Bande Mataram

Passive Resistance in France

29-June-1907

The curious struggle in the South of France which is being waged between the vine-growing population of the South and the Government in Paris, has not yet come to a conclusion. The leaders have surrendered, but their following seems to be still defiant.

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The cause of the pother seems to be hardly proportionate to the results. The wine-trade in the south of France is on the decline because the French people are taking to other and cheaper beverages, and the vine-growers demand State protection and encouragement for their industry, which the French Government has not denied but has been somewhat dilatory in arranging. The population of southern France are hot, excitable, unstable and, being all more or less affected—for the vine is the chief produce there—have been exasperated by the neglect into something like rebellion. This is all that from this distance one can understand. The interest of the outbreak for us lies in the fact that it began with a huge passive resistance movement very much on the lines we have advocated in India, the object being to paralyze the Government and the chief weapon the voluntary resignation of the Municipalities which are indispensable instruments of administration in France. Unfortunately a fair chance was not given to the experiment which should have been one of the most interesting in human history. With the arrival of the Military the movement passed into a queer amalgam of passive resistance, military mutiny and popular revolt; the leaders took fright, surrendered or bolted to Paris, wept at the feet of ministers and returned to advise their followers to weep and surrender along with them. The whole business is somewhat farcical and extremely French. At any rate the hot French nature, impatient and incapable of endurance, found it impossible to continue the experiment. Perhaps passive resistance is in itself too much not only for French nature but for human nature generally; perhaps it is always bound to pass into active resistance. But this cannot be decided until it is given a fair trial by a more politic, patient and enduring race than the Frenchmen of the south. Meanwhile we note that the French Government has hastily passed the more urgent clauses of the Bill for assisting the wine industry. So the demonstrators have got the immediate thing that they wanted—just as the Punjabi agriculturists did.

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