{"id":787,"date":"2013-07-13T01:30:25","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=787"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:30:25","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:30:25","slug":"10-the-pro-petition-plot-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\/10-the-pro-petition-plot-vol-27-supplement-volume-27","title":{"rendered":"-10_The Pro- Petition Plot.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n

The
\nPro-Petition Plot<\/span><\/span><\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\n                             
\n<\/font><\/b><\/font><\/span>I<\/font><\/b>T IS impossible, we think, to condemn too strongly the attempt that is
\nbeing made, by means of confidential circulars from Calcutta, to get up a fresh
\nmemorial to the Secretary of State for India for the revocation or modification
\nof the Partition of Bengal. We are strongly opposed, it is well known, to
\nsending any fresh memorial on this subject, but this general objection apart,
\nthe methods that have been adopted to get up new memorial are open to serious
\nobjection, and it is to these that we desire to call public attention today. A
\ntelegraphic message was received in Comilla about the middle of last month n one
\nof the Calcutta leaders, asking the local leaders to send a delegate to a
\nConference that was proposed to be held on some urgent matters the following
\nSunday. What these urgent matters were  <\/span>was
\nleft to the imagination of the addressees to discover for themselves. Comilla
\nstrongly objected to be worked upon in this mysterious, if not masterly way from
\nCalcutta, and wired back<\/span> asking
\nfor definite and detailed information. No <\/span>I, we understand, was received
\nin reply, but about a week later, just a few hours before the time fixed for the
\nConference, a printed letter, marked confidential, was received by Babu Ananga
\nMohan Ghosh, from the Bengalee <\/i>office, containing excerpts from certain
\nletters secured from London, which suggested that a fresh memorial should be
\nsent to the Secretary of State for India  <\/span>for
\na reconsideration of the Partition of Bengal. One of the extracts said:
\n"What appeared absolutely hopeless <\/i>four weeks ago appears hopeful <\/i>now. There are indications that the cabinet
\nare willing to reconsider the Partition Question on its merits, There are
\nindications that in due time the question, if properly urged, will be reopened.
\nI am not at liberty to speak about conferences I had just before leaving London.
\nAll that I tell you is to advise you to have an influential and representative
\nmeeting, say, early in September, to adopt a strong, well-<\/p>\n

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

\n
\nPage-25<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n

reasoned memorial, suggesting alternative
\nschemes of Partition based on racial and linguistic grounds and to submit it to
\nthe Secretary of State through the Indian Government. Bengal
\nhas <\/span>worked splendidly during the last eleven months, –<\/span>
\nBengal will <\/span>have to work a little longer, – not hysterically, but rationally and
\nstrongly,<\/span> –<\/span> making
\nit clear that she will not accept the present Partition. I believe redress is at
\nhand."
\n              
\n<\/span>Later on the writer, after quoting Sir .Henry Campbell- Bannerman’s reply
\nto Mr<\/span>. O’Donnell, modified his previous advice regarding public meeting and said: "On second thoughts, a simple
\nmemorial seems to be enough if influentially signed, – a meeting is unnecessary."<\/p>\n

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

              <\/span>This letter
\ncame from a high authority. But it is clear on the face of it that that high
\nauthority was playing into the hands of the Liberals interested in India. The
\nenforced retirement of Sir B. Fuller was a distinct confession on the part of
\nthe Government of the failure of the policy which prompted the Partition scheme,
\nand which subsequently came to be so closely associated with the late
\nLieutenant-Governor of East Bengal and Assam. This failure is distinctly due to
\nthe resistful attitude that has been assumed by the people of late, and in view
\nof the complications with which the Government is threatened by the present
\nanti-Partition and boycott agitation in Bengal, the authorities in England, as
\nwell as in this country, are evidently anxious to get out of the unpleasant and
\nrisky position wherein their own perversity has placed them. To do this
\nhonourably and without any loss of prestige they want a plea for reopening the
\ndiscussion of Mr. Morley’s settled fact, and a fresh memorial from Bengal would
\nfind them this plea. This, it seems clear, is the meaning of the excerpts quoted
\nby us above from the London letter, on the strength of which the Calcutta
\nleaders want a fresh memorial to be got up. They might make the attempt, there
\nis no reason why, if they are convinced that it is their duty to send a fresh
\nmemorial, they should not make this attempt. But what we object to is the
\nsecretiveness of the whole thing. Why have they tried to keep this new proposal
\nfrom the public? Why should they arrogate to themselves the right of deciding,
\nin consultation with a handful of men, as to what should be done in this matter?
\nThe Conference<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-26
\n <\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n <\/span>held in the Landholders’
\nAssociation should have been an open
\nconference. But even at this closed conference, the general opinion, if the
\nreports that have reached us be correct, was decidedly against sending any fresh
\npetition or memorial. It is said that Babu Motilal Ghosh and others were
\ndistinctly opposed to the
\nidea and the words petition and memorial had to be dropped under pressure of this
\ngeneral opinion, especially among the mofussil delegates; all that was conceded
\nby the Conference was that some suggestions might be sent. We do not know if the
\nquestions of the channel through which the suggestions were to
\nbe sent was raised at all. But whatever was decided by the conference we find that a secret attempt is being made to send not
\nsuggestions, but a live, real memorial again to the Secretary of state for India
\non the Partition Question. We do not respect official secrets, but, when public
\ninterests demand it, widely publish them, and there is no reason why we should
\nrespect non-official secrets when their publication is called for in the interests
\nof
\nthe public good. We, therefore, make no apology for publishing the following letter that has been addressed
\nfrom the Bengalee <\/i>
\nOffice, to the leaders of public opinion in the mofussil<\/font>:<\/p>\n

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

Bengalee Office
\n70, Colootola Street, Calcutta 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

29th August, 1906<\/p>\n

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

My dear \u2026\u2026.,
\n               
\n<\/font><\/span>At a Conference held in the Rooms of the Landholders’
\nAssociation on Sunday last, at which several delegates from the mofussil<\/span>
\nwere present, it was resolved to submit a representation to the Secretary of
\nState for reviewing the Partition of Bengal. It was agreed that the
\nrepresentation, if possible, should be forwarded early in September. The
\nrepresentation is being drawn up, and in the meantime I beg you will forward to
\nthe Bengalee Office as many<\/span>
\n signatures (including of course the signatures of
\nthe leading inhabitants in your District). The representation would ask for Bengal
\n(old and new Province) being placed under a Governor and Council, or in the
\nalternative, the Bengalee-speaking<\/font>
\n
\n<\/span>                                                                                 
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Page-27<\/font><\/p>\n

\n


\npopulation being placed under one and the same administration. I beg you will
\nconsider the matter as very urgent.<\/font><\/p>\n

Yours
\nsincerely
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

It is clear thus, that a
\nsecret memorial is being got up to be sent again to the Indian State Secretary;
\nand as this memorial will clearly be sent in the name and on behalf of the
\npublic, the public have just cause for complaint that in regard to such a vital
\nquestion of policy they should have been left so entirely in the dark. There was
\na time when the people in general took really little or no interest in public
\nquestions of this kind; and in those days the getting up of such memorials in
\nconsultation with a few lawyers\\n the different districts, might have been
\njustified; because they were about the only persons who took any interest in
\nthese public and political questions. The present Swadeshi agitation has,
\nhowever, changed all this. We have called up the <\/i>real nation out of its
\nancient slumber, and the masses have commenced to take a keen, and possibly a
\nmore earnest interest in public questions than even the so-called educated
\nclasses. They have joined our meetings in their thousands and their tens of
\nthousands, and have taken, during the last twelve months, an intelligent
\ninterest in our movements. What right have we now to ignore them in such
\nmomentous matters as the submission of a fresh memorial to the Secretary of
\nState, which may radically change the face of the whole agitation? The tactics
\nadopted by the Calcutta clique seem, therefore, to be absolutely vicious. They
\nstrike at the very root of those principles of Democracy upon which the national
\nmovement in India and especially in Bengal is professedly based. Democracy must
\nhave its leaders, and the leaders must exercise the right of guiding and shaping
\nthe opinions and activities of the Democracy. But to guide, to train, to shape
\nand to control public opinion and public activities is one thing but to ignore
\nor suppress the views and sentiments of the public is another. It is the
\nautocrat alone who does or attempts to do so. And this pernicious autocratic
\ntendency in the leaders of Bengal must at once be knocked relentlessly on the
\nhead, if the present movement is to realise the high<\/p>\n

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


\nPage-28<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n


\npromise<\/span> that is in it. The old leaders in Calcutta and those who
\nlance in the mofussil to their tune, must be made to
\nunderstand this distinctly that they will not be permitted to speak and
\nact in ,name of the public without fully and frankly taking that public into
\ntheir confidence in regard to all important public questions. Signs are not,
\nindeed, wanting that the people will not suffer the tyrannies of their own
\nleaders more patiently than they are prepared to suffer those of their foreign
\nmasters. The Comilla Resolution on this very subject of sending a fresh memorial
\nto Government is significant as we pointed out yesterday. A similar Resolution,
\npublished in our telegraphic columns last Wednesday, has been adopted at a
\ngathering of 20,000 men at Chittagong, in spite of the attempt made by some
\npeople to refer, the matter to the local leaders. The question was asked whether
\nlarger vote could be taken on this topic at any meeting of the
\nlocal Association, and it was frankly answered in the negative. There were many men at this gathering who had come from
\nthe villages, and they all seemed clearly
\nflattered by the fact that they were given such an opportunity of expressing
\ntheir views on so<\/span> important
\na matter, and this sense of satisfaction is a distinct guarantee of their
\nfuture interest in public questions.
\nHenceforth they will not look on our movements with their old
\nlistlessness<\/span>
\n and indifference. Is this a small gain? Are we to
\nneglect such a result for small favours from the Government? What even if
\nthe Partition continues, if only we can arouse a real interest in the masses in
\nour public and political agitations? If the masses once awake from their present
\ntorpor, they will be able to undo a thousand evil and obstructive measures like the
\nPartition of Bengal. True statesmanship would prefer this quickening of public
\nlife and public spirit in the people to the revocation, as a favour, of even the
\nmost obnoxious and pernicious Government measure. But autocracy whether in the
\nGovernment or in the governed, has no eye for the people; and is, therefore, the
\ngreatest enemy of human progress everywhere, and should be ruthlessly exposed
\nand knocked on the head by those who care for the advancement of the people and
\nfor their civic salvation.<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

Bande
\nMataram, september 10,1906\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-29<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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