{"id":418,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=418"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:53","slug":"078-personal-rule-and-freedom-of-speech-and-writing-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\/078-personal-rule-and-freedom-of-speech-and-writing-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-078_Personal Rule and Freedom of Speech and Writing.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nPersonal Rule and Freedom of Speech and
\nWriting<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                       
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>M<\/font><\/span><\/b>R.<\/b>
\nJohn Morley is reported to have delivered himself of the following fatuity:
\n"One of the most difficult experiments ever tried in human history was
\nwhether we could carry on personal government along with free speech and free
\nright of public meeting," and he was cheered by the House. He might as well
\nhave said, "We are carrying on in India the most difficult experiment of
\nhunting with the hounds and running with the hare," and no doubt he would
\nhave been applauded with the same enthusiasm. The average member of Parliament
\nis gifted with no remarkable powers of understanding and such intelligence as
\nthey possess is never drawn upon in elucidation of matters Indian; and as there
\nis a well-understood agreement between the two front benches that no real
\nmeasure of liberty is to be given to India, the Secretary of State has a most
\nenviable opportunity of saying anything he may please within the strict limits
\nof such agreement about freedom of speech and similar topics, without the least
\nfear of provoking any serious hostile criticism, and Mr. Morley has certainly
\ntaken his occasion by both hands.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Any power or privilege in order to deserve the title "free"
\nmust be based on the authority of an independent people possessing the supreme
\nand ultimate power of control over its own government. It is this fundamental
\nfact of self-government that must be their origin and sanction, and it is only
\nin this sense that terms like "freedom of conscience" or "freedom
\nof speech" are understood in the countries that actually enjoy them. Their
\n‘freedoms’ are the concrete expression, the sacred symbols, of the popular will
\nthat has realised its sovereignty and constitute the inviolable limitations
\nunder which the executive must work. They stand inaccessibly superior to the
\nneeds or wishes of those who actually carry on the government of the country;
\nwhose tenure of power primarily rests on their unquestioned submission<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-458<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nto
\nthe sovereign will and freedom of the people as whose servants they administer.
\nTake the situation in England during the late Boer War as an instance.
\nThroughout that war the Pro-Boers carried on their propaganda all over the
\ncountry without the least let or hindrance from the Cabinet or the
\nadministrative authorities, however much they might have desired to coerce them
\ninto silence. John Morley himself was the most outspoken exponent of those who
\nsympathised with the Boers and denounced the war, but no ukase could reach him
\nnor any Emergency Act hurry him out of England.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>But when the right of spontaneous articulation comes as a
\ngift
\nfrom a foreign despotism with no limits on the power of its <\/span>Executive,
\ninstead of proceeding from the consent and conviction of the people governed, it
\nbecomes then a mere licence strictly similar in kind to any other of the
\nspecies, for example, a licence issued by the Excise Department. It is held
\nduring pleasure, the giving and the taking of it having not the least reference
\nto the people’s wishes. In fact the word "right" has no meaning in a
\nsubject country. A right can only be where the people are "free", and
\nsignifies some inalienable incident of citizenship the recognition of which is
\nan absolute obligation on the Government. The things that masquerade in a
\ncountry like India under the name of rights, are only concessions of might
\nqualified by prudence and what is conceded in the prudential exercise of
\ndespotic power will be withdrawn out of the same consideration, the people
\nremaining equally helpless before and after. The proclamation that is now
\nbrooding in a death-like hush over the Punjab and East Bengal is the amplest
\nconfirmation of the foregoing lines and disposes finally of the sickening cant
\nof John Morley about the coexistence of free speech and personal rule. The
\nfreedom of a subject race is only the freedom
\n<\/span>to starve and
\ndie, all the rest of its existence being on sufferance <\/span>from
\nthose who govern.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The pseudo sophies of the Radical philosopher who now rules our
\ndestinies, bear however some ugly results. They give in the first place a
\nsplendid opportunity to unblushing journals like the Times <\/i>for insolent
\ndissertations on the enlightened and democratic character of the Government that
\nEngland has<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-459<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nfounded
\nin the Orient and for illusory comparisons between the Indian Government and any
\nother Government that might have possibly been established in this country if
\nEngland had not come to bless her with her beneficent rule, the result of which
\nis to place India in an entirely false light before the civilised world. They
\nalso fill the Briton, endowed by Nature with more than the ordinary mortal’s
\nshare of pride, with an intoxicating sense of exultation as he thinks of the
\nnoble work his countrymen are carrying on in India. But far worse than all this
\nis the poison they instil into the minds of those immoderate lovers of England
\nin general, and John Morley in particular, who are known as Moderates amongst us
\nhereby constantly borrowing from the language of English constitutionalism in
\norder to designate the gewgaws given them by the Government. They have gradually
\ndeluded themselves into the belief that Indians possess like Englishmen the real
\nincidents of citizenship and such belief hardens into a dogma when Mr. Morley
\nlends it his sanction. The Queen’s Proclamation becomes in the borrowed
\nphraseology of the Moderate the Magna Charta of India; the indulgence granted to
\na subject people to ventilate their grievances is transmuted by the same
\njugglery of language into freedom of speech and writing, his membership of a
\nhelpless Dependency he must persist in describing as the citizenship of the
\nEmpire. No matter that the whole world laughs at him in utter contempt, and
\ncalls him a fool. There are two things that his English education and his
\nreading of Morley have not given him \u2014 the sense of history and the sense of
\nhumour. And when a proclamation descends like thunder and shatters all his
\npretentious nonsense to slivers, he clings nevertheless to his illusion and
\nblames the Extremist for having brought on the catastrophe by his foolhardiness.
\nHe weeps and wails because he has lost his primary right of citizenship without
\na moment’s thought on the fact that he has neither rights nor citizenship, and
\nthat such things cannot be taken away by a Government. He has read in the
\nhistory of free countries, but read in vain, that right and citizenship have behind them a sacred tradition of sacrifice, even to the shedding of blood, on a
\nloyal adequate recognition of which their Government is founded. The Moderate
\ndoes not see that what has been<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-460<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwithdrawn
\nfrom him by the proclamation is no such right as he pretends to have had, but
\nthe mere opportunity conceded by the master to the helot to pour forth his
\nunavailing complaint. He confuses sufferance with freedom, the favour of a
\nforeign despotism with the right of citizenship, and his ambition is to win
\nliberty by a whimper. Unless he relearns History and undeceives himself, he will
\nalways remain unfit for freedom, a hindrance to his country, a mere dupe of
\nMorleyism, the subject of utter scorn for the nations that are free. What he
\nadores as liberty is a sorry sordid, delusive mask, not the high-throned, stern,
\nexacting Goddess whose one incessant, unambiguous demand resounds through
\nHistory and ever pierces across the night of time to the heart of the Indian who
\nwould worship her \u2014 "Main bhukha hun<\/i>, main bhukha hun<\/i>."<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande Mataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font>June 28, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-461<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Personal Rule and Freedom of Speech and Writing                           MR. John Morley is reported to have delivered himself of the following fatuity: "One of…<\/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-418","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\/418","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=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}