Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

8 April 1940

Nirodbaran: X is asking if The Psychology of Social Development and The Ideal of Human Unity couldn’t be published in England – at least one of them – by his publishers there.

Sri Aurobindo: Will they take them?

Nirodbaran: He can write and find out. Allen and Unwin have already included one chapter from The Ideal of Human Unity in one of their books.

Sri Aurobindo: It doesn’t follow that they will publish whole books.

Satyendra: The Psychology of Social Development is being translated into French. If it sells well in France, then in England also there may be a demand.

Sri Aurobindo: Again it doesn’t follow. The French are more plastic and they are interested in these things. Besides, I have already promised these books to the Arya Publishing House. Let them be on their way first.

Nirodbaran: It seems Dilip also is coming out to fight against Meghnad Saha. He has written a thesis of fifty-four pages!

Sri Aurobindo: Good Lord! I don’t see the use of arguing with a man who is shut up in his science. He is at the same stage where Europe was fifty years ago. Except for Russia and perhaps some Socialists, Europe gave up the old scientific standpoint long ago. We are fifty years behind.

Nirodbaran: We are always taking up what they give up.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, we may turn Fascist when they have done with it. The Khaksars are trying to do that.

Purani: Yes. And J seems to be financing their movement.

Sri Aurobindo: Now he has asked them to suspend it and is communicating with the Government to remove the ban.

Purani: Yes, it is he who was behind the trouble in Hyderabad. He stood against Sir Akbar Hydari.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes.

Purani: Sir Akbar says that Hyderabad had no Hindu-Muslim trouble before. It has been brought in from outside.

Sri Aurobindo: That is true. Muslims from the North and the Arya Samaj brought it there. The British Government can’t allow the Khaksars to become powerful, for they want to drive out the British.

Satyendra: It is said that the Government is behind the present Hindu-Muslim disunity. Somebody said that this Muslim India scheme won’t survive Jinnah.

Nirodbaran: A hint to do away with him? (Laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: By sending him to the war? How old is he?

Purani: About sixty.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, then no chance. (Laughter)

Purani: But his health is rather weak and poor.

Sri Aurobindo: Diseased people often live long.

Nirodbaran: There’s a letter from Y to Nishikanto. Y objects to Nishikanto’s use of words like womb, prostitute, etc. and says they are unrefined, though he adds that they are found in plenty in Sanskrit. And his own family has Sanskrit culture.

Sri Aurobindo: Then why does he object?

Nirodbaran: Can’t say. He continues that such sensibility about poetry may be due to European influence from which Tagore also is not free. “Why should Ishwar Gupta be our ideal when he is not even a greater poet than Tagore?” he asks.

Sri Aurobindo: What about Bengali prose? Are there no such expressions there?

Nirodbaran: I think there are, especially in modern books. At least in one book which was proscribed for obscenity.

Sri Aurobindo: Then if they can copy Europe in prose, why not in poetry? European prose contains any number of such things. What Y says smacks of the Victorian period. Europe has moved far away from it. In fact, it has gone to the other extreme. Now they use these expressions for the sake of using them. I don’t see why we should be confined to the Victorian period. The point is: if such words are necessary for one’s expression, then they have to be used.

Nirodbaran: Even Z objected to the word “prostitute” and asked Nishikanto to change it.

Sri Aurobindo: Change it and put “a woman of bad character”? It is not the words so much as the way of expression that should matter.

Nirodbaran: Nishikanto was asked by his friends not to send any more poems to Z after such criticism.

Sri Aurobindo: If criticisms are resented like that …

Nirodbaran: No, not because of the criticism; they say that he has attacked you and the Mother and spoken against the Ashram.

Sri Aurobindo: He has not spoken against us. Speaking against the Ashram is not an attack on us.

Nirodbaran: But he has said that by being confined to the limited Ashram atmosphere, the germ of Nishikanto’s greatness will be killed and he has also referred to “religious propaganda”, the Ashram philosophy, etc.

Purani: That can’t be called “abuse”; it is a criticism of our philosophy, made just as by other people.

Sri Aurobindo: The book has been published from the Ashram and contains our philosophy. So he has every right to criticise that philosophy. Of course, if the criticisms are hostile and malignant, it is a different matter or, if one attacks us, the question of loyalty and of serving one’s Guru comes in. It would be serious even in case of repeated attacks on spirituality. Otherwise, if there are simple criticisms, they are not enough to stop sending poetry to the critic.

Nirodbaran: Is there any such criticism in Gujarat against Pujalal?

Purani: No, not yet.

Sri Aurobindo: You mean Gujarat is not modern enough?

Purani: Perhaps not. Besides, two modern Gujarati poets have come here and they are impressed by what they have seen.

Purani then gave a long description of the modern tendency of Gujarati poetry.

Evening

Purani: Dara has a novel suggestion for solving the Hindu-Muslim problem.

Sri Aurobindo: What is it?

Purani: He says that in the South the Hindus are in the majority, so they can be given self-government. In the North-West Frontier the Muslims are in the majority, and they can be given self-government there. In the rest of the places where they are almost equal, let them fight it out among themselves.

Sri Aurobindo: Fight till they come to a solution? Not quite without sense. For short of the threat of a decisive fight, people will go on talking and talking. If there was the possibility of such a fight, then they would come round.