5 CRISIS OF 1905, AND THE RISE OF RADICALISM IN the previous chapter we reviewed Sri Aurobindo's political ideas while in Baroda. It is clear that he was looking and waiting for the best opportunity to serve the cause of his country's freedom. Before 1905, however, the time for his active participation in politics was not ripe. As one of his biographers puts it, 'Meanwhile the "mendicant" policy of the "moderates" continued as the official policy of the Indian National Congress; the political pulse of the nation was below par; his own province of Bengal—anything but intrepid at the time—was in no mood to be persuaded by Sri Aurobindo and his

INDEX A Nation in the Making, 117 A Survey of Indian History. 5. 6 Abdul Rasul, 123 Advaita Vedanta, 150 Ahimsa, 108 Alexander Cunningham, 12 Alipore Conspiracy Case, 74, 112, 131, 153, 154 Alipore jail, 85, 165 America, 27, 180 Amherst, Lord, 18, 126, 127 Amraoti, 149 Ananda Math, 73, 75, 161, 170 Anglicists, 19, 126 ''. Anglo-Indians, 56. 138, 163 Annie Besant, 22, 31 Arya, 104 Arya Samaj, 21, 22, 31 Aryan influx, 15 Asia, 179 Ashokan inscriptions, 12 Ashramvas, 158 Atmacharit, 47 Aurangzeb, 3 Aurobindo, Sri born in Calcutta on August 15, 1872, 35; as a child

-01_Kulapati^s Preface.htm Cover Page Let noble thoughts come to us from every side. Rigveda 1-89-i KULAPATI'S PREFACE THE BHARATIYA VIDYA BHAVAN-that Institute of Indian Culture in Bombay—needed a Book University, a series of books which, if read, would serve the purpose of providing higher education. Particular emphasis, however, was to be put on such literature as revealed the deeper impulsions of India. As a first step, it was decided to bring out in English 100 books, 50 of which were to be taken in hand almost at once. Each book was to contain from 200 to "250 pages. It is our intention' to publish the "books we select, not only in English, but also in t

FOREWORD I HAVE read this little book with much interest and occasionally with some excitement. It brought to mind the days of my own boyhood and youth when Sri Aurobindo was writing his famous articles in the Bande Mataram. I was then at school in England and later at college in Cambridge, and was thus rather cut off from events in India which were seldom reported in England. Nevertheless, some news trickled through and the great anti-partition movement in Bengal filled us with enthusiasm. Among the famous figures of those days, Sri Aurobindo stood out and drew the admiration of the young. So reading about him in those days and, more particularly, his articles in the Bande Matar

-14_Sri Aurobindo^s Approach to Political Technique.htm PART IV SRI AUROBINDO AS A RADICAL LEADER-HIS TECHNIQUE OF POLITICAL ACTION 10 SRI AUROBINDO'S APPROACH TO POLITICAL TECHNIQUE THE ideal creates the means of attaining the ideal, if it is itself true and rooted in the destiny of the race.'¹ The previous chapter reviewed the philosophical back-ground of Sri Aurobindo's political thought, founded as it is on the Idealistic basis of his 'spiritual nationalism'. This inevitably led to his adopting as the goal of his political endeavours nothing less than the complete emancipation of his motherland from foreign rule. If his masterly theoretical exposition

14 SRI AUROBINDO'S WITHDRAWAL FROM ACTIVE POLITICS IN 1910 SRI AUROBINDO'S rise as a national leader in the critical years 1905-06 was meteoric. Before this he had been working very much behind the scenes, but the events connected with the partition of Bengal forced him to sever his relations with Baroda and to come into the limelight in Calcutta. With his inspiring articles in the Bande Mātaram he became almost overnight a national hero, and the whole of the Bengali intelligentsia waited breathlessly for his stirring pronouncements on current events. His career of active politics, however, lasted barely five years, and his subsequent withdrawal from

PART III THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF SRI AUROBINDO'S THOUGHT, AND HIS POLITICAL GOAL. 6 SRI AUROBINDO AS AN IDEALIST -HIS THEORY OF SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION THE great thinkers of the world fall within two basic categories of thought, the Idealistic and the Materialistic. Most Indian Philosophers have been Idealists and this applies to Sri Aurobindo also, although as we shall see his philosophy contains some original aspects not to be found in the traditional Hindu systems of thought. While his general philosophical system was finalized and perfected at Pondicherry after his active political career, it is clear that its contours began

13 PASSIVE RESISTANCE AND BOYCOTT BEFORE proceeding to analyse Sri Aurobindo's views on passive resistance and boycott, it will be helpful to place the matter in its historical perspective and take a brief look at the political developments that led to the birth and growth of this great movement of national protest against British rule. The boycott movement that swept Bengal and had its repercussions in other parts of India can directly be traced to the ill-fated partition of the Province in 1905 by Lord Curzon, who forced the measure down the throat of the Bengalis despite their widespread and vociferous opposition. It is not necessary here to go i

-20_Appendix-Sri Aurobindo^s Independence Day Message.htm APPENDIX THE FIFTEENTH OF AUGUST, 1947 AUGUST 15th, 1947 is the birthday of free India. It marks fur her the end of an old era, the beginning of a new age. But we can also make it by our life and acts as a free nation an important date in a new age opening for the whole world, for the political, social, cultural and spiritual future of humanity. August 15th is my own birthday and it is naturally gratifying to me that it should have assumed this vast significance. I take this coincidence, not as a fortuitous accident, but as the sanction and seal of the Divine Force that guides my steps on the work with which I began life. the

9 HIS POLITICAL GOAL SRI AUROBINDO'S political goal for India was nothing less than complete freedom from foreign domination. He poured scorn and contempt upon the limited demands of the Moderates for expansion of the Legislative bodies, progressive Indianization of the Indian Civil Service, tariff protection for Indian industries and so on. In his view these minor administrative and economic reforms were utterly worthless without national freedom. The question can now be posed as to why Sri Aurobindo desired nothing less than absolute freedom for his country, at a time when the idea appeared utterly impractical and impossible of achievement.¹ From a st