Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

25 May 1940

Sri Aurobindo (addressing Satyendra): Have you read of the retreat of the Allies?

Satyendra (smiling): No!

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they have got away safely from Boulogne. The Allies means, of course, the British. (Laughter)

Satyendra: What do they lack? Why are they giving way like that?

Sri Aurobindo: I don’t understand. The German advance-troops are not numerous and still the Allies can’t tackle them. They can only hold out for a while and then retreat. For two or three days the French have been saying that they are in the suburb of Amiens, as at Narvik – closing round.

Satyendra: They don’t say now “according to plan”. (Laughter)

Sri Aurobindo: They go according to their old order and schedule while Churchill speaks of assault and attack.

Satyendra: Order and schedule don’t come to much.

Sri Aurobindo: It is a new method of warfare now. If they stick to their old method, then they can’t hold on. It is like the football game. When one party makes a rush, the other can’t say, “Let us wait to put the field in order.” They can’t go and occupy an unassigned place because it is unassigned. (Laughter) It is the famous story of Government House being on fire. They wrote to the headquarters, asking what they should do. The headquarters after some time, wrote back, “Put out the fire.” (Laughter)

Nirodbaran: The Germans intend to attack England, they say.

Sri Aurobindo: That is why they are capturing the ports. Otherwise they would have turned towards Paris.

Purani: In the course of a talk, Schomberg was telling me that volunteers are not of much use now as it is a mechanised warfare for which much training is needed.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, but it is not that the Allies have no mechanised troops. Besides, mechanised troops operate in open fields. In cities like Amiens they can’t. There it is the infantry that has to lead the attack. France has a big army and England has a British Expeditionary Force and is now calling up reservists.

Satyendra: America is proposing to send all her planes for the defence of the Allies.

Sri Aurobindo: Not all – only as many as she can spare. One senator has said that America’s frontier is the Rhine. But even that limited proposal has been turned down.

Satyendra: The frontier is shifting. Now it is Boulogne.

Sri Aurobindo: Still the Rhine is also there.

Satyendra: The new English law has not come into force yet, against private property.

Sri Aurobindo: Private property? That would be the last thing to be touched.

Purani: At present their aim is control of labour and industries to prevent profiteering.

Satyendra: And facilitate manufacture of armament.

Sri Aurobindo: The English have never gone so far before. They are arresting M.P.’s even. In France it is quite traditional to arrest suspects in times of stress and revolution. Liberty is in a bad state everywhere in spite of Chamberlain and Roosevelt.

Evening

Sri Aurobindo: The Germans have passed through that convenient gap of thirty miles.

Satyendra: Not thirty, but twenty-five.

Sri Aurobindo: Now they have narrowed it to twenty-five.

Purani: The BBC says it won’t give news any more. The public gets scared. But they will be still more scared by the German news.

Sri Aurobindo: They will give news of Norway, perhaps. (Laughter)

Satyendra: It seems the two contingents of Germans have separated the B.E.F. from the French. In that case they will be sandwiched by the Germans. One will come from the north and the other from the south.

Sri Aurobindo: From the north? The Germans are in Antwerp; that is north-east. They can’t make a flanking movement from there. They can only attack from the front. And it is only the advance troops of the Germans that have passed through the gap. The main body is behind. If they bring up the main body, there will be a great strategical danger of the French making an attack on their flank. This gap must have been left by the B.E.F. during their wonderful “strategical retreat” from Namur. It could not have been there at the beginning. If it had been, the Germans would have rushed forward at that time.

Nirodbaran: If it is only the advance troops occupying, they can’t be numerous. And how could they occupy the ports?

Sri Aurobindo: There was no defence in the ports.

Nirodbaran: Churchill says that the Germans rushed through the breach in the French army and attacked the B.E.F. from behind.

Sri Aurobindo: That was earlier. Later it was through the gap left by the British army.

Purani: Udar says that there is much anti-British feeling outside.

Sri Aurobindo: Dara writes from Hyderabad that except for himself and Sir Akbar everybody is anti-British.

Nirodbaran: Why are the Muslims anti-British?

Sri Aurobindo: Why not? They don’t want British Raj, they want Muslim Raj. I would not mind that if it were not for Hitler. Even Mussolini would not matter if he defeated the Allies, because he is not a man to conquer the world. Stalin is serious not because of himself but because of his Communism. Huque says he wants to forget that he is a Muslim Leaguer and asks the Congress and Mahasabha to forget their own parties and merge for a common object. The trouble is: as soon as the danger is over, they will start again. You have seen what the Raja of Mahmudabad has said?

Nirodbaran: No.

Sri Aurobindo: He wants to have separate Muslim provinces and to impose Muslim laws on all. He says there are very good laws in Islam. No usury, prohibition, and so on.

Nirodbaran: That shows what they will do if they have their way, and they blame the Congress!

Sri Aurobindo: They will start civil war at once. But I don’t see how their Pakistan scheme can be successful if the Frontier, Baluchistan and Sind don’t want it. In that case only Punjab and Bengal remain. In Punjab the Sikhs and Hindus won’t stand being Muslimised, I suppose.

Nirodbaran: The Sikhs won’t.

Sri Aurobindo: The Hindus will, you mean? And in Bengal, I don’t know what they will do. Perhaps they will wail like Sotuda.