Bande Mataram

Sir Andrew Fraser

30-October-1906

We are assured by the Hindu Patriot which has always played the part [of a] demi-official organ of Sir Andrew Fraser's Government, that Sir Andrew "has not the remotest idea of laying down the reins of his office before time"—and like the old man in the Arabian Nights he will, in spite of the repeated snubs he has received from his official superiors, continue to embarrass us for two more years. It matters little who rules the province. The policy of the bureaucracy is fixed and one individual in charge of the administrative machinery is as good as another. But the remarks of the Hindu Patriot are rather painfully amusing. The Patriot would not have taken any notice of the rumoured resignation of its patron "if our silence was not being widely construed as indicating the truth of the report". This is how the Patriot shamelessly proclaims to the world generally (and to Native chiefs and office-seekers specially) its close connection with the head of Government. Old Haris Chandra Patriot—"This is all remains of thee!" We are told by this connoisseur of sound administration "that its interests are safe in the hands of Sir Andrew Fraser." At least the interests of the Patriot are. We are next assured that Sir Andrew "loves the people, and the people love him". Sir Andrew may love the people,—he must love the post and the pay to come back after repeated rebuffs. But why talk of the people's love for him? The people cannot love a civilian who was made a Lieutenant-Governor because he had undertaken to support the partition of the Province. And the less the officialised Patriot talks of the people the better for all concerned. Since the dawn of the Sarvadhicary ascendancy it has been the aim and ambition of the Patriot to please Anglo-Indian officialdom. The weekly was converted into a daily to satisfy the literary fecundity of a Secretary and the way in which the Patriot behaved when the Victoria Memorial site was being discussed was a novel departure from that fixity of principles which alone can make people attach any value to the opinions of a paper. And a revaluation of property properly appropriated by Government for the purposes of a lunatic asylum should be enough to make additions to the existing "aristocracy".