{"id":366,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=366"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:34","slug":"124-the-latest-sedition-trial-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\/124-the-latest-sedition-trial-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-124_The Latest Sedition Trial.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nThe Latest Sedition Trial<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font><\/b>               
\n<\/font>
\nW<\/font>E DO<\/font><\/b>
\nnot generally concern ourselves with the
\nresults of trials in bureaucratic law-courts. The law that is now recognised by
\nthe civilised world is the will of a people. The law that is really binding on a
\npeople is the mature deliberation of its own representatives as to the proper
\nwant and scope of individual activity in relation to the common weal. Law if it
\nis to be beneficial to society cannot be divorced from the truths established by
\nscience, on the contrary derives its binding force from being based on them.
\nThat a bureaucratic law is not so much meant to ensure social well-being but
\ndesigned for restricting even a legitimate freedom of action sanctioned by
\nscience has been amply illustrated in the judgment of the Police Magistrate of
\nCalcutta in the Nabasakti <\/i>case. The Magistrate was confronted with the
\ndifficulty that neither common sense nor jurisprudence can penalise the
\npreaching of a political truth. The strange syllogism with which he has sought
\nto bring the preaching of an ideal within the purview of the bureaucratic law is
\nridiculous to the extreme. The Magistrate in his judgment does not seem even to
\nknow his own mind. In the earlier part of his judgment he talks as if the
\npreaching of independence as an ideal were in itself sedition. "To my mind," he
\nsays in powerful magisterial fashion, "the meaning and intention of this article
\nadmit of no doubt whatever. The writer is advocating independence and the
\narticle is seditious." Later on he has misgivings. Glimpses of a common sense
\nburied deep away under long habits of reading political necessity into judicial
\ninterpretation seem to visit the official mind:<\/font><\/p>\n

\n             \u201cThe ideal of national
\nindependence is one which appeals to Englishmen with very strong force, and it
\nis one which when reasonably and temperately expressed will always meet with a
\ngreat deal of sympathy. There is undoubtedly at the present day, a growing
\nbelief amongst men of liberal and statesmanlike views<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-707<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nthat India will at a future date attain
\nthis national independence. Moreover it is an object with which the use of force
\nneed not be associated at all for it is an object attainable by constitutional
\nmeans. I believe therefore that no Liberal Government would ever take serious
\nexception to the temperate expression of the ideal. \u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            The only fault to be found
\nwith this expression of a common sense view of things is that the Magistrate
\nseems to lay down the proposition that it depends on the feelings and views of
\nEnglishmen whether the preaching of independence is seditious or not. That is so
\nin practice, no doubt, but judicially it is a strange principle of
\ninterpretation. On this ground, clearly stated by the Magistrate, that the
\npreaching of national independence is not in itself seditious and does not
\nbecome seditious unless coupled with excitations to revolt or violence or with
\nmatter tending to bring the Government into hatred or contempt,
\n\u2014<\/span> the Printer of the Nabasakti <\/i>was
\nentitled to an acquittal. But the Magistrate immediately afterwards falls back
\nfrom light into a thick fog in which he flounders helplessly for some way of
\nunsaying what he has said.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n            \u201cAn Indian writer, however,
\nwho holds up national independence as an immediate panacea for the wrongs of his
\ncountrymen, is a mere visionary, and it is most unfortunate that so much of the
\npolitical writing in Bengali newspapers should be the crude product of ignorant
\nand ill-trained minds." And he goes on to say that the accused had published
\narticles of this description and coupled them with others inciting to violence.
\nTherefore he is convicted of sedition. Are we then to understand that the
\nPrinter is found guilty of sedition not because he advocated independence but
\nbecause he advocated independence in an ignorant and ill-trained manner and his
\narticle was a crude product? If an article is to be declared seditious merely
\nbecause it does not please the literary taste of a Police Court Magistrate, a
\nnew terror will be added to the law of sedition. Or are we to understand that
\nthe article is not seditious, is quite innocent, since to preach independence is
\nnot seditious, but it is declared seditious because other articles in the paper
\nwhich contain<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-708<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nnothing about independence are violent in
\ntone? So far as we can see from the judgment of this learned Magistrate, the
\narticle in question is not seditious, though it may or may not be "a crude
\nproduct", the other articles are not seditious though they may come under some
\nother Section of the penal Code than 124A, and in any case they are not the
\nsubject matter of the charge. But because one article preaches independence and
\nanother which has no connection with it is written in a violent tone, therefore
\nthe first non-seditious article is transmuted into sedition by some strange
\nmagisterial alchemy. We come out of the reading of this judgment with a
\nbewildered brain and only one <\/span>clearly grasped
\nidea, viz<\/i>., <\/i>that whether what we write is seditious <\/span>or not,
\ndepends not on the law, but on the state of "public opinion" in England and
\nAnglo-India, and on the intellectual vagaries of a Magistrate who cannot even
\nmisinterpret the law consistently. And after all that is "all we know or need to
\nknow" on the subject of the law of sedition.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i>
\n<\/font>February 21, 1908<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-709<\/font><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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