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Bande Mataram { CALCUTTA, July 4th, 1907 }
Press Prosecutions
The Bureaucracy has at last commenced its attack on the so-called freedom of the Press in Bengal. Intolerance of free speech and writings is the sure index not only of unenlightened mediaevalism in the existing Government, but of its rottenness and instability. Our old Hindu regime allowed the utmost freedom of speech and Manu lays it down that when in a time of stress and trouble people take to speaking unpleasant things about the sovereign, it is the height of folly on his part to stop their mouths by punishing the free expression of their feelings. Our ancient law-giver has not thought it necessary to support his dictum by reasons because its wisdom is obvious to the most ordinary common sense. The tendency towards repression in a government proceeds from a consciousness of instability or unsoundness in the foundation of its authority. If on the contrary the ruler is sure that his authority is based on a just title and exercised in the interests of the people, he will never be anxious to live in an air-tight compartment secure from the influence of any disturbing element. No just Government, no beneficent Empire can be overthrown by a campaign of misrepresentation, however extensive and well-organized. The logic of facts is always superior to any other logic. If the people have enough to eat, if they can clothe themselves decently, if they can walk in their own country with heads erect, if they are not frequent victims to the highhandedness of the ruling class, if their comfort, convenience and self-respect are not interfered with in their homes and in their journeyings, if honest efforts are made by the rulers to prevent plague and famine or to bring about those conditions of general well-being which arm all well-administered countries
Page – 577 against such visitations, no eloquence or rhetoric can alienate the popular affection from such a beneficent administration. If the British people and their representatives, both in England and India, are so confident that their administration is the very best that can be given to India under the present circumstances, it is surprising that they should apprehend mischief from “enemies” against whom they are so well secured by the intrinsic merit of their rule. Of course when Manu wrote he had in view the natural princes and rulers of the people whose authority was rooted in the soil and their existence a benefit and not a scourge to the country. But the British claim that their rule is superior to any the country has ever known since the dawn of time, a natural substitute for the normal condition of liberty and a condition of things which is destined to perpetuate itself in nature. Such a rule can surely not be so loosely rooted that the “vapouring” of agitators can blow it out of the soil or the helplessness of an unarmed people endanger its security. The natural and legitimate method by which a modern government meets sedition, is to present the strong defence of an impeccable administration to its attacks. If there are weak points, they must be so few or of such minor importance that even to the most ignorant eye or the most ill-informed understanding they will appear insignificant compared with the benevolent policy and beneficent working in the large, of the system assailed. If there is misrepresentation, the administration has its own organs or its own supporters who can meet the assailants with their own weapons in the Press and on the platform. The agitator’s eye may in a fine frenzy roll from earth to heaven, but it cannot discover anything there which does not exist; or if it does, he can easily be convicted of falsehood or perversion of truth. Writing and speech are not the monopoly of agitators. If Surendranath and Bipin Chandra can stump the mofussil, have not the Government their heaven-born and earth-born agents who can put their measures in the most attractive light and inculcate loyalty by their admonitions— if they cannot do it by their actions? If the Bande Mataram, Patrika or Bengalee vex
Page – 578 the soul of benevolent despotism by their writings, have not the bureaucracy such authoritative, able and reliable supporters as the Pioneer, the Englishman or the Times of India in English and the organs of their ally Salimullah in the vernacular to undo the mischief? To meet the peaceful instruments of Press and platform with imprisonment and persecution or with swords and guns, is a confession not merely of despotism but of weakness. It is a confession of guilt. To dethrone reason, wisdom, truth and justice and substitute brute force in their place is to appeal from the twentieth century to the Middle Ages, to confess oneself a stumbling-block in the way of human progress and an enemy of Heaven, and to array all the silent forces of civilisation, enlightenment and progress, the justice of Heaven and the sure working of irresistible nature in one formidable league to bring about one’s ultimate downfall. When the ruler, beaten in the fair fight of argument, eloquence and reason, throws his sword into one scale, it will not be long before God throws His into the other. The purpose of the ages is not going to be frustrated by section 108A or the destinies of the nations stopped in their inevitable march because Manchester cotton-spinners want a market for their wares. Prosecute free speech, deny the heart of a nation its utterance; but will you stop the fire of a volcano by covering over its crater? The fire is elemental and comes up from an inexhaustible reservoir of flame in the depths. The battle of freedom begins with the pen and the tongue, but its instruments do not end with these two; and when has the coercing of pen and tongue ever put an end to the battle? Men can be depressed or subdued, but ideas cannot. The enemy of the despot is not a man, but the patriotic sentiment in men which is immortal and which can neither be hanged nor deported. The doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, their inalienable rights, their claim that the Government should exist for them and by them, will always find an unfailing succession of exponents. Rulers have always forgotten this lesson of history in the intoxication of power but it is always they who have suffered for it. Men are born with the instinct of freedom and they can never acquiesce for ever in the
Page – 579 loss of freedom, even if necessity has compelled them to forgo it for a while or guile or violence deprived them of it. No amount of coercion or repression will make them renounce the memory or avert their eyes from the vision. Rather coercion is the surest way to make them feel its loss and desire it with passion and with resolution.
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