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CHAPTER THREE
LIGHT GROWING
Sri Aurobindo was now home in the ancient land o£ his birth, whose history dates back to the origin of man, the land where lived and worked saints, sages and seers, God-men and God-lovers, the masters of the highest wisdom ever vouchsafed to man. This wisdom enshrined in her, India has shone through the ages as a constant star of spiritual illumination to all seekers within her and without. But there was in the innermost sanctuary of her soul a truth yet unglimpsed. The time came for this truth to be revealed to humanity for its liberation from the thousand and one ills that afflict it all round.
One therefore came upon this earth, a pilgrim of Eternity, for whom the golden door of the Temple opened and he saw the Light in all its infinite power and splendour, proclaimed to man its profound significance for his future, and showed to him the ' sun-lit' path that leads to it. But turning to the materials that were to form the foundation for the sun-lit path—the life, mind and body of his people—he found them in ruins. Foreign rule and exploitation had made a horrible wreck of them. A free growth of the soul through its proper instruments was out of the question. The task now clear before him, he went straight into his self-preparation as the first phase of his life and work in India. He grows towards the Light and the Light grows and intensifies in him, the Light whose first glimmerings bore to him the promise of a new dawn for his country and for the world.
Early in February 1893, Sri Aurobindo joined Baroda service. He was then twenty-one. He was first put in the Land Settlement Department, for a short time in the Stamps Office, then in the Central Revenue Office and in the Secretariat. Afterwards at his own request he was appointed Professor of English at the State College of which he later became the Vice-Principal and for some time Principal. In addition, he used to do most .of the personal work for the Maharaja in an unofficial capacity.
In August 1893, six months after his return from England, Sri Aurobindo began to give public expression to his views on the national movement then going on in the country. In a series of articles called 'New Lamps for Old' on the aims and activities of the Indian National Congress, contributed to the Indu Prakash, a Bombay weekly, edited by K. G. Deshpande, a Cambridge friend of his, at whose request he wrote the series, Sri Aurobindo showed his deep concern for the sad mishandling of his country's cause by leaders who, as pointedly shown by him, were rot at all equal to the great work undertaken by them. He exposed, without reservation, the hollowness and absurdity, of the policy of protest, petition and prayer to which the great national mouthpiece of the country had committed itself. Burning as he did for a bold and forward step to be taken by it, he was also planning to prepare the country for armed rebellion.
These articles were not only the first political writings of Sri Aurobindo but also the first free and revealing criticism of the Congress policy by a young man of twenty-one who had just seen his country after fourteen long years in a foreign land practically without any contact with his own people and culture. And neither was it an ordinary affair that one of that age would raise his voice, sharp and clear, against the veterans who then formed the leadership of the Congress. The sequence is remarkable for its poetic diction, its irrefutable logic, a mastery of historical facts and movements, a strong faith in the untapped reserves of the masses, in a word, a masterly grasp of the political situation, all vibrant with a soul-touch that presaged a new force in the country's politics. His love of Congress was warm and profound: ' How shall we find words vivid enough to describe the fervour of those morning hopes, the April splendour of that wonderful enthusiasm? The Congress was to us all that is to man most dear, most high and most sacred; a well of living water in deserts more than Saharan, a proud banner in the battle of Liberty, and a holy temple of concord where the races met and mingled.'1 But within eight years of its existence it pitched from its noble height into an ignominious abyss. The reason: its own weakness. ' Our actual enemy,' says the young critic, ' is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our purblind sentimentalism.'2 Then he goes on to emphasize: ' I say, of the Congress, then, this,—that its aims are mistaken, that the spirit in which it proceeds towards their accomplishment is not a spirit of sincerity and whole-heartedness, and the methods it has chosen are not the right methods, and the leaders in whom it trusts, not the right sort of men to be leaders;—in brief, that we are at present the blind led, if not by the blind, at any rate, by the one-eyed. . . . The National Congress was not really national, and had not in any way attempted to become national. . . . The Congress which represents not the mass of the population but a single and very limited class . . . could not honestly be called national. ... It is not a popular body and has not in any way attempted to become a popular body. . . . Journalists, barristers, doctors, officers, graduates and traders who have grown up and are increasing with prurient rapidity under the aegis of the British rule; and this class I call the middle class which Congress represents.'3
Sri Aurobindo's unerring vision saw that the real strength of the national Congress lay in the masses— the proletariat. '. . . the proletariat,' he continues, ' is, as I have striven to show, the real key of the situation.
1 Indu Prakash, 7.8.1893. 2 Ibid., 21.8.1893. 3 Ibid., 28.8.1893.
Torpid he is and immobile; he is nothing of an actual force, but he is a very great potential force, and whoever succeeds in understanding and eliciting his strength, becomes by the very fact master of the future.'4 Again: ' The proletariat among us is sunk in ignorance and overwhelmed with distress. But with that distressed and ignorant proletariat,—now that the middle class is proved deficient in sincerity, power and judgement,— with that proletariat resides, whether we like it or not, our sole assurance of hope, our sole chance in the future. . . . Theorist and trifler I may be called, I again assert as our first and holiest duty, the elevation and enlightenment of the proletariat."5 It is common knowledge how the working out of this idea put the Congress on its strongest basis in the hearts and affections of the people.
But the then leaders like Pherozshah Mehta and Manmohan Ghose held that the Congress need not worry about its popularity among the masses and that it would do if ' their educated and enlightened compatriots articulate their grievances and demand their redress for the masses'. To the ' glib ' argument often mouthed by the two above-named stalwarts ' that in all ages and all countries it is the thinking classes who have led the unthinking ', Sri Aurobindo's sharp retort was that ' it may be true of England ' where ' from Runney-mede to Hull riots is a far cry; yet these seven centuries have done less to change partially the political and social exterior of England than five short years to change entirely the political and social exterior of her immediate neighbour. . . . But is it true at all of France? Rather we know that the first step of that fortunate country towards progress was not through any decent and orderly expansion, but through a purification by blood and fire. It was not a convocation of respectable citizens, but the vast and ignorant proletariat that emerged from a prolonged and almost
4 Indu Prakash, 6.3.1894. 5 Ibid., 4.12.1893.
co- eval apathy and blotted out in five terrible years the accumulated oppression of thirteen centuries. '6
When Surendranath Banerji said: ' We rely on the liberty-loving instincts of the greatest representative assembly in the world . . . the British House of Commons,' Sri Aurobindo came out with an article in the series, showing his intimate knowledge of English character and the historic development that shaped it. ' Supreme in the domain of practical life, gifted with commercial vigour and expansive energy,' the English mind, Sri Aurobindo pointed out, ' has its limitations for which it cannot see beyond the immediate needs, the exigencies of the hour. They trust implicitly to political machines, for whose invention they have a peculiar genius, and never cared to utilise mightier forces and a subtler method.' This machine, he argued, however excellent, cannot satisfy the higher needs of man's collective life, especially that of a country like India. It has given an ideal, great indeed in many ways, but not a force by which man can forge ahead towards a larger goal. If we are ' to purchase an outfit of political ideas' from outside, we must see that ' it is properly adjusted to our natural temper and urgent requirements'. We must not 'eke out our scanty wardrobe with the cast-off rags and threadbare leavings of our English masters.'7
The sequence, however, had to be stopped because those at the helm of Congress affairs could not stand the severe logic and sound idealism behind Sri Aurobindo's stand against their aims and activities. ' The first two articles made a sensation and frightened Justice Ranade and other Congress leaders. Ranade warned the proprietor of the paper that, if this went on, he would surely be prosecuted for sedition. Accordingly the original plan of the series had to be dropped at the proprietor's instance. Deshpande requested Sri Aurobindo to continue in a modified tone and he reluctantly consented, but felt no further interest and
6 Indu Prakash, 18.9.1893. 7 Ibid., 30.10.1893.
the articles were published at long intervals and finally dropped of themselves altogether.' Here are Sri Aurobindo's words on what transpired in a meeting that he had with Ranade in Bombay: ' I remember when, back, home from England, fifteen years ago, I started writing articles in Indu Prakash of Bombay, strongly protesting against the Congress policy of prayer and petition, the late Sri Mahadev Govind Ranade, seeing how these articles were acting on the minds of the youths, exhorted me, from the moment I met him, for two quarters of an hour, to leave off such writing and take up some Congress work. He wished to entrust me with the work of jail reform. I was surprised and displeased at this request and refused it.'8 Dinendrakumar Roy wrote: 'Justice Ranade failed to refute Sri Aurobindo's arguments.'9
In July 1894, that is to say, three months after the publication of the last article in the previous sequence, Sri Aurobindo began another series on Bankimchandra Chatterji. It consists of seven most illuminating articles on the life, genius and achievements of that ' Creator and King of Bengali prose', as Sri Aurobindo called him. It is a masterly survey of the literary panorama of Bengal against her social, political, cultural and historical background. Who would say after reading it that only two years ago the writer knew next to nothing of his own country? Rather one would be persuaded that he was at home with every fact and event of his country's life and thought, nay, every detail of it, much more perhaps than those who had been ever on its soil. The whole study is a proof, if proof were necessary, of Sri Aurobindo's knowledge of the language without which nothing of the kind could be written. A few extracts are reproduced here in order to show Sri Aurobindo's perception of the tendencies in the national life and how Bankimchandra shaped it. He wrote: ' The society by which Bankim was formed was the young Bengal of
8 Sri Aurobindo: Karakahini (in Bengali), pp. 44-45. 9 Dinendrakumar Roy: Aravinda-Prasanga (in Bengali), p. 59.
the fifties, the most extraordinary perhaps that India has yet seen,—a society electric with thought and loaded to the brim with passion. Bengal was at that time the theatre of a great intellectual awakening. A sort of miniature Renascence was in process.'10
' Bankim wrote in his own beautiful mother-tongue, his best work was literary and his immense originality would in any case have forced its way out.'11 ' He has this splendid distinction that he more than anyone exalted Bengali from the status of a dialect to the majesty of a language. . . . Bankim's influence has been far-reaching and every day enlarges its bounds. What is its result? Perhaps it may very roughly be summed up thus. When a Maratha or Gujerati has anything important to say, he says it in English; when a Bengali, he says it in Bengali. That is, I think, the fact which is most full of meaning for us in Bengal. It means, besides other things less germane to literature, that except in politics and journalism which is the handmaid of politics, English is being steadily driven out of the field. Soon it will only remain to weed it out of our conversation.' 12 Sri Aurobindo refers here to the efforts made in that direction too by Kaliprasanna Sinha.
Writing on Bengal politics and the future, Sri Aurobindo says: ' In politics, the Bengali has always led and still leads. But the Congress in Bengal is dying of consumption; annually its proportions sink into greater insignificance; its leaders, the Bonnerji's and Banerji's and Lalmohan Ghoses, have climbed into the rarefied atmosphere of the Legislative Council and lost all hold on the imagination of the young men. The desire for a nobler and more inspiring patriotism is growing more intense; and in the rise of an indigenous Trade Party we see the handwriting on the wall. This is an omen of good hope for the future; for what Bengal
10 Indu Prakash, 23.7.1894. 11 Ibid., 6.8.1894 12 Ibid., 20.8.1894 Page-41 thinks tomorrow, India will be thinking tomorrow week."13
Summing up Bankim's contribution, Sri Aurobindo concludes the series with these words: 'And when Posterity comes to crown with her praises the Makers of India, she will place her most splendid laurel not on the sweating temples of a place-hunting politician nor on the narrow forehead of a noisy social reformer but on the serene brow of that gracious Bengali who never clamoured for place or power, but did his work in silence for love of his work, even as nature does, and just because he had no aim but to give out the best that was in him, was able to create a language, a literature, and a nation.'14
It was to this new-born nation that Sri Aurobindo addressed his call to wake up to a sense of its subjection and strive for freedom. The almost immediate response he received was largely due to the work that Bankim had done to elevate his race by the power of his diction and the sublimity of his thought. He it was who had kindled a new hope in the heart of Bengal, the first in modern times to impel her to the vigorous thinking that was behind the political endeavours she made in later days. The prophetic fervour of Bankim's writings inspired a robust optimism in the race.
Sri Aurobindo now devoted himself to the working out of his idea of preparing the country—especially its youths—for some form of direct action which would ultimately develop into an armed insurrection. He decided to acquaint himself with the culture of his country, its ancient lore, a knowledge of which, he knew, was essential to any work that was to be done for India. Even if that was not his ultimate aim, Providence led him to it as the first step towards the larger fulfilment assigned to him.
He therefore began to study the Bengali language and literature. He learned enough Bengali afterwards to
13 Indu Prakash, 27.8.1894. 14 Ibid., 27.8.1894. conduct a weekly in Bengali from Calcutta. But he never ventured to make speeches in his mother tongue. He had engaged Dinendrakumar Roy, a young Bengali litterateur as a companion at Baroda to help him correct and perfect his knowledge of Bengali and facilitate conversation in it without going through regular lessons.
His study of Sanskrit language and literature opened to him the treasures of Indian culture. In the course of his study he rendered the epics into English. The excellence of these translations was testified to by Romeshchandra Datta, the well-known English scholar, author and historian, who, while on a visit to Baroda, met Sri Aurobindo and incidentally asked to see Sri Aurobindo's renderings from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. On seeing them Dutt said: 'I am sorry to have wasted so much of my labours on this work. Had I seen your translations before, I would never have published mine (in Everyman's Library, England). It now appears that my translations have been a child's play beside yours.'15
Whatever of Sri Aurobindo's translations is now available is the work of that period during which he also wrote, in addition, a large number of poems. He began a full-scale study of Kalidasa which he could not complete evidently under the pressure of political work he was then secretly carrying on while in Baroda service. What a marvel of literary criticism these few chapters are! His long essay on the Mahabharata written at the time was equally a unique piece of creative criticism. It is impossible to believe that they could be from the pen of one who was writing on the subject for the first time and at the age of twenty-five. Mention may be made here that Sri Aurobindo learnt Sanskrit without taking any help from anybody. The re-nationalisation of his mind came not by any effort but ' by natural attraction to Indian culture and ways of life and a
15 Dinendrakumar Roy: Arabinda-Prasanga (in Bengali), pp. 38-39.
temperamental feeling and preference for all that was Indian'.
Sri Aurobindo was now an out-and-out Indian concentrating on his country's liberation as the one dominant passion of his life. And when was he not? Did he not know, when he was only fourteen, that he had a great work to do for the regeneration of his country? An embodiment of high idealism, a quiet, simple but dynamic personality, a brilliant scholar, an inspirer of the youth, he was the idol of his students in Baroda. Many of those who served the country under the great Tilak's leadership were Sri Aurobindo's students of Baroda College. How he impressed those who came into his contact can be inferred from what the English Principal of the Baroda College said to C. R. Reddy: ' So you met Aurobindo Ghose. Did you notice his eyes? There is mystic fire and light in them. They penetrate into the beyond.' And he added, ' If Joan of Arc heard heavenly voices, Aurobindo probably sees heavenly visions.'16 Says Sri K. M. Munshi, Governor of Uttar Pradesh, who was Sri Aurobindo's student in Baroda College: ' I read of people to whom God's grace had come. I had seen two or three such men in real life. When in College, I had seen before my eyes the evolution of Sri Aurobindo, the way in which Yoga fascinated him, the sudden change in his life, his swift transformation into a centre of the manifest Spirit.'17
There is in Bengali a first-hand account, an intimate pen-picture of Sri Aurobindo's life in Baroda, by Dinendrakumar Roy who lived with him as his helper in Bengali. Space does not allow us to quote more than a few extracts. Before meeting him Dinendrakumar thought that he would see in Sri Aurobindo a young Indian completely Europeanised. Instead, he found a Bengali of Bengalis, ' whose footwear was a pair of nagra sandals of the primitive type; his dhoti, half-tucked at
16 K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar: Sri Aurobindo, pp. 396-97. 17 The Sunday Amrita Bazar Patrika, dated 14.6.1953.
the back of the waist, was coarse-spun Ahmedabad-mill khadi with an ill-looking border; a coarse banian covering the trunk; thin, long hair, parted half-way on the head, hanging down to the neck; face slightly pockmarked; eyes soft and dreamy; complexion a shade dark; a youth spare of frame; a living fount of English, French, Latin, Hebrew, Greek—this was Sriman Aurobindo Ghose.'18 Simple and unostentatious, he preferred everything Indian. Even his cook was a Bengali and he liked Bengali cooking.
' Among the student community Aurobindo was regarded as a god. More than the English Principal of the College, this Indian professor was the object of their trust and respect. His ways of teaching had a charm for them. ... As long as I stayed with him, I could not think of him except as a devoted Brahmacharin and a self-denying sannyasin with a heart weighted with others' sorrows. The acquisition of knowledge seemed to have been the only concern of his life. And to achieve this, he remained immersed in severe tapasya, amid the din and bustle of a busy world. . . . Living with him day and night, the more intimately I got to know him, the more I understood that Aurobindo was not of this earth; a god he was, descended from Heaven. He alone could say why God had made him a Bengali and banished him to ill-fated India.'19 Such was the one who was to set aflame a nation with the determination to be free.
In the nineties of the last century a scheme was afoot in various parts of the country to organise secret societies for revolutionary work, particularly for preparing the field by infusion of revolutionary ideas. Bombay Presidency had its share in this movement, of which ' Thakur Saheb, a noble of the Udaipur State, was a leader. The Bombay Council of the movement was helping him to organise Maharashtra and the Maratha States. He himself worked principally upon the Indian army three or four regiments of which he had already won over. Sri
18 Dinendrakumar Roy: Arabinda-Prasanga (in Bengali), p. 8. 19 Ibid., p.8
Aurobindo, who was connected with this movement, took a special journey to Central India to meet Indian sub-officers and men of one of these regiments'. About this time Thakur Saheb set up a secret society at Poona and in 1896 Sri Aurobindo was elected its president.
In 1897, the two British officers, Rand and Ayerst, were murdered in Poona for their high-handed action in connection with plague operations. This was the first of a series of political assassinations in Maharashtra. For the first time weapons rather than words were brought into use by our daring youths. The Rand murder case ended in capital sentence for Damodar Chapekar. Chapekar along with his brother had started an organisation called Hindu Dharma Sangha. After the passing of its founder, this Sangha, the Secret Society of Thakur Saheb (then absent in Japan for revolutionary work), and Tarun Sangha, a society of youths, organised under Sri Aurobindo's direction, were amalgamated and Sri Aurobindo took over the management. Later he became the President of the central organisation for the whole of Gujarat.
Incidentally, Lokamanya Tilak, among the first to be struck by Sri Aurobindo's articles in the Indu Prakash, was drawn towards him. It is the students of Sri Aurobindo and Lokamanya Tilak, who in a body, began openly to oppose the begging policy of the Congress.
Training the youths of the country for national service through revolutionary activities was an important item in Sri Aurobindo's plan. He knew that in a country like India religion must be the basis of any such training and that he must himself have some spiritual power by which it would be possible for him to do political work more effectively. He would, therefore, go out in search of suitable spiritual men who could assist him in giving shape to his ideas. He visited several ashramas on the banks of the Narmada, and met a number of well-known Yogis living in these ashramas, in one of which at Ganganath Sri Aurobindo and his friend Deshpande set up a school called Bharati Vidyalaya on the lines laid down by Sri Aurobindo in the famous Bhavani Mandir scheme.
Keshavananda Maharaj, the chief disciple of Swami Rakshananda for whom Sri Aurobindo had great regard, was in charge of the spiritual education of the boys of this school. The classes in general subjects were taken by Rambhatt Gadgil. Their physical training which included team games, wrestling, marching, drill etc. was supervised by a retired Havildar. One of their popular games was attack-and-defence, played with light sticks of split bamboos. One team climbed up the hill-side to reach the top, the other tried to prevent them. Throwing stones was forbidden, but the use of sticks was encouraged. The injured players would never whine.
A description of this Ashram and its activities is given by Charuchandra Datta in his Bengali book of memoirs called Purono Katha-Upasanghar. Dutt along with Deshpande visited the Ashram at the request of Sri Aurobindo. Dutt says that this school was to be the nucleus of the Bhavani Mandir, the scheme of which was set forth by Sri Aurobindo in a booklet20 of the same title. In the development of this idea, Sri Aurobindo's younger brother Barindrakumar had a contribution. As a matter of fact, Barindra travelled among the hills to find a suitable place for the Mandir. Couched in sparkling English, the booklet is a piece of inspired writing. Thousands of copies of it were distributed in important cities of India. The main idea of the scheme was to establish in a mountainous seclusion a temple consecrated to Bhavani, the Mother, with an ashram attached which would train a new order of karma-yogis, spiritual workers, who would renounce all in order to work for the Mother. ' This work must be based upon knowledge as upon a rock—the knowledge enshrined in a mighty formula of the Vedanta, the ancient gospel which when revivified by Karma and Bhakti, delivers man out of all fear and all weakness.'
20 Extracts from Bhavani Mandir citied below are taken from Earl of Ronaldshay's book The Heart of Aryavarta, pp. 127-129.
Another point given prominence in the scheme is India's need of strength, energy and force, which her children must have in addition to knowledge, love and enthusiasm, they already possess. A combination of all these would bring about a new resurgence of her soul. Says Bhavani Mandir: ' The deeper we look the more we shall be convinced that the one thing wanting which we must strive to acquire before all others is strength— strength physical, strength mental, strength moral, but above all strength spiritual, which is the one inexhaustible and imperishable source of all others.'
The Mother is therefore to be invoked for the strength of which she is the only giver. The Bhavani Mandir is a call upon all the children of the Mother to come forward and worship her and become fit for the sacred work—the work of liberating India, of reinstating her in the greatness and glory that was hers. For obvious reasons, the real aim of liberation was not explicit in the scheme. But the implication was only too obvious. Who is this Bhavani from whose worship the strength to do this work would come? Here is Sri Aurobindo's answer: ' In the unending revolutions of the world, as the wheel of the Eternal turns mightily in its courses, the Infinite Energy, which streams forth from the Eternal and sets the wheel to work, looms up in the vision of man in various aspects and infinite forms. Each aspect creates and marks an age. . . . This Infinite Energy is Bhavani. She also is Durga. She is Kali, She is Radha the beloved, She is Lakshmi. She is our Mother and creatress of us all. In the present age the Mother is manifested as the Mother of Strength.'
The practice of Yoga and the Mother cult were intended in the scheme to revive in the young trainees their innate spiritual tendency and equip them with whatever strength they needed to realise the ideal to which they had dedicated themselves. Thus would grow in India a new band of workers through whose sadhana she would wake up into a new dawn for herself and for the world. This consummation, envisaged in the booklet, is this: ' India cannot perish, our race cannot become extinct, because among all the divisions of mankind it is to India that is reserved the highest and the most splendid destiny, the most essential to the future of the human race. It is she who must send forth from herself the future religion of the entire world, the Eternal Religion which is to harmonise all religion, science and philosophies, and make mankind one soul, —the greatest and most wonderful work ever given to a race.' What would come out when this consummation was achieved? The writer puts the answer into the mouth of Bhavani herself: ' You will be helping to create a nation, to consolidate an age, to Aryanise a world. And that nation is your own, that age is the age of yourselves and your children, that world is no fragment of land bounded by seas and hills, but the whole earth with her teeming millions.'
These ideas of Sri Aurobindo, says the Marquess of Zetland (Earl of Ronaldshay), ' seem indeed, to have been the mainspring behind Sri Aurobindo's activities in support of the revolutionary movement; for in the same pamphlet we catch sight of the idea which was to form the core of the philosophy which he was to formulate later on during the long years of his retirement from the world. In this philosophy he stresses the need for a reinterpretation of spiritual experience to relate it to the changing conditions evolved in the outward progress of mankind. In the same way his declaration of faith in the spiritual mission entrusted to India is repeated and elaborated in The Life Divine, as, for example, when he asserts that ' the most vital issue of the age is whether future progress in humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West, or by a nobler pragmatosis, guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge.'21
As the Partition hastened a crisis in the political
21 In his Foreword to G. H. Langley's book Sri Aurobindo, published by Royal India and Pakistan Society.
situation in Bengal, the Bhavani Mandir scheme could not further materialise. But its central idea persisted in the mind of Barindra who tried to give some form to it in his centre of revolutionary work at the Maniktola garden.
To come back to the theme: Sri Aurobindo was now himself keen on kindling within him the invincible fire of the Spirit with which to set ablaze a countrywide passion for freedom. ' He had some connection with a member of the governing body of the Naga Sannyasins who gave him a mantra of Kali (rather a stotra) and conducted certain kriyas and a Vedic yajna for success in his political work.'
As Sri Aurobindo was now in Baroda State Service, all such activities of his had to be conducted behind the scenes and in silence. In fact, it was his way to do every such work for his country from behind. The Divine's Light, not limelight, was all he cared for. It was the Government who by arresting him brought him into prominence. He used to meet trusted friends in order to find out how much help they could render him in the cause. An instance was Charuchandra Datta himself. He was then in the Indian Civil Service and posted in the Bombay Presidency. Sri Aurobindo had already met him a couple of times, and known the fire that Dutt was. It was early in 1904 when Dutt was at Thana that Sri Aurobindo one day came there and proposed to take him into his Bhavani Mandir movement. Dutt had some difficulty. He told Sri Aurobindo that he knew nothing of Yoga on which the whole training in the proposed Mandir was to be based. ' The Chief' (that is how Dutt used to address Sri Aurobindo) laughed and said: ' Your aim and ours are exactly the same, why not look upon the ochre garb as a uniform!' Dutt then joined the temple organisation and did all he could in furtherance of the cause.
The leading figures—Sri Aurobindo being one of them—of the central revolutionary body wanted to have Dutt in it. But their emissaries who came and met him could not convince him. Some months after, one evening Sri Aurobindo and Dutt found themselves in a house in Girgaum, where there were no men-folk present.' The Chief turned towards me solemnly and said: 'Now, Charu, do you want to join us in our work?' ... I made up my mind very quickly and said '. . . I am yours unreservedly and unconditionally.' Sri Aurobindo was accompanied by Barindra who explained to Dutt the state of things in Bengal, how the anti-Partition agitation had helped forward the revolutionary movement in that province. ' Sri Aurobindo,' says Dutt ' was categorical in his declaration that absolute freedom was his goal and of the people he worked with. When I cried out in excitement, 'But you must not try for a bloodless revolution,' the Chief laughed out, ' O you bloodthirsty fellow!' Barin said with a beaming face, ' That is what we want.'22 Among others with whom Sri Aurobindo discussed the Bhavani Mandir scheme were Haribhau Modak, Editor of Rashtramat, Kaka Saheb Patil, a pleader of Vassai, who were both members of the secret society but who did not favour the spiritual aspect of the scheme.
While Sri Aurobindo was planning to prepare the country for an armed rebellion, he had some visions and experiences, a few of which are cited below. Once in Baroda while Sri Aurobindo was going in a carriage he saw the possibility of an accident. With his will to prevent it he found that there appeared a Being of Light in him, who was, as it were, the master of the situation and controlled it. The other occasion was his tour with the Maharaja in Kashmir. While visiting Shankaracharya Hill, Sri Aurobindo had a sudden experience of the vacant Infinite in a very tangible way. The experience left a deep impression on him. These two experiences came to him before he consciously took to Yoga. Another—a remarkable one—was what he felt at the sight of an image of Kali in a temple on the bank of
22 Charuchandra Datta: Purono Katha-Upasanghar (in Bengali), p.15.
the Narmada. He saw and felt a presence in the image. This was the first time that he was convinced of the truth behind image worship to which he had not before been attracted. Through these significant touches of the Spirit Mother India was giving Sri Aurobindo a direct insight into her soul, into the spiritual genius of his race.
In 1904, in the midst of political activities, Sri Aurobindo decided to take to Yoga seriously. None can say what exactly were the immediate reasons for that decision. That it followed the first two experiences is a fact. That he was in quest of spiritual power for his political work is also a fact. In the absence of any further data, speculation would be useless. According to the prevalent idea of the time that Pranayam was essential to Yoga, he began practising it in consultation with a disciple of Swami Brahmanand of Chhandod. The result was: 'My brain became prakashamaya, full of light. The mind worked with illumination and power. . . . I could write two hundred lines of poetry in half an hour, which before I took a month to produce. Along with this enhanced mental activity I could see an electric energy around the brain.' This is the beginning of his conscious spiritual endeavour whose steady development was borne out by appropriate practical results. In a Bengali letter written to his wife 23 in 1905, he says: ' If God is, then to feel His presence, to meet Him, there must be some way or other. And however inaccessible the way, I am resolved to take it. The Hindu scriptures say that the way is in one's physical body, in one's mind. The rules of the path have been laid down; I have started following them; in the course of a month I could feel that what the Shastras have said is no myth. I am experiencing the signs that are spoken of.'24
No true service of India is possible unless it is inspired
23 Sri Aurobindo married Srimati Mrinalini in April 1901 in Calcutta according to strict Hindu rites. Srimati Mrinalini passed away in her father's place in Ranchi in 1918. 24 Sri Aurobinder Patra (in Bengali), p. 7.
and guided by her soul. Her soul is a light not unto herself and her children alone but all humanity. What wonder then that Sri Aurobindo who had discovered that soul and was progressively identifying himself with it should be drawn within for truer and more powerful work from there! But this did not mean his withdrawal from outer political work. On the contrary, he continued it with a greater concentration and to a better effect.
Now came Bengal, his home province, for his attention. Here the revolutionary movement was no new thing. And strangely enough, it was Sri Aurobindo's grandfather on his mother's side who was its originator. Indeed, next to nothing would be known about the mid-nineteenth century Bengal, if the work of Rishi Rajnarayan Basu were not properly viewed. It was this pioneer-soul who started India's Freedom Movement in Bengal by first conceiving and organising national fairs for the revival of arts and crafts, and championing the cause of Swadeshi not only in industry, but in every aspect of national life. He felt the absolute need of rebuilding the life of the people on the basis of the truth of their own ideas, their own culture and traditions, a bright picture of which he gave in his writings. But to realise this, the first essential condition, he felt, was political freedom. So he was also the first to develop revolutionary ideas and to form in 1876 a secret society— called Sanjibani Sabha—of which Poet Rabindranath, then a young man, and several other members of the Tagore family became members. It is said that there was a rule of the Sabha under which every member had to go through a mystic rite of sanctifying his pledge with his own blood. Rajnarayan set up an institution for national and revolutionary propaganda. Besides these, strong patriotic impulses and a growing sense of the need for freedom could be perceived in the literature and thought of the times, in the creation of which Western ideas had some share. There were other attempts too, to organise secret societies in some of which new entrants had to take the pledge with fire for their witness.
These steps, however, were in advance of the times and so could not develop into any definite form of political action. Yet they indicate the spirit of the times and the working of the forces that prepared the mind and heart of Bengal for her future resurgence.
We may repeat here, Sri Aurobindo conceived his revolutionary plan while he was in England and evidently had no idea of the activities of his grandfather and his contemporaries, whose views he was too young to know when he left for England. It is possible, however, that he had heard about them from Rajnarayan himself when Sri Aurobindo used to visit him at Deoghar during his long vacations, part of which he would sometimes spend in Calcutta. These were for him occasions to gather firsthand knowledge of his province and people. That he chose Bengal as a centre of his revolutionary work will be evident from what he began doing from now. ' He had decided in his mind the lines on which he wanted the country's action to run: what he planned was very much the same as was developed afterwards in Ireland as the Sinn Fein movement; but Sri Aurobindo-did not derive his ideas, as some have represented, from Ireland, for the Irish movement became prominent later and he knew nothing of it till after he had withdrawn to Pondicherry.' His plan was that ' centres were to be established in every town and eventually in every village. Societies of young men were to be set up with various ostensible objects, cultural, intellectual or moral and those already existing were to be won over for revolutionary use. Young men were to be trained in activities which might be helpful for ultimate military action, such as riding, physical training, athletics of various kinds, drill and organised movement'.
In those days there was a clear ban on the admission of Bengalis to military services in British India and in the Native States, because of their national spirit. But the Government's avowed plea was that the Bengalis were not a martial race. A Bengali young man named Jatindranath Bandyopadhyaya took it upon himself to give the lie to it. After spending some time in northern India, particularly in Allahabad, in order to pick up a good knowledge of Hindi, he passed himself off as a U.P. man with his name changed to a Hindusthani one, Jatinder Upadhyaya, and tried for admission to the army of several Native States in the course of which he came to Baroda. Coming to know that a compatriot was there, he met Sri Aurobindo and told him about his intention. With the help of his friend Khasirao Jadav, a top-ranking official of the State, Sri Aurobindo got Jatindra admitted to the Baroda army. After his training, he served the State in important military ranks. In Baroda Sri Aurobindo initiated Jatindra in the secrets of revolutionary work giving him an idea of his plan.
In 1902 Sri Aurobindo sent Jatindra to Bengal to collect men and material for the movement of preparing the country for liberation by armed rebellion. Formation of secret societies would be the first step25 of the movement. Insurrection considered the only means-of liberation, Sri Aurobindo studied the various aspects of its practicability. ' At that time the military organisation of the great empires and their means of military action were not so overwhelming and apparently irresistible as they are now: the rifle was still the decisive weapon, air power had not yet been developed and the force of artillery was not so devastating as it afterwards became. India was disarmed, but Sri Aurobindo thought that with proper organisation and help
25 An idea of it may be had from an article by Abinash Bhatta-charya, called Arabinda in the Bengali monthly Galpa Bharati, Pous, 1357, Bengali Era. Some of the facts about the beginnings of the secret society in Bengal, used here, are from an article by the same writer published as an appendix to Dr. Bhupendranath Datta's Bengali book Bharatey Dwitiya Swadhinata Sangram. It may be mentioned that Bhattacharya was a member of the revolutionary party and a close associate of Sri Aurobindo in those days.
Page-55 from outside this difficulty might be overcome and in so vast a country as India and with the smallness of the regular British armies, even a guerrilla warfare accompanied by general resistance and revolt might be effective. There was also the possibility of a general revolt in the Indian army (for which, as already said, Sri Aurobindo was himself working). At the same time he had studied the temperament and characteristics of the British people and the turn of their political instincts, and he believed that although they would resist any attempt at self-liberation by the Indian people and would at the most only concede very slowly such reforms as would not weaken their imperial control, still they were not of the kind which would be ruthlessly adamantine to the end: if they found resistance and revolt becoming general and persistent they would in the end try to arrive at an accommodation to save what they could of their empire or in an extremity prefer to grant independence rather than have it forcefully wrested from their hands.' Sri Aurobindo thought that his programme of preparation and action might occupy thirty years before fruition could become possible. As a matter of fact, it has taken fifty years.
Revolutionary action was the first part of Sri Aurobindo's plan. The second was public propaganda in order to convert the whole nation to the ideal of independence—an ideal which was at that time regarded by the vast majority of Indians as unpractical and impossible, an almost insane chimera. Thirdly, an organisation of the people was to be built up which would carry on a public and united opposition to the foreign rule and undermine it through an increasing non-co-operation and passive resistance.
To come back to the move taken by Sri Aurobindo towards the working out of the first item of his programme in Bengal. Jatindra came to Calcutta in 1902 and established himself at 108C, Upper Circular Road, where he started work according to the directions of Sri Aurobindo. He did not take long to discover that there were in Calcutta a number of young men ready for training in revolutionary work. They were already attached to several organisations of physical and mental culture. Pramathanath Mitra (generally known as P. Mitter) was one of the leading figures who were guiding the young men. He was a barrister and a man of progressive ideas, who had ' a spiritual life and aspiration and a strong religious feeling, and was like Bepinchandra Pal and several other prominent leaders of the new nationalist movement in Bengal, a disciple of the famous Yogi Bejoykrishna Goswami'. He had a burning impulse to liberate his country and his sacrifices for the purpose were indeed remarkable. Mitter was one of the organisers of the famous Anushilan Samiti which along with the Atmonnati Samiti—both inspired by revolutionary ideas—collaborated with Jatindra. But before this happened ' Sri Aurobindo had spoken to Mitter and other leading men of the revolutionary group about the Secret Society in Western India to which he belonged. They all took the oath of the Society and agreed to carry out its objects on the lines suggested by Sri Aurobindo. These lines had nothing to do with the Council and Sri Aurobindo's future action was not pursued under its directions'. Soon after Mitter's contact with Jatindra, there was an amalgamation of the organisations having identical aims, which meant an expansion of the work. Jatindra confined himself mainly to the propagation of revolutionary ideas and to the recruitment of those brave young souls who would dedicate themselves to the cause.
Meanwhile, Barindra came to Baroda. It was in 1902. But Sri Aurobindo had already met him in Deoghar at his grandfather's place, where for the first time he gave Barindra an idea of how India could be prepared for a revolution through secret societies as a first step. In Baroda he disclosed to his younger brother further elaborations of his plan. On Barindra's having taken the pledge, he says,26 Sri Aurobindo initiated him in revolutionary work by placing in his hands an unsheathed sword and a copy of the Gita. The pledge was to the effect: ' As long as there is life in me and as long as India is not liberated from her chains of subjection, I will carry on the work of revolution. If at any time I disclose a single word or a single event of the Society or harm it in any way, it shall be at the cost of my own life.' Early in 1903 Sri Aurobindo sent Barindra to Bengal to help Jatindra in extending the activities of the Society which was then housed in Jatindra's residence on the Upper Circular Road. On an adjoining open space members were taught lathi-play, boxing, riding, cycling, -etc. In the evening were held study and discussion of the history of revolutions and the lives of heroic champions of liberty as Mazzini and Garibaldi. Jatindra himself gave lessons in modern military tactics. When Barindra came, he changed the sphere of his propaganda work. He now began to move among the educated classes—pleaders, doctors and teachers, etc.—in order to enlist their sympathy and support. Barindra and Abinash Bhattacharya contacted school students in the parks and squares of Calcutta. As recruits increased, new centres were set up in different parts of the city. In fact, 'as soon as the idea was sown it attained rapid prosperity; already existing small groups and associations of young men who had not yet the clear idea or any settled programme of revolution, began to turn in this direction and a few who had already the revolutionary aim were contacted and soon developed activity on organised lines; the few rapidly became many'. Mainly through Barindra's propaganda-tour the fire spread to the districts too, few of which remained out of its influence. The centre at Midnapur was an influential one. Satischandra Basu, the founder of the Anushilan Samiti, says27 that he was sent by
26 Barindra Kumar Ghose: Agnivuga (in Bengali), p.39. 27 In the appendix to Dr. Bhupendranath Dutta's Bengali book already mentioned.
Sri Aurobindo to Midnapur in order to initiate Satyendranath Basu in revolutionary work. He was the famous Satyen who along with Kanailal killed the traitor Noren Goswami in jail. Satischandra says that one day Sri Aurobindo in disguise visited their Society at Madan Mitter Lane.
The Midnapur centre had a secret spot for target practices in an out-of-the-way place in which a dug-out was prepared from where gun reports could not be heard. The centre had an old and unused house where in a room was installed an image of Kali. Hemchandra Kanungo says 28 that Sri Aurobindo on one of his visits to this centre towards the close of 1902 initiated him and three or four others in revolutionary work. Sword and Gita in hand, they received the initiation. When asked to take the pledge in Sanskrit, Hemchandra declared in Bengali that he would do everything for India's liberation. Then Sri Aurobindo put to him certain questions covered by the pledge. Satisfied with his answers on every point, Sri Aurobindo admitted him to the organisation. Hemchandra says that he, Sri Aurobindo, Barindra, Satyendra and a few others each tried his aim at the target. Mention may be made here that towards the close of 1906 Hemchandra was sent to Europe for training in revolutionary work, especially in the making of explosives. We have it from Hemchandra that according to Sri Aurobindo's plan Bengal was to be divided into six centres each with sub-centres, all working under the main organisation. Hitherto the organisations in Calcutta worked more or less in the open, caring little for secrecy. But Sri Aurobindo insisted that at the preparatory stage complete secrecy must be Observed.
Mention may be made here of the financial help that was coming for the work from various sources. Hemchandra Mullick, Subodhchandra Mullick, Pramathanath Mitra, Chittaranjan Das, Surendranath Haldar,
28 Hemchandra Kanungo: Banglaya Biplab Prachesta (in Bengali), p. 20.
Surendranath Tagore were among the contributors to the fund, who included several Government employees like Jogendranath Mukhopadhyaya and Abinashchandra Chakravarty. Jogendra was a magistrate and Abinash a munsif, who later resigned from service and gave away his all for national work. From Sri Aurobindo used to come every month whatever he could lay by after defraying his personal expenses which were very small but which included help to his relatives and to friends and persons in need. A reference may be made here to what he wrote to his wife in 1905 about the disbursement of his earnings. He says: ' It is within one's rights to retain what is needed for the upkeep of his family and what is most necessary; what remains over should be returned to God. . . . The Shastras hold that he who receives riches from God and does not render them to Him is a thief. ... In this hour of misfortune, the whole country is at my door. I have three hundred millions of brothers and sisters in this country: many are dying of starvation: most are anyhow dragging on a miserably worn-out existence. I have to help them.'29 In another letter30 to his wife, also in Bengali, Sri Aurobindo says: ' I have to set apart a sum to send to Madhavrao who has been sent to a foreign country for some special work. I have had to spend much on the Swadeshi movement. In addition to that, I have been trying to carry on another movement, which requires no end of money. I cannot save up.' Madhavrao—a nephew of Khasirao Jadav, Sri Aurobindo's Baroda friend—was sent to Europe for military training, bomb making and procuring arms for revolutionary work. This help Sri Aurobindo could not continue after he left Baroda Service. Neither could the help from other regular contributors cope with the increasing needs of the expanding
29 Sri Aurobinder Patra (in Bengali), pp. 5-6. 30 Found among the unpublished papers seized by the police during the search of Sri Aurobindo's residence in Calcutta in 1908. These papers were made over to the Ashram by the Government of West Bengal in 1952.
work. In such circumstances, a suggestion was made that money should be secured from the rich even by threats of force. To this Sri Aurobindo did not object.
After Barindra joined it, the Circular Road organisation functioned for about six months when temperamental incompatibility separated Jatindra from Barindra, about which Jatindra wrote to Sri Aurobindo. Early in 1904 Sri Aurobindo came to Calcutta and tried to bring about a reconciliation. Having heard both sides, he held that Jatin must continue to work but the final authority would vest in a Council of five members including P. Mitter and Sister Nivedita. Sri Aurobindo maintained his connection with the revolutionary activities at this stage mainly through this Council ' whose work', said Sri Aurobindo, ' spread enormously among thousands of young men who were imbued with a spirit of revolution, and when Yugantar appeared, the spirit became almost general in the youths of the country'. But during his absence in Baroda, differences among the workers became so acute that the Council ceased to function as an active body. About this time Jatindra left the party and took to sannyas under the name of Niralamba Swami. This brave soul, wholly dedicated to his country's freedom, had the honour of being the first to be chosen by Sri Aurobindo for revolutionary work in Bengal which he helped to organise with his characteristic dash and zeal.
A word here about Barindra's contact with that illustrious Maratha patriot and writer Sakharam Ganesh Deushkar, the then assistant editor of the Bengali newspaper Hitavadi. A master of Bengali, he conquered the heart of Bengal by his inspiring writings. With a letter of introduction from Lokamanya Tilak, Barindra met Deushkar and told him all about Sri Aurobindo's revolutionary plan. Deushkar at once gave his whole-hearted support to the plan. When informed of it by Barindra, Sri Aurobindo requested Deushkar to write a book on India's economic servitude and her exploitation by England.31 He responded and the result was the famous Desher Katha, based on a vivid presentation of unchallengeable facts and figures. The book was, however, honoured by the Government ban. It may be noted that Sakharam Ganesh Deushkar was the first to use in his book the word Swaraj, the Indian equivalent of ' independence ' which Sri Aurobindo had been the first to use and reiterate constantly in the Bande Mataram as the one and immediate aim of Indian politics. Deush-kar's book had an enormous influence on the young men of Bengal and helped to turn them into revolutionaries. He was also one of those who used to give talks to Jatindra's group at Upper Circular Road on subjects of history and economics.
Associated with this group was another remarkable soul—Sister Nivedita than whom no non-Indian ever loved India more. Most of the revolutionary literature that formed the library of this group was her gift. Nivedita had her first contact with Sri Aurobindo in Baroda early in 1902. Since then she had been in active cooperation with him in his revolutionary work. Later, she assisted Sri Aurobindo in editing the Karmayogin. Sri Aurobindo once said that Nivedita was commanded by her Master, Swami Vivekananda, to work for India's freedom. A born revolutionary, ' she was fire, if you like ', was said of her by the mighty spiritual revolutionary, her co-worker, Sri Aurobindo, who admired her writings on India as of one who ' had the eye of sympathy and intuition and a close appreciative self-identification '.32
31 Upendrachandra Bhattacharya: Bharatpurush Sri Aurobindo (in Bengali),p. 42. 32 Sri Aurobindo: The Foundations of Indian Culture, p. 49.
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