Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
12 May 1940
Nirodbaran: Churchill seems to have formed an able and effective ministry.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes.
Nirodbaran: Attlee has been made Lord Privy Seal. What is that?
Sri Aurobindo: Saying “Yes” or “No.”
Nirodbaran: Like being given, as you said, the Duchy of Lancashire? Chamberlain is President of the Council.
Sri Aurobindo: That is also something like that.
Satyendra: He could have been left out.
Sri Aurobindo: He still has a great influence among the Conservatives. Halifax could have been Secretary for India and Eden, Foreign Secretary. In that case the India policy would have been less stiff in combination with Linlithgow.
Dr. Rao: Hore-Belisha and Simon seem to have been promoted to the Lords.
Sri Aurobindo: Kicked upstairs?
Purani: In India the British Government does not seem to be inclined to make any further move.
Sri Aurobindo: No. It can’t. It has said that compromise with the Muslims has to be effected. It has given the veto to Jinnah, and Gandhi also has done the same by saying that the Hindu-Muslim problem has to be solved before dealing with the question of joining the Ministry. In that case Jinnah will see his advantage and will hold out for the best terms.
Satyendra: The Congress seems to be irrational in saying that. The Congress people resigned from the Ministry because of the Imperial policy, not because of the Hindu-Muslim question.
Sri Aurobindo: Now the Muslims will say that their allegation about the Congress injustice is true.
Purani: Y considers Hitler a Kshatriya emanation.
Satyendra: Oh, he is furious against the British and is in sympathy with Hitler. He says the British have become old now by their long domination.
Sri Aurobindo: German domination will be young and new?
Satyendra: Both are equally old.
Sri Aurobindo: No, Germany is older than the English people. The latter are an Anglo-Saxon mixture.
Nirodbaran: Germany is racially purer.
Sri Aurobindo: That’s humbug. The Germans are as much a mixture of Slavs, Nordic Alpines and Celts. Nietzsche was a Slav. Kant was born in Pomerania and was a Slav.
Satyendra: Goebbels says that the Allies attacked the Ruhr. So the Germans had to protect the Netherlands’ neutrality.
Sri Aurobindo: Does he think anybody will believe such stories? They are probably meant for home consumption. If the French had wanted to attack Germany they would have done that before the completion of the Siegfried Line.
Nirodbaran: Y does not believe the British news.
Sri Aurobindo: What one devil says is true and what another devil says is a lie? (Laughter) The British air force and navy give correct news. It is the army that doesn’t.
Nirodbaran: Are the Dutch good fighters?
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t know. They have not fought since the time of Napoleon.
Satyendra: That is a long time.
Purani: If they had made some treaty or pact with the Allies …
Sri Aurobindo: The neutrals wanted to have the best of both worlds. If Germany does not attack, they remain neutral. If it attacks, they know that the Allies will come to their help. Still, it would have made a great difference if plans had been made beforehand so that they could at once have taken up their positions.
Satyendra: I told Y what you had said – namely, that it is dangerous for us to support Hitler. For some days he keeps quiet and then goes off again. But he does not say anything outside.
Sri Aurobindo: That does not make any difference. Somebody else may speak to an outsider and thus it goes out.