August 15th, Birthday of ‘the Most Dangerous Man’
I can only repeat that he is the most dangerous man we have to reckon with
Lord Minto, 1910 (Viceroy of India)
Lord Minto, who was Viceroy of India from 1905 to 1910, had good reasons to worry. There was this thin dark-skinned young man in India known at that time as Aurobindo Ghose who came to public view in 1906 like a blazing star in the sky of Indian inspiration. He was setting the country on fire demanding independence for India when the Indian National Congress was still unwilling to demand independence from the British. There was an unstoppable rising tide of courageous aspiration for freedom sweeping across the country and the eye of the storm was Aurobindo Ghose.
Within four years there will be three attempts to arrest and silence him. But the Viceroy was dealing with a man who would defy him every time. Aurobindo Ghose was out of jail second time after a year-long prosecution which again failed to get enough evidence against him. The Viceroy was looking for ways to stop this young man. It was much before Gandhi took leadership of the freedom movement and Subhas Chandra Bose was still a young boy in school.
But the will of India was already set for freedom, the fire was burning high. There was no going back. And then in 1910 Aurobindo Ghose will disappear like a meteor leaving behind a brilliant trail towards a greater mystery. But the British were after him. Viceroy Lord Minto wrote some private letters to Viscount John Morley, Secretary of State for India, about Sri Aurobindo. Here is an extract from a letter dated 26 May 1910.
“As to the celebrated Arabindo, I confess, I cannot in the least understand your hope that we shall not get a conviction against him! I can only repeat what I said to you in my letter of April 14th that he is the most dangerous man we now have to reckon with… and has an unfortunate influence over the student class, and Indians who know him well have told me he is quite beyond redemption.…”
“In the meanwhile Arabindo is in Pondicherry where he seems to have formed some undesirable French connections and will probably sail for France.”
Sri Aurobindo did not sail for France, nor did he return to Bengal, he will spend the rest of his life in Pondicherry. He embarked upon a greater spiritual work which involved the whole of earth and India’s freedom was part of his larger work. He gathered tremendous spiritual powers within him and worked from behind the veil which was quite characteristic of his approach. And when India gained freedom from the British rule it came on his birthday, like a birthday gift, making 15th of August rich with greater meaning.
About this coincidence he wrote:
“August 15th is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life, the beginning of its full fruition. Indeed, on this day I can watch almost all the world-movements which I hoped to see fulfilled in my lifetime, though then they looked like impracticable dreams, arriving at fruition or on their way to achievement. In all these movements free India may well play a large part and take a leading position.” 1
1893, the year of strange coincidences
In 1893, a 30-year-old young monk from India started his journey to the West on 31 May. He visited several cities in Japan, China and Canada en route to the United States, reaching Chicago on 30 July 1893. Soon in September, he will speak at the Parliament of Religions and his very first speech will become an inspiring landmark setting in motion the message of India to the world. The young monk was Swami Vivekananda and overnight he was a celebrity in the world giving India great pride in her own spiritual inheritance. India, after a long period of decline and inertia, was standing up again on the world stage with a great message.
It was during the same year, in 1893, a young Indian lawyer arrived in South Africa at the age of 24. On June 7th night, he was thrown out of a train at Pietermaritzburg station in spite of possessing a valid ticket for travelling in a first-class compartment. That night sitting in the railway station shivering in the cold and the bitter incident he decided to fight against the British empire. The young Indian was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who was waking up to the mission of his life. From there onwards, there was no turning back for Gandhi and he began the fight in South Africa.
The third event of 1893 is not much known and there was no outwardly visible reason for it to be known. That was the year when an unknown young Indian man at the age of 21 returned to his native soil after spending 14 years in England.
He was sent to England to study at the age of 7 because his father admired everything Western and wanted his son to grow up in the atmosphere of the West free from the influences of India. However, the destiny of this young man had some other plans. The moment he put his foot down on Indian soil on 6 February 1893 at Apollo Bunder, Bombay, at 10.55 a.m, a spiritual experience was awaiting him.
“…a vast calm which descended upon him at the moment when he stepped first on Indian soil after his long absence, in fact with his first step on the Apollo Bunder in Bombay; (this calm surrounded him and remained for long months afterwards,)” 2
Unknowingly and unasked his spiritual life had begun, which was later to become his sole preoccupation. It was Aurobindo Ghose, who would later become Sri Aurobindo, a man of profound silence.
“…since I set foot on Indian soil on the Apollo Bunder in Bombay, I began to have spiritual experiences, but these were not divorced from this world but had an inner and intimate bearing on it,…” 3
His spiritual life was never otherworldly and it was always intimately woven into what was happening in India and the world. However, everything about him was quiet, calm and silent. Hardly anyone knew what was going on within him. This silence will continue throughout his life.
It is not surprising that we don’t find him in our history books.
There was nothing loud and visible and yet in his deep silence, a great spiritual revolution and the evolutionary process were unfolding. Freedom of India was only a step on his way.
Making of the Most Dangerous Man
At that time, in 1893, the idea of India as a modern self-governing nation was not yet articulated in Indian political discourse. When the first revolt against the rule of British East India Company broke out in 1857 the rebels in India who marched into the Red Fort had to call upon Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal Emperor, to take the leadership of India to reclaim his throne. But that was not a turn towards the rebirth of India as a modern nation. It was rather a reactionary movement and politically India was still a collection of princely states. While Indian subcontinent had a profound cultural unity and identity, the idea of India as a modern nation was yet to be born. The revolt had not sprung forth from the new idea of India and there was no all-India political organisation or leadership to coordinate the movement either. The revolt was suppressed by the British and the governance of India moved from the hands of British East India Company to the British Government.
In the coming decades, as a result of education in English medium and exposure to modern ideas of political freedom, there was a growing population of the educated class in India who were gradually gaining political consciousness. By 1876 under the leadership of Surendranath Banerjee and Ananda Mohan Bose Indian National Association was formed to promote the interests of India and the nationalist sentiments were beginning to emerge. It was in this context in 1883 a retired Civil Service officer Allan Octavian Hume put forth the idea of a political platform for educated Indians in an open letter to the graduates of the University of Calcutta. Its purpose was to obtain a greater role for educated Indians in the British Raj and to have a civic and political dialogue with the government. This movement gained momentum and eventually lead to the creation of the Indian National Congress in 1885. However, even after 8 years of its founding the leaders of the Congress was still naive and believed in getting justice from the British Crown. They advocated dialogue with the British Raj as a means to gain political goals. Besides they didn’t envision anything more than some concessions from the British Raj and more involvement of the English speaking elite of India in the government. They spent their time in debates and passing resolutions which was hardly taken seriously by the British. There was not much of discourse on India as an independent nation capable of self-governance and patriotism still meant loyalty to the British Crown. Besides this, the Congress represented only the voice of the English speaking urban elite of India and the larger population of India from other socio-economic backgrounds had hardly a place or voice. This was the political context into which Sri Aurobindo was stepping in.
Just before returning to India Sri Aurobindo had written in his Cambridge notebook:
“It is time that an Indian who has devoted his best thoughts and aspirations to the service of his country, should have in his turn a patient hearing
India is indeed a snake who has rejected her outworn winter weeds.” 4
When he arrived India was in the process of awakening to her own soul force and nationhood after a long period of foreign invasions, decline, stupor, slavery and aping of the West. It was the task of Sri Aurobindo to give form and force to the idea of India’s nationhood which was still nebulous in the collective mind and heart of the people. He was ready to play his role at the age of 21 and the opportunity came when K.G.Deshpande who was a friend from the Cambridge days invited Sri Aurobindo in 1893 to write on the political situation in India in a weekly called Indu Prakash published from Bombay.
He wrote a series of articles called New Lamps for Old in Indu Prakash from 7 August 1893 to 6 March 1894. It was an unapologetic and straight critique on the leadership of the Congress for following their moderate policy that did not have the courage to stand up for a free India. In his introduction to the series he wrote:
“We constantly find it asserted that the English are a just people and only require our case to be clearly stated in order to redress our grievances. […] this is a grave and injurious delusion, which must be expunged from our minds if we would see things as they really are.”
“If we are indeed to renovate our country, we must no longer hold out supplicating hands to the English Parliament, like an infant crying to its nurse for a toy, but must recognise the hard truth that every nation must beat out its own path to salvation with pain and difficulty, and not rely on the tutelage of another.” 5
He did not mince his words:
“Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism.” 6
The first two articles of the series made a sensation and frightened the Congress leaders. They warned the proprietor of the paper that, if this went on, he would surely be prosecuted for sedition.
Sri Aurobindo continued in the third article:
“I say, of the Congress, then, this, — that its aims are mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds towards their accomplishment is not a spirit of sincerity and whole-heartedness, and that the methods it has chosen are not the right methods, and the leaders in whom it trusts, not the right sort of men to be leaders; — in brief, that we are at present the blind led, if not by the blind, at any rate by the one-eyed.” 7
It was way beyond the comfort zone of the then leaders of the Congress to handle and the pressure was building upon the proprietor of the weekly to do something about it. K.G.Deshpande requested Sri Aurobindo to tone down and he reluctantly consented but felt no further interest to continue the series and eventually stopped. His articles in the Indu Prakash were anonymous, although many people in Bombay knew that he was the writer. At that time he was working in the Baroda State Service.
Other than writing articles in Indu Prakash, for the first few years, Sri Aurobindo kept away from any public political activity. Instead, he spent time to study the conditions of India to get an in-depth understanding of the situation. He also immersed deeply in Indian literature, ancient and modern, to rediscover his own cultural roots after European education. But it was a strategic retreat like an arrow on the bow only to be shot forward with great force. Work ahead was clear and he was preparing the ground. He was contacting potential leaders for the future action and in Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who was the founder of a Marathi newspaper Kesari, he found a great ally in his work.
He saw the necessity for a three-fold action. First was the formation of a secret revolutionary organisation for an armed insurrection to end the British rule. The second was to establish in the mind and heart of the whole nation the idea of independence which was considered by the vast majority of Indians as impractical and impossible, an almost insane chimaera. The third was the organisation of the people to carry on a public and united opposition and undermining of the foreign rule through increasing noncooperation and passive resistance.
Meanwhile Swami Vivekananda, after his great success abroad, was awakening the nation with his powerful call “Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached.’’ But at a young age, he left his body on 4th July 1902. During this time Gandhi in South Africa had already founded the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 to fight discrimination against Indians and became a popular leader. He was developing his ideas of Satyagraha and Ahimsa that would later become his main approach in India’s freedom struggle.
By 1902 Sri Aurobindo quietly established Anushilan Samiti in Bengal, a secret organisation for armed insurrection. For this, he had trained Jatin Banerji in Baroda army and sent to Bengal. And by 1905 with the help of Jatin Banerji and his brother Barin Gosh, Anushilan Samiti had spread all over Bengal in the guise of youth fitness clubs. He encouraged youth to propagate the idea of Swadeshi which was still nascent in its development and hold over the people. Sri Aurobindo was preparing a mass base for a large scale action. But he leads from behind the veil without his name being known in the public.
The partition of Bengal in 1905 was crossing of the threshold. Bengal reached a boiling point and revolts were bursting out all over. This favoured the rapid growth of nationalism in India and the people felt the pain of Bengal together as a nation. However, the Indian National Congress was still lead by moderate leaders who couldn’t stand up for India as a sovereign nation against the British government, they only sought reforms in the governance of India. Claim for independence was considered by them as an extremist view. Sri Aurobindo persuaded, still from behind the scenes, a group from Begnal in the Congress to take the public position as Nationalist Party proclaiming the independence of India as their political stance with Tilak as their leader.
In 1906 Sri Aurobindo came to Bengal for a more direct political action to establish in the public mind the idea of India as a nation capable of sovereign self-governance. During the Calcutta Congress in 1906, the Nationalists from Bengal succeeded in imposing a part of their political programme on the Congress. Both Moderates and Nationalists of Congress unanimously resolved to have for its goal Swaraj or Self-government and Swadeshi, Boycott and National Education as an effective means for realising it.
Meanwhile, in 1906, with his permission, his brother Barindra Kumar Ghosh started a Bengali weekly Yugantar to publicly declare open revolt against the British rule. Sri Aurobindo started publishing his views through Jugantar without revealing his name.
The same year, in 1906, Bipin Chandra Pal started an English daily called Bande Mataram which soon came under Sri Aurobindo’s editorship. However, his name was not printed to avoid persecution. Unlike Yugantar, Bande Mataram expressed views within the framework of law and followed the path of peace and passive resistance. Through the pages of the daily Sri Aurobindo’s first preoccupation was to declare openly for complete and absolute independence as the aim of political action in India and to insist on this persistently. Through Bande Mataram, he laid out clearly central ideas that would later become mainstream in the Indian struggle for independence — non-cooperation, passive resistance, swadeshi, boycott and national education. In a very short time, the paper became the voice of the Nationalist movement and an unstoppable force in Indian politics.
The London Times complained that its articles reeked of sedition, but were so cleverly worded that no action could be taken. Mr Radcliff, the editor of The Statesman, said about the Bande Mataram:
“It had a full-size sheet, was clearly printed on green paper, and was full of leading and special articles written in English with a brilliance and pungency not hitherto attained in the Indian Press. It was the most effective voice of what we then called nationalist extremism.”
Bipin Chandra Pal described the role of Sri Aurobindo in the Bande Mataram:
“Morning after morning, not only Calcutta but the educated community almost in every part of the country eagerly awaited its vigorous pronouncements on the stirring questions of the day. … It was a force in the country which none dared to ignore, however much they might fear or hate it, and Aravinda was the leading spirit, the central figure in the new journal!”
However, the Moderates in Congress were still struggling to reverse the stand on independence and go back to the idea of India as a British colony and even worked out a new constitution for the party that would effectively weaken the Nationalists. This lead Moderates and Nationalists into a conflict over the control of Congress, its public opinion and action in the country. The clash came out in public during a session of Congress at Calcutta but Sri Aurobindo was still acting from behind the scenes.
Sri Aurobindo came to public view when the British arrested him on 16th of August, 1907 and sought to prosecute for sedition as editor of Bande Mataram. When the news of Sri Aurobindo’s arrest reached Rabindranath Tagore, he wrote an inspired poem in Bengali called Namaskar.
In the poem dated 22nd August 1907 he would describe Sri Aurobindo as ‘the Voice Incarnate of India’s Soul’.
Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to thee!
O friend, my country’s friend, O voice incarnate, free,
Of India’s soul!…..
The fiery messenger that with the lamp of God
Hath come — where is the king who can with chain or rod
Chastise him? Chains that were to bind salute his feet,
And prisons greet him as their guest with welcome sweet,
The pall of gloom that wraps the sun in noontide skies
In dim eclipse, within a moment slips and flies
As doth a shadow.
There was no evidence against Sri Aurobindo and on 23rd September 1907, Magistrate Kingsford ruled that the Prosecution had failed to prove that Sri Aurobindo was the Editor of Bande Mataram and was acquitted.
The British government was already narrowing down on Sri Aurobindo, they wanted to silence him. He was the leader of the Nationalist Party in Bengal, master of its policy and strategy behind the emerging political tide. He came out in public as a leader of the Nationalists from Bengal during a district conference of Congress in Midnapur. Soon in December 1907, at Surat conference, where Sri Aurobindo and Tilak were actively leading, Congress will split and collapse. That was one of the decisive moments in Indian history.
Henry Nevinson, a member of the British Parliament, who happened to be present, describes his impressions of Sri Aurobindo and the scene after the split:
“…a youngish man, I should think still under thirty. Intent dark eyes looked from his thin, clear-cut face with a gravity that seemed immovable. … Grave with intensity, careless of fate or opinion, and one of the most silent men I have known, he was of the stuff that dreamers are made of, but dreamers who will act their dreams, indifferent to the means.”
“Grave and silent — I think without saying a single word — Mr. Aravinda Ghose took the chair, and sat unmoved, with far-off eyes, as one who gazes at futurity. ”
In one of his biographical notes Sri Aurobindo clarified in the third person about the Surat event:
“History very seldom records the things that were decisive but took place behind the veil; it records the show in front of the curtain. Very few people know that it was Sri Aurobindo (without consulting Tilak) who gave the order that led to the breaking of the Congress…” 8
There was a temporary collapse of the Congress and repression of the Nationalists by the Government during the turbulent years that followed. Both Sri Aurobindo and Tilak will be arrested. Sri Aurobindo considered it a necessary sacrifice to establish the idea of independence in the hearts and minds of the people and the whole nation. The Moderate Party will weaken into a small body of liberals and eventually adopt the ideal of complete independence.
Bande Mataram, the Mantra
The emergence of Bande Mataram as a daily newspaper as well as a mantra of India’s awakening had a long history.
After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, there was a proliferation of literary and intellectual creativity in Bengal of which Bankim Chandra Chatterjee was one of the great contributors. In the 1870’s he had already composed Bande Mataram (Vande Mataram in Sanskrit), a poem in the Bengali language that was destined to become India’s national song. Bankim passed away on 8th April 1894 and Sri Aurobindo contributed a series of articles on Bankim in Indu Prakash. Two years later, in 1896, Rabindranath Tagore rendered Bankim’s poem into a song which he sang for the first time in the political context of Calcutta Congress. It was an important step in awakening the soul-stirring emotions adoring India as the mother. By 1905 it became the marching song of the political activists in India. Later in 1907, when Sri Aurobindo plunged into full-time political action he wrote about Bankim in the daily Bande Mataram:
The hero, the Rishi, the saint, are the natural fruits of our Indian soil; and there has been no age in which they have not been born. Among the Rishis of the later age we have at last realized that we must include the name of the man who gave us the reviving mantra which is creating a new India, the mantra Bande Mataram. 9
Seer poets were close to his heart and he knew profoundly the great contribution they make in the process of social transformation. Sri Aurobindo, who himself was a seer poet, revealed the role Bankim played in India’s awakening.
Of the new spirit which is leading the nation to resurgence and independence, he is the inspirer and political guru.
… supreme service of Bankim to his nation was that he gave us the vision of our Mother. 10
He explained in detail:
It is not till the motherland reveals herself to the eye of the mind as something more than a stretch of earth or a mass of individuals, it is not till she takes shape as a great Divine and Maternal Power in a form of beauty that can dominate the mind and seize the heart that these petty fears and hopes vanish in the all-absorbing passion for our mother and her service, and the patriotism that works miracles and saves a doomed nation is born.
….Once that vision has come to a people, there can be no rest, no peace, no farther slumber till the temple has been made ready, the image installed and the sacrifice offered. A great nation which has had that vision can never again be placed under the feet of the conqueror. 11
Under the leadership of Sri Aurobindo, the daily Bande Mataram took forward the breath of inspiration from Bankim and the whole nation was stirred deeply towards a greater awakening. Bipin Chandra Pal, the original founder wrote:
“Bande Mataram” … at once secured for itself a recognised position in Indian journalism. The hand of the master was in it, from the very beginning. Its bold attitude, its vigorous thinking, its clear ideas, its chaste and powerful diction, its scorching sarcasm and refined witticism, were unsurpassed by any journal in the country, either Indian or Anglo-Indian. It at once raised the tone of every Bengali paper, and compelled the admiration of even hostile Anglo-Indian editors. Morning after morning, not only Calcutta but the educated community almost in every part of the country, eagerly awaited its vigorous pronouncements on the stirring question of the day. It even forced itself upon the notice of the callous and self-centered British press. Long extracts from it commenced to be reproduced week after week even in the exclusive columns of the “Times” in London. It was a force in the country which none dared to ignore, however much they might fear or hate it…
Henry Nevinson a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian wrote:
“Sri Aurobindo was undoubtedly the real editor of the Extremist paper, the Bande Mataram, but still remained at large, partly owing to the number of ‘prison editors’ on his staff… the man who inspired official circles with the greatest alarm, because his influence, though least spoken of, was most profound…”
The British Government was determined to stop Bande Mataram and the revolutionaries rising up in Bengal. They found an opportunity in April 1908 when two Bengali nationalists Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki attempted to assassinate Douglas Kingsford who was Presidency Magistrate. In the early hours of 2nd May 1908, the police carried out simultaneous raids in Calcutta at several locations and arrested around twenty suspected revolutionaries including Sri Aurobindo, who was believed to be their real leader.
Soon on July 3rd 1908, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who was defending the revolutionaries in his Marathi newspaper Kesari, was arrested for sedition by the British and was sentenced to a jail term from 1908 to 1914 in Mandalay in Burma.
Alipore Bomb Case
The trial of Sri Aurobindo in the court came to be known as Alipore Bomb Case and it was the first state trial of that magnitude in India. The revolutionaries were charged with conspiracy and waging war against the king. The case dragged on with preliminary hearings in the Magistrate’s Court, involving 1000 artefacts as evidence and 222 witnesses followed by a trial in Sessions Court, involving 1438 exhibits and 206 witnesses. During the one-year-long trial in the court, Sri Aurobindo will remain in solitary imprisonment in Alipore jail but he was undergoing a profound spiritual transformation. He knew he will be released.
Barrister Chittaranjan Das, a friend of Sri Aurobindo came for his defence and in his final appeal in the court, he was inspired to say the following:
My appeal to you therefore is that a man like this who is being charged with the offences imputed to him stands not only before the bar in this Court but stands before the bar of the High Court of History and my appeal to you is this: That 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 re-echoed not only in India, but across distant seas and lands. Therefore I say that the man in his position is not only standing before the bar of this Court but before the bar of the High Court of History.
The time has come for you, sir, to consider your judgment and for you, gentlemen, to consider your verdict…”
The judgment was finally delivered by Judge Beachcroft on 6 May 1909 and Sri Aurobindo was acquitted of all charges against him. Of the thirty-seven prisoners on trial, Barindra Ghose, as the head of the Secret society of revolutionaries and Ullaskar Dutt, as the maker of bombs, were given the death penalty (later commuted to transportation for life), seventeen others were given varying terms of imprisonment or transportation and the rest were acquitted.
Spiritual Transformation of Sri Aurobindo
Already in the last year of his stay in England Sri Aurobindo had his first turn towards spiritual seeking when he came across a very scanty and bare statement of the “Six philosophies” of India and he was especially struck by the concept of the Atman in the Adwaita. He made a strong mental attempt to realise Atman beyond this world without having understood it as something immanent in himself and everything in the universe. However, it was only in 1904 Sri Aurobindo started practising yoga systematically on his own starting with pranayama as explained to him by a friend. He combined both his active outer life and intense yogic practice without any conflict which will remain as his characteristic approach to yoga. He always sought integration of the spiritual and the material.
Even though he had many spontaneous spiritual experiences a decisive turn came in January 1908, right after Surat Congress, when he met a Maharashtrian yogi called Lele in Baroda who showed him how to silence his mind. Within three days his mind was silent and it deepened into the experience of static Self or Nirvana. His consciousness was liberated and he could retain it even while engaging in action. He was already a popular leader and he continued to give political speeches in a state of Nirvana, with an empty mind. There was no withdrawal from active public life. His next major realisation came in Alipore jail during his solitary imprisonment. He was practising the yoga as laid out in the Gita and realised the dynamic and immanent aspect of the all-pervading Divine as Vasudeva. In the jail, he would explore higher ranges of consciousness and during this period he also received, inwardly, help from Swami Vivekananda. There was a larger mission unfolding for him that embraced the destiny of mankind and India’s freedom was only the beginning of a greater work. He saw that humanity was heading for an evolutionary crisis and he was destined to work towards overcoming this crisis by establishing a new consciousness on earth. His vision was already set way beyond India’s freedom struggle.
After the release from the jail, in a famous speech at Uttarpara Sri Aurobindo spoke about India:
She does not rise as other countries do, for self or when she is strong, to trample on the weak. She is rising to shed the eternal light entrusted to her over the world. India has always existed for humanity and not for herself and it is for humanity and not for herself that she must be great. 12
During his imprisonment, Bande Mataram daily was closed down by the Government. But there was no way to stop Sri Aurobindo, he will start two new weeklies when he returned. One in English called Karmayogin and the other in Bengali called Dharma and he will continue to inspire India to awaken to her work in the world. But the British Government was desperate to arrest and silence him.
But there was no way the British could arrest him and they were hunting for every possible grain of evidence to catch him, the most dangerous man Lord Minto had to reckon with. One day in 1910 he received a secret message from Sister Nivedita, who had many friends in the Government circle that the arrest was imminent. After the experience with Lele, Sri Aurobindo had been following his inner guidance and when he came to know about the imminent arrest he received a clear inner message, which he referred to as ‘adesh’ (Divine Command), to go to Chandannagor which was a French colony at that time. Soon he received another ‘adesh’ to go to Pondicherry. He reached Pondicherry on 4th April 1910 and never returned.
Sri Aurobindo remarked later about his leaving politics:
I did not leave politics because I felt I could do nothing more there; such an idea was very far from me. I came away because I did not want anything to interfere with my Yoga and because I got a very distinct adesh in the matter. I have cut connection entirely with politics, but before I did so I knew from within that the work I had begun there was destined to be carried forward, on lines I had foreseen, by others, and that the ultimate triumph of the movement I had initiated was sure without my personal action or presence. 13
Many people will try to persuade Sri Aurobindo to return and take the reins of the freedom movement. But he will refuse. It was meant for other leaders to take up the task and in 1914 Tilak will return from Burma and take up the reins. Later in 1915 Gandhi will return from South Africa and enter India’s freedom movement. While correcting many statements made on him by biographers Sri Aurobindo wrote about his political life from 1893 to 1910:
“…the greatest thing done in those years was the creation of a new spirit in the country. In the enthusiasm that swept surging everywhere with the cry of Bande Mataram ringing on all sides men felt it glorious to be alive and dare and act together and hope; the old apathy and timidity were 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.” 14
Message from Pondicherry
In 1914 The Mother (Mirra Alfassa) will arrive in Pondicherry and recognise Sri Aurobindo as the person with whom her spiritual mission was destined to unfold. The decades that followed was the period of an unprecedented spiritual revolution that remains largely unknown to the world. He had acquired tremendous spiritual powers that enabled him to work from behind the scenes and his work, including India’s freedom, spanned the whole world and the evolutionary destiny of earth. From Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo will publish Arya: A Philosophical Review between 1914 to 1921. In the pages of Arya he will detail exposition of his vision and transformational practice of spiritual evolution unfolding on earth and the stakes on the way. In the pages of Arya he wrote about India:
India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples. And that which must seek now to awake is not an anglicised oriental people, docile pupil of the West and doomed to repeat the cycle of the Occident’s success and failure, but still the ancient immemorable Shakti recovering her deepest self, lifting her head higher towards the supreme source of light and strength and turning to discover the complete meaning and a vaster form of her Dharma. 15
He was sure of the victory of the freedom movement in India. Many of the revolutionaries will come to Sri Aurobindo and one of them was A.B. Purani. He came to meet Sri Aurobindo in 1918 and recorded his conversation:
Sri Aurobindo was sitting in a wooden chair behind a small table covered with an indigo-blue cloth in the verandah upstairs when I went up to meet him… I informed that our group was now ready to start revolutionary activity. It had taken us about eleven years to get organised.
Sri Aurobindo remained silent for some time. Then he put me questions about my sadhana — spiritual practice. I described my efforts and added: “Sadhana is all right, but it is difficult to concentrate on it so long as India is not free.”
“Perhaps it may not be necessary to resort to revolutionary activity to free India,” he said.
“But without that how is the British Government to go from India?” I asked him.
“That is another question; but if India can be free without revolutionary activity, why should you execute the plan? It is better to concentrate on yoga — spiritual practice,” he replied.
“But India is a land that has sadhana in its blood. When India is free, I believe, thousands will devote themselves to yoga. But in the world of to-day who will listen to the truth from, or spirituality of, slaves?” I asked him.
He replied: “India has already decided to win freedom and so there will certainly be found leaders and men to work for that goal. But all are not called to yoga. So, when you have the call, is it not better to concentrate upon it? If you want to carry out the revolutionary programme you are free to do it, but I cannot give my consent to it.”…
“… But the concentration of my whole being turns towards India’s freedom. It is difficult for me to sleep till that is secured.”
Sri Aurobindo remained silent for two or three minutes. It was a long pause. Then he said: “Suppose an assurance is given to you that India will be free?”
“Who can give such an assurance?” I could feel the echo of doubt and challenge in my own question.
Again he remained silent for three or four minutes. Then looked at me and added: “Suppose I give you the assurance?”
I paused for a moment, considered the question with myself and said “If you give the assurance, I can accept it.”
“Then I give you the assurance that India will be free,” he said in a serious tone.
My work was over — the purpose of my visit to Pondicherry was served….
*****
It was time to leave. The question of India’s freedom again rose in my mind, and at the time of taking leave, after I had got up to depart, I could not repress the question — it was a question of my very life for me: “Are you quite sure that India will be free?”
I did not, at that time, realise the full import of my query. I wanted a guarantee, and though the assurance had been given my doubts had not completely disappeared.
Sri Aurobindo became very serious. The yogi in him came forward, his gaze was fixed at the sky that could be seen beyond the window. Then he looked at me putting his fist on the table he said:
“You can take it from me, it is as certain as the rising of the sun tomorrow. The decree has already gone forth — it may not be long in coming.”
I bowed down to him. That day I was able to sleep soundly in the train after more than two years.
Tagore meets Sri Aurobindo
Rabindranath Tagore will come to see him in Pondicherry and wrote the following on May 29, 1928:
“I felt that the utterance of the ancient Hindu Rishi spoke from him of that equanimity which gives the human soul its freedom of entrance into the All.
I said to him, “You have the Word and we are waiting to accept it from you. India will speak through your voice to the world, ‘Hearken to me’.”
When India became free on 15th of August 1947, All India Radio, Tiruchirappalli, requested Sri Aurobindo for a message for broadcast. In his message he wrote:
“…India today is free but she has not achieved unity.”
“…the old communal division into Hindus and Muslims seems now to have hardened into a permanent political division of the country. It is to be hoped that this settled fact will not be accepted as settled for ever or as anything more than a temporary expedient. For if it lasts, India may be seriously weakened, even crippled: civil strife may remain always possible, possible even a new invasion and foreign conquest. India’s internal development and prosperity may be impeded, her position among the nations weakened, her destiny impaired or even frustrated. This must not be; the partition must go. Let us hope that that may come about naturally, by an increasing recognition of the necessity not only of peace and concord but of common action, by the practice of common action and the creation of means for that purpose. In this way unity may finally come about under whatever form — the exact form may have a pragmatic but not a fundamental importance. But by whatever means, in whatever way, the division must go; unity must and will be achieved, for it is necessary for the greatness of India’s future.” 16
The decades that came after India’s independence have only proven how far-sighted he was. Sri Aurobindo left his body on 5th December 1950, but his work continues to unfold amidst the chaos of a world in an evolutionary ferment.
Bibliography
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/36/the-fifteenth-of-august-1947
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/36/meeting-with-vishnu-bhaskar-lele
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/35/this-worldliness-and-other-worldliness
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/06/india-renascent
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/06/india-and-the-british-parliament
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/06/new-lamps-for-old-ii
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/06/new-lamps-for-old-iii
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/35/the-surat-congress-1907
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/06/rishi-bankim-chandra
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/06/rishi-bankim-chandra
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/06/rishi-bankim-chandra
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/08/uttarpara-speech
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/35/leaving-politics
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/36/a-general-note-on-sri-aurobindos-political-life
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/20/indian-polity-iv
- https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/36/the-fifteenth-of-august-1947
