Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
28 February 1940
Nirodbaran: I have increased my stock of knowledge today.
Purani: From where you left off yesterday?
Nirodbaran: Yes. Sakariababa knew beforehand about the mission but he refused. They told him that you had sent them.
Sri Aurobindo: How could I? I didn’t know him. It was Barin who knew him.
Nirodbaran: As no entreaty was of avail, Dutt said, “We will send Barin then.” He knew Sakaria was very fond of Barin. He then agreed that three months in a year he would stay. The second visit of yours was to his place at Thana.
Sri Aurobindo: That is right.
Nirodbaran: There were two Marathis present, one of them was Kaka Patil, I think.
Sri Aurobindo: Kaka Patil? I seem to remember a name like that.
Nirodbaran: You had a long argument with them and Dutt about the feasibility of the Mandir. They were practical people and they didn’t want to mix up Yoga with politics. In the argument, Dutt felt that you yourself were shaky about the idea and you couldn’t argue very well.
Sri Aurobindo: I was shaky?
Nirodbaran: Yes.
Sri Aurobindo: Arguing with them? I was never in the habit of arguing. He seems to have given me a character which I never had.
Nirodbaran: At last you said, “Charu, I give it up.”
Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! I don’t remember having any argument and saying that.
Satyendra: But he remembers, Sir. (Laughter)
Nirodbaran: Though the scheme was given up, Barin and Upen were going ahead in Maniktola training boys in Yoga. Oh yes, when I told him that yesterday he said that you were at Calcutta, so how could you meet him at Bombay? He said it might have been in one of your comings and goings.
Sri Aurobindo: My comings and goings? I had not much money to come and go. (Laughter) And then?
Nirodbaran: There were two boys among them who were very remarkable – Prafulla Chaki and Prafulla Chakravarty. Then he related an incident about Chaki to show what stuff he was made of. It seems Chaki had a hand-grenade in his pocket given by Dutt. They were sitting together somewhere with Bidhan Roy by the side of Dutt.
Sri Aurobindo: Bidhan Roy?
Nirodbaran: Yes, but Roy didn’t know anything at all about those things, nor did Dutt tell him. Chaki was sitting perfectly calm and composed, a boy who was to kill thirty or forty people at any moment. There was to be a cricket match to which Sir Andréw Fraser was to come, but he didn’t turn up because he suspected something. So the thing didn’t come off. When Dutt met Chaki the next time at Darjeeling …
Sri Aurobindo: Charu Dutt seems to be everywhere. Yet I never knew that he was actually in the movement. Next?
Satyendra: He must have been playing a big role, Sir.
Nirodbaran: Just to test him Dutt said to Chaki, “Prafulla, what do you think about our leaders who are remaining safe behind the scene while putting you young people in danger?” Chaki suddenly clasped Charu’s feet and said, “Are you testing me? My duty is to do what I am commanded.” “Such was the material,” Charu said, “first-rate boys and, added to everything else, the yogic force made them remarkable.” It seems Barin was giving them spiritual training.
Sri Aurobindo: It was Lele who gave them the initiation into Yoga. Barin called down Lele from Bombay for that purpose.
Nirodbaran: Lele, it appears, after seeing Chaki was very much impressed and picked him out from the group. He wanted to take Chaki with him to make him a fine Yogi and consulted you and you replied that he should ask Dutt. Lele remarked that such fine boys were being wasted in the movement.
Sri Aurobindo: I said Dutt should be asked? But does he mean to say that Lele knew about the movement? He knew nothing at all except at the end when he said to Barin, “You have all along deceived me. I thought you wanted to practise Yoga and for that reason you called me. Now give it up, give it up, otherwise you will fall into a ditch.”
Nirodbaran: Dutt said, “These boys are being wasted,” so Lele knew perhaps.
Sri Aurobindo: If he had known, he would have immediately left them. He thought all along that they were practising Yoga. If he had known, Noren Goswami would have brought it into the trial as evidence. The only thing that came out about him was a note, “Rub me with ghee,” written by Lele himself on a piece of paper (Laughter), as a sort of service to him. Now go on.
Nirodbaran: You asked Lele to consult Dutt about Chaki.
Sri Aurobindo: Nonsense! Nevermind. Then?
Nirodbaran: So you called Dutt to your house. It was a single-storeyed house, he said, rather low, with a low basement or ground floor.
Sri Aurobindo: When was it? If it was my house it must have been after the Surat Congress when Lele came to Calcutta.
Nirodbaran: May be. Dutt entered the house, found you and Lele sitting while Chaki was loitering outside.
Sri Aurobindo: Chaki was there?
Nirodbaran: Yes. Lele asked Dutt about Chaki. Dutt simply refused and referred him to you. You said, “I have nothing to say in the matter.”
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know anything about it at all. When did Dutt come to my house? Where was he then? Of course, I would have given that answer if I had been asked. God knows where he has got all this from.
Satyendra: Must be out of his own fertile brain, Sir.
Nirodbaran: The boy himself was called and asked his opinion. He said, pointing to you …
Sri Aurobindo: Me? Good Lord! I had nothing to do with them. It was all Barin’s work. I never knew who these boys were and never saw them. Only once Barin brought a troop of them to my house but they all waited below. It is true that Barin used to consult me or Mullick for any advice. But the whole movement was in his hands. I had no time for it. I was busy with Congress politics and Bande Mataram. My part in it was most undramatic. If Dutt had been in the movement, Barin would surely have told me but he never mentioned Dutt’s name. If I had been the head, I would have been more cautious.
Nirodbaran: Barin also wrote that you were the leader and brain of the movement.
Sri Aurobindo: My connection with the movement began before I openly joined politics. Okakura started the revolutionary movement at Calcutta, but there was always a quarrel going on among the members. When I came to Calcutta, I came in contact with the party. They had no organisation at all. Their main programme was to beat some magistrates, and quarrels were going on. So I organised them and reconciled their quarrels and went back to Baroda. Again a quarrel broke out, again I came and reconciled them; the whole thing then went into Barin’s hands. Terrorism was only a subordinate movement. It could have been important if the armed revolution would have come, the revolution for which we wanted to prepare the whole country, but I was too busy with the open political movement to prepare the country in that way. This terroristic movement was to prepare the young men with some sort of a military training, to kill and get killed. Otherwise it was never my idea that by throwing a few bombs we could overthrow the British Government. And that probably was the reason for the split among them. P. Mitra was for original idea while Barin was for this terrorism. I was never in direct contact with the movement nor with the young men and didn’t know them. Only in jail did I come in contact with them, especially Nolini, Bejoy, etc. When I came out of jail, Jatin Banerji and others again approached me and I organised the party again.
Nirodbaran: There is no Dutt in the picture. What part did he play then?
Sri Aurobindo: He was only in the know of the movement. Most of the time he was at his judgeship at Bombay.
Nirodbaran: As for Chaki, it seems he shot himself.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it was in the Kingsford case, along with Khudiram.
Nirodbaran: About Prafulla Chakravarty, Dutt said he died in Deoghar in the hills where Barin and others went to experiment with explosives. It seems a bomb exploded in mid air instead of on the ground and a splinter struck Chakravarty in the head, by which he died.
Sri Aurobindo: I see. I didn’t know that.
Nirodbaran: After the accident, Barin and Upen etc., called for Dutt. Dutt arrived and saw that something had gone wrong. Charu Dutt again! How could he be consulted?
Sri Aurobindo: Where was he?
Nirodbaran: Maybe in Calcutta. I am not sure. They were very dejected. They explained what had happened to him and asked how to dispose of the body. Something had to be done. Otherwise the body would be found and identified.
Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! Does it mean that Barin left the body there and came to Calcutta for advice? Barin might have been rash but he was not so foolish.
Nirodbaran: Dutt advised them to disfigure the face.
Sri Aurobindo: That is taken from Pulin Das. Pulin Das did the same thing in a case like that.
Nirodbaran: Now it seems some people were arrested but no trace could be found of Chakravarty. His father was very worried.
Sri Aurobindo: I thought his father knew all about his son’s movements and said that he had become a Sannyasi.
Nirodbaran: But he didn’t know about his death. Dutt was at that time interned at Cooch Bihar. He had no means of communication with anybody. He asked a pleader friend of his at Rangpur to see him about some legal affair. When he came, Dutt told him to communicate the news to the father.
Sri Aurobindo: Barin was very reckless. On the eve of the search he brought two bombs to my house. I told him, “Take them away. Don’t you know that the house is going to be searched? And remove the things from Maniktala.” He took the bombs away but didn’t do anything at Maniktala.
Satyendra: He has written about it in his book. Just as he was removing things the police came, he said. He seemed to be a man on whom responsibility was sitting very lightly.
Sri Aurobindo: Then he knew that the police were watching him but didn’t care about it at all.
Nirodbaran: Dutt said that the mistakes and accidents happened because you were passing through some new phase in sadhana, on account of which you couldn’t be vigilant enough. Sisir Mitra and Nolini don’t believe that you would have been so careless with such a heavy responsibility on you.
Sri Aurobindo: As I said, I had nothing to do directly with the movement. I would have been very cautious.
Dr. Manilal: I asked Dutt if the spiritual force he spoke of among the boys had been imparted by you.
Sri Aurobindo: I didn’t impart anything.
Nirodbaran: He said, “I doubt it. Firstly Sri Aurobindo had not advanced sufficiently in Yoga at that time to do that, and secondly he was himself passing through a struggle.”
Sri Aurobindo: No, I didn’t give them any force. There was at that time a break in my sadhana because the pressure of work was too much. The sadhana was renewed after my contact with Lele. The boys were revolutionary from the beginning; it was their own force that moved them.
Evening
Nirodbaran: I have another letter from A. He has come out again with his scheme of village reconstruction. It is more elaborate now. One interesting point I find is a common kitchen.
Purani: That is nothing new, and I doubt very much how far it will work out. Village people have a strong individuality in these things. They will hardly agree to share common cooked food.
Satyendra: In this land of caste and creed and untouchability, how can they accept a common kitchen?
Nirodbaran: A further writes: “I now see that my ideas came from the universal mind.”
Sri Aurobindo: Universal mind? That is too much to say.
Nirodbaran: It’s my mistake. Instead of “general” I read “universal”.
Sri Aurobindo: Then?
Nirodbaran: Then he says: “They come out with such force that it seems there must be some truth in them.”
Sri Aurobindo: That’s right.
Nirodbaran: He continues: “So I must know their Swarupa, true form, either to accept or reject them. Now the most urgent need of the country is some sort of unity, and unity can only come if the country has a vigorous and living programme of work acceptable to all and sundry.”
Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord!
Nirodbaran: “For this,” says A, “I have fixed a programme –”
Sri Aurobindo: For your approval. (Laughter) Then?
Nirodbaran: “The programme is: (1) none shall go unfed, (2) none untreated, and (3) none uneducated. This is very possible if all villagers are combined – as was in ancient India.”
Sri Aurobindo: How does he know it was so in ancient India?
Nirodbaran: I don’t know. He goes on: “There was no common property in India. Following the ancient way, my idea is to have village institutions fitting present conditions. The main thing is a common kitchen.”
Sri Aurobindo: Why not have everything else in common too? (Laughter)
Satyendra: Everybody will come and eat anything they like in the common kitchen?
Nirodbaran: No, according to one’s needs. In such an institution, poor people who go without food will be fed.
Sri Aurobindo: How is it to run? Who will pay the expenses?
Nirodbaran: According to one’s means one will contribute. If it is run on a large scale, expenses will be much less.
Purani: Then nobody will pay and everybody will come to eat.
Sri Aurobindo: Quite so – and it will encourage idleness.
Nirodbaran: There will also be a dispensary under the supervision of a qualified doctor who will be maintained by two or three villages combined.
Purani: If A goes to the villages he will find out how very difficult it is to get people to pay the expenses. Unless the Government gives support, the public can’t run the dispensaries.
Nirodbaran: And if the Government doesn’t?
Purani: Then try to capture the Government itself.
Nirodbaran: That is more easily said than done. Both constructive work and the fight for freedom would have to go hand in hand, as with Gandhi at present.
Sri Aurobindo: With very little success, I am afraid.
Purani: I know of cases where people wanted to help the villagers by paying off their loans, etc., but it was found that the villagers were very shrewd, astute folk, who were more than a match for the city people.
Sri Aurobindo: A is living in his mind; he has lost touch with practical reality.
Satyendra (seeing N trying to translate A’s Bengali into English): Why doesn’t he write in English? That will save you the trouble of translation.
Nirodbaran: Now I will ask him to.
Sri Aurobindo: Now? (Laughter) I thought he had finished all his questions.
Nirodbaran: He may begin some other theme. In the present letter, the last item is: to propagate Sri Aurobindo’s ideas through books, essays, etc., in order to have a spiritual foundation.
Satyendra: They will understand the books?
Sri Aurobindo: Even if they understand, will they be able to execute the ideas?
Nirodbaran: A seems to have said to Dilip that he still has one weakness – the desire to work for the country.
Sri Aurobindo (smiling): A great weakness. If he tries, he will meet with no better fate than Barin – namely, failure.
Satyendra: Barin and A are different personalities.
Sri Aurobindo: Even then he will have the same fate. Barin went out to revolutionise the world.
Nirodbaran: And he ended by revolutionising himself ! (Laughter) A is putting out all these ideas from his own unpublished novel.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he wanted to publish it but the Mother sat tight on the proposal. If he wants to write about politics, village reform, etc., he can do it for his own satisfaction but not for publication.