Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
6 August 1940
Purani: The Viceroy has issued an ordinance banning all volunteer organisations – political or communal. Only for social service can an organisation be retained, sanctioned by the provincial Government.
Sri Aurobindo: I see. That would give an occasion for starting civil disobedience.
Purani: Yes. One good thing is that the Khaksars will go – all the other organisations too: Hindu Sabha, Mahavir Dal, etc.
Nirodbaran: Gandhi will issue another threatening statement. But the Government may be taking advance measures to stop any civil disobedience movement.
Satyendra: That won’t prevent Gandhi. If he issues a call, people will join.
Sri Aurobindo: How can that be possible without organisation?
Satyendra: During the Dandee march it happened automatically.
Sri Aurobindo: But he admitted there were many mistakes. Of course he says he will start the civil disobedience in his own way. Nobody knows what that way is.
Purani: The Viceroy says that in any such private organisation one man gets more power than he is legally entitled to, which is not desirable. The Government has enough capacity to deal with any trouble.
Sri Aurobindo: Has it? The Government hasn’t shown it recently.
Purani: People can join the Civil Guard, the Viceroy says.
Satyendra: Setalvad has declared for expanding the Council and trying for independence after the war.
Sri Aurobindo: Trying for what?
Satyendra: For independence.
Sri Aurobindo: Independence? He can try for twenty thousand years, he won’t get it. He has been trying already by giving speeches, writing, etc.
Purani: Have you read the article in the Sunday Hindu about the collapse of France? It says that Reynaud’s speech helped to break the morale of the army.
Sri Aurobindo: How? Churchill also said that if England fell, they would go to the Empire and fight from there. That didn’t break their morale.
Satyendra: And his appeal to America was to avert the armistice move in the cabinet.
Purani: He says it is a mystery that when the whole nation was against it, a small number of people could make them accept the armistice.
Sri Aurobindo: When a small number of persons is determined to do a thing, they can do it. It has been done any number of times in history. There is no mystery there. Here especially, when there was no chance of communication with the people or the Parliament, it was quite easy. He assumes that constitutional opposition would have been possible. But how when there was no proper senate? At Bordeaux there were only fifty or sixty members and they were all Laval’s men. Lebrun played into the hands of these people.
Purani: Mandel is said to be the natural son of Clemenceau. It may be true as is evidenced by his energy and vigour.
Sri Aurobindo: And Weygand is said to be the illegitimate son of Leopold II, one of the most notorious kings in history. Weygand is also very rich, holding many shares of the Suez Canal. A lieutenant here, who used to attend the French cabinet meetings as a police officer, said that Mandel was the only clean and honest man. In Reynaud there was something excited and unsteady, but he was very intelligent. Outwardly his decisions were all right but one could see that inwardly he was liable to make many mistakes.
Satyendra: It is lucky that England has got a leader now. Nobody knows what the old Government would have done by now. The back numbers of the New Statesman and Nation make a very interesting study. They are still discussing the defection of Belgium. One doesn’t know what they will do when they hear of Paris’ fall and the Vichy Government. When one reads these back numbers one feels like a minor god who knows the after-events and is ahead of them while others are still occupied with the old events.
Sri Aurobindo: They show how people commit mistakes in their judgment and calculation similar to what we are doing ourselves at the present time. (Laughter)
Satyendra: People chafe at these past mistakes. If they knew of their past lives life would become a burden.
Sri Aurobindo: And yet they want to know their past.
Evening
Radio news: The Germans are concentrating for an attack on the Channel ports and are embarking and disembarking in the Baltic.
Purani: So it is true that the Germans are preparing.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Perhaps they will attack from Holland and Belgium. The Baltic is too far away. If it is a quick stroke and cleverly done, then it is possible and it depends on where they land. The British Navy can’t protect the whole coastline.
Purani: But if after landing they can be checked successfully once, then it will break their morale. Hitherto they have thought themselves invincible.
Sri Aurobindo: Not one check, but many checks.
Purani: At any rate England knows all about their plan and preparation.