Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

15 April 1940

Sri Aurobindo: If the radio news is correct, the Germans have only one pocket battleship left, two being destroyed, two big battleships also being sunk and many cruisers. By cruisers are meant battlecruisers perhaps; they have then some light cruisers. So half their cruisers are also destroyed and many merchant ships – a heavy loss.

Purani: It is reported that the Allies have broken through the line and penetrated into the Baltic.

Sri Aurobindo: If they enter the Baltic, then the Germans are done for.

Nirodbaran: So it seems true then that Hitler has blundered by extending the war front.

Sri Aurobindo: It was a very rash thing to do. These things depend in the end on sea-power. Without sea-power you can’t transport supplies, mechanised troops, etc.

Purani: They counted on the aeroplanes.

Sri Aurobindo: Hitherto aeroplane attacks have not been a success except in Poland and Finland. Aeroplanes are only a powerful aid. You can’t conquer a country with them.

Purani: No, except in places like Abyssinia, perhaps. There too the Italians were hard put.

Sri Aurobindo: Some French general said that Hitler’s move was well-planned, well-executed but not well-judged. If the prohibition of the use of petrol, etc., is true, then Germany’s condition is pretty bad. Hitler seems to succeed only where there is not much resistance.

Evening

Devata, Dr. André’s lab assistant, was on the point of dying from heart failure. André said, “If he is dead, I will resuscitate him,” and by giving him injections he brought him back to life. This was related to Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Aurobindo: This attitude reminds one of Oscar Wilde’s definition of life – happy anticipation of the future.

Nirodbaran (after some time): There have been fifteen election suits in the Calcutta corporation election: three by the Bose party, one by the Hindu Sabha and one or two by the Muslims. In one of the suits the charge by the Bose group was that the Hindu Sabha candidate tried to coerce the voters with fanatical religious threats, divine displeasure, wrath of God, etc.

Sri Aurobindo: God is angry with Bose because he is a Socialist?

Purani: In Dacca also there was a clash between the student federation and the Bose party students, in which one student of the federation died.

Sri Aurobindo: What did the other party do? Did they not fight?

Purani: Yes, they did.

Sri Aurobindo: That’s better.

Purani: Here in Pondicherry schoolboys were asked to write an essay on the war. A boy of fifteen wrote against the Allies, saying that it was an imperialist war. The teacher foolishly sent the essay to the Director, then to the Governor. The boy’s scholarship was suspended.

Sri Aurobindo: Naturally. When it was forwarded to them, they had to take action on it. They could not do otherwise even if they wanted to.

Purani: In France the rules are still more severe for such crimes.

Sri Aurobindo: It is treason and one must bear the consequences. If India were free and had to fight she would do the same.

Champaklal: Mithran said some boys were shot.

Sri Aurobindo: Shot? Can’t be. How old were they?

Champaklal: Below twenty perhaps.

Sri Aurobindo: I can’t believe it. They couldn’t have been shot. They may have been given some other punishment. This Quisling of Norway should have been shot. Do you know what he has done? When the Norwegians were defending Trondheim with their coastal batteries, Quisling sent them directions to stop fighting and by the time they realised that he had betrayed them it was too late. Also in Holland I don’t know why they keep their traitors under supervision instead of shooting them.