Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 15th January 1910 — No.28
Facts and Opinions
The Patiala Case
The Patiala Case has developed its1 real objective, which is the destruction of the Arya Samaj, the men arrested being merely pawns in the game.
The speech of the Counsel for the prosecution, Mr. Grey, in no way sets out an ordinary case against individuals, nor is there any passage in it which gives any light as to particular evidence against the persons on their trial, but from beginning to end it is an arraignment of the Arya Samaj as a body whose whole object, semi-open rather than secret, is the subversion of British rule.
Mr. Norton, taking advantage of the presence of Sj. Aurobindo Ghose in the dock, attempted to build up in the Alipur Case an elaborate indictment of the whole national movement as a gigantic conspiracy, but he did not neglect the individual cases and made some attempt to conceal the extra-judicial object of his oratory by a continual reference to actual evidence, relevant or irrelevant, in the case.
Mr. Grey has not given himself that trouble.
The political character of his advocacy is open and avowed.
But he follows his Calcutta precursor in the ludicrous jumps of his logic from trivial premises to gigantically incongruous conclusions, in his heroic attempt to make bricks out of straw.
His chief arguments are that the Arya Samajists read the Amrita Bazar Patrika and the Punjabee,— to say nothing of the long defunct Bande Mataram,— and that some of the prominent members of the Arya Samaj are politicians and yet remain members of the Arya Samaj.
The perfectly general interpretations by Swami Dayananda of the Vedic view of politics are the basis of his attack, and even the vehement character of the great reformer's polemics against other religions, the orthodox Hindu included, are pressed into the service of this unique argument.
And all this is used to prejudice men under trial on a serious charge.
Mr. Norton trifled with the traditions of the British bar by his pressing of 
trivial and doubtful evidence against the accused in the Alipur Case, but it seems to us that Mr. Grey has departed still farther from those lofty traditions.
And what if the Patiala Court decides that the Arya Samaj is a seditious body, seditious in origin, seditious in intention, seditious in action?
Will the Government prescribe2 as an illegal association this wealthy, powerful and highly organised community containing more than half the brains and activity of the Punjab?
Already the charge has been made that by giving special privileges to the Mahomedans, the Government have abandoned definitely the principle of religious neutrality on which their rule has hitherto been founded.
The present Governor of the Punjab is possibly capable of such a step,— after the whitewashing of the Police in the Gulab Bano case and his speech to the Loyalist deputation, we can believe him capable of any rash and headstrong step.
Fortunately, there is little likelihood that Mr. Grey's oratory will be any more effective than Mr. Norton's.