Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 8th January 1910 — No.27
Facts and Opinions
Calcutta and Mofussil
The point which Sir Edward Baker, in common with all Anglo-Indian publicists, makes of the distinction between Calcutta and the Mofussil, is quite justifiable if the Councils are to be only a superior edition of the local Municipalities out of all relation with the political actualities of the country.
It is an indisputable fact that a great deal of the best in the life of Bengal gravitates towards the capital and the Partition of Bengal has made no difference in this powerful tendency.
Calcutta is to Bengal what Paris is to France.
It is from Calcutta that Bengal takes its opinions, its inspirations, its leaders, its tone, its programme of action.
One very important reason for1 this almost inalienable leadership is the greater independence which men enjoy in Calcutta, another is the higher organisation of life, resources, activity in this great centre of humanity.
So long as these causes exist, the supremacy of Calcutta will remain.
The object of the electoral rules is to destroy the supremacy of the Calcutta men, whose independence and freedom of speech and action are distasteful to the instincts of the dominant bureaucrat.
The attempt to decentralise the political life of Bengal is not new.
In the earlier days of the new movement the Nationalist leaders made strenuous appeals to [the Mofussil centres to] liberate themselves from Calcutta domination and become equal partners in a better 
organised provincial activity.
They thought it possible then because, in the first surge of the movement, the Mofussil centres in East Bengal had developed a young political vitality and independence far in excess of the old vitality and independence of Calcutta.
But even in these favourable circumstances it was found that, though the districts far outran the capital in the swiftness and thoroughness of their activity, they always waited for an intellectual initiative and sanction from the leaders in Calcutta.
Barisal under Sj. Aswini Kumar Dutta was the exception.
What the people themselves could not accomplish under the most favourable circumstances, the Government is not likely to effect merely by excluding the Calcutta leaders from the Council.
The very conditions of the problem forbid it.
They can only disturb the present equilibrium by making political life in the Mofussil as free and well-organised as the life of Calcutta.
By their own action they have destroyed such freedom and organisation as had been created.
Nor can they make their Councils the instrument of so vital a change unless they also make them the centre of the political life of Bengal.
This they can only do by a large literate electorate, free elections and effectiveness of the popular vote.
But, at present, that is not what the bureaucrats desire.
They do not desire a free and vigorous political life evenly distributed throughout the country,— that is the Nationalist ideal.
They desire to foster a faint political life confined to the dignified and subservient elements in the country while killing the independent popular life, which finds its centre in this city, by an official boycott.
They forget that artificial means are helpless against natural forces.