Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 28th August 1909 — No.10
Facts and Comments
We suppose in a bureaucracy it is inevitable that officials should be masters and be able to inflict inconvenience and loss on the citizen without any means of redress.
Last Monday the publication of a new weekly named Dharma, edited by Aurobindo Ghose, was due and had been widely announced.
The issue was ready and the printer duly attended the Police Court to declare his responsibility for printing and publishing the periodical.
Except under very unusual circumstances this is a mere formality and one would have thought no difficulty could intervene, but nothing could persuade the Court Official to refrain from delaying the acceptance till the next day.
It was pointed out that this would entail unnecessary inconvenience and perhaps considerable financial loss, but that naturally did not concern him as he was the master of the public and not their servant.
The next day a variation of the same vexatious procedure was repeated.
It was whispered, we do not know with what truth, that the first delay was for the Criminal Investigation Department to have time to find out whether the printer had been convicted in any sedition case.
If so it was a futile delay.
There is no concealment of the responsibility with regard to this paper.
The name of the editor and proprietor was openly given and the printer was there to accept his responsibility.
This does not look like intended sedition.
If there were any doubt, the required information could easily have been gained from the Manager of the paper who was present and would no doubt have been glad to save delay and loss by stating the printer's antecedents.
It was not likely that 
he would conceal a conviction as that would be a thing impossible to suppress.
But then, if officialdom were to acquire a common sense, the laws of Nature would be sadly contravened and it is better to inflict loss on individuals than to upset a law of Nature.
Later edition of this work: The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo: Set in 37 volumes.- Volume 8.- Karmayogin: Political writings and speeches. 1909-1910.- Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1997.- 471 p.