Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 3rd, 1907 }   Peace and the Autocrats   Ever since the differences of opinion which are now agitating the whole country declared themselves in the formation of two distinct parties in Bengal, there has been a class of politicians among us who are never tired of ingeminating peace, peace, deploring every collision between the contending schools and entreating all to lay aside their differences and work for the country. It is all very plausible to the ear and easily imposes on the average unthinking mind. Union, concord, work for the country are all moving and sacred words and must command respect— when they ar

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 24th, 1908 }   Party and the Country   The uses of party are a secret known only to free nations which value their freedom above all other things. Men of free minds and free habits are too strong of soul to be the slaves of their party feelings and too robust of mind to submit to any demand for the sacrifice of their principles on the altar of expediency. It is only in a servile nation unaccustomed to the habits of freemen that party becomes a master and not an instrument. The strength of mind to rise above personal feeling, the breadth of view which is prepared to tolerate the views of others while fighting

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, September 3rd, 1907 }   Eastern Renascence   When the mailed fist of young Japan was striking blow after blow at the huge Russian bear our benevolent rulers who were secretly dismayed and astonished tried to put on a smiling face as best they could and persuade us into the belief that Japan was only an exception which proved the rule of Eastern worthlessness. Somehow or other, however, inconvenient facts cropped up to challenge their favourite theory and Persia and even Afghanistan began to raise their heads. Even China threw away her phial of laudanum and opened her eyes to the rays of the rising sun. Our

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, August 23rd, 1907 }   In Melancholy Vein   The Englishman is in melancholy mood. Swaraj and Justice Saroda Charan Mitter have been too much for our gentle contemporary's nerves, and he is full of sorrow and care-worn longings. He wants "to wipe out an unpleasant world and create a new and beautiful one to live in," where there is no Swaraj, and no High Courts, and no diminishing cotton imports, and no Anglo-Indian editors to telegraph home denying his blood-curdling visions, and the agitator is not abroad. He wants "like the Hindu ascetic considering all this as Maya to retire into existence of solid imaginati

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 1st, 1908 }   India and the Mongolian   When Srijut Bipin Chandra Pal in his speech at the Federation Ground was speaking of the possibility of China and Japan overthrowing European civilisation, how many of the audience understood or appreciated the great issues of which he spoke? We have lost the faculty of great ideas, of large outlooks, of that instinct which divines the great motions of the world. This huge country, this mighty continent once full of the clash of tremendous forces, stirring with high exploits and gigantic ambitions, loud with the voices of the outside world, has become a petty parish; the

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, December 4th, 1907 }   More about Unity   The Bengalee has again returned to the charge about unity. The line of argument adopted by our contemporary savours strongly of the peculiar style of political thinking which underlay all our movements in the last century. The old school of politics was chiefly remarkable for a blithe indifference to facts and an extraordinary predilection for vague abstractions which could not possibly apply to the conditions with which our political action had to deal. The nineteenth-century Indian politician never cared to study history, but used a ready-made and high-sounding philosophy o

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, March 23rd, 1908 }   The Weapon of Secession   There has been much talk recently of drawing up a constitution for the Congress, but even if we are able to decide the question of the constitution, the next step before us will be to carry it out. To think that a paper constitution will help to bring about peace between the parties, is to ignore the fact that men are swayed by feelings and not by machinery. Paper constitutions have always failed to effect their object, except when they are in harmony with the feeling of the nation and express the actual situation in their arrangements. Whatever constitution we may draw

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, July 3rd, 1907 }   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 necessit

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, December 2nd, 1907 }   About Unity   Our esteemed contemporary, the Bengalee, has recently been reading us eloquent sermons on the uses and advantages of unity. We confess we cannot follow our contemporary's argument. We gave utterance to the very obvious and, we thought, undeniable sentiment that unity is a means and not an end in itself. But the Bengalee asserts, and it has now got the strong authority of Mr. Myron Phelps to back it, that unity is an end in itself and not a means, but it seems to us that neither our contemporary nor his authority has anything but their ipse dixit to prove their assertion. We have

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, August 28th, 1906 } The Mirror and Mr. Tilak   The Indian Mirror, which is now the chief ally of Government among the Congress organs in Bengal, has chosen, naturally enough, to fall foul of Mr. Tilak. Our contemporary, it appears, has heard that some people propose to put forward Mr. Tilak's name as President of the next Congress, and it hastens to point out how extremely distasteful the idea is to all thoughtful and enlightened men, that is to say, to all whose views agree with the Mirror's. Mr. Tilak, we learn, has seriously offended our contemporary by giving honour to Mr. Bhopatkar on his release from jail