Nirodbaran

Talks with Sri Aurobindo

Volume 1

10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941

3 October 1940

Nirodbaran: Sikandar Hyat Khan has strongly attacked Gandhi.

Sri Aurobindo (smiling): Yes.

Nirodbaran: He says Gandhi’s non-participation in the war is stabbing the British in the back.

Sri Aurobindo: Non-violently!

Satyendra: Violent or non-violent, the result is the same.

Nirodbaran: Sikandar says he can’t understand Gandhi’s logic. The logic of Mahatmas is different from that of ordinary mortals like him. Otherwise what could be meant by non-embarrassing the British Government and at the same time preaching India’s non-participation?

Satyendra: I would like to know what Kripalani says about this statement of Gandhi. He has a keen intellect.

Purani: The Sikhs also don’t understand; they say, “These are intellectual quibbles.” Neither can they conceive of how the defence of India can be done non-violently.

Sri Aurobindo: That is something I can’t swallow myself.

Satyendra: Gandhi himself can’t carry Congress with him. But the question has been shelved for the present – I hope buried like Aurangzeb’s musicians. (Aurangzeb forbade all music. In spite of that, some took out a musical procession in front of his palace. He ordered all the musicians to be buried alive.)

Sri Aurobindo: Is music forbidden by the Koran?

Satyendra: I don’t know.

Purani: There is no injunction against it in the Koran, as in the case of art.

Sri Aurobindo: Art is different; it is idolatry. But there are so many things without injunctions in the Koran. Is there an injunction against killing brothers?

Purani: No, but if someone is a drunkard he can be killed. That is how they killed Murad. They themselves made him drunk and on that pretext killed him.

Sri Aurobindo: What about Dara, then?

Purani: He was a Kafir.

Sri Aurobindo: Are Kafirs to be killed according to the Koran?

Purani: Don’t know. They find so many things in the Koran. Even the idea of non-cooperation, they say, is found in it. That was during the Khilafat agitation. They say that Mohammed was threatened with his life and he fled and that was non-cooperation.

Sri Aurobindo: Many people have fled in such circumstances! Then I myself was a non-cooperator since I fled from Bengal! (Laughter)