Sri Aurobindo

Bande Mataram

Calcutta, September 14^th, 1907

Part Four. Bande Mataram under the Editorship of of Sri Aurobindo (28 May – 22 December 1907)

Sacrifice and Redemption

The abiding attributes of humanity, those that have endured through time’s changes and have redeemed man’s nature from the mortality of the flesh, have behind them a tradition of sacrifice. There is not a single ideal in the world that has been able to secure permanence in human thought without striking root in a soil manured with the martyr’s blood and growing in its initial stages through an atmosphere charged with human sorrow and suffering. Mankind has been mercilessly exacting of those unto whom it has rendered its worship and unquestioning obedience; it has refused with a tragic persistency to accord its allegiance to the faith or the feeling whose prophets and preachers were not ready to go through the sacrifices that the nature of the hostile circumstances demanded, exile, durance or death. Not mere conviction, but courage of conviction that dares to stare death in the face has been the secret of those passions and emotions that are immortally human. Love of man or love of God, love of knowledge or love of the Motherland, each and every one has had to pass through the inevitable test. And it is this indispensability of sacrifice to the success of a cause that constitutes at once the tragedy and the triumph of life – tragedy, because it means the passing away of those spirits whom the world can ill spare, triumph, because it demonstrates the innate superiority of human nature to death, because it brings the human mind face to face with its immortal spirit that transcends more the agonies of the mortal flesh. The sight of the man who makes light of sufferings, even of death, for the sake of an idea or a faith, turns the thoughts of his fellowmen to that for which he thus suffers. Surely there is something in the ideal for which a man can readily suffer and die, is the first prompting of their heart. And provided there is truth and reality in the martyr’s creed, the future of its cause is assured. That which is true has always exercised a mystic compulsion over men; wedded to sacrifice it has never failed to win their active adherence.

He who seeks to fill India with the Nationalist faith must first recognise this supreme necessity of sacrifice. The truth that he inculcates has had its martyrs in every country of the world and it cannot be otherwise in India. Everything that he asks of the nation requires sacrifice, and in order that the nation that has been under subjection for centuries may awaken to the truth of his idea, to the greatness of his faith, he must be the first to set the example. If those Indians who have been incessantly insisting on Liberty as the one essential condition of the country’s salvation are ready and able to overcome the difficulties and undergo the sacrifices in which such insistence must necessarily involve them, then there is every chance of the country taking up the Nationalist creed. The mere logical superiority of Nationalism to Moderation cannot be reasonably expected to revolutionise Indian politics; that superiority must be supplemented by the full measure of personal sacrifices on the part of the exponents of the new faith. The Nationalists have been dwelling on two propositions mainly, namely, that freedom is the primary necessity of the country, and that freedom can be won only by struggle and sacrifice. The time is now come for them to make good their words; they must convince the country that they are willing to struggle and sacrifice for the sake of the faith that they ask their fellowmen to embrace. The hour of trial has arrived, let them stand firm.

Every act of sacrifice that the Nationalist now performs in fulfilment of his mission will advance his cause by bounds. It will bring home to his countrymen the reality of Nationalism over and against the unreality of Moderation. It will show up the true character of the Anglo-Indian Absolutism, its implacable enmity to truth and its moral inferiority to those who have the strength to preach and practise what is true in the face of the worst it can do. We know on which side the people’s sympathy and appreciation will then be.

The calm and heroic acceptance of punishment at the hands of the bureaucracy by Bhupendranath, Basanta, and Srijut Bipin Chandra Pal is full of happy augury; let others press on the way they have gone. The day of which the Nationalist dreams can then never be distant.

This work was not included in SABCL, vol.1 and it was not compared with other editions.