Sri Aurobindo
Bande Mataram
Early Political Writings. 1890 — May 1908
Bande Mataram. October 4, 1907
True Swadeshi
The Times of India like other Anglo-Indian journals of its class loses no opportunity for discrediting the Nationalist movement in Bengal.
In the issue to hand it has an appreciative leader on the New Iron Industry initiated by the late Mr. J. N. Tata and now placed on a sound business footing as a Joint Stock concern with a handsome capital subscribed by the people of India.
The Times has been constrained to admit that Indian capital is no longer shy and the spirit of enterprise too is much in evidence.
The Times would not be itself if it omitted to mention that the Government has been doing its best to help the new industry thus giving a proof of its substantial sympathy with the true Swadeshi.
But the sting is in the tail.
While praising the public spirit and enterprise of Bombay, it concludes with the customary fling at Bengal where agitators are absorbed in mouthing sedition in the Beadon Square.
The Times should remember that but for the dissemination of so-called sedition in the Beadon Square the recent striking industrial activity of Bombay as evidenced in the erection of new mills and the addition of new looms would hardly have been possible.
The impartial observer must also admit that Bengal is also waking up to her industrial needs.
The “true” Swadeshi of the Times draws its vitality from the larger Swadeshi which Bengal has made its own.