Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 4th December 1909 — No.22
Facts and Opinions
The Last Resort
The resort to boycott is becoming instinctive in men's blood; not only in India but everywhere, men confronted by opposition of a nature which renders it impossible to deal with it effectively, take to boycott with an admirable spontaneity.
The rapid spread of this ancient Indian device since China and India applied it for the first time on the gigantic Asiatic scale, is a sign of the times.
We can naturally understand the feeling of discomfort which leads the Anglo-Indian papers to deprecate this move on the part of the Moderates.
It is true that the reported agreement to boycott the Councils has been denied by representatives of Moderate opinion; but, whether a formal resolution to the effect was recorded or not at the momentous meeting in the Indian Association's rooms, it is this policy which the Moderates are following, for the excellent reason that there is no other.
As they pathetically complain, it is not they who have boycotted the Government but the Government which has boycotted them.
That is not, of course, literally true.
Sj. Ambikacharan Majumdar who has refused to stand as a candidate, is eligible under the Government rules; the disabilities in the way of Sj.1 Bhupendranath and Surendranath have been waived or removed.
But this 
the Government has taken care to ensure, that if they enter, and evidently the Government desires that they should enter, it shall be as grandiose nonentities, stripped of all powerful backing, individual voices and nothing more!
Co-operation on such conditions would be the end of the Moderate party in Bengal and the absolute destruction of the Moderates is an event, which, we confess, we could not contemplate with equanimity.
We need a party which will form a convenient channel through which the Government can glide gradually down the path of concession until events have educated our bureaucracy to the point of recognising the necessity of negotiation with the Nationalists.
We are therefore glad that the Government has made it imperative on the Moderates to answer boycott with boycott.
We have expressed our admiration of the skill with which the Reform Regulations have been framed, but it is the skill of the keen-eyed but limited tactician cleverly manipulating forces for a small immediate gain, not of the far-seeing political strategist.
On the contrary, the framers have flung away supports which they ought to have secured and secured others which are either weak or unreliable.
The nonentities who are scrambling for a seat in the Council cannot hold the fort for them; the support of the land-holders is lacking in sincerity and they are, besides, a force the bureaucracy themselves have stripped ruthlessly of their ancient strength and leadership, which cannot now be recovered by a seat on the Councils; the Mussulmans2 have suddenly been raised by the amazingly short-sighted policy of Lord Morley into an eager, ambitious and pushing political force which will demand a higher and ever higher price for its support.
On the other hand the Moderates have been humiliated in the sight of all India and made a general laughing stock, and the entire Hindu community, always the mightiest in potentiality in the land and now growing conscious of its might, has been put far on the way to becoming a permanent and embittered opposition.
O wonders of Anglo-Indian statesmanship!