{"id":419,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=419"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:53","slug":"061-the-east-bengal-disturbances-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\/061-the-east-bengal-disturbances-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-061_The East Bengal Disturbances.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nThe East Bengal Disturbances<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n               
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>W<\/font><\/b>E HAVE<\/b>
\nsaid that the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai brings no new element into the
\nsituation beyond hastening the processes of Nationalism and bringing us from a
\nless to a more acute stage of our progress to independence. The second
\ndisturbing element has been the culmination of the alliance between Salimullah
\nof Dacca and the bureaucracy in the anarchy and the outrages in the Mymensingh
\ndistrict. These disturbances are now almost over for the time being, though we
\nmust take full advantage of the lull allowed to us, so as to put our house in
\norder against a possible recrudescence after the jute season. We should now
\nseriously consider how far these disturbances have altered the situation and
\nwhat we should do in order to meet these new conditions. We must first notice
\nthat neither the disturbances themselves
\nnor their cause are in their nature a new element in <\/span>the
\nsituation. The Salimullahi campaign, the use of Mahomedan Badmashes to terrorise
\nSwadeshi Hindus, the official inactivity and sympathy with the lawbreakers,
\nthese have all been with us even before. The conclusions we arrived at at the
\ntime, the warnings and exhortations we addressed to the people have been proved
\nto the hilt, justified beyond dispute, enforced in red letters of rapine,
\nbloodshed and outrage. Our reading of the situation then was that no serious
\napprehension of trouble between Hindus and Mahomedans need be entertained except
\nwithin that tract of country immediately under the influence of Nawab Salimullah,
\n\u2014 Mymensingh, Dacca, Tipperah and possibly parts of Pabna. This is precisely
\nwhat has happened. In Comilla the trouble was stopped before it could do real
\nmischief, by the resolute spirit of the Hindus; in Dacca, in spite of small
\nskirmishes, individual harassment and a minor outbreak or two, it never gathered
\nto a head, because the great strength and early preparations of the Hindus
\noverawed the prime movers and their instruments; Mymensingh alone felt the full
\nforce of<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-369<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

\nthe
\nstorm, while Pabna still hovers on the brink of it. It is not that the Nawab’s
\ncampaign was not vigorously pursued in other parts. The Red Pamphlet has been
\nubiquitous throughout Eastern and Northern Bengal; the preachings of the Nawab’s
\nMullahs have been as persistent, as malignant in Barisal, in Calcutta, in every
\nstrong centre of Swadeshism. But though there have been alarms and excursions
\neven as far west as Allahabad and Benares, the campaign has for the present
\nsignally failed outside the limits of Nawab Salimullah’s kingdom. This is a fact
\nto be noted. We do not say that Salimullahism carries no dangers with it of
\ngeneral disruption and disunion between the two communities; an unscrupulous
\nagitation of this kind, aided by official backing is always dangerous. But in
\nthe rest of the country the blind faith in the Nawab and his Mullahs is absent
\nand other conditions and forces exist which, if properly used by the
\nNationalists, will permanently counteract the promoters of disunion. Even of
\nthemselves, they have been sufficient to prevent the Mahomedans from siding with
\nthe self-elected leader against the Swadeshists.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>But however limited the area of the disturbances might be, we warned the
\ncountry that Comilla was not the first and would not be the last of such
\noutbreaks and we called upon it to be ready in time to follow the example of the
\nComilla Hindus. Moderate politicians, blind leaders of the blind, were rejoicing
\nover the end of the disturbances brought about, they said, by their mysterious
\nefforts \u2014 and crying peace, peace where there was no peace. We pointed out
\nthat the Comilla affair was not an isolated outbreak, but part of a policy and
\nwe knew the men we had to deal with too well to suppose that they would be put
\noff their machinations by a single defeat. Beaten at Comilla, they were certain
\nto try their luck again in Mymensingh. We warned the country also that when the
\ndisturbances came, it would be idle to look for protection to the officials and
\nthe police. By announcing Swaraj as our ideal we had declared war against the
\nexistence of the bureaucracy and we could not expect the bureaucracy to help us
\nby making our efforts to put it out of existence safe and easy. On the contrary,
\nthe Nawab and his hooligans were practically, if not avowedly, the allies of the
\nbureaucracy in their war<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-370<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nagainst
\nSwadeshism and must therefore command sympathy and helpful inactivity if not
\nactual assistance from their friends. In all these respects our reading of the
\nsituation has been proved correct beyond cavil or dispute. The extent to which
\nthe Nawab has succeeded in turning the baser passions of the mob to his uses,
\nthe extent to which the Anti-Swadeshi army has gone in its outrages, not
\nscrupling even to desecrate temples and violate women, the extent to which the
\nofficials carried their connivance with the excesses, an European police
\nofficial actually leading the mob and the looting being carried on under the
\neyes of the police: these things were new, but the Salimullahi campaign itself,
\nthe use of the hooligans (our Indian Black Hundred), and the sympathy of the
\nofficials are elements which are old, of which the country had been warned and
\nagainst which the leaders of the movement should have provided.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Even the extent to which these things were carried was due entirely to a
\nfeature of the Mymensingh occurrences which we had already warned the country to
\navoid \u2014 the non-resistance of the Hindus of Jamalpur. There are some who say
\nthat the recent events in India are a proof of the impracticability of the
\nNationalist programme. We do not follow the reasoning of these logicians. The
\nJamalpur incidents and their sequel are a terrible proof of the soundness of the
\nNationalist ideas and the utter un-soundness of the Moderate theories of our
\nrelations with the bureaucracy and the best way of enforcing the Swadeshi
\npropaganda. The people of Comilla followed the Nationalist programme with
\nbrilliantly successful results. They boycotted the courts, schools and every
\nother element of the bureaucratic scheme of things and announced their intention
\nof continuing the boycott so long as the Nawab of Dacca was allowed to remain in
\nComilla \u2014 and the Nawab was packed off without ceremony. They met force with
\nforce and the hooligan army of Anti-Swadeshism underwent a crushing defeat. On
\nthe other hand, the people of Jamalpur did everything which the Nationalist
\nprogramme excludes; they trusted to the promises of the alien, they chose to go
\nto the Mela unarmed, like defenceless sheep, relying not on their own strong arm
\nbut on the protection of the British shepherd. At the order of the alien they<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-371<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nlaid
\ndown the lathis they carried for self-defence, at the order of the alien they
\ntrooped to the Mela, from which they had resolved to absent themselves, to be
\nthrashed by Mahomedan cudgels. Then, when their sheepish trustfulness had had
\nits reward, that one lesson was not enough; again they trusted to British
\nprotection and sent away the volunteers who stood between them and further
\noutrage. And when the second storm came, they could think of nothing better than
\nwholesale flight from the field of battle. Throughout we see the working of the
\nold political superstitions, the old unworkable compromise which tried to oppose
\nthe bureaucracy and yet co-operate with it, to combine vigorous opposition with
\nmeek submission, to build up a nation under the most adverse circumstances and
\nagainst the strongest opponents and yet be, first and foremost, docile, peaceful
\nand law-abiding. These superstitions exploded in the explosions at Jamalpur and
\nthe conflagration that followed meant the collapse of a policy.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The hooligan disturbances in East Bengal bring therefore no new elements
\ninto the situation, but like the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai, merely make it
\nmore acute and hasten the processes of Nationalism. They create no new
\nconditions, but they have caused certain truths to be newly appreciated. The
\nfirst is that the Pax Britannica is Maya and, if we mean to be Swadeshists and
\nSwarajists, we must rely in future not on British protection but on
\nself-protection. The second is that, as we have long insisted, our present means
\nof self-defence are inadequate and better means and organisation are a pressing
\nneed. The third is the seriousness and true nature of the Mahomedan problem
\nwhich our older politicians have always tried to belittle or ignore. Any one who
\nwishes to deal successfully with the crisis in the country, must recognise these
\nthree lessons of experience and shape his methods accordingly.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\nNewmania<\/font><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n <\/p>\n

<\/font>
\n<\/b>Yesterday
\nthe Special Correspondent of the Englishman <\/i>finished his shilling shocker
\nin many chapters, <\/font> The Dreadful Boy Despe-<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nPage-372<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n


\nradoes
\nof Dacca <\/font> <\/i>or The Violent Volunteers
\nof Barisal. <\/i>We have had many new things recently, the new Hinduism, the new
\nSchool, the new Politics, the new Province, the new John Morley and now we have
\nNewmania in the Englishman. <\/i>The peculiarly delirious character of this
\ndisease can be easily understood from the Khulna telegram of the Secretary,
\nPeople’s Association. Mr. Newman had published from Barisal a peculiarly blood
\nand thunder incident of the villainous drowning and stabbing of British goods by
\nwhiskerless young desperadoes of Khulna. The Magistrate of Khulna seems to have
\nbeen so far taken in by the life-like vividness of Mr. Newman’s style as to take
\nthis bit of heroic romancing quite seriously. He actually enquired into the
\nalleged murder and sudden death and naturally found that nothing of the kind had
\nhappened. It is clear that we need a special liturgy for India. "From
\nDenzil Ibbetson and deportation, from the stick of the Constable and the gun of
\nthe Goorkha, from sunstroke and the Civil and Military Gazette, <\/i>from Pax
\nBritannica and the Nawab of Dacca, from Sir. Henry Cotton and Mr. Rees, from
\nFuller, Morley and Shillong Hare, Good Lord deliver us! From lesser plague and
\npestilence, from cholera and motor-cars, from measles and moderation, Good Lord
\ndeliver us! But most of all from the friendship of the Statesman <\/i>and the
\nravings of Newmania, Good Lord deliver us!"<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

Mr. Gokhale on Deportation<\/a><\/font><\/h2>\n


\n <\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nWe
\nare glad to see that the Statesman <\/i>does not happen to be the custodian of
\nat least one prominent Moderate’s conscience. Mr. Gokhale has written to the Times
\nof India <\/i>that "Lala Lajpat Rai has been sacrificed to a nervous
\napprehension that suddenly seized the Government." The menace held out to
\nthe prospects of administrative reform had no effect" on him and like a
\npatriot who on no account can be persuaded to throw overboard his fellow-worker
\nin the field, he has concluded his letter to the Times <\/i>with the
\ncharacteristic observation: \u2014<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>"Reforms
\nwhich the Viceroy and the Secretary of State are contemplating will lose their
\nmeaning for us if they cannot be had<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nPage-<\/font><\/span>373<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n

\nwithout
\ndeportation out of India of such earnest and high-minded workers in the
\ncountry’s cause as Lala Lajpat Rai." It was an insult offered to the
\npatriotism of our Moderate countrymen to seek to bay their support for measures
\nlike the deportation of Lajpat by dangling before them the bait of
\nadministrative reform. In the eye of the law both the giver and the taker of a
\nbribe are equally criminal. It is no doubt gratifying that our moderate
\ncountrymen do not lay themselves open to the charge of criminality, not to speak
\nof self-betrayal. As for Mr. Morley’s offering the bribe his reputation is too
\nphilosophic and literary to suffer shipwreck by such a single stroke of
\ndiplomatic unscrupulousness. Besides, the ordinary standard of morality has
\nnever been observed in the case of black races. To touch politics is to touch
\ntar, said Cardinal Newman, and in dealing with dark people there is an
\nadditional inducement for using this black commodity. Mr. Gokhale’s
\nwhite-washing of his high-minded friend will be of no use to the colour-darkened
\nvision of Mr. Morley \u2014<\/span>
\n<\/span>it will be love’s labour lost. All the same
\nhe has come out of the ordeal unscathed.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande
\nMataram, <\/font> <\/i>May 25, 1907<\/font> <\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

The Gilded Sham Again<\/a><\/font><\/h2>\n

\n <\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nThe
\nStatesman <\/i>on Sunday came out with the startling fact that Mr. Morley has
\n"finally formulated a workable scheme giving prominent natives a larger
\nrepresentation on the various bodies having effective control of Indian
\naffairs". This is, we presume, the last and most authoritative of the
\nspecial cablegrams with which the Statesman <\/i>has been regaling us, for
\nwant of more substantial fare, ever since Mr. John Morley became Chief
\nBureaucrat for India. For, we are told, Mr. Morley will make an important
\nannouncement when introducing the Indian budget. We would call the attention of
\nour readers to the wording of this portentous cablegram. There is going to be a
\nlarger representation on the bodies having effective control of Indian affairs,
\nviz., the Legislative Councils and, perhaps, the Executive in which
\n"natives" are at present unrepresented. Indians are not to be<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-374<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nallowed
\nany control over Indian affairs, they are only to be more largely represented on
\nthe bodies which have that control. They are to have a larger voice, but there
\nis to be no guarantee that the voice will be at all effective. The share of
\nIndians in the government has up to now been vox et praeterea nihil<\/i>, <\/i>a
\nvoice and nothing more, and in the future also it is to be a voice and nothing
\nmore. We notice, moreover, that it is not the country, not the people of India
\nwhich is to be represented, but only "prominent natives". We shall
\nhave a few more Gokhales, a few more Bhupendranath Boses, a few more Nawabs of
\nDacca on the Councils \u2014 and there an end. There will be a little manipulation
\nof light and shade, an increase in the number of dark faces, and Mr. Morley and
\nthe Statesman <\/i>will triumphantly invite us to rejoice at the
\n"important advance that has been made in the direction of
\nself-government". A hint has been given from another source that there will
\nactually be a non-official majority of elected and nominated members. In other
\nwords, Mr. Apcar, Mr. Gokhale and the Nawab of Dacca multiplied several times
\nover will form a non-official majority in the Council. Is this the reform for
\nwhich we are invited to give up Swadeshi, Nationalism and our future? Mr. Morley
\nand the Statesman <\/i>are grievously mistaken if they think that the
\nnewly-awakened spirit of Indian Nationalism can any longer be put off with a
\ngilded sham.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n <\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nNational
\nVolunteers<\/a><\/b><\/font><\/p>\n


\n <\/font>
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\nOur
\nBarisal Correspondent seems, like the Khulna Magistrate, to have taken the
\nEnglishman<\/i>‘s
\n<\/i>Special Correspondent much too seriously. The fictions of Mr. Newman are too
\nevidently fictions to deserve serious criticism. Whether they are the
\ndistortions of a panic-stricken imagination or actual inventions, we need not
\ntoo closely enquire. They have a certain journalistic effectiveness,
\n<\/span>and they serve the political ends of this
\npaper whose efforts are wholly directed towards urging on the Government to a
\npolicy of thoroughgoing repression. Everybody in Bengal knows that previous to
\nthe disturbances in East Bengal, there was no movement of the kind which has
\nsent Mr. Newman into carefully cal-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-375<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nculated
\nhysterics. There was a movement for physical training and the institution of Akharas,
\nwhich was by no means so widespread or successful as it should have
\nbeen. There was also a custom which had first grown up in the Congress and
\nnaturally extended to Conferences and then to public meetings, of employing the
\nservices of young men in making the arrangements and keeping order. It is those
\nonly who bore the name of volunteers and they were never a standing organisation,
\nbut merely organised themselves for the occasion and broke up when it was over,
\nnor had they any connection with the Akharas. Finally, there was in the earlier
\ndays of the Swadeshi movement great activity among the young men in picketing
\nand other means of moral suasion to enforce the boycott, but except in one or
\ntwo places this has long fallen into desuetude except for occasional spasmodic
\nattempts. Neither were the picketers ever formed into an organisation or termed
\nvolunteers. After the outbursts of anti-Swadeshi violence at Comilla and
\nJamalpur, the young men spontaneously united to present a firm defence against
\nhooligan outrages and this is the terrible phenomenon which has made Mr. Newman
\ndelirious. In his ravings he has mixed up all these loose threads and woven out
\nof them a web fearful and wonderful. As a matter of fact hundreds of youths who
\nare taking part in the defence of hearth and home, never entered an Akhara or
\nhandled a lathi before, and are now first realising what they ought to have
\nrealised long ago, the necessity of physical exercise and training to self-
\ndefence.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>With extraordinary ingenuity this imaginative Sherlock Holmes of
\nAnglo-India has discovered that the Anti-Circular Society, the Bande Mataram
\nSampraday and the Brati-Samity \u2014 harmless and peaceful relics of the first
\nSwadeshi enthusiasm, \u2014 are separately and unitedly the organising centre of
\nthese terrible Volunteers! We only wish our countrymen had shown themselves
\ncapable of forming such an organisation, deliberate, well-knit and pervasive.
\nBut we have still some way to travel before this becomes possible.<\/font><\/p>\n


\nBande
\nMataram<\/i>,
\n<\/i> <\/font> May 27, 1907<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-<\/font>376<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The East Bengal Disturbances                   WE HAVE said that the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai brings no new element into the situation beyond hastening…<\/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-419","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\/419","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=419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}