{"id":373,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=373"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:36","slug":"163-palli-samiti-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\/163-palli-samiti-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-163_Palli Samiti.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nPalli Samiti*<\/font><\/b>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/font>
\n
\n               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>T<\/font><\/b><\/span>HE<\/font><\/b>
\nresolution on which I have been asked to speak is from one point of view the
\nmost important of all that this Conference has passed. As one of the speakers
\nhas already said, the village Samiti is the seed of Swaraj. What is Swaraj but
\nthe organisation of the independent life of the country into centres of strength
\nwhich grow out of its conditions and answer to its needs, so as to make a single
\nand organic whole? When a nation is in a natural condition, growing from within
\nand existing from within and in its own strength, then it develops its
\n<\/span>own centres and
\ncorrelates them according to its own needs. But <\/span>as
\nsoon as for any reason this natural condition is interrupted and a foreign
\norganism establishes itself in and dominates in the country, then that foreign
\nbody draws to itself all the sources of nourishment and the natural centres,
\ndeprived of their sustenance, fail and disappear. It is for this reason that
\nforeign rule can never be for the good of a nation, never work for its true
\nprogress and life, but must always work towards its disintegration and death.
\nThis is no new discovery, no recently invented theory of ours, but an
\nascertained truth of political science as taught in Europe by Europeans to
\nEuropeans. It is there laid down that foreign rule is inorganic and therefore
\ntends to disintegrate the subject body politic by destroying its proper organs
\nand centres of life. If a subject nation is ever to recover and survive, it can
\nonly be by reversing the process and establishing its own organic centres of
\nlife and strength. We in India had our own instruments of life and growth; we
\nhad the self-dependent village; we had the Zemindar as the link between the
\nvillage units and the central governing body and the central governing body
\nitself was one in which the heart of the nation beat. All these have been either
\ndestroyed or crippled by the intrusion of a foreign organism. If we are to
\nsurvive as a nation we must restore the centres of<\/font><\/p>\n


\n               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n               <\/font>
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>* This is a
\nlecture delivered by Sri Aurobindo speaking on the Palli Samiti resolution at Kishoregunj.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-884<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nstrength
\nwhich are natural and necessary to our growth, and the first of these, the basis
\nof all the rest, the old foundation of Indian life and secret of Indian vitality
\nwas the self-dependent and self-sufficient village organism. If we are to
\norganise Swaraj we must base it on the village. But we must at the same time
\ntake care to avoid the mistake which did much in the past to retard our national
\ngrowth. The village must not in our new national life be isolated as well as
\nself-sufficient, but must feel itself bound up with the life of its neighbouring
\nunits, living with them in a common group for common purposes. Each group again
\nmust feel itself a part of the life of the district, living in the district
\nunity, so each district must not be engrossed in its own separate existence but
\nfeel itself a subordinate part of the single life of the province, and the
\nprovince in its turn of the single life of the country. Such is the plan of
\nreconstruction we have taken in hand, but to make it a healthy growth and not an
\nartificial construction we must begin at the bottom and work up to the apex. The
\nvillage is the cell of the national body and the cell-life must be healthy and
\ndeveloped for the national body to be healthy and developed. Swaraj begins from
\nthe village.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Take another point of view. Swaraj is the organisation of national
\nself-help, national self-dependence. As soon as the foreign organism begins to
\ndominate the body politic, it compels the whole body to look to it as the centre
\nof its activities and neglect its own organs of action till these become
\natrophied. We in India allowed this tendency of alien domination to affect us so
\npowerfully that we have absolutely lost the habit and for sometime had lost the
\ndesire of independent activity and became so dependent and inert that there can
\nbe found no example of such helplessness and subservience in history. The whole
\nof our national life was swallowed up by this dependence. Swaraj will only be
\npossible if this habit of subservience is removed and replaced by a habit of
\nself-help. We must take back our life into our own hands and the change must be
\nimmediate, complete and drastic. It is no use employing half-measures, for the
\ndisease is radical and the cure must be radical also. Our aim must be to revolutionise our habits and leave absolutely no comer of our life and
\nactivities in which the habit of dependence is allowed to<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-885<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nlinger
\nor find refuge for its insidious and destructive working; education, commerce,
\nindustry, the administration of justice among ourselves, protection, sanitation,
\npublic works, one by one we must take them all back into our hands. Here again
\nthe village Samiti is an indispensable instrument, for as this resolution
\ndeclares, the village Samiti is not to be a mere council for deliberation, but a
\nstrong organ of executive work. It is to set up village schools in which our
\nchildren will grow up as good citizens and patriots to live for their country
\nand not for themselves or for the privilege of dependent life in a dependent
\nnation. It is to take up the work of arbitration by which we shall recover
\ncontrol of the administration of justice, of self-protection, of village
\nsanitation, of small local public works, so that the life of the village may
\nagain be self-reliant and self-sufficient, free from the habit of dependence
\nrooted in the soil. Self-help and self-dependence, the first conditions of
\nSwaraj, depend for <\/font>
\ntheir
\norganisation on the village Samiti.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Another essential condition of Swaraj is
\nthat we should awaken the political sense of the masses. There may have been a
\ntime in history when it was enough that a few classes, the ruling classes, the
\nlearned classes, at most the trading classes should be awake. But the
\norganisation of the modern nation depends on the awakening of the political
\nsense in the mass. This is the age of the people, the millions, the democracy.
\nIf any nation wishes to survive in the modern struggle, if it wishes to recover
\nor maintain Swaraj, it must awaken the people and bring them into the conscious
\nlife of the nation, so that every man may feel that in the nation he lives, with
\nthe prosperity of the nation he prospers, in the freedom of the nation he is
\nfree. This work again depends on the village Samiti. Unless we organise the
\nunited life of the village we cannot bridge over the gulf between the educated
\nand the masses. It is here that their lives meet and that they can feel unity.
\nThe work of the village Samiti will be to make the masses feel Swaraj in the
\nvillage, Swaraj in the group of villages, Swaraj in the district, Swaraj in the
\nnation. They cannot immediately rise to the conception of Swaraj in the nation,
\nthey must be trained to it through the perception of Swaraj in the village. The<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font><\/span>886<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\npolitical
\neducation of the masses is impossible unless you organise the village Samiti.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Swaraj, finally, is impossible without unity. But the unity we need for
\nSwaraj is not a unity of opinion, a unity of speech, a unity of intellectual
\nconviction. Unity is of the heart and springs from love. The foreign organism
\nwhich has been living on us, lives by the absence of this love, by division, and
\nit perpetuates the condition of its existence by making us look to it as the
\ncentre of our lives and away from our Mother and her children. It has set Hindu
\nand Mahomedan at variance by means of this outward outlook; for by regarding it
\nas the fountain of life, however, we are led to look away from our brothers and
\nyearn for what the alien strength can give us. The Hindu first fell a prey to
\nthis lure and it was the Mahomedan who was then feared and held down. Now that
\nthe Hindu is estranged, the same lure is held out to the Mahomedan and the
\nbrother communities kept estranged because they look to the foreigner for the
\nsource of prosperity and honours and not to their own Mother. Again, in the old
\ndays we did not hear of this distress of the scarcity of water from which the
\ncountry is suffering now so acutely. It did not exist and could not exist
\nbecause there was love and the habit of mutual assistance which springs from
\nlove. The Zemindar felt that he was one with his tenants and could not justify
\nhis existence if they were suffering, so his first thought was to meet their
\nwants and remove their disabilities. But now that we look to a foreign source
\nfor everything, this love for our countrymen, this habit of mutual assistance,
\nthis sense of mutual duty has disappeared. Each man is for himself and if
\nanything is to be done for our brothers, there is the government to do it and it
\nis no concern of ours. This drying up of the springs of mutual affection is the
\ncause which needs most to be removed and the village Samiti is again the first
\ncondition of a better state of things. It will destroy the aloofness, the
\nseparateness of our lives and bring us back the sense of community, the habit of
\nmutual assistance and mutual beneficence. It will take up the want of water and
\nremove it. It will introduce arbitration courts and, by healing our family feuds
\nand individual discords, restore the lost sense<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-887<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof
\nbrotherhood. It will seek out the sick and give them medical relief. It will
\nmeet the want of organisation for famine relief. It will give justice, it will
\ngive protection and when all are thus working for the good of all, the old unity
\nof our lives will be restored, the basis of Swaraj will have been laid in the
\ntie which binds together the hearts of our people.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>This is therefore no empty resolution, it is the practice of Swaraj to
\nwhich you are vowing yourselves. Bengal is the leader of Indian regeneration, in
\nBengal its problems must be worked out and all Bengal is agreed in this
\n\u2014<\/span> whatever division there may be among us
\n\u2014<\/span> that the recovery of our self-dependent national
\nlife is the aim and end of our national movement. If you are really lovers of
\nSwaraj, if you are not merely swayed by a blind feeling, a cry, but are prepared
\nto work out Swaraj, then the measure of your sincerity shall be judged by the
\nextent to which you carry out this resolution. Before the necessity of these
\nvillage Samitis was realised there was some excuse for negligence, but now that
\nthe whole of Bengal is awakened to the necessity, there is none. You have
\nassembled here from Kishoregunj, from all quarters of the Mymensingh district
\nand on behalf of the people of Mymensingh are about to pass this resolution. If
\nby this time next year you have not practically given effect to it, we shall
\nunderstand that your desire for Swaraj is a thing not of the heart but of the
\nlips or of the intellect at most. But if by that time Mymensingh is covered with
\nvillage Samitis in full action, then we shall know that one District at least in
\nBengal has realised the conditions of Swaraj and when one District has solved
\nthe problem, it is only a question of time when over all Bengal and over all
\nIndia, Swaraj will be realised.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nApril
\n26, 1908<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-888<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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