Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 22nd January 1910 — No.29
Facts and Opinions
The Banerji Vigilance Committees
The novel departure initiated by the fertile mind of Srijut Surendranath Banerji at Barrackpur in the creation of Vigilance Committees to check the nocturnal lovers of bomb and bullet practice on the E.B.S.R. has created great interest and amusement among his countrymen.
There are many who are ungenerous enough to attribute this anti-Anarchical zeal less to loyalty and a noble “co-operative” instinct than to the fact that our great leader has himself to travel daily over the zone of danger.
Even if it were so, the sneer is ungenerous.
We all love our lives, we have all to travel occasionally by the E.B.S.R. in first or second class and we cannot ignore the fact that random bullets and explosive cocoanuts are not respecters of persons and, if they find the head even of a Nationalist leader in the way, will not be polite enough to walk round it.
We shall all therefore be grateful to our old man eloquent, if he can ensure our common safety.
But for ourselves, we do not see how he can effect his laudable object.
It would be possible for Srijut Surendranath and the other estimable burgesses of Barrackpur to patrol the railway at night, but the weather is still cold, sleep is pleasant, bullets and cocoanuts perilous missiles, and, if anything happens, the police are quite capable of suspecting and arresting the too vigilant patrons of the public peace.
One might revive the “National Volunteers” for the purpose; but the Samities1 are disbanded, students forbidden to take part in politics or do anything that would interfere with their studies.
They are not likely to be enthusiastic for this kind of volunteer work under these conditions.
And, if such organisations were created, it would be more likely to alarm than gratify a suspicious and nervous Government which might see in it a disingenuous device for reviving the proclaimed Samities2.
The only other resource is for these novel vigilance men to turn detective3, discover the Terrorists and give information to the police, which they can only do by becoming agents provocateurs and so worming themselves into the confidence of their quarry.
That is a kind of dirty work no Indian gentleman is likely to undertake even with the prospect of vindicating his loyalty, escaping house-searches and deportation and earning the encomiums of the Englishman.