Sri Aurobindo
Bande Mataram
Calcutta, June 25th, 1907
Part Four. Bande Mataram under the Editorship of
of Sri Aurobindo (28 May – 22 December 1907)
Hare Street Logic
The Englishman has found out a new reason for refusing self-government to Indians on the plea of unfitness.
Their unfitness for self-government is shown by their unanimity in demanding self-government.
Our contemporary arrives at this conclusion in a way peculiar to himself.
Mr. S. M. Mitra, that great and solitary admirer of Anglo-India and all its works, has recently discovered that Mr. R. C. Dutt in his green and callow days held views diametrically opposed to those of his ripe and reflective manhood – views entirely in agreement with official opinion.
Now that officials should be unanimous and Mr. Dutt along with them, the Englishman thinks quite right and proper; but that Indian politicians should be unanimous and Mr. Dutt along with them is disgraceful and reprehensible.
How is it, asks the Hare Street Sir Oracle, that Indians are all agreed about Permanent Settlement and other political questions.
It shows they do not think independently about politics and people who do not think independently about politics cannot be fit for self-government.
We will ask the Englishman one question.
If the Englishman, the Daily News and the Statesman were all laid flat on their backs and subjected to the torture called peine forte et dure, if, for instance, the Nawab of Dacca were dumped down on the Englishman’s chest and Mr. Curshetji upon his master and the Nawab’s Maulavi, one after the other added to the heap, and if Mr. N. N. Ghose were similarly seated on the editor of the Statesman and Mr. Narendranath Sen on Mr. N. N. 
Ghose and Pandit Kaliprasanna Kabyabisharad were piled upon Mr. Sen like Pelion upon Ossa, and the editor of the Daily News were similarly treated; then if under this pressure these three jarring powers were to become suddenly unanimous and struck out an appeal to have this loving burden or some of it taken off their chests,– would that prove their inability to think independently?
India is suffering economically and politically from the peine forte et dure and it is only to be expected that we should be unanimous in requesting that it should be stopped or reduced.
But then the Englishman is so hard to please.
If we differ among ourselves, he cries, “Look, look, you cannot agree among yourselves, and yet you ask for self-government.”
When we do agree among ourselves he shouts,“Look, look, you cannot disagree among yourselves, and yet you ask for self-government.”
It is a case of heads I win, tails you lose.