All surviving political writings and speeches from 1890 to 1908 including articles originally published in the nationalist newspaper 'Bande Mataram'.
All surviving political writings and speeches from 1890 to 1908. The two volumes consist primarily of 353 articles originally published in the nationalist newspaper 'Bande Mataram' between August 1906 and May 1908. Also included are political articles written by Sri Aurobindo before the start of 'Bande Mataram', speeches delivered by him between 1907 and 1908, articles from his manuscripts of that period that were not published in his lifetime, and an interview of 1908. Many of these writings were not prepared by Sri Aurobindo for publication; several were left in an unfinished state.
The development of sounder political ideas and the birth and growth of a new national energy has been so swift and wonderful that it is not surprising to find a number of our older politicians quite left behind by the rising tide. Stranded on their desert islands of antiquated political ideas, they look forlornly over the heaving tumult around them and strive piteously to imagine themselves still in their old carefully sheltered arena of mimic political strife and safe, cheap, and profitable patriotism. But the walls of the arena have been washed away, its very ground is being obliterated, and a new world of stern reality and unsparing struggle is rapidly taking its place. In the fierce heat of that conflict all shams must wither away and all empty dreams be dissolved. The issue has been fairly put between the Indian people and the alien bureaucracy. "Destroy or thou shalt be destroyed," and the issue will have to be fought out, not "it may be a century hence," but now, in the next two or three decades.
Page 109
We cannot leave the problem for posterity to settle nor shift our proper burdens on to the shoulders of our grandchildren. But our Rip Van Winkles persist in talking and writing as if Partition and Boycott and Sir Bampfylde Fuller had never been.
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