Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 31st July 1909 — No.6
Facts and Opinions
The Recoil of Karma
There is a general law that Karma rebounds upon the doer.
Associated in Hindu philosophy mainly with the individual and the theory of rebirth, this truth has also been recognised as equally applicable on other lines to the present life and to the destiny of nations.
The Karma of the British people in India has been of a mixed quality.
So far as it has opened the gates of Western knowledge to the people of this country it has been good and in return the thought and knowledge of India has poured back upon Europe to return the gift with overmeasure.
Had they in addition consciously raised up and educated the whole people, all the fruits of that good Karma would have gone to England.
But the education they have given is bad, meagre and restricted to the few, and their sympathy for the people has been formal and deficient.
In consequence the main flood of the new thought and knowledge has been diverted to America, the giant of the future, which alone of the nations has shown an active and practical sympathy and understanding of our nation.
British Karma in India has been bad in so far as it has destroyed our industries and arrested our national development.
This Karma is also beginning to recoil, patently in Boycott and unrest, much more subtly in the growing demoralisation of British politics.
Already the jealous love of liberty is beginning to wane in the upper classes in England, political thinkers are emerging who announce the failure of democracy, the doctrine of the rule of the strong man 
is gaining ground and the temptation to strengthen the executive at the expense of the liberty of the citizen is proving too powerful even for a Radical Government.
It seems impossible that even a veiled despotism or a virtual oligarchy should ever again rule in England, yet stranger things have happened in history.
The change may come by the growth of Socialism and the seizure of the doctrine of State despotism by masterful and ambitious minds to cloak a1 usurpation the ancient and known forms of which would not be tolerated, just as the Caesars, while avoiding the detested name and form of kingship, yet ruled Rome under the harmless titles of Princeps and Imperator, first man of the state and general, far more despotically than Tarquin could have done.
Under whatever disguises the change may steal upon the people, one thing is certain that if Lord Morley and the Anglo-Indian proconsuls succeed in perpetuating absolutism in India, it will recoil from India to reconquer England.
The Nationalists of this country are fighting not only for the liberties of India but for the liberties of England.