Selected Speeches

Advice to National College Students: Speech

23-August-1907

I have been told that you wish me to speak a few words of advice to you. But in these days I feel that young men can very often give better advice than we older people can give. Nor must you ask me to express the feelings which your actions, the way in which you have shown your affection towards me, have given rise to in my breast. It is impossible to express them. You all know that I have resigned my post. In the meeting you held yesterday I see that you expressed sympathy with me in what you call my present troubles. I don't know whether I should call them troubles at all, for the experience that I am going to undergo was long foreseen as inevitable in the discharge of the mission that I have taken up from my childhood, and I am approaching it without regret. What I want to be assured of is not so much that you feel sympathy for me in my troubles, but that you have sympathy for the cause in serving which I have to undergo what you call my troubles. If I know that the rising generation have taken up this cause, that wherever I go, I go leaving behind others to carry on my work, I shall go without the least regret. I take it that whatever respect you have shown to me today was shown not to me, not merely even to the principal, but to your country, to the Mother in me, because what little I have done has been done for her, and the slight suffering that I am going to endure will be endured for her sake. Taking your sympathy in that light I can feel that if I am incapacitated from carrying on my work, there will be so many others left behind me. One other cause of rejoicing for me is to find that practically all my countrymen have the same fellow-feeling for me and for the same reason as yourselves. The unanimity with which all classes have expressed their sympathy for me and even offered help at

the moment of my trial, is a cause for rejoicing, and for the same reason. For I am nothing, what I have done is nothing. I have earned this fellow-feeling because of serving the cause which all my countrymen have at heart.

The only piece of advice that I can give you now is—carry out the work, the mission, for which this college was created. I have no doubt that all of you have realised by this time what this mission means. When we established this college, and left other occupations, other chances of life, to devote our lives to this institution, we did so because we hoped to see in it the foundation, the nucleus, of a nation, of the new India which is to begin its career after this night of sorrow and trouble, on that day of glory and greatness when India will work for the world. What we want here is not merely to give you a little information, not merely to open to you careers for earning a livelihood, but to build up sons for the motherland to work and to suffer for her. That is why we started this college and that is the work to which I want you to devote yourselves in future. What has been insufficiently and imperfectly begun by us, it is for you to complete and lead to perfection. When I come back I wish to see some of you becoming rich, rich not for yourselves but that you may enrich the Mother with your riches. I wish to see some of you becoming great, great not for your own sakes, not that you may satisfy your own vanity, but great for her, to make India great, to enable her to stand up with head erect among the nations of the earth, as she did in days of yore when the world looked up to her for light. Even those who will remain poor and obscure, I want to see their very poverty and obscurity devoted to the motherland. There are times in a nation's history when Providence places before it one work, one aim, to which everything else, however high and noble in itself, has to be sacrificed. Such a time has now arrived for our motherland when nothing is dearer than her service, when everything else is to be directed to that end. If you will study, study for her sake; train yourselves body and mind and soul for her service. You will earn your living that you may live for her sake. You will go abroad to foreign lands that you may

bring back knowledge with which you may do service to her. Work that she may prosper. Suffer that she may rejoice. All is contained in that one single advice. My last word to you is that if you have sympathy for me, I hope to see it not merely as a personal feeling, but as a sympathy with what I am working for. I want to see this sympathy translated into work so that when in future I shall look upon your career of glorious activity I may have the pride of remembering that I did something to prepare and begin it.

Speeches

On 21 December 1907, Sri Aurobindo left Calcutta to attend the Surat session of the Indian National Congress. The next day he addressed a meeting in Nagpur. After the violent break-up of the Congress he passed a few days in Baroda, and then visited a number of cities in Maharashtra at the invitation of Nationalist colleagues. In all of these places he gave speeches, most of which have been preserved in one form or another. See the next page for details.

All told, Sri Aurobindo delivered fourteen speeches in Maharashtra between 22 December 1907 and 1 February 1908. Reports of eleven of them survive. Two were published in the Bande Mataram shortly after their delivery. Another was published in the Mahratta, an English weekly newspaper. Five others are known only by means of Marathi translations, while three exist only in the form of summaries or transcriptions made by the British police. There are no surviving reports of the remaining three speeches.

22 December 1907——Nagpur——Police report

12 January 1908——Poona——No known report

13 January——Poona——English report

15 January——Bombay——Marathi report

19 January——Bombay——English report

24 January——Nasik——Marathi report

25 January——Nasik——Police report

26 January——Dhulia——Police report

27 January——Akola——No known report

28 January——Amravati——No known report

29 January——Amravati——English report

30January——Nagpur——Marathi report

31 January——Nagpur——Marathi report

1 February——Nagpur——Marathi report

In the following pages, nine reports are reproduced. Only the two published in Bande Mataram may be considered adequate representations of Sri Aurobindo's words. The other reports are expressed in language that is sometimes awkward or defective; they have been edited to a greater or lesser extent to make them more clear and readable.

Our Experiences in Bengal

13-January-1908

Babu Aurobindo Ghose paid a flying visit to Poona last week. On Monday evening he delivered an address in the Gaekwar's Wada, under the presidency of Mr. Annasaheb Patwardhan, and told his Poona audience how the new thought and the new movement spread all over Bengal and how the Bengalis were able to do things which were never before thought possible in that province. He referred to the eventful year 1907 and the repressive policy of the Government and observed that though the Government measures of repression were rather severe and fierce when compared with our old experience, they were certainly not as fierce or as severe as those adopted by Governments in other countries. He spoke of the doubting, negative temperament of some of our leaders who always questioned, "Why are you going to do all this? Why are you going so far and so fast? Show us the force on which you rely! Where is the strength? Have you the strength?", as soon as a new thing was proposed to be done.

The lecturer said that he was a superstitious man and always believed that the people would do anything successfully when they really undertook to do it. He told his audience how the Congress movement, though originally very strong in Bengal, had failed to give satisfaction to the people as the methods adopted by the Congress were proved to be fruitless, how the old method of petitioning was not only considered futile but harmful, how the people had grown apathetic and despondent and how this despondent and apathetic mood of the people was converted into an active mood by the repressive measures of Lord Curzon. The Calcutta Municipal Bill was the first of these measures. The Universities Act, passed in spite of universal

protest, was the next. Last came the Partition of Bengal and this stroke went right through the heart of every Bengali. They at first tried petitions, prayers, meetings, resolutions and protests, but soon found their uselessness. Something had to be done and the Swadeshi movement, which had received no attention when it was first introduced in Bengal, now gained fresh strength. The cry of boycott was first raised in Kishoregunj, in Mymensingh and then in Magura in the district of Jessore, from where it was taken up in Calcutta. The Chinese boycott of American goods had succeeded and the Calcutta people accepted the idea of boycott as excellent. The Calcutta leaders, however, first proclaimed it "impossible". They asked, "Where is the strength of character or the economic strength to do all this?" They considered Swadeshi impossible and boycott still more so. They had no faith in the capacity of their countrymen and said that the movement would fail and those who attempted to spread it would become the laughing-stock of all. But people did not listen to this advice; they said they would try and see if the movement would succeed. The current of public opinion grew so strong that the leaders ultimately had to give their consent to the new movement. They accepted Swadeshi but wanted to have recourse to boycott only for six months to see if the Partition would be withdrawn. The people wanted the boycott to continue and refused to believe that they were too weak for the purpose. They refused to be hypnotised and to consider themselves cowards. It was Swami Vivekananda who preached this doctrine to his countrymen. This was believed by the new party.

Young men and old worked for the movement. The young men took up the work of picketing and sold Swadeshi goods at cost price. When the Government began to check the students and prevent them from helping the new movement they left the Government schools and demanded National schools for their education. In this way the first National school came into existence in Rangpur. Then there arose a necessity for a National University. In this connection also the leaders would not join the new movement and some of the proprietors of private colleges stood against this idea. Yet the people showed

sympathy; the liberality of some supplied funds, and the leaders had to give their consent. Bengalis were thought incapable of real and earnest work and it was thought that they would not be prepared for self-sacrifice of any kind. Bengali people were taken to be cowards. This idea had become part of the English literature and was taught to them in schools. The result was that the Bengalis themselves began to believe that they were cowards, that their ancestors were cowards and that their sons and grandsons would all be cowards. But there were men who were not political atheists. They believed in the strength of the nation and were confident that a nation of cowards would be converted into a nation of heroes. That is the difference between a Nationalist and a Moderate; a Nationalist has firm faith in the strength of his people, while a Moderate has only moderate faith or no faith at all. The new thought made Bengali youths strong; they exposed themselves to the attacks of the police and the wrath of the Government, and they were prepared for jail. One of the youths connected with the paper Yugantar actually complained that the paper did not publish sufficiently violent articles. Such daring and enthusiasm could now be seen in Bengali youths. The new spirit or Nationalist spirit is an unshakable and absolute confidence in the strength of the nation. People have to take leaps into the dark, for reason is unable to show the way. You must take courage in hand and work. When the work regarding National education was commenced, it was a leap in the dark, but it succeeded.

The lecturer remarked that provinces other than Bengal were in some respects superior to Bengal and therefore ought to be able to do what Bengal succeeded in doing. He said, "We are seeing the light before us, we are walking on God's way, we are going to our ultimate goal surely and swiftly; nothing will daunt us, we welcome ordeals because they make us strong. 'Do as we have done' is the message of Bengal to the whole of India." In concluding his speech the great Bengali editor said that if the whole of India works unitedly, confidently and enthusiastically for the nation, it is sure to reach its goal and attain greatness, prosperity and freedom.

National Education

15-January-1908

National Education is a vast subject. When I was told about the topic I did not quite realise its implications at first, but when I started thinking about it I understood its importance. The difficulties about the concept of National Education that are encountered here do not exist in Bengal. Here in the Bombay Province, the meaning of the term "National Education" is not clear to many. National Education, with its specific connotation, is suspect and men of wisdom dismiss it. In Bengal, on the other hand, the need to explain the concept does not even arise. There may be people in favour of it or against it, but National Education is something taken by them as a given fact, as something they have experienced. There is no need in Bengal to explain or discuss it in order to convince people about the sense it carries. But in the Bombay Province, it has only a verbal implication at the moment; it has not yet gone beyond mere talk, and that may be the reason why people are suspicious of it.

Someone here told me that he does not understand what National Education means exactly. Someone else wondered whether there can be anything like National Education at all, particularly in the context of teaching, say, mathematics; he was at a loss to see how this could be called "national". The Honourable Mr. Gokhale does not say that he has failed to understand the meaning of the term "National Education", but it is obvious that he has not really grasped its significance. At the National Congress held in Calcutta, a resolution on National Education was passed unanimously. Unfortunately, since the Congress at Surat did not take place, it could not be introduced there. Mr. Gokhale made certain modifications to the resolution

on National Education passed in Calcutta. In his opinion, these modifications are not of much importance. But my opinion is exactly the opposite. Perhaps Mr. Gokhale is not fully aware of the true situation in Bengal with regard to National Education. The word "national" appears in this resolution three times and there is no doubt that it has been done with a certain intention. The alteration suggested by Mr. Gokhale does not speak of National Education; instead it introduces terms such as "independent system of education". That term has a different connotation and it does not really convey what we mean by the phrase "National Education". The Subjects Committee at Calcutta introduced the word "national" three times. It is not for nothing that this was done. National Education must be imparted in a national spirit: this was the resolution passed at Calcutta, and not a single word of it should be altered or dropped.

National Education must be on national lines and under national control. Why do we have to qualify the term "education" by calling it "national"? This question is asked by many. These people maintain that we are not a nation to begin with. According to their thinking, what we call a nation is an imaginary thing, not a reality. In India, they say, there are thousands of castes and subcastes, countless sects and subsects, and any number of religious creeds with differences of opinion and practice; in that case the use of the word "national" in the Indian situation becomes meaningless. But these people do not really understand what is meant by a nation. They suggest that a nation can only come into existence when these castes and creeds are abolished. But this line of argument—that we will have a nation only when everyone in the country has the same religion and there is only one caste—is a fallacious one, for religion and caste are not permanent aspects of a nation. Other people argue that although India is a vast country geographically, still it cannot be termed a nation. But we view it differently. To us, by its very geography the country appears to be quite distinct from other countries, and that itself gives it a certain national character. Italy stands out in the same way, separate from her surroundings, and in

thirty years it became an independent nation. The inner and outer body of India, the customs, culture and religion of its people, have an independent character different from those of the rest of the world. It has its foundations in the ancient past.

Those who oppose our view contend that India was never a nation. Let us see then what we mean by the word "nation". When we say that National Education should be imparted, it implies that we need not throw away our traditional background and introduce completely new ideas and ideals. When we look at the history of the country, we find that at one time we had a system of National Education. Look at our philosophy: what is in the individual is also in the universal. A nation is a living entity, full of consciousness; it is not something made up or fabricated. A living nation is always growing; it must grow, it must attain ever loftier heights. This may happen after a thousand years or in the next twenty years, but happen it must.

Our personality, our constitution is made up of three parts. We have three types of body, gross, subtle and causal. In the same way the nation has three bodies. According to our philosophy it is not only the outward appearance, the gross body, that makes a complete man. All three bodies have to be taken into account; only then can we get some understanding of him. As with a man, so with a nation. To think about our nation is first to think about our physical motherland. Stretching from the Himalayas in the north to Kanyakumari in the south, its boundaries are formed by the seas on the east and west. Ganga, Jamuna, Narmada, Krishna, Godavari flow here unceasingly; here are ancient cities, tall and imposing temples, artistically designed palatial homes. Such is the part of this earth we call India. It is this picture, this figure that comes to us when we speak of our nation. This is the gross body of our nation. Bankim Chandra's song Bande Mataram describes this aspect very beautifully. Thirty-three crores of people live on this land with their joys and sorrows, their good and bad desires: they are all part of its subtle body. Then there are aspects of the country which may undergo changes in the course of time, yet always remain in the body, in seed-state, as permanent as the atom; they

are always present there and, being the origin, it is out of them that the future takes shape. This is the causal body of the nation.

But this is not enough. According to our scriptures, when we think of a man we think not only of his present condition but also of his past and future. The same is true of a country. When we speak of the rivers, mountains and cities of our country, we have in mind not only the present, not at all. What we speak of is a history of five thousand years. When we speak of Delhi and Agra, does not the image of Delhi as it was during Emperor Akbar's time stand before your mind's eye? That is why, in speaking of the nation, we should recall the great achievements of our ancestors; then Shivaji, Asoka and Akbar at once become an integral part of our nationhood. So too the ancient Rishis. This is taken for granted. If we look at Japan, we see that the Japanese people never forget their ancestors who offered their lives as a sacrifice for the sake of their country. This sense of sacrifice is always present in the Japanese blood. When a warrior fights for his country, he recalls those sacrifices. This is something we must learn from Japan. We must learn from the Japanese how to honour our ancestors and evoke the spirit of Nationalism by remembering them. Whatever you do today, you are doing not for your own sake but to pay the debt you owe to them. This you must never forget. Not only your ancestors—the generations to come are also an organic component of your nation. When we envision an Indian nation, it should be along these lines. We should not be carried away by Western advances or cowed by their achievements. What we need is a wide, engaging vision of our nation and of nationalism; our action must match that vision and as a result our nation will produce great philosophers, statesmen, warriors and commanders. I don't say this will happen today, but surely it will happen in the future.

The term "nation" is meaningful and significant; it has not been coined for political convenience. In Bengal, while formulating the concept of National Education, we have kept before us this grand idea of the nation. Let us see how the details have been worked out in consonance with this lofty and noble concept. We shall take the simple subject of geography as an illustration.

Imagine how this subject is presently taught in Government and private schools! The students are told about such-and-such a country with so many districts, with their District Officers and so forth; this is the kind of information imparted in geography classes. But how is it useful? When we teach geography in Bengal according to the ideas of National Education, we teach it in a different way. First we tell the children that India is our Motherland; in this way we make them aware of the gross body of the nation. We tell them about our rivers, Ganga, Jamuna, Narmada, etc., and what these rivers mean, not merely where they flow. In our national schools, when we teach the children about Maharashtra we describe the land in which Shivaji lived. Speaking about Punjab, we tell the children about the Punjab of Ranjit Singh. Speaking about the geography of the Himalayas, we teach them how the land of the Himalayas has become holy because of its Rishis. We also teach the geography of other nations, but what we impart to them is its importance in the context of our country.

As with geography, so the history of the country is taught to the students of Bengal in a national context. We do not attach much importance to how many kings have ruled the country, which king came to power in which year and how long his reign lasted or the date when the Battle of Plassey was fought. What we teach, rather, is how in ancient times the Aryans formed the nation, how today's Marathas became Marathas, how the Bengalis became Bengalis, how the Punjabis became Punjabis. Once the students have understood these things clearly, it does not matter if they fail to know the year of the Battle of Plassey. In short, we believe that true history is not really taught through the present-day Government's method of teaching.

In our national schools in Bengal, as with geography and history, so we teach philosophy based on the national system of education. We explain to the students in our national colleges in what regard our philosophy is greater and more comprehensive than other philosophies in the world. In Government schools the degree-holders know what Schopenhauer has to say, but they have hardly any knowledge of the spiritual foundations of our

own thought. It should also be seen that whatever philosophy the students learn in colleges, they should try to put into practice.

Not that the system of National Education we have started is altogether new; it was started long ago by our forefathers. Through this system Shivaji's greatness will remain eternal, Asoka's fame and Akbar's glory will spread across the earth and the grandeur and majesty of our ancient Rishis will be made known throughout the world. From our National Education programmes, nothing useful or worthwhile is discarded.

This kind of national teaching is not provided in Government schools. In those schools the tender minds of our students are overburdened with the European way of thinking. But European thought and the European way of life are quite different from our thought and our way of life. It is true, of course, that when we speak of the development of our own country, we cannot ignore the progress of modern Europe. In our reforms we must certainly include it; whatever is acceptable must be adapted suitably by us. But we have to guard against damaging our foundation in the process. We must make use of Western science as Japan did, but in implementing its ideas we must not be blind to the achievements of our forefathers. For example, in Government medical colleges the students remain unaware of our Ayurvedic science, though there are many occult and valuable truths behind it, to which the Western system has no access. This is not to assert that whatever is ours, is always the best.

In the field of politics we have a lot to learn from the West. The democratic system of government is one thing we must learn from the Europeans. In providing National Education, we do not isolate the students from the political field; in fact we give them first-hand experience of the democratic system of government by making them work alongside us. Simply concerning ourselves with industry or commerce is not enough, and that is exactly what we tell them. No country can rise to its height merely on the basis of trade and commerce. We learn from history that those nations which grew on the strength of trade alone, have perished. Europe pays special attention to formulating policies

for the development and growth of its industry and commerce. Yet in our programme of National Education we do impart practical knowledge to our students. In our schools the students learn about science in depth and not just superficially. And they are taught many vocational subjects, such as carpentry and smithy, along with science. The result is that when a student comes out of our schools, he does not find it difficult to earn a monthly wage of twenty-five or thirty rupees.

While imparting such a National Education in a national way, we place special emphasis on creating a future Indian nation. In planning our system of National Education we have to take into account various other systems of education. Principal Paranjape may speak of mathematics alone, but surely that is not enough. The one thought that impels us to provide National Education is this: When will this Indian nation occupy a place in the company of other nations? When will it be great among other nations in the world? Our learned and accomplished people must be great as people in other countries are great. This is always in our mind.

In our schools we give education up to the fifth standard in the mother-tongue of the students; teaching the children through English is harmful. Some people object to the use of Indian languages, saying that our languages do not have an adequate vocabulary for teaching certain subjects. But our answer is simple: first experience it. The seventh standard in our national schools is equivalent to the intermediate courses conducted by the universities. In our colleges we conduct a four-year course. A college student usually studies a single subject and for that purpose special emphasis is given to the use of the English language. In spite of that, English is not given primary importance in the syllabus of our system of National Education; it has the status of a second language.

A student must be able to stand on his own. It is not the objective of National Education to make somebody else carry him on his shoulders. The student must support himself and not look helplessly to others. Self-reliance is the basic principle we diligently try to impart to a student. This is how we have been

working in Bengal. We have absolutely no expectation of help from the Government in our endeavour. On the contrary, with Government support our nationalist enthusiasm will disappear.

Perhaps Mr. Gokhale will now understand and appreciate just what we mean by National Education. This may also make it clear why we intended to put a specific resolution about National Education before the National Congress Committee at Surat. What has been done in Bengal I have put before you. If you wish to see for yourselves, you are welcome. Those who have doubts in their minds, those who think that National Education is an impossibility, we challenge you to witness its achievements in Bengal. Come and confirm it for yourselves. National Education in a national way and under national control is what we have started in Bengal. In this work three zamindars have helped us greatly. Raja Subodh Chandra Mallik donated a lakh of rupees, the Maharaja of Mymensingh three lakhs and a zamindar from Gauripur five lakhs. When they offered these donations, they put the condition that they would take back the entire sum if we should accept even a single paisa from the Government. The reason is that when the Government spends money on education, it does so with the specific intention of creating a certain attitude in the minds of the students. That attitude is nothing but loyalty to the Government. Besides, the Government has the intention of introducing public reforms primarily to prove its own good governance.

The Present Situation

19-January-1908

My fellow countrymen, Mr. Ranade has said that there is no President here, but that God Himself is our President. I accept that remark in the most reverent spirit, and before addressing you, I ask Him first to inspire me. I have been asked to speak on the "Needs of the Present Situation". What is the present situation? What is the situation of this country today? Just as I was coming in, this paper (showing a copy of the Bande Mataram newspaper) was put into my hands, and looking at the first page of it, I saw two items of news. "The 'Yugantar' Trial, Judgment delivered, the Printer convicted and sentenced to two years' rigorous imprisonment." The other is "Another Newspaper Prosecution, The 'Nabasakti' Office sacked and searched, Printer let out on a bail of Rs. 10,000." This is the situation of the country today. Do you realise what I mean? There is a creed in India today which calls itself Nationalism, a creed which has come to you from Bengal. This is a creed which many of you have accepted, and you accepted it when you called yourselves Nationalists. Have you realised, have you yet realised what that means? Have you realised what it is that you have taken in hand? Or is it that you have merely accepted it in the pride of a superior intellectual conviction? You call yourselves Nationalists. What is Nationalism? Nationalism is not a mere political programme; Nationalism is a religion that has come from God; Nationalism is a creed in which you shall have to live. Let no man dare to call himself a Nationalist if he does so merely with a sort of intellectual pride, thinking that he is more patriotic, thinking that he is something higher than those who do not call themselves by that name. If you are going to be a Nationalist, if

you are going to assent to this religion of Nationalism, you must do it in the religious spirit. You must remember that you are the instrument of God for the salvation of your own country. You must live as the instruments of God.

What is this that has happened in Bengal? You call yourselves Nationalists, but when this happens to you, what will you do? This thing is happening daily in Bengal, because, in Bengal, Nationalism has come to the people as a religion, and it has been accepted as a religion. But certain forces which are against that religion are trying to crush its rising strength. It always happens when a new religion is preached, when God is going to be born in the people, that such forces rise with all their weapons in their hands to crush this religion. In Bengal too a new religion, a religion divine and sattwic has been preached, and this religion they are trying with all the weapons at their command to crush. By what strength are we in Bengal able to survive? Nationalism has not been crushed. Nationalism is not going to be crushed. Nationalism survives in the strength of God and it is not possible to crush it, whatever weapons are brought against it. Nationalism is immortal; Nationalism cannot die, because it is no human thing. It is God who is working in Bengal. God cannot be killed, God cannot be sent to jail. When these things happen among you, I say to you solemnly, what will you do? Will you do as they do in Bengal? (Cries of "Yes") Don't lightly say "Yes." It is a solemn thing. And suppose that God puts you this question, how will you answer it? Have you got a real faith? Or is it merely a political aspiration? Is it merely a larger kind of selfishness? Or is it merely that you wish to be free to oppress others, as you are being oppressed? Do you hold your political creed from a higher source? Is it God that is born in you? Have you realised that you are merely the instruments of God, that your bodies are not your own? You are merely instruments of God for the work of the Almighty. Have you realised that? If you have realised that, then you are truly Nationalists; then alone will you be able to restore this great nation. In Bengal it has been realised clearly by some, more clearly by others, but it has been realised and you on this side of the country must also realise it;

then there will be a blessing on our work, and this great nation will rise again and become once more what it was in the days of its spiritual greatness. (Applause) You are the instruments of God to save the light, to save the spirit of India from lasting obscuration and abasement.

Let me tell you what it is that has happened in Bengal. You all know what Bengal used to be; you all know that "Bengali" used to be a term of reproach among the nations; when people spoke of Bengal, with what feelings did they speak of it? Was it with feelings of respect? Was it with feelings of admiration? You know very well what people of other countries used to say of the Bengali. You know well what you yourselves used to say of the Bengali. Do you think that now? If anybody had told you that Bengal would come forward as the saviour of India, how many of you would have believed it? You would have said, "No. The saviour of India cannot be Bengal; it may be Maharashtra; it may be Punjab; but it will not be Bengal; the idea is absurd." What has happened then? What has caused this change? What has made the Bengali so different from his old self? One thing has happened in Bengal, and it is this, that Bengal is learning to believe. Bengal was once drunk with the wine of European civilisation and with the purely intellectual teaching that it received from the West. It began to see all things, to judge all things through the imperfect instrumentality of the intellect. When it was so, Bengal became atheistic, it became a land of doubters and cynics. But still in Bengal there was an element of strength. Whatever the Bengali believed, if he believed at all—many do not believe—but if he believed at all, there was one thing about the Bengali, that he lived what he believed. If he was a Brahmo, or if he was a social reformer, no matter whether what he believed was true or not, but if he believed, he lived that belief. If he believed that one thing was necessary for the salvation of the country, if he believed that a thing was true and that it should be done, he did not stop to think about it. He would not stop to consider from all intellectual standpoints whether the truth in it was merely an ideal and to balance whether he would do honestly what he believed or whether he could hold

the belief intellectually without living it, but without regard to consequences to himself, he went and did what he believed. And if he was not a Brahmo, if he was an orthodox Hindu, still if he really believed what the Hindu shastras taught then he never hesitated to drive even his dearest away, rather than aid by his weakness in corrupting society. He never hesitated to enforce what he believed to the uttermost without thinking of the consequences to himself.

Well, what was the one saving element in the Bengali nature? The Bengali has the faculty of belief. Belief is not a mere intellectual process, belief is not a mere persuasion of the mind, belief is something that is in our heart, and what you believe, you must do, because belief is from God. It is to the heart that God speaks, it is in the heart that God resides. This saved the Bengali. Because of this capacity of belief, we were chosen as the people who were to save India, the people who were to stand foremost, the people who must suffer for their belief, the people who must meet everything in the faith that God was with them and that God is in them. Such a people need not be politically strong, it need not be a people sound in physique, it need not be a people of the highest intellectual standing. It must be a people who can believe. In Bengal there came a flood of religious truth. Certain men were born, men whom the educated world would not have recognised if that belief, if that God within them had not been there to open their eyes, men whose lives were very different from what our education, our Western education, taught us to admire. One of them, the man who had the greatest influence and has done the most to regenerate Bengal, could not read and write a single word. He was a man who had been what they call absolutely useless to the world. But he had this one divine faculty in him, that he had more than faith and had realised God. He was a man who lived what many would call the life of a madman, a man without intellectual training, a man without any outward sign of culture or civilisation, a man who lived on the alms of others, such a man as the English-educated Indian would ordinarily talk of as one useless to society; even if he does not call him a bane to society, he will call him useless to society.

He will say, "This man is ignorant. What does he know? What can he teach me who have received from the West all that it can teach?" But God knew what he was doing. He sent that man to Bengal and set him in the temple of Dakshineshwar in Calcutta, and from North and South and East and West, the educated men, men who were the pride of the university, who had studied all that Europe can teach, came to fall at the feet of this ascetic. The work of salvation, the work of raising India was begun.

Consider the men who are really leading the movement. One thing I will ask you to observe and that is that there are very few who have not been touched by the touch of the sadhu. If you ask who influenced Babu Bipin Chandra Pal, it was a sadhu. Among other men who lead in Bengal is the man who started this paper which is being prosecuted. He is also one of the leading men. You may not know his name here, but he is well-known throughout Bengal, and he had done much to forward this movement (Cries of "Bande Mataram"); he is a man who has lived the life of a sadhu, and taken his inspiration and strength from that only source from which inspiration and strength can come. I spoke to you the other day about national education, and I spoke of a man who had given his life to that work, the man who really organised the National College in Calcutta, and that man also is a disciple of a sannyasin, that man also though he lives in the world lives like a sannyasin, and if you take the young workers in Bengal, men that have come forward to do the work of God, what will you find? What is their strength? What is the strength which enables them to bear all the obstacles that come in their way and to resist all the oppression that threatens them? Let me speak a word to you about that. There is a certain section of thought in India which regards Nationalism as "madness". The men who think like that are men of great intellectual ability, men who have studied deeply, who have studied economics, who have studied history, men who are entitled to respect, men from whom you would naturally accept leading and guidance, and they say that Nationalism will ruin the country. What is it that makes them talk like this? Many of them are patriots, many of them are thoroughly sincere and honest, many of them

desire the good of the country. What is it that is wanting in them? This is wanting. They are men who have lived in the pure intellect only and they look at things purely from the intellectual standpoint. What does the intellect think? What must it tell you if you also consult the intellect merely? Here is a work that you have undertaken, a work so gigantic, so stupendous, the means for which are so poor, the resistance to which will be so strong, so organised, so disciplined, so well-equipped with all the weapons that science can supply, with all the strength that human power and authority can give, and what means have you with which to carry out this tremendous work of yours? If you look at it intellectually, and these men look at it from the intellectual standpoint, it is hopeless. Here are these men who are being prosecuted. How are they going to resist? They cannot resist. They have to go straight to jail. Well, these gentlemen argue and they are arguing straight from the intellect, they ask, "How long will you be able to resist like that? How long will this passive resistance work? All your leaders, all your strong men will be sent to jail, you will be crushed, and not only will you be crushed, the nation will be completely crushed." If you argue from the intellect, this seems to be true. I cannot tell you of any material weapon with which you will meet those who are commissioned to resist your creed of Nationalism when you try to live it. If you ask what material weapons we have got, I must tell you that material weapons may help you no doubt but if you rely wholly upon material weapons, then what they say is perfectly true, that Nationalism is a madness.

Of course there is another side to it. If you say that Nationalism cannot avail, then again I ask the intellect of these people, what will avail? Intellectually speaking, speaking from the Moderates' standpoint, what will avail? What do they rely upon? They rely upon a foreign force in the country. If you do not rely upon God, if you do not rely upon something mightier than material strength, then you will have to depend solely upon what others can give. There are men who think that what God cannot give for the salvation of India, the British Government will give. What you cannot expect from God, you are going to

expect from the British Government. Your expectation is vain. Their interests are not yours, their interests are very different from yours, and they will do what their interests tell them. You cannot expect anything else. What then does this intellectual process lead you to? This intellectual process, if it is used honestly, if it is followed to the very end, leads you to despair. It leads you to death. You have nothing which can help you, because you have no material strength at present which the adversary cannot crush, and the adversary will certainly not be so foolish as to help you, or to allow you to develop the necessary strength unmolested. What then is the conclusion? The only conclusion is that there is nothing to be done. The only conclusion is that this country is doomed. That is the conclusion to which this intellectual process will lead you.

I was speaking at Poona on this subject, and I told them of my experience in Bengal. When I went to Bengal three or four years before the Swadeshi movement was born, to see what was the hope of revival, what was the political condition of the people, and whether there was the possibility of a real movement, what I found there was that the prevailing mood was apathy and despair. People had believed that regeneration could only come from outside, that another nation would take us by the hand and lift us up and that we have nothing to do for ourselves. Now that belief has been thoroughly broken. They had come to realise that help cannot come from this source, and then they had nothing to rely upon. Their intellects could not tell them of any other source from which help could come, and the result was that apathy and despair spread everywhere, and most of the workers who were really honest with themselves were saying that there was no help for this nation and that we were doomed. Well, this state of despair was the best thing that could have happened for Bengal, for it meant that the intellect had done its best, that the intellect had done all that was possible for it, and that the work of the unaided intellect in Bengal was finished. The intellect having nothing to offer but despair became quiescent, and when the intellect ceased to work, the heart of Bengal was open and ready to receive the voice of God whenever

He should speak. When the message came at last, Bengal was ready to receive it and she received it in a single moment, and in a single moment the whole nation rose, the whole nation lifted itself out of delusions and out of despair, and it was by this sudden rising, by this sudden awakening from dream that Bengal found the way of salvation and declared to all India that eternal life, immortality and not lasting degradation was our fate. (Applause) Bengal lived in that faith. She felt a mightier truth than any that earth can give, because she held that faith from God and was able to live in that faith.

Then that happened which always happens when God brings other forces to fight against the strength which He Himself has inspired. Because it is always necessary for the divinely appointed strength to grow by suffering; without suffering, without the lesson of selflessness, without the moral force of self-sacrifice, God within us cannot grow. Sri Krishna cannot grow to manhood unless he is called upon to work for others, unless the Asuric forces of the world are about him and work against him and make him feel his strength. Therefore in Bengal there came a time, after the first outbreak of triumphant hope, when all the material forces that can be brought to bear against Nationalism were gradually brought into play, and the question was asked of Bengal, "Can you suffer? Can you survive?" The young men of Bengal who had rushed forward in the frenzy of the moment, in the inspiration of the new gospel they had received, rushed forward rejoicing in the new-found strength and expecting to bear down all obstacles that came in their way, were now called upon to suffer. They were called upon to bear the crown, not of victory, but of martyrdom. They had to learn the real nature of their new strength. It was not their own strength, but it was the force which was working through them, and they had to learn to be the instruments of that force.

What is it that we have learned then? What is the need of the situation of which I am to tell you today? It is not a political programme. I have spoken to you about many things. I have written about many things, about Swadeshi, Boycott, National Education, Arbitration and other subjects. But there was one

truth that I have always tried, and those who have worked with me have also tried to lay down as the foundation stone of all that we preached. It is not by any mere political programme, not by National Education alone, not by Swadeshi alone, not by Boycott alone, that this country can be saved. Swadeshi by itself may merely lead to a little more material prosperity, and when it does, you might lose sight of the real thing you sought to do in the glamour of wealth, in the attraction of wealth and in the desire to keep it safe. In other subject countries also, there was material development; under the Roman Empire there was material development, there was industrial progress, but industrial progress and material development did not bring life to the nation. When the hour of trial came, it was found that these nations which had been developing industrially, which had been developing materially, were not alive. No, they were dead and at a touch from outside they crumbled to pieces. So, do not think that it is any particular programme or any particular method which is the need of the situation. These are merely ways of working; they are merely particular concrete lines upon which the spirit of God is working in a nation, but they are not in themselves the one thing needful.

What is the one thing needful? What is it that has helped the older men who have gone to prison? What is it that has been their strength, that has enabled them to stand against all temptations and against all dangers and obstacles? They have had one and all of them consciously or unconsciously one overmastering idea, one idea which nothing can shake, and this was the idea that there is a great power at work to help India, and that we are doing what it bids us. Often they do not understand what they are doing. They do not always realise who guides or where he will guide them; but they have this conviction within, not in the intellect but in the heart, that the power that is guiding them is invincible, that it is almighty, that it is an immortal and irresistible power and that it will do its work. They have nothing to do. They have simply to obey that power. They have simply to go where it leads them. They have only to speak the words that it tells them to speak, and to do the thing that it tells them

to do. If the finger points them to prison, to the prison they go. Whatever it bids them to endure, they gladly endure. They do not know how that enduring will help, and the worldly-wise people may tell them that it is impolitic, that by doing this they will be wasting the strength of the country, they will be throwing the best workers away, they are not saving up the forces of the country. But we know that the forces of the country are other than outside forces. There is only one force, and for that force, I am not necessary, you are not necessary, he is not necessary. Neither myself nor another, nor Bipin Chandra Pal, nor all these workers who have gone to prison. None of them is necessary. Let them be thrown as so much waste substance, the country will not suffer. God is doing everything. We are not doing anything. What He bids us suffer, we suffer because the suffering is necessary to give others strength. When He throws us away, He does so because we are no longer required. If things become worse, we shall have not only to go to jail, but give up our lives and if those who seem to stand in front or to be absolutely indispensable are called upon to throw their bodies away, we shall then know that that also is wanted, that this is a work that God has asked us to do, and that in the place of those who are thrown away, God will bring many more. He Himself is behind us. He Himself is the worker and the work. (Applause) He is immortal in the hearts of His people. Faith then is what we have in Bengal. Some of us may not have it consciously; some may not call it by that particular name. As I said, we have developed intellectuality, we have developed it notably and we are still much dominated by it. Many have come to this belief through the longing to live for their countrymen, to suffer for their countrymen, because God is not only here in me, He is within all of you; it is God whom I love, it is God for whom I wish to suffer. (Applause) In that way many have come to do what God bade them do and He knows which way to lead a man. When it is His will, He will lead him aright.

Another thing, which is only another name for faith, is selflessness. This movement in Bengal, this movement of Nationalism is not guided by any self-interest, not at the heart of

it. Whatever there may be in some minds, it is not, at the heart of it, a political self-interest that we are pursuing. It is a religion which we are trying to live. It is a religion by which we are trying to realise God in the nation, in our fellow-countrymen. We are trying to realise Him in the three hundred millions of our people. We are trying, some of us consciously, some of us unconsciously, we are trying to live not for our own interests, but to work and to die for others. When a young worker in Bengal has to go to jail, when he is asked to suffer, he does not feel any pang in that suffering, he does not fear suffering. He goes forward with joy. He says, The hour of my consecration has come, and I have to thank God now that the time for laying myself on His altar has arrived and that I have been chosen to suffer for the good of my countrymen. This is the hour of my greatest joy and the fulfilment of my life. (Loud applause) This is the second aspect of our religion, and is the absolute denial of the idea of one's separate self, and the finding of one's higher eternal Self in the three hundred millions of people in whom God Himself lives.

The third thing, which is again another name for faith and selflessness, is courage. When you believe in God, when you believe that God is guiding you, believe that God is doing all and that you are doing nothing, what is there to fear? How can you fear when it is your creed, when it is your religion, to throw yourself away, to throw your money, your body, your life and all that you have, away for others? What is it that you have to fear? There is nothing to fear. Even when you are called before the tribunals of this world, you can face them with courage. Because your very religion means that you have courage. Because it is not you, it is something within you. What can all these tribunals, what can all the powers of the world do to that which is within you, that Immortal, that Unborn and Undying One, whom the sword cannot pierce, whom the fire cannot burn, whom the water cannot drown? Him the jail cannot confine and the gallows cannot end. What is there that you can fear when you are conscious of Him who is within you? Courage is then a necessity, courage is natural and courage is inevitable. If you rely upon other forces, supposing that you are a Nationalist in

the European sense, meaning in a purely materialistic sense, that is to say, if you want to replace the dominion of the foreigner by the dominion of somebody else, it is a purely material change; it is not a religion, it is not that you feel for the three hundred millions of your countrymen, that you want to raise them up, that you want to make them all free and happy. It is not that, but you have got some idea that your nation is different from another nation and that these people are outsiders and that you ought to be ruling in their place. What you want is not freedom for your countrymen, but you want to replace the rule of others by yours. If you go in that spirit, what will happen when a time of trial comes? Will you have courage? Will you face it? You will see that is merely an intellectual conviction that you have, that is merely a reason which your outer mind suggests to you. Well, when it comes to be put to the test, what will your mind say to you? What will your intellect say to you? It will tell you, It is all very well to work for the country, but, in the meanwhile, I am going to die, or at least to be given a great deal of trouble, and when the fruit is reaped, I shall not be there to enjoy it. How can I bear all this suffering for a dream? You have this house of yours, you have this property, you have so many things which will be attacked, and so you say, That is not the way for me. If you have not the divine strength of faith and unselfishness, you will not be able to escape from other attachments, you will not like to bear affliction simply for the sake of a change by which you will not profit. How can courage come from such a source? But when you have a higher idea, when you have realised that you have nothing, that you are nothing and that the three hundred millions of people of this country are God in the nation, something which cannot be measured by so much land, or by so much money, or by so many lives, you will then realise that it is something immortal, that the idea for which you are working is something immortal and that it is an immortal power which is working in you. All other attachments are nothing. Every other consideration disappears from your mind, and, as I said, there is no need to cultivate courage. You are led on by that power. You are protected through life and death by One who survives.

In the very hour of death, you feel your immortality. In the hour of your worst sufferings, you feel you are invincible.

Now I have told you that these three things are the need of the present situation, because, as I said, the situation is this: You have undertaken a work, you have committed yourselves to something which seems to be materially impossible. You have undertaken a work which will raise the mightiest enemies whom the earth can bring forward. As in the ancient time, when the Avatars came, there were also born the mightiest Daityas and Asuras to face the Avatars, so it always is. You may be sure that if you embrace this religion of Nationalism, you will have to meet such tremendous forces as no mere material power can resist. The hour of trial is not distant, the hour of trial is already upon you. What will be the use of your intellectual conviction? What will be the use of your outward enthusiasm? What will be the use of your shouting "Bande Mataram"? What will be the use of all the mere outward show when the hour of trial comes? Put yourselves in the place of those people who are suffering in Bengal, and think whether they have the strength, and whether, if it comes to you, you have the strength to meet it. With what strength shall we meet it? How can we work invincibly? How can we meet it and survive? Can you answer that question? I have tried to show you that not by your material strength can you meet it. Have you the other strength in you? Have you realised what Nationalism is? Have you realised that it is a religion that you are embracing? If you have, then call yourselves Nationalists; and when you have called yourselves Nationalists, then try to live your Nationalism. Try to realise the strength within you, try to bring it forward so that everything you do may be not your own doing, but the doing of that Truth within you. Try so that every hour that you live shall be enlightened by that presence, that every thought of yours shall be inspired from that one fountain of inspiration, that every faculty and quality in you may be placed at the service of that immortal power within you. Then you will not say, as I have heard so many of you say, that people are so slow to take up this idea, that people are so slow to work, that you have no fit leaders,

and that all your great men tell you a different thing and none of them is ready to come forward to guide you in the path that is pointed out. You will have no complaints to make against others, because then you will not need any leader. The leader is within yourselves. If you can only find Him and listen to His voice, then you will not find that people will not listen to you, because there will be a voice within the people which will make itself heard. That voice and that strength is within you. If you feel it within yourselves, if you live in its presence, if it has become yourselves, then you will find that one word from you will awake an answering voice in others, that the creed which you preach will spread and will be received by all and that it will not be very long, as in Bengal it has not been very long, it has not taken a century or fifty years, it has only taken three years to change the whole nation, to give it a new spirit and a new heart and to put it in front of all the Indian races. From Bengal has come the creed of Nationalism, and from Bengal has come the example of Nationalism. Bengal which was the least respected and the most looked down on of all the Indian races for its weakness has within these three years changed so much, simply because the men there who were called to receive God within themselves were able to receive Him, were able to bear, to suffer and to live in that Power, and by living in that Power, they were able to give it out. And so in three years the whole race of Bengal has been changed, and you are obliged to ask in wonder, "What is going on in Bengal?" You see a movement which no obstacle can stop, you see a great development which no power can resist, you see the birth of the Avatar in the nation, and if you have received God within you, if you have received that Power within you, you will see that God will change the rest of India in even a much shorter time, because the Power has already gone forth, and is declaring itself, and when once declared, it will continue its work with ever greater and greater rapidity. It will continue its work with the matured force of Divinity until the whole world sees and until the whole world understands Him, until Sri Krishna who has now hid Himself in Gokul, who is now among the poor and despised of the earth, who is now among

the cow-herds of Brindaban, will reveal Himself, will declare the Godhead, and the whole nation will rise, the whole people of this great country will rise, filled with divine power, filled with the inspiration of the Almighty, and no power on earth shall resist it, and no danger or difficulty shall stop it in its onward course. (Loud and continued applause) Because God is there, and it is His Mission, and He has something for us to do. He has a work for His great and ancient nation. Therefore He has been born again to do it, therefore He is revealing Himself in you, not that you may be like other nations, not that you may rise merely by human strength to trample underfoot the weaker peoples, but because something must come out from you which is to save the whole world. That something is what the ancient Rishis knew and revealed, and that is to be known and revealed again today, it has to be revealed to the whole world, and in order that He may reveal Himself, you must first realise Him in yourselves, you must shape your lives, you must shape the life of this great nation so that it may be fit to reveal Him and then your task will be done, and you will realise that what you are doing today is no mere political uprising, no mere political change, but that you have been called upon to do God's work. (Loud and continued applause)

The Meaning of Swaraj

24-January-1908

Thank you for the welcome you have accorded me, which I do not deserve, because whatever I do is not done by me of my own accord. My actions are dictated by God. I am simply an instrument in His hands. The welcome should, therefore, be presented to Him and not to me. Let us thank Him.

I have hitherto been a writer and not an orator, but circumstances forced me to try my hand at oratory. I have not fixed the subject of my speech, but at the request of some friends I will speak to you on Swaraj. Unfortunately I am not accustomed to make speeches and may deviate from the subject. Within the past two or three years, either by a stroke of fortune or by divine inspiration, a new movement or, in other words, power has been created in our country, but the goal to be attained was vague until last year when the old patriot Dadabhai Naoroji in his Presidential address at the National Congress in Calcutta said, "We must have Swaraj on the lines granted to Canada and Australia, which is our sole aim." The true definition of Swaraj was given by Dadabhai Naoroji in his speech after the session of the Congress. Swaraj means administration of affairs in a country by her own people on their own strength in accordance with the welfare of the people without even nominal suzerainty, which is the object which we wish to attain. We had forgotten it for a time and feared to speak about it. We were far away from the truth and we had forgotten it, and on that account we have been reduced to a bad condition. If we do not acquaint ourselves with the object in view, viz., Swaraj, I am afraid we, thirty crores of people, will become extinct. The people of Maharashtra must

have some recollection of Swaraj, because a century ago you represented it.

Swaraj is life, it is nectar and salvation. Swaraj in a nation is the breath of life. Without breath of life a man is dead. So also without Swaraj a nation is dead. Swaraj being the life of a nation it is essential for it. History shows the fate of nations without Swaraj. In ancient times the Romans had extended their sovereignty over many countries as England has done at present, and under their sovereignty the people of other countries enjoyed as we are now enjoying all the comforts of a peaceful reign. Their lives and properties were all secure as ours are, but in spite of all this, it was said that the people under the sway of the Roman Empire came to grief with its downfall, and were harassed by savage people. The reason is, they had no Swaraj. After a lapse of centuries they stood on their own legs and established for themselves Swaraj and became happy. It is for this reason that Swaraj is essentially needed, and is to be gained by our own exertions. If it is gained otherwise, which is impossible, it cannot last long for want of strength in us. One way of gaining it is to implore the sovereign, who holds our realm, but he won't give it. Unfortunately there still exists a party of men who still cling to the idea that we shall obtain Swaraj by asking for it, which is to be regretted. This party thinks that we are not capable of managing our own affairs, that we are being trained in that direction and that our benign English Government will extend Swaraj to us by degrees. But they do not understand that it is against human nature—Indians excepted. The English value the importance of India. Its possession gives them status. If they once allow India to slip from their grasp, they will become a nonentity. Under such circumstances it is silly to say that the English will train us and entrust us with Swaraj. By reposing confidence in the English people we are already reduced to a miserable condition and in the end will become extinct. Another way of obtaining Swaraj is to seek aid from a neighbouring nation. But this means jumping from the frying-pan into the fire. No matter from whom we seek assistance their own interests will first be considered. We should, therefore, acquire it by our own efforts.

The question therefore arises as to how we should do it. We do not possess Swaraj nor have we the power to retain it. The answer is, we cannot master the art of swimming unless we struggle in the water. We should, therefore, be prepared to undergo hardships in the struggle for Swaraj, as there is no other alternative. We want Swaraj, which means independence, but independence cannot be had unless we are independent. As God created us independent we should be full of inspirations. With full faith in God we should preach independence through the length and breadth of the country and a beginning should be made to impart national education. The English erred in the beginning in spreading their education, which they now regret, and on this account Lord Curzon adopted a new policy. People should take into their own hands judicial and executive work. They should get their disputes settled by arbitration. Look at the change which has been wrought during the past two years by the Swadeshi movement and boycott. With these two measures we are bound to obtain good results. We, Bengalis, have adopted all these measures and have been successful. If these measures are universally adopted, we shall have more than half of Swaraj in our hands. The opposition will not sleep over it. It's all known in England. Our idea of the struggle for Swaraj is that it is the commandment of God, which we must obey. To oppose it is not in our power. That Bengalis inspired with this idea do not fear fine, incarceration, deportation or the extreme penalty of the law, is a well-known fact. If a Bengali lad is punished in connection with the Swadeshi movement, he smiles and says it does not matter much; we have gone another step in the direction of our goal.

O inhabitants of Maharashtra, since you and Bengalis are stirring to attain one end and as we are all sons of Aryabhumi, let us all jointly set ourselves to the task of bringing about a state of things in accordance with the commandment of God. We, Bengalis, depend upon you because the sons of Maharashtra were brave soldiers a short while ago. You enjoyed Swaraj when you were harassed by Mahomedans. A similar commandment was conveyed to you through Tukaram, Ramdas and others,

and in obedience to this commandment all Marathas joined. Shivaji, the warrior, came from you, and Swaraj was established in Maharashtra. The poor were rescued from molestation by the wicked and the country prospered. The present state of affairs is similar. The present agitation is not the creation of man. It is divine inspiration. It is the commandment of God. Human beings are the instruments to carry it out. There must be unity among us and we are getting united. If we, thirty crores of people, unite with a firm resolution for the sake of truth, the commandment of God and His will will be done and the foe will share the fate of the mountain of ashes which disappeared with a strong current of wind. We are all God's creatures, and if all from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin) are brought together, it will be seen that our country is just as big as it is described in our kavyas. If we, imbued with this idea, become united with a firm resolution to obey the commandment of God, I feel sure we shall gain our Swaraj in twenty years. It won't take centuries as our enemies, the Anglo-Indians, imagine, nor will it take half a century as predicted by our Moderates. We, the Bengalis, whom the English consider effeminate, have commenced our work and we shall, by the grace of God, prove ourselves to be the sons of brave men in the eyes of the world.

Swadeshi and Boycott

26-January-1908

Mr. Gadre and fellow countrymen,

There are four subjects which usually form the subject matter of a Nationalist's speech. They are, first, Swadeshi; second, boycott; third, Swaraj; and fourth, national education. Swadeshi is the method, the way, the road by which the nation advances. Boycott is only the other side of Swadeshi, and both the Swadeshi and the boycott movements are actually encouraged in principle in the greater part of this country. National education is the training of the mind and heart of the younger generation. Swaraj is the goal of our national life. Our political efforts are directed to Swadeshi, boycott, Swaraj and national education, which have been recognised by all in Bengal.

Today I wish to speak to you about two of these subjects because they go together. Swadeshi and boycott, as we understand them in Bengal, have been put as a single expression. There is no difference of opinion in Bengal as regards Swadeshi and boycott. Both parties entirely agree that boycott is an essential part of political progress. When we speak of Swadeshi, we ought clearly to understand the meaning of the word. Swadeshi is the preference for articles produced by Indian labour in India itself. The use and consumption of such articles defines the Swadeshi movement. When we speak of boycott, it is generally understood that boycott is the determination to exclude foreign products, the determination not to use articles of foreign manufacture.

Now the meaning of Swadeshi and boycott, as we Nationalists understand them, is wider and larger than Swadeshi and boycott as defined by others, owing to the commercial and industrial circumstances of the country. There are three kinds

of Swadeshi. When Swadeshi was first started in Bengal, Lord Minto said at the Commercial Exhibition in Calcutta that he approved of Swadeshi. Our Swadeshi, according to Lord Minto, is the determination to encourage Indian manufacture and the use of Indian goods when they are as good as English manufactures and can be got at a cheaper price. That is the economic principle preached by English economists. Lord Minto says that if Swadeshi excludes the goods of other countries it ceases to be an honest attempt for the industry of this country. There is another kind of Swadeshi which is more developed. We shall encourage Indian labour, Indian manufacture, Indian articles, preferring our own goods by giving them a little stimulus. This idea of Swadeshi brings in the principle of preference and protection. The third kind of Swadeshi adopts the principle of using our own Indian manufactures, our own Indian goods, and not using foreign articles if Indian articles can be had. These are the three kinds of Swadeshi and the third kind of Swadeshi absolutely depends upon the boycott.

Boycott, it is objected, brings in an element of hatred, political struggle and of political animosity. Boycott has a double aspect. There is a commercial boycott which is used as a political weapon. It is not open to the charge that it brings in animosity, hatred and political struggle. The management of our own country is not in our hands. It is in the hands of a people whose trade interests are opposed to ours. The management is in the hands of a people who have adopted the doctrine of free trade, an unalterable principle which they are not going to sacrifice for any reason. It is the principle of free trade which has been unanimously adopted by Englishmen. They want free trade. England gets every advantage of free trade. But other countries cannot accept the principle of free trade. This is not an expression of political hatred of one nation to another. Boycott is not an expression of political hatred but a means of self-defence. The Governments of countries such as France and America declare that they will not use English tea. We want tea produced and developed in our own country; therefore we want to pass a law that no English tea is to be brought in unless it pays a heavy duty.

But the Government in India is not in our hands and it is not for our protection. Therefore the only remedy, the only weapon is to boycott foreign goods. We are simply following the same policy as other Governments. We will not use the manufactured articles of Manchester. We want to develop the cotton industry in India. The whole of India will be employed for producing our own goods. We shall not use Manchester goods at all; we shall use goods produced and manufactured in our country. The object of the boycott of foreign goods is self-protection. When boycott comes by an effort of a nation and by an effort of its people, it protects the trade of the country. Every nation has a right to protect its life from starvation and famine, just as everyone is entitled to the right of self-defence. It is the exercise of a natural right which no one can prevent. It is allowed by the principles of political economy and there is no law and there can be no law to prevent this. This is a perfectly legitimate duty allowed by the law and sanctioned by the principles of political economy. There is nothing to be afraid of, if we follow these principles.

There is another aspect of boycott—the political aspect. Certain people think that commercial boycott is not possible and is contrary to the principles of economy, but that boycott can be used as a political weapon. Mr. Gokhale holds that opinion and he strongly supported the principle of boycott at the Benares Congress. He said that the boycott of all foreign goods is not possible, but he thought that this political boycott will be effective in bringing a redress of certain grievances of our country.

This political use of boycott has special relation to the Partition of Bengal. It is proved that in Bengal boycott was first declared as a protest against the Partition; it was declared when there was a great agitation in Bengal. Meetings were held to protest against the Partition; petitions were presented but with no success. When there was no remedy left, somebody suggested that boycott would be very good and the whole of Bengal accepted boycott. It was accepted by leaders who were of all political opinions. Meetings were held and the leaders of the Moderate parties accepted it as a political weapon, as a means

of bringing pressure upon the British Government to annul the Partition. Everything had failed, our petitions and protests were not heard, so we wanted to bring pressure upon the British people. We thought that boycott was the only pressure which told upon the pockets and material interests of England. This was the idea which was approved by all in Bengal, and boycott was first adopted in Bengal for a period of six months as a form of political agitation. If it was successful, boycott would become a prominent part of our political activity. But since the British public might feel that after six months we would give up, a sort of proviso was attached: we would boycott British goods until the Partition was rescinded. But when the leaders signed and returned the paper, that proviso was crossed out and they all took oath without limit of time or proviso. What induced them? Why should they strike out the proviso? The reason was that we in Bengal held that boycott was not really a political weapon, but was something wider and deeper. It was about national activity, which had nothing to do with the Partition. Partition was an exciting cause. It was merely the blow which opened our eyes suddenly. It induced the people enthusiastically, unanimously to seize upon the boycott.

I have told you that Swadeshi and boycott are the road, the way which leads to the goal. Swadeshi and boycott are the way to the goal of Swaraj. There has been much discussion about the definition of Swaraj. Swaraj has been defined as self-government. It has been defined by Dadabhai Naoroji as a self-governing colony. In our view, self-government is merely one aspect of Swaraj. We believe that India itself is entirely a separate nation. As a nation it is not part of the Anglo-Saxons. When we speak of Swaraj we mean the principle of national life independent of any form of government. The word Swaraj is not a new word but an old one. It is as old as literature and civilisation. The meaning of Swaraj, in our ancient literature, is the spiritual condition of the soul which attains to Mukti. When the soul is independent of everything but itself, when it exists in the joy of its light and greatness, when it is Mukta, that is Swaraj. According to our ancient philosophy, sarvam paravasham duhkham sarvam

atmavasham sukham: All dependence upon others is misery; all dependence upon ourselves is bliss. This is the fundamental truth. To get rid of Maya, bondage, is the ideal of our ancient religion. It is the sole object of human existence, human life.

Let us apply the word Swaraj to national life. The national soul desires a reformed life. The national self is our Swaraj. The national self magnifies the national soul, that is, the soul of three hundred millions. The history of the world teaches us that when a nation is dependent it begins to decay, it begins to lose its power; it loses its strength, it loses its manhood and lastly it is broken to pieces and becomes weak and helpless. This is what history teaches us and what reason tells us. Our nation does not depend upon itself but depends upon others; therefore it is in an unsound, unhealthy and diseased condition. The end of a disease is death and if the nation consents to that disease it will decay and death is certain. Before the Swadeshi movement was started, we were in a state of perfect dependence. Even now, the entire management of our country is in the hands of foreigners; we have become absolutely like Fakirs; we have become dependent upon foreign food and guidance. The management of India is entirely directed by others; we have to look to a foreign nation for our life. The whole life of India would come to a standstill if our food ran short. Sugar, salt and such articles of daily use would be cut off; we would be reduced to a condition never seen before in the history of our country. We have now to look to a foreign nation for our ideals, for what is right and wrong, for the best things to learn. By a foreign way of living, by a foreign education we have sought to cease to be Indians, to adopt a new way of life. That was the condition and tendency before the Swadeshi movement was started. Now the boycott is not essentially a political movement, it is a movement of old times; it is the movement to recover the freedom of a nation, a national life; it is the desire to live for ourselves. That is the meaning of Swaraj; that is called Swadeshi. It is an intellectual change, it is a spiritual change, it is a political change. National independence is Swaraj. Swadeshi is that which belongs to our own country. When applied to industry and commerce it means

the preference for our own articles produced by Indian labour and the exclusion of articles produced by the labour of foreign people.

National education:—The object of our educational movement is to establish self-government in India. It is an education which shall create Indians, not Englishmen, citizens of the Indian nation; this will prolong the life of India. It means gradually giving up schools and colleges under foreign control, the objects of which are directed by a foreign element. The schools and colleges in which we are taught give us an education which does not develop our intellectual capacity. Education in English schools and colleges has cut us off from our ancient strength; it is an education which does not fit our ancient strength. The education we receive is narrow, meagre and incomplete. We want to establish an education of our own in India.

New movements in Bengal are slowly coming forward one by one. The movement in Bengal took the idea of boycott and applied it to foreign education. Our education is based on Swadeshi. It seeks to establish an educational system which springs from our ancient system so that we do not ruin ourselves, pecuniarily, morally and intellectually, as well as physically. There is also a movement of arbitration, a movement to establish arbitration courts to settle disputes among ourselves, instead of going to law-courts managed under foreign laws. We seek to settle disputes among ourselves in preference to the present costly system, which is doing harm to our nation. Both these movements seek to develop our national energies and the habit of independence; that is the real meaning of Swadeshi as we understand it in Bengal.

I am addressing you in the English language. I am an Indian. You are all Indians. I am trying to preach to the nation certain ideas which will bring prosperity to our country. I got my education in England, and so I can express my thoughts best in English. It shows how unnatural was our life which existed in the nineteenth century. When I speak in English, a foreign language, a certain number will understand me, a certain number will partly understand and a certain number will not understand at

all. Those who speak in a foreign language, are not really able to throw themselves out in that language because that language is not their own. There are some people in Bengal who speak no other language than English; this shows how unnatural our way of life has become. This is the result of foreign dependence. Now in Bengal, after the Swadeshi movement, if a speaker rises to speak, he has to speak in Bengali. If he begins in any other language, he is commanded by the audience to speak in Bengali. We are Swadeshi, we want you to speak in Swadeshi language, we want our things Swadeshi; we want that which belongs to us. We want to boycott the things which do not belong to our country. We don't want foreign government, we want a state of independence. By our medium of expression we shall also be Swadeshi or Bideshi. When we understand the principle of Swadeshi, then we will come to understand what boycott means. It is not hatred; it is not animosity against foreign rulers; it is the other side of Swadeshi.

If you want to realise yourselves, seek for yourselves. If you realise the Atman, the real self, you realise the Anatman the not-self. We don't want anything which is Anatman, and that is boycott. This principle applies to a nation. We have to recover our national independence and for that we want our nation realised. We want to realise our nationalism. It is boycott which leads to national self-realisation, and it is the ideal of Swaraj. It is neither wrong nor illegal but a perfectly legitimate movement, a movement which no law can deny. The ideal of Swaraj is not an ideal which the law can prevent; there can be no human law to prevent it. If you have your own schools and not those that are managed by foreign control, it is not illegal. If I preach to you to boycott foreign schools, there is nothing unlawful in it. You should not go to foreign law-courts. If I preach to you to help your own countrymen, to take your own measures to supply water to your villages, there is nothing illegal or immoral. There is nothing in the word boycott that you need be afraid of. There are people who seek to stop this movement because it affects their interests. We preach passive resistance in Bengal. Whatever obstacles are thrown in your

way, whatever sufferings are inflicted on you, remove those obstacles, bear those sufferings, bear the affliction and go on with your movement, go on with your activities with all your energy. You young men must live for nationalism. In order to preach passive resistance let nothing stop you. Keep your resolution; never mind the obstacles. Never mind the stumbles and pitfalls that will come in your way. Welcome joy or sorrow, welcome victory or defeat.

If you have not the courage of self-sacrifice, then do not talk of Swadeshi. If you don't want to sacrifice, if you want to lie in your armchairs and you think you can save your nation thereby, then you have no right to come forward. It is no use your coming in numbers. Swadeshi, boycott, Swaraj and national education are not at all immoral, illegal or unnatural. The national movement is such that you will live to save your own country. You are asked to save your nation of three hundred million people and you are asked to live a Swadeshi life, not for yourselves but for your country. I ask you to be Swadeshi. Try to buy Swadeshi goods. I ask you to mould your life on Swadeshi. Live for your Swadeshi and die for your Swadeshi.

Bande Mataram

29-January-1908

Sj. Aurobindo said that he was exceedingly pleased to know that the song ["Bande Mataram"] had become so popular in all parts of India, and that it was being so repeatedly sung. He said that he would make this national anthem the subject of his speech. The song, he said, was not only a national anthem as the European nations look upon their own, but one replete with mighty power, being a sacred mantra, revealed to us by the author of Anandamath, who might be called an inspired rishi. He described the manner in which the mantra had been revealed to Bankim Chandra, probably by a sannyasi under whose teaching he was. He said that the mantra was not an invention, but a revivification of the old mantra which became extinct so to speak by the treachery of one Navakisan. The mantra of Bankim Chandra was not appreciated in his own day and he predicted that there would come a time when the whole of India would resound with the singing of the song, and the word of the prophet was miraculously fulfilled. The meaning of the song was not understood then because there was no patriotism, except such as consisted in making India the shadow of England and other countries, which dazzled the sight of the sons of this our motherland with their glory and opulence. The so-called patriots of that time might have been the well-wishers of India but not certainly ones who loved her. One who loved his mother never looked to her defects, never disregarded her as an ignorant, superstitious, degraded and decrepit woman. The speaker then unfolded the meaning of the song. As with the individual, so with the nation, there were three bodies or Koshas, the Sthula, Sukshma and Karana Shariras. In this way the speaker went

on clearing up the hidden meaning of the song. The manner in which he treated of love and devotion was exceedingly touching and the audience sat before him like dumb statues, not knowing where they were or whether they were listening to a prophet revealing to them the higher mysteries of life. He then concluded with a most pathetic appeal to true patriotism and exhorted the audience to love the motherland and sacrifice everything to bring about her salvation.

The Aims of the Nationalist Party

30-January-1908

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 the Nationalist party derive from destroying the Congress? The Nationalist party wanted the Congress; we required it for the purpose of disseminating our nationalist views. What would we gain by breaking it up?

Several letters have appeared about the Congress from many leaders of the old party. One of them has remarked that the Bengal Nationalists received from their headquarters a wire to the following effect: "Break up the Congress if everything else fails." We were greatly surprised to hear that such a telegram had been received. Nationalism has no headquarters in any one town. It is neither at Calcutta nor at Poona; it is spread all over the nation. The whole nation is the seat of Nationalism. Since this is so, we have to ask the Moderates what is meant by the expression "headquarters at Calcutta". Who sent that wire? The leaders of the Nationalist party in Bengal—our leaders—are the very headquarters of Nationalism. From this standpoint, which of our headquarters had been left behind? If we regard the leaders as the headquarters, one of them is at Buxar at present

and the other was at Surat! No such telegram was received by the Nationalist party. The above statement is entirely false. The Nationalist party did not want to wreck the Congress and it never did. I do not blame anyone. But I ask, What were we to gain by wrecking the Congress? It was not the case that Government would have been displeased if we severed our connection with the other party by wrecking the Congress. Where did we get the desire to rally round the British flag by cutting off our connection with the other party? If we consider the three issues raised in the debate of this year's Congress, it will be possible to decide who was responsible for the wrecking of the Congress.

Every member of any public institution started and managed by the people of any civilised nation is given full liberty to offer his opinion on any question, in accordance with the universally acknowledged rules of all public institutions. No president has the authority to suppress this liberty—this natural right of every member of society. The president is merely a servant of the meeting formed by the coming together of the people who appoint him. There are rules to regulate his conduct. No president should break these rules. He cannot stifle freedom of speech and liberty of opinion. When such is the universally acknowledged rule, who then tried to snatch away the rights of a member? Was it the Nationalist party or the other party? Who transgressed the universally accepted rule of meetings by not allowing the leader of our party to speak, though timely notice was given by him? Did we do this? Those who say that we went to the Congress with the intention of wrecking it should think over this question.

Another important thing is that the Congress is an institution belonging to all Indians—to all the well-wishers of the nation. Whoever exerts himself for the good of the nation ought to get a place in this institution. Whoever has to push forward the cart of the nation, whoever is desirous of procuring happiness and as much liberty as is possible for his country to get, ought to be able to enter this institution. The ideal of one may be less exalted, while that of another more exalted, and that of the third most exalted. But since "the good of the nation" is the common object of all, everyone ought to be included in that institution.

One party may defeat the other on the strength of a majority of votes and establish its own superiority. If the other party has any stamina or mettle, it will live and fight. But none should try to drive away any party from the institution by taking advantage of a local majority formed according to his own wishes. It is clear that the other party had the majority at Surat. Was it not the attempt of the Moderate party to drive the Nationalist party out of the Congress from next year by taking advantage of this local majority? Why should the opinion of one party that such is the particular goal of our nation be fastened on to the other party? It is not that the ultimate aim of our political agitation should be one and the same for all. One may be in advance of the other. Was it not a fact that in the resolution of this year's constitution they were going to fasten on the Nationalist party a "final goal" which was unacceptable to it? It is a mockery of the opinions of the Nationalists to make them sign a paper containing false principles of Nationalism which are not acceptable to them. Who has the right to thrust his own idea of the "final goal" upon others and, if they do not consent, to drive them out of the meeting? Mr. Gokhale knew that one particular party did not accept as the final goal partial Swarajya and slow reform. Still, in the draft he had prepared of the constitution, he tried to thrust the final goal of one particular party upon another and to drive out the latter from the Congress. The meaning of the new rule made by Mr. Gokhale was "Accept a certain final goal, otherwise you have no place in the Congress and out you go." I ask those who say that our intention was to wreck the Congress, Is it not necessary to include people of different views in the National Congress? Was it not the intention of the other party to drive out of the Congress those whose final goal is different from that of Mr. Gokhale, but who still belong to that party which has national well-being at heart? Only those resolutions that are universally acceptable or acceptable to many will be passed. But none should attempt to forcibly eject another because his views do not tally with his own. Did the Nationalist party make any such attempt? Who were intolerant towards those who held views different from their own? To whom did the

presence of another party become unbearable in the Congress, the Moderates or the Extremists? This trick of driving out the opposite party was played by the Moderates and not by the Extremists. This being so, did the Nationalist party break up the National Congress?

The third important question is with regard to the retrogression of the Congress. We, the Nationalists, went to Surat to help the Congress progress by means of spiritedness, steadiness, and self-reliance. Our desire was, and is, that the fixed determination—the austere vow—which the Bengali nation has resolved upon in its helplessness might spread to other provinces as well, and the people of those provinces might help us in our contest. Our ambition was to get tangible help from other provinces in our peaceful but determined contest. But we found all but one of the subjects omitted from this year's resolutions published in the name of the Reception Committee. These were subjects for which we fought zealously in the Calcutta Congress. What then of pushing the Congress forward? We became anxious to see whether it would remain where it was. Subjects were entirely omitted, and we cannot say whether they were introduced subsequently after making sweeping changes in them and rendering them vague whenever an objection from the Nationalists was anticipated, or whether the subjects which were thus mutilated and with the names suppressed were put in from the beginning. But on the list which was sent to Bombay on the 25th December 1907, but which was given to us on the 26th, that is, after the opening of the Congress, we found the subjects greatly mutilated.

Mr. Gokhale states that the changes they introduced in the resolutions of last year were merely trivial and verbal and were made to make the meaning clear and to put them in better language. It is surprising to find that a man like Mr. Gokhale says so! The resolution of Swarajya was passed last year at Calcutta. I have already told you how the final goal, which was clearly laid down in that resolution, has been rendered doubtful and insignificant by the introduction of the Creed resolution by Mr. Gokhale. The resolution about Swadeshi was also found

greatly pruned down. What great efforts the Nationalists had to make last year simply to introduce the words "even at some sacrifice"! By the introduction of these words the compromise was effected last year. These words were acceptable to both parties. Mr. Gokhale says they were inadvertently omitted. We could not reconcile with the past history of these words the fact of their omission by mistake or forgetfulness by Mr. Gokhale. Last year, when the people of both parties had assembled to settle their differences of opinion, I also had the opportunity to be present. Mr. Tilak, Aswini Babu and myself were the three representatives for our side. The opposite side was represented by Mr. Gokhale and Mr. Madan Mohan Malaviya. After a discussion among us five it was settled to add the words "even at some sacrifice". We could never believe that these words, which had been purposely put in, were omitted inadvertently. It cannot be said that we are doing an injustice to Mr. Gokhale if we infer, by looking at the radical changes made to the second resolution, that the words had been purposely omitted. How do we know that Mr. Gokhale, one of the General Secretaries, could not find out from the files of any newspaper the correct resolution? It is true that we did not think that Mr. Gokhale might forget the words even though they were introduced in the committee of the above-mentioned five persons.

Mr. Gokhale made such sweeping changes as would destroy the meaning of the boycott resolution and make the weapon of boycott adopted by the Bengalis appear to apply only to English-made goods. The boycott movement inaugurated in Bengal has a wider significance than the boycott of British goods resorted to in Bengal. Taking the word "movement" to mean activity, Babu Bipin Chandra Pal expressed the hope before last year's Congress that the boycott movement would travel from one point to another, from one village to another, and from one province to another. Was it not the intention of Mr. Gokhale to cripple this resolution by altering its meaning? Even a superficial observer can see that the agitation in Bengal was not confined to British goods. When Government proclaimed the Partition, we distinctly informed Government that this Partition was not

acceptable to us. We adopted a universal boycott, which showed our disapproval of the Partition. It is known throughout India that our boycott means passive resistance. If the boycott was with regard to English goods only, then why have honourable and spirited Bengali gentlemen resigned their seats in the Councils? Were the boycott in Bengal confined to goods only, were it merely a commercial boycott, where was the necessity of boycotting Government schools? It is true that Bengal has boycotted English goods. But that was merely a subsidiary part of the all-pervading boycott. One thing must be borne in mind here, that the boycott of foreign goods is merely a commercial one, while that which is applied to English goods is of a political nature. There is no necessity of applying these political weapons to any other country besides Britain. Why should we take revenge upon America or Germany for the oppression caused to us by the people of Britain? The reason we do not buy or will not in future buy German or American goods is in order to increase Indian trades and industries. But there is a political reason besides this for the boycott of British goods; it is to make the brethren of our oppressors feel the pinch.

The boycott adopted by Bengal is of a different type, its scope and its extent are far-reaching. The meaning of our boycott is that we should not be of any help to Government in its administration carried on by unjust and uncontrolled authority. This is so plain that it could be seen by anyone possessing eyes. Mr. Gokhale knew that we had started such a boycott. He purposely tried to create the impression that the Bengal boycott was directed against English goods only. Or his intention might have been to show that the Surat Congress at least accepted Bengal's boycott to that extent. The changes that were made in last year's resolution were very important and of a retrograde nature, from the standpoint of the Bengal Nationalists at least. And yet Mr. Gokhale says that the changes introduced were merely trivial and verbal. To him the changes may be very trivial, but it is impossible for the Bengal Nationalists to regard them as such. We did not at all like the flimsy picture drawn by Mr. Gokhale of the all-pervading boycott for the spread of which

we—particularly the people of Eastern Bengal—had to suffer so much. Boys received stripes, many of them suffered physical pangs in jail, and several others gave up everything. We did not like Mr. Gokhale's intention of giving a commercial appearance to our boycott. We fought zealously in order to secure sincere sympathy and suffered prosecutions, and this mode of passive resistance received support from the National Congress last year. By taking away that support, Mr. Gokhale rendered the resolution ineffectual; yet in the face of this open attempt, he says that the changes made were merely verbal.

He substituted the words "independent system" for the more important words "on national lines and under national control" in the resolution on national education. Mr. Gokhale says that the word "national" occurred thrice in the resolution and this did not sound well, so the changes in the wording were made. Mr. Gokhale is a scholar of English, but we see a particular motive in repeating the word "national" thrice. An independent system of education may include education imparted by semi-government schools or colleges which receive government aid. But the words "on national lines" and "under national control" appeared to Mr. Gokhale as meaningless and superfluous, so he corrected the bad English sentence by putting it in good English in order to obtain some elegance of expression. There would have been no harm done, except slightly lowering Mr. Gokhale's reputation for knowledge of English, if he had allowed the bad English to stand, as he knew that the Nationalist party would be displeased, and actually was displeased, at the change of language—this trivial verbal change made solely with a view to improving the elegance of style. The object of the Congress is not to enable men to write English correctly and elegantly. If slightly bad language would satisfy all, what harm would there be in allowing it to stand? It would be regarding the Nationalist party as ignorant and dull-headed to say that such a material change in the resolution would be accepted by it as merely verbal.

These three questions are before those who say that our intention was to wreck the Congress. Who tried to destroy unconstitutionally the rights of members to speak? The Nationalist

party? Who made the ignoble attempt to drop out or drive out people of a particular opinion from the Congress by making rules partial to the constitutional party? The Nationalist party? Whose desire was it to put back the Congress by making changes in the resolutions passed universally on the strength of a local majority? The Nationalist party? These are important points. This year's fight in the Congress was between the ordinary people and unrestricted authority. It was a fight for principle in one way. How is it possible to put up with the arbitrariness of some people in a Congress which itself passes resolutions against the oppression of Government? The confusion that took place in the Congress was due to the peculiar circumstances of this year. It is not the fault of Mr. Tilak or of the Nationalist party. Whether there will be compromise or not, whether it will be possible to have any, will be decided by time alone. Our Nationalist party has to perform a very great task in the future. There are mountains of obstacles and difficulties in the way. Immense troubles will have to be suffered, hard work will have to be done and everything will have to be sacrificed; a great many will have to sacrifice their lives, then only will we be able to obtain that which is our final and exalted goal, the realisation of all happiness, the final achievement of all that is to be achieved and the desired object of all—Swarajya.

I shall speak tomorrow on what is to be done in the future.

Our Work in the Future

31-January-1908

My countrymen, those who have minutely observed with open eyes the agitation started two years ago, must have been convinced that the wonderful force of this agitation, this revolution in ideas, and these extreme changes in behaviour must have the support of some unseen wonderful supernatural and divine force. This movement is not an ordinary one, its regulator and leader is certainly not a human being, and it has the support of the best force in the universe. All the revolutions in the world have been brought about by this wonderful force. Some extraordinary superhuman strength has suddenly become visible in the nation. Those people—a handful of madmen—who started this agitation were insignificant beings. This agitation was not started by very experienced leaders. Now those leaders have had to fall in with the current. Along this current of agitation started by obscure men many a great leader is now being carried. Within the last two years a public awakening which had not been created for centuries has been produced by this agitation. Those who took part in it were not necessarily learned men. They were ordinary men like others. They committed mistakes and blunders, but the wonderful thing is that the progress of the movement, instead of being retarded by these mistakes, went on increasing unimpeded. In short, the full vigour of this movement cannot be comprehended by us poor human creatures. Some ordinary people, by getting up on this wave of awakening, have attained an exalted position and become objects of adoration of the entire nation by means of their earnestness, burning patriotism, unparalleled self-sacrifice and devotion to duty.

The force of this movement was not diminished by the inflamed anger of the other party, by dissensions among ourselves,

by the slanderings of back-biters, by the treachery of those who reveal the secrets of the house and who are guilty of incest with their Mother. This awakening is shoving away everything that comes in its way like the current of a river that sweeps away everything. Many wonderful religious revolutions have taken place in the different nations of this earth. This is also one of that sort. This revolution is taking place in the political atmosphere. This is the beginning of the political enhancement of a nation. The Indian community, by taking its seat on this current, is proving itself an instrument for the carrying out of God's wishes and is fulfilling His command naturally. There is no doubt that this commotion in the interior of the community will surely bring about some divine work. This agitation is certainly not propelled by human will. We went to Surat with a particular motive. We went to the Congress in order to propagate our views and doctrines. But there something different happened. The other party assembled there with the same purpose, but they were also disappointed! How can we say that this sudden split has not been brought about by God's design for the good of the nation? Impossible to fathom are the motives of God and inscrutable is His Lila. Unity is wanted, unity is essential. Is it God's intention to regenerate the nation by means of this split? Perhaps so, who can say? That a compromise should be effected between the two parties is the desire of all. Who can say what is going to happen in the future?

The work which has to be performed by the Nationalist party hereafter is very formidable. The strength and vitality of our party will be tested today. The strength of our party will be tried now. We ought to ascertain today exactly the nature of the work we have undertaken, our destination, the obstacles and pitfalls in the way, the weaknesses we possess, and the course we should adopt. Our dissensions were merely intellectual discussions till now. We required them to infuse life into the body of the nation,—our strength was limited, and we expended it in our debates. Nobody estimated correctly what strength we, our nation, possessed. None attempted to concentrate this power. Many do not yet believe in the existence of this power

and are not convinced; many people are whisked about; for this reason the two factions have cropped up. May it not be God's intention to get the work done through our party and through it alone? May it not be God's desire to find out the extent of our powers? The present time is not for slow progress. It is one of great quickness, extreme briskness and progress. Everyone should rush forward at this moment. Courage is wanted. Daring is required. Boldness is necessary. A writer at the time of the French Revolution said, "There is nothing to be dreaded. Run forward with firm devotion, go on, rush on, push on!" In Germany and Japan there was such a rapid progress. Perhaps our attempts to bring about compromise may prove fruitless. We ought, therefore, to settle on what we have to gain or obtain.

The way of the Moderates, the former devotees of the Congress, was different. They did not intend to change entirely the present arrangement of Government. They did not want to progress. They wanted to make changes in the existing system of government. They did not require courage. But by their method the accomplishment of the object did not take place. It is impossible to obtain your rights. Simple good government cannot allay the thirst for Swarajya. If we were to throw our political responsibility, our political duty upon others, it would be nothing but political death to us. That would be the greatest calamity. Those who care for their safety and comfort ought not to place their feet on our path. We do not want those who spare themselves. How can you procure a kingdom in the possession of foreigners through their kindness? Your interests and theirs are entirely different. Why should those who have give by bits? Government will not give us the true rights of Swarajya even by degrees. It is afraid that if some rights are given, more will be demanded. To say that we shall compel Government to give us our rights is as dangerous as to cherish an ambition for absolute Swarajya. We must adopt whatever remedies other nations of the world adopted to attain Swarajya, having regard to the present conditions. A final goal such as the colonial form of Swarajya is both inconvenient and vague. The effect of the agitation is also partial and indistinct. If the final goal is very high, exalted and

inspiring, then only will the workers be filled with enthusiasm and activity. Hence we ought to have a high ideal before us. We have to travel towards this ideal of absolute Swarajya. We are often ridiculed that a desire for Swarajya is nothing but a dream, a castle in the air, because our community has become weak, sapless, deranged and rickety. Where in our community is that courage which is required for the performance of such a great work, that capacity, that self-sacrifice and those material or spiritual remedies? Some people advise that because the achievement of Swarajya is beyond human strength, we must wait for some centuries and work before we are able to speak of Swarajya; but no nation ever came into prominence by helping a foreign government. Lessons of independence must be learnt only in the school of liberty. If we wait for centuries the weakness of our nation will increase. We cannot afford to wait. If you want to acquire Swarajya, try for it now; otherwise give up the name Swarajya once for all.

The present agitation in India sprang up suddenly in Bengal. It has entirely changed the whole face of Bengal. There is an inspiration created in the heart of everyone by divine prompting. It must be a divine arrangement; otherwise how could such a superhuman work be achieved within two years by the agitation carried on by a few obscure men? Perhaps you may not have examined carefully the agitation in Bengal. It was started by a few people first. People used to regard these originators as madmen. But these very madmen spread Swadeshism, preached boycott and established gymnasiums. This spread the conflagration of the agitation everywhere. The young generation assisted the movement; the whole of Bengal became alive and pricked up its ears. The leaders had no faith in boycott, yet they could not hold their own against the current of public opinion. They joined the boycott movement. Government officers were terrified. They began their repressive policy in order to break the bones of agitation.

Students were the first to bear the brunt of the oppression and it was they who strenuously pushed on the sale of Swadeshi goods. Fines were imposed upon them for this. They were

punished and even were rusticated; but since they did not want to give up their Swadeshi vows, they left the schools. National schools had to be started. They were opened at Rangpur, Dacca and other places. The National Council of Education of Bengal was established. As soon as the necessity was felt, the schools were started without much help or materials. Though there are no funds, no school buildings, no furniture, yet, through the help of the Bengali nation, all these institutions are in a flourishing condition.

People are suffering immense troubles, undergoing imprisonments and whipping. Till now the people regarded the Bengali nation as impotent. The opinion of a certain English gentleman is that the Bengalis are well-versed in education and every individual among them is intellectual and dutiful, but from the political standpoint they are lifeless; they cannot do anything. But since the Swadeshi movement began this condition has changed. The difference between speaking and actually doing has disappeared. All the patriots are, as it were, one person and are moved by the same thoughts. Our younger generation seems to have lost regard for their lives. The example of Maulavi Liakat Hussain is not the only one. There are many such examples. Maulavi Liakat Hussain does not even know Bengali properly. But the endeavours and self-sacrifice made by this brave and noble-minded person are indescribable! There are three prosecutions pending against him at present. He not only accepted with a smile three years' imprisonment recently inflicted on him, but expressed his obligation to the Magistrate for having afforded him an opportunity to serve his country! He has gone to jail perhaps never to return again. The story of the Yugantar newspaper is very wonderful. No sooner was one editor sentenced to one year's imprisonment than another took his place. The moment the second man was prosecuted and sentenced, a third one came forward and willingly accepted the responsibility of editorship, in spite of the warning of the Magistrate! He was followed by a fourth person and thus the paper was continued. Whenever any editor was punished, his great concern was for the future issue of the paper; he did not think of his wife and children first. In

this way the Yugantar still continues. And so the Bengalis are sacrificing their self-interest and their all in accordance with the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita: "Thy business is with the action only, never with its fruits."

The Nationalist party in Bengal did not shrink at all. Italy was merely a name before in the geography of the world. It became a mighty nation in the course of twenty years. The same thing is going on in Bengal. The divine splendour of Bengali youths is clearly shining forth. The divine element has manifested itself. As soon as Government removes one, one hundred others take his place. Every Bengali patriot feels inclined to sacrifice his own self for the good of thirty crores of people. This idea ought to spread throughout the country. The misery of the Indian nation must be looked upon as the misery of everyone, and the pleasure of the nation must be regarded by him as his own. One ought to feel pride in bearing pain and anguish. To suffer such pangs is to repay one's debt to the nation.

Nations do not prosper without self-sacrifice. None should turn back like a woman from repaying his debt to the nation. We do not want laziness, legerdemain or acting. Matured circumspection, limited and carefully adopted remedies will not do; one should rush forth. The self-respect of the nation is our religion, self-sacrifice is our only action or duty. We ought to give proper scope for the divine qualities in us to shine forth. Trifling emotions ought to be given up. Do not be afraid even if you are required to die. Do not retreat; bear pain for the sake of the nation. God is your support. If you do this, the Indian nation will, in an instant, get back its former splendour and glory. It will take its place at the side of the independent nations of the world; it will educate other nations; it will shed the lustre of true knowledge, and it will inculcate the principles of Vedanta. Our nation will come forward to benefit the human race and the whole world. Before it the whole world will tremble! But when? Only when we all are prepared to repay our debt to the nation.

Commercial and Educational Swarajya

01-February-1908

My countrymen, I am greatly obliged to you for the reception you have given me. This is not respect paid to me, but to our motherland through me as medium. The people of whatever place I have been in have shown a wonderful enthusiasm, which clearly proves that national sentiments are enkindled in their bosoms. The thought of what we were two years ago, what things were liked by the people then, and what a change has taken place in the mental condition is very encouraging.

From the time the Swadeshi movement was started by the Bengalis, we notice an exalted and self-sacrificing spirit in the conduct of the people. It is not that there was no Swadeshi movement before. Rich Bengalis had started Swadeshi companies before the said agitation; as soon as these companies came into existence the European companies began to cause loss to them by reducing their own rates, and in the end they began to request people to take their (English) goods free. That earnestness for Swadeshi, that particular resolve to buy nothing but Swadeshi goods, however dear, did not exist then. For want of support of the national awakening, the Swadeshi trades did not thrive then. People have accepted Swadeshism in total disregard of the quality and price of the Swadeshi goods because of the awakening of the national life everywhere in the shape of the Swadeshi and boycott movements started on account of the Partition of Bengal. Though the rates of the Swadeshi navigation companies were two or three times greater than those of the foreign companies, yet the former were patronised by the patriots. This is due to the development of the new force.

It is well known to all what efforts were made by the young men of Bengal. It is they who worked for the boycott. They

purchased Swadeshi cloth and sold it at cost price without taking any profit from the villagers in the mofussil. If at that time the Bombay merchants and mill-owners and the Marwaris of Calcutta had co-operated with us sincerely, the Swadeshi and boycott movements would have been in a different condition today. The mill-owners of Bombay took advantage of the Swadeshi movement and enhanced their rates, thus putting impediments in our way and compelling us to buy the same goods dearly. We had to work hard to command the market, because our Marwari brethren did not give up their profession as brokers and continued to sell English goods.

It is very necessary to boycott English goods. Did not the English boycott your goods? A hundred years ago, your trades and industries were in a flourishing condition and your goods, after satisfying the demands of the whole of India, used to be exported to other countries. But by making all sorts of crooked laws, they managed to shut out your goods from our markets and, on the contrary, afforded all sorts of facilities enabling the foreign merchants to flood the market with their own goods. Our Marwari brethren ought to have understood this. They purposely or through obstinacy born of ignorance caused a loss to the country, so God has punished them for it. All-powerful God brought down calamity on them, considering that those who acted against the interests of His children will never come to their senses unless they are punished. The Marwaris are mostly Jains. Government has taken possession of Parswanath Hill, and on the spot where people used to flock for worship, there will be bungalows erected in which there will be dancing and tamashas, and the eating and drinking of prohibited foods and drinks. What does Government care for the entreaties, petitions and deputations of the Jains? God must have designed this to serve as an eye-opener to these Marwaris and to show them how much regard those English have for their welfare—the English for whose benefit the Marwaris acted treacherously towards their own people. The Marwaris ought to take a lesson from the calamity and be prepared to act in accordance with God's design.

See what the foreigners are doing. See what troubles thousands of your brethren who have gone to Africa to attain a commercial balance by making up the commercial loss sustained in India are suffering. Very oppressive and inhuman laws are inflicted upon them, they are being treated like beasts, and devilish attempts are in progress to destroy their commercial superiority here. It is therefore necessary to take in our hands all the trades and industries, and our rich people should gird up their loins for the same purpose. We ought to change the ways or methods of expenditure. These attempts to secure commercial Swarajya must be vigorously carried out. There will be difficulties and losses in attaining this, but it cannot be helped. Such troubles must be suffered until the demerits of the nation are exhausted.

There ought to be institutions started in order to impress these ideas on the minds of the young. It is a good sign that attempts are being made to start schools for national training in our Bengal and in your town. Many such institutions are coming into existence at several places in Bengal. We do not want the unnecessary parrot-like education which wastes away the strength and intellect of our young men. It is much better to have a harmonious combination of self-protection and patriotism, but we do not want even for one moment that poisonous education imparted to our children which has a blighting effect on the ideas of political morality and national greatness by creating a hankering in them for the subordinate posts under Government in order to earn their livelihood. Education should be imparted on national lines and under national control. True national education consists in awakening in one's mind the highest ideas of national activity, which make one forget oneself and feel that he does not exist separately from his country. The expressions "national lines" and "national control" are very important, and therefore we insisted on having them in the resolution of the National Congress. It is not possible to have national education without the help of the rich and the learned men. If the money of the wealthy is utilised in this direction, it will be very well spent. All should work heartily in order to secure a future generation that is sturdy—both physically and mentally. This wave

of political ideas ought to reach the remotest, unknown regions of the country. There is no good in looking back. When you secure commercial Swarajya and educational Swarajya, then the way to political Swarajya will be easy.

Speeches at Pabna - I

12-February-1908

The subject of National Education, which has been recognised by the Indian National Congress as one of the main planks in its platform, received a further impetus in this year's Bengal Provincial Conference which was held in Pabna in the second week of February last. The resolution on the subject adopted by this year's conference has been a considerable advance upon those adopted at the previous years' conferences by the addition of the phrase "to establish and maintain National Schools throughout the country" in the following wording of the resolution:—

"That in the opinion of this conference steps should be taken for promoting a system of education, literary, scientific and technical, suited to the requirements of the country on national lines under national control and to establish and maintain national schools throughout the country."

The resolution was moved by Srijukta Aurobindo Ghose, B.A. (Cantab) of the Bengal National College in a short but inspiring speech. He said that national education was a work which had already been accomplished and was already visible in a concrete shape to the eyes of the people. There was the Bengal National College at Calcutta and there were about 25 secondary National Schools at work in the mofussil under the direction of the National Council of Education. There were besides some three hundred primary National Schools, all seeking the aid of the Council, which in its turn should be more liberally supported by the whole of Bengal in order to enable it to do its sacred work. The National Schools will train and send out workers who will

devote themselves completely to the service of the country and raise her once more to the old position of glory which she once occupied in the scale of nations.

Speeches at Pabna - II

13-February-1908

Srijukta Aurobindo Ghose pointed out that the University system was defective in its aims and methods intended only to serve the purposes of the Government, not the requirements of the country. It turned out machines for administrative and professional work, not men. The national system of education was intended to create a nation. It must produce men with all their faculties trained, full of patriotism, and mentally, morally, physically the equals of the men of any other nation.

Speech at Panti's Math

03-April-1908

Aurobindo Ghose proposed the second resolution, which was to express sympathy for Chidambaram Pillai and other leaders of the Tinnevelly riot at Madras and thanking them for the bravery they have shown in defending the cause of Swadeshi. He hinted at the oppression of the European merchants backed by the bureaucracy in putting down the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, which they could not do by any lawful means. He ended by saying that there is no longer time for speaking or writing for the Motherland, but now is the time when the brain is to be prepared for devising plans, the body for working hard and the hand for fighting out the country's cause.

United Congress

10-April-1908

Bipin Chandra Pal moved a five-point resolution setting forth the lines under which the Congress may be revived. The resolution was seconded by Sj. Chittaranjan Das, after which two other men spoke. Sj. Aurobindo Ghose rose up last. He admitted having a hand in drafting the resolution but denied the charge of inconsistency on the ground that this new movement, as it is divinely decreed, cannot proceed on the basis of strict consistency of individual conduct from any individual standpoint. The breaking up of the Congress at Surat was God's will and if it can meet again on a basis of union that would also come from His will. If, again, all our efforts at union fail and the New party be compelled to face troubles and persecutions, that should also be taken as a divinely appointed destiny. We shall not be eager for compromise to avoid trouble and persecution, as sufferings are welcome if it be God's will that we should suffer, that our Mother India would be saved. But in the meantime, we are a democratic party. At Pabna, at Dhulia and other places, people wanted a united Congress and it is our duty to try for it if no vital principle is sacrificed to gain that end. This was the speaker's apology for the attempt at union, though, as he said, his hopes were not high about the success of the attempt. The Congress broke up not over personalities, but over certain definite issues which were (1) irregularities in the election of the President, (2) the attempt from certain quarters to take advantage of the local majority to recede from the four Calcutta resolutions, (3) the attempt to impose a creed by the help of a local majority with a view to exclude a large and growing party. Under the circumstances it was necessary to oppose the whole thing tooth and nail. Mr.

Tilak moved an amendment to have a Congress Continuation Committee and then to proceed with the election of the President. The other party did not give him any opportunity to carry the amendment and declared the President to be unanimously elected, though many still hold that the election was not valid as the whole Congress could not express any opinion on it. But how to carry out the opinion of the people? We are ready to condone this irregularity if a united Congress is to be held on the basis of the Calcutta resolutions. If the other party does not accept, the responsibility of breaking up the Congress and having a party institution in its place will be on their shoulders. Our position is: let us work on our different party lines through our own institutions, but at the same time let us have the united Congress of the whole people.

Baruipur Speech

12-April-1908

Sj. Shyamsunder Chakravarti having finished his speech, Srijut Aurobindo Ghose rose to address the audience. He began with an apology for being under the necessity of addressing a Bengali audience in a foreign tongue, specially by one like himself who had devoted his life for the Swadeshi movement. He pointed out that through a foreign system of education developing foreign tastes and tendencies he had been denationalised like his country and like his country again he is now trying to renationalise himself.

Next he referred to the comparative want of the Swadeshi spirit in West Bengal to which Shyamsunder Babu made very polite reference, himself coming from East Bengal. But Sj. Ghose as he belonged to West Bengal had no hesitation in admitting the drawback. This superiority of East Bengal he attributed solely to its privilege of suffering of late from the regulation lathis and imprisonment administered by the alien bureaucracy. He offered the same explanation of the increase of the strength of boycott in Calcutta after the disturbances at the Beadon Square of which the police were the sole authors. The speaker dilated on the great efficacy of suffering in rousing the spirit from slumber by a reference to the parable of two birds in the Upanishads so often referred to by the late Swami Vivekananda. The parable relates that there was a big tree with many sweet and bitter fruits and two birds sat on the tree, one on the top of it and the other at a lower part. The latter bird looking upwards sees the other in all his glory and richness of plumage and is at times enamoured of him and feels that he is no other than his own highest self. But at other moments when he tastes the sweet fruits of the tree he is

so much taken up with their sweetness that he quite forgets his dear and beloved companion. After a while there comes the turn of bitter fruits, the unpleasant taste of which breaks off the spell and he looks at his brilliant companion again. This is evidently a parable concerning the salvation of individual souls who when they enjoy the sweets of the world forget to look upwards to the Paramatma who is really none else than their own highest self, and when they forget themselves in this way through the maya of this world, bitterness comes to dispel the maya and revive the true self-consciousness.

The parable is equally applicable to national mukti. We in India fell under the influence of the foreigners' maya which completely possessed our souls. It was the maya of the alien rule, the alien civilisation, the powers and capacities of the alien people who happen to rule over us. These were as if so many shackles that put our physical, intellectual and moral life in bondage. We went to school with the aliens, we allowed the aliens to teach us and draw our minds away from all that was great and good in us. We considered ourselves unfit for self-government and political life, we looked to England as our exemplar and took her as our saviour. And all this was maya and bondage. When this maya once got its hold on us, put on us shackle after shackle, we had fallen into bondage of the mind by their education, commercial bondage, political bondage, etc., and we believed ourselves to be helpless without them. We helped them to destroy what life there was in India. We were under the protection of their police and we know now what protection they have given us. Nay, we ourselves became the instruments of our bondage. We Bengalis entered the services of foreigners. We brought in the foreigners and established their rule. Fallen as we were, we needed others to protect us, to teach us and even to feed us. So utterly was our self-dependence destroyed that we were unable to fulfil every function of human life.

It is only through repression and suffering that this maya can be dispelled, and the bitter fruit of Partition of Bengal administered by Lord Curzon dispelled the illusion. We looked up and saw that the brilliant bird sitting above was none else

but ourselves, our real and actual selves. Thus we found Swaraj within ourselves and saw that it was in our hands to discover and to realise it.

Some people tell us that we have not the strength to stand upon our own legs without the help of the aliens and we should therefore work in co-operation with and also in opposition to them. But can you depend on God and maya at the same time? In proportion as you depend on others the bondage of maya will be upon you. The first thing that a nation must do is to realise the true freedom that lies within and it is only when you understand that free within is free without, you will be really free. It is for this reason that we preach the gospel of unqualified Swaraj and it is for this that Bhupen and Upadhyay refused to plead before the alien court. Upadhyay saw the necessity of realising Swaraj within us and hence he gave himself up to it. He said that he was free and the Britishers could not bind him; his death is a parable to our nation. There is no power so great that can make India subject; when we will say this, God will make us free. Herein lies the true significance of national education, boycott, Swadeshi, arbitration. Do not be afraid of obstacles in your path, it does not matter how great the forces are that stand in your way, God commands you to be free and you must be free. We ask you to give up the school under the control of the foreign bureaucracy and point out to you national education, we ask you to keep away from the legal system which prevails in your country as it is a source of financial and moral downfall—another link in the chain of maya. Do not suffer in bondage and maya. Leave this maya alone and come away. Don't think that anything is impossible when miracles are being worked out on every side. If you are true to yourself there is nothing to be afraid of. There is nothing unattainable by truth, love and faith. This is your whole gospel which will work out miracles. Never indulge in equivocations for your ease and safety. Do not invite weakness, stand upright. The light of Swadeshi is growing brighter through every attempt to crush it. People say there is no unity among us. How to create unity? Only through the call of our Mother and the voice of all her sons and not by any other unreal means. The

voice is yet weak but it is growing. The might of God is already revealed among us, its work is spreading over the country. Even in West Bengal it is working in Uttarpara and Baruipur. It is not our work but that of something mightier that compels us to go on until all bondage is swept away and India stands free before the world.

Palli Samiti

20-April-1908

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 condition is interrupted and a foreign organism establishes itself in and dominates in the country, then that foreign body draws to itself all the sources of nourishment and the natural centres, deprived of their sustenance, fail and disappear. It is for this reason that foreign rule can never be for the good of a nation, never work for its true progress and life, but must always work towards its disintegration and death. This is no new discovery, no recently invented theory of ours, but an ascertained truth of political science as taught in Europe by Europeans to Europeans. It is there laid down that foreign rule is inorganic and therefore tends to disintegrate the subject body politic by destroying its proper organs and centres of life. If a subject nation is ever to recover and survive, it can only be by reversing the process and re-establishing its own organic centres of life and strength. We in India had our own instruments of life and growth; we had the self-dependent village; we had the Zamindar as the link between the village units and the central governing body and the central governing body itself was one

in which the heart of the nation beat. All these have been either destroyed or crippled by the intrusion of the foreign organism. If we are to survive as a nation we must restore the centres of strength which are natural and necessary to our growth, and the first of these, the basis of all the rest, the old foundation of Indian life and secret of Indian vitality was the self-dependent and self-sufficient village organism. If we are to organize Swaraj we must base it on the village. But we must at the same time take care to avoid the mistake which did much in the past to retard our national growth. The village must not in our new national life be isolated as well as self-sufficient, but must feel itself bound up with the life of its neighbouring units, living with them in a common group for common purposes. Each group again must feel itself part of the life of the district, living in the district unity, so each district must not be engrossed in its own separate existence but feel itself a subordinate part of the single life of the province, and the province in its turn of the single life of the country. Such is the plan of reconstruction we have taken in hand, but to make it a healthy growth and not an artificial construction we must begin at the bottom and work up to the apex. The village is the cell of the national body and the cell-life must be healthy and developed for the national body to be healthy and developed. Swaraj begins from the village.

Take another point of view. Swaraj is the organization of national self-help, national self-dependence. As soon as the foreign organism begins to dominate the body politic, it compels the whole body to look to it as the centre of its activities and neglect its own organs of action till these become atrophied. We in India allowed this tendency of alien domination to affect us so powerfully that we have absolutely lost the habit and for some time had lost the desire of independent activity and became so dependent and inert that there can be found no example of such helplessness and subservience in history. The whole of our national life was swallowed up by this dependence. Swaraj will only be possible if this habit of subservience is removed and replaced by a habit of self-help. We must take back our life into our own hands and the change must be immediate,

complete and drastic. It is no use employing half-measures, for the disease is radical and the cure must be radical also. Our aim must be to revolutionize our habits and leave absolutely no corner of our life and activities in which the habit of dependence is allowed to linger or find refuge for its insidious and destructive workings; education, commerce, industry, the administration of justice among ourselves, protection, sanitation, public works, one by one we must take them all back into our hands. Here again the village Samiti is an indispensable instrument, for as this resolution declares, the village Samiti is not to be a mere council for deliberation, but a strong organ of executive work. It is to set up village schools in which our children will grow up as good citizens and patriots to live for their country and not for themselves or for the privilege of a dependent life in a dependent nation. It is to take up the work of arbitration by which we shall recover control of the administration of justice, of self-protection, of village sanitation, of small local public works, so that the life of the village may again be self-reliant and self-sufficient, free from the habit of dependence rooted in the soil. Self-help and self-dependence, the first conditions of Swaraj, depend for their organisation on the village Samiti.

Another essential condition of Swaraj is that we should awaken the political sense of the masses. There may have been a time in history when it was enough that a few classes, the ruling classes, the learned classes, at most the trading classes should be awake. But the organisation of the modern nation depends on the awakening of the political sense in the mass. This is the age of the people, the million, the democracy. If any nation wishes to survive in the modern struggle, if it wishes to recover or maintain Swaraj, it must awaken the people and bring them into the conscious life of the nation, so that every man may feel that in the nation he lives, with the prosperity of the nation he prospers, in the freedom of the nation he is free. This work again depends on the village Samiti. Unless we organise the united life of the village we cannot bridge over the gulf between the educated and the masses. It is here that their lives meet and that they can feel unity. The work of the village

Samiti will be to make the masses feel Swaraj in the village, Swaraj in the group of villages, Swaraj in the district, Swaraj in the nation. They cannot immediately rise to the conception of Swaraj in the nation, they must be trained to it through the perception of Swaraj in the village. The political education of the masses is impossible unless you organise the village Samiti.

Swaraj, finally, is impossible without unity. But the unity we need for Swaraj is not a unity of opinion, a unity of speech, a unity of intellectual conviction. Unity is of the heart and springs from love. The foreign organism which has been living on us, lives by the absence of this love, by division, and it perpetuates the condition of its existence by making us look to it as the centre of our lives and away from our Mother and her children. It has set Hindu and Mahomedan at variance by means of this outward outlook; for by regarding it as the fountain of life, however, we are led to look away from our brothers and yearn for what the alien strength can give us. The Hindu first fell a prey to this lure and it was the Mahomedan who was then feared and held down. Now that the Hindu is estranged, the same lure is held out to the Mahomedan and the brother communities kept estranged because they look to the foreigner for the source of prosperity and honours and not to their own Mother. Again, in the old days we did not hear of this distress of the scarcity of water from which the country is suffering now so acutely. It did not exist and could not exist because there was love and the habit of mutual assistance which springs from love. The Zamindar felt that he was one with his tenants and could not justify his existence if they were suffering, so his first thought was to meet their wants and remove their disabilities. But now that we look to a foreign source for everything, this love for our countrymen, this habit of mutual assistance, this sense of mutual duty has disappeared. Each man is for himself and if anything is to be done for our brothers, there is the Government to do it and it is no concern of ours. This drying up of the springs of mutual affection is the cause which needs most to be removed and the village Samiti is again the first condition of a better state of things. It will destroy the aloofness, the separateness of our

lives and bring us back the sense of community, the habit of mutual assistance and mutual beneficence. It will take up the want of water and remove it. It will introduce arbitration courts and, by healing our family feuds and individual discords, restore the lost sense of brotherhood. It will seek out the sick and give them medical relief. It will meet the want of an organization for famine relief. It will give justice, it will give protection and when all are thus working for the good of all, the old unity of our lives will be restored, the basis of Swaraj will have been laid in the tie which binds together the hearts of our people.

This is therefore no empty resolution, it is the practice of Swaraj to which you are vowing yourselves. Bengal is the leader of Indian regeneration, in Bengal its problems must be worked out and all Bengal is agreed in this—whatever division there may be among us—that the recovery of our self-dependent national life is the aim and end of our national movement. If you are really lovers of Swaraj, if you are not merely swayed by a blind feeling, a cry, but are prepared to work out Swaraj, then the measure of your sincerity shall be judged by the extent to which you carry out this resolution. Before the necessity of these village Samitis was realised there was some excuse for negligence, but now that the whole of Bengal is awakened to the necessity, there is none. You have assembled here from Kishoregunj, from all quarters of the Mymensingh District and on behalf of the people of Mymensingh are about to pass this resolution. If by this time next year you have not practically given effect to it, we shall understand that your desire for Swaraj is a thing not of the heart but of the lips or of the intellect at most. But if by that time Mymensingh is covered with village Samitis in full action, then we shall know that one district at least in Bengal has realised the conditions of Swaraj and when one district has solved the problem, it is only a question of time when over all Bengal and over all India, Swaraj will be realised.

Uttarpara Speech

Delivered at Uttarpara, Bengal, on 30 May 1909. Text published in the Bengalee, an English-language newspaper of Calcutta, on 1 June; thoroughly revised by Sri Aurobindo and republished in the Karmayogin on 19 and 26 June.

When I was asked to speak to you at the annual meeting of your sabha, it was my intention to say a few words about the subject chosen for today,—the subject of the Hindu religion. I do not know now whether I shall fulfil that intention; for as I sat here, there came into my mind a word that I have to speak to you, a word that I have to speak to the whole of the Indian Nation. It was spoken first to myself in jail and I have come out of jail to speak it to my people.

It was more than a year ago that I came here last. When I came I was not alone; one of the mightiest prophets of Nationalism sat by my side. It was he who then came out of the seclusion to which God had sent him, so that in the silence and solitude of his cell he might hear the word that He had to say. It was he that you came in your hundreds to welcome. Now he is far away, separated from us by thousands of miles. Others whom I was accustomed to find working beside me are absent. The storm that swept over the country has scattered them far and wide. It is I this time who have spent one year in seclusion, and now that I come out I find all changed. One who always sat by my side and was associated in my work is a prisoner in Burma; another is in the north rotting in detention. I looked round when I came out, I looked round for those to whom I had been accustomed to look for counsel and inspiration. I did not find them. There was more than that. When I went to jail, the whole country was alive with the cry of Bande Mataram, alive with the hope of a nation, the hope of millions of men who had newly risen out of degradation. When I came out of jail I listened for that

cry, but there was instead a silence. A hush had fallen on the country and men seemed bewildered; for instead of God's bright heaven full of the vision of the future that had been before us, there seemed to be overhead a leaden sky from which human thunders and lightnings rained. No man seemed to know which way to move, and from all sides came the question, "What shall we do next? What is there that we can do?" I too did not know which way to move, I too did not know what was next to be done. But one thing I knew, that as it was the Almighty Power of God which had raised that cry, that hope, so it was the same power which had sent down that silence. He who was in the shouting and the movement was also in the pause and the hush. He has sent it upon us, so that the nation might draw back for a moment and look into itself and know His will. I have not been disheartened by that silence, because I had been made familiar with silence in my prison and because I knew it was in the pause and the hush that I had myself learned this lesson through the long year of my detention. When Bipin Chandra Pal came out of jail, he came with a message, and it was an inspired message. I remember the speech he made here. It was a speech not so much political as religious in its bearing and intention. He spoke of his realisation in jail, of God within us all, of the Lord within the nation, and in his subsequent speeches also he spoke of a greater than ordinary force in the movement and a greater than ordinary purpose before it. Now I also meet you again, I also come out of jail, and again it is you of Uttarpara who are the first to welcome me, not at a political meeting but at a meeting of a society for the protection of our religion. That message which Bipin Chandra Pal received in Buxar jail, God gave to me in Alipore. That knowledge He gave to me day after day during my twelve months of imprisonment and it is that which He has commanded me to speak to you now that I have come out.

I knew I would come out. The year of detention was meant only for a year of seclusion and of training. How could anyone hold me in jail longer than was necessary for God's purpose? He had given me a word to speak and a work to do, and until that word was spoken I knew that no human power could hush me,

until that work was done no human power could stop God's instrument, however weak that instrument might be or however small. Now that I have come out, even in these few minutes, a word has been suggested to me which I had no wish to speak. The thing I had in my mind He has thrown from it and what I speak is under an impulse and a compulsion.

When I was arrested and hurried to the Lal Bazar hajat I was shaken in faith for a while, for I could not look into the heart of His intention. Therefore I faltered for a moment and cried out in my heart to Him, "What is this that has happened to me? I believed that I had a mission to work for the people of my country and until that work was done, I should have Thy protection. Why then am I here and on such a charge?" A day passed and a second day and a third, when a voice came to me from within, "Wait and see." Then I grew calm and waited. I was taken from Lal Bazar to Alipore and was placed for one month in a solitary cell apart from men. There I waited day and night for the voice of God within me, to know what He had to say to me, to learn what I had to do. In this seclusion the earliest realisation, the first lesson came to me. I remembered then that a month or more before my arrest, a call had come to me to put aside all activity, to go into seclusion and to look into myself, so that I might enter into closer communion with Him. I was weak and could not accept the call. My work was very dear to me and in the pride of my heart I thought that unless I was there, it would suffer or even fail and cease; therefore I would not leave it. It seemed to me that He spoke to me again and said, "The bonds you had not strength to break, I have broken for you, because it is not my will nor was it ever my intention that that should continue. I have another thing for you to do and it is for that I have brought you here, to teach you what you could not learn for yourself and to train you for my work." Then He placed the Gita in my hands. His strength entered into me and I was able to do the sadhan of the Gita. I was not only to understand intellectually but to realise what Srikrishna demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who aspire to do His work, to be free from repulsion and desire, to do work for Him without

the demand for fruit, to renounce self-will and become a passive and faithful instrument in His hands, to have an equal heart for high and low, friend and opponent, success and failure, yet not to do His work negligently. I realised what the Hindu religion meant. We speak often of the Hindu religion, of the Sanatana Dharma, but few of us really know what that religion is. Other religions are preponderatingly religions of faith and profession, but the Sanatana Dharma is life itself; it is a thing that has not so much to be believed as lived. This is the dharma that for the salvation of humanity was cherished in the seclusion of this peninsula from of old. It is to give this religion that India is rising. She does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal light entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be great.

Therefore this was the next thing He pointed out to me,—He made me realise the central truth of the Hindu religion. He turned the hearts of my jailers to me and they spoke to the Englishman in charge of the jail, "He is suffering in his confinement; let him at least walk outside his cell for half an hour in the morning and in the evening." So it was arranged, and it was while I was walking that His strength again entered into me. I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it was Vasudeva who surrounded me. I walked under the branches of the tree in front of my cell, but it was not the tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Srikrishna whom I saw standing there and holding over me His shade. I looked at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the coarse blankets that were given me for a couch and felt the arms of Srikrishna around me, the arms of my Friend and Lover. This was the first use of the deeper vision He gave me. I looked at the prisoners in the jail, the thieves, the murderers, the swindlers, and as I looked at them I saw Vasudeva, it was Narayana whom I found in these darkened souls and misused bodies. Amongst

these thieves and dacoits there were many who put me to shame by their sympathy, their kindness, the humanity triumphant over such adverse circumstances. One I saw among them especially who seemed to me a saint, a peasant of my nation who did not know how to read and write, an alleged dacoit sentenced to ten years' rigorous imprisonment, one of those whom we look down upon in our Pharisaical pride of class as chhotalok. Once more He spoke to me and said, "Behold the people among whom I have sent you to do a little of my work. This is the nature of the nation I am raising up and the reason why I raise them."

When the case opened in the lower court and we were brought before the Magistrate I was followed by the same insight. He said to me, "When you were cast into jail, did not your heart fail and did you not cry out to me, where is Thy protection? Look now at the Magistrate, look now at the Prosecuting Counsel." I looked and it was not the Magistrate whom I saw, it was Vasudeva, it was Narayana who was sitting there on the bench. I looked at the Prosecuting Counsel and it was not the Counsel for the prosecution that I saw; it was Srikrishna who sat there, it was my Lover and Friend who sat there and smiled. "Now do you fear?" He said, "I am in all men and I overrule their actions and their words. My protection is still with you and you shall not fear. This case which is brought against you, leave it in my hands. It is not for you. It was not for the trial that I brought you here but for something else. The case itself is only a means for my work and nothing more." Afterwards when the trial opened in the Sessions Court, I began to write many instructions for my Counsel as to what was false in the evidence against me and on what points the witnesses might be cross-examined. Then something happened which I had not expected. The arrangements which had been made for my defence were suddenly changed and another Counsel stood there to defend me. He came unexpectedly,—a friend of mine, but I did not know he was coming. You have all heard the name of the man who put away from him all other thoughts and abandoned all his practice, who sat up half the night day after day for months

and broke his health to save me,—Srijut Chittaranjan Das. When I saw him, I was satisfied, but I still thought it necessary to write instructions. Then all that was put from me and I had the message from within, "This is the man who will save you from the snares put around your feet. Put aside those papers. It is not you who will instruct him. I will instruct him." From that time I did not of myself speak a word to my Counsel about the case or give a single instruction and if ever I was asked a question, I always found that my answer did not help the case. I had left it to him and he took it entirely into his hands, with what result you know. I knew all along what He meant for me, for I heard it again and again, always I listened to the voice within: "I am guiding, therefore fear not. Turn to your own work for which I have brought you to jail and when you come out, remember never to fear, never to hesitate. Remember that it is I who am doing this, not you nor any other. Therefore whatever clouds may come, whatever dangers and sufferings, whatever difficulties, whatever impossibilities, there is nothing impossible, nothing difficult. I am in the nation and its uprising and I am Vasudeva, I am Narayana, and what I will, shall be, not what others will. What I choose to bring about, no human power can stay."

Meanwhile He had brought me out of solitude and placed me among those who had been accused along with me. You have spoken much today of my self-sacrifice and devotion to my country. I have heard that kind of speech ever since I came out of jail, but I hear it with embarrassment, with something of pain. For I know my weakness, I am a prey to my own faults and backslidings. I was not blind to them before and when they all rose up against me in seclusion, I felt them utterly. I knew then that I the man was a mass of weakness, a faulty and imperfect instrument, strong only when a higher strength entered into me. Then I found myself among these young men and in many of them I discovered a mighty courage, a power of self-effacement in comparison with which I was simply nothing. I saw one or two who were not only superior to me in force and character,—very many were that,—but in the promise of that intellectual

ability on which I prided myself. He said to me, "This is the young generation, the new and mighty nation that is arising at my command. They are greater than yourself. What have you to fear? If you stood aside or slept, the work would still be done. If you were cast aside tomorrow, here are the young men who will take up your work and do it more mightily than you have ever done. You have only got some strength from me to speak a word to this nation which will help to raise it." This was the next thing He told me.

Then a thing happened suddenly and in a moment I was hurried away to the seclusion of a solitary cell. What happened to me during that period I am not impelled to say, but only this that day after day, He showed me His wonders and made me realise the utter truth of the Hindu religion. I had had many doubts before. I was brought up in England amongst foreign ideas and an atmosphere entirely foreign. About many things in Hinduism I had once been inclined to believe that it was all imagination; that there was much of dream in it, much that was delusion and maya. But now day after day I realised in the mind, I realised in the heart, I realised in the body the truths of the Hindu religion. They became living experiences to me, and things were opened to me which no material science could explain. When I first approached Him, it was not entirely in the spirit of the Bhakta, it was not entirely in the spirit of the Jnani. I came to Him long ago in Baroda some years before the Swadeshi began and I was drawn into the public field.

When I approached God at that time, I hardly had a living faith in Him. The agnostic was in me, the atheist was in me, the sceptic was in me and I was not absolutely sure that there was a God at all. I did not feel His presence. Yet something drew me to the truth of the Vedas, the truth of the Gita, the truth of the Hindu religion. I felt there must be a mighty truth somewhere in this Yoga, a mighty truth in this religion based on the Vedanta. So when I turned to the Yoga and resolved to practise it and find out if my idea was right, I did it in this spirit and with this prayer to Him, "If Thou art, then Thou knowest my heart. Thou knowest that I do not ask for Mukti, I do not ask for anything

which others ask for. I ask only for strength to uplift this nation, I ask only to be allowed to live and work for this people whom I love and to whom I pray that I may devote my life." I strove long for the realisation of Yoga and at last to some extent I had it, but in what I most desired, I was not satisfied. Then in the seclusion of the jail, of the solitary cell I asked for it again. I said, "Give me Thy adesh. I do not know what work to do or how to do it. Give me a message." In the communion of Yoga two messages came. The first message said, "I have given you a work and it is to help to uplift this nation. Before long the time will come when you will have to go out of jail; for it is not my will that this time either you should be convicted or that you should pass the time as others have to do, in suffering for their country. I have called you to work, and that is the adesh for which you have asked. I give you the adesh to go forth and do my work." The second message came and it said, "Something has been shown to you in this year of seclusion, something about which you had your doubts and it is the truth of the Hindu religion. It is this religion that I am raising up before the world, it is this that I have perfected and developed through the rishis, saints and avatars, and now it is going forth to do my work among the nations. I am raising up this nation to send forth my word. This is the Sanatana Dharma, this is the eternal religion which you did not really know before, but which I have now revealed to you. The agnostic and the sceptic in you have been answered, for I have given you proofs within and without you, physical and subjective, which have satisfied you. When you go forth, speak to your nation always this word that it is for the Sanatana Dharma that they arise, it is for the world and not for themselves that they arise. I am giving them freedom for the service of the world. When therefore it is said that India shall rise, it is the Sanatana Dharma that shall rise. When it is said that India shall be great, it is the Sanatana Dharma that shall be great. When it is said that India shall expand and extend herself, it is the Sanatana Dharma that shall expand and extend itself over the world. It is for the dharma and by the dharma that India exists. To magnify the religion means to magnify the country. I have shown you

that I am everywhere and in all men and in all things, that I am in this movement and I am not only working in those who are striving for the country but I am working also in those who oppose them and stand in their path. I am working in everybody and whatever men may think or do they can do nothing but help on my purpose. They also are doing my work; they are not my enemies but my instruments. In all your actions you are moving forward without knowing which way you move. You mean to do one thing and you do another. You aim at a result and your efforts subserve one that is different or contrary. It is Shakti that has gone forth and entered into the people. Since long ago I have been preparing this uprising and now the time has come and it is I who will lead it to its fulfilment."

This then is what I have to say to you. The name of your society is "Society for the Protection of Religion". Well, the protection of the religion, the protection and upraising before the world of the Hindu religion, that is the work before us. But what is the Hindu religion? What is this religion which we call Sanatana, eternal? It is the Hindu religion only because the Hindu nation has kept it, because in this peninsula it grew up in the seclusion of the sea and the Himalayas, because in this sacred and ancient land it was given as a charge to the Aryan race to preserve through the ages. But it is not circumscribed by the confines of a single country, it does not belong peculiarly and for ever to a bounded part of the world. That which we call the Hindu religion is really the eternal religion, because it is the universal religion which embraces all others. If a religion is not universal, it cannot be eternal. A narrow religion, a sectarian religion, an exclusive religion can live only for a limited time and a limited purpose. This is the one religion that can triumph over materialism by including and anticipating the discoveries of science and the speculations of philosophy. It is the one religion which impresses on mankind the closeness of God to us and embraces in its compass all the possible means by which man can approach God. It is the one religion which insists every moment on the truth which all religions acknowledge, that He is in all men and all things and that in Him we move and have

our being. It is the one religion which enables us not only to understand and believe this truth but to realise it with every part of our being. It is the one religion which shows the world what the world is, that it is the lila of Vasudeva. It is the one religion which shows us how we can best play our part in that lila, its subtlest laws and its noblest rules. It is the one religion which does not separate life in any smallest detail from religion, which knows what immortality is and has utterly removed from us the reality of death.

This is the word that has been put into my mouth to speak to you today. What I intended to speak has been put away from me, and beyond what is given to me I have nothing to say. It is only the word that is put into me that I can speak to you. That word is now finished. I spoke once before with this force in me and I said then that this movement is not a political movement and that nationalism is not politics but a religion, a creed, a faith. I say it again today, but I put it in another way. I say no longer that nationalism is a creed, a religion, a faith; I say that it is the Sanatana Dharma which for us is nationalism. This Hindu nation was born with the Sanatana Dharma, with it it moves and with it it grows. When the Sanatana Dharma declines, then the nation declines, and if the Sanatana Dharma were capable of perishing, with the Sanatana Dharma it would perish. The Sanatana Dharma, that is nationalism. This is the message that I have to speak to you.

Beadon Square Speech - I

Delivered at Beadon Square, Calcutta, on 13 June 1909. Text published in the Bengalee on 15 June and reproduced in the Karmayogin on 19 June.

In spite of the foul weather a large number of people assembled on Sunday afternoon at Beadon Square where a big Swadeshi meeting was held under the presidency of Babu Ramananda Chatterji, Editor of the Prabasi. Several speakers addressed the meeting. We publish below an authorised version of Mr. Aurobindo Ghose's speech delivered at that meeting.

Sj. Aurobindo Ghose said that when in jail he had been told that the country was demoralised by the repression. He could not believe it then, because his experience of the movement had been very different. He had always found that when Swadeshi was flagging or the Boycott beginning to relax, it only needed an act of repression on the part of the authorities to give it redoubled vigour. It seemed to him then impossible that the deportations would have a different effect. When nine of the most active and devoted workers for the country had been suddenly hurried away from their homes without any fault on their part, without the Government being able to formulate a single definite charge against them, surely the Boycott instead of decreasing would grow tenfold more intense. And what after all was the repression? Some people sent to prison, some deported, a number of house-searches, a few repressive enactments, limiting the liberty of the press and the platform. This was nothing compared with the price other nations had paid for their liberty. They also would have to suffer much more than this before they could make any appreciable advance towards their goal. This was God's law; it was not the rulers who demanded the price, it was God who demanded it. It was his law that a fallen nation should not be allowed

to rise without infinite suffering and mighty effort. That was the price it had to pay for its previous lapses from national duty.

The speaker did not think that there was any real demoralisation. There might be a hesitation among the richer and more vulnerable parts of the community to hold conferences or meetings or give public expression to their views and feelings. He did not measure the strength of the movement by the number of meetings or of people present at the meetings. He measured it by the strength and indomitable obstinacy of feeling and purpose in the hearts of the people. Their first duty was to keep firm hold on their ideal and perform steadfastly the vows they had made before God and the nation. The rulers were never tired of saying that we should get self-government when we were fit. Fitness meant national capacity and strength was the basis of capacity. That was what Lord Morley really meant when he asked himself repeatedly whether this was a real uprising of the nation or a passing excitement. He meant, was it a movement with real strength in it, a movement with elemental force enough in it to resist and survive? That experiment was now being made. They must not expect substantial gains at so small a cost.

He had heard vaguely of the reforms when in prison; he had heard them ecstatically described. He was surprised to hear that description. He had been in England for fourteen years and knew something of the English people and their politics. He could not believe that England or any European people would give substantial reforms after so short an agitation and so scanty a proof of national strength. It was not the fault of the British people, it was a law of politics that they, who have, should be unwilling to yield what they have until they had fully tested the determination of the subject people and even then they would only give just as much as they could not help giving. When he came out, he found what these reforms were. The so-called introduction of the elective principle was a sham and the power given was nothing. For the rest, it was a measure arranged with a skill which did credit to the diplomacy of British statesmen so that we should lose and they gain. It

would diminish the political power of the educated class which was the brain and backbone of the nation, it would sow discord among the various communities. This was not a real reform but reaction. They would have to go much further in suffering and self-sacrifice before they could hope for anything substantial. They must hold firm in their determination and keep the Swadeshi unimpaired and by that he meant the determination to assert their national individuality in every branch of national activity.

There was one thing that might be said, how could we expand the Swadeshi if all our methods were taken out of our hands? That could easily be done by the Government. The authorities in this country had absolute and irresponsible power. It had practically been admitted by a responsible member of the Liberal Government that the liberty of no subject of the British Crown was safe in this country if the Government of India took it into its head that he was dangerous or inconvenient, if it were informed by the police who had distinguished themselves at Midnapore or by information as tainted—the perjurers, forgers, informers, approvers, for what other information could they have, circumstanced as they were by their own choice in this country,—that such and such men had been seditious or were becoming seditious or might be seditious or that their presence in their homes was dangerous to the peace of mind of the C.I.D. Against such information there was no safety even for the greatest men in the country, the purest in life, the most blameless and inoffensive in their public activity.

Then there was this sunset regulation. It appeared that we were peaceful citizens until sunset, but after sunset we turned into desperate characters,—well, he was told, even half an hour before sunset; apparently even the sun could not be entirely trusted to keep us straight. We had, it seems, stones in our pockets to throw at the police and some of us, perhaps, dangle bombs in our chaddars. How was this prohibition brought about? Merely by a little expenditure of ink in the Political Department. It would be quite easy to extend it further and prevent public meetings. It was being enforced on us that our

so-called liberties were merely Maya. We believed in them for a time and acted on the belief; then one fine morning we wake up and look around for them but they are not there. In reality they never were there; they were Maya, illusions; this was the reason why not only could we not accept reforms which did not mean real control, but some of us did not believe even in that. We doubted not only the sham control but the sham of the reforms themselves, but still control was the minimum on which all were agreed. The question remained, if all our liberties were taken away, what were we to do? Even that would not stop the movement. Christ said to the disciples who expected a material kingdom on the spot, "The kingdom of heaven is within you." To them too he might say, "The kingdom of Swaraj is within you."

Let them win and keep that kingdom of Swaraj, the sense of the national separateness and individuality, the faith in its greatness and future, the feeling of God within ourselves and in the nation, the determination to devote every thought and action to his service. Here no coercion or repression could interfere; here there was no press law or sunset regulation. And it was a law of the psychology of men and nations that the Brahman once awakened within must manifest itself without and nothing could eventually prevent that manifestation. Moreover, their methods were borrowed from England. England gave them and encouraged their use when it was inoffensive to her, but the moment they were used so as to conflict with British interests and to expand national life and strength, they were taken away. But the Indians were a nation apart; they were not dependent on these methods. They had a wonderful power of managing things without definite means. Long before the Press came into existence or telegraph wires, the nation had a means of spreading news from one end of the country to another with electrical rapidity—a Press too impalpable to be touched. They had the power of enforcing the public will without any fixed organisation, of associating without an association—without even the European refuge of a secret association. The spirit was what mattered, if the spirit were there, the movement would

find out its own channels; for after all it was the power of God manifested in the movement which would command its own means and create its own channels. They must have the firm faith that India must rise and be great and that everything that happened, every difficulty, every reverse must help and further their end. The trend was upward and the time of decline was over. The morning was at hand and once the light had shown itself, it could never be night again. The dawn would soon be complete and the sun rise over the horizon. The sun of India's destiny would rise and fill all India with its light and overflow India and overflow Asia and overflow the world. Every hour, every moment could only bring them nearer to the brightness of the day that God had decreed.

Jhalakati Speech

Delivered at Jhalakati, Bakarganj District, Eastern Bengal and Assam, on 19 June 1909. Text published in the Bengalee on 27 June and reproduced in the Karmayogin on 3 July. Another version, taken down by police agents and reproduced in a Government of Bengal confidential file, appears in the last volume of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO.

Fellow-countrymen, delegates and people of Barisal and Bakarganj:—

I have first to express to you my personal gratitude for the kindly reception you have accorded to me. For a year I have been secluded from the fellowship and brotherly embrace of my fellow-countrymen. To me, therefore, the kindliness of your welcome must awake much keener feelings than would have been the case in other circumstances. Especially is it a cause of rejoicing to me to have that welcome in Barisal. When I come to this District, when I come to this soil of Bakarganj which has been made sacred and ever memorable in the history of this country—I come to no ordinary place. When I come to Barisal, I come to a chosen temple of the Mother—I come to a sacred pithasthan of the national spirit—I come to the birth-place and field of work of Aswini Kumar Dutta.

It is now the fourth year since I came to Barisal first on the occasion of the Provincial Conference. Three years have passed since then—they have been years of storm and stress to the country,—they have been years during which history has been making, during which the people of India have been undergoing a process of rebirth. Many things have happened in these years, especially in the last few months. One sign of what has been happening in the past is this empty chair (pointing to the chair upon which Aswini Kumar's photo was placed). One aspect of these years has been a series of repressions. They have been years in which the country has had to undergo the sufferings

and sacrifices which repression involves. Barisal has had its full share of these sufferings. They had begun even before I last came among you. You had then the regulation lathi of the Police and the Gurkha visitation. After that there have been other forms of coercion. In this very town of Jhalakati you had to pay a punitive police tax. It was a punitive tax, punitive not of any offence of which you have been guilty,—for you have been guilty of none. In Barisal, there was no disturbance, no breach of the law. On the contrary, you have always been patient and self-restrained—you have always kept within the four corners of the law. What you have been punished for was your patriotism—you were punished for your Swadeshism—you were punished for your successful organisation of boycott. That tax was borne by the mahajans of Jhalakati with the readiness and uncomplaining endurance of large-hearted patriotism.

And now there have come the deportations. You have been called to endure the exile of those who have been dearest to you, who stood for all that was patriotic and noble in the district. Of the deportations Barisal has had more than its full share. Of those deported three are sons of this district. The man whose name will live for ever on the lips of his countrymen as one of the great names of the age—one of the makers of the new nation—Aswini Kumar Dutta has been taken away from you. His active and devoted lieutenant has been taken away from you. That warm-hearted patriot whom I am proud to have had the privilege of calling my personal friend—Manoranjan Guha—has been taken away from you. Why have they been exiled? What was their offence? Can anyone in Barisal name a single action—can anyone of those who have sent him into exile name definitely any single action which Aswini Kumar Dutta has committed, of which the highest and noblest man might not be proud? Can anyone name a single action of Krishna Kumar Mitra's which would be derogatory to the reputation of the highest in the land? There have indeed been charges,—vague charges, shameless charges,—made. The law under which they have been exiled requires no charge. The law under which they have been exiled has been impugned in Parliament

as an antiquated and anomalous Regulation, utterly out of place and unfit to be used in modern times. When it was so attacked and its use by the Government of India challenged, Lord Morley, the man who rules India with absolute sway and stands or should stand to us as the incarnation of British statesmanship, made an answer which was not the answer of a statesman but of an attorney. "The law," he said, "is as good a law as any on the Statute Book." What is meant—what does Lord Morley mean—by a "good law"? In a certain sense every law is a good law which is passed by an established authority. If there were a law which made Swadeshi illegal, by which to buy a Swadeshi cloth would become a criminal action punishable by a legal tribunal—there have been such laws in the past—and if that were enacted by the Legislative Council, it would be in Lord Morley's sense of the word as good a law as any upon the Statute Book. But would it be a good law in the true sense or a travesty of law and justice? Lord Morley says it is a good law. We say it is a lawless law,—a dishonest law,—a law that is, in any real sense of the word, no law at all. For what is its substance and purpose? It provides that when you cannot bring any charge against a man which can be supported by proofs—and when you have no evidence which would stand for a moment before a court of justice, in any legal tribunal—when you have nothing against him except that his existence is inconvenient to you, then you need not advance any charge, you need not bring any evidence, you are at liberty to remove him from his home, from his friends, from his legitimate activities and intern him for the rest of his life in a jail. This is the law which is as good a law as any on the Statute Book! But what does its presence on the Statute Book mean? It means that under certain circumstances or whenever an absolute authority chooses, there is no law in the land for any subject of the British Crown—no safety for the liberty of the person.

It is under this law that nine of the most devoted workers for the country have been exiled, some of whose names are household words in India and incompatible with any imputation of evil. When the authorities were pressed in Parliament for an account of the reasons for their action they would not bring and

refused to bring any definite accusation. Once indeed under the pressure of cross-examination a charge was advanced,—wild, vague and baseless. It was said in effect that these men were instigators and paymasters of anarchy and bloodshed. What was the authority under which such a charge was made? How was it that this monstrous falsehood was allowed to proceed from the mouths of His Majesty's Ministers and pollute the atmosphere of the House of Commons? Is there a man in his senses who will believe that Aswini Kumar Dutta was the instigator and paymaster of anarchy and bloodshed or that Krishna Kumar Mitra was the instigator and paymaster of anarchy and bloodshed,—men whose names were synonymous with righteousness of action and nobility of purpose and whose whole lives were the embodiment of uprightness, candour and fair and open living before all men? We have been told that it was not only on police evidence that they were exiled. That was not what was said at the beginning. At first it was on police information that the deportations were justified and any attempt to impugn that authority was resented. But now that police information has been shown to be false and unreliable, it is said that there was other than police information to justify the action of the authorities. We know what that information must have been. I will not make any sweeping charge against a whole body of men without exception. I know that even among the police there are men who are upright and observe truth and honesty in their dealings. I have met such men and honoured them. But we know what the atmosphere of that department is, we know what the generality of police officers are and how little reliance can be placed upon them. Of the value of police information Midnapore is the standing and conclusive proof. Besides this police information what else can there have been? Obviously the information on which the police has relied in certain of these cases—the evidence of the hired perjurer and forger, of the approver who to save himself from a baseless charge makes allegations yet more unfounded against others and scatters mud on the most spotless reputations in the land. If there were any other source besides this, we know too what that must have been. There are a sprinkling of Vibhishans among us,

—men who for their own ends are willing to tell any lie that they think will please the authorities or injure their personal enemies. But if the Government in this country have upon such information believed that the lives of Aswini Kumar Dutta and Krishna Kumar Mitra are a mere mask and not the pure and spotless lives we have known, then we must indeed say, "What an amount of folly and ignorance rules at the present moment in this unhappy country."

Well, we have had many other forms of repression besides these deportations. We have had charges of sedition, charges of dacoity and violence, brought against the young men who are the hope of our country—charges such as those which we have seen breaking down and vanishing into nothing when tested by a high and impartial tribunal. This is the nature of the repression we have been called upon to suffer. It has been so engineered by the underlings of the Government that it strikes automatically at those who are most energetic, most devoted, most self-denying in the service of the mother country. It addresses itself to the physical signs, the outward manifestations of our national life, and seeks by suppressing them to put an end to that national life and movement. But it is a strange idea, a foolish idea, which men have, indeed, always cherished under such circumstances, but which has been disproved over and over again in history, to think that a nation which has once risen,—once has been called up by the voice of God to rise,—will be stopped by mere physical repression. It has never so happened in the history of a nation, nor will it so happen in the history of India. Storm has swept over us today. I saw it come. I saw the striding of the storm-blast and the rush of the rain and as I saw it an idea came to me. What is this storm that is so mighty and sweeps with such fury upon us? And I said in my heart, "It is God who rides abroad on the wings of the hurricane,—it is the might and force of the Lord that manifested itself and His almighty hands that seized and shook the roof so violently over our heads today." A storm like this has swept also our national life. That too was the manifestation of the Almighty. We were building an edifice to be the temple of our Mother's worship—were rearing

her a new and fair mansion, a palace fit for her dwelling. It was then that He came down upon us. He flung Himself upon the building we had raised. He shook the roof with His mighty hands and part of the building was displaced and ruined. Why has He done this? Repression is nothing but the hammer of God that is beating us into shape so that we may be moulded into a mighty nation and an instrument for His work in the world. We are iron upon His anvil and the blows are showering upon us not to destroy but to re-create. Without suffering there can be no strength,—without sacrifice there can be no growth. It is not in vain that Aswini Kumar has been taken from his people. It is not in vain that Krishna Kumar Mitra has been taken from us and is rotting in Agra Jail. It is not in vain that all Maharashtra mourns for Tilak at Mandalay. It is He, not any other, who has taken them and His ways are not the ways of men, but He is all-wise. He knows better than we do what is needful for us. He has taken Aswini Kumar Dutta away from Barisal. Is the movement dead? Is Swadeshi dead? The rulers of the country in their scanty wisdom have thought that by lopping off the heads the movement will cease. They do not know that great as he is, Aswini Kumar Dutta is not the leader of this movement, that Tilak is not the leader,—God is the leader. They do not know that the storm that has been sweeping over the country was not sent by them, but by Him for His own great purposes. And the same strength that was manifested in the storm today and in the storm of calamity that has passed over the country—the same strength is in us.

And if they are mighty to afflict, we are mighty to endure. We are no ordinary race. We are a people ancient as our hills and rivers and we have behind us a history of manifold greatness, not surpassed by any other race. We are the descendants of those who performed tapasya and underwent unheard-of austerities for the sake of spiritual gain and of their own will submitted to all the sufferings of which humanity is capable. We are the children of those mothers who ascended with a smile the funeral pyre that they might follow their husbands to another world. We are a people to whom suffering is welcome and who

have a spiritual strength within them, greater than any physical force. We are a people in whom God has chosen to manifest Himself more than any other at many great moments of our history. It is because God has chosen to manifest Himself and has entered into the hearts of His people that we are rising again as a nation. Therefore it matters not even if those who are greatest and most loved are taken away. I trust in God's mercy and believe that they will soon be restored to us. But even if they don't come again still the movement will not cease. It will move forward irresistibly until God's will in it is fulfilled. He fulfils His purposes inevitably and this too He will fulfil. Those who are taken from us must after all some day pass away. We are strong in their strength. We have worked in their inspiration. But in the inevitable course of nature they will pass from us and there must be others who will take their places. He has taken them away from us for a little in order that in their absence we might feel that it was not really in their strength that we were strong, in their inspiration that we worked but that a Higher Force was working in them and when they are removed, can still work in the hearts of the people. When they pass away others will arise or even if no great men stand forth to lead, still the soul of this people will be great with the force of God within and do the work. This it is that He seeks to teach us by these separations—by these calamities. The men are gone. The movement has not ceased. The National School at Jhalakati was started one month after the deportation of Aswini Kumar Dutta; that is a patent sign that the movement is not, as our rulers would ignorantly have it, got up by eloquent agitators. The movement goes on by the force of nature; it works as force of nature works and goes inevitably on, whatever obstacle comes in the way.

What is it that this movement seeks, not according to the wild chimeras born of unreasoning fear but in its real aim and purpose? What is it that we seek? We seek the fulfilment of our life as a nation. This is what the word Swaraj, which is a bug-bear and terror to the Europeans, really means. When they hear it, they are full of unreasoning terrors. They think Swaraj

is independence, it is freedom and that means that the people are going to rise against them in rebellion, that means there are bombs behind every bush, that every volunteer who gives food to his famine-stricken countrymen or nurses the cholera stricken, is a possible rebel and dacoit. Swaraj is not the Colonial form of Government nor any form of Government. It means the fulfilment of our national life. That is what we seek, that is why God has sent us into the world to fulfil Him by fulfilling ourselves in our individual life, in the family, in the community, in the nation, in humanity. That is why He has sent us into the world and it is this fulfilment that we demand; for this fulfilment is life and to depart from it is to perish. Our object, our claim is that we shall not perish as a nation, but live as a nation. Any authority that goes against this object will dash itself against the eternal throne of justice—it will dash itself against the laws of nature which are the laws of God, and be broken to pieces.

This then is our object and by what means do we seek it? We seek it by feeling our separateness and pushing forward our individual self-fulfilment by what we call Swadeshi—Swadeshi in commerce and manufacture, in politics, in education, in law and administration, in every branch of national activity. No doubt this means independence, it means freedom; but it does not mean rebellion. There are some who fear to use the word "freedom", but I have always used the word because it has been the mantra of my life to aspire towards the freedom of my nation. And when I was last in jail I clung to that mantra; and through the mouth of my counsel I used this word persistently. What he said for me—and it was said not only on my behalf, but on behalf of all who cherish this ideal,—was this: If to aspire to independence and preach freedom is a crime you may cast me into jail and there bind me with chains. If to preach freedom is a crime then I am a criminal and let me be punished. But freedom does not mean the use of violence—it does not mean bombs; it is the fulfilment of our separate national existence. If there is any authority mad enough to declare that Swadeshism, national education, arbitration, association for improvement of our physique, is illegal, it is not stamping out anarchism; it is

on the contrary establishing a worse anarchism from above. It sets itself against the law of God that gives to every nation its primary rights. The judge in the Alipore case said that the aspiration after independence and the preaching of the ideal of independence was a thing no Englishman could condemn. But if you say that the aspiration after independence is a thing none can condemn and yet put down by force the only peaceful means of securing independence, you are really declaring that it is the practice of independence which you will not tolerate. Because a few have gone mad and broken the law you have chosen to brand a whole people, to condemn a nation and to suppress a whole national movement. With that we have nothing to do. We have no voice in the government of our country; and the laws and their administration are things in which you don't allow us to have any concern. But one thing is in our own power;—our courage and devotion are in our power, our sacrifice, our suffering are in our power. That you cannot take away from us, and so long as you cannot take that from us you can do nothing. Your repression cannot for ever continue, for it will bring anarchy into the country. You will not be able to continue your administration if this repression remains permanent. Your government will become disorganised; the trade you are using such means to save will languish and capital be frightened from the country.

We have therefore only to suffer. We have only to be strong and enduring. All this machinery of coercion, all this repression, will then be in vain. That is the only virtue that is needed. We shall never lose our fortitude, our courage, our endurance. There are some who think that by lowering our heads the country will escape repression. That is not my opinion. It is by looking the storm in the face and meeting it with a high courage, fortitude and endurance that the nation can be saved. It is that which the Mother demands from us,—which God demands from us. He sent the storm yesterday and it carried the roof away. He sent it today with greater violence and it seized the roof to remove it. But today the roof remained. This is what He demands of us.—"I have sent my storms upon you, so that you may feel and

train your strength. If you have suffered by them, if something has been broken, it does not matter, so long as you learn the lesson that it is for strength I make you suffer and always for strength." What did the volunteers do today when they flung themselves in crowds on the roof and braved the fury of the hurricane and by main strength held down the roof over their heads? That is the lesson that all must learn and especially the young men of Bengal and India. The storm may come down on us again and with greater violence. Then remember this, brave its fury, feel your strength, train your strength in the struggle with the violence of the wind, and by that strength hold down the roof over the temple of the Mother.

Bakarganj Speech

Delivered at Bakarganj, Eastern Bengal and Assam, on 23 June 1909. Text noted down by police agents and reproduced in a Government of Bengal confidential file.

I have spent the earlier part of my life in a foreign country from my very childhood, and even of the time which I have spent in India, the greater part of it has been spent by me on the other side of India where my mother tongue is not known, and therefore although I have learned the language like a foreigner and I am able to understand it and write in it, I am unable, I have not the hardihood, to get up and deliver a speech in Bengali.

The repression and the reforms are the two sides of the political situation that the authorities in this country and in England present to us today. That policy has been initiated by one of the chief statesmen of England, one famous for his liberal views and professions, one from whom at the inception of his career as Secretary of State for India much had been expected. Lord Morley stands at the head of the administration in India, clad with legal and absolute power; he is far away from us like the gods in heaven, and we do not see him. And just as we do not see the gods in heaven but are obliged to imagine them in a figure, so we are compelled to imagine Lord Morley in a sort of figure, and the figure in which he presents himself to us is rather a peculiar one. Just as our gods sometimes carry weapons in their hands and sometimes they carry in one hand the khadga and in another hand the varabhaya, so Lord Morley presents himself to us with a khadga in one hand and the varabhaya in another, and he invites us to consider him in this image. From the beginning there has been this double aspect in him. He has, so to speak, spoken in two voices from the beginning. One voice at the beginning said "sympathy", while the other voice

said "settled fact"; one voice speaks of reforms and elective representation, and the other voice speaks of the necessity of preserving absolute government in India to all time. First of all he has given you, with a great flourish it has been announced that he was going to give, and he has given, a non-official majority in the Legislative Council; he has given an elective system, he has given to a certain extent the power of voting in the Council, voting on Government measures. On the face of it these seem very large concessions; it seems that a very substantial measure of self-government has been given; that is the tone in which the English papers have been writing today; they say that this reform is a great constitutional change and that it opens a new era in India. But when we examine them carefully, it somehow comes to seem that these reforms of Lord Morley are, like his professions of Liberalism and Radicalism, more for show than for use.

This system which Lord Morley has given us is marred by two very serious defects. One of them is this very fact that the elected members will be in the minority, the nominated non-officials and the officials being in the majority; and the second is that an entirely non-democratic principle has been adopted in this elective system, the principle of one community being specially represented.

The Government of India is faced today by a fact which they cannot overlook, a fact which is by no means pleasant to the vested interests which they represent, but at the same time a fact which cannot be ignored, and that is, that the people of India have awakened, are more and more awakening, that they have developed a real political life, and that the demands they make are demands which can no longer be safely left out of the question. There is the problem before the Government, "What to do with this new state of things?" There were two courses open to them—one of frank repression and the other course was the course of frank conciliation, either to stamp out this new life in the people or to recognise it; to recognise it as an inevitable force which must have its way, however gradually. The Government were unable to accept either of these alternative policies. They

have tried to mix them, and in trying to mix them they have adopted the principle of pressing down the movement with one hand and with the other hand trying to circumvent it. "You demand a popular assembly, you demand self-government. Well, we give you a measure of self-government, an enlarged and important Legislative Council, but in giving we try so to arrange the forces that the nation instead of being stronger may be weaker. Your strength is in the educated classes, your strength is more in the Hindu element in the nation than in the Mohammedan element, because they have not as yet awakened as the Hindu element has awakened. Well, let us remember our ancient policy of divide and rule, let us depress the forces which make for strength and raise up the force which is as yet weak and set up one force against the other, so that it may never be possible for us to be faced in the Legislative Council by a united majority representing the Indian people and demanding things which we are determined never to give."

Obviously when two forces stand against each other equally determined in two opposite directions, the people can only effect their aim by pressure upon the Government. That is a known fact everywhere, which every political system recognises, for which every political system has to provide. In every reasonable system of government there is always some provision made for the pressure of the people upon the Government to make itself felt. If no such provision is made, then the condition of that country is bound to be unsound, then there are bound to be elements of danger and unrest which no amount of coercion can remove, because the attempt to remove them by coercion is an attempt to destroy the laws of nature, and the laws of nature refuse to be destroyed and conducted. We have no means to make the pressure of the people felt upon the Government. The only means which we have discovered, the only means which we can use without bringing on a violent conflict, without leading to breaches of the law on both sides and bringing things to the arbitrament of physical force, have been the means which we call passive resistance and specially the means of the boycott. Therefore just as we have said that the boycott is a settled fact

because the Partition of Bengal is not rescinded and it shall remain so until it is rescinded, so we must say that the boycott must remain a settled fact because we are allowed no real control over the Government.

For the time the Government have succeeded in separating two of the largest communities in India; they have succeeded in drawing away the Mohammedans because of their want of education and enlightenment and of political experience which allows them to be led away by promises that are meant for the ear, by promises of concessions which the Government cannot give without destroying their own ends. For a time until the Mohammedans by bitter experience see the falseness of their hopes and the falseness of the political means which they are being induced to adopt, until then it will be difficult for the two communities to draw together and to stand united for the realisation of their common interest.

These are times of great change, times when old landmarks are being upset, when submerged forces are rising, and just as we deal promptly or linger over the solution of these problems, our progress will be rapid or slow, sound or broken. The educated class in India leads, but it must never allow itself to be isolated. It has done great things; it has commenced a mighty work, but it cannot accomplish these things, it cannot carry that work to completion by its own united efforts. The hostile force has recognised that this educated class is the backbone of India and their whole effort is directed towards isolating it. We must refuse to be isolated, we must recognise where our difficulties are, what it is that stands in the way of our becoming a nation and set ourselves immediately to the solution of that problem.

The problem is put to us one by one, to each nation one by one, and here in Bengal it is being put to us, and He has driven it home. He has made it perfectly clear by the events of the last few years. He has shown us the possibility of strength within us, and then He has shown us where the danger, the weakness lies. He is pointing out to us how it is that we may become strong. On us it lies, on the educated class in Bengal, because Bengal leads, and what Bengal does today the rest of India will do tomorrow;

it specially lies upon us, the educated class in Bengal, to answer the question which God has put to us, and according as we answer, on it depends how this movement will progress, what route it will take, and whether it will lead to a swift and sudden salvation or whether, after so many centuries of tribulation and suffering, there is still a long period of tribulation and suffering before us. God has put the question to us, and with us entirely it lies to answer.

Khulna Speech

Delivered at Khulna, Bengal, on 25 June 1909. Noted down by police agents and reproduced in a Government of Bengal confidential file. A note preceding the report of the speech says that "about three-fourths of it have been taken down". The text needed emendation in many places.

Gentlemen, today I will speak a few words on the Gita. The main object of that philosophy is found in the Vedanta, which is the basis of Hindu thought and life, and according to the Vedanta, life is dominated by maya or avidya. We are driven into action because we are ignorant of our true selves, of the true nature of the world. We identify ourselves with our bodies, our desires, our sorrows, and not our spirits. We lose ourselves in our happiness, griefs and pleasures.

By these motives we are driven into action. This life is a chain of bondage which keeps us revolving. We are surrounded on all sides by forces which we cannot control. As man has a perpetual desire for freedom, he is driven by forces he cannot control. Under the influence of these forces within or without, action takes place. The object of Hindu philosophy is to make man no longer a slave, but to escape from bondage and to make human beings free. Hindu philosophy tries to go into the root of things. What is the real beginning of maya? .... Whatever we may try, from the nature of the world we cannot escape from bondage. There is a knowledge, by attaining which we can become free.

In the Gita we find that Srikrishna unites the Vedanta philosophy with the philosophy of Sankhya. Modern science denies that man has a soul. Science considers only the laws of nature. It regards nature as material, and man as merely a product of nature. It says man is a creation of natural forces. All his actions are results of fixed laws, and he has no freedom. According to the Sankhya, man has a soul and is essentially the Purusha

and not matter. The spirit does not act. The soul is calm and motionless. Prakriti is always shifting and changing, and under her influence all actions take place. Prakriti acts.

Man can only free himself by recognising that he is the Purusha. Srikrishna adopts this theory of Sankhya in the Gita, and he also adopts the philosophy of Vedanta. He says that man has an immortal soul, but there is also a universal soul. Man is merely part of God. He is merely a part of something that is eternal, infinite, omniscient and omnipotent. This eternal power is what really exists, and in all that we see, hear, feel, it is He alone who exists. It is He alone whom we feel and see. Parameshwara builds up this world by His maya. He is the master of the great illusion which we call maya. This He made to express Himself, the One. All these things around us are transitory. Within us is that which cannot change, which is eternally free and happy. If man feels himself miserable, it is because he in his ignorance allows himself to be dominated by egoism (ahankara). He thinks that he is all. He does not realise that God is the master of this lila. He thinks that it is I who act, I who am the lord of my body, and because he thinks so, he is bound by his action. By these forces he is driven from birth to birth. The great illusion is that this body which he inhabits is himself; next he identifies himself with the mind and thinks it is I who think, see and feel. In reality, according to the Gita, God is within the heart of every creature.

The second thing you have to recognise is that you are only a part of Him, who is eternal, omniscient and omnipotent.

His first answer to Arjuna is that the feeling which has come upon him is not the pure feeling. It is a feeling of egoism. Still Arjuna does not understand how that can be.

How can it be my dharma to kill my own brothers and relations? How can it be to slaughter my nation and house? Srikrishna answers according to the spirit of Hindu ideas. He says that it is your dharma, because you are a Kshatriya. This is a dharma of a particular kind. The duty of the Kshatriya is not the same as that of the Brahmin, and that of the Shudra is not equal to that of the Kshatriya. If a Shudra adopts the dharma

of a Brahmin, he brings about the confusion of all laws and leads to the destruction and not to the betterment of mankind. It is nature which teaches you your own dharma. This is your dharma. If you shrink from upholding the cause of virtue, truth and justice, out of a feeling which is inconsistent, you are guilty, you bring in confusion, you encourage yourself to give up your duty.

Still Arjuna is not satisfied. Srikrishna goes still deeper. He says that the whole of our life is determined by maya which is of three kinds—sattwa, rajas, and tamas. Their nature is this. Sattwa leads to knowledge, rajas leads to action, and tamas leads to inaction and ignorance. These are the qualities of nature which govern the world. The swabhava which leads you to work is determined by the three gunas. Action is determined by swabhava. All action leads to bondage and is full of defects. What you call virtue or virtues, they have defects in themselves. The virtue of Brahmins is a great virtue. You shall not kill. This is what ahinsa means. If the virtue of ahinsa comes to the Kshatriya, if you say I will not kill, there is no one to protect the country. The happiness of the people will be broken down. Injustice and lawlessness will reign. The virtue becomes a source of misery, and you become instrumental in bringing misery and conflict to the people. Your duty to your family seems to conflict with your duty to society, that of society to the nation, and that of the nation to mankind. How shall we follow the path which leads to salvation? It is difficult to say what is right and what is wrong. How to decide it then? There is one way: do action in yoga, and then you rise above ignorance, and sin cannot touch you, and you rise above all that hampers you and binds you.

What is yoga? Not a certain process. When we think of yoga, we think of a man who shuts himself up in a cave and subjects himself to certain practices. He frees himself from all bondage. But Srikrishna uses yoga in a different sense. He says: Do action in yoga. The first element is samata. Samata means you shall look with equal eyes upon happiness and misfortune, praise and blame, honour and dishonour, and success and failure. You shall regard none of these, but with a calm and unshaken mind

you should proceed with the work which you are given to do, unshaken by the praise or censure of the world. The man who has this samata has no friends and no enemies. He looks upon all with equal feelings, because he has knowledge, because he has looked into himself, then out into the world. He finds himself everywhere and all in himself. He finds himself in all because God is in all. Whether he looks at the high or low, he sees no difference and sees that in every creature there is Narayana. He sees that he is only an ansha of one who is in every particle of matter. If there be any differences, they are only temporary and outward. He is only that through which Vasudeva carries on his lila. He is not anxious to know what will happen tomorrow, because the action is not guided by laws. The man who has communion with God has no reason to be guided by laws, because he knows God is alone and all. He is not troubled by the fruits of his action. "You have the right to action, to work, but not to the fruit. Work and leave the result to me. Those men whom you shrink from slaying are already slain. These men would all perish. Therefore the fruit is already obtained beforehand by me. Your anxiety for the result is ignorance." The destiny of the world is fixed. When a man has to do anything he must know that the fruits are with God. Man is to do what God wills.

Yoga means freedom from dwandwa. The Yogin is free from the bondage of pleasure and pain, of anger and hatred and attachment, of liking and disliking, because he looks with equal eyes on all. He does not shrink from misfortune or misery, happiness or unhappiness. He rises above the bondage of the body, because no man can give him pleasure or pain, because he has his own source of strength, of delight and happiness. This is the freedom which the Gita says the yoga gives, the freedom which we ordinarily mean by mukti. This is the freedom which the Gita promises. He says if you act in yoga, you rise above grief and pain, even above all things. You are free from fear or sin, because you do not act for yourself. You do not act because you will get pleasure, but for the sake of God; that is how you are to reach yoga. If you wish to be happy, you must give up all your works to God. You must do all your work for His

sake, and therefore sin does not touch you. It is only because of selfishness that sin touches you. If you realise that Narayana is in all, it follows that you lose the smaller, the individual limited self. You look to wider things. You see yourself in the family, in the community, race, humanity, and all things in the world. You forget yourself altogether. You work for the race and others, for mankind. It is not God's work when you follow after your selfishness. The Gita says: "Your welfare is God's business." If you work for Him you have no fear, because God stretches out His hand of mercy to you. It is to that which the yoga leads. The teaching of the Gita, if it is followed, delivers you from all possibility of sin, of sorrow. He says: "Take refuge in me. I shall free you from all evil. Do everything as a sacrifice to me." That is the goal towards which you move. The name of Hari will free you from all evil.

This is the way in which Srikrishna has solved the problem put by Arjuna. Arjuna says: "It is my duty to fight for justice, it is my duty as a Kshatriya not to turn from Dharmayuddha, but I am perplexed, because the consequences will be so terrible. The people I am to slay are dear to me. How can I kill them?" Krishna says: "There is no doubt an apparent conflict of duties, but that is the nature of life. Life is itself a problem, a very entangled thread, which it is impossible to undo. But it is I who do all these things, I who am leading you to the fulfilment of your duties. Leave it to me. If you do your duty, it is a thing which I am bringing about. You are not doing it from selfishness. It is a thing necessary for my purpose. It is a thing which is decreed, already done, but it is now to be effected in the material world. Whatever happens, it happens for the best. I now give you my knowledge, the key to yoga. I remove the veil of ignorance from you. I give you the meaning of yoga." In the Gita Srikrishna gives certain rules by which a man may hold communion with God.

The Gita says that man is not a bundle of outward cares and griefs, of things that do not last. Man is a garment which is put off from time to time, but there is within us something which is omniscient and eternal and cannot be drowned.

Srikrishna gave Arjuna the divya chakshu, with which he saw the Vishwarupa. He now sees Vasudeva everywhere. He sees within him things that cannot be seen by the mysteries of science. With this knowledge comes to him that force.

How can I act, yet be free from bondage? The Gita says that the man who has knowledge has to do exactly what other men do. He has to live as a man in his family, race and nation. But there is a difference which is internal and not external. By the internal difference he acts in communion with God; others act in pursuance of their desires. He knows by experience how a man can act when he is free from desire. This force of action is the force of God Himself. He is not troubled by the result of action; he gets eternal bliss.

This is the whole teaching of the Gita. It is yoga which gives utter perfection in action. The man who works for God is not shaken by doubts.

The teaching of the Gita is a teaching for life, and not a teaching for the life of a closet. It is a teaching which means perfection of action. It makes man great. It gives him the utter strength, the utter bliss which is the goal of life in the world.

The Right of Association: Speech

Speech delivered at Howrah, Bengal, on 27 June 1909. Text published in the Bengalee on 29 June; thoroughly revised by Sri Aurobindo and republished in three issues of the Karmayogin in July and August.

My friend Pandit Gispati Kavyatirtha has somewhat shirked today his duty as it was set down for him in the programme and left it to me. I hope you will not mind if I depart a little from the suggestion he has made to me. I would like, instead of assuming the role of a preacher and telling you your duties which you know well enough yourselves, to take, if you will allow me, a somewhat wider subject, not unconnected with it but of a wider range. In addressing you today I wish to say a few words about the general right of association especially as we have practised and are trying to practise it in India today. I choose this subject for two reasons, first, because it is germane to the nature of the meeting we are holding, and secondly, because we have seen arbitrary hands laid upon that right of association which is everywhere cherished as a sign and safeguard of liberty and means of development of a common life.

There are three rights which are particularly cherished by free nations. In a nation the sovereign powers of Government may be enjoyed by the few or the many, but there are three things to which the people in European countries cling, which they persistently claim and after which, if they have them not, they always aspire. These are first, the right of a free Press, secondly, the right of free public meeting, and thirdly, the right of association. There is a particular reason why they cling to these three as inherent rights which they claim as sacred and with which authority has no right to interfere. The right of free speech ensures to the people the power which is the greatest

means for self-development, and that is the power of spreading the idea. According to our philosophy it is the idea which is building up the world. It is the idea which expresses itself in matter and takes to itself bodies. This is true also in the life of humanity; it is true in politics, in the progress and life of a nation. It is the idea which shapes material institutions. It is the idea which builds up and destroys administrations and Governments. Therefore the idea is a mighty force, even when it has no physical power behind it, even when it is not equipped with means, even when it has not organised itself in institutions and associations. Even then the idea moves freely abroad through the minds of thousands of men and becomes a mighty force. It is a power which by the very fact of being impalpable assumes all the greater potency and produces all the more stupendous results. Therefore the right of free speech is cherished because it gives the idea free movement, it gives the nation that power which ensures its future development, which ensures success in any struggle for national life, however stripped it may be of means and instruments. It is enough that the idea is there and that the idea lives and circulates. Then the idea materialises itself, finds means and instruments, conquers all obstacles and goes on developing until it is expressed and established in permanent and victorious forms.

This right of free speech takes the form first of a free Press. It is the Press which on its paper wings carries the idea abroad from city to city, from province to province until a whole continent is bound together by the links of one common aspiration. The right of public meeting brings men together. That is another force. They meet together on a common ground, moved by a common impulse, and as they stand or sit together in their thousands, the force of the idea within moves them by the magnetism of crowds. It moves from one to another till the hidden shakti, the mighty force within, stirred by the words thrown out from the platform travels from heart to heart and masses of men are not only moved by a common feeling and common aspiration, but by the force of that magnetism prepared to act and fulfil the idea. Then comes the right of association, the third of these popular rights.

Given the common aspiration, common idea, common enthusiasm and common wish to act, it gives the instrument which binds men to strive towards the common object by common and associated actions; the bonds of brotherhood grow, energy increases, the idea begins to materialise itself to work in practical affairs and that which was yesterday merely an idea, merely a word thrown out by the eloquence of the orator, becomes a question of practical politics. It becomes work for it begins to work and fulfil itself. Therefore the people prize these rights, consider them a valuable asset, cling to and cherish and will not easily sacrifice them. Therefore they resent the arbitrary interference which takes from them what they consider indispensable for the preparation of national life.

Association is the mightiest thing in humanity; it is the instrument by which humanity moves, it is the means by which it grows, it is the power by which it progresses towards its final development. There are three ideas which are of supreme moment to human life and have become the watchwords of humanity. Three words have the power of remoulding nations and Governments, liberty, equality and fraternity. These words cast forth into being from the great stir and movement of the eighteenth century continue to act on men because they point to the ultimate goal towards which human evolution ever moves. This liberty to which we progress is liberation out of a state of bondage. We move from a state of bondage to an original liberty. This is what our own religion teaches. This is what our own philosophy suggests as the goal towards which we move, mukti or moksha. We are bound in the beginning by a lapse from pre-existent freedom, we strive to shake off the bonds, we move forward and forward until we have achieved the ultimate emancipation, that utter freedom of the soul, of the body, of the whole man, that utter freedom from all bondage towards which humanity is always aspiring. We in India have found a mighty freedom within ourselves, our brother-men in Europe have worked towards freedom without. We have been moving on parallel lines towards the same end. They have found out the way to external freedom. We have found out the way to internal

freedom. We meet and give to each other what we have gained. We have learned from them to aspire after external as they will learn from us to aspire after internal freedom.

Equality is the second term in the triple gospel. It is a thing which mankind has never accomplished. From inequality and through inequality we move, but it is to equality. Our religion, our philosophy set equality forward as the essential condition of emancipation. All religions send us this message in a different form but it is one message. Christianity says we are all brothers, children of one God. Mohammedanism says we are the subjects and servants of one Allah, we are all equal in the sight of God. Hinduism says there is one without a second. In the high and the low, in the Brahmin and the Shudra, in the saint and the sinner, there is one Narayana, one God and he is the soul of all men. Not until you have realised Him, known Narayana in all, and the Brahmin and the Shudra, the high and the low, the saint and the sinner are equal in your eyes, then and not until then you have knowledge, you have freedom, until then you are bound and ignorant. The equality which Europe has got is external political equality. She is now trying to achieve social equality. Nowadays their hard-earned political liberty is beginning to pall a little upon the people of Europe because they have found it does not give perfect well-being or happiness and it is barren of the sweetness of brotherhood. There is not fraternity in this liberty. It is merely a political liberty. They have not either the liberty within or the full equality or the fraternity. So they are turning a little from what they have and they say increasingly, "Let us have equality, let us have the second term of the gospel towards which we strive." Therefore socialism is growing in Europe. Europe is now trying to achieve external equality as the second term of the gospel of mankind, the universal ideal. I have said that equality is an ideal even with us but we have not tried to achieve it without. Still we have learned from them to strive after political equality and in return for what they have given us we shall lead them to the secret of the equality within.

Again there is fraternity. It is the last term of the gospel. It is the most difficult to achieve, still it is a thing towards which

all religions call and human aspirations rise. There is discord in life, but mankind yearns for peace and love. This is the reason why the gospels which preach brotherhood spread quickly and excite passionate attachment. This was the reason of the rapid spread of Christianity. This was the reason of Buddhism's rapid spread in this country and throughout Asia. This is the essence of humanitarianism, the modern gospel of love for mankind. None of us have achieved our ideals, but human society has always attempted an imperfect and limited fulfilment of them. It is the nature, the dharma of humanity that it should be unwilling to stand alone. Every man seeks the brotherhood of his fellow and we can only live by fraternity with others. Through all its differences and discords humanity is striving to become one.

In India in the ancient times we had many kinds of association, for our life was much more complex and developed than it became afterwards. We had our political associations, we had our commercial associations, our educational, our religious associations. As in Europe, so in India men united together for many interests and worked in association for common ideals. But by the inroads of invasion and calamity our life became broken and disintegrated. Still, though we lost much, we had our characteristic forms in which we strove to achieve that ideal of association and unity. In our society we had organised a common village life. It was a one and single village life in which every man felt himself to be something, a part of a single organism. We had the joint family by which we tried to establish the principle of association in our family life. We have not in our social developments followed the path which Europe has followed. We have never tended to break into scattered units. The principle of association, the attempt to organise brotherhood was dominant in our life. We had the organisation of caste of which nowadays we hear such bitter complaints. It had no doubt many and possibly inherent defects, but it was an attempt, however imperfect, to base society upon the principle of association, the principle of closely organising a common life founded on common ideas, common feelings, common tendencies, a common moral discipline and sense of corporate honour. Then we had an institution

which in its form was peculiar to India, which helped to bind men together in close brotherhood who had a common guru or the initiation into a common religious fraternity. All these we had. Then the impact of Europe came upon us and one by one these institutions began to be broken. Our village life is a thing of the past. The village has lost its community, it has lost its ideals, it has lost that mutual cordiality and binding together by an intimate common life which held it up and made its life sweet and wholesome. Everywhere we see in the village moral deterioration and material decay. Our joint family has been broken. We are scattering into broken units and brother no longer looks upon brother. There is no longer the bond of love which once held us together, because the old ties and habit of association are being broken up. Our caste has lost its reality. The life has gone from within it and it is no longer an institution which helps towards unity, a common life or any kind of brotherhood. For once the idea is broken, the ideal within which is the principle of life is impaired, the form breaks up and nothing can keep it together. Therefore we find all these things perishing.

Well, we have been losing these things which were part of our associated life. But on the other hand we looked at the civilised nations of the West who are rushing upon us and breaking our society to pieces, and we saw that in those nations there were other centres of association, other means of uniting together. However imperfectly we began to seize upon them and try to use them, our life in the nineteenth century was a weak and feeble life. It had no ideals, no mighty impulses behind to drive or uplift it. It was bewildered and broken by the forces that came upon it; it did not know how to move and in what direction to move. It tried to take whatever it could from the life of the rulers. It strove to take their political associations and develop that principle of association. But our political associations had a feeble life bound together only by a few common interests which by ineffective means they tried to establish or protect. Political association among us led to very little action, for it was an association which looked mainly to others for help and did not look to the sources of strength within. These and other kinds of associations

which we then tried to form tended mainly in one direction. They were institutions for the exchange of thought, associations for the spread of knowledge, by which we instinctively but imperfectly tried to encourage and express the growing idea that was within us. This was the one real value of most of our political associations. Then there came the flood of national life, the mighty awakening which appeared first in Bengal. The principle of association began to take a new form, it began to assume a new life. It no longer remained a feeble instrument for the expression of the growing idea within us, it began to become an instrument indeed. It began to become a power. How did this new kind of association grow and to what objects did it address itself? The movement was not planned by any human brain, it was not foreseen by any human foresight. It came of itself, it came as a flood comes, as a storm comes. There had been slow preparations which we did not institute or understand. These preparations were mainly among the young men, the rising generation, the hope of India. There the spirit first awoke. At first it was not what we would call an association; it was only a temporary union of young men for a temporary cause. They called themselves by a name which has since become terrible to many of our friends of the Anglo-Indian Press. They called themselves volunteers. For what did they volunteer? They volunteered for service to the representatives of the nation who came together to deliberate for the good of the people. This is how it first came, as an idea of service, the idea of service to those who worked for the motherland. Out of that grew the idea of service to the Mother. That was the first stage and the root from which it grew into our political life. Then there was another stream which rose elsewhere and joined the first. Our Anglo-Indian brothers to whom we owe so much and in so many ways, did us this service also that they always scoffed at us as weaklings, men who were doomed to perpetual slavery and had always been a race of slaves because the people of Bengal had no martial gift, because they are not physically strong, because whoever chooses to strike them can strike and expect no blow in return. Therefore they were unfit for self-government, therefore they must remain slaves for ever.

Our Anglo-Indian friends do not proclaim that theory now. They have changed their tone. For the spirit of the nation could bear the perpetual reproach no longer, the awakening Brahman within our young men could bear it no longer. Associations grew up for physical exercise and the art of self-defence and grew into those Samitis which you have seen flourishing and recently suppressed. We were determined to wash the blemish away. If this was the blemish, to be weak, if this was the source of our degradation we determined to remove it. We said, "In spite of our physical weakness we have a strength within us which will remove our defects. We will be a race of brave and strong men. And that we may be so, we will establish everywhere these associations for physical exercise." That, one would think, was an innocent object and had nothing in it which anyone could look upon with suspicion. In fact we never thought that we should be looked upon with suspicion. It is the Europeans who have trumpeted physical culture as a most valuable national asset, the thing in which the English-speaking nations have pre-eminently excelled and which was the cause of their success and energy. That was the second seed of association.

There was a third seed and it was the thing for which our hearts yearned, the impulse towards brotherhood. A new kind of association came into being. That was the association which stood by labour and service and self-sacrifice, whose object of existence was to help the poor and nurse the sick. That was the flowering out of the Hindu religion. That was what Swami Vivekananda preached. That was what Aswini Kumar Dutta strove to bring into organised existence. That was what the Ramakrishna Mission, the Little Brothers of the Poor at Barisal tried to effect. This was the third way in which the new association established itself, the third seed of union, the third stream of tendency seeking fulfilment. All these streams of tendency came together, they united themselves and have been in their broad united purifying current the glory of our national life for the last three years. These Samitis of young men by labour, by toil for the country, worship of the motherland held themselves together and spread the habit of association and the

growth of brotherhood over the land. That is their spirit and ideal and that the way in which these associations have been established.

These are the associations which have now been crushed out of existence under a charge which cannot be and has not been maintained, a charge which has been disproved over and over again. It is a monstrous charge. The charge is that these associations are associations of hatred and violence, associations for rebellion and dacoity. That is the charge under which these associations have been suppressed. I have come recently back from Barisal. While I was there I heard and read something of the work of the young men's association in Barisal, the association called the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti which with its network covered the whole district of Bakarganj. This association grew out of a much smaller association started by Aswini Kumar Dutta called the Little Brothers of the Poor. What was the work commenced by these Little Brothers of the Poor? When epidemic broke out, when cholera appeared in all its virulence, the young men of the Barisal Brajamohan College went out in bands. They nursed the sick, they took charge of those who had been abandoned, they took up in their arms those whom they found lying on the roadside. They were not deterred in those moments by the prejudice of caste or by the difference of creed. The orthodox Brahmin took up in his bosom and nursed the Mohammedan and the Namasudra. They did not mind the epidemic or fear to catch the contagion. They took up and nursed them as brother nurses brother and thus they rescued many from the grasp of death. Aswini Kumar Dutta is in exile. How did he establish that influence which caused him to be thought dangerous? By philanthropy, by service. While ordinary colleges under the control of the Government were mere soulless machines where they cram a few packets of useless knowledge into the brain of the student, Aswini Kumar breathed his own lofty and noble soul into the Brajamohan College and made it an engine indeed out of which men were turned, in which hearts and souls were formed. He breathed his noble qualities into the young men who grew up in the cherishing warmth and sunlight of his influence. He made

his college an institution which in the essentials of education was a model for any educational institution in the world. This is how he built up his influence among the educated class. They followed him because he had shaped their souls between his hands. It is therefore that they loved him, it is therefore that they saw no fault in him. His influence among the common people was built up by love, service and philanthropy. It was out of the seed he planted that the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti grew.

What was the work of this Samiti, the existence of which could no longer be tolerated in the interests of the peace and safety of the Empire? First of all it continued with that blessed work which the Little Brothers of the Poor had begun, nursing, serving, saving the poor, the sick and the suffering. They made it their ideal to see that there was no sick man or sick woman of however low a class or depressed a caste, of whom it could be said that they went unhelped in their sickness in the Bakarganj District. That was the first crime the association committed.

The second crime was this. These young men went from house to house seeking out the suffering and the hungry when famine broke out in the country. To those who were patiently famishing they brought succour, but they did more. There were many people who belonged to the respectable classes on whom the hand of famine was laid. They would not go for help to the relief works; they would not complain and show their misery to the world. The young men of Barisal sought out these cases and secretly, without injuring the feelings of the suffering, they gave help and saved men and women from starvation. This was the second crime of the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti.

Then there was another. The social life of Bengal is full of discord and quarrels. Brother quarrels with brother and quarrels with bitter hatred. They carry their feud to the law-courts; they sin against the Mother in themselves and in others; they sow the seed of lasting enmity and hatred between their families. And beyond this there is the ruin, the impoverishment of persistent litigation. The young men of the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti said, "This should not be tolerated any more. We will settle their

differences, we will make peace between brother and brother. We will say to our people, 'If there is any dispute let us try to settle it first. If you are dissatisfied with our decision you can always go to the law-courts; but let us try first.'" They tried, and hundreds of cases were settled out of court and hundreds of these seeds of enmity and hatred were destroyed. Peace and love and brotherhood began to increase in the land. This was their third crime.

Their fourth offence is a great crime nowadays. These young men had the hardihood to organise and help the progress of Swadeshi in the land. There was no violence. By love, by persuasion, by moral pressure, by appeals to the Samaj and the interests of the country, they did this work. They helped the growth of our industries; they helped it by organising the condition for their growth, the only condition in which these infant, these feeble and languishing industries can grow, the general determination to take our own goods and not the goods of others, to give preference to our Mother and not to any stranger. In no other district of Bengal, in no other part of India was Swadeshi so well organised, so perfectly organised, so peacefully and quietly organised as in Barisal. That was the last and worst crime they committed. For these crimes they have been proclaimed, they have been forbidden to exist. This Swadesh Bandhab Samiti carried organisation to a perfection which was not realised in other districts because it is not every district which can have an Aswini Kumar Dutta or a Satis Chandra Chatterji. But the same impulse was there, the same tendencies were there. I do not know any single society of the kind in Bengal which has not made some attempt to help the people in times of famine or to bring succour to the sick and suffering or to remove quarrels and discord as well as to help the growth of Swadeshi by organising that exclusive preference to which we have given the name of boycott. These were general offences, common crimes.

But there was another thing that led to the suppression. This was an association that had that very dangerous and lethal weapon called the lathi. The use of the lathi as a means of self-defence was openly taught and acquired, and if that was not

enough there was the imagination of a very highly imaginative police which saw hidden behind the lathi the bomb. Now nobody ever saw the bombs. But the police were quite equal to the occasion; they thought there might be bombs. And what if there were not? Their imagination was quite equal to realising any bomb that could not be materialised,—in baithak-khanas and elsewhere. The police suspected that the lathi was the father of the bomb. Their procedure was simple with the simplicity of the highest detective genius. When they heard of a respectable-sized dacoity, they immediately began to reason it out. They said, "Now why are there so many dacoities in the land? Obviously the lathi fathered the bomb and the bomb fathers the dacoities. Who have lathis? The Samitis. Therefore it is proved. The Samitis are the dacoits." Our efficient police have always shown a wonderful ability. Generally when a dacoity is committed, the police are nowhere near. They have not altered that; that golden rule still obtains. They are not to be found when the dacoity takes place. They only come up when the dacoity is long over and say, "Well, this is the work of the National volunteers." They look round to see what is the nearest Samiti and, if they find any which has been especially active in furthering Swadeshi, they say, "Here is the Samiti." And if there is anyone who was somewhat active in connection with the work of the Samiti, they say at once, "Well, here is the man." And if he is a boy of any age from twelve upwards, so much the better. The man or boy is instantly arrested and put into hajat. After rotting there some days or weeks, the police can get no evidence and the man has to be released. That does not frighten the courageous police; they immediately arrest the next likely person belonging to the Samiti. So they go on persevering until they lose all hope of finding or creating evidence. Sometimes they persist, and members of the Samitis, sometimes mere boys, have to rot in hajat until the case goes up to a court of justice and the judge looks at the case and after he has patiently heard it out has to ask, "Well, but where is the evidence?"

Formerly, you may remember, those of you who have lived

in the villages, that wherever there was any man in a village who was physically strong the police wrote down his name in the black book of budmashes. He was at once put down as an undesirable. That was the theory, that a man who is physically strong must be a hooligan. Physical development was thus stamped out of our villages and the physique of our villagers began to deteriorate until this movement of Akharas and Samitis came into existence to rescue the nation from absolute physical deterioration and decay. But this was an immortal idea in the mind of our police and it successfully effected transmigration. It took this form, that these Samitis encourage physical education, they encourage lathi-play, therefore they must be the nurseries of violence and dacoity and factories of bombs. Our rulers seem to have accepted this idea of the police. So perhaps this is the crime these Samitis have committed. Nothing has been proved of all this easy theorizing. It is yet to be known when and where the bomb has been associated with the work of the Samitis in Eastern Bengal. There was indeed a great dacoity in Eastern Bengal and the theory was started that it was done by one of the Samitis, but even our able detective police were unable to prove any association in that case. They did catch hold of some young men apparently on principle. There is a confidential rule,—it is confidential but the public have come to know of it,—that "somebody must be punished for the day's work." That was the circular of a Lieutenant-Governor of this province and the police no doubt thought it ought to be observed faithfully. So they caught hold of some likely men and the people so charged were about to be "punished for the day's work"; but fortunately for them a judge sat upon the High Court Bench who remembered that there was such a thing as law and another thing called evidence, things whose existence was in danger of being forgotten in this country. He applied the law, he insisted on having the evidence, and you all know the result.

These associations, then, which were the expression of our growing national life and the growing feeling of brotherhood among us, did such work as I have described, and these were

the ways, guiltless of any offence in the eyes of the law, in which they did their work. Still they have been suppressed not because they were criminal, but because their existence was inconvenient. It has always been the case that when established institutions of government were unwilling to move with the times, they have looked with suspicion upon the right of association and the right of free speech, they have discouraged the right of a free Press and the right of public meeting. By destroying these instruments they have thought to arrest the progress which they did not love. This policy has never permanently succeeded, yet it is faithfully repeated with that singular stupidity which seems natural to the human race. The sword of Damocles hangs over our Press. It is nominally free, but we never know when even that simulacrum of freedom may not be taken from it. There is a law of sedition so beautifully vague and comprehensive that no one knows when he is committing sedition and when he is not. There is a law against the preaching of violence which enables a Magistrate whenever he chooses to imagine that your article advocates violence, to seize your machine. The press is taken away and of course the case goes up to the High Court, but by that time the paper suffers so much that it becomes difficult or impossible for it to rear its head again. There is a notification by which, as I pointed out in Beadon Square the other day, a meeting becomes peaceful or criminal not according to the objects or to the behaviour of the people assembled but according as the sun is up or the sun is down. There is a law of proclamation by which our right of association can be taken from us whenever they please by a stroke of the pen. The British people have certain traditions, they have certain ways of thinking and fixed ideas of which they cannot entirely get rid. It is for that reason they have not yet passed a law entirely and expressly suppressing the freedom of the Press or the right of public meeting. But even that may come. What should we do under these circumstances? We see the sword of Damocles hanging lower and lower over our heads. Our association may be declared criminal and illegal at any moment. The executive can any moment

it pleases confiscate our press. We ourselves are liable to be arrested and harassed at any moment without evidence, "on suspicion", by an irresponsible and apparently unpunishable police. Under whatever difficulties and whatever restrictions may be put upon us, we must of course go on. But the restrictions may be greater in future. The sword is hanging lower and lower over our heads. Still we cannot stop in our work. The force within us cannot be baulked, the call cannot be denied. Whatever penalty be inflicted on us for the crime of patriotism, whatever peril we may have to face in the fulfilment of our duty to our nation, we must go on, we must carry on the country's work.

After all what is an association? An association is not a thing which cannot exist unless we have a Chairman and a Vice-Chairman and a Secretary. An association is not a thing which cannot meet unless it has its fixed meeting place. Association is a thing which depends upon the feeling and the force within us. Association means unity, association means brotherhood, association means binding together in one common work. Where there is life, where there is self-sacrifice, where there is disinterested and unselfish toil, where there are these things within us, the work cannot stop. It cannot stop even if there be one man who is at all risks prepared to carry it on. It is only after all the question of working, it is not a question of the means for work. It is simply a question of working together in common in one way or in another. It is a matter of asking each other from time to time what work there is to be performed today and what is the best way of performing it, what are the best means of helping our countrymen, what work we shall have to do tomorrow or the day after and having settled that to do it at the appointed time and in the appointed way. That is what I mean when I say that it is a question of working and not of means. It is not that these things cannot be done except by the forms which our European education has taught us to value. Whatever may be the difficulties we can go on with the work. The association that we shall have will be the association of brothers who are united heart to heart, of fellow-workers joined

hand-in-hand in a common labour, the association of those who have a common motherland. It is the association of the whole country, to which every son of India and every son of Bengal ought by the duty of his birth to belong, an association which no force can break up, the association of a unity which grows closer day by day, of an impulse that comes from on high and has drawn us together in order that we might realise brotherhood, in order that the Indian nation may be united and united not merely in the European way, not merely by the common self-interest, but united by love for the common country, united by the ideal of brotherhood, united by the feeling that we are all sons of one common Mother who is also the manifestation of God in a united humanity. That is the association which has been coming into being, and has not been destroyed, since the movement came into existence. This is the mighty association, which unites the people of West Bengal with the people of East and North Bengal and defies partition, because it embraces every son of the land,—bhai bhai ek thain, or brother and brother massed inseparably together. This is the ideal that is abroad and is waking more and more consciously within us. It is not merely a common self-interest. It awakens God within us and says, "You are all one, you are all brothers. There is one place in which you all meet and that is your common Mother. That is not merely the soil. That is not merely a division of land but it is a living thing. It is the Mother in whom you move and have your being. Realise God in the nation, realise God in your brother, realise God in a wide human association." This is the ideal by which humanity is moved all over the world, the ideal which is the dharma of the Kaliyuga, and it is the ideal of love and service which the young men of Bengal so thoroughly realised, love and service to your brothers, love and service to your Mother and this is the association we are forming, the great association of the people of Bengal and of the whole people of India. It increases and will grow for ever in spite of all the obstacles that rise in its way. When the spirit of Aswini Kumar Dutta comes into every leader of the people and the nation becomes one great Swadesh Bandhab Samiti, then it will be accomplished.

This is for ever our national ideal and in its strength our nation will rise whatever law they make; our nation will rise and live by the force of the law of its own being. For the fiat of God has gone out to the Indian nation, "Unite, be free, be one, be great."

Kumartuli Speech

Delivered at Kumartuli Park, Calcutta, on 11 July 1909. Text published in the Bengalee on 13 July and reproduced in the Karmayogin on 14 August.

Babu Aurobindo Ghose rose amidst loud cheers and said that when he consented to attend the meeting, he never thought that he would make any speech. In fact, he was asked by the organisers of the meeting simply to be present there. He was told that it would be sufficient if he came and took his seat there. Now he found his name among the speakers. The Chairman of the meeting, whose invitation was always an order, had called upon him to speak.

He had two reasons as to why he ought not to speak. The first was that since he was again at liberty to address his countrymen he had made a good many speeches and he had exhausted everything that he had to say and he did not like to be always repeating the same thing from the platform. He was not an orator and what he spoke was only in the hope that some of the things he might say might go to the hearts of his countrymen and that he might see some effect of his speeches in their action. Merely to come again and again to the platform and the table was not a thing he liked. Therefore he preferred to see what his countrymen did.

Another reason was that unfortunately he was unable to address them in their mother language and therefore he always felt averse to inflict an English speech on a Bengali audience.

That evening he wished to speak only a few words because he owed an explanation to his friends. The form that his activities had taken after he had come from jail had disappointed a great many.

There was first a great friend of his own and India's who lived in Hare Street—(laughter)—and he was very much

disappointed by the form of his (the speaker's) activities. So great was this friend's anxiety for the Indians that that anxiety had cost him Rs. 15,000. (A voice: "Another Rs. 7,500 as costs.") In his anxiety to help the Indians he followed the ancient maxim that truth meant only whatever was for the good of others. Unfortunately the judge would not take that large view of the matter. And so our friend was silently suffering. (A voice: "Passive resistance." Laughter) His friend said that he had heard that Sj. Aurobindo Ghose had promised to devote himself to literature and religion, and it was strange that Mr. Ghose should go to Jhalakati and make speeches on Swadeshi and boycott.

He (the speaker) was devoting himself to literature and religion. He was writing as he wrote before on Swaraj and Swadeshi, and that was a form of literature. He was speaking on Swaraj and Swadeshi and that was part of his religion. (Cheers)

Another quarter he had disappointed was the police. (Laughter) He had received a message from them saying that he was opening his mouth too much. He gave an interview to a press representative and told him something mainly about the food and accommodation in the Government Hotel at Alipore. (Laughter) He was immediately informed that that was a great indiscretion on his part and that it would bring trouble on him. When he went to Jhalakati the attentions of the police pursued him. They told the Barisal people and the local merchants that if he (the speaker) was taken there the District Conference would be stopped. They got the answer that that was not in the people's hands, but the coming of Aurobindo Ghose was in their hands and Aurobindo Babu would come whatever the consequences to the Conference. And the Conference did take place. After his return he was again informed that he was qualifying for deportation—his fault was that he was appearing too much in public meetings. Some of the best loved workers in the country had already been deported and the first reason alleged was that they had been financing assassination and troubling the peace of the country. When the Government in Parliament were heckled out of that position, it escaped as if by accident

from one of the members that one very important reason for the deportation was that the deportees had taken part in the Swadeshi agitation. This was borne out by the suggestion he had received, and it seemed that it was by supporting the Swadeshi that they laid themselves open to deportation. Now, he had an unfortunate temper and it was that he did not like to be intimidated. Intimidation only made him persist in doing his duty more obstinately, and if he spoke today, it was partly because of that friendly suggestion.

There were other friends who were nearer to us than those he had mentioned, but they also were dissatisfied with his activities. There was, for instance, a friend in Madras (The Indian Patriot) who invited him to give up politics and become a Sannyasi. This anxiety for his spiritual welfare somewhat surprised him at the time, but he was yet more surprised by the persistence of his friend's anxiety. One reason for suggesting inactivity to him was that he was imperilling his safety. That was a very singular reason to put before a public man for shirking his duty.

Another reason for his Madras friend's advice was that he (the speaker) was speaking against the reforms. It appeared that he (the speaker) was guilty of a great error in throwing a doubt on the reality of the reforms. Whenever any offer was made to the country by the officials, it was a habit of his to look at it a little closely. It was a part of English politeness, and also a principle of their commerce that when a present was given or an article sold it was put in a very beautiful case and its appearance made very attractive. But his long residence in England had led him to know that there were a kind of goods, called Brummagem goods, and that was a synonym for shoddy. He looked into the reforms and they seemed to him to belong to that class. Then there was another point. He was a little jealous of gifts from that quarter because the interests of the people and the officials were not the same. The position was such that if reforms gave any increase and enlargement of the people's rights or rather a beginning in that direction—for at present the people had no real right or share in the government—any beginning of the kind meant a shrinking of bureaucratic powers. It was not likely

that the officials would readily give up any power to which they cling. Therefore when reform was offered he always asked himself how far that was a real beginning of self-government or how far it was something given to them to draw their attention from their real path to salvation. It seemed to him that the reforms give them not the slightest real share in the government of the country, but instead they would merely throw an apple of fresh discord among them. They would only be a cause of fresh strife and want of unity. Those who are led away by the reforms would not only diminish the powers of this country but lead others into the wrong path.

Only two or three days ago, his fears were confirmed. Certain utterances had come from one from whom they were least expected—one who had served and made sacrifices for the country. He said that those who spread the gospel of Swaraj were madmen outside the lunatic asylum and those who preached passive resistance as a means of gaining Swaraj were liars who did not speak out their real thoughts to save their skin; he invited the country to denounce them as enemies of the country and of its progress and justified all that the Government had done by saying that the only attitude the Government could take was stern and heartless repression.

Well, if it were true that only fear made them take to passive resistance, if they flinched now from the boycott because some had been deported, if they ceased to proclaim the ideal of Swaraj, if they ceased to preach the boycott, then only it would be true that they had adopted an ideal that they could not reach and proclaimed means of reaching it in which they did not believe, because they were anxious to save their skin.

He had heard many warnings recently that those who persisted in public agitation would be deported. For himself, and he was not a model of courage, residence for the best part of a year in a solitary cell had been an experience which took away all the terrors of deportation. (Cheers) If he had ever had any fears, the kindness of the authorities in giving him that experience had cured him of them. (Laughter) He had found that with the ideal of Swaraj to uphold and the mantra of "Bande Mataram" in the

heart, there was nothing so very terrible in jail or deportation. That was the first thing he would like to impress on them as the result of his experience. Imprisonment in a righteous cause was not so terrible as it seemed, suffering was not so difficult to bear as our anticipations made it out. The prize to which they aspired was the greatest to which a nation could aspire and if a price was asked of them, they ought not to shrink from paying it.

He was not afraid of deportations and imprisonment but he was afraid of the hand which patted them on the back and the voice that soothed. The mixed policy of repression and kindness was the thing he feared most. The whip was still there uplifted though it was not just now falling upon them, but the other hand was held out to stroke the head and soothe. This offer of conciliation in one hand and the pressure of repression in the other might have the effect of slackening their efforts and bewildering their intelligence. They must not forget that nine of their most devoted workers were rotting in British jails under the name of deportation. What was the meaning of conciliation when men like Aswini Kumar Dutta, Krishna Kumar Mitra and others were taken away from them and not restored? What kind of conciliation was this which was offered us while this great wrong remained unremedied? Who could trust such a conciliation?

Let them not forget what they had set out to do when they declared the boycott. They had determined to undo the Partition of Bengal. The Partition still remained. So long as that remained, should they listen to the soothing voice? Should they give up the boycott or slacken the boycott? They had determined to revive the industries of their country. They had determined to save their countrymen from chronic starvation, but that had not yet been accomplished. Should they leave the boycott or slacken the boycott while it remained unaccomplished? Would the reforms save the country from that chronic starvation? When famine came the Government opened relief works as soon as its local officials could bring themselves to acknowledge that there was a famine in the land. That saved a number of lives, but it did not save us from the misery, the mortality, the thousands of

ruined homes. That did not strike at the root of the chronic starvation and famine; Swadeshi and boycott alone could strike at the root. So long as the exploitation of the country by foreign trade remained, would they injure their country by giving up or slackening the boycott? Would they be faithful to the country if under such circumstances they were ready to listen to the soothing voice? If they did that, it would be because they could not bear the sufferings and pay the price of raising up their country and they would prove themselves unworthy of the freedom to which they aspired. The time was a critical one and when the question was once more put to them they must always be ready to answer.

The 7th of August was very near. It was the birthday of the boycott, the birthday of the new spirit in India.

It was not much they had to do. Only once more to utter the sacred mantra of "Bande Mataram", once more to declare that India was not lifeless, that Bengal was faithful to the vow she had made. He waited to see what would happen on that date in Bengal, whether they would attend in their hundreds or in their thousands or in their tens of thousands. It was Bengal on which the burden of the struggle fell because she first had preached the Gospel and she first had had the courage to bear suffering for the Gospel. Therefore God had given them the privilege to bear the greater part of the suffering. By so doing He had shown a great love towards Bengal. The fate of India was with the Bengalis. As they answered the question put to them, the future would be determined. It was not the first time the question had been put or the last time it would be put, for it was not the crisis of a moment but a protracted struggle. The question was with them always and every moment their responsibility for answering it in the right sense remained with them. But especially on such a day as the 7th of August the responsibility was great. He waited to see what would be the answer to the question.

But even if the response were less than he expected, even if the demoralisation he had heard of were real and there were a shrinkage in the numbers that attended, that would not discourage him.

So long as in this country there were a few who had the courage of their faith, so long as there were even a few who were ready to proclaim their faith and live it, there was no fear for the ultimate triumph of the faithful.

It is described in the Christian Bible how the cult of the true faith was almost extinguished by persecution and all Israel turned from Jehovah to foreign idols, and even the chief prophet of the faith thought himself alone and hid his head. God called to him to go forth and strive with the priests of Baal. "Always," He said, "in the nation I have chosen there are some who confess me and now too in this nation there are seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So always in this Bengal which God had chosen there would always be several thousands who would be true to the faith and never bow the knee to false gods. If the voices that proclaimed it were silenced, if the organisers were taken away, others would rise in their place; if those were taken, still others would come, if few, yet faithful. Some would always be left who would not be afraid to utter the name of their Mother. Some would still preserve the faith and preach the Gospel; theirs was the blood of Raktabij. (Laughter and cheers) For their action sprang from no passing or material interest but from something that was imperishable and perennial. It was something which the fire could not burn and the sword could not kill, the winds of repression could not wither and all the waters could not drown. For all that there was a great importance in the nation's response on the 7th of August. On our action now it depended whether salvation came swiftly or were put off and the struggle and suffering prolonged for decades.

On their fidelity to Swadeshi, to boycott, to passive resistance rested the hope of a peaceful and spiritual salvation. On that it depended whether India would give the example unprecedented in history of a revolution worked out by moral force and peaceful pressure. For on the 7th August the strength of the nation would be measured, not the numerical strength, but the moral strength which was greater than anything physical. He appealed to the audience to see that no one of the thousands assembled remained absent on that day.

They must remember that it was a day of worship and consecration, when the Mother looked upon her assembled children. She would ask on this 7th of August how many were faithful to her and whether after her centuries of affliction she had still years of suffering to endure, or by the love and strength of her children might expect the approaching hour of her felicity. If they were unfaithful now let them remember to whom they would be unfaithful,—to themselves, to their vows, to the future of their country, to God, to their Mother.

College Square Speech - I

Delivered at College Square, Calcutta, on 18 July 1909. Text published in the Bengalee on 20 July and reproduced in the Karmayogin on 24 July.

I thank you for the kindly welcome that you have accorded to me. The time fixed by the law for the breaking up of the meeting is also at hand, and I am afraid I have disappointed one or two speakers by getting up so soon. But there is just one word that has to be spoken today.

Recently a speech has been made in the Bengal Legislative Council by the Lieutenant-Governor of this province, a speech which I think is one of the most unfortunate and most amazing that have ever been delivered by a ruler in his position. The occasion of the speech was a reference to certain murders that have recently been committed in London. Those murders have been committed by a young man with whom there has been no proof that any other man in India or in England is connected, no proof that any conspiracy has been behind him. Not only so but the Police in London have declared that so far as their evidence goes they find that the murder was dictated by personal and not political motives. That crime is still the subject of a trial which has not been closed. Was this the time,—was this the occasion for the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal to rise from his seat in the Legislative Council and practically associate the whole country with and make the whole country responsible for the crime of a single isolated youth in London? Not only so, but the Lieutenant-Governor, in referring to the crime, said that there had been plenty of denunciations in this country but those denunciations did not go far. And he wanted from us one thing more and that was co-operation. He wants co-operation from the whole community. He further saddled his request with the threat that if this co-operation were not

obtained, steps would have to be taken in which there would be no room for nice discrimination between the innocent and the guilty.

The murders that have been committed in Bengal have been sufficiently proved by the failure of case after case to be the acts of isolated individuals. There has been only a single instance which is still sub judice, and even if it were fully established, it would only prove that the crime was done in one case by a small group of men. Under such circumstances what is the co-operation that the L.-G. demands from us? He will not be satisfied if we denounce and dissociate ourselves from the crime. He wants co-operation. It is at least desirable that he should name and describe the co-operation he insists on before he carries out the remarkable threat with which he has sought to enforce his demand. There has been much talk recently, in a wider sense, of co-operation. Now, gentlemen, we are a people who demand self-government. We have a government in which we are not at all associated and over which we have no control. What is the co-operation a government of this kind can really demand from us? It can only demand from us obedience to the law, co-operation in keeping the law and observing peace and order. What further co-operation can they expect from us? Even in the matter which the L.-G. has mentioned, we are at a loss to see how a people circumstanced like ourselves can help him.

Still I have a proposal to make. I think there is only one way by which these unfortunate occurrences can be stopped. The ruler of Bengal in his speech spoke in approval of a certain speech made by Mr. Gokhale at Poona recently. In that speech Mr. Gokhale declared that the ideal of independence was an ideal which no sane man could hold. He said that it was impossible to achieve independence by peaceful means and the people who advocate the peaceful methods of passive resistance are men who, out of cowardice, do not speak out the thought that is in their heart. That idea of Mr. Gokhale's has been contradicted beforehand by the Sessions Judge of Alipore and even an Anglo-Indian paper was obliged to say that Mr. Gokhale's justification

of the repressions on the ground that stern and relentless repression was the only possible attitude the Government could adopt towards the ideal of independence was absurd because the ideals and the thoughts of a nation could not be punished. This was a very dangerous teaching which Mr. Gokhale introduced into his speech, that the ideal of independence—whether we call it Swaraj or autonomy or Colonial Self-Government, because these two things in a country circumstanced like India meant in practice the same (loud applause),—cannot be achieved by peaceful means. Mr. Gokhale knows or ought to know that this ideal which he decries is deeply-rooted in the minds of thousands of people and cannot be driven out. He has told the ardent hearts which cherish this ideal of independence and are determined to strive towards it that their ideal can only be achieved by violent means. If any doctrine can be dangerous, if any teacher can be said to have uttered words dangerous to the peace of the country, it is Mr. Gokhale himself. (Loud cheers) We have told the people that there is a peaceful means of achieving independence in whatever form we aspire to it. We have said that by self-help, by passive resistance we can achieve it. We have told the young men of our country, "Build up your own industries, build up your own schools and colleges, settle your own disputes. You are always told that you are not fit for self-government. Show by example that you are fit to govern yourselves, show it by developing self-government through self-help and not by depending upon others."

There is a second limb to that policy and it is passive resistance. Passive resistance means two things. It means first that in certain matters we shall not co-operate with the Government of this country until it gives us what we consider our rights. Secondly, if we are persecuted, if the plough of repression is passed over us, we shall meet it not by violence, but by suffering, by passive resistance, by lawful means. We have not said to our young men, "when you are repressed, retaliate;" we have said, "suffer." Now we are told that by doing so we are encouragers of sedition and anarchism. We have been told by Anglo-Indian papers that by speaking in Beadon Square and other places on

patriotism and the duty of suffering we encourage sedition. We are told that in preaching passive resistance we are encouraging the people to violate law and order and are fostering violence and rebellion. The contrary is the truth. We are showing the people of this country in passive resistance the only way in which they can satisfy their legitimate aspiration without breaking the law and without resorting to violence. This is the only way we can find to co-operate in maintaining peace and order.

The co-operation we expect from the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and from the Government of this country in return is that they will respect the primary rights of the people of this country, they will respect the right of public meeting and the right of a free press and the right of free association. If they cooperate so far then we can assure them that this movement will advance on peaceful lines and the thing which troubles them will cease for ever. But the L.-G. says that measures will be passed which will observe no nice discrimination between the innocent and the guilty. A more cynical statement has seldom issued from a ruler in the position of Sir Edward Baker. If the threat is carried out, who will be the gainers? I do not deny that it may for a time stop our public activities. It may force the school of peaceful self-development and passive resistance to desist for a while from its activities at least in their present form. But who will gain by it? Not the Government, neither Mr. Gokhale and his school of passive co-operation. It is the very terrorists, the very anarchists, whom you wish to put down, who will gain by it. It will remove from the people their one hope, but it will give the terrorists a fresh incentive and it will teach the violent hearts, the undisciplined and ardent minds a very dangerous lesson that there is no peaceful way to the fulfilment of their aspirations and the consequence will be such as one trembles to contemplate. I trust the threat will never be carried out. I trust that the Government will be ruled by wise counsels and consider the matter more carefully. There are ominous signs and it seems as if measures were about to be passed which will put an end to the right of public meeting and the public expression of our feelings. But I trust that wiser counsels will yet prevail.

The Government should remember that it stands dissociated from the people by its very constitution. If it wants co-operation it cannot get the co-operation which is simply another name for passive obedience. That is the doctrine which is being taught today, the doctrine of the divine right of officials and the obligation on the people of passive obedience. That is a doctrine which no modern nation can accept. No modern nation can accept the extinction of its legitimate and natural hopes. Co-operation can only be given if the Government which is now alien becomes our own, if the people have a share in it, not merely in name, not merely by the right of talk in the legislative council, not merely by apparent concessions, but by getting some measure of control in the matter of legislation, in the expenditure of the taxes they are called on to pay for the maintenance of the administration, if, in short, they can be given some starting-point from which in future the Government of the country can be developed into a Government of the people. That is the only condition upon which the co-operation, of which we hear so much nowadays, can be given. Without it co-operation is a satire, it is a parody. It is the co-operation in which one side acts and the other side merely says "yes" which is demanded of us. We cannot give our sanction to such co-operation. So long as even that little of substantial self-government is not conceded to us, we have no choice but to cleave firmly to passive resistance as the only peaceful path to the realisation of our legitimate aspirations. We cannot sacrifice our country. We cannot give up the ideal that is dear to our heart. We cannot sacrifice our Mother. If you take away our primary rights all that is left for us is passive resistance and peacefully to suffer, peacefully to refuse the parody of co-operation which we are asked to give.

Speech at the Hughly Conference

Delivered at the Bengal Provincial Conference, held at Hughly, Bengal, on 6 September 1909. Report published in the Bengalee on 7 September and reproduced in a Government of India Home Department file.

Aurobindo Ghose spoke to Resolution No. IV—"that this conference urges the people to continue the boycott of foreign goods inaugurated on August 7th 1905, which is, in its opinion, a perfectly legitimate movement and is calculated to promote the political as well as the industrial and economical welfare of the country."

Moulvi Dedar Bux moved and Sasankajiban Roy seconded it.

Aurobindo Ghose said:—

Mr. President and Members:—I desire to say two words before I say anything further—I entreat you to hear me out without expressing or giving any sign either of approval or dissent; I pray you to hear me in perfect silence. This is a resolution which nobody can oppose. It is not my intention to bring any amendment with regard to it, but I have simply to make a brief statement without argument of any kind from the standpoint of myself and those who are of the same way of thinking as myself. You are aware that we have a certain theory of politics, a certain view with regard to political action in this country. We hold that as we have no effective share in the administration of this country, and our position is such that there is no means of having even our prayers and petitions listened to, therefore the only effective course for us to take is, as far as possible, to withhold our co-operation from the Government, until they give us some effective control over the administration and some constitutional means by which we can bring the voice of the people and the weight of public opinion to bear upon the management

of the affairs of this country. We hold that in these circumstances we ought to put forward the interests of the country partly by a movement of self-help and so far as we have power to deal with the Government by means of passive resistance, peaceably and within the law. And this passive resistance we do not wish to confine merely to commercial boycott. We hold that it can and should be extended to other kinds of boycott. ("Hear, hear") We don't hold that it should be done with absolute thoroughness but so far as is possible and rational and so far as is wise in the interests of the country. Last year at Pabna a resolution was passed which gave room for our view of politics and it was our intention to press this resolution upon the Subjects Committee. But we found that by pressing the point on the Committee the hope of a United Congress and the unity of Bengal and this Provincial Conference might be seriously imperilled. Now we are extremely anxious for the unity of the Congress. We are anxious we should throw no obstacle in the way of any hope of union, therefore we have decided not to press that amendment in the Subjects Committee, nor to bring forward our full amendment with regard to the reforms. At the same time we want it to be clearly understood that in taking this course we are not for a moment receding from the policy and line we have taken up, and we consider for obvious reasons that it is absolutely necessary for us, especially at this time, to make it clear that we have not receded so far as the resolution goes. We thoroughly support it. But at the same time we wish it to be understood that we keep our position and we adhere to our policy of a boycott—of a boycott movement without any qualification, as a measure of policy for this country, as a political weapon, and as a measure of economical protection. ("Bande Mataram.")

College Square Speech - II

Delivered at College Square, Calcutta, on 10 October 1909. Text published in the Times of India (Bombay) on 11 October.

Mr. Aurobindo Ghose next rose amid loud cheers and cries of "Bande Mataram". He said that the meeting was the last they could hold before the Partition Day, which was approaching, and so he could speak a few words about that illustrious day which should be observed with great national enthusiasm. The 16th October had become a memorable day, not only in the history of India, but in that of the world. The 7th of August was the day of the awakening of the nation and the 16th October was the day when that awakened nation publicly declared its individuality and indestructible vitality. A time might come when the future generation would have an occasion to celebrate that day as one of national rejoicing. The speaker then dwelt upon the several aspects of Partition Day, when Bengal was split up, and said he did not recognise the separation and would not do so. It was on that day that they declared through the leaders of the nation, and by a national proclamation, that the unity of Bengal remained intact and that there was no power strong enough to break it. He explained the true meaning of the Swadeshi and boycott movements and went on to say that they should have a separate existence. They had a past and a future and should assert their individuality. He emphasised the fact that every country in the world was more or less Swadeshi. So Bengal must learn the value of self-help. The Partition Day should also be associated with national determination to revive the commerce and industry of the country and to regain that prosperity which once prevailed in India. Bengal must remain united.

Mr. Ghose proceeded to say that the national movement was

beset with manifold difficulties. Holding up before the audience a piece of Manchester cloth, stamped with the words "Bande Mataram", he exclaimed that the great cause was suffering on account of certain unprincipled men who were trying to assail the Swadeshi movement from all sides. The speaker had learned with great sorrow that foreign cloths were still pouring into the market and having a large sale. The more the difficulties in the way, he declared, the stronger would the movement be. He concluded his address by asking his countrymen to observe the 16th of October with due mourning.

Bhawanipur Speech

Delivered at Bhawanipur, Calcutta, on 13 October 1909. Text published in the Bengalee on 15 October.

Gentlemen,—The time before us is extremely short. There are other speakers who will address you and the sun is now hastening down to its set. Therefore I hope you will excuse me if what I have to say to you is very briefly said. We meet here preliminary to the holding of the anniversary of the Partition. Babu Lalit Mohan Das has told you the significance of that day. Let me add this, that the 16th October has become one of the chief landmarks of our year, and not only the chief landmark of our year but the landmark of the progress of our movement—a movement of the progress of Swadeshi and boycott which we undertook in the year when the Partition was effected. We see on that day how far it has progressed, or if it has receded, how far it has receded. We are carrying on that movement at the present time under the greatest difficulties possible. Every kind of obstruction is being thrown in our way. You know very well what efforts have been made to mar the attendance at the meeting. It is supposed that the meeting is mainly composed of students, a delusion which the authorities cannot get rid of and therefore strenuous efforts are made to prevent students of our colleges from joining any political meeting and pressure is brought to bear upon the authorities of colleges to dismiss from their employment any professor who joins in the political life of his country. Yesterday the news was published of the suppression of another Samiti, the Anushilan Samiti. We all know what the Anushilan Samiti is. We all know that it is one of those Samitis which has the least to do with politics. It is one of the most self-restrained and self-denying of all the associations and confined itself to perfectly harmless activities, to improve

the physique of the nation, to give relief in time of famine, to help their countrymen on occasions like the recent Ardhoday Yog. This was the kind of work which this Samiti did. Suddenly the Government has found out that with the existence of this society it is impossible to carry on the administration of the law. Our associations have been suppressed and we are carrying on this Swadeshi movement without organisation, without proper instrument and without proper equipment. We have to face any number of temptations, we have to face any number of obstacles, we have to face also intimidation. In spite of all that, we cling to the movement and we go on with it.

The one message we can give to you, under such circumstances, is the message to hold firm. If you cannot progress see that you have not receded. Hold firm to the Swadeshi, hold firm to your refusal to the recognition of the Partition, hold firm to the national movement which is uplifting India. Let not any act of yours individually or collectively make you guilty in the eye of posterity in this critical hour of the destinies of India. Remember this, whether we look to our own efforts to raise the nation or whether we look to our rulers, that nothing can be done by the weak and so nothing is given to the weak. Remember the people of England do not understand weakness. They only understand strength. Remember this that they do not understand those who aspire to a height and yet flinch. They only understand resolution, steadfastness and determination. Even if you look from that standpoint the only message that the leader of the people can give to you is always to hold firm. If we look higher, if we look to the deeper significance of this movement, remember that whenever a subject nation arises it is by the will of God. If only we are true and hold firm, everything in this God-given movement will help towards the goal. As favourable circumstances help us so also will unfavourable circumstances help us. Temptation is necessary to maintain the moral fibre of the nation, both to maintain and to strengthen it. Resistance to obstacles is necessary to train its capacity to resistance, refusal to yield to intimidation necessary to attain that strength and courage without which no nation can rise, or if it rises to

maintain itself in the great struggle which pervades this world. Therefore, whatever happens to us, once we have started let us carry it forward. If we are defeated it is in order to learn how to conquer. If we are suppressed it is in order to learn how to rise irresistibly; and if we for a moment recoil, it is in order that we may be led forward more swiftly and further on. Therefore I trust that even with all these obstacles and even in spite of various rumours we hear on this 16th of October, the landmark of our progress, we will show that we have not receded one step but progressed. Even if it is not so, let us remember the enormous difficulties that we have to face. Let us remember the power that led us on. Whatever happens let us have faith and courage—faith that looks beyond all momentary obstacles and reverses and sees the goal that God has set before us, and the courage that never flinches for a moment but moves forward calmly, wisely, but strongly and irresistibly to that goal.

Beadon Square Speech - II

Delivered at Beadon Square, Calcutta, on 16 October 1909, the fourth anniversary of the effectuation of the Partition of Bengal. Report published in the Bengalee on 17 October.

Then amidst fresh cheers and renewed and prolonged shouts of "Bande Mataram" in came Babu Aurobindo Ghose and the inevitable rush for rakhi bandhan ensued for a few minutes. Babu Aurobindo also spoke a few words in Bengali. He said that he was unwilling to speak in a foreign tongue on such a sacred occasion. He was not, on the other hand, accustomed to speak in his mother tongue. But he would only say one thing, viz., that the rakhi bandhan was not only a bond of thread but it was the semblance of another tie. It was the sign of uniting the hearts of millions of people of United Bengal. The rakhi might be removed in a day or two but that sacred bond of hearts would remain firm through all ages. There was no power on earth which could untie that sacred knot—it was a national bond. They had taken oath. They should stick to it, God helping.

An Open Letter to My Countrymen

The position of a public man who does his duty in India today, is too precarious to permit of his being sure of the morrow. I have recently come out of a year's seclusion from work for my country on a charge which there was not a scrap of reliable evidence to support, but my acquittal is no security either against the trumping up of a fresh accusation or the arbitrary law of deportation which dispenses with the inconvenient formality of a charge and the still more inconvenient necessity of producing evidence. Especially with the hounds of the Anglo-Indian Press barking at our heels and continually clamouring for Government to remove every man who dares to raise his voice to speak of patriotism and its duties, the liberty of the person is held on a tenure which is worse than precarious. Rumour is strong that a case for my deportation has been submitted to the Government by the Calcutta Police and neither the tranquillity of the country nor the scrupulous legality of our procedure is a guarantee against the contingency of the all-powerful fiat of the Government watchdogs silencing scruples on the part of those who advise at Simla. Under such circumstances I have thought it well to address this letter to my countrymen, and especially to those who profess the principles of the Nationalist party, on the needs of the present and the policy of the future. In case of my deportation it may help to guide some who would be uncertain of their course of action, and, if I do not return from it, it may stand as my last political will and testament to my countrymen.

The situation of the Nationalist party is difficult but not impossible. The idea of some that the party is extinct because its leaders are sentenced or deported, is an error which comes of looking only at the surface. The party is there, not less powerful and pervading than before, but in want of a policy and a

leader. The first it may find, the second only God can give it. All great movements wait for their God-sent leader, the willing channel of His force, and only when he comes, move forward triumphantly to their fulfilment. The men who have led hitherto have been strong men of high gifts and commanding genius, great enough to be the protagonists of any other movement, but even they were not sufficient to fulfil one which is the chief current of a worldwide revolution. Therefore the Nationalist party, custodians of the future, must wait for the man who is to come, calm in the midst of calamity, hopeful under defeat, sure of eventual emergence and triumph and always mindful of the responsibility which they owe not only to their Indian posterity but to the world.

Meanwhile the difficulties of our situation ask for bold yet wary walking. The strength of our position is moral, not material. The whole of the physical strength in the country belongs to the established authority which our success would, so far as its present form is concerned, abolish by transforming it out of all possibility of recognition. It is natural that it should use all its physical strength to prevent, so long as it can, that transformation. The whole of the moral strength of the country is with us. Justice is with us, nature is with us, the law of God which is higher than any human justifies our action, youth is for us, the future is ours. On that moral strength we must rely for our survival and eventual success. We must not be tempted by any rash impatience into abandoning the ground on which we are strong and venturing on the ground on which we are weak. Our ideal is an ideal which no law can condemn; our chosen methods are such that no modern Government can expressly declare them illegal without forfeiting its claim to be considered a civilised administration. To that ideal and to those methods we must firmly adhere and rely on them alone for our eventual success. A respect for the law is a necessary quality for endurance as a nation and it has always been a marked characteristic of the Indian people. We must therefore scrupulously observe the law while taking every advantage both of the protection it gives and the latitude it still leaves for pushing forward our cause and our

propaganda. With the stray assassinations which have troubled the country we have no concern, and, having once clearly and firmly dissociated ourselves from them, we need notice them no farther. They are the rank and noxious fruit of a rank and noxious policy and until the authors of that policy turn from their errors, no human power can prevent the poison-tree from bearing according to its kind. We who have no voice either in determining the laws or their administration, are helpless in the matter. To deportation and proclamation, the favourite instruments of men incapable of a wise and strong rule, we can only oppose a steady and fearless adherence to the propagandism and practice of a lawful policy and a noble ideal.

Our ideal is that of Swaraj or absolute autonomy free from foreign control. We claim the right of every nation to live its own life by its own energies according to its own nature and ideals. We reject the claim of aliens to force upon us a civilisation inferior to our own or to keep us out of our inheritance on the untenable ground of a superior fitness. While admitting the stains and defects which long subjection has induced upon our native capacity and energy, we are conscious of that capacity and energy reviving in us. We point to the unexampled national vigour which has preserved the people of this country through centuries of calamity and defeat, to the great actions of our forefathers continued even to the other day, to the many men of intellect and character such as no other nation in a subject condition has been able to produce, and we say that a people capable of such unheard-of vitality is not one which can be put down as a nation of children and incapables. We are in no way inferior to our forefathers. We have brains, we have courage, we have an infinite and various national capacity. All we need is a field and an opportunity. That field and opportunity can only be provided by a national government, a free society and a great Indian culture. So long as these are not conceded to us, we can have no other use for our brains, courage and capacity than to struggle unceasingly to achieve them.

Our ideal of Swaraj involves no hatred of any other nation nor of the administration which is now established by law in this

country. We find a bureaucratic administration, we wish to make it democratic; we find an alien government, we wish to make it indigenous; we find a foreign control, we wish to render it Indian. They lie who say that this aspiration necessitates hatred and violence. Our ideal of patriotism proceeds on the basis of love and brotherhood and it looks beyond the unity of the nation and envisages the ultimate unity of mankind. But it is a unity of brothers, equals and freemen that we seek, not the unity of master and serf, of devourer and devoured. We demand the realisation of our corporate existence as a distinct race and nation because that is the only way in which the ultimate brotherhood of humanity can be achieved, not by blotting out individual peoples and effacing outward distinctions, but by removing the internal obstacles to unity, the causes of hatred, malice and misunderstanding. A struggle for our rights does not involve hatred of those who mistakenly deny them. It only involves a determination to suffer and strive, to speak the truth boldly and without respect of persons, to use every lawful means of pressure and every source of moral strength in order to establish ourselves and disestablish that which denies the law of progress.

Our methods are those of self-help and passive resistance. To unite and organise ourselves in order to show our efficiency by the way in which we can develop our industries, settle our individual disputes, keep order and peace on public occasions, attend to questions of sanitation, help the sick and suffering, relieve the famine-stricken, work out our intellectual, technical and physical education, evolve a Government of our own for our own internal affairs so far as that could be done without disobeying the law or questioning the legal authority of the bureaucratic administration, this was the policy publicly and frankly adopted by the Nationalist party. In Bengal we had advanced so far as to afford distinct proof of our capacity in almost all these respects and the evolution of a strong united and well-organised Bengal had become a near and certain prospect. The internal troubles which came to a head at Surat and the repressive policy initiated immediately afterwards, culminating in the destruction of our organisations and the effective intimidation of Swadeshi workers

and sympathisers by official underlings, have both been serious checks to our progress and seem for the moment to have postponed the realisation of our hopes to a distant future. The check is temporary. Courage and sane statesmanship in our leaders is all that is wanted to restore the courage and the confidence of the people and evolve new methods of organisation which will not come into conflict even with the repressive laws.

The policy of passive resistance was evolved partly as the necessary complement of self-help, partly as a means of putting pressure on the Government. The essence of this policy is the refusal of co-operation so long as we are not admitted to a substantial share and an effective control in legislation, finance and administration. Just as "No representation, no taxation" was the watchword of American constitutional agitation in the eighteenth century, so "No control, no co-operation" should be the watchword of our lawful agitation—for constitution we have none,—in the twentieth. We sum up this refusal of co-operation in the convenient word "Boycott", refusal of cooperation in the industrial exploitation of our country, in education, in government, in judicial administration, in the details of official intercourse. Necessarily, we have not made that refusal of co-operation complete and uncompromising, but we hold it as a method to be enlarged and pushed farther according as the necessity for moral pressure becomes greater and more urgent. This is one aspect of the policy. Another is the necessity of boycott to help our own nascent energies in the field of self-help. Boycott of foreign goods is a necessary condition for the encouragement of Swadeshi industries, boycott of Government schools is a necessary condition for the growth of national education, boycott of British courts is a necessary condition for the spread of arbitration. The only question is the extent and conditions of the boycott and that must be determined by the circumstances of the particular problem in each case. The general spirit of passive resistance has first to be raised, afterwards it can be organised, regulated and, where necessary, limited.

The first obstacle to our evolution is the internal dispute which has for the moment wrecked the Congress and left in

its place the hollow and mutilated simulacrum of a National Assembly which met last year at Madras and, deprived though it is of the support of the most eminent local leaders, purposes to meet again at Lahore. It is a grievous error to suppose that this dispute hung only on personal questions and differences of a trifling importance. As happens inevitably in such popular contests, personal questions and differences of minor importance intervened to perplex and embitter the strife, but the real questions in debate were those which involved the whole future development of the spirit and form of self-government in this country. Were that spirit and form to be democratic or oligarchic? Were they to be constitutional in procedure or governed by arbitrary and individual choice and discretion? Was the movement to be progressive and national or conservative and parochial in its aims, policy and spirit? These were the real issues. The Nationalist party stood for democracy, constitutionalism and progress. The Moderate party, governed by an exaggerated respect for old and esteemed leaders, helped, without clearly understanding what they did, those who stood for oligarchy, arbitrary procedure and an almost reactionary conservatism. Personal idiosyncracies, preferences, aversions settled like a thick cloud over the contest, the combatants on both sides flung themselves on every point of difference material or immaterial as a pretext or a weapon, the tactics of party warfare were freely used and, finally, the deliberate obstinacy of a few Moderate leaders in avoiding discussion of the points of difference and the unruly ardour of the younger men on both sides led to the violent scenes at Surat and the break-up of the Congress. If the question is ever to be settled to the advantage of national progress, the personal and minor differences must be banished from the field and the real issues plainly and dispassionately considered.

The questions of particular importance which divide the parties, are the exact form of Swaraj to be held forward as an ideal, the policy of passive resistance and the form of certain resolutions. The last is a question to be decided by the Congress itself and all that the Nationalists demand is that discussion shall not be burked and that they shall not be debarred from their

constitutional right of placing their views before the National Assembly. On the other points, they cannot sacrifice their ideal or their policy, but their contention is that these differences ought not in a free deliberative assembly to stand in the way of united progress. The Swaraj matter can easily be settled by the substitution of "full and complete self-government" for "self-government on Colonial lines" in the Swaraj resolution. The difference as to passive resistance hinges at present on the Boycott resolution which the Nationalist party—and in this they are supported by a large body of Moderate opinion,—cannot consent to sacrifice. But here also they are willing to submit the question to the arbitrament of a freely elected Congress, though they refuse to recognise a close and limited Subjects Committee as the final authority. It will be seen therefore that the real question throughout is constitutional. The body which at present calls itself the Congress, has adopted a constitution which is close, exclusive, undemocratic and so framed as to limit the free election of delegates by the people. It limits itself by proposing a number of articles of faith in a particular form of words to every intending delegate before he can take his seat; it aims at the election of delegates only by select bodies and associations instead of the direct election of the people; it excuses many from the chances of election and gives them an undue weight in the disposal of the affairs of the assembly. These and similar provisions no democratic party can accept. A Nationalist Conference or a Moderate Convention may so guard its integrity, but the Congress is and must be a National Assembly admitting freely all who are duly elected by the people. The proposed passing of this reactionary constitution by a body already limited under its provisions will not cure the constitutional defect. It is only a Congress elected on the old lines that can determine the future provisions for its constitution and procedure with any hope of universal acceptance.

It is not therefore by any manipulation of the Convention Congress that a solution of the problem can be brought about, but by the Provincial Conferences empowering the leaders of

both parties to meet in Committee and provide for an arrangement which will heal differences and enable the Congress to work smoothly and freely in the future. If there is a minority who refuse to associate themselves with any such attempt, the majority will be justified by the mandate of the Provinces in disregarding them and meeting to carry out the popular wish. Once the lines are settled they can be submitted to the free choice of a freely elected Congress for acceptance, rejection or modification. This will restore a Congress on sound constitutional lines in which the bitter experience of the past may be relied on to prevent those mistakes of obstinacy and passion which prevented a solution of the problem at Surat.

Outside the Congress the chances of united working are more complete than within it. There are only two questions which are likely either to trouble harmony or hamper action. The first is the question of the acceptance or rejection of the present reforms introducing, as they do, no element of popular control nor any fresh constitutional principle except the unsound principle of privileged representation for a single community. This involves the wider question of co-operation. It is generally supposed that the Nationalist party is committed to the persistent and uncompromising refusal of co-operation until they get the full concession of Swaraj. Nationalist publicists have not cared to combat this error explicitly because they were more anxious to get their ideal accepted and the spirit of passive resistance and complete self-help popularised than to discuss a question which was not then a part of practical politics. But it is obvious that a party advancing such a proposition would be a party of doctrinaires and idealists, not of practical thinkers and workers. The Nationalist principle is the principle of "No control, no co-operation." Since all control has been refused and so long as all control is refused, the Nationalist party preaches the refusal of co-operation as complete as we can make it. But it is evident that if, for instance, the power of imposing protective duties were given to a popular and elective body, no serious political party would prefer persistence in commercial boycott to the use of the powers conceded. Or if education were similarly

made free of official control and entrusted to a popular body, as Lord Reay once thought of entrusting it, no sensible politician would ask the nation to boycott that education. Or if the courts were manned by Indian judges and made responsible not to the Executive but to a Minister representing the people, arbitration would immediately take its place as a supplementary aid to the regular courts. So also the refusal to co-operate in an administration which excludes the people from an effective voice does not involve a refusal to co-operate in an administration of which the people are an effective part. The refusal of autocratic gifts does not involve a refusal to take up popular rights inalienably secured to the people. It is on the contrary with the object of compelling the concession of the various elements of Swaraj by peaceful moral pressure and in the absence of such concessions developing our own institutions to the gradual extrusion and final supplanting of bureaucratic institutions that the policy of self-help and passive resistance was started. This acceptance of popular rights does not imply the abandonment of the ideal of complete autonomy or of the use of passive resistance in case of any future arbitrary interference with the rights of the people. It implies only the use of partial Swaraj as a step and means towards complete Swaraj. Where the Nationalists definitely and decisively part company with an influential section of the Moderates is in refusing to accept any petty or illusory concession which will draw away our aspirations from their unalterable ideal or delude the people into thinking they have secured real rights.

Another question is that of cleaving to and enforcing the Boycott. In Bengal, even if there are some who are timid or reactionary enough to shrink from the word or the thing, the general feeling in its favour is emphatic and practically unanimous. But it is time now to consider seriously the question of regulating the boycott. Nationalists have always demurred to the proviso "as far as possible" in the Swadeshi resolution on account of the large loophole its vagueness left to the hesitating and the lukewarm, and they have preferred the form "at a sacrifice". But it will now be well if we face the concrete problems of the boycott.

While we must keep it absolute wherever Swadeshi articles are procurable as also in respect to pure luxuries with which we can dispense, we must recognise that there are necessities of life and business for which we have still to go to foreign countries. The public ought to be guided as to the choice of the countries which we shall favour in the purchase of these articles,—necessarily they must be countries sympathetic to Indian aspirations,—and those which we shall exclude. The failure to deal with this question is largely responsible for the laxity of our political boycott and our consequent failure to get the Partition rescinded. There are also other questions, such as the attempt of shopkeepers and merchants to pass off foreign goods wholesale as Swadeshi, which must be taken up at once if the movement is not to suffer a serious setback.

A final difficulty remains,—by what organisation are we to carry on the movement even when these questions are settled? The Nationalist programme was to build up a great deliberative and executive organisation on the basis of a reconstituted Congress, and this scheme still remains the only feasible means of organising the country. Even if a united Congress cannot be secured, the provinces ought to organise themselves separately, and perhaps this may prove to be the only possible way of restoring the Congress, by reconstituting it from the bottom. Even the District organisations, however, cannot work effectively without hands, and these we had provided for in the Sabhas and Samitis of young men which sprang up on all sides and were just succeeding in forming an efficient network of organisation all over Bengal. These are now being suppressed by administrative order. It becomes a question whether we cannot replace them by a loose and elusive organisation of young men in groups ordering each its own work by common agreement and working hand in hand, but without a rigid or definite organisation. I throw out the suggestion for consideration by the leaders of thought and action in the provinces where unity seems at all feasible.

This then is the situation as it presents itself to me. The policy I suggest to the Nationalist party may briefly be summed up as follows:—

1) Persistence with a strict regard to law in a peaceful policy of self-help and passive resistance.

2) The regulation of our attitude towards the Government by the principle of "No control, no co-operation."

3) A rapprochement with the Moderate party wherever possible and the reconstitution of a united Congress.

4) The regulation of the Boycott movement so as to make both the political and the economic boycott effective.

5) The organisation of the Provinces if not of the whole country according to our original programme.

6) A system of co-operation which will not contravene the law and will yet enable workers to proceed with the work of self-help and national efficiency, if not quite so effectively as before, yet with energy and success.

AUROBINDO GHOSE

OTHER WRITINGS BY SRI AUROBINDO IN THIS ISSUE

Kalidasa's Seasons I: Its Authenticity

The Katha Upanishad I.2

To My Countrymen

Two decisive incidents have happened which make it compulsory on the Nationalist party to abandon their attitude of reserve and expectancy and once more assume their legitimate place in the struggle for Indian liberties. The Reforms, so long trumpeted as the beginning of a new era of constitutional progress in India, have been thoroughly revealed to the public intelligence by the publication of the Councils Regulations and the results of the elections showing the inevitable nature and composition of the new Councils. The negotiations for the union of Moderates and Nationalists in a United Congress have failed owing to the insistence of the former on the Nationalists subscribing to a Moderate profession of faith.

The survival of Moderate politics in India depended on two factors, the genuineness and success of the promised Reforms and the use made by the Conventionists of the opportunity given them by the practical suppression of Nationalist public activity. The field was clear for them to establish the effectiveness of the Moderate policy and the living force of the Moderate party. Had the Reforms been a genuine initiation of constitutional progress, the Moderate tactics might have received some justification from events. Or had the Moderates given proof of the power of carrying on a robust and vigorous agitation for popular rights, their strength and vitality as a political force might have been established, even if their effectiveness had been disproved. The Reforms have shown that nothing can be expected from persistence in Moderate politics except retrogression, disappointment and humiliation. The experience of the last year has shown that, without the Nationalists at their back, the Moderates are im-potent for opposition and robust agitation. The political life of India in their hands has languished and fallen silent.

By the incontrovertible logic of events it has appeared that the success and vigour of the great movement inaugurated in 1905 was due to the union of Moderate and Nationalist on the platform of self-help and passive resistance. It was in order to provide an opportunity for the reestablishment of this union, broken at Surat, that the Nationalists gathered in force at Hughly in order to secure some basis and means of negotiation which might lead to united effort. The hand which we held out, has been rejected. The policy of Lord Morley has been to rally the Moderates and coerce the Nationalists; the policy of the Moderate party led by Mr. Gokhale and Sir Pherozshah Mehta has been to play into the hands of that policy and give it free course and a chance of success. This alliance has failed of its object; the beggarly reward the Moderates have received, has been confined to the smallest and least popular elements in their party. But the rejection of the alliance with their own countrymen by the insistence on creed and constitution shows that the Moderates mean to persist in their course even when all motive and political justification for it have disappeared. Discomfited and humiliated by the Government, they can still find no way to retrieve their position nor any clear and rational course to suggest to the Indian people whom they misled into a misunderstanding of the very limited promises held out by Lord Morley.

Separated from the great volume of Nationalist feeling in the country, wilfully shutting its doors to popularity and strength by the formation of electorates as close and limited as those of the Reformed Councils, self-doomed to persistence in a policy which has led to signal disaster, the Convention is destined to perish of inanition and popular indifference, dislike and opposition. If the Nationalists stand back any longer, either the national movement will disappear or the void created will be filled by a sinister and violent activity. Neither result can be tolerated by men desirous of their country's development and freedom.

The period of waiting is over. We have two things made clear to us, first, that the future of the nation is in our hands, and, secondly, that from the Moderate party we can expect no

cordial co-operation in building it. Whatever we do, we must do ourselves, in our own strength and courage. Let us then take up the work God has given us, like courageous, steadfast and patriotic men willing to sacrifice greatly and venture greatly because the mission also is great. If there are any unnerved by the fear of repression, let them stand aside. If there are any who think that by flattering Anglo-India or coquetting with English Liberalism they can dispense with the need of effort and the inevitability of peril, let them stand aside. If there are any who are ready to be satisfied with mean gains or unsubstantial concessions, let them stand aside. But all who deserve the name of Nationalists, must now come forward and take up their burden.

The fear of the law is for those who break the law. Our aims are great and honourable, free from stain or reproach, our methods are peaceful, though resolute and strenuous. We shall not break the law and, therefore, we need not fear the law. But if a corrupt police, unscrupulous officials or a partial judiciary make use of the honourable publicity of our political methods to harass the men who stand in front by illegal ukases, suborned and perjured evidence or unjust decisions, shall we shrink from the toll that we have to pay on our march to freedom? Shall we cower behind a petty secrecy or a dishonourable inactivity? We must have our associations, our organisations, our means of propaganda, and, if these are suppressed by arbitrary proclamations, we shall have done our duty by our motherland and not on us will rest any responsibility for the madness which crushes down open and lawful political activity in order to give a desperate and sullen nation into the hands of those fiercely enthusiastic and unscrupulous forces that have arisen among us inside and outside India. So long as any loophole is left for peaceful effort, we will not renounce the struggle. If the conditions are made difficult and almost impossible, can they be worse than those our countrymen have to contend against in the Transvaal? Or shall we, the flower of Indian culture and education, show less capacity and self-devotion than the coolies and shopkeepers who are there rejoicing to suffer for the honour of their nation and the welfare of their community?

What is it for which we strive? The perfect self-fulfilment of India and the independence which is the condition of self-fulfilment are our ultimate goal. In the meanwhile such imperfect self-development and such incomplete self-government as are possible in less favourable circumstances, must be attained as a preliminary to the more distant realisation. What we seek is to evolve self-government either through our own institutions or through those provided for us by the law of the land. No such evolution is possible by the latter means without some measure of administrative control. We demand, therefore, not the monstrous and misbegotten scheme which has just been brought into being, but a measure of reform based upon those democratic principles which are ignored in Lord Morley's Reforms,—a literate electorate without distinction of creed, nationality or caste, freedom of election unhampered by exclusory clauses, an effective voice in legislation and finance and some check upon an arbitrary executive. We demand also the gradual devolution of executive government out of the hands of the bureaucracy into those of the people. Until these demands are granted, we shall use the pressure of that refusal of co-operation which is termed passive resistance. We shall exercise that pressure within the limits allowed us by the law, but apart from that limitation the extent to which we shall use it, depends on expediency and the amount of resistance we have to overcome.

On our own side we have great and pressing problems to solve. National education languishes for want of moral stimulus, financial support, and emancipated brains keen and bold enough to grapple with the difficulties that hamper its organisation and progress. The movement of arbitration, successful in its inception, has been dropped as a result of repression. The Swadeshi-Boycott movement still moves by its own impetus, but its forward march has no longer the rapidity and organised irresistibility of forceful purpose which once swept it forward. Social problems are pressing upon us which we can no longer ignore. We must take up the organisation of knowledge in our country, neglected throughout the last century. We must free our social and economic development from the incubus of the

litigious resort to the ruinously expensive British Courts. We must once more seek to push forward the movement toward economic self-sufficiency, industrial independence.

These are the objects for which we have to organise the national strength of India. On us falls the burden, in us alone there is the moral ardour, faith and readiness for sacrifice which can attempt and go far to accomplish the task. But the first requisite is the organisation of the Nationalist party. I invite that party in all the great centres of the country to take up the work and assist the leaders who will shortly meet to consider steps for the initiation of Nationalist activity. It is desirable to establish a Nationalist Council and hold a meeting of the body in March or April of the next year. It is necessary also to establish Nationalist Associations throughout the country. When we have done this, we shall be able to formulate our programme and assume our proper place in the political life of India.

AUROBINDO GHOSE

OTHER WRITINGS BY SRI AUROBINDO IN THIS ISSUE

The National Value of Art VI