Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, February 20th, 1908 }   Work and Ideal   We are being advised by many nowadays not to quarrel over ideals but to attend to the work lying nearest to our hands. We must not talk of faith and hope, or revel in Utopian visions but run to the nearest scene of work, be one of the drudging millions, try to improve their lot and set ourselves to the task of mitigating human sufferings. The old villages are so many pictures of desolation and distress, they are the hot-beds of malaria, the sepulchres of our greatness; so go to them and try to reinstate our tutelary angel in his ancient seat. Or we must erect mills, start sm

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, February 22nd, 1908 }   The Glory of God in Man   Whoever is still under the influence of intellectual pride, is shocked when people depreciate the reason as the supreme guide. He asks how is it possible for a man of culture to depreciate the reason and exalt some extraneous influence like that which people call God? But these doubters are under the influence of European materialism which tries to confine man to his material portion and deny him the possibility of a divine origin and a divine destiny. When Europe left Christianity to the monk and the ascetic and forgot the teachings of the Galilean, she expos

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, September 21st, 1907 }   Caste and Democracy   We fear our correspondent who has criticised on another page the consistency of our views on caste, has hardly taken any trouble to understand the real drift of our articles. His attitude seems to be that we must be either entirely for caste as it at present exists or entirely against the institution and condemn it root and branch in the style of the ordinary unthinking social reformer. Because on the one hand we protested against the ignorant abuse of the institution often indulged in simply because it is different in form and spirit from European ins

APPENDIX FOUR   A Birthday Interview   Sri Aurobindo gave this interview to a newspaper correspondent in the Alipore Magistrate's Court on 15 August 1908.   An Interview   Ever since the commencement of the trial until Saturday [15 August 1908] Arabindo has preserved a stolid lethargic demeanour. From the first day's hearing to the thirty-sixth, he has occupied one bench, his eyes immovably fixed on the floor, totally indifferent to the unfolding issues of the case. The Arabindo of Saturday was, however, quite another being. His personality, hitherto grave and prepossessed, had been metamorphosised into one of spri

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 29th, 1908 }   New Conditions   A great deal of the work done by us during the last three years has been of a purely preparatory character. The preparation of the national mind was the first necessity. All that the old school of politics did was to prepare the way for the new thought by giving a full trial to the delusions that then possessed the people and demonstrating their complete futility. Since the awakening of the nation to the misdirection of its energies a fresh delusion has taken possession for a time of the national mind, and this is the idea that a great revolution can be worked out without the sa

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 23rd, 1908 }   The Wheat and the Chaff   The result of the Convention meeting at Allahabad is now certain and it seems that after a brief struggle Sir Pherozshah has prevailed. We have done much for reunion, and have striven in vain. The personality of Sir Pherozshah Mehta and the votes of his Bombay henchmen have overborne the feeble patriotism and wavering will of the Bengal Moderates and their Punjab supporters. The Convention has thrown in its lot with Minto and Morley and sacrificed the country at the altar of the bureaucracy and as the Bengal leaders have not dissociated themselves from the Convention we mus

The New Nationalism   What is Extremism?   The nicknames of party warfare have often passed into the accepted terminology used by serious politicians and perpetuated by history, and it is possible that the same immortality may await the designations of Moderate and Extremist by which the two parties now contending for the mind of the nation are commonly known. The forward party   The Heart of Nationalism   Nationalism; but what is Nationalism? The word has only recently begun to figure as an ordinary term of our politics and it has been brought into vogue by the new, forward or extreme party which, casting about for a con

Bande Mataram   { CALCUTTA, April 30th, 1907 }   Shall India Be Free?   We are arguing the impossibility of a healthy national development under foreign rule,— except by reaction against that rule. The foreign domination naturally interferes with and obstructs the functioning of the native organs of development. It is therefore in itself an unnatural and unhealthy condition, a wound, a disease, which must result, unless arrested, in the mortification and rotting to death of the indigenous body politic. If a nation were an artificial product which could be made, then it might be possible for one nation to make another. But a nation cannot be made,—

The Aims of the Nationalist Party   My dear countrymen, when I stopped here on my way to Surat I spoke a few words to you. The Congress had not taken place then. I merely pointed out the course our line of action should take at the Surat Congress. The motives and hopes with which we went to Surat were unfortunately not realised. But we are helpless in the matter. Several partisan papers have already begun to pass remarks such as "The Nationalist party assembled at Surat solely with the purpose of breaking up the Congress", "It did not want the Congress", and "It had a premeditated intention of wrecking it." But I ask you, What advantage would

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, March 20th, 1908 }   Unity by Co-operation   Of all the little bodies which we are trying to build up for the regeneration of the country, those are the true centres of strength which come nearest to the ideal of love and justice, which bind their members together in a close and affectionate unity, which form a league of brotherhood and mutual help, which without attempting to absorb all into themselves are always ready to come to the assistance of similar societies and of everyone who is in need of help. The country is a large one, the difficulties of organization are enormous, and no single organization can hope t