BANDE MATARAM   ( Early Political Writings From 1890 to May 1908 )  BANDE MATARAM       SRI AUROBINDO                                  

Europe and Asia THE London correspondent of a contemporary quotes, with the apposite change of a word, some verses from a poem by Wilfrid Blunt which so admirably express the basic motive of the Nationalist movement in India that we reproduce it here. It is often represented by our opponents that the cry for Swaraj is a mere senseless cry for freedom without any recognition of the responsibilities of freedom. This is not so. Those who have followed the exposition of the Nationalist ideal in Bande Mataram know well that we advocate the struggle for Swaraj, first, because Liberty is in itself a necessity of national life and therefore worth striving for for its own sake; s

The Issue THE bureaucracy as usual has over-reached itself in instituting a case under the sedition clause against the editor of the Yugantar. The Punjabee prosecution did untold harm to their prestige and helped to shatter the not over-abundant remnants of their moral ascendancy; its work was negative and destructive. But the Yugantar prosecution has been a positive gain to the national cause; it has begun the positive work of building up the moral ascendancy of the people which is to replace that of the alien and nullify his mere material superiority. This momentous result the editor of the Yugantar has brought about by his masterly inactivity. His refusal to plead has been wort

The East Bengal Disturbances WE HAVE said that the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai brings no new element into the situation beyond hastening the processes of Nationalism and bringing us from a less to a more acute stage of our progress to independence. The second disturbing element has been the culmination of the alliance between Salimullah of Dacca and the bureaucracy in the anarchy and the outrages in the Mymensingh district. These disturbances are now almost over for the time being, though we must take full advantage of the lull allowed to us, so as to put our house in order against a possible recrudescence after the jute season. We should now seriously consid

English Democracy Shown Up SCRATCH an Englishman and you will find an Anglo-Indian, — this is what we said in these columns sometime ago. The Anglophilous Indian enthusiast who goes to England saturated with the old Congress poison of a morbid faith in the native generosity of English character, in the innate amenability of Englishmen to reason and persuasion regarding matters Indian, is doomed to a very rude awakening. He has not to stay long in the country before he finds every Englishman he may come across turning a deaf ear to his story of grievance and injustice. He is no doubt loudly applauded and called a "true Briton" when he declaims against t

Bande Mataram Daily: August 6, 1906 to October 29, 1908 Weekly: June 2, 1907 to September 27, 1908 Page-129 Bande Mataram Darkness in "Light" We regret to find our contemporary Light surpassing the most moderate of the moderatists in the timidity of its aspirations. "What the most ambitious of Indians have dared to hope for is that a day may come, may be a century hence, when in the domestic affairs of their country they will enjoy some measure of freedom from autocratic control. "Here is an inspiring ideal indeed! Hail, Holy Light! thou art indeed a fit candle to illumine a somnolent constitutionalist's repose!

“Capturing the Congress” WE HAVE asked the Nationalists all over India to muster strong at Surat during the Congress session. It is believed in some quarters that we intend to march upon the Congress and re-enact a Pride's Purge. Another insinuation is that we form a band of vain, petulant upstarts who delight in wrecking and breaking for its own sake. The Bengalee calls upon the people to repudiate these traitors, and the Tribune of Lahore, the Indu Prakash and Social Reformer of Bombay, the Indian People of Allahabad have by this time swelled that cry. The principle that underlay our attempt to get Lajpat elected to the Presidential chair has not been appreci

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 institutions, and on the other hand emphasised the perversions of its form and spirit and the necess

Regulated Independence NEVER before were the utter helplessness and the deplorable demoralisation of the Native Princes of India more clearly demonstrated than at the present moment, when our political ideas and ideals are undergoing such a change. Writes the Daily News: "It is gratifying to learn that some of the Native States are following in the wake of the Government of India for the suppression of sedition, if not political agitation altogether. News comes from Srinagar that His Highness the Maharaja of Kashmir is about to issue a proclamation warning his subjects against the pitfalls of the so-called nationalist agitation. We do not doubt that his brother ru

The Three Unities of Sankharitola MR. N. N. Ghose has again attempted to answer us in his issue of the 26th August. As usual the bulk of his answer is composed of irrelevant abuse, but we are glad to note that except towards the end where his passion of spite and wounded vanity has broken out in a furious yell of hatred, he has tried to curb his natural inclination to couch the logic of Billingsgate in the language of the gutter. We pointed out that Mr. N. N. Ghose's "historical facts" — which he had brought forward to prove his theory that Nationality was possible everywhere except in India, were all blunders of which a schoolboy would have bee