Sri Aurobindo

Bande Mataram

Calcutta, October 8^th, 1907

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

Protected Hooliganism – A Parallel

We do not, as a rule, take excursions into foreign politics or like our special friend, the Statesman, fix an abstracted eye on the affairs of Germany and Russia while India is being convulsed with conflict and turmoil, but the struggles of Nationalism in other countries, especially in Asiatic or semi-Asiatic countries, have their interest for us and often present a close and informing parallel. Despotic reaction is always the same in all countries and all ages and uses the same methods. One of these methods is for the police to use the disorderly and dangerous elements of society in order to put down the better elements whom the repression of noble aspirations has brought into conflict with the instruments of despotism. In badly-governed countries like Russia, Turkey and India, the line of demarcation is very small between the police and the habitual criminal, the budmash, the hooligan whom it is their nominal duty to repress. The necessity of pampering the police so that they may be the faithful instruments of a small, unpopular and insecure ruling class in coercing and breaking the spirit of the great mass of the people, inevitably removes all moral restraint, the ever-present sense of duty, the fear of punishment and the abiding consciousness of being servants and not masters of the people, which can alone prevent such dangerous though necessary powers as those wielded by the police from becoming a curse instead of a protection to society. The almost universal habit of unpunished extortion and corruption, the free indulgence in insolence and brutality which are the hallmark of a serviceable Indian police, are not peculiar to them, but common to all despotically governed countries. Such a police naturally become the patrons and protectors of the budmash element. They keep it in control and punish individuals so far as suits their own purposes, so far, that is to say, as is necessary to keep the hooligan in terror and make him feel that the police is his master but if the hooligan is subservient and willing to pay for impunity, the police will wink at his anti-social pursuits and his particular offences and get the innocent punished the better to screen their proteges. These are facts of such common knowledge in India that they hardly repay repetition except in order to drive home a truth it has taken our politicians a long time to realise,– that no amount of commissions and paper reforms and new methods of recruitment and readjustments of the scale of pay will destroy or even mitigate the evil which is constitutional, congenital, ingrained, in the very system of government now obtaining in India and cannot be mended or ended unless that system of government is itself mended or ended. Our present point, however, is that in countries where such relations obtain between the police and the habitual criminal, the latter can become a very useful instrument in dealing with political discontent, when the police itself is unable to cope with people, or for political reasons, it is thought advisable to screen partially or wholly their use of violent and illegal means of repression, or even when diplomatic considerations make it necessary that there should be a riot or tumult so that nationalism may be discredited or an excuse provided for benevolent intervention or philanthropic annexation or the other devices to which civilized international piracy has nowadays recourse.

The most complete examples of this protected hooliganism are, of course, to be found in Russia, but the specimens occasionally produced by the Indian police are, perhaps, of a superior make and more artistic finish. A still more remarkable and successful specimen, however has been recently revealed to us in Wilfrid Blunt’s remarkable book on the Secret History of English Occupation of Egypt. We shall have occasion to return upon the curious revelations made in this book as to the sinister and Machiavellian methods by which an Anglo-Indian official trained in the arts of government as practised in India, brought about the great act of piracy on the banks of the Nile, the characteristic part played by John Morley, that honest broker of injustice and oppression, in forcing foreign domination on Egypt, and the many striking lessons which the history of Nationalism in Egypt has for the new-born Nationalism in India. We confine ourselves at present to quoting the pointed remarks of historians in the Indian Review for September on the revelations of Wilfrid Blunt. Speaking of the riot which was made an excuse for British intervention he says: –

“There, it is clearly brought home to the unbiassed readers’ mind how Arabi was innocent of the premeditated Alexandrian riot, how Omar Pasha Lufte was the chief culprit, and how the gendarmerie and the police had deliberately purchased beforehand and distributed a large quantity of naboots or lathis to the lowest class of Arabs and Bedouins. The evidence of unofficial and disinterested eyewitnesses has been also recorded to show that knives and bayonets which the police had supplied were the instruments by which people were killed. Ten European doctors who had examined the dead bodies at the hospital averred in their report that all the wounds were inflicted either by the lathis or the knives and the bayonets which were the arms of the police, and yet, strange to say, no proceedings had been taken against the police who took an active part in the riots, under the direct orders of the police prefect, killing many a Christian.” Mr. Blunt proves how Arabi Pasha was entirely guiltless in the matter, for while the riots raged most furiously there was “the utter absence in the streets of the soldiers of the regular troops,” who alone were under the command of that personage. The evidence of one Mr. Hewat, an English accountant, is exceedingly corroborative. He had “no hesitation in saying that instead of suppressing the riot,” this police “did all in its power to increase it and their conduct on the occasion was most barbarous, violent and fanatical.” And there is the personal testimony of so eminent a person of commercial reputation as the late Mr. Stephen Ralli of the great house of Ralli Brothers. “To show the treachery of the authorities one has only to know the following – the street disturbance began at 3 o’clock, the policeman doing the most of the killing, until past 7 o’clock.” But enough of these gruesome details. They remind us of the part the Indian police has taken now and again in past years in promoting riots, suborning witnesses and perjuring themselves with impunity. The strangest part, however, of this deplorable affair is the persistent manner in which Earl Granville, the foreign minister, under the inspiration of the two men on the spot, endeavoured by hook or by crook, to fasten on Arabi Pasha the responsibility of the bloodshed caused by the riot when impartial European witnesses had testified that it was the police and the gendarmerie alone who had previously arranged for the affray and distributed staves and arms, and had actually done the butchering. Says Mr. Blunt: “The English Government apparently only gave the idea of a preconcerted and deliberate massacre on the impossibility being forced on them of connecting Arabi with that event.” This phase of the incident, too, is not unfamiliar to Indian people, namely, how the authorities have in the past strained every nerve to screen the actual instigators and wrong doers, namely, the police, and foist upon innocent men the origin of riots. But the dismal analogy does not end here. There is even a third fact which also has its counterpart in the experience of Indians. Mr. Blunt remarks: “The fact that no telegrams or messages between the Governor, Omar Lufti, and the Khedive, between the Khedive and Sir E. Malet, or between the Admiral and Sir E. Malet and the English Consulate, which must have been passing continually while the riots were proceeding, have been produced, is highly suspicious and requires explanation.” Have not Indians, too, been highly suspicious of the absence of important telegrams in Blue-books published months after the occurrence of events by Parliament under “responsible” Ministers so-called? Blue-books in general never do contain letters and documents which are of a character to incriminate officials and reflect on the conduct and action of the highest authorities themselves.

The parallel drawn so ably by historians, to which fresh point is lent by the disturbances in Calcutta, ends here. Protected hooliganism succeeded in Egypt because the circumstances were different and the Nationalism of the Egyptians at that time of a less robust and less exalted type. If it is tried in India, it cannot succeed. The Egyptian nationalists made the mistake of trying to accomplish their ends by diplomacy, by reliance upon European support and, when that failed them, by a military struggle between their armed force and the British intruders, without first awakening the people and inspiring them with the passion for liberty which can alone give a long-subject nation the strength to endure and survive, to thrive on disaster and overcome defeat. The work of Mazzini must be done before the work of Cavour and Garibaldi can begin. In India the awakening has come, the passion for liberty is abroad, and we have the satisfaction of knowing that the fire we have kindled is unquenchable and the impetus given is one against which no human power can stand. In Egypt Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. John Morley and their allies had only to create an excuse for armed interference and to crush a feeble military resistance in order that their nefarious work might be done. But to coerce indignation and resistance of a whole people is a more difficult task than to win battles, for here it is not the engines of war, but the engines of the spirit which decide the conflict, and when the motive power on one side comes from Heaven itself while the source is merely human, the task of despotism becomes an impossibility.

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