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 Englishman has a confused and wordy article in yesterday's issue which it considers especially fit "for such a time as this"; but the meaning is a little difficult to disentangle. Our contemporary has a dim perception that there is a "crisis" in the country, the nature of which it is unable to determine; but it is a very terrible sort of crisis, anyway—a monster horrible, shapeless and huge. "When it matures, influences may be shot forth into the country, and possibly also in Asia, if not also back into
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Europe through Russia, whose final issues no man can foresee." It acknowledges that there "are some hopes" in the hearts of the people "which it would be fatuous to mock, madness to ignore". So far as we can make out, the Englishman has discovered a very original way of respecting and recognising these hopes. It proposes to satisfy them by appointing a large number of non-official Europeans in Mr. Morley's new Legislative Councils along with the Nawab of Dacca and any other equally rare specimens bureaucratic research can discover among the "manlier races of the North who, if they grew turbulent, might prove more troublesome than populations of another class from further South, who, if more effeminate, are also more contented". The meaning of this extraordinarily slipshod rigmarole is that the Englishman has been frightened by the disturbances in Lahore which followed on the final conviction of the Punjabee and is also a little uneasy at the prospect of unwelcome changes in the Legislative Councils. Hence its unusual and unsuccessful attempt to overcome its customary "fatuity" and "madness". For our part we prefer the Englishman fatuous and mad to the Englishman trying in vain to be sensible. In its natural state it is at least intelligible.
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