{"id":410,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:50","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=410"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:50","slug":"034-omissions-and-commissions-at-berhampur-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\/034-omissions-and-commissions-at-berhampur-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-034_Omissions and Commissions at Berhampur.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\n
\n\t\tOmissions and Commissions at Berhampur<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>T<\/font><\/b><\/span>HE<\/b>
\nspirit of mendicancy has not been given much play in the proceedings of the
\nBerhampur Conference and so far this year marks a distinctive advance. Last
\nyear’s Conference was totally exceptional; and there could be no certainty that
\nthe victory then won for reason and patriotism, would be permanent, for the
\nmendicant spirit fled from the Conference Pandal before Kemp’s cudgels and the
\ntriumph of the gospel of self-help was accomplished in an atmosphere of such
\nexcitement that even the chill blood of a Legislative Councillor was heated into
\nseditious utterance. The very moment after the dispersal of the Conference the
\nmendicant nature reasserted itself, justifying the maxim of the ancients,
\n"Drive out Nature with a pitchfork (or a regulation lathi), yet it will
\ncome back at the gallop." But since then Nationalist sentiment in Bengal
\nhas grown immensely in volume; and although the Conference was held in a
\nModerate centre, in the peaceful and untroubled atmosphere of West Bengal, no
\npositive mendicancy was permitted. There were, indeed, certain features of the
\nConference which we cannot view with approval. Last year the right of raising
\nthe cry of the Motherland wherever even two or three of her sons might meet,
\nwhether in public places or private, was asserted by the whole body of delegates
\nin spite of <\/i>police cudgels; this year the right was surrendered because
\nBabu Baikunthanath Sen had pledged his personal honour to a foreign bureaucrat
\nthat there would be no breach of the peace. Since this plea was accepted by the
\ndelegates, we must take it that all Bengal has acknowledged the shouting of
\n"Bande Mataram" in the streets to be a breach of the peace! Here is a
\nvictory for the bureaucracy. And yet the Chairman of the Reception Committee was
\nnot ashamed to include in his rotund rhetorical phrases congratulations on our
\ntriumph and our scars of victory. The private and personal<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-238<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nhonour
\nof Babu Baikunthanath was set in the balance against the public honour of the
\ndelegates of Bengal, and the latter kicked the beam. It will be said that the
\nposition of Babu Baikunthanath as host precluded the delegates from doing
\nanything which would compromise that estimable gentleman. We deny that Babu
\nBaikunthanath stood in the position of host to the Conference, whatever may have
\nbeen his relation to individual delegates; in any case the representatives of
\nBengal went to Berhampur not to eat good dinners and interchange kindly social
\ncourtesies, but simply and solely to do their duty by the country. We deny the
\nright of any individual, whatever his position, to pledge a whole nation to a
\ncourse inconsistent with courage and with honour. But the leaders seem to have
\naccepted the plea with alacrity as a good excuse for avoiding a repetition of
\nBarisal. "For such another field they dreaded worse than death." The
\nincident shows the persistence of that want of backbone which is still the curse
\nof our politics. In any other country the very fact that the delegates had been
\nassaulted at one Conference for asserting a right, would have been held an
\nimperative reason for re-asserting that right at every succeeding Conference,
\ntill it was admitted. Unless we can show the same firmness, we may as well give
\nup the idea of passive resistance for good and all.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Several of the Resolutions seem to us unnecessary in substance and others
\ninvertebrate in phrasing. We have no faith whatever in the Judicial and
\nExecutive separation nostrum; we do not believe that it will really remedy the
\nevil which it is designed to meet. So long as the executive and judiciary are
\nboth in the pay of the same irresponsible and despotic authority, they will for
\nthe most part be actuated by the same spirit and act in unison; the relief given
\nwill only be in individual cases. Even that much relief we cannot be sure of;
\nfor the moment the functions are separated, it will become an imperious need for
\nthe bureaucracy to tighten their hold on the judiciary and, with all the power
\nin their hands, they will not find the task difficult. Already the High Court
\nitself has long ceased to be the "palladium of justice and liberty"
\nagainst bureaucratic vagaries, and the unanimity of the two Services is likely
\nto be intensified by the so-called reform. It is quite possible that the
\nseparation will make things<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-239<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nworse
\nrather than better. One reform and one alone can secure us from executive
\noppression and that is to make the people of this country paymasters and
\ncontrollers of both executive and judiciary. No patchwork in any direction will
\nbe of any avail. What for instance is the use of clamouring about the Road-Cess
\nwhen we know perfectly well that it was levied not for roads and other district
\npurposes but as a plausible means of circumventing the Permanent Settlement? No
\none can deny that it is admirably fulfilling the purpose for which it was
\nlevied. It is absurd to think that the bureaucracy will be anxious to open out
\nthe country any farther than is necessary for military and administrative
\npurposes and for the greater facility of exploitation by the foreign trader and
\ncapitalist. The needs and convenience of the people are not and can never be a
\ndetermining factor in their expenditure. For the same reason they cannot be
\nexpected to look to sanitation beyond the limit necessary in order to safeguard
\nthe health of Europeans and avoid in the world’s eyes manifest self-betrayal as
\nan inefficient, reactionary and uncivilised administration. Realty to secure the
\npublic health and effectually combat the plagues that are rapidly destroying our
\nvitality, swelling the death-rate and diminishing the birth-rate would demand an
\namount of cooperation with the people for which they will never be willing to
\npay the price.
\n                    
\nWith the exception of these minor triflings and of one glaring omission beside
\nwhich all its omissions and commissions fade into insignificance, the work of
\nthe Conference has on the whole been satisfactory. It is well that it has
\nsanctioned the taking up of sanitation measures by popular agency; it is well
\nthat it has dealt with the question of arbitration and that it has approved of
\nmeasures for grappling with the urgent question of scarcity and famine. But in
\nfailing utterly to understand and meet the situation created by the disturbances
\nin East Bengal, the Conference has shown a want of courage and statesmanship
\nwhich is without excuse, \u2014 we wish we could say that it was without parallel.
\nWe shall deal with this subject separately as its importance demands.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> April 6, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-240<\/font><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Omissions and Commissions at Berhampur                   THE spirit of mendicancy has not been given much play in the proceedings of the Berhampur Conference and…<\/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-410","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\/410","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=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}