Sri Aurobindo

Bande Mataram

Calcutta, April 26^th, 1907

Part Three. Bande Mataram under the Editorship of of Sri Aurobindo (24 October 1906 – 27 May 1907)

Instinctive Loyalty

The Indian Mirror reflects nothing but its own self when it says: – “Nobody in the country, howsoever absorbed in the dreams of an Indian autonomy, wishes to see the British connection severed and the country left to her fate. This instinctive clinging to some sort of relation with England, in other words, this loyalty to the Crown of England, affords the best ground for optimism about a material improvement in the attitude of the Indian peoples towards¹ their British rulers.” There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the Mirror’s philosophy. That a country cannot prosper in the true sense of the term unless it be left to its own fate is a truism with all right-thinking men. The publicists of the Indian Mirror type have a comfortable gospel of their own revealed to them by a study of their own needs rather than those of the country. No political thinker has as yet sought to controvert² the truth that liberty is the essential condition of all-round progress in a nation. Prison life after some time comes to be liked³ as a matter of habit,– the jailor comes to be respected out of fear of the rod. But to describe such diseased and abnormal sentiments as normal and instinctive is to mistake a slave for a man. It is highly prejudicial to our returning sense of self-respect that papers like the Indian Mirror should still be able to preach the gospel of servility.

Earlier edition of this work: Sri Aurobindo Birth Century Library: Set in  30  volumes.- Volume 1.- Bande Mataram: Early Political Writings. 1890 - May 1908.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1973.- 920 p.

¹ 1973 ed. SABCL, vol.1: toward

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² 1973 ed. SABCL, vol.1: convert

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³ 1973 ed. SABCL, vol.1: life

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