Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

SABCL 26

Fragment ID: 7595

Earlier in the year 1907 he had been prosecuted in connection with his editorship of the “Bande Mataram” and the series of articles he wrote in it under the heading, “The New Path”.

No – the prosecution was for a letter written by somebody to the Editor and for the publication of articles included in the Yugantar case but not actually used by the prosecution. The Bande Mataram was never prosecuted for its editorial articles. The editor of The Statesman complained that they were too diabolically clever, crammed full of sedition between the lines, but legally unattackable because of the skill of the language. The Government must have shared this view, for they never ventured to attack the paper for its editorial or other articles, whether Sri Aurobindo’s or from the pen of his three editorial colleagues. There is also the fact that Sri Aurobindo never based his case for freedom on racial hatred or charges of tyranny or misgovernment, but always on the inalienable right of the nation to independence. His stand was that even good government could not take the place of national government – independence.