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Home > Sathyam - Truth is a Pathless Land > Unfolding Consciousness > Relevance of Aurobindo > Open Letter to My Countrymen
The position of a public man who does his duty in India today is too precarious to permit of his being sure of the morrow. I have recently come out of a year's seclusion from work for my country on a charge which there was not a scrap of reliable evidence to support, but my acquittal is no security either against the trumping up of a fresh accusation or the arbitrary law of deportation which dispenses with the inconvenient formality of a charge and the still more inconvenient necessity of producing evidence. Especially with the hounds of the Anglo-Indian Press barking at our heels and continually clamouring for Government to remove every man who dares to raise his voice to speak of patriotism and its duties, the liberty of the person is held on a tenure which is worse than precarious. Rumour is strong that a case for my deportation has been submitted to the Government by the Calcutta Police and neither the tranquillity of the country nor the scrupulous legality of our procedure is a guarantee against the contingency of the all-powerful fiat of the Government watch-dogs silencing scruples on the part of those who advise at Simla. Under such circumstances I have thought it well to
address this letter to my countrymen, and especially to
those who profess the principles of the Nationalist
party, on the needs of the present and the policy of
the future. In case of my deportation it may help to
guide some who would be uncertain of their course of
action, and, if I do not return from it, it may stand
as my last political will and testament to my
countrymen. Our ideal is an ideal which no law can condemn: our chosen methods are such that no modern Government can expressly declare them illegal without forfeiting its claim to be considered a civilised administration. To that ideal and to those methods we must firmly adhere and rely on them alone for our eventual success. A respect for the law is a necessary quality for endurance as a nation and it has always been a marked characteristic of the Indian people. We must therefore scrupulously observe the law while
taking every advantage both of the protection it gives
and the latitude it still leaves for pushing forward
our cause and our propaganda. With the stray
assassinations which have troubled the country we have
no concern, and, having once clearly and firmly
dissociated ourselves from them, we need notice them no
farther. They are the rank and noxious fruit of a rank
and noxious policy and until the authors of that policy
turn from their errors, no human power can prevent the
poison-tree from bearing according to its kind. We who
have no voice either in determining the laws of their
administration are helpless in the matter. To
deportation and proclamation, the favourite instruments
of men incapable of wise and strong rule, we can only
oppose a steady and fearless adherence to the
propagandism and practice of a lawful policy and a
noble ideal. We point to the unexampled national vigour which has preserved the people of this country through centuries of calamity and defeat, to the great actions of our forefathers continued even to the other day, to the many men of intellect and character such as no other nation in a subject condition has been able to produce, and we say that a people capable of such unheard-of vitality is not one which can be put down as a nation of children and incapables. We are in no way inferior to our forefathers. We
have brains, we have courage, we have an infinite and
various national capacities. All we need is a field and
an opportunity. That field and opportunity can only be
provided by a national government, a free society and a
great Indian culture. So long as these are not conceded
to us, we can have no other use for our brains, courage
and capacity than to struggle unceasingly to achieve
them. We demand the realisation of our corporate existence
as a distinct race and nation because that is the only
way in which the ultimate brotherhood of humanity can
be achieved, not by blotting out individual peoples and
effacing outward distinctions, but by removing the
internal obstacles to unity, the causes of hatred,
malice and misunderstanding. A struggle for our rights
does not involve hatred of those who mistakenly deny
them. It only involves a determination to suffer and
strive, to speak the truth boldly and without respect
of persons, to use every lawful means of pressure and
every source of moral strength in order to establish
ourselves and dis-establish that which denies the law
of progress. In Bengal we had advanced so far as to afford
distinct proof of our capacity in almost all these
respects and the evolution of a strong, united and
well-organised Bengal had become a near and certain
prospect. The internal troubles which came to a head at
Surat and the repressive policy initiated immediately
afterwards, culminating in the destruction of our
organisations and the effective intimidation of
Swadeshi workers and sympathisers by official
underlings, have both been serious checks to our
progress and seem for the moment to have postponed the
realisation of our hopes to a distant future. The check
is temporary. Courage and sane statesmanship in our
leaders is all that is wanted to restore the courage
and the confidence of the people and evolve new methods
of organisation which will not come into conflict even
with the repressive laws. We sum up this refusal of co-operation in the
convenient word "Boycott", refusal of co-operation in
the industrial exploitation of our country, in
education, in government, in judicial administration,
in the details of official intercourse. Necessarily, we
have not made that refusal of co-operation complete and
uncompromising, but we hold it as a method to be
enlarged and pushed farther according as the necessity
for moral pressure becomes greater and more urgent.
This is one aspect of the policy. Another is the
necessity of boycott to help our own nascent energies
in the field of self-help. Boycott of foreign goods is
a necessary condition for the encouragement of Swadeshi
industries, boycott of Government schools is a
necessary condition for the growth of national
education, boycott of British courts is a necessary
condition for the spread of arbitration. The only
question is the extent and conditions of the boycott
and that must be determined by the circumstances of the
particular problem in each case. The general spirit of
passive resistance has first to be raised, afterwards
it can be organised, regulated and, where necessary,
limited. As happens inevitably in such popular contests, personal questions and differences of minor importance intervened to perplex and embitter the strife, but the real questions in debate were those which involved the whole future development of the spirit and form of self-government in this country. Were that constitutional in procedure or governed by arbitrary and individual choice and discretion? Was the movement to be progressive and national or conservative and parochial in its aims, policy and spirit? These were the real issues. The Nationalist Moderate party, governed by an
exaggerated respect for old and esteemed leaders,
helped, without clearly understanding what they did,
those who stood for oligarchy, arbitrary procedure and
an almost reactionary conservatism. Personal
idiosyncracies, preferences, aversions settled like a
thick cloud over the contest, the combatants on both
sides flung themselves on every point of difference
material or immaterial as a pretext or a weapon, the
tactics of party warfare were freely used and, finally,
the deliberate obstinacy of a few Moderate leaders in
avoiding discussion of the points of difference and the
unruly ardour of the younger men on both sides led to
the violent scenes at Surat and the break-up of the
Congress. If the question is ever to be settled to the
advantage of national progress, the personal and minor
differences must be banished from the field and the
real issues plainly and dispassionately considered. The difference as to passive resistance hinges at present on the boycott resolution which the Nationalist party, - cannot consent to sacrifice. But here also they are willing to submit the question to the arbitration of freely-elected Congress, though they refuse to recognise a close and limited Subjects Committee as the final authority. It will be seen therefore that the real question throughout is constitutional. The body which at present calls itself the Congress, has adopted a constitution which is close, exclusive, undemocratic and so framed as to limit the free election of delegates by the people. It limits itself by proposing a number of articles of faith in a particular form of words to every intending delegate before he can take his seat; it aims at the election of delegates only by select bodies and associations instead of the direct election of the people; it excuses many from the chances of election and gives them an undue weight in the disposal of the affairs of the assembly. These and similar provisions no democratic party can
accept. A Nationalist Conference or a Moderate
Convention may so guard its integrity, but the Congress
is and must be a National Assembly admitting freely all
who are duly elected by the people. The proposed
passing of this reactionary constitution by a body
already limited under its provisions will not cure the
constitutional defect. It is only a Congress elected on
the old lines that can determine the future provisions
for its constitution and procedure with any hope of
universal acceptance. Nationalist publicists have not cared to combat this error explicitly because they were more anxious to get their ideal accepted and the spirit of passive resistance and complete self-help popularised than to discuss a question which was not then a part of practical politics. But it is obvious that a party advancing such a proposition would be a party of doctrinaires and idealists, not of practical thinkers and workers. The Nationalist principle is the principle of "No control, no co-operation". Since all control has been refused, and so long as all control is refused, the Nationalist party preaches the refusal of co-operation as complete as we can make it. But it is evident that if, for instance, the power of imposing protective duties were given to a popular and elective body, no serious political party would prefer persistence in commercial boycott to the use of the powers conceded. Or if education were similarly made free of official control and entrusted to a popular body, as Lord Reay once thought of entrusting it, no sensible politician would ask the nation to boycott that education. Or if the courts were manned by Indian judges and made responsibly not to the Executive but to a Minister representing the people, arbitration would immediately take its place as a supplementary aid to the regular courts. So also the refusal to co-operate in an
administration which excludes the people from an
effective voice does not involve a refusal to
co-operate in an administration of which the people are
an effective part. The refusal of autocratic gifts does
not involve a refusal to take up popular rights
inalienably secured to the people. It is on the
contrary with the object of compelling the concession
of the various elements of Swaraj by peaceful moral
pressure and in the absence of such concessions
developing our own institutions to the gradual
extrusion and final supplanting of bureaucratic
institutions that the policy of self-help and passive
resistance was started. This acceptance of popular
rights does not imply the abandonment of the ideal of
complete autonomy or of the use of passive resistance
in case of any future arbitrary interference with the
rights of the people. It implies only the use of
partial Swaraj as a step and means towards complete
Swaraj. Where the Nationalists definitely and
decisively part company with an influential section of
the Moderates is in refusing to aspirations from their
unalterable ideal or delude the people into thinking
that they have secured real rights. But it will now be well if we face the concrete
problems of the Boycott. While we must keep it absolute
wherever Swadeshi articles are procurable as also in
respect to pure luxuries with which we can dispense, we
must recognise that there are necessities of life and
business for which we still to go to foreign countries.
The public ought to be guided as to the choice of the
countries which we shall favour in the purchase of
these articles, - necessarily they must be sympathetic
to Indian aspirations, - and those we shall exclude.
The failure to deal with this question is largely
responsible for the laxity of our political boycott and
our consequent failure to get the Partition rescinded.
There are also other questions, such as the attempt of
shopkeepers and merchants to pass off foreign goods
wholesale as Swadeshi, which must be taken up at once
if the movement is not to suffer a serious setback.
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