Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, September 18th, 1906}   Is Mendicancy Successful?   An apologia for the mendicant policy has recently appeared in the columns of the Bengalee. The heads of the defence practically reduce themselves to two or three arguments. 1. The policy of petitioning was recommended by Raja Rammohan Roy, has been pursued consistently since then and has been eminently successful— at least whatever political gains have been ours in the last century, have been won by this policy. 2. Supposing this contention to be lost, there remains another. Mere petitioning is bad, but when the petition is backed by the will of

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 22nd, 1908 }   The Future and the Nationalists   Whatever view we take of the present situation, the first duty of every Nationalist is to take care that the great principles of Nationalism are not infringed by any concession to the party of fear and self-interest which would imperil the future of the movement and the destiny of the nation. All the articles we have written on the Convention have been the expression of a momentary policy dictated by the great and almost universal desire in the country that a split should be avoided. But we should never forget that policy is subordinate to principle. As a dem

Palli Samiti   The resolution on which I have been asked to speak is from one point of view the most important of all that this conference has passed. As one of the speakers has already said, the village Samiti is the seed of Swaraj. What is Swaraj but the organization of the independent life of the country into centres of strength which grow out of its conditions and answer to its needs, so as to make a single and organic whole? When a nation is in a natural condition, growing from within and existing from within and in its own strength, then it develops its own centres and correlates them according to its own needs. But as soon as for any reason this natural

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, March 26th, 1908 }   Freedom of Speech   The questions in Parliament about the change of the existing law and Mr. Morley's answers seem to point to a coming repressive measure intended to suppress the small amount of free speech still existing in India. The rights of free speech and free meeting were once reckoned among the priceless blessings which British rule had brought to India. Nowadays one can with difficulty put oneself back into the frame of mind which made such a conception possible. The entire dependence on British protection, the childlike faith in the machinery of European civilisation, the inability to

Ethics East and West   [..... if the] natural disparity which is so confidently asserted by Europeans and reasserted in echo by not a few Anglicised or revolted Hindus, be a truth and not a fiction of racial pride, the national movement in India becomes a blunder and a solecism. For this movement proceeds on two assertions which the European position directly traverses, the natural equality of the Asiatic to the European, which justifies us in aspiring to liberty and the control of our own destinies and the immense superiority of our own religion, ethics and social ideals to the Western. In traffic with the West we seek only to import the scientific knowl

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 9th, 1907 }   A Nil-admirari Admirer   The splendid speech of Srinath Paul has at last found an admirer in the nil-admirari editor of the Indian Nation. What is more wonderful still is that the veteran cynic who had up to now directed all his energies in running down Surendranath has now suddenly discovered that "Surendranath is the most prominent man on this side of the country." The poor President of the Conference, who had committed the unpardonable sin of differing from the omniscient editor of the Indian Nation in his ideas of nationalism, has come in for a liberal share of abuse. He d

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, April 22nd, 1907 }   The Gospel according to Surendranath   The appearance of Babu Surendranath Banerji as an exponent of the "New Nationalism" is a phenomenon which shows the spread of the new spirit, but, we fear, nothing more. We congratulate Babu Surendranath on his conversion to the New Nationalism, but we are not sure that we can congratulate the New Nationalism on its convert. Nationalism is, after all, primarily an emotion of the heart and a spiritual attitude and only secondarily an intellectual conviction. Its very foundation is the worship of national liberty as the one political deity and the readiness to

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, December 18th, 1907 } "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

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, August 13th, 1907 }   Phrases by Fraser   Sir Andrew Fraser has been receiving addresses from his loyal subjects of West Bengal and oratorising in answer. He has, among other things, discovered a surprising amity between the Hindus and Mahomedans in Burdwan and his prophetic eye foresees a splendid future for the capital city of the allied and friendly Principality of Maharaja Bijoy Chand on the basis of this amity. The object of giving this uncalled-for prominence to the old and natural relations between the two communities is of course to convey the idea that they are anomalous, surprising and quite different

Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, October 8th, 1907 }   Protected Hooliganism— A Parallel   We do not, as a rule, take excursions into foreign politics or like our special friend, the Statesman, fix an abstracted eye on the affairs of Germany and Russia while India is being convulsed with conflict and turmoil, but the struggles of Nationalism in other countries, especially in Asiatic or semi-Asiatic countries, have their interest for us and often present a close and informing parallel. Despotic reaction is always the same in all countries and all ages and uses the same methods. One of these methods is for the police to use the disorderly and dangerou