Sri Aurobindo

Bande Mataram

Calcutta, December 13^th, 1907

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

Misrepresentations about Midnapore

A correspondent has written to the Bengalee denying the truth of certain statements in the Bande Mataram’s account of the Midnapore Conference which the Bengalee characterises as misrepresentations. We are willing to be corrected in any points of fact where we may have made a mistake, but the correspondent in question is either ill-informed or is ignoring facts.

(1) He says that the Magistrate was not invited but came to the meeting apprehending a row. We ask, who gave the Magistrate the information that there was likelihood of a row? Who wrote the letter which the Magistrate declared to be Mr. K. B. Dutt’s and which was in Mr. K. B. Dutt’s handwriting? What was the object of the letter if not to invite the presence of the Magistrate and the police to overawe Mr. K. B. Dutt’s opponents? It is possible that none formally invited the officials. Why then were the volunteers informed that the Magistrate was coming and they must give up their lathis? It is entirely untrue that the “rowdiness of a section of the meeting nearly culminated in a disturbance,” in the sense of a resort to violence. There was plenty of shouting and confusion, but never any likelihood or the appearance of a likelihood of a resort to violence. The only violence was the assault on a delegate by the Moderates on the second day.

(2) The statement about the bomb-incident, by which is apparently meant the attempt by unknown persons to wreck the Lieutenant-Governor’s special seems to have been an afterthought. The incident was not known in Midnapore till Sunday evening and not a word was breathed about it by Mr. K. B. Dutt as a reason for putting by the volunteers’ lathis. It is not true that the Captain of Volunteers was sent for by the Magistrate and readily yielded. The Captain was sent to the Magistrate, doubtless at the latter’s request, and made to resign because he could give no assurance about the lathis. Not a single volunteer gave up his lathi, nor was there any prohibition of lathis in the Magistrate’s orders forbidding processions.

(3) It matters little by what stages the enthronement of the Police Superintendent was prepared. The fact remains that he was given the central chair on the platform to which only a distinguished guest invited by the Committee or a visitor whom the whole country respects is entitled. It is a fact that the President frequently turned to confer with him when there was disorder and on at least one occasion made use of his presence to threaten his opponents, declaring that he would see that law was enforced. All this, it seems, was only common courtesy. It may be so; we as “rowdies” cannot be expected to understand Moderate courtesy but it seems to us that such courtesy is an insult to the whole nation.

(4) Mr. Dutt was certainly understood by many of the delegates to say that those who would not obey him as chairman (before he was elected President) might go out. It is possible that he may have been misunderstood or has forgotten it, and we do not care to press the point, as its only importance was an incident throwing light on his temper and attitude. As for the correspondent’s nonsense about discretion and valour, we did not know that it needed so much valour to leave the presence of K. B. Dutt, the Bold. The delegates were restrained by other Nationalists from leaving the Pandal and it was certainly discretion to allow another chance to the President designate before taking the serious step of secession.

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