Sri Aurobindo
Letters on Himself and the Ashram
The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35
Remarks on the World Situation (1933 – 1949)
On World War II [2]
I just received a long letter from Krishnaprem. He
evidently wants to qualify his statement about violence. For myself I have no
doubt as you who know
have said so. Only one point gave rise to doubts in me, in regard to what Nolini
wrote in his 
masterly analysis of the values at
stake, comparing this war to {{0}}Kurukshetra.[[The reference is to the essay
“Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre” written in Bengali by Nolini Kanta Gupta and
published along with other material in a pamphlet entitled Sri Aurobindo o
Bartaman Yuddha (“Sri Aurobindo and the Present War”) in Bengali year 1349
(1942 – 43). The title “Dharmakshetre Kurukshetre” is taken from the Bhagavad
Gita and evokes the Kurukshetra war. At the end of the essay, the writer
mentions Duryodhana and his ninety-nine brothers, who were on one side in that
war, and the five Pandava brothers and Sri Krishna, who were on the other side.
— Ed.]] This is exactly what troubles Krishnaprem. How can the Allied Powers
be compared to the Pandavas? I never doubted the wisdom of all efforts being
directed against Hitler, but is it not unwise to compare him to Duryodhana and
the Allied Powers to the Pandavas? I have received of late from correspondents
and friends objections to that effect — that the Allies can hardly be dubbed
“modern Pandavas”. The Pandavas were protagonists of virtue and unselfishness,
which can hardly be said of the Allies who are all selfish (more or less) and
exploiters of weaker races and {{0}}imperialistic.[Here Sri
Aurobindo wrote between two lines of the correspondent’s letter: “Good
Heavens, but so were the Pandavas, even if less than more! They were human
beings, not ascetics or angels.”]
What I have said is not that the Allies have never done
wrong things, but that they stand on the side of the evolutionary forces. I have
not said that at random, but on what to me are clear grounds of fact. What you
speak of is the dark side. All nations and governments have shown that side in
their dealings with each other,— at least all who had the strength or got the
chance. I hope you are not expecting me to believe that there are or have been
virtuous Governments and unselfish and sinless peoples? It is only individuals
and not too many of them who can be described in that style. But there is the
other side also. Your correspondents are condemning the Allies on grounds that
people in the past would have stared at, on the basis of modern ideals of
international conduct; but looked at like that, all big nations and many small
ones have black records. But who created these ideals or did most to create them
(liberty, democracy, equality, international justice and the rest)? Well,
America, France, England — the present Allied nations. They have all been
imperialistic and still bear the burden of their 
past,
but they have also deliberately spread these ideals and introduced
self-governing bodies and parliamentary institutions where they did not exist;
and whatever the relative worth of these things, they have been a stage, even if
a still imperfect stage, in a forward evolution. (What of the others? What about
the Axis’ new order? Hitler swears it is a crime to educate the coloured
peoples, they must be kept as serfs and labourers.) England has helped certain
nations to be free without seeking any personal gain; she has conceded
independence to Egypt and Eire after a struggle, to Iraq without a struggle. On
the whole she has been for some time moving away steadily from Imperialism
towards a principle of free association and cooperation; the British
Commonwealth of England and the Dominions is something unique and unprecedented,
a beginning of new things in that direction. She is turning in spirit in the
direction of a world-union of some kind after the war; her new generation no
longer believes in an “imperial mission”; she has offered India Dominion
Independence (even, if she prefers it, she can choose or pass on to isolated
independence) after the war, on the base of an agreed free constitution to be
chosen by Indians themselves; though this, it has been feared, leaves a loophole
for reactionary delay, it is in itself extremely reasonable and it is the
Indians themselves with their inveterate habit of disunion who will be
responsible if they are imbecile enough to reject the opportunity. All that is
what I call evolution in the right direction — however slow and imperfect and
hesitating. As for America she has forsworn her past imperialistic policies in
regard to Central and South America, in Cuba, the Philippines,— everywhere apart
from some islands in the Pacific which would go plop into other hands, if she
withdrew from them. It is perhaps possible, some suggest, that she may be
tempted towards a sort of financial imperialism, the rule of the Almighty
American Dollar, by her new sense of international power, or led into other
mistakes, but if so we may fairly assume from her other strong tendencies that
she will soon withdraw from it. The greater danger is that she may retire again
into a selfish isolationism after the war and so destroy or delay the chance of 
a possible beginning that may lead eventually to some beginning of a
free world-union. But still there again is the evolutionary force. Is there a
similar trend on the part of the Axis? The answer is plain enough both from
their own declarations and their behaviour. Avowedly and openly, Nazi Germany
today stands for the reversal of this evolutionary tendency, for the destruction
of the new international outlook, the new Dharma, for a reversion not only to
the past, but to a far-back primitive and barbaric ideal. She fully intended to
reimpose it on the whole earth, but would have done so if she had had, as for a
time she seemed to have, the strength to conquer. There can be no doubt or
hesitation here; if we are for the evolutionary future of mankind, we must
recognise that it is only the victory of the Allies that can save it. At the
very least, they are at the moment the instruments of the evolutionary Forces to
save mankind’s future, and these declarations of their own show that they are
conscious of it. Other elements and motives there are, but the main issue is
here. One has to look at things on all sides, to see them steadily and whole.
Once more, it is the forces working behind that I have to look at, I don’t want
to go blind among surface details. The future has first to be safeguarded; only
then can present problems and contradictions have a chance to be solved and
eliminated.
Krishnaprem too has become doubtful about the Allies
being compared to the Pandavas. Would you kindly throw some light on the
question?
For us the question put by you does not arise. The
Mother made it plain in a letter which has been made public that we did not
consider the war as a fight between nations or governments (still less between
good people and bad people) but between two forces, the Divine and the Asuric.
What we have to see is on which side men and nations put themselves; if they put
themselves on the right side, they at once make themselves instruments of the
Divine purpose in spite of all defects, errors, wrong movements and actions
(past or present or possible 
backslidings in the
future) which are common to human nature and to all human collectivities. The
victory of one side (the Allies) would keep the path open for the evolutionary
forces; the victory of the other side would drag back humanity, degrade it
horribly and might lead even, at the worst, to its failure as a race, as others
in the past evolution failed and perished. That is the whole question and all
other considerations are either irrelevant or of a minor importance. The Allies
at least stand for human values, though they may often have acted against their
own best ideals (human beings always do that); Hitler stands for diabolical
values or for human values exaggerated in the wrong way until they become
diabolical (e.g. the “virtues” of the Herrenvolk, the master race). That
does not make the English or Americans nations of spotless angels nor the
Germans a wicked and sinful race, but as an indicator it has a decisive
importance.
Nolini, I should suppose, gave the Kurukshetra example
not as an exact parallel but as a traditional instance of a War between two
world-forces in which the side favoured by the Divine triumphed, because its
leaders made themselves his instruments. I don’t suppose he envisaged it as a
battle between virtue and wickedness or between good and evil men or intended to
equate the British with the Pandavas, nations with individuals or even
individuals with individuals,— shall we say, Stafford Cripps with Yudhisthir,
Churchill with Bhima and General Montgomery with Arjuna! After all, were even
the Pandavas virtuous without defect, calm and holy and quite unselfish and
without passions? There are many incidents in the Mahabharat which seem to show
to the contrary that they had their defects and failings. And in the Pandava
army and its leaders there must have been many who were not angels or paragons
of virtue, while there were plenty of good men and true on Duryodhana’s side.
Unselfishness? But were not the Pandavas fighting to establish their own claims
and interests — just and right, no doubt, but still personal claims and
self-interest? Theirs was a righteous battle, dharmya yuddha,
but it was for right and justice in their own case. The Allies have as good or
even a better case and reason to call theirs a righteous quarrel, for they are
fighting 
not only for themselves, for their
freedom and very existence, but for the existence, freedom, maintenance of
natural rights of other nations, Poles, Czechs, Norwegians, Belgians, Dutch,
French, Greece, Yugoslavia and a vast number of others not yet directly
threatened; they too claim to be fighting for a Dharma, for civilised values,
for the preservation of great ideals and in view of what Hitler represents and
openly professes and what he wishes to destroy, their claim has strong
foundations. And if imperialism is under all circumstances a wickedness, then
the Pandavas are tainted with that brush, for they used their victory to
establish their empire continued after them by Parikshit and Janamejaya. Could
not modern humanism and pacifism make it a reproach against the Pandavas that
these virtuous men (including Krishna) brought about a huge slaughter (alas for
Ahimsa!) that they might establish their sole imperial rule over all the
numerous free and independent peoples of India? Such a criticism would be
grotesquely out of place, but it would be a natural result of weighing ancient
happenings in the scales of modern ideals. As a matter of fact, such an empire
was a step in the right direction then, just as a world-union of free peoples
would be a step in the right direction now,— and in both cases the right
consequences of a terrific slaughter.
Who are the people who have such a tenderness for
Hitler and object to his being compared to Duryodhana? I hope they are not among
those — spiritual people among them, I am told,— who believe — or perhaps once
believed? — Hitler to be the new Avatar and his religion (God help us!) to be
the true religion which we must all help to establish throughout the wide world
or among those who regard Hitler as a great and good man, a saint, an ascetic
and all that is noble and godlike. I don’t see why Hitler should not be compared
to Duryodhana, except that Duryodhana, if alive, might complain indignantly that
the comparison was a monstrous and scandalous injustice to him and that he never
did anything like what Hitler has done. By the way, what about Krishna’s
jitvā śatrūn bhuṅkṣva rājyaṃ samṛddham? An unholy and unethical bribe? Or
what on earth did he mean by it? But battle and conquest and imperial rule 
were then a dharma and consecrated by a
special form of sacrifice. We should remember that conquest and rule over
subject peoples were not regarded as wrong either in ancient or medieval times
and even quite recently but as something great and glorious; men did not see any
special wickedness in conquerors or conquering nations. Just government of
subject peoples was envisaged, but nothing more — exploitation was not excluded.
No doubt, many nations in the past were jealous of their own independence and
some like the Greeks and later the English had the ideal of freedom, more
especially of individual liberty. But the passion for individual liberty went
along in ancient times with the institution of slavery which no Greek democrat
ever thought to be wrong; no Greek state or people thought it an injustice to
take away the freedom of other Greek states, still less of foreign peoples, or
deemed it immoral to rule over subject races. The same inconsistency has held
sway over human ideas until recent times and still holds sway over international
practice even now. The modern ideas on the subject, the right of all to liberty
both individuals and nations, the immorality of conquest and empire, or, short
of such absolutist ideas, such compromises as the British idea of training
subject races for democratic freedom, are new values, an evolutionary movement,
a new Dharma which has only begun slowly and initially to influence practice,—
an infant Dharma that would be throttled for good if Hitler succeeded in his
“Avataric” mission and established his new “religion” over all the earth.
Subject nations naturally accept the new Dharma and severely criticise the old
imperialisms; it is to be hoped that they will practise what they now preach
when they themselves become strong and rich and powerful. But the best will be
if a new world-order evolves which will make the old things impossible,— a
difficult task, but not, with God’s grace, absolutely impracticable.
The Divine takes men as they are and uses them as his
instruments even if they are not flawless in character, without stain or sin or
fault, exemplary in virtue, or angelic, holy and pure. If they are of good will,
if, to use the Biblical phrase, they are on the Lord’s side, that is enough for
the work to be done. 
Even if I knew that the
Allies (I am speaking of the “big” nations, America, Britain, China) would
misuse their victory or bungle the peace or partially at least spoil the
opportunities opened to the human world by that victory, I would still put my
force behind them. At any rate, things could not be one hundredth part as bad as
they would be under Hitler. The ways of the Lord would still be open — to keep
them open is what matters. Let us stick to the real issue and leave for a later
time all side-issues and minor issues or hypothetical problems that would cloud
the one all-important and tragic issue before us.
P.S. This is an answer to what is implied in your
letter and, I suppose, in those of your correspondents, not to anything in K’s
letter. His observations are all right, but circumstances alter cases. Ours is a
sadhana which involves not only devotion or union with the Divine or a
perception of him in all things and beings, but also action as workers and
instruments and a work to be done in the world, a spiritual force to be brought
on the world, under difficult conditions; then one has to see one’s way and do
what is commanded and support what has to be supported, even if it means war and
strife carried on whether through chariots and bows and arrows or tanks and cars
and American bombs and aeroplanes, in either case a ghoraṃ
karma: the means and times and persons differ, but it does not seem to me
that Nolini is wrong in seeing in it the same problem as in Kurukshetra. As for
war, violence, the use of force to maintain freedom for the world, for the
highest values of human civilisation, for the salvation of humanity from a
terrible fate, etc., the old command rings out once again after many ages for
those who must fight or support this battle for the right,
mayaivaite nihatāḥ pūrvam eva nimittamātraṃ bhava savyasācin.
2 September 1943