Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 14th August 1909 — No.8
Facts and Opinions
The “Englishman” on Boycott
The speech of Sj. Bhupendranath Bose at the Boycott celebration and the Open Letter of Sj. Aurobindo Ghose have put the Englishman in a difficulty.
It has been the habit of this paper to lay stress on any facts or suggestions real or imaginary which it could interpret as pointing to violence and so persistently damn the movement as one not only revolutionary in the magnitude of the changes at which it aims but violently revolutionary in its purposed methods.
The speech and the open letter have cut this imaginary ground away from under its feet.
As a matter of fact there is nothing new in the attitude of either the Moderate or the Nationalist leader.
What they say now they have said always.
The Moderate party have always been in favour of constitutional methods which, whatever be the precise meaning of that phrase in a country where no constitution exists, must certainly exclude illegality and violence.
The Nationalists on their side have always, while repudiating the principle that men are under all circumstances bound to obey unjust or injurious laws imposed without national consent, advocated observance of the law in the circumstances of India both on grounds of policy and in the interests of sound national development.
Passive resistance to arbitrary edicts and proclamations in order to assert civic rights, test illegal ukases or compel their recall is not breach of the law but a recognised weapon in the defence of civic liberty.
Yet the Englishman chooses to save its face by imagining a change of front in the Boycott policy.
There is no change.
The Boycott has always been a movement within the law and such it remains.
If there have been some individual excesses, that no more detracts from the legality of the movement than the excesses of individual strikers would affect the legality of a strike.
The Englishman is full of anxiety as to the best way to meet the imagined change of front.
With great sapience it suggests to the Government the free use of deportation, for which it has been for some time clamouring in vain, and threatens the boycotters with an antiboycott.
One does not quite see how this mighty movement could be engineered.
If a boycott of Indians by Englishmen is suggested, we would remind our contemporary that in life in this country Indians might conceivably do without Englishmen but Englishmen cannot do without Indians.
That is precisely the strength of our position.
The misfortune is that we ourselves still fail to realise it.