{"id":372,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=372"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:36","slug":"056-the-statesman-unmasks-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\/056-the-statesman-unmasks-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-056_The Statesman Unmasks.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nThe "Statesman" Unmasks<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/font>                     
\n 
\n<\/span>W<\/font>E DO<\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span>not know why the paper which calls itself
\nthe Friend of India and usually puts on a sanctimonious mask of liberalism,
\nshould have suddenly allowed its real feelings to betray themselves last
\nWednesday. Its attitude for sometime past has been extremely ambiguous. During
\nthe height of the disturbances in East Bengal this Friend of India maintained a
\nrigid silence on Indian affairs and discoursed solemnly day after day on large
\nquestions of European policy.
\nLike the Levite it turned its face<\/span>
\naway<\/span>
\n<\/span>from the<\/span> <\/span>traveller
\nwounded by thieves and passed by. Since the deportation of Lajpat Rai, it has
\ncared less and less to preserve its tone of affected sympathy until on the 15th
\nit appeared as <\/span>the
\napologist of despotism and the mouthpiece not of an idea or of a policy, but of
\nthe individual grievances of a self-seeking politician whose influence has waned
\nto nothing because he could not satisfy the new demand for courageous and
\ndisinterested patriotism. Professing to be a Liberal paper, the Statesman <\/i>has
\ndefended the despotic regulation under which Lala Lajpat Rai was deported, \u2014 a
\nregulation opposed to all the fundamental principles of Liberalism; it has
\ndefended the Coercion Ordinance as a proof of the leniency and liberalism of
\nbureaucratic rule in India. Calling itself a friend of India, it has not
\nscrupled to dissociate itself from its brother friends of India, the British
\nCommittee of the Congress, and sneer at them as ill-informed nobodies. After
\nthrowing the Congress, its principles and its friends overboard in this
\nextraordinary manner, it has still the assurance to pose as the guide,
\nphilosopher and friend of the Moderate Party and lecture them on the necessity
\nof supporting the Government in its action with regard to Lara Lajpat Rai.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

       
\n<\/span>The arguments with which the Statesman <\/i>defends the deportation as
\na supreme act of Liberalism are of a remarkable kind. First, deportation
\n"is not really so bad as it sounds", because "the lot of the
\nso-called political exile is considerably happier<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-347<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

than
\nthat of the criminal in the common jail". Prodigious! A man is arrested
\nwithout any charge being formulated against him, without trial, without any
\nchance of defending himself, separated suddenly from his family and friends, his
\ncountry, his work for religion, society and motherland, and relegated to
\nsolitary imprisonment in a distant fortress; yet because he is not treated as
\nMr. Tilak was treated, as a common criminal with the daily harassment and
\ndegradation which is part of the criminal’s punishment, this remarkable Liberal
\norgan goes into ecstasies over the leniency of the British bureaucracy.
\nInjustice and arbitrary oppression, in its opinion, is an admirable thing so
\nlong as it is not accompanied with vindictive personal cruelty. We remember a
\ncorrespondent of an Anglo-Indian print at the time of Mr. Tilak’s sentence,
\ncalling on the Marathas to admire the leniency of the British Government,
\nbecause it treated him as an ordinary felon instead of impaling him or sawing
\nhim to pieces. The Statesman <\/i>writes in the same spirit.<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>The second plea in defence of deportation is that no act of State is
\ninvolved in the arrest, it is only a summary dealing under Municipal law. We do
\nnot know what to make of this rigmarole or what the Statesman <\/i>understands
\nby Municipal law, or by an act of State. Municipal law may mean the laws and
\nrules which govern municipalities, but we presume it is not the Lahore
\nMunicipality which deported Lajpat Rai; or it may mean the ordinary laws and
\nregulations by which local authorities arrange for local administration and the
\npreservation of the peace. But here is an extraordinary action, above the
\nordinary laws, which needs the sanction of the Government of India and the
\nsanction of the Secretary of State in which a political leader is arrested for
\nmysterious political reasons and deported without trial. Yet this is Municipal
\nlaw, not an act of State! and since it is Municipal law, no one need protest
\nagainst it! Apparently an act of State in the Statesman<\/i>‘s <\/i>opinion is an illegal
\n<\/i>act which there is no statute to cover. Any action however tyrannical, if
\ncovered by a statute, ought to be borne without complaint by Indians as an act
\nof great leniency and liberalism. Mark again the friendship of this friend of
\nIndia and the liberalism of this Liberal.<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>A third plea is that "the action of the authorities in India,<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-348<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

if
\ncontrasted with that of the average European Government, is leniency
\nitself." So then, tyranny is quite justifiable if it can site an example of
\nanother tyranny worse than itself. Let us remind the Statesman <\/i>that the
\nFrench and German bureaucracies are governments supported by the will of the
\npeople and that in the measures of stringency they adopt, they have the consent
\nof the people behind them. And what have the police arrangements of Paris and
\nBerlin to do with the punishment of a man without trial, a relic of medieval
\ndespotism of which no modern and civilised Government offers an example?<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>The real cause of all this special pleading for despotism is revealed in
\nthe latter part of the article. "Moderate men are apt to be pushed aside
\nand their services forgotten by new men who seek to force the pace."
\n"A long apprenticeship to journalism, a weary plodding in the musty
\nby-paths of the law, are the chief or only means by which power and influence
\ncan be gained." This is where the shoe pinches. Who is this apprentice to
\njournalism who is being pushed aside by young and extreme journals? Obviously
\nthe Statesman <\/i>itself. Who is this weary plodder in the musty by-paths of
\nthe law, who claims that only lawyers or, say, only solicitors, have any right
\nto be political leaders and whose "fame", if not his
\n"fortune", has been affected by the new movement? It is plain enough
\nnow that the motive which so long actuated the Statesman <\/i>was not liberal
\nsentiment or high principles, but its own interest and influence. Since that
\ninterest was touched and that influence threatened by the increasing spirit of
\nSwadeshism and self-reliance, the temper of this Friend of ours has been growing
\nworse and worse until he has finally renounced his liberal principles and become
\na champion of bureaucracy.<\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>The article closes with a curious attack which seems to be directed at
\nSrijut Surendranath Banerji. "Violent speeches, inflammatory writings, a
\nprosecution, a brilliantly unsuccessful defence, paragraphs in all the
\nnewspapers, questions by ill<\/i>–informed nobodies in the House of Commons<\/i>, <\/i>the jail, the exit, fame and fortune, notoriety, may be a seat in
\nParliament \u2014 here we have not altogether a fancy picture of the modern
\nPolitical Rake’s progress." This is, we are told, not altogether a fancy
\npicture; in other words, with the exception of the last touch<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/span>349<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

about
\nthe possible seat in Parliament, it is taken from the life; and to whom can it
\nbe applied but Srijut Surendranath? For, obviously, no leader of the new school
\nis meant, since no leader of the new school would aspire to a seat in
\nParliament. Yet after this ill-natured attack the Statesman <\/i>yesterday had
\nagain the face to figure as the patron and councillor of Srijut Surendranath and
\nadvise him to sacrifice his feelings of personal friendship and respect for Lala
\nLajpat Rai, his principles, his patriotism, his reputation as a political leader
\nand his influence with the people in order to get the approbation of Mr. John
\nMorley and the Statesman<\/i>.<\/p>\n

<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

           
\n<\/span>A more complete unmasking could not be imagined. The Statesman <\/i>not
\nonly attacks the new school, \u2014<\/span>
\n that would be nothing new, \u2014 but turns round and
\nrends his own associates, Srijut Surendranath, the British Committee, the
\nfriends of India in Parliament, renounces all liberal ideas and principles,
\nthrows off every disguise and stands forth naked and unashamed. We recommend
\nthis example of "friendship" to all Bengali customers of the
\nStatesman<\/i>‘s
\n<\/i>heavy goods, and would advise them either to cease patronising a dealer of
\nsuch doubtful candour or to insist that the goods they get shall be of the
\npattern they have paid for.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nSui Generis<\/a><\/b><\/font><\/h1>\n

The
\nMorning Leader <\/i>in casting about for reasons, \u2014 let us call them
\nreasons, not excuses, \u2014 for defending Mr. Morley’s Russian policy, has
\ndiscovered the fact that the case of India is sui generis<\/i>, <\/i>a thing apart
\nwhich stands on its merits and to which ordinary principles cannot be applied.
\nThe Morning Leader <\/i>need not have taken refuge in Latin in order to hide
\nits embarrassment. All India, Moderate and Extremist alike, have begun to
\nrealise that the principles of Liberalism which are so loudly mouthed about in
\nWestminster and on the hustings, are not meant to be applied to India. They may
\nbe applied to England and the colonies but they are undoubtedly unsuitable to as
\nsubject a nation where the despotic supremacy of the white man has<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/span>350<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

to
\nbe maintained, as it was gained, at the cost of all principles and all morality.
\nIreland also was sui generis <\/i>once, until by moonlighting, Fenianism,
\ndynamite and Passive Resistance, she managed to break down the barrier and place
\nherself on the same level with other nations. Yes, India is a case apart. In
\nEngland, politics is a question of parties. In India politics is a conflict of
\nprinciples and of mutually destructive forces, the principle of bureaucracy
\nagainst the principle of democracy, the alien force of Imperialism against the
\nindigenous force of Nationalism. Our relations with our rulers are not those of
\nprotector and protected, but of eater and of eaten. As man and the tiger cannot
\nlive together in the same circle of habitation, so Indian Nationalism and
\nbureaucratic despotism cannot divide India between them or dwell together in
\npeace. One of them must go.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>, <\/i>May 17, 1907<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-351<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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