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Part Three
Bande Mataram
under the Editorship of Sri Aurobindo
24 October 1906 27 May 1907 In October 1906 a joint-stock company, the Bande Mataram Printers and Publishers, Limited, was established in order to put the finances of the Bande Mataram on a secure basis. (A prospectus announcing the formation of the company is printed as the first piece in Appendix Two.) The company directors appointed Sri Aurobindo and Bipin Chandra Pal as joint editors of the newspaper. Soon afterwards Pal withdrew, leaving Sri Aurobindo in full charge of the Bande Mataram’s editorial policy. No issue of the newspaper appeared between 16 and 23 October 1906. Most issues printed between 24 October and 31 December have been lost. A list of some of the articles in the missing issues is reproduced on pages 199 200.
Page – 187 Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, October 29th, 1906 }
The Famine near Calcutta
The heartrending accounts of the famine received from Diamond Harbour by the Statesman, of which we print the latest elsewhere, ought to be [............] for those who think [..................] best and the present [........................] Government we could possibly have in India. Yet it is nothing compared to the grisly and terrible shape that Famine can take when it is in earnest. That grim occasional visitor of ours has, under the economical effects of the present rule, ceased to be occasional and taken up her home in our midst. But Bengal has not yet seen her unveiled face, and those of us who have seen the great famine on the other side of India, those terrible bare fields void of all but death, the fair plough-lands stripped of crops and of cattle, the dreadful corpses on roadside and field that had once been kindly living men and women, the listless moving skeletons who should have been merry children,— they most fervently of all will pray that no such sight will ever be repeated in their own province. Yet even what is happening is terrible enough. Miss Gillbert cries out against the cold indifference and heartless economy of the relief officer but that also is not new to those who saw the famine of 1899. We cannot expect more from the bureaucracy than a businesslike official relief; they are not our flesh and blood that they should feel for us as brothers. They will not admit famine until they are compelled and even then will organize relief with efficiency indeed but without bowels of feeling and with a cold businesslike economy. Nor can we expect them to fix the price of grain or prevent export, as the now deposed Holkar did in Indore to save his people. What we can expect from them, they do; to expect more would be folly. Meanwhile what are
Page – 189 we doing ourselves? We have collected small sums of money through scattered agencies and distributed them to the stricken districts, we have made some attempt to send rice at cheap rates; but it is all so inadequate. It is the old, old lesson. There is the thought, there is the will, but there is not the organization. In Barisal there is organization and the famine has been manfully fought. In another part of the new province a still more efficient organization of the educated community kept down the price of food and saved the district. But why are these merely scattered exceptions! Because we have depended for all things on the bureaucracy and made no attempt to organize ourselves as a race to deal with our own problems. ____________
Statesman‘s Sympathy Brand
The design of the extended New Market was an achievement on which Mr. MacCabe, the Chief Engineer of the Corporation was congratulated by an Anglo-Indian contemporary. But Mr. MacCabe wrote to say that he was an engineer and not an architect and the credit of the design should be given not to him but to his Indian Assistant, Mr. Cavasjee. No sooner was the fact revealed that the work was done by an Indian than the Statesman recognised that the design was a replica which had for its original the Crawford Market in Bombay. This startling revelation has consoled our sympathetic contemporary and repaired the wounded vanity of Anglo-India. We cannot sufficiently admire the connoisseurs who delight in the peculiar flavour of the Statesman‘s friendly sympathy towards Indians.
Page – 190 By the Way
News from Nowhere
(From our correspondent)
The Punjab journal, Light, has suggested that in order to safeguard the Congress the Standing Committee should be empowered to expel from the Congress ranks any uncomfortable and undesirable delegate, by three-fourths majority and with reasons given. This statesmanlike proposal has attracted great attention in Bombay and a meeting was held in Mr. D. E. Watcha’s office yesterday to consider and give effect to it. Sir Pherozshah Mehta, resplendent with eternal youth, took the chair. After some discussion the proposal was passed and declared, on the spot, a fundamental law of the Congress constitution. It was decided, however, that the Bombay Committee alone should enjoy the power, Sir Pherozshah pointing out that Bombay was the only safe, loyal and moderate city in India and would remain so as long as he (Sir Pherozshah) was its uncrowned King. It was suggested, but timidly and in an awestruck whisper, that even Sir Pherozshah might not live for ever but the great man ´ ` ´ answered, “L’état? c’est moi” and “après moi le déluge” (The State? I am the State, and after me the deluge). As no one present happened to know French, this argument was considered unanswerable. An amendment to the effect that Madras and the United Provinces might also be given the power, under proper safeguards and restrictions, was overwhelmingly defeated, the majority being composed of Sir Pherozshah Mehta and the minority of all the other members present. It was next proposed that Mr. B. G. Tilak should be the first person declared disqualified from becoming a Congress delegate. A member present had the temerity to suggest that this proceeding would hurt the Congress and not Mr. Tilak. He was augustly commanded by the chairman to shut up, but as he still persisted the members rose in a body, hustled him out of the room, propelled him downstairs and then returned to their seats fatigued but with a
Page – 191 consciousness of duty done. After this the proscription of Lala Lajpat was proposed and carried nem. con. Babu Bipin Chandra Pal was the last name suggested and carried uproariously, the members voting twice in their enthusiasm. The reasons alleged for these proscriptions have not been fully ascertained. Mr. Tilak was disqualified because he has been to jail and has no tact, Babu Bipin Chandra Pal because he is Babu Bipin Chandra Pal; I am unable to discover the precise reason alleged in Lala Lajpat Rai’s case, but I believe it was because he was not Mr. Alfred Nundy. After the other members had left, Sir Pherozshah and Mr. Watcha constituted themselves into a public meeting, reconstituted the Standing Committee and elected fifty delegates for the Calcutta Congress.
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There is little other fresh news from this quarter. The announcement of Mr. Morley’s intended reforms in the Pioneer has created great excitement and it is understood that several petitions have reached Lord Minto protesting against the selection of a Gurkha prince and suggesting the petitioners’ superior claims. Nawabzada Nasurullah Khan of Sachin and Nawab Salimullah of Dacca are among the claimants. It is also understood that Mr. K. G. Gupta has sent in his pretensions through the Bengal Government, but for this I cannot vouch. Much alarm has been created in royalist and moderate circles by the persistent attempts of Mr. Tilak to bring the merchants and mill-owners into the Swadeshi movement. The weather here is sultry but not thunderous. Fireworks are frequent.
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