{"id":83,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:46","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=83"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:46","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:46","slug":"10-his-official-carrier-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/10-his-official-carrier-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-10_His Official Carrier.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

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

\n
\nHis Official Career<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font><\/b>HUS
\n<\/b><\/font>
\nequipped, thus trained Bankim began his human journey, began in the radiance of joy and strength
\nand genius the life which was to close in suffering and mortal
\npain. The drudgery of existence met him in the doorway, when
\nhis youth was still young. His twenty-first year found him at
\nJessore, his fifty-third was the last of his long official labour.
\nHere too however his inveterate habit of success went always with
\nhim. The outward history of his manhood reads more brilliantly
\neven than that of his youth, and if he did not climb to the highest
\nposts, it was only because these are shut to indigenous talent.
\nFrom start to finish, his ability, delicacy of judgment and careful
\nwork were recognised as something unusual: yet it would not be
\neasy to find a more careful or cleverer set of administrators than
\nthe Hindu civilians of Bengal. At Jessore his life was chequered
\nby a great boon and a great sorrow. It was here that he made
\nfast his friendship with the dramatist Dinabandhu Mitra, which
\nremained close-soldered to the end, and it was here that his young
\nwife died. At Kanthi, the next stage of his official wanderings,
\nhe married again and more fortunately. Khulna, the third
\nstep in the ladder, was also the theatre of his most ambitious
\nexploits. Entangled in the Sunderban, that rude and unhealthy
\ntract of marsh and jungle, the zillah was labouring under two
\nmorbid ailments, for which none of its official doctors had
\nfound an efficient panacea, \u2014 the smallpox of piracy and the
\ngreater pox of Indigoism. Ruffians from Europe were in hot
\ncompetition with the native breed which should deserve best the
\nGovernment Scholarship for lawlessness and brutality; and as
\nthey had a racial gift for these things and a wider field it might
\nhave been safely awarded to them. Unluckily Bankim stept into
\ntheir happy hunting-grounds and spoiled the game. But to the
\nunhappy ryots, the battle-field for these rival rascalities, he came<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 83<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nas a champion and a deliverer. At Khulna this mild, thoughtful
\nBengali wears the strange appearance of a Hercules weeding out
\nmonsters, clearing augean stables, putting a term to pests. His
\ntranquil energy quite broke the back of the Indigo tyrants.
\nTheir master-criminals and chief indigocrats fled to Anam and
\nBrindaban, but they were overtaken by Bankim’s warrant and
\npersuaded to come back. Fine and imprisonment meted out with
\na healthy severity shattered their prestige and oppressed their
\nbrutal spirits. Khulna then saw the last of government by organised ruffiandom. No less terse and incisive were Bankim’s
\ndealings with the water-thieves who lurking in creek and brushwood
\ndominated to the perpetual alarm and molestation of travellers
\nthe hundred waters of the Sunderban. The outlaws were hunted
\ndown and imprisoned and their principal spirits relegated where
\nthere was less room for their genius to find self-expression. The
\nhydra of the waters had been crushed as effectually as the indigo
\npest; and since the era of Bankim’s magistracy one may travel
\nthe length and breadth of Khulna without peril except from
\nmalaria and ague. By a little quiet decisiveness he had broken
\nthe back of two formidable tyrannies and given an object lesson
\nin what a Government can do when it heartily intends the good
\nof the people.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nBaruipur, a place consecrated in the calendar of literature, 
\nwas next put into his hands. The event of his residence here was
\nhis appointment vice Mr. Justice Princep to the chair of an Official Emoluments Commission, then sitting. The Government
\nintended this to look like an extraordinary distinction, and had
\nnot the genius of the man raised him immeasurably above any
\nEnglishman in the country, we might have regarded it as such. Berhampur was the next step in his journey, and after Berhampur
\nMaldeh, and after Maldeh the important Suburban district of
\nHugly. He was now nearing his high-water mark and his official
\nexistence, which had been till then more than ordinarily smooth, began to be
\nploughed up by unaccustomed storms. The Government wanted to give some inadequate expression to its sense of
\nhis extraordinary merits and could think of nothing better than
\na place in the Secretariat. It was here that he came into collision
\nwith the spirit of bureaucracy. His superior was a certain<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 84<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nMacaulay, hard working official, whose brains were tied together
\nwith red tape. The diligent mediocrity of this man was goaded
\nto extra hours by flickering visions of a Lieutenant-Governorship, but Bankim, having no such high incentive, was careful to
\nclose his work at the strict office-hour. For this Macaulay took
\nhim severely to task. "It is natural enough," replied Bankim,
\nforgetting unfortunately that he was talking to a piece of red
\ntape, "it is natural enough for you to work hard. You are of the
\nruling caste and may rise, who knows ? to be Lieutenant-Governor. But why should I be subservient to your example ? Here is
\nthe bourne and goal of my promotion. Beyond it what prospect
\nhave I ? No, I have no idea of sweating myself to death over
\nextraordinary work." When independence and red tape come
\ninto collision, it is usually independence that gets tripped up. Bankim was sent back in a hurry to Magistrate’s work, this time
\nat Alipur. But his ill-luck followed him. He was shipwrecked
\nagain in a collision with Anglo-Indianism. Walking in Eden
\nGarden he chanced across Munro, the Presidency Commissioner,
\na farouche bureaucrat with the manners of an Englishman and
\nthe temper of a badly-educated hyena. Bankim examined the
\nqueer curiosity, as one might any queer curiosity, with a certain
\nlazy interest, but no signal of respect. He was unaware at this
\ntime that to Salaam any stray European you may meet is the
\nhighest privilege of a Hindu and the whole duty of a Deputy
\nMagistrate. But he was soon to receive instruction: for His
\nHyenaship was off in a rage to the Government and by a little
\nprivate roaring easily got Bankim transferred to Jahajpur in
\nOrissa. Bankim was considerably taken aback and not a little
\nangry. "Have I then committed some grave fault ?" he enquired
\nof the Chief Secretary, "or is it that the Government has found
\nout a new way to pay its old debts ? Resolve me, for I am in
\ndoubt." The gibe told. He had hardly set foot in Orissa, when
\nhe was gazetted back to Hugly. After a lapse of time \u2014 Munro, I believe, had in
\nthe meantime been struck by his own astonishing likeness to the founder of Christianity and was away to spread
\nthe light of the Gospel among the heathen \u2014 after a lapse of time
\nBankim was allowed to come back to Alipur. But this was the
\nlast stage of that thankless drudgery in which he had wasted so<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 85<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nmuch precious force. His term of service was drawing to a close
\nand he was weary of it all: he wished to devote his remnant of
\nlife to literature. But the days that remained to him were few and evil. One or
\ntwo years clouded with sickness, sorrow and suffering stood between him and the end.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 86<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THREE His Official Career   THUS equipped, thus trained Bankim began his human journey, began in the radiance of joy and strength and genius the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","wpcat-4-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","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=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}