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

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 posssible 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 exposed herself to a terrible fate which will yet overtake her. God in man

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 democratic party, it is our duty to bow to the will of the major

THE SLAYING OF CONGRESS A Tragedy in Three Acts Bande Mataram - February, 1908 A c t  O n e S C E N E  I Calcutta. Dadabhai, Mehta, Gokhale, Surendra, Tilak and others; Democracy, Congress.                 DADABHAI Much have I laboured, toiled for many years To see this glorious day. Our Lady Congress Grown to a fair and perfect womanhood, Who at Benares came of age, is now With pomp and noble ceremony arrived In this Calcutta to assume the charge Of her own life into her proper hands. Mehta and Gokhale, Tilak, Suren, all,

The 7th of August THE approaching celebration of the 7th of August has a double importance this year, for it has not only its general and permanent importance as the commemoration of our declaration of independence, but an occasional though none the less urgent importance as an opportunity of reaffirming our separate national existence against the arbitrary and futile attempt of the bureaucracy to reaffirm and perpetuate a vanishing despotism. The 7th of August will be recognised in the future as a far more important date to the building up of the nation than the 16th October. On the 16th October the threatened unity of Bengal was asserted against the disingenuous and da

The Morality of Boycott* AGES ago there was a priest of Baal who thought himself commissioned by the god to kill all who did not bow the knee to him. All men, terrified by the power and ferocity of the priest, bowed down before the idol and pretended to be his servants; and the few who refused had to take refuge in hills and deserts. At last, a deliverer came and slew the priest and the world had rest. The slayer was blamed by those who placed religion in quietude and put passivity forward as the ideal ethics, but the world looked on him as an incarnation of God. A certain class of mind shrinks from aggressiveness as if it were a sin. Their temperament forbid

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. There petitioning is bad, but when the petition is backed by the will of the community, resolved to gain its object by every legitimate means, it is not

The Old Policy and the New BABU Bhupendranath Bose has issued a manifesto of his views in the Bengalee, in which he explains his letter to the Secretary of the People's Association at Comilla. That document, it seems, was a private letter, although it was obviously intended to produce a public effect, viz. to prevent the nomination of Mr. Tilak and to counteract the effect of Babu Bepin Chandra Pal's meeting and speeches in Comilla. However, we have now an authoritative statement of Babu Bhupendranath's "policy", and no further misunderstanding is possible. This policy is precisely what we expected; it might have been penned in the pre-Partition and pr