Sri Aurobindo Or The Yogi Of The Life Divine- Sri Aurobindo's Political Philosophy

Aju Mukhopadhyay

8 June 2008, 20:10

Continued from Part One

To Sri Aurobindo, at the beginning of the twentieth century, India was, ‘A mighty shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions of units that make up the nation, just as Bhawani Mahisha Mardini sprang into being from the Shaktis of all the millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded into unity.’ (Bhawani Mandir)

How did he look upon her? ‘I adore her. I worship her as the Mother. What would a son do if a demon sat on his mother’s breast and started sucking her blood? Would he quietly sit down to his dinner, amuse himself…. or would he rush out to deliver his mother?’ He further said that he knew he had the strength to deliver the fallen race, but it was the strength of knowledge, the power of the Brahmin. He wrote this in a private and personal letter to his wife on 30 August 1905. But it was made public by the British Government.

K. M. Munshi, the founder of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, was a student of Sri Aurobindo at Baroda. He reminisced in Bhavan’s Journal in 1962 that once he asked his professor a question as to how to develop nationalism and in answer, showing a wall-map the professor replied: ‘Look at that map. Learn to find in it the portrait of Bharatmata. The cities, mountains, rivers and forests are the materials which go to make up her body. The people inhabiting the country are the cells which go to make up Her living tissues….Behold Bharat as a living Mother, meditate upon Her and worship Her in the nine fold ways of Bhakti….’

Going back to his childhood we find that Dr. K.D. Ghose desired that his sons, Aurobindo and his two elder brothers, should not make the acquaintance of any Indian, nor they should not be influenced by them. Accordingly, after studying for two years in the Loretto Convent School at Darjeeling they boys were taken to England in 1879 for studies and put up in the residence of a clergyman in Manchester, to be looked after by him and his wife.

But the circumstances gradually changed. Sri Aurobindo became a true Indian, one of the greatest sons of Mother India. He studied with interest the history of revolutions and rebellions which led to national liberation struggles against the English in medieval France and the revolts which liberated America and Italy. He was inspired by those movements and their leaders, especially Joan of Arc and Mazzini.1

He was influenced by Shelly’s Revolt of Islam. His father, at a later stage of his life, became disgusted with the British Government and started sending him newspapers like “The Bengalee”, carrying information about the maltreatment of Indians by the British. Sri Aurobindo participated in the activities of the Indian Majlis at Cambridge and became its secretary for some time. He used to deliver revolutionary speeches there. He also joined another secret society, Lotus and Dagger, towards the end of his stay there.

Young Aurobindo was not concerned about God. Rather he became an agnostic. But he was a student of very high standard from the beginning, a poet and a scholar. Although he was growing up on foreign soil, engrossed in their history and culture and unconcerned about gods, the gods did not forsake him.

At the age of eleven he received the impression that a period of general upheaval and great revolutionary changes was coming in the world and that he himself was destined to play a part in it. He came to know, in an occult way, that god sent him to accomplish the deliverance of this fallen country. The conviction took a deep root in him when he was eighteen.

Sri Aurobindo passed the first part of the Tripos in the first division with record marks in classical subjects. Earlier he had been awarded many prizes for writing poetry in classical languages. He secured 11th rank in the I C S examination with record marks in certain subjects. But he was not willing to serve the British Government.

Before the riding test for the I. C. S. he was visited by the Bharatmata in a vision which played a great part in his declining to go for the riding test. He received some mystic influences while staying in England. An idea of Soul, as referred to by Maxmuller, impressed him.

There were some material causes also, apart from the spiritual ones, behind his awakening as a revolutionary, wishing not to serve the foreign Government. For all these the Government too was not interested to select him as an I. C. S.

Then he took up service with the Baroda Government as agreed earlier with the Gaekwad. He was a great scholar in European history and culture, a master of some foreign languages. Now he devoted himself to studying the Indian languages, philosophy and culture, including the classics in Sanskrit.

On the political front he started writing an article titled, New Lamps for Old, in Indu Prakash,, edited by his friend, K. G. Deshpande. He started by attacking the mendicant policy of the then Congress: ‘If the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into a ditch?’

Mass awakening was his goal. He wrote: ‘Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism…’ He called upon the proletariat and the common man to shake off torpor and arise to liberate their motherland.

The depth and strength of his writing, the trenchancy and sarcasm of the mature prose of a man of 21 years shook the hearts of one and all. After two installments, the proprietor of the paper was cautioned by a veteran moderate Congress leader, M. G. Ranade, that he would be prosecuted for sedition if the articles continued in the same strain. The tone was then subdued but Sri Aurobindo felt disinterested to continue writing beyond nine articles in the series. He then contributed an article on Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in seven installments. As he was in State Service, he had to write anonymously but his works were new, sincere, stirring and spiritual in essence from the beginning. In India he had the ideals before him of Swami Vivekananda, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Dayananda Saraswati.

Helping Jatindra Nath Banerji to get admission in the army of Baroda State and sending him to Bengal to establish secret societies was the beginning of his efforts to organize secret societies throughout the country. The ultimate aim was to organize an armed revolt in the country to overthrow the colonizers in about 30 years. He himself visited Calcutta in 1900 to meet the revolutionary leaders for the same purpose. He contacted the council of secret societies also in Maharashtra.

In 1904 Sri Aurobindo contacted Charu Chandra Dutt, I C S, at Thane and engaged him for his Bhawani Mandir project. It was a project for building a temple where revolutionaries would live the life of dedicated sannyasins in the model of Bankim Chandra’s novel, Ananda Math. They would dedicate themselves entirely to the cause of freedom of the nation. A booklet was written by Sri Aurobindo with all guiding principles, titled Bhawani Mandir. It was mentioned in the Rowlett Committee Report in 1917. Dutt later visited Ganganath for the above purpose. The project was gradually abandoned as Sri Aurobindo left for Bengal permanently.

Thakur Ram Singh, the leader of the secret societies, had won over two, three regiments in the army. Sri Aurobindo also visited Central India to speak to Indian sub-officers and men of one of the regiments for their support.

C. C. Dutt was involved in the affairs of the secret societies while remaining in the civil service. He said in his book, Purano Katha Upasanghar, that by and by it was evident that there was an All-India council of secret societies with the aim of organizing an armed insurrection in the country against the British. It included leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Barrister P. Mitra, Aurobindo Ghose, Thakur Ram Singh and others. Dutt further said that by the end of 1906 there was a plot to free Goa with the passive support of the Portuguese Government, in consideration of money. The plan was to be executed with the active support of the Russians. But the Russians were defeated by the Japanese naval force. They could not help and the plan could not be executed.

That Sri Aurobindo had some contact with the Russian revolutionaries is known from the comment by K. M. Munshi, a student of Sri Aurobindo at Baroda: ‘To the students of our college Prof. Ghose was a figure enveloped in mystery. He was reputed to be a poet, a master of many languages and in touch with Russian nihilists.’ 2

A letter by Sri Aurobindo to Lenin was replied to by the latter but it fell into wrong hands. The letter was never delivered to the addressee. This was told to Sanjib Chowdhary by the Congress leader Surendra Mohan Ghose in 1974 at his Delhi residence.3

When the Government announced partition of Bengal on 20 July 1905, a great agitation erupted there which gradually spread to all parts of the country. Supporting this movement, Sri Aurobindo wrote a daring pamphlet, ‘No Compromise’, which no press in Calcutta was ready to print. It was finally composed by one Kulkarni, a Maharashtrian revolutionary, printed in thousands and distributed.

From 18 June 1906 Sri Aurobindo took a year’s leave without pay and left for Bengal. He never again joined the college at Baroda. After coming to Calcutta he continued to organize secret societies. Two papers, Yugantar in Bangla and Bande Mataram in English, were started at that time. Yugantar was run under the general supervision of Sri Aurobindo, who contributed articles in it from time to time. Bande Mataram was started by Bepin Chandra Pal and was jointly edited by him and Sri Aurobindo. After some time it was Sri Aurobindo only who edited the paper without any mention of his name. He joined the Bengal National College as its first Principal, founded in Calcutta for imparting national education to the youth. This was the first institution of its class in India, started by the nationalists. While in Yugantar he wrote fiery articles advocating the path of open revolt and sacrifice for the motherland, in Bande Mataram he wrote equally fiery articles but on other lines. As a political thinker he devised the new political programs for the country, which became the programs of the nationalist party. These included non-cooperation, passive resistance, swadeshi, boycott, national education, etc.

He advocated passive resistance without making a dogma of it, as it was appropriate to the time. His school of politics was based on practical experience, political necessity, common sense and lessons learned from a study of history. He wrote The Doctrine of Passive Resistance, in seven installments, in Bande Mataram, from 11 to 23 April 1907. There he wrote, inter alia, ‘Under certain circumstances a civil struggle becomes in reality a battle and the morality of war is different from the morality of peace. To shrink from bloodshed and violence under such circumstances is a weakness deserving as severe a rebuke as Sri Krishna addressed to Arjuna when he shrank from the colossal civil slaughter on the field of Kurukshetra….It is the nature of the pressure which determines the nature of resistance.’

Sri Aurobindo never supported terrorism but found that severe oppression by the Government created terrorists. Regarding the views of Sri Aurobindo about passive resistance, we may note how relevant it became during the period when Gandhiji led the movement. Sri Aurobindo was all along consistent in his argument.

It was Sri Aurobindo who for the first time persistently demanded Purna Swaraj from the shackles of the British Raj in 1907 in the pages of Bande Mataram when ‘only lunatics could think of such a demand’, thought G. K. Gokhale, a Moderate Congress leader.

Sri Aurobindo believed that without complete political freedom no true reform or improvement of the social condition is possible. And he claimed India’s freedom not for her own sake but for the sake of the world. In the history of the spiritual evolution of mankind India has a distinct role to play, to guide the nations as their spiritual Guru, he believed. He never had any hatred against England or English people. He wrote:

‘A divine power is behind the movement: the Zeitgeist, the time spirit is at work…. the resurgence of Asia and the resurgence of India is not only a necessary part of the larger movement but its central need.’4

Sri Aurobindo’s involvement in organizing the secret societies for preparing the ground for a total revolution at the opportune time was not futile in spite of many hazards and failures at the beginning. It was under Sri Aurobindo’s guidance and advice that the Surat Congress was finally split. The Nationalist group grew in strength and power and they controlled the Congress in the long run. He not only enunciated the ideas but most of them were practiced in the field.

Reviewing the position later he wrote, ‘The greatest thing done in those years was the creation of new spirit in the country. In the enthusiasm that swept all sides men felt glorious to be alive and dare to act together and hope; the old apathy and timidity was broken and a force created which nothing could destroy and which rose again and again in wave after wave till it carried India to the beginning of a complete victory.’5

About himself he observed, writing in the third person, long after he left politics, ‘Neither an impotent moralist nor a weak pacifist….Sri Aurobindo has never concealed his opinion that a nation is entitled to attain its freedom by violence, if it can do so or if there is no other way; whether it should do so or not, depends on what is the best policy, not on ethical considerations….’6

Peace is a part of the highest ideal but it must be spiritual or psychic, not ethical or moral. He admitted that it cannot come with any finality without a change in human nature.

In giving shape to his theory of Spiritual Nationalism, Sri Aurobindo did bring out the glorious past of India to inspire her sons. He had no doubt that Indian Nationalism was largely Hindu in its spirit and traditions. The Hindu people made the land. India persists by the greatness of her past but it was wide enough to include Moslem and his culture and his traditions, he wrote. Sri Aurobindo strongly opposed the plan of creating separate electorate, as proposed in the Morley Minto Reform Scheme of 1909.

But what is Hindu religion? He spoke elaborately about it in his famous Uttarpara Speech, delivered on 30 May 1909. Speaking about the Hindu religion he said that it is the Sanatan Dharma or eternal religion, not circumscribed within the confines of a single country. It was nurtured in India from the remote past. With it India will grow and with its decline India will decline. Sanatan Dharma impresses on man the closeness of god. The only qualification to be an Indian, he insisted upon, that he should be the child of an Indian mother, with a heart that feels for India, a brain that thinks for her, a tongue that adores her and hands that fights for her.

Already a spiritual being, Sri Aurobindo withdrew from direct politics some time after the Alipore Jail term and dedicated himself to yoga sadhana in Pondicherry, following an adesha, or command from the inner divine.

Historians have observed that his passive resistence found a follower in Mahatma Gandhi and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was an embodiment of his revolutionary ideas. These two combined forces made Indian Independence possible on his birthday on 15 August 1947.

Though Sri Aurobindo retired from active politics, he was alive to the conditions of the country and the world. He intervened by sending his messenger to the Indian leaders in 1942, urging upon them the need to accept the Dominion Status offered by the Cripps Mission. It was not accepted and the disastrous consequences of partition and the aftermath of it were witnessed in the course of another five years. This view was expressed by some of the then Congress leaders.

During the Second World War Sri Aurobindo declared Hitler as the anti-divine asuric force and considered the victory of the Allies necessary for the preservation of the civilization, for a victory of Hitler would have hindered the evolutionary march of the human race. Sri Aurobindo and Mother contributed, as a symbol of their support, a sum of Rs. 500 toward the war fund.

Asked to give his message on the occasion of India’s independence, Sri Aurobindo gave one which was broadcast through All India Radio, Trichinopally. India was free but maimed, he said and stressed that the partition should go otherwise India would remain crippled. He said that all his five dreams, including the freedom of India, were on the way to fulfilment. The other dreams were resurgence of Asia, human unity, bestowing of India’s spiritual gift to the world and a step forward in human evolution of consciousness toward the spiritual path. On a number of subsequent occasions Sri Aurobindo expressed his ardent hope that India would be reunited in the course of time.

Sri Aurobindo’s call was to Young India. Youth are the builders of the new world, he believed. They should neither accept competitive individualism, nor capitalism nor materialistic communism. They must accept and endeavor to transform life by the spirit. He neither invented a new religion nor advocated the older paths. His path of yoga was for inner development through a growth of consciousness. Yogi Sri Aurobindo embraced all of humanity and contributed his most toward the divinization of earth.

We remember how the prophetic voice of his counsel, barrister C. R Das, reverberated in a pin-drop-silent court room, towards the end of his speech: ‘Long after this controversy is hushed in silence, long after this turmoil, this agitation ceases, long after he is dead and gone he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity. Long after he is dead and gone his words will be echoed and reechoed not only in India but across distant seas and lands.’

Poet Rabindranath Tagore hailed him thus in his poem Namasker, ‘O Voice incarnate, free, of India’s soul!’

Sri Aurobindo’s Political Philosophy was consistent with his spiritual philosophy. His love for the motherland expanded to embrace the whole of humanity. He really was a poet of patriotism, prophet of nationalism and a lover of humanity.

References:
1 Sri Aurobindo. SABCL. Pondicherry; Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1972. Vol-26. p.17
2 Bhavan’s Journal. Mumbai; Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Vol-18. No.26
3 Yugantarer Swapna Sadhan. Sanjib Chowdhury. Chittagong; Sri Aurobindayan, 1993. 14th issue. pp. 67-68
4 As quoted in Sisir Kumar Mitra’s ‘Sri Aurobindo and Indian Freedom’. Madras; Sri Aurobindo Library, 1948. p.46
5 Sri Aurobindo. op.cit. Vol-26. p.32
6 ibid. p. 22

Continued in Part Three

Comment

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