Sri Aurobindo
Autobiographical Notes
and Other Writings of Historical Interest
Part Three. On Indian and World Events 1940–1950
1. Public Statements, Messages,
Letters and Telegrams
On the Second World War 1940–1943
On the War: Private Letters That Were Made Public [2]1
What we say is not that the Allies have not 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 been that in their dealings with
each other,– at least all who had the strength and 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? But there is the other side also. You are
condemning the Allies on grounds that people in the past would have stared at,
on the basis of modern ideals of international conduct; looked at like that all
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 spread too the institutions which try to
embody them. Whatever the relative worth of these things – they have been a
stage, even if a still imperfect stage of the forward evolution. (What about the
others? Hitler, for example, says 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 also conceded independence to Egypt and Eire after a struggle, to Iraq
without a struggle. She has been moving away steadily, if slowly, from
imperialism towards co-operation; the British Commonwealth of England and the
Dominions is something unique and unprecedented, a beginning of new things in
that direction: she is moving in idea towards a world-union of some kind in
which aggression is to be made impossible; her new generation has no longer the
old firm belief in mission and empire; she has offered India Dominion
independence – or even sheer isolated independence, if she wants that,– after
the war, with an agreed free constitution to be chosen by Indians themselves. .
. . All that is what I call evolution in the right direction – however slow and
imperfect and hesitating it may still be. As for America she has forsworn her
past imperialistic policies in regard to Central and South America, she has
conceded independence to Cuba and the Philippines. . . . Is there a similar
trend on the side of the Axis? One has to look at things on all sides, to see
them steadily and whole. Once again, 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 to be
safeguarded; only then can present troubles and contradictions have a chance to
be solved and eliminated. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
For us the question does not arise. We made it plain in
a letter which has been made public that we did not consider the war as a fight
between nations and 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 which are common to human
nature and 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 eventual 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 have stood for human values, though they may often act 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 primary importance. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
The Kurukshetra example is not to be taken as an exact
parallel but rather as a traditional instance of the war between two
world-forces in which the side favoured by the Divine triumphed, because the
leaders made themselves His instruments.2 It is not to be envisaged as a
battle between virtue and wickedness, the good and the evil men. After all, were
even the Pandavas virtuous without defect, quite unselfish and without passions?
. . .
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. And if imperialism, empire-building by
armed force, 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 that they might become
supreme rulers over all the numerous free and independent peoples of India? 
That would be the result of weighing old 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,– in both cases the right consequences of a terrific
slaughter. . . .
We should remember that conquest and rule over subject
peoples were not regarded as wrong either in ancient or mediaeval or quite
recent times, 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. The
modern ideas on the subject, the right of all to liberty, both individuals and
nations, the immorality of conquest and empire, or such compromises as the
British idea of training subject races for democratic freedom, are new values,
an evolutionary movement; this is a new Dharma which has only begun slowly and
initially to influence practice,– an infant Dharma which would have been
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, even if at
first stumblingly or incompletely, which will make the old things impossible – a
difficult task, but not absolutely impossible.
The Divine takes men as they are and uses men as His
instruments even if they are not flawless in virtue, 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
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, the central fact, the need
to remove 
the peril of black servitude and
revived barbarism threatening India and the world, and leave for a later time
all side-issues and minor issues or hypothetical problems that would cloud the
one all-important tragic issue before us.
Sri Aurobindo
3.9.1943