Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

27 February 1940

Nirodbaran: Anilbaran’s letter. This time it is about politics. He writes: “A Zamindar of Mymensingh named Umapada came to see me and said that oppression by the Muslim League has terribly increased.”

Sri Aurobindo: Suren Ghose in his interview with the Mother has spoken all about it and the Mother has said whatever is necessary.

Nirodbaran: The letter continues: “Brajendra says that communism is spreading among the youth and Congress can’t stand against it. The only way, I told him, is to propagate Sri Aurobindo’s ideas and, leaving Gandhi’s constructive programme, take up the old village communism.”

Sri Aurobindo: Communism? All that is an old formula. It won’t do at all. How is he going to link Sri Aurobindo’s ideas to communism? And where was there ever village communism in India?

Nirodbaran: Why? What about the Panchayat systems, etc.?

Sri Aurobindo: That is the village commune, not communism. Communism means having common property.

Nirodbaran: I think he means commune. Then he says: “About politics there is no necessity to fight the British any more, because they can’t stand now against India’s will. Now by exerting pressure on government, we must get power and accept ministries as a corollary.”

Sri Aurobindo: All that is old; there is nothing new in it. Next?

Nirodbaran: “To make this effective we must have unity and the pressure of a united will.”

Sri Aurobindo: How is he going to get it?

Nirodbaran: By following your trends of thought. Unity not only of India but of the whole world: the principle of unity lies there. Now Public Enemy No. 1 is Bolshevism, No. 2 Communalism, No. 3 perhaps Gandhism.

Sri Aurobindo: Why perhaps? (Laughter)

Nirodbaran: The remedy is to broadcast Sri Aurobindo’s ideas and ideals extensively and to try large-scale production.

Sri Aurobindo: Large-scale production of what?

Nirodbaran: Don’t know.

Satyendra: Industrial production he means.

Nirodbaran: Or perhaps human production. (Laughter)

Purani: He speaks of Gandhism as Public Enemy No.3 because he overvalues Gandhi’s influence and his philosophy. His programme is accepted because there is no other.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, Gandhi’s programme is the only one at present.

Purani: When some revolutionary approached Tilak, Tilak said, “If you can show me even a fifty-five percent chance of success of a revolution I shall be ready to raise the standard of revolt. But is the country ready? Are the people willing to join the army? What will you do when the British army attacks you?” The revolutionary couldn’t convince Tilak.

Sri Aurobindo: Armed revolution is impossible at present. At the time we started work, there was some chance of success because the instruments of war were not so developed. If irregular and guerilla warfare had been carried out on a country-wide scale, there might have been some chance. But now with aeroplanes and machine-guns, etc., armed revolution would be crushed in no time.

Nirodbaran: Perhaps the aim of the revolutionaries is not so much to fight the British army as to intimidate the British Government.

Sri Aurobindo: A small number of revolutionaries won’t intimidate the Government. Even if they succeed, the Government will not give independence but Dominion Status, which they are willing even now to give after some time. England will give up India only when she finds it impossible to retain her, either because of the threat of defeat or because the whole nation is united behind the demand for independence.

Nirodbaran: In Ireland they were forced to submit. They could have crushed Ireland if they had wanted to.

Sri Aurobindo: That is what Lloyd George threatened – that if De Valera didn’t accept the treaty, Ireland would be crushed. All the Irish people were united in one demand and object. Every woman and child was a revolutionary and carried out what the leaders told them. Even then De Valera had to accept the treaty. In India there is no such possibility of country-wide rebellion, even of unarmed rebellion.

Nirodbaran: When you started the revolutionary movement, did you think it would succeed?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, I had the idea that it would succeed but found that it was not possible.

Satyendra (after the talk had touched on several topics): There was a Jain saint, Rajchandra. He seems to have predicted the death of a man, the exact time and date. According to the prediction he was to die at night. The saint said, “Unless my consciousness is clouded he will die at night.” The man died during the day but on the same date. Sir, is death predestined? Can the exact date be predicted?

Sri Aurobindo: The date can vary. There are many factors that may come in and push it off this way or that way.

Evening

Nirodbaran: Charu Dutt says that the first time he met you was at the train station at Baroda. He was passing through Baroda and you had come to the station to see somebody off. You were accompanied by Hesh and Deshpande. Dutt was travelling with an Englishman, an I.C.S. man probably, and just before Baroda station the Englishman asked, “Do you know where Ghose is now?” “Which Ghose?” “That Classical scholar of Cambridge who has come away to India to waste his future.” Dutt told him that you were at Baroda. When the train stopped there, Hesh saw Dutt and shouted to him: “Dutt, do you know Ghose?” Then he introduced you. Dutt said to the Englishman, “Here is Ghose.” “That?” the Englishman exclaimed in great surprise, because you had come to the station in the Indian official dress and turban.

Sri Aurobindo: Turban? Does he mean Palleri cap?

Nirodbaran: Probably.

Sri Aurobindo: But the official dress also? I don’t remember. It is true that at times I used to put on the Marathi dress. Then?

Nirodbaran: That was the first meeting. The second was at his own house in Bombay, where you came with a bundle of papers containing the scheme of the Bhavani Mandir. Oh yes, Jatin Banerji was also at Baroda station.

Purani: Which Jatin?

Sri Aurobindo: The one who was at the head of the Baroda army and then went to Calcutta and became head of the young people’s revolutionary movement and afterwards became the Sannyasi Niralamba.

Nirodbaran: You spoke to Dutt, it seems, about the scheme of work for the country, that it should be a many-sided activity based on Yoga and Brahmacharya. The idea and programme of work for the country were the same as his own except for Brahmacharya.

Sri Aurobindo: He couldn’t accept it?

Nirodbaran: No, and there was opposition to it among the other workers too. And for that reason you had to give it up.

Sri Aurobindo: Which other workers? I didn’t know anybody else. Barin and I were concerned with the scheme but I didn’t give it up because of any opposition. Barin was knocking about for a temple in the hills. He only got hill-fever and not the temple. The whole thing fizzled out. It was not a failure because it was never started. I knew that it wouldn’t work out. It was not meant to be a success.

Nirodbaran: Barin got the conception of the Mandir.

Sri Aurobindo: In automatic writing.

Nirodbaran: No, in trance, Dutt says.

Sri Aurobindo: Trance? I never knew that Barin went into trance. And if he had got it in trance he would have told me.

Nirodbaran: Dutt says it was in a trance in which he had a vision of a temple on a rugged conical hill somewhere between Modhupur and Benaras.

Sri Aurobindo: The hill was near Benaras.