Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

13 June 1940

The German army is less than twenty miles from Paris.

Purani: André Maurois, the writer, has flown to England to ask for more men to be sent to France – raw recruits don’t matter. They are badly in need of men.

Sri Aurobindo: Men who know how to shoot? (Laughter) You said the number of Germans is ten to one against the French?

Purani: Yes, in certain sectors.

Sri Aurobindo: How can France fight against such odds? It seems it is by sheer mass that Germany is carrying on. The mechanised units are not so effective now.

Nirodbaran: Hitler also must have had tremendous losses.

Sri Aurobindo: For that he is prepared. He has said already that he is prepared to sacrifice one million men against the Maginot Line. (After a while) Paris has been the centre of human civilisation for three centuries. Now he will destroy it. That is the sign of the Asura. History is repeating itself. The Graeco-Roman civilisation was also destroyed by Germany.

Nirodbaran: But if France does not defend Paris?

Sri Aurobindo: Then he will not destroy it immediately. The unfortunate thing is that all are tied to modern civilisation – even China and Japan.

Nirodbaran: If Americans had come in!

Purani: They ought to have come in four months ago.

Sri Aurobindo: Everybody has realised what German rule will be like. You have seen what an Irish minister has said? He says, “If Ireland dies we do not want to live.” They know what life will be like under Hitler. Ireland has no feeling for England. Left alone it would not mind if England went down.

Nirodbaran: England is responsible for this bitterness.

Sri Aurobindo: In the past, yes. Ireland has undergone more repression than India. Everybody but India realises this. You have heard what picture Roosevelt has drawn of the future under Hitler?

Purani (after some time): The Khaksars have been rounded up; three hundred people have been arrested. Sikander Hyat Khan has said that the Government has found the link between Khaksars and the enemy countries.

Sri Aurobindo: Oh, has he? Where has he said that?

Purani: I do not know, but he has said so and therefore he has no sympathy for them.

Sri Aurobindo: At last he has woken up. The Khaksars were a terrible danger to the Hindus too.

Purani: It seems the Thakore of Rajkot died as the result of tiger hunting.

Satyendra: Not heart-failure?

Purani: Heart-failure as a consequence probably. Virawalla is also dead. Our people will surely link up these two deaths with Gandhi’s fast. They will say, “It is a punishment for their behaviour with the saint.”

Satyendra: Oh yes!

Sri Aurobindo: That proves what I have written in the Essays on the Gita about soul-force.

Satyendra: There may be some subtle way in which the moral force will work. But Gandhi did not change his heart.

Sri Aurobindo: He may have changed the Thakore and his Dewan – but not the heart, maybe the head. (Laughter)

Evening

Purani: Some officer’s wife has written that the Germans dropped about 160 bombs in the village she lives in but not a single one exploded. The village is in the lower region of Paris.

Sri Aurobindo: Mother’s brother’s family is also in the lower region. They thought it would be quite safe.

Purani: The French claim to have pushed the Germans back five miles. Something!

Sri Aurobindo (smiling): That is only in one sector. There are thirty others. This time the British could not be masterly in their retreat. Some six thousand troops have been caught.

Purani: No, they seem to have been cut off.

Satyendra: England can easily send half a million troops. What France needs now is men.

Nirodbaran: Perhaps they fear an invasion by Germany.

Sri Aurobindo: That is not likely now. After France is occupied, Hitler may turn his attention there. But the English Army is still in training.

Purani: Neither are they good soldiers. They can of course be sent to the south.

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, they may be good for the Italians. (Laughter)

Satyendra: How is that? At one time they were considered good soldiers. In India they fought us well.

Sri Aurobindo: That was only groups of people. Now the whole nation has to be prepared to fight. Besides, they have all become comfortable and ease-loving. Even the French are not as good as in the last war. The French peasants and farmers have become rich and used to comforts and they don’t like to be disturbed.

Satyendra: The Germans, of course, have always the will to power but when will they settle in peace?

Sri Aurobindo: Militarism is in their blood. They were at one time hired as mercenaries.