Thread by @vjgtweets

Love reading Aurobindo's old newspaper clips. The excerpt below is from a 1907 column titled "Nationalism, not Extremism" that he wrote in response to a speech delivered by noted Moderate Rash Behari Ghosh regarding the "Extremists" of the Congress:

"The new movement is not primarily a protest against bad Government, — it is a protest against the continuance of British control; whether that control is used well or ill, justly or unjustly, is a minor and unessential consideration."

It is not born of a disappointed expectation of admission to British citizenship, —it is born of a conviction that the time has come when India can, should and will become a great, free and united nation.

It is not a negative current of destruction, but a positive, constructive impulse towards the making of modern India. It is not a cry of revolt and despair, but a gospel of national faith and hope. Its true description is not Extremism, but Democratic Nationalism."

"These are the real issues. There are at present not two parties in India, but three, — the Loyalists, the Moderates and the Nationalists. The Loyalists would be satisfied with good government by British rulers and a limited share in the administration;

the Moderates desire self-government within the British Empire, but are willing to wait for it indefinitely; the Nationalists would be satisfied with nothing less than independence whether within the Empire, if that be possible, or outside it;

they believe that the nation cannot and ought not to wait but must bestir itself immediately, if it is not to perish as a nation. The Loyalists believe that Indians have not the capacities and qualities necessary for freedom and even if they succeed in developing

the necessary fitness, they would do better for themselves and mankind by remaining as a province of the British Empire; any attempt at freedom will, they think, be a revolt against Providence and can bring nothing but disaster on the country.

The Loyalist view is that India cannot, should not and will not be a free, great and united nation. The Moderates believe the nation to be too weak and disunited to aim at freedom; they would welcome independence if it came,

but they are not convinced that we have or shall have in the measurable future the means or strength to win it or keep it if won. hey therefore put forward Colonial Self-Government as their aim and are unwilling to attempt any methods which presuppose strength and cohesion

in the nation. The Moderate view is that India may eventually be united, self- governing within limits and prosperous, but not free and great. The Nationalists hold that Indians are as capable of freedom as any subject nation can be and their defects are the result of servitude

and can only be removed by the struggle for freedom; that they have the strength, and, if they get the will, can create the means to win independence.

They hold that the choice is not between autonomy and provincial Home Rule or between freedom and dependence, but between freedom and national decay and death.

They hold, finally, that the past history of our country and the present circumstances are of such a kind that the great unifying tendencies hitherto baffled by insuperable obstacles have at last found the right conditions for success.

They believe that the fated hour for Indian unification and freedom has arrived. In brief they are convinced that India should strive to be free, that she can be free and that she will, by the impulse of her past and present,

be inevitably driven to the attempt and the attainment of national self-realisation. The Nationalist creed is a gospel of faith and hope."