{"id":367,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:34","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=367"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:34","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:34","slug":"036-pherozshahi-at-surat-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\/036-pherozshahi-at-surat-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-036_Pherozshahi at Surat.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\n\t\tPherozshahi
\nat Surat<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n           
\n<\/font>T<\/font><\/span><\/b>HE<\/b>
\nmethods of Moderate autocrats are as instructive as they are peculiar. The
\naccount of the characteristic proceedings of Sir Pherozshah Mehta at the Surat
\nConference, which we published in yesterday’s correspondence columns, bears a
\nstrong family likeness to the ways of the Provincial Congress autocrats all
\nIndia over. The selection of a subservient President who will call white black
\nat dictatorial bidding; the open scorn of public opinion; the disregard of
\njustice, of fair play, of constitutional practice and procedure, of equality of
\nall before recognised law and rule, and of every other principle essential to a
\nself-governing body; the arrogant claim on account of past "services"
\nto assert private wishes, opinions, conveniences, as superior to the wishes,
\nopinions and conveniences of the people’s delegates; these are common and
\nuniversal characteristics in the procedure of our autocratic democrats. The
\ndifference is merely in personal temperament and manner of expression. "The
\nState? I am the State," cried Louis XIV. "The country? I am the
\ncountry!" cries Sir Pherozshah Mehta or Pundit Madan Mohan Malaviya or Mr.
\nKrishnaswamy Aiyar, as the case may be. Only, as his personality is more robust,
\nso is Sir Pherozshah’s dictatorial arrogance more public, open and contemptuous
\nthan that of his compeers in less favoured Provinces. If the popular cause is to
\nmake any progress, if we are to show ourselves worthy of the self-government we
\nclaim, this strong-handed autocracy must itself be put down with the strong
\nhand. As Mr. Tilak pointed out at Kolahpur, the object of the national movement
\nis not to replace foreign autocrats by the Swadeshi article, but to replace an
\nirresponsible bureaucracy by popular self-government.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The most extraordinary of Sir Pherozshah’s freaks at Surat was not his
\ntreatment of Sir Bhalchandra as if the President of the Conference were his tame
\ncat, \u2014 for what else was the Knight of the Umbrella, pushed into a position to
\nwhich he has no claims<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-246<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof
\nany kind? Nor was it his exclusion of the Aundh Commission from consideration by
\nthe Conference; it is part of the orthodox Congress "nationalism" to
\nexclude the Princes and Chiefs of India from consideration as if they were not
\nan important part of the nation, and to leave them without sympathy or support
\nto the tender mercies of the Foreign Office. Nor was it his turning the
\nConference into a tool for ventilating his personal grievances against Bombay
\nofficialdom. It was his action with regard to the question of National
\nEducation.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Let us consider one by one the pleas by which he managed to exclude this
\nall-important Resolution from the deliberations of the Conference. They show the
\npeculiar mental texture of our leaders and their crude notions of the politics
\nwhich they profess. The first plea is that the Resolutions of the Congress are
\nnot binding upon the Conference. What then is the necessity or purpose of the
\nCongress? As we understand it, the Resolutions of the Congress embody the
\nopinions and aspirations of the united people of India; they put forward the
\nminimum reforms which that people are agreed to demand from the Government or to
\neffect for themselves. A Provincial Conference can go beyond these minimum
\nreforms if the circumstances of the Province or the general opinion of the
\npublic demand it; it cannot diminish, ignore or go behind them without
\ndissociating itself from the programme approved by the nation and breaking up
\nall chances of an united advance. If these are not the relations of Congress and
\nConference, will Sir Pherozshah inform us what are the true relations? If the
\nConference does not exist in order to carry forward the national programme with
\nwhatever additions the Province may find necessary for its own purposes, does it
\nthen exist only in order to record the decrees and opinions of a few Provincial
\nleaders?<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The second plea was that Sir Pherozshah Mehta could not understand the
\nmeaning of National Education. At Ahmedabad, we remember, the Swadeshi
\nResolution was disallowed in the Subjects Committee because Sir Pherozshah Mehta
\nwould not know where he could get his broadcloth, if it were passed! The nation
\nwas not to resolve on helping forward its commercial independence, because Sir
\nPherozshah Mehta preferred broadcloth<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-247<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nto
\nany other wear. And now the people of Bombay are not to educate themselves on
\nnational lines because Sir Pherozshah Mehta does not know what a nation means
\nnor what nationalism means nor, in fact, anything except what Sir Pherozshah
\nMehta means.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>When, on
\n<\/span>a<\/span>
\n<\/span>vote of the Subjects Committee, the
\nResolution was declared by the President to be lost, it seems to have been the
\nopinion of a large body of the delegates that this was a misdeclaration. The
\nobvious course was, under such circumstances, a count of votes by tellers on
\neach side. But Sir Pherozshah was ready with his third plea that this would be
\nto question the veracity of the President. We cannot too strongly insist that
\npolitics is not a social drawing-room for the interchange of courtly amenities.
\nWhere there is a question of constitutional right, to bring in personal
\narguments of this kind is to show that you have not grasped the elementary
\nprinciples of democratic politics. The very first of these principles is that
\nlaw rules and not persons, \u2014 the person is only an instrument of the law. The
\nPresident or Chairman of a body sits there to keep order and see that law and
\nrule are observed,
\n<\/span>\u2014<\/span>
\n<\/span>he does not sit there to make his own will
\nthe law. If therefore there is any question of a miscount, it is his bounden
\nduty to see that immediate measures are taken to satisfy both parties as to its
\ncorrectness and it is the natural right of the members to demand such a count.
\nThat right ought not to be waived in deference to the tender delicacy of a
\nChairman’s self- love, nor has he or his friends any right to talk nonsense
\nabout his veracity being questioned or himself being insulted. Such mouthings
\nshow either a guilty conscience which cannot face public scrutiny or an entire
\nmoral unfitness for leadership in any constitutional proceedings.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>We regret that the delegates at Surat did not insist on their rights. Sir
\nPherozshah Mehta came to Calcutta, prepared to do at the Congress precisely what
\nhe has now been doing at the Conference; but he found a spirit awakened in
\nBengal before which a hundred Pherozshahs are as mere chaff before the wind. It
\nis a spirit which will tolerate no dictation except from the nation and from the
\nlaws which the nation imposes on itself.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font><\/span>248<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe
\nprogress of the National cause depends on the awakening of that spirit
\nthroughout India. Let there be only one dictator \u2014 the People.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande
\nMataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> April 10, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font>249<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pherozshahi at Surat               THE methods of Moderate autocrats are as instructive as they are peculiar. The account of the characteristic proceedings of Sir…<\/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-367","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\/367","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=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}