{"id":376,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=376"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:37","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:37","slug":"040-the-gospel-according-to-surendranath-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\/040-the-gospel-according-to-surendranath-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-040_The Gospel According to Surendranath.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nThe Gospel
\naccording to Surendranath<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n   <\/font>                
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>T<\/b><\/font>HE<\/font><\/b>
\nappearance of Babu Surendranath Banerji as an exponent of the "New
\nNationalism" is a phenomenon which shows the spread of the new spirit, but,
\nwe fear, nothing more. We congratulate Babu Surendranath on his conversion to
\nthe New Nationalism, but we are not sure that we can congratulate the New
\nNationalism on its convert. Nationalism is, after all, primarily an emotion of
\nthe heart and a spiritual attitude and only secondarily an intellectual
\nconviction. Its very foundation is the worship of national liberty as the one
\npolitical deity and the readiness to consider all things well lost if only
\nfreedom is won. "Let my name be blasted," cried Danton, "but let
\nFrance be saved." "Let my name, life, possessions all go," cries
\nthe true Nationalist, "let all that is dear to me perish, but let my
\ncountry be free." But Babu Surendranath is not prepared to consider the
\nworld well lost for liberty. He wishes to drive bargains with God, to buy
\nliberty from Him in the cheapest market, at the smallest possible price. Until
\nnow he was the leader of those who desired to reach a qualified liberty by safe
\nand comfortable means. He is now for an unqualified liberty; and since the way
\nto absolute liberty cannot be perfectly safe and comfortable, he wants to make
\nit as safe and comfortable as he can. It is evident that his conversion to the
\nnew creed is only a half and half conversion.
\nHe has acknowledged the deity, but he is not prepared for the sacrifice. It is
\nalways a danger to a new religion when it receives converts from among strong
\nadherents of the old, for they are likely to bring in with them the spirit of
\nthe outworn creed and corrupt with it the purity of the new tenets. If leaders
\nof the old school wish to be accepted as exponents of the New Nationalism, they
\nmust bring to it not only intellectual assent, but a new and changed heart — a
\nnew heart of courage and enthusiastic self- sacrifice,
\nto replace the old heart of selfish timidity and distrust of the national
\nstrength.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-273<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

In the
\nleading article of last Friday’s Bengalee <\/i>some very important
\nadmissions are made. The unlimited possibilities of the organised national
\nstrength of India are acknowledged without reservation. "There is no
\nlimit to what they can do. We at any rate would set no limits to their ambition….
\nWe want our
\ncountry to be as great in its own way as other countries are in theirs. And we
\nare determined to secure our rightful place in the federation of humanity by
\nmethods which are least wasteful in their nature and would soonest bring us
\nto the assured destination<\/i>." <\/i>The federation of humanity is one of those
\nsounding phrases, dear to Babu Surendranath, which have no relation to
\nactualities; but the rightful place of India among the nations, federated or
\nunfederated, is one which cannot admit of any the least restriction on her
\nliberty. And the description of the methods to be used at least rules
\npetitioning out of court, for petitioning is certainly
\nwasteful in its nature and would not bring us soonest, — nor, indeed,
\nat all — to our assured destination. There is more
\nbehind. "Where is the room for compromise in spiritual life? <\/i>Nobody
\nhas a right to tell us in regard to a question like this, thus far you shall go
\nand no farther. National expansion and self-realisation is a sacred duty which
\nwe cannot lay aside at the bidding of any authority above or below. The charter
\nhere is a charter from on high and no mundane authority has a right to undo
\nit." All this is admirable. It is true that the writer in the next breath
\nsays, "We have no quarrel with anybody who does not
\nstand in our way," — an obvious truism, —
\nand invites the Government
\n"not to block the way", promising it as a reward "a happy and not
\ninglorious transformation at no distant date". But the bureaucracy knows,
\nas well as the writer knows, that transformation is only an euphemism for
\ntranslation to a better world, and there is not the slightest chance of its
\nlistening to this bland invitation. However, the fact stands out that Babu
\nSurendranath has declared for absolute autonomy to be arrived at by methods
\nwhich among other things would soonest bring us to the assured destination<\/i>.
\n        Unfortunately the rest of the article is devoted to carefully undoing the effect
\nof the first half. It is practically an attempt to controvert the position
\nwhich we have taken up in this jour-<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-274<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

nal. Our position is that it is imperatively necessary for this nation to enter
\ninto an immediate struggle for national liberty which we must win at any cost;
\nthat in this struggle we must be inspired and guided by the teachings of history
\nand those glorious examples which show how even nations degraded, enslaved and
\ninternally disunited, can rapidly attain to freedom and unity; and that for this
\npurpose the great necessity is to awake in the nation a burning, an
\nirresistible, an unanimous will, to be free. The Bengalee<\/i> denies all
\nthese positions. We must win liberty, it holds, not by an immediate struggle but
\nby a long and weary journey; not by heavy sacrifices, but in the spirit of a
\nBanya by grudging, limited and carefully-calculated sacrifices. We are not to be
\nguided by the concrete lessons of history, but by vague and intangible
\nrhetorical generalisations about "our increased knowledge and wisdom, our
\nenlarged affections and interests of the present day". We are to curb our
\nwill to be free by a "trained intelligence" which teaches us that we
\nare not a homogenous nation and must therefore tolerate differences.
\n        We will content ourselves at present with pointing out that the
\nBengalee<\/i>‘s answer
\nto us is neither objective nor self-consistent. We have tried to establish our
\nposition by definite arguments and appeals to well-known facts of human nature
\nand human experience; the Bengalee<\/i> simply denies our conclusions in
\ngeneral terms without advancing a single definite argument. We can only conclude
\nthat our contemporary has no definite arguments to advance. The confusion of his
\nideas is appalling. We are to choose for the attainment of liberty the method
\nwhich will bring us soonest to our destination; but we must at the same time
\ninsist on making it a long and weary journey. We must have the determination to
\nget liberty "at any cost"; but we must not carry out that
\ndetermination in practice; no, in practice we must get it not at any cost but
\nat the smallest cost possible. We must really ask the Bengalee <\/i>to clear
\nup this tangle
\nof ideas and discover some definite arguments before it again asks the
\nNationalists to confine themselves to realising their ideas in practice and to
\nabstain from "quarrelling with everybody who differs from them". It
\nwould be no doubt very gratifying to the Bengalee <\/i>not to be quarrelled
\nwith, in other words, to escape from<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage-275<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

the annoyance
\nof finding its intellectual positions and its methods assailed; but we cannot
\ngratify it. So far as possible, our ideas are being realised in practice
\nwherever Nationalism is strong; out for their full effectiveness they need the
\nwhole nation at their back and it is therefore our first duty to convince the
\nnation by exposing
\npseudo-Nationalism in all its workings.
\n        We shall meet
\nthe Bengalee<\/i>‘s positions one by one hereafter. Meanwhile we take the
\nliberty of offering one suggestion to Babu Surendranath Banerji. This veteran
\nleader is a declared opportunist, who believes, as he has himself said, in
\nexpediency more than in
\nprinciples. He seeks to lead the nation not by instructing it but by watching
\nits moods and making use of them. Well and good; but even an opportunist leader
\nmust keep pace with public opinion, if he does not even go half a step in front
\nof it; he must know which way it is going to leap before the leap is taken, and
\nnot follow halting some paces behind. The nation moves forward with rapidity;
\nBabu Surendranath pants ineffectually after it. It is not by such hesitating
\npronouncements that he can retain the national leadership. The times are
\nrevolutionary, and revolutionary times demand men who know their own mind and
\nare determined to make it the mind of the nation.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

  <\/span>
\nBande
\nMataram, <\/i>April 22, 1907<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPage-276<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gospel according to Surendranath                       THE appearance of Babu Surendranath Banerji as an exponent of the "New Nationalism" is a phenomenon which shows…<\/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-376","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\/376","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=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}