{"id":395,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:44","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=395"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:44","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:44","slug":"083-from-phantom-to-reality-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\/083-from-phantom-to-reality-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-083_From Phantom to Reality.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nFrom Phantom to Reality<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

                       
\n<\/span><\/font>T<\/font><\/b>HE<\/b> action of the omnipotent and irresponsible executive in obstructing
\nDistrict Conferences alike in the proclaimed and unproclaimed areas of Bengal
\nought to carry home to every mind, however persistent in self-deception, the
\nabsurdity of vaunting the rights and privileges of a subject people. There is a
\ntaunt writ large over these ukases and it is this: "Fools and
\nself-deceivers who think that rights can be held as the gift of a superior!
\nNothing is a right till it has been purchased by sacrifices as great as the
\naspiration is high. You were allowed to speak and pass resolutions so long as
\nspeeches and resolutions were all; but now that you are breaking the tacit
\ncontract by turning your movement into a serious thing, we order you to be
\nsilent and disperse." Mā<\/font>yā<\/font> <\/i>dies hard. Illusion is the chief obstacle
\nto salvation, man clings to illusions by a natural impulse; but to rid oneself
\nof them is the beginning of wisdom. Illusions have long stood in the way of our
\npolitical salvation and the lingering faith of our prominent men in persistent
\nconstitutional agitation, even when the alien bureaucracy stands completely
\nunmasked before our eyes, is an illustration of the obstinate cherishing of
\nillusions. The Magistrate prohibits the holding of the District Conference at
\nKhulna. The High Court is moved and the illegal ukase is precipitately
\nwithdrawn: but the withdrawal was merely a change of tactics. A bureaucracy
\nnever lacks pretexts to harass the undesirables. The promoters of the Conference
\nare now on their trial for making seditious speeches in the Conference.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>At Faridpur a local leader, whose faith in the ultimate good sense of the
\nautocratic rulers has outlived even the recent violent strain, arranged for a
\nDistrict Conference on a grand scale notwithstanding the protests of a section
\nof the public against holding meetings with permission from the Police. As the
\nrecent District Conferences, though compromising our self-respect to a certain
\nextent, have at last been justified by their results, we have<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-477<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\npreferred
\nnot to press the point of honour. We have submitted to the Ordinance by not
\nholding meetings; Faridpur and Pabna carry their weakness a little further, that
\nis all. And on the whole it was well that the attempt to hold the Conference was
\nmade. For the Faridpur leaders adopted to a certain extent the Nationalist
\nprogramme and have, as a consequence, come in conflict with the bureaucracy. The
\nprohibitory ukase of the Magistrate of Faridpur leaves no doubt as to the
\nattitude of the bureaucracy towards opposition in any form. They demand a tame
\nacquiescence in their arbitrary regulations and are determined to put down any
\nexpression of adverse opinion under the pretext of preventing the spread of
\ndisaffection and the disturbance of public tranquillity. Is further explicitness
\nwanted? Cultivate the art of "wooing", hold meetings to issue loyalist
\nmanifestos or celebrate the Empire Day, but if you are audacious enough to
\nexpress your discontent, the British truncheon is ready for you. This is the
\nwhole meaning of these ukases; this is the moral repeatedly inculcated through
\nthe various prohibitory circulars. As the old superstitions have still their
\nhold on some minds, we welcome the repetition of such browbeating. But in the
\nmeantime we must not fail to turn them to account. If we are not capable of
\noffering any active opposition to the encroachment on our natural rights, the
\nintensified sense of wrong should at least give a healthy direction to the
\npatriotic efforts of all. From such continued rebuffs we should draw the energy
\nand inspiration to work out our national well-being on independent lines. Every
\nfresh blow should impart a greater impetus to the Boycott, to National
\nEducation, to the organisation of discontent, with a view to leaving the aliens
\nseverely alone. But hitherto our Moderate friends have rather been anxious to
\nram their heads more vigorously against the stone wall of bureaucracy than to
\nlearn by their failure the necessity of taking our own road. They still persist
\nin trying to resurrect the dead phantom of British sympathy and good will.
\nHenceforth they should seek rather the resurrection of our own national strength
\nand greatness. When Lord Curzon aimed his first blow at self-government by
\ngiving his seal of approval to the Calcutta Municipal Bill, the Pratibasi <\/i>published
\na cartoon exposing the unsubstantial nature of our<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-478<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nrights
\nand privileges. The Calcutta Municipality was represented as a shrouded corpse
\nsurrounded by weeping relatives to whom a padre <\/i>with the physiognomy of
\nSir John Woodburn soothingly remarked, "The Lord hath given, the Lord hath
\ntaken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." It drew forth from the Pioneer
\n<\/i>the following retort: "The quaint conceit might have been rounded off
\nby some hope of future resurrection." This false hope which the bureaucracy
\ntill now sedulously fostered, has been a curse to the country. Privileges
\ngranted as favours have no true life in them; they are mere illusions and what
\nis the use of striving for the fitful return, of ghosts who are again bound to
\ndisappear? Let m\u00e3<\/span>y\u00e3<\/span> <\/i>pass out of us, let the illusions die;
\nlet us turn with clear eyes and sane minds from these pale and alien phantoms to
\nthe true reality of our Mother as she rises from the living death of a century,
\nand in her seek our only strength and our sufficient inspiration.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n
\nSwadeshi
\nin Education<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere
\nis an interesting article in the Modern Review <\/i>on Swadeshi in Education,
\ninteresting not only because of the subject and its importance, or of the
\nundoubted thought and ability which has been devoted to the subject, but also
\nand still more because of the limitations of the present education to which it
\nbears striking evidence. The mind trained by the present system of education,
\neven when it is somewhat above the average, is almost invariably deficient in
\npracticality and the robustness to shake off cherished superstitions and face
\nand recognise facts. The attempt at Swadeshi Education under the official
\nUniversities has been made both in Calcutta and under particularly favourable
\ncircumstances at Poona. At Poona an immense amount of self-sacrifice went to the
\nmaking of the New English School and the Ferguson College, and some of the best
\nintellects and noblest hearts in the Deccan devoted themselves to the work. Yet
\nthe end was failure. The Ferguson College is in no way superior to any other
\ninstitution in the Bombay University, although also in no way inferior. Its
\neducation is the same vicious and defective education \u2014 utterly<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-479<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nunsuited
\nto modern needs
\n<\/span>\u2014 academic,
\nscrappy, unscientific, <\/span>unpractical, unideal.
\nIt takes aid from the officials, submits to their dictation and excludes
\npolitics at their bidding. Yet the proposal of the Modern Review <\/i>writer
\nis merely to concentrate the best intellects of the country in the Poona
\nInstitution in order to make it "an Indian College superior to any existing
\nCollege", and as summarily, dismisses the idea of a National University
\nmerely on the score of expense. We fail to see how this will meet the problem or
\nhow such an institution can really deserve the name of Swadeshi in Education.
\nSwadeshi in Education does not mean teaching by Indian professors only or even
\nmanagement by Indians only. It means an education suited to the temperament and
\nneeds of the people fitted to build up a nation equipped for life under modern
\nconditions and absolutely controlled by Indians. The proposed Model College
\nmight avail itself of the services of Drs. Bose and Ray and Ziauddin, but they
\nwould after all have to teach on the lines and up to the standard of the Bombay
\nUniversity and submit entirely to the rules and orders of the Bombay Government,
\nas conveyed through an officialised Senate and Syndicate. We should still be
\nconfined within the vicious circle of which the writer complains. We should be
\nno nearer "taking the higher education of this country into our own hands
\nand ceasing to look to Englishmen for help" than we were thirty years ago.
\nIndependence is the first condition and any scheme which disregards it is doomed
\nto failure.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> July 13, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-480<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Phantom to Reality                             THE action of the omnipotent and irresponsible executive in obstructing District Conferences alike in the proclaimed and unproclaimed…<\/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-395","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\/395","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=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}