Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Letters
Notes about the War Fund Contributions [1]1
As to your suggestion about a note on the subject of
the contribution to the War Fund Sri Aurobindo does not feel very much inclined
to enter into any public explanation of his action or any controversy on the
subject. In his letter he made it very clear that it was on the War issue that
he gave his full support and he indicated the reason for it. Hitler and Nazism
and its 
push towards world domination are in his view an assault by a formidable
reactionary Force, a purely Asuric force, on the highest values of civilisation
and their success would mean the destruction of individual liberty, national
freedom, liberty of thought, liberty of life, religious and spiritual freedom in
at least three continents. In Europe already these things have gone down for the
time being except, precariously, in a few small countries; if Britain were
defeated, that result would be made permanent and in Asia also all the recent
development such as the rise of new or renovated Asiatic peoples would be
miserably undone, and India’s hope of liberty would become a dead dream of the
past or a struggling dream of a far-off future. The abject position to which the
Nazi theory relegates the coloured races is well known and that would be the
fate of India if it conquered and dominated the world. Mankind itself as a whole
would be flung back into a relapse towards barbarism, a social condition and an
ethics which would admit only the brute force of the master and the docile
submission of the slave. It is only by Britain’s victory in the struggle to
which she has challenged this destructive Force that the danger can be
nullified, since she alone has shown at once the courage and power to resist and
survive. This is Sri Aurobindo’s view and, holding it, he could do nothing else
than what he has done. There is no just reason here for any misunderstanding.
This is what you can explain to anybody who questions, if it is necessary.