements against the
\nIndian Government; not that at all; they know very well, one and all of that
\nyelling throng, that every word of what he has said is true, and that Reuter has
\nwired a grossly mendacious version of his statements; but they are full of wrath
\nbecause the leader of the Independent Labour Party has told the unvarnished
\ntruth respecting the character of the rule that England has established here.
\nThey are bursting with rage because their long and unscrupulously kept-up
\nfiction of a just and benevolent Indian rule has been exposed in all its
\nugliness at last by one who happens to be an Englishman<\/i>, <\/i>(Oh the sting of
\nit!) and an Englishman of power and prestige too, who easily has the ear of the
\ncivilised world. He is a traitor, shout the impious fraternity of the British
\nPress, because he has the nobleness of mind, the honesty of conviction, to be
\nable to tell the truth against his own country when he finds it attempting
\nwithout a blush to perpetuate an outrage upon humanity. He is no longer a
\nstatesman because he could not deliberately suppress a truth in consideration of
\nthe reasons of state, which in the present instance means, in the interest of
\nthe sickening British lie \u2014 repeated ad nauseam <\/i>before Europe and America
\n\u2014 that England governs India for the benefit of the Indians. The paper which so
\noften contains articles from the pen of Sir Henry Cotton joins in this infamous
\nchorus of denunciation no less than the Daily News <\/i>which always so
\noverflows with the pure milk of undiluted Liberalism, that is to say British
\nLiberalism.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            Let us hope this at least will
\nserve to open wide the eyes of those of our countrymen who are still troubled
\nnow and then with the visitings of their old faith in England. England will
\nnot <\/i>give us anything unless we can force her to her knees, this is the only
\nmoral to which the present outrageous clamour of the English Press points. We
\nmay present our case with as much eloquence, logic and precision as we please;
\nthey in England will always brush our representations insolently aside as mere "Babu
\nrodomontade". If an Englishman with a disengaged mind has<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-574<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n\t\tthe courage to take up our cause, and tell
\nthe world the most elementary facts about the wrong England is doing us, his
\nvoice is drowned in the roar of the ruling nation whose one aim is mercilessly
\nto exploit India and let the rest of the world know as little about their real
\nIndian policy as possible, and even to deceive it whenever opportunity offers.
\nHow humane it sounded, how extremely Christian, when Lord Lansdowne declared in
\nthe House of Lords with that supreme unction of which Englishmen alone are
\ncapable, that one of the <\/i>motives of the war with the Boers was the
\nrighting of the grievous wrongs to which "our Indian fellow-subjects <\/i>were
\nforced to submit in the Transvaal". That grandiose declaration was not without
\nits effect in the international world, though we know only too well that the
\nTransvaal Indians live under infinitely more humiliating conditions now than
\nthey ever did under the government of Paul Kruger. And one need not feel
\nsurprised if one hears an Englishman, even at the present day, repeating the
\npronouncement of Lord Lansdowne in all solemnity in order to prove England’s
\nconstant anxiety and watchfulness on behalf of her Indian subjects.<\/font><\/p>\n

            There
\ncan hardly be any doubt that the Press has been shamelessly encouraged in its
\ncampaign of foul misrepresentation against Mr. Keir Hardie by Mr. Morley’s
\nspeech at Arbroath. The philosopher-Secretary betrayed not a little ruffling of
\nhis philosophic calm in his undisguisedly hostile and somewhat petulant
\nreferences to Mr. Keir Hardie’s opinion that India should be given the same
\nautonomy that is enjoyed by Canada. The wonderful allegory of the fur-coat
\nthough hardly giving us an encouraging indication of any power of imagination or
\nperception, of any historical insight, of any sense of humour or relevancy on
\nthe part of its author, certainly furnishes abundant proof of his ill-natured
\nimpatience of the generous ideal that the labour leader cherishes for the people
\nof this country.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            But, after all, we perhaps do
\nthe Indian Secretary an injustice in charging him with lack of historical
\ninsight; in one sense, it may be said, he shows an abundance of it. For we learn
\nfrom Reuter, that "he paid a tribute to the courage, patience and fidelity of
\nthe House of Commons, from which he augured that the democracies were going to
\nshow their capacity to tackle diffi-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-575<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncult and complicated problems." The one
\nremarkable feature of European democracies from the days of Athens to those of
\nEngland, has throughout been that whilst they always most jealously keep vigil
\nover the integrity of their own republican constitution, they revel at the same
\ntime in the despotic sway of unlimited power over the peoples they conquer. This
\nis strictly true of the Pagan republics of Hellas and Rome as well as of the
\nChristian Communes and Country-states of Mediaeval and Modern Europe. The ideal
\nthat has shaped the polity of Europe is always consciously or unconsciously
\nHellenic and not Hebraic; the Christian ideal of human brotherhood the European
\nis apt to regard as part of the privilege of his citizenship, it is not to be
\nextended to a conquered people. This is strictly true, the Christian missions
\nand missionaries of Europe notwithstanding. In other words, Christian Europe
\nflings her Christianity aside in her treatment of those who have had the
\nmisfortune to come under her rule; these she looks upon as Athens and Rome did
\non their subject peoples. Mr. Morley whilst congratulating the English democracy
\non the determination they have shown to keep their Indian Empire their own,
\nmight very well have been feeling the secret glow of an historic enthusiasm in
\ninsensibly thinking of similar figures in ancient and modern European history
\nextolling their countrymen on similar occasions.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            What we meant by taxing him
\nwith want of historic perception was that he has betrayed a sad ignorance of
\nAsiatic history. Asia has never embraced an ideal without universalising it. To
\nprofess the Christian faith and persist in confining the Christian ideal of
\nhuman brotherhood to one\u2019s own nation strikes the Asiatic as a monstrous
\nhypocrisy. Nor, as we have had occasion to remark before, has an ideal had to
\nwin its way to the heart of the Orient through a welter of its martyr\u2019s blood,
\nas has been the case with all kinds of ideals in Europe. This is the secret of
\nthe willingness and readiness with which the monarchies of Asia are
\ndemocratising the constitutions of their country. The period of English History
\ndating from 1066 and ending with 1832, the Shah of Persia has had the
\nmagnanimity to summarise into a few years of Persian History. It is therefore
\nthat the average Indian who has studied England\u2019s history and literature feels<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-576<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nso extremely perplexed, and is just now
\nbeginning to feel indignant at her strenuous and persistent refusal to give
\nIndia that liberty which she has so prized all through her history.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            England, on the other hand,
\nand quite consistently enough thinks she is rightly acting in withholding from
\nthe Indian the citizenship of the British Empire, for in so doing she is
\nstrictly in the wake of European tradition, and has the full justification of
\nhistory as she has known and understood it. And consequently John Morley hastens
\nto remind Indians of the "weary steps" necessary before they can attain liberty,
\nthe weary steps that the countries of Europe have had to traverse before they
\nsecured it.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            We fully understand the import
\nof the latest speech of the Indian Secretary, and of the latest outburst of the
\nBritish Democracy \u2014 India will only have liberty when she has the strength,
\nphysical and moral, to wrench it from the selfish grasp of the ruling country.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i>
\n<\/font>October 31, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-577<\/font><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

English Democracy Shown Up                   SCRATCH an Englishman and you will find an Anglo-Indian, \u2014 this is what we said in these columns…<\/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-356","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\/356","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=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}