{"id":414,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=414"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:51","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:51","slug":"057-the-statesman-on-mr-mudholkar-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\/057-the-statesman-on-mr-mudholkar-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-057_The Statesman on Mr Mudholkar.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nThe "Statesman" on Mr. Mudholkar<\/b><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n                       
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>N<\/font><\/span><\/b>OTHING<\/b>
\ncan be more instructive than the way in which recent events have arrayed all
\nAnglo-Indians, "liberal" or reactionary, on one side and on the other
\nhand brought all Indian politicians, moderate or "extremist", nearer
\nto each other. It shows that the profound division of interests creates an
\nunbridgeable gulf between the aliens in possession and the people of the country
\nin their different degrees of <\/font>
\naspiration.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Apparent alliances between Anglo-India and
\nany section of the people can only be temporary adjustments of self-interest or
\nof policy. When the crucial moment comes, each must return to his own camp and
\nstand in sharply-defined opposition to his recent ally. We have had occasion to
\ncomment strongly on the recent unmasking of the Statesman<\/i>. <\/i>It was
\nemphasised yesterday by the bitter and unscrupulous attack of that paper on Mr.
\nMudholkar. Mr. Mudholkar is the leading Moderate politician of the Berars, a man
\nalmost timid in his caution and one of the chief opponents of the new
\nNationalism. One would have thought therefore that the Statesman <\/i>would
\nhave the decency at least to treat him with some affectation of respect. But Mr.
\nMudholkar is handled as roughly and hectored and lectured as insolently as if he
\nhad been a Tilak or a Bepin Pal. The attack is not only insolent; it is
\nunscrupulous. The Statesman <\/i>does not hesitate to misrepresent Mr.
\nMudholkar in order to serve its own ends. This is how it distorts Mr.
\nMudholkar’s letter in one instance: "We read at the outset the theory of
\nprovocation is ridiculous and absurd; but in the succeeding sentence Mr.
\nMudholkar impliedly admits that it was the conduct of a few indiscreet young men
\nthat furnished the immediate occasion of the riot. This<\/i>, we believe<\/i>,
\nhas now been definitely established<\/i>." <\/i>Anyone who takes the trouble to read Mr.
\nMudholkar’s letter will see at once that he does not admit either impliedly or
\ndirectly that there was provocation. He says, "Assuming, what has yet to
\nbe proved<\/i>,<\/p>\n

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

<\/i><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font><\/span>352<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nthat
\nthe impassioned advocacy of Swadeshi goods by the National Volunteers was
\ndistasteful to the Mahomedans, how could it possibly serve as a
\nprovocation?" And proceeding with this assumption, he asks in the next
\nsentence how this alleged indiscretion of a few young men at the Mela could
\nproduce so fearful a riot? We cannot credit the Statesman <\/i>with sufficient
\ndullness or ignorance of the English language as to suppose that its distortion
\nof Mr. Mudholkar’s argument is not deliberate.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>And when, may we ask, was it "definitely established" that the
\nindiscretion of a few Volunteers was the cause of the riot? We know that it is
\nso stated by the correspondents of Anglo- Indian papers whose evidence, being
\nmere hearsay, has no value whatever, and we presume that this is what they have
\nbeen told by the police officials who are accused of complicity in leading the
\nHindus into a carefully-prepared trap. But the statements of the Hindus, who
\nwere attacked, stand as yet uncontroverted by independent evidence and unrefuted
\nby any reliable enquiry. The Statesman<\/i>, <\/i>feeling the weakness of its case,
\ntries to justify the action of the Mahomedan rowdies by saying that there has
\nbeen a rise of prices round about Jamalpur as the result of the Swadeshi
\nagitation. This is, in the Statesman<\/i>‘s <\/i>view, sufficiently grave
\nprovocation! Well, possibly so. There has been, we know, an immense rise of
\nprices all over India owing to the British occupation, to which the present rise
\nof prices is absolutely nothing. Would that, in the Statesman<\/i>‘s <\/i>view, be
\nsufficiently grave provocation for the whole of India to rise in riot of
\nrebellion?<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The Statesman <\/i>has no real answer to Mr. Mudholkar’s arguments. Its
\nanswer to him consists merely of a prolonged charge of exaggerated language. Mr.
\nMudholkar described the state of things in East Bengal by the words
\n"anarchy, rapine, desecration, bloodshed". These words the Statesman
\n<\/i>stigmatises as "ludicrously inappropriate to the facts". Indeed?
\nThe facts are that for the space of several weeks village after village was
\nplundered and property to the value of many lakhs looted; yet this is a state of
\nthings which we are not to be allowed to term rapine. During the same time
\nimages were destroyed, temples attacked and desecrated, a religious celebration
\nforbidden by armed rowdies; yet all this did not amount to desecration! Life
\nand person<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/h2>\n

\nPage-353<\/font><\/span><\/h2>\n
\n

\nwere
\nunsafe, numbers of men were hurt, some so seriously as to be sent to the
\nhospital, two or three were brutally murdered, yet the Statesman <\/i>thinks
\nthere was no bloodshed. For this space of time life and property and the honour
\nof women were unsafe over a large area, the Hindus had to flee from Jamalpur and
\nin all neighbouring places to organise their own defence, panic and riot and
\noutrage reigned supreme while the constituted authorities busied themselves
\nrepressing the community attacked and threatened, leaving a free hand to the
\nrioters; but this is not to be called anarchy! No, all this, says this
\nmiraculous Friend of India, were mere ordinary local disturbances which would
\nscarcely have attracted notice <\/i>but for the profoundness of the Pax
\nBritannica. Mark the opinions of your friend, people of India. The desecration
\nof your temples, the violation of your women, the wholesale plunder of your
\nproperty are to him things that scarcely deserve to attract notice.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The Statesman <\/i>again rebukes Mr. Mudholkar for exaggerating the
\nriot at Rawalpindi which it holds to be a very ordinary affair, and thinks that
\nbecause Mr. Mudholkar has exaggerated this and other matters, therefore Indians
\nare unfit to be entrusted with the administration of their own affairs. Yet in
\nthe same article the Statesman <\/i>justifies the deportation of Lala Lajpat
\nRai, even if he were innocent<\/i>, <\/i>because the occurrences in the Punjab were
\nconsidered by the Government so serious that his removal was a necessity. Here
\nis a consistent Friend of India! But if Mr. Mudholkar’s exaggerated ideas of the
\nRawalpindi disturbances unfit his countrymen for self-government, still more do
\nSir Denzil Ibbetson’s and the C. M<\/i>. Gazette<\/i>‘s <\/i>yet more exaggerated ideas
\nof the same occurrences show that Englishmen are unfit to rule India.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The only point that the Statesman <\/i>successfully makes against Mr.
\nMudholkar is when it disproves his belief that such arbitrary and tyrannical
\nproceedings are subversive of the principles of British law. This delusion of
\nthe Moderates ought now to be renounced. They have always laboured under the
\ndelusion that because the British Government, as apart from its local
\ninstruments, acts within the law, it is therefore incapable of oppression. On
\nthe contrary, as the Statesman <\/i>points out, the British laws<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-354<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

\ngive
\nample room and provide adequate weapons for methods of despotic repression which
\nare often indistinguishable in kind, though less direct and brutal than Russian
\nmethods.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>None, says the Statesman <\/i>sanctimoniously, has laboured more
\ndevotedly than ourselves in the case of India’s political emancipation. We have
\nheard legends that have come down to us from the times of our fathers of
\noccasional active help given by the Statesman <\/i>to their constitutional
\nagitation, but we do not know what it has done recently beyond promising reforms
\nwhich never come and thriving on the support of the Indian public. Certainly
\nthis is not enough to entitle it to lecture one of the leaders of public opinion
\nand revile him as a "ranter". We hope that Mr. Mudholkar will learn
\nhis lesson, cease to appeal to English rulers and English journals and address
\nhimself in future to his own countrymen. Let him join hands with us in training
\nthem into a strength which will be a far greater security against "anarchy,
\nrapine, desecration and bloodshed" than the protecting arm of the
\nbureaucracy or the friendship of the <\/font> Statesman<\/i>.<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n


\nBande
\nMataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> May 20, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\nSilent Leaders<\/font><\/a><\/h3>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nWe
\nhave been waiting day after day in the hope that the men who profess to be the
\nleaders of the people would give out no uncertain instructions to the country as
\nto how it could best meet the violent frontal attack which the bureaucracy has
\nmade upon the Nationalist agitation. We can quite understand that nothing hasty
\nor impatient should be done and that a few days should have been taken for
\ncareful consideration before any lead was given to the nation at a peculiarly
\ncritical juncture. But it seems that the only thing our leaders can think of to
\ndo is <\/span>
\n\u2014
\nnothing. <\/span>The struggle we are engaged in is
\nof the nature of a battle and in a battle a quick eye and a prompt decision are
\nof the first importance. It is not a big judicial case or a Bill in the
\nLegislative Council in which slow decision or none is called for. We fear our
\nleaders have been demoralised and the harsh and terrible reality, with which
\nthey are suddenly brought face to face, has<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-355<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

\nfrightened
\nall the energy and volition out of them. If so, they are not the leaders for us.
\nMen without courage, men who cannot hurl themselves upon the confronting danger
\nwhen they see the crown of success beyond, or men whose eyes are blinded by
\nselfish terror to the vision of the crown, these are not the men for times of
\nrevolution such as the present. We will look no longer to them for leading but
\ntake our own line and let those who have the courage go with us, and let them
\nwho have not, crouch in the temporary safety purchased by inglorious cowardice
\nuntil the storm breaks upon fighter and trembler alike and sweeps away those
\nfirst who thought to save themselves from its violence. Once more and for the
\nlast time we call upon these leaders of ours to give us the word for the battle.
\nWhere are they, these men who claimed to be our great men and our captains? Why
\nare they hiding their heads in the hour of danger? Already murmurs are spreading
\namong the rank and file and those who were once spoken of with honour are being
\ncalled vile and shameful names. They must speak at once if they would save their
\nreputation and influence.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> May 21, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font>356<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The "Statesman" on Mr. Mudholkar                           NOTHING can be more instructive than the way in which recent events have arrayed all Anglo-Indians, "liberal" or…<\/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-414","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\/414","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=414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}