Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 31st July 1909 — No.6
Facts and Opinions
Press Garbage in England
It is at least gratifying to find that the theory of conspiracy is exploded except in the minds of Anglo-Indian papers and perhaps of a few Anglo-Indian statesmen and officials.
Not a single circumstance has justified the wild suspicions and wilder inventions which journals like the Daily Mail and Daily Express poured thick upon the world in the first few days that followed the occurrence.
These strange fictions are still travelling to us by mail.
The most extraordinary of them is perhaps that launched by a certain gentleman who is bold enough to give his name, upon the World.
It seems that long ago the redoubtable Krishnavarma in a moment of benign and expansive frankness selected this gentleman and revealed to him the details of a gigantic plot he has been elaborating for the last eight years with a view to the murder wholesale and retail of Anglo-Indian officials.
If the story were true, Krishnavarma's confidant ought certainly to have been put in the dock as an accessory before the crime on the ground of criminal concealment.
These romances sound ridiculous enough now that we read them three weeks afterwards when the excitement of the hour has passed, but the harm this kind of journalism can do was sufficiently proved at the time of the Chinese disturbances and the trouble which preceded the Boer War.
That these daily voidings of impudent falsehood and fabrication should be eagerly swallowed by thousands shows the rapid deterioration of British dignity and sobriety.