Sri Aurobindo
Bande Mataram
Calcutta, May 16th, 1907
Part Three. Bande Mataram under the Editorship
of of Sri Aurobindo (24 October 1906 – 27 May 1907)
Not to the Andamans!
It is evidently with a sigh of relief that the Indian Mirror learns the news that Lala Lajpat Rai is to be sent not to the Andamans but to Mandalay.
It says: – “Soon after his arrest, it was reported widely that Lala Lajpat Rai was going to be taken to the 
Andamans.
But instead of being sent to that penal settlement, he has been conveyed as a State prisoner to Mandalay in Upper Burma where there is a large fort.
Mandalay is certainly a far better place than the Andamans.”
To those like us outside the esoteric circle – and they by no means form a microscopic minority – the distinction between the two places, on the present occasion, seems immaterial.
Of course it needs no ghost to tell us that Mandalay is not the Andamans.
But are not both places equally suited to the requirements of the Government?
It was not the intention of the Government to remove Lajpat Rai to a particular place with a view to subject him to a particular kind of climate.
In Mandalay in Upper Burma “where there is a large fort”, the Punjab leader will not be allowed to do as he likes.
The object of the Government in deporting him was to remove him from the scene of his labours and thus attempt to put a stop to his career of usefulness – call it political activity if you like.
The first object the Government has succeeded in accomplishing by removing him to Mandalay.
And it would have been equally accomplished by removing him to the Andamans.
But the second object cannot be accomplished by such a removal.
If the people are ready to carry on his work – which since his deportation it has become their sacred duty to do – the object of the Government will be frustrated.
The work of an individual often becomes the work of a people, and such work reaches its glorious culmination only when it is taken up by the people at large from whom come the energy and the character of a nation.
If the people are prepared to take up his work, then his deportation, which has given them an impetus, will prove but a blessing in disguise.