{"id":777,"date":"2013-07-13T01:30:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=777"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:30:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:20","slug":"14-last-fridays-folly-vol-27-supplement-volume-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/27-supplement-volume-27\/14-last-fridays-folly-vol-27-supplement-volume-27","title":{"rendered":"-14_Last Friday’s Folly.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\n
\nLast
\nFriday’s Folly<\/font><\/b><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n                                  <\/font>
\n<\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span>E<\/font><\/b>VEN at the risk of being branded as social reactionaries, we must, we
\nfeel, enter our protest against the notions and ideals that lay, evidently,
\nunder the so-called national dinner, celebrated at the Albert Hall on Friday
\nlast. The function, in itself, was too insignificant to deserve any notice: Two
\nhundred and fifty men and boys meeting and dining together in public, regardless
\nof caste-restrictions and old orthodoxy, is not even a new thing in Calcutta
\nSociety. Hindus and Mahomedans had dined publicly in Calcutta, on special
\noccasions, before now. Dinners had repeatedly been given at the India Club in
\nhonour of prominent members in which members of all castes and creeds joined.
\nSubscription dinners had been organised in honour of prominent public men, even
\noutside that Club, the last one being less than two years old, when the friends
\nof Sir Henry Cotton met him at a dinner at the Calcutta Town Hall Babu
\nNarendranath Sen organised a public dinner some years back, to celebrate the
\nbirthday of Buddha, where people of all castes and more than one creed, sat down
\non mats and dined together on simple loochie and dal. These
\ndinners had all been publicly announced and publicly reported; but no one cared
\nto publicly condemn them. Had last Friday’s dinner been associated with some
\nspecific public functions, or been held in honour of any particular public men,
\nno one would have, we believe, taken any serious notice of it. The folly of it
\nlay in the idea that interdining was a necessary condition of nation -building
\nin India; and it deserves condemnation for propounding the foolish and suicidal
\nideal that social and religious differences must first of all be destroyed
\nbefore India can ever hope to realise her own true civic life.<\/p>\n

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

           
\n<\/span>This is the Anglo-Indian and the British idea. It is the main plea upon
\nwhich the present despotism supports and justifies itself. It is the plea upon which even our own old-school patriots proclaim the
\nfatal doctrine that India is not, and will never for a very long period be,
\nfitted for self, government and, therefore,<\/p>\n

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


\n
\n Page-44 
\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n


\nthe strong hand of the foreigner must be over her, to prevent her <\/span>,<\/span>
\nvarious <\/span>castes
\nand creeds flying at each other’s throat, and thus <\/span> <\/span>falling<\/span>
\n<\/span>a
\nprey to some other and infinitely worse foreign yoke, if <\/span>the
\npresent one is removed; and that, therefore, the highest political wisdom
\ndemands that we should, as long as there are diversities of creeds and castes
\namong us, cultivate with care the present servitude, trying to make it easy to
\nbear for the nation, and <\/span>profitable
\nfor the individual, by adopting the policy of "association with and<\/span>
\n<\/span>opposition
\nto the Government." This plea must be <\/span>knocked<\/span>
\non the head, therefore, before we can expect to make out, 
\n<\/span><\/span>a<\/span>
\nreasonable case for that propaganda of national freedom and 
\n<\/span><\/span>autonomy<\/span>
\nwhich has been taken up by the New Party in the <\/span> <\/span>country<\/p>\n

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

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

           
\n<\/span>Those who say that
\ncaste and religious differences must first of all be destroyed before India can
\never rise to the status of a nation, have very hazy and confused notions
\nregarding the character <\/span>and
\nconstitution of that nation. Our history has been <\/span>different
\nin many respects from the history of other peoples. The composition of the
\nIndian people has been unique in all the  <\/span>world.
\nNations grew in the past by the accretion and assimilation of different tribes.
\nThis is an earlier process. But India has not 
\n<\/span><\/span>been<\/span>
\na mere meeting-place of tribes; but a meeting-place of grown up nations with
\ndeveloped social and religious lines of their own, and with original castes and
\ntypes of cultures peculiar to them. The character and composition of the coming
\nIndian Nation, therefore, will differ very materially from those of the European
\nNations, the process of unification among whom took place at a much <\/span>earlier
\nand comparatively more nebular stage of their <\/span>growth.
\n<\/span>This
\nis a fact which our old school politicians and social <\/span>reformers
\ndo not seem as yet to have had any time to think of, and we are not hopeful that
\neven now, after it is pointed out to them, in the plainest language possible,
\nthey will have the patience <\/span>to
\ndo so and recognise this essential peculiarity of our <\/span>infant national life.
\nThe nation-idea in India will realise itself
\n <\/span>in
\nall its departments, along what may be called federal lines,<\/span> –
\n<\/span> <\/span>it
\nwill be a union of different nationalities, each preserving its
\nown specific elements both of organisation and ideal, each communicating to the
\nothers what they lack in either thought or<\/p>\n

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


\nPage-45<\/p>\n

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

\n

character;
\nand all moving together towards one universal end, both in civic and social
\nlife, progressively realising that end along its own historic and traditional
\nlines, and thus indefinitely drawing near to each other without, for an equally
\nindefinite period, actually losing themselves in anyone particular form of that
\nlife, whether old or new. The Mahomedan, the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Christian
\nin India will not have to cease to be Mahomedan, Hindu, Buddhist, or Christian,
\nin any sense of the term, for uniting into one great and puissant Indian Nation.
\nDevotion to one’s own ideals and institutions, with toleration and respect for
\nthe ideals and institutions of other sections of the community, and an ardent
\nlove and affection for the common civic life and ideal of all, – these
\nare what must be cultivated by us now, for the building up of the real Indian
\nNation. To try to build it up in any other way will be impossible, whether that
\nway be the way of
\nthe Brahmo, the Christian, or the propagandist Mahomedan. To make any attempt
\nalong any of these lines, will not make for but work against national unity; and
\nthe reckless men who organised this so-called national dinner will, if they
\npersist in their folly, instead of bringing the different races and religions
\ntogether, only help to arouse the opposition of orthodoxy everywhere, and drive
\nthe great forces that range always with orthodoxy, to an attitude of open
\nhostility to the great national movement, and bring about a reaction that will
\nseek to accentuate those very differences and tighten those very bonds of caste
\nand custom, which in their unphilosophic and unscientific zeal they are trying
\nby these wrong and obtrusive methods to obliterate and loosen. It is in this
\nview that we condemn the folly that was perpetrated on Friday last under the
\nname of a National Dinner.<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Bantle
\nMataram, <\/span><\/i>September
\n17, 1906
\n<\/span><\/p>\n


\nPage-46<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Friday’s Folly                                      EVEN at the risk of being branded as social reactionaries, we must, we feel, enter our protest against the notions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-27-supplement-volume-27","wpcat-16-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777","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=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}