Sri Aurobindo
Bande Mataram
Calcutta, July 11th, 1907
Part Four. Bande Mataram under the Editorship of
of Sri Aurobindo (28 May – 22 December 1907)
Industrial India
The Englishman has the following – “Unfortunately for the Eastern artisan the present age is one devoted to mechanical contrivance.
The handloom has given place to the power loom, the worker in metal has been displaced by the huge factories which deal in a very wholesale way with tons of metal and most complicated machinery.
The consequence has been that Indian industry has been crushed by the superior strength of its European competitors, and the country has now practically no resource save agriculture.
This is regrettable for at least two reasons.
Agriculture depending on the seasons, does not afford a stable basis for national prosperity.
The absence of native 
manufacturing enterprise tends to dull the minds of the whole people.
Hence we miss here the keenness to take advantage of opportunity, the readiness of industrial resource, which are characteristic of other countries.”
So far we agree with the Englishman.
But the Englishman is discreetly silent about the causes of this regrettable state of affairs.
The reader of Indian history cannot be ignorant of the fact that England’s policy has been to crush Indian industries and thus convert her to the position of a producer of raw materials to be worked up beyond the seas.
And a “defective education” alone is not responsible for the shyness of Indian capital.
However, we too admit that the system of education, stamped with official approval, is responsible for much of our woe as it engenders a spirit of helpless dependence and sense of inferiority and discourages in Indians the confidence in one’s own ability which is essential to enterprise.
It is exactly for this reason that India has realised the necessity of a system of national education which will have the same effects in India that such a system had in Germany.
And we are sure the awakened spirit of nationalism, when it receives the powerful stimulus of a system of national education, will make the people self-reliant and able to bring about India’s industrial regeneration without the hollow sympathy and deceptive help of aliens.