Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
29 May 1940
Purani: It is said that there were 300,000 Belgian troops. Their surrender has made the position of the British Expeditionary Force extremely grave.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. There is no way out for them unless Dunkirk can hold on or they can rush through the gap from the French line.
Satyendra: I don’t understand why King Leopold has ordered the surrender.
Sri Aurobindo: He has always been unreliable and taken independent decisions. It was he who prevented alliance with France just before the war and he kept his wonderful neutrality. Now he has been given a castle and a pension for his service to Hitler.
Satyendra: The surrender came as a surprise even to the German commander.
Nirodbaran: If the Army rises in revolt …
Sri Aurobindo: That would be something.
Purani: The Belgian Cabinet is trying to raise a new Belgian army.
Nirodbaran: Yes, but it’s not much use. They can’t go to Belgium and fight there.
Sri Aurobindo: Still, it shows the rebellion of the people.
Purani: It will be like the Czech and Polish armies – with only small numbers of men.
Sri Aurobindo: With our Sammer we can start a Czech army (Laughter), so that they may realise the situation and learn a lesson.
Nirodbaran: Dilip is passing through ups and downs. Now he is trying to take a philosophical view of the Allied reverses and set himself in the right position.
Sri Aurobindo: What is that?
Nirodbaran: He says that perhaps it is necessary that the Allies should go through hardships and sufferings at the beginning. He got strength from the Mother’s message in which she has said that the Asuras can’t be victorious eternally against the Divine. The hour of Hitler’s downfall must come.
Sri Aurobindo: That doesn’t mean it will come by the Allies. (Laughter)
Satyendra: No, but don’t tell him that or he will be depressed.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes.
Satyendra: It seems that everything touches him badly.
Sri Aurobindo: How do you mean?
Satyendra: I mean that if anything goes wrong anywhere, it affects him. Perhaps he has become depressed about Subhas Bose too.
Nirodbaran: No, not now. He has seen through him.
Sri Aurobindo: Subhas Bose is starting another revolution.
Satyendra: Yes, Narendra Deo calls his Forward Bloc “Backward Bloc”.
Sri Aurobindo: “Forward and Backward Bloc” would be better still. (Laughter)
Satyendra: In the Chandi there are descriptions of these fights of the Asuras – I am telling Nirod as he may not have read it. So many times the Asuras attack the Mother. At the last moment, they are defeated.
Sri Aurobindo: That is the Indian tradition: up to the last moment the Asuras are victorious; and that is the general tradition as well. At the last moment, some miracle happens.
Satyendra: They also say that Shiva supports the Asuras, gives them boons.
Sri Aurobindo: He makes many blunders.
Satyendra: And Vishnu comes to the rescue.
Nirodbaran: Sometimes it seems that Shiva favours one side and Parvati the opposite one. Madhusudan has depicted it in Meghnad, his epic poem.
Sri Aurobindo: Madhusudan had a sympathy for Ravana.
Then Purani read out from a Hindi paper an article by some Arya Samajist attacking Ramana Maharshi, and also Agarwal – that is, one of our group – who had held a joint meditation in Gurukul. The Arya Samajist who went to Ramana Maharshi said that the Maharshi observes the caste system. When asked why this was so, the Maharshi replied, “Should all horses, donkeys and pigs eat from a common plate?” (Laughter)
Satyendra: But he doesn’t believe in caste – he eats with non-Brahmins.
Sri Aurobindo: He must have said that deliberately to the Arya Samajist.
Purani: Yes, I know of an Arya Samajist who had an altercation with Ramana Maharshi some time ago. This is probably the same man. It was said that Ramana Maharshi got excited and angry and began to shout. This man also says he became angry.
Sri Aurobindo: Angry?
Purani: Yes, Brunton too has said that he gets angry.
Sri Aurobindo: Ramakrishna also used to get angry, for that matter.
Purani: He says that in Gandhi’s Ashram there is no caste.
Sri Aurobindo: And why does he say that the Maharshi was jealous because he criticised him? Does one criticise out of jealousy? Gandhi doesn’t believe in the caste system?
Purani: Oh yes, he does.
Satyendra: Varnashram. The Maharshi has a very good relationship with Gandhiji. He sent him blessings.
Sri Aurobindo: The Sannyasins don’t observe caste?
Purani: Oh yes, they do.
Sri Aurobindo: Then what strikes him as so very strange?
Satyendra: If the Maharshi observes the caste system, it is because he doesn’t want to disturb the established order of society.
Sri Aurobindo: Why should he disturb it? It is not his business.
Purani: Besides, he himself takes his meals with non-Brahmins. What more can he do?
Evening
The radio news said that King Leopold had surrendered because of a military stress.
Sri Aurobindo: What is this military stress under which he had to surrender and had no time even to inform the Allies or consult the Cabinet?
Purani: Roger Keyes seems to have sent some confidential message to Churchill about it, which may have been that the army was refusing to fight.
Sri Aurobindo: Even so, did they have no time to inform the Allies? That is more than I can swallow. And if the army refuses to fight, it is a dishonour to the whole nation; in the other case, it is a dishonour only to the king.
Nirodbaran: They say the Germans launched a heavy attack against the Belgian army.
Sri Aurobindo: Just two or three days ago it was said that the Belgians were fighting gallantly.
Nirodbaran: The Hindu seems to support the king.
Sri Aurobindo: It shows sympathy for the Belgian king’s army.
Satyendra: It seems also to be generous.
Sri Aurobindo: Generous? When the whole army is going to be destroyed, it is difficult to be generous. No, Roger Keyes doesn’t clear the mystery. It seems the whole world of humanity has lost all sense of honour and truth. For the sake of self-interest one is capable of doing anything.
Purani: Street fighting is going on in Dunkirk.
Sri Aurobindo: That means it will fall into the hands of the Germans.
Satyendra: The Maharaja of Travancore has placed his whole army at the disposal of the British (Laughter) – an army of a hundred or so.
Sri Aurobindo: A little more, perhaps.
Satyendra: Sometimes the Maharaja of Nepal also does the same – a few thousand people.
Nirodbaran: At any rate they wouldn’t surrender.
Satyendra: I don’t know. Against mechanised warfare, what can they do?
Sri Aurobindo: They would do very well. They have initiative, dash and daring, and they can easily adapt themselves. They would start some sort of guerilla warfare in which they excel.
Satyendra: Yes.
Purani: The R.A.F. are doing very good work.
Sri Aurobindo: I don’t see how they can do much. The soldiers are pressed from east and west and if the supplies from Dunkirk are cut off, then without food and ammunition how are they to hold on? If the Belgian army has capitulated for lack of supplies, one can understand, but even then, they would have had time to inform.
Nirodbaran: Perhaps escape through the ports is the only way open to the British Expeditionary Force.
Sri Aurobindo: Which ports? Ostende was in the hands of the Belgian army. By their surrender Dunkirk will be vulnerable unless they have sufficient troops there to defend it. Now escape also is difficult. They may try to dash through the gap and line up with the French on the Somme. Otherwise I don’t see any way. Where is the main body of the French army they speak of? Why don’t they employ it now to disengage the trapped soldiers? I don’t understand this warfare.
Purani: Weygand is organising in other parts. He is hoping to dislodge the Germans and occupy the bridges. He will take a month to consolidate. Perhaps he thinks that if he brings in the main army at this weak moment, it may also lose.
Sri Aurobindo: Even then this will be a tremendous loss – 300,000 people! (After a pause) The whole thing is absurd. Why did England send this Expeditionary Force against an army highly mechanised? Perhaps we shouldn’t criticise them. India would have made a bigger mess, “a Himalayan blunder” as Gandhi would call it. The whole history of India has been a running away of armies from battlefields as soon as their king or their leader was killed. For instance, in the battle of Calicut after the king had fallen, the soldiers – they were of the finest type – could not stand it for a moment; they simply ran away. In England I read a book by some Englishman about the Battle of Assaye. He said that when the French king fell, the soldiers didn’t know what to do. They simply stood at their posts and were mopped up by the British.
Purani: The Indian people also had no unity among themselves. They didn’t think in terms of their country as a whole. Someone, in writing about the Mahrattas, said that they had tremendous national egoism but no unity, and that their system of Jagirdars1 was the cause of their ruin. Very often these Jagirs were given as hereditary posts without any consideration of the individual’s fitness. Khare, ex-chief minister, also said to the Mahrattas, “You don’t know what Swaraj is, you never had it.”
Sri Aurobindo: They had it during Shivaji’s time; at that time they were all united. Among the Sikhs too there was unity, though later on it broke down. The Rajputs, of course, didn’t know what unity was. Europe is now inheriting. The ancient peoples also didn’t know how to achieve the malady unity. Porus, after being defeated, allied himself with Alexander and fought against his own countrymen.
In Europe also the same thing happened during the Middle Ages, and continued even up to the early part of the reign of Louis XIV. Some provinces of France were at one time fighting for France, and at another time against her.
Purani: Yes, a part of France was sometimes calling England to come and rule her.
Sri Aurobindo: Which part?
Purani: Normandy.
Sri Aurobindo: Oh, Normandy. At that time there was a Norman king in England, so they thought themselves to be allies. Besides, it was the period following the feudal kings and lords, so the people thought it their duty to serve their feudal lords. They had no sense of country at that time. In spite of all that, it is remarkable that France became so united.
Purani: Some contemporary has written the whole of French history in two pages. He says the whole question amongst them is: Who is the best leader ?
Sri Aurobindo: That is at least something. In India, it was: Who is the most powerful?
1 Those holding land without paying tax on it.