... dependency with the rights of free speech and free meeting". Personal government, absolute government, despotism, that is the supreme necessity which must be continued for ever even at the sacrifice of morality, justice and every other consideration. Subject to that necessity Mr. Morley proposes to allow a certain amount of free speech if that be possible. Free speech was harmless so long as the Indian... ment, free speech means seditious speech, and sedition is not consistent with the continuance of the absolute and personal British control. How then can free speech Page 535 and British despotism be combined? How can fire and water occupy the same space? That is the problem, which Mr. Morley refuses to believe insoluble, and he solves it by proclaiming the areas where free speech has been... establishing an Advisory Council of Notables. It may be asked, if the continuance of absolute government is the whole policy of British statesmanship, why does Mr. Morley trouble himself about free speech at all or propose any reforms? That question can be easily answered by a consideration of the suggested reforms. The first of these reforms is a Council of Notables. Mr. Morley has told us what is ...
... 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 Page 67 means for self-development, and that is the power of spreading the idea. According to our philosophy it is the idea which... 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... 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 ...
... Morley is reported to have delivered himself of the following fatuity: "One of the most difficult experiments ever tried in human history was whether we could carry on personal government along with free speech and free right of public meeting", and he was cheered by the House. He might as well have said, "We are carrying on in India the most difficult experiment of hunting with the hounds and running with... brooding in a death-like hush over the Punjab and East Bengal is the amplest confirmation of the foregoing lines and disposes finally of the sickening cant of John Morley about the coexistence of free speech and personal rule. The freedom of a subject race is only the freedom to starve and die, all the rest of its existence being on sufferance from those who govern. The pseudosophies of the Radical ...
... Press Prosecutions 04-July-1907 The Bureaucracy has at last commenced its attack on the so-called freedom of the Press in Bengal. Intolerance of free speech and writings is the sure index not only of unenlightened mediaevalism in the existing Government, but of its rottenness and instability. Our old Hindu regime allowed the utmost freedom of speech... the ages is not going to be frustrated by section 108A or the destinies of the nations stopped in their inevitable march because Manchester cotton-spinners want a market for their wares. Prosecute free speech, deny the heart of a nation its utterance; but will you stop the fire of a volcano by covering over its crater? The fire is elemental and comes up from an inexhaustible reservoir of flame in the ...
... questions in Parliament about the change of the existing law and Mr. Morley's answers seem to point to a coming repressive measure intended to suppress the small amount of free speech still existing in India. The rights of free speech and free meeting were once reckoned among the priceless blessings which British rule had brought to India. Nowadays one can with difficulty put oneself back into the frame ...
... been to proclaim all India as seditious. Their second is to announce the introduction of fresh legislation making yet more stringent the already all-embracing law of sedition. By these two measures free speech on press or platform will practically be interdicted, since the perils of truthfulness will be so great that men will prefer to take refuge either in a lying hypocrisy or in silence. Frankness, honesty... educational work towards a free and noble future. By the law which gives the Government that power of arbitrary suppression associated work is rendered impossible, though not as yet penalised. If free speech, if free writing, if free association is made impossible under the law, it is tantamount to declaring a peaceful Nationalism illegal and criminal. The effect of the recent assassinations on the ...
... speech. Talk is necessary to him, emotion is necessary to him, imagination is necessary to him; without these he cannot be induced to action. This constitutes the supreme importance of the right of free speech and free meeting; this also constitutes the justification of symbolical holidays and festivals. Speech and writing are necessary to the acceptance and spread of the idea without which there can be ...
... the procedure. Some don't agree with Gandhi in wanting to inform the Government of their move beforehand. But Gandhi wants to keep them informed. SRI AUROBINDO: He wants to assert the right of free speech. And according to his ideal of Satyagraha he is quite right. His followers take it up as a political move. SATYENDRA: Yes, that is the trouble. Their standpoints and outlooks are quite different ...
... 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 ...
... the deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai they have destroyed the belief in British justice. By their Resolution for the prohibition of meetings they have convinced everyone that we possess the right of free speech Page 402 not as a right, not as a possession, but as a temporary and conditional favour depending for its continuance on despotic caprice. We await with confidence fresh developments ...
... would also do, but with hesitation and some show of reluctance. There has, however, been no slightest sign of reluctance. With alacrity and a light heart they have refused to India that right of free speech and free meeting which their political creed declares to be a common and fundamental right and to deny which is an act of tyranny. Nevertheless, though not expected so soon, the Coercion Ordinance ...
... is not the independence of the Press, it is not the common rights of the citizen. Anglo-India is a determined enemy of the freedom of the Indian Press, she is always howling for the repression of free speech in matters political and for savage punishments to be meted out to Indian speakers and journalists; and even in non-political matters, if it were only Indian journals that were being prosecuted, ...
... conspiracy by prohibiting public agitation is a remedy open to the charge of absurdity. The secret conspirator rejoices in silence, the Terrorist finds his opportunity in darkness. Is not the liberty of free speech and free writing denied to the Russian people by more rigorous penalties, a more effective espionage, a far more absolute police rule than any that can be attempted in India? Yet where do the bomb ...
... authority in his hands so that he may use it to crush all rebellion against himself as treason and even, so far as may be possible, to stifle criticism and opposition and penalise that free thought and free speech which, by their continual seeking for a more perfect social principle and their subtle or direct encouragement to progress, are so dangerous to established powers and institutions, so subversive ...
... these checks are ineffective. In its inner life this huge State egoism was once little better than in its outer relations. 1 Brutal, rapacious, cunning, oppressive, intolerant of free action, free speech and opinion, even of freedom of conscience in religion, it preyed upon individuals and classes within as upon weaker nations outside. Only the necessity of keeping alive and rich and strong in a ...
... and speech—the two necessarily go together, since there can be no real freedom of thought where a padlock is put upon freedom of speech—is not indeed complete without freedom of association; for free speech means free propagandism and propagandism only becomes effective by association for the realisation of its objects. This third liberty also exists with more or less of qualifying limitations or prudent ...
... Working Committee members not to attend the meetings. SRI AUROBINDO: And if the Government doesn't arrest them? SATYENDRA: He may go through the whole of India and he will establish the right of free speech. SRI AUROBINDO: But only Gandhi's followers may not be arrested. Others won't be free. He is fighting for freedom for everybody. Is this the new movement? Nothing new there! PURANI: It seems ...
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