Nirodbaran
Talks with Sri Aurobindo
Volume 1
10 December 1938 – 14 January 1941
13 October 1940
Sri Aurobindo: Any news about the Congress decision or is Gandhi going to ponder for another two years till the war is over and the Satyayuga comes in? (Laughter)
Purani: Azad has said that there is no going back on the Bombay decision.
Sri Aurobindo: That is all right, but what are they going to do?
Purani: It seems Gandhi has prepared a scheme which he is going to submit to the Working Committee. It may be something like what he has advised in Hyderabad, which you may have seen – only four persons selected to go to jail and, if they are released, they will go again.
Sri Aurobindo: But how will that redress their grievances? And will they call a meeting?
Purani: They will have to.
Sri Aurobindo: Then it will no longer be individual. Or they can go to Sir Akbar and sit in his bedroom and refuse to move till their demands are acceded to. (Laughter)
Purani: If they call a meeting, the police may try to break it up.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, and then some sort of violence is inevitable. That is about the State. What about Congress? If it is something like their Salt Campaign, one can understand.
Purani: The same procedure, I suppose: individual Satyagrahis are calling a meeting. The meeting may be banned by the Government, then there may be some riot.
Sri Aurobindo: In that case a riot is inevitable. Gandhi is balancing on a pinpoint.
Evening
Purani: Hitler’s intention seems to be to launch an attack in the East.
Sri Aurobindo: Not only that. He wants to control the oilfields in Asia Minor on which the British depend.
Turkey says Germany will have two million bayonets to face to get to Anatolia. Somebody says that, though Turkey has no mechanised army, it is not very necessary because the country is not suited for mechanised units. So Germany won’t be very effective. I am not so sure of that. It may be difficult – that’s all. Such things were said by France, and Belgium too.
Purani: In Bankim’s “Bande Mataram” there are two versions of the line ke bale ma tumi abala1. I don’t remember the other version. Nolini wants to know which version you want to keep.
Sri Aurobindo: But I have translated the original version only.
Nirodbaran: The other version is abala keno ma eto bale2.
Sri Aurobindo: Eto bale! Oh, that is for grammar: abala being feminine, one can’t say abate; all the same abala keno ma … bale is not good. It is better to be ungrammatical than to miss the point. Bankim surely knew about the grammatical error.
1 Who says, Mother, that you are weak?
2 Being so strong, how are you so weak?