{"id":393,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:44","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=393"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:44","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:44","slug":"044-graduated-boycott-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\/044-graduated-boycott-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-044_Graduated Boycott.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\n
\n <\/font><\/span>Graduated Boycott<\/span><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n              
\nT<\/b><\/font>HE<\/font><\/b> opponents
\nof the New Spirit have discovered that boycott is an illusion. An entire and
\nsweeping boycott, they say, is a moral and physical impossibility; and their
\ninfallible economic authority, Mr. Gokhale, has found out that a graduated
\nboycott is an economic impossibility. They point to the failure of the
\nthorough-going boycott in Bengal as a proof of the first assertion; the second,
\nthey think, requires no proof, for how can what Mr. Gokhale has said be wrong?
\nThis assertion of the impossibility of a graduated boycott is an answer to
\nthe reasoning by which Mr. Tilak has supported the movement in Maharashtra. In
\nthe first
\ndays of the movement Mr. Tilak published a series of
\nvigorous and
\nthoughtful articles in the <\/font>Kesari <\/font><\/i>on Boycott as a political Yoga. He
\nadvocated the entire exclusion of British goods, the preference of Swadeshi
\ngoods at a sacrifice when they were attainable, and, when unattainable, the
\npreference of any  foreign goods not
\nproduced in the British Empire. To the argument that this programme was not
\nimmediately practicable in its completeness, he replied that as in Yoga, so in
\nthe boycott, "even a little of this <\/font>dharma <\/font><\/i>saves us from a mighty
\nperil". The mighty peril is the entire starvation of the country by foreign
\nexploiters and its complete and hopeless dependence on aliens for almost all
\narticles of common use. Even a slight immediate diminution of this dependence
\nwould be a great national gain and could by degrees be extended until the full
\nboycott policy became an accomplished fact. Mr. Tilak, with his shrewd
\npractical insight, was able to see clearly that immediate and complete success
\nof a thorough-going boycott was not possible in India, but that a gradually
\nefficacious boycott would naturally result from a thorough-going boycott
\ncampaign. What Mr. Tilak foresaw, is precisely what is happening.
\n        The entire exclusion of British-made goods is the political aspect of the
\nBoycott with which we do not deal in this article.<\/font><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Page-292<\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nIs it a fact that as an economic weapon a graduated boycott is impossible?
\nBoycott may be graduated in several ways. First, by the gradual growth of the
\nidea of excluding foreign goods a steadily increasing check may be put on the
\nimport of particular foreign articles and a corresponding impulse given to the
\nuse of
\nthe same articles produced in India. A Government by imposing a gradually
\nincreasing duty on an import in successive tariffs may kill it by degrees
\ninstead of immediately imposing a prohibitive rate; the growth of the boycott
\nsentiment may automatically exercise the same kind of increasing check. The
\ngrowth of the sentiment will help on the production of the indigenous article
\nand the increased production of the indigenous article will help on the growth
\nof the sentiment. Thus mutually stimulated, Swadeshi and Boycott will advance
\nwith equal and ever more rapid steps, until the shrinkage of the foreign import
\nreaches the point where it is no longer profitable to import it. The process can
\nonly be checked by the insufficiency of capital in the country available or
\nwilling to invest itself in Swadeshi manufacture. But the growth of
\nthe boycott sentiment will of itself encourage and is encouraging capital
\nto invest in this direction; for so much boycott means so much sure market <\/i>for
\nSwadeshi articles and therefore an increase of capital willing to invest in
\nSwadeshi manufacture. The increased production of the Swadeshi article in its
\nturn means more money in the hands of the mercantile class and of investors in
\nSwadeshi Companies and therefore more capital available <\/i>for investment in
\nSwadeshi manufacture. We fail to see how in this sense an automatically
\ngraduated boycott is impossible; on the contrary, it seems to us economically
\ninevitable, provided only the boycott sentiment is increasingly embraced by the
\npeople.
\n        Boycott may be graduated in another way. When the
\nboycott was declared in
\nBengal, it was declared specially against cloth, sugar and salt, and only
\ngenerally against other articles. It is therefore the imports of English
\npiece-goods, Liverpool salt and, though only to a slight extent, of foreign
\nsugar into Bengal which have suffered. When this specific boycott has been
\nproved effective, it may be extended to other articles. Thus the boycott may
\nbe graduated not only in its incidence on particular articles, but<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Page-293<\/p>\n

\n

\nin its extent and range. The graduation of a specific boycott may be partly
\nartificial and partly automatic. It is artificial when the leaders of the people
\npreach an economic Jehad against particular foreign goods and the people accept
\ntheir decision. But this artificial boycott can only succeed when there is
\nalready an incipient industry in the corresponding Swadeshi article or some
\nexisting means of supply however partial, which may be stimulated or extended by
\nthe boycott. Liverpool salt has been affected because ‘Karkach’ is available;
\nBritish piece-goods have been affected because there was already a
\nmill-industry and a handloom industry which have been enormously stimulated by
\nthe boycott, as is shown by the wholesale return of the weaver class to their
\ntrade in Bengal and by the increase in the number of
\nweaving mills and the splendid dividends which the existing concerns are
\npaying. On the other hand the campaign against foreign sugar has not been
\nsuccessful, because the proper substitute is not available. Yarns have not been
\naffected because the spinning industry in India is a negligible quantity while
\nthe demand for yarn has enormously increased. In time a Jehad against foreign
\nyarn will become feasible. But the specific boycott may also be automatic when
\nthe general sentiment of boycott attacks a particular article for which a
\nsubstitute exists in the country. To take a small instance, the market for steel
\ntrunks sent ready-manufactured from England is decreasing to such an extent
\nthat failures of dealers in steel trunks are beginning to be recorded. Here again,
\nwe fail to see the impossibility of a graduated boycott. It is quite true that
\nin the very beginning the increase of the stimulated Swadeshi article may not be
\nsufficient to blot out entirely the increase in the import, and the superficial
\nand hasty may proclaim the failure of the boycott. But by the growth of the
\nboycott the increase of the Swadeshi article must progressively swell and the
\nincrease of the import must progressively shrink until it is turned into an
\nactual decrease. The fact that the success of the boycott is progressive and not
\nmiraculous, need not frighten or disappoint any sensible and determined
\nboycotter. It is true also that the growth of Swadeshi may actually stimulate
\nfor a time the import of particular foreign articles, such as machinery or
\nyarns; but the stimulation is temporary<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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\n

\n
\nand, as soon as part of our growing capital is free and willing to invest in new
\nfields, the graduated boycott will naturally extend itself in these directions
\nsooner than in others.
\n        The theory therefore that a graduated
\nboycott is impossible, seems to us to have
\nno foundation either of facts or of reasoning. Whatever the fate of its use as a
\npolitical weapon, its success as an economical weapon depends solely on the zeal
\nwith which it is preached and the readiness with which it is received by the
\npeople.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span>Instinctive
\nLoyalty<\/a>
\n<\/font> <\/b>
\n
\n<\/span>The Indian
\nMirror <\/i>reflects nothing but its own self when it says, — "Nobody in
\nthe country, howsoever absorbed in the dreams of an Indian autonomy, wishes to
\nsee the British connection severed and the country left to her fate. This
\ninstinctive clinging to some sort of relation with England, in other words, this
\nloyalty to the Crown of England, affords the best ground for optimism about a
\nmaterial improvement in the attitude of the Indian peoples toward their British
\nrulers." There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in
\nthe Mirror’s <\/i>philosophy. That a country cannot prosper in the true sense
\nof the
\nterm unless it be left to its own fate is a truism with all right-thinking men.
\nThe publicists of the Indian Mirror <\/i>type have a comfortable gospel of
\ntheir own revealed to them by a study of their own needs rather than those of
\nthe country. No political thinker has as yet sought to convert the truth that
\nliberty is the essential condition of all-round progress in a nation. Prison
\nlife after some time comes to be life as a matter of habit, — the jailor comes
\nto be respected out of fear of the rod. But to describe such diseased and
\nabnormal sentiments as normal and instinctive is to mistake a slave for a man.
\nIt is highly prejudicial to our returning sense of self-respect that papers
\nlike the Indian Mirror <\/i>should still be able to preach the gospel of
\nservility.<\/font><\/p>\n

Bande Mataram<\/i>, <\/i>April 26, 1907<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

 Graduated Boycott                  THE opponents of the New Spirit have discovered that boycott is an illusion. An entire and sweeping boycott, they say, is…<\/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-393","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\/393","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=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}