4

BARODA: AWAKENING OF THE MOTHERLAND

In November 1948, an excellent booklet²¹ on Sri Aurobindo and his ashram was published in Pondicherry. Some invaluable information hitherto unknown about Sri Aurobindo’s early life in England and his life in Baroda can be found in this booklet. Sri Aurobindo was sent to England at the age of seven. Even before he was eleven years old, he had already received strongly the impression that there would be a great revolutionary upsurge in this world in the near future. An unprecedented change would take place, a change which could be termed as a world revolution and in this great change he would have to play an important role. Impelled by this ideal, he steered his educational pursuits.

Those who have a modicum of acquaintance with the articles published in the Arya from 1914 to 1921 would surely realise the vast and profound vision of Sri Aurobindo. Most of these articles have now been incorporated in books and hence they have now become easily available. Out of these writings, if one reads The Life Divine (or as the author calls it, the Veda of the New Age), one is bound to come across a vision so uncommon, a vision which is not just a splendour of knowledge but a direct vision of the purusha puranam (पुरुष:पुराणमू), the “inscrutable supreme person”. There are instances of this unique angle of Sri Aurobindo’s vision being present since his boyhood days.

It is for this vision that Sri Aurobindo dedicated his life to the service of his country without the knowledge of all and sundry, despite the fact that he did not get the touch of his motherland in his early age and was abroad for a long time. His father, Dr. Krishnadhan Ghose, in spite of his anglomania, was not a sycophant of the British government in India. He used to send letters from time to time to his son criticising vehemently the machine-like process and the heartlessness of the British administration in India. At that time, the British used to ill-treat the Indians, and Krishnadhan used to send to his son clippings from Indian newspaper reports on the abuse. It is, therefore, no wonder that the son turned a patriot and a critic of the British rule at such a tender age and understood that a firm resolve coupled with untiring endeavour was necessary in order to drive the British away from India.

Because of his patriotism, Sri Aurobindo had to indirectly face the ire of the British with regard to competing for the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examination. Sri Aurobindo intentionally abstained from appearing for the last equestrian examination and he did not learn horse riding willingly. He was therefore not considered for the ICS. Sri Aurobindo’s was perhaps the singular instance of a candidate not getting an ICS appointment for failing to appear for the equestrian test. In certain similar cases, the trainee candidate in ICS, in spite of failing to clear a particular examination in England, got another opportunity while in India for clearing the said examination. But in the case of Sri Aurobindo, the British heaved a sigh of relief, striking off his name on this trivial pretext. The reason was his patriotism. However, we have already said that Sri Aurobindo abandoned such a highly cherished job for serving his country.²²

Even while he was in England, Sri Aurobindo started giving some overt signs of helping the cause of his country’s freedom. He was one of the members of the Indian Majlis founded at Cambridge and was its secretary for some time. He delivered a few speeches breathing revolutionary spirit as a member of the society. The authorities in England were not unaware of them.

Later, Sri Aurobindo came to know that the British Raj heaved a sigh of relief that he had been debarred from the prestigious circle of ICS. Apart from the speeches, Sri Aurobindo, with the help of his two brothers, organised a revolutionary Sangh (Association) of the Indian population living in England.

They opposed the moderate policies of veteran Dadabhai Naoroji, one of the leaders of the Indian National Congress. Naoroji then had substantial influence in England and was once elected Member of Parliament, just as in a later era, an extremist Parsi gentleman, Shapoorji Saklatwala, was elected to the British Parliament. Sometime before leaving England, Sri Aurobindo attended a secret meeting of Indians and there he founded a secret society called Lotus and Dagger. However, this society did not show much activity as there was only one meeting and that happened to be the last. However, all the members present at the foundation day took an oath that every one of them would take up a particular line of work causing a hindrance to the foreign rule in India. A few kept their promise and Sri Aurobindo was one of them. We will see, in the latter part of his life in Baroda, how he kept his promise.

The period that Sri Aurobindo sojourned in England represents a special political phase in the history of England. It was during this period that Gladstone²³ received accolades from the entire world thanks to his liberal policies. This period witnessed an increasing empowerment of the people in the governance of the state; a large percentage of people secured the right to vote. Thus, the power of the king dwindled significantly while the Parliament became supreme. The freedom movement of Ireland took a new form. The name of Parnell²⁴ spread far and wide. The government became conscious of the rights of the people. Efforts were on for uplifting the condition of the labourers. When Sri Aurobindo was in England, Karl Marx passed away. It was because of the Marxist movement that the condition of the labourers in almost all the countries in the West started changing.

On the other hand, the British felt that wars and conflicts were meaningless and that the wisest thing was to establish peace amongst nations. Some glimpses of the ideals of human unity and world peace are found in the poems of Alfred Tennyson, the royal poet. “War drums will no more be heard, the standard of battlefield will be hoisted on the parliament of humanity which will unite the nations of the world”²⁵—this was the dream of Tennyson. By the term “the unity of the nations” the West meant the unity of Europe alone because America was then indifferent to the affairs of Europe. Besides, the best nation of Europe was considered to be England—as it was said, the sun never set on the British Empire. The principal aim of the European nations was to enjoy the best of the whole world within their respective boundaries and it was their firm belief that the white nations alone were the best among all the nations.

Sri Aurobindo would meticulously review, reflect, and realise the situation of England and that of the whole world; he would stretch his vision towards the future too. But enshrined in his heart’s core was his own country, India. His thoughts and feelings were solely focused on the condition of India against the backdrop of the world and shaping of the future of India. He had this belief ingrained in him that without the freedom of India there was no possibility of establishment of the Self of India and once India’s Self was established, the whole world would undergo a profound change. Only India could give the key to the mystery of the eternal foundation of the ideal of human unity. And that is the true spirituality of India.

It was for this reason that Sri Aurobindo, after his return to India, plunged himself into spiritual pursuits in the serene surroundings of Baroda. The aim of this endeavour was not self-liberation—his sole aim was to awaken the Motherland. But how would it materialise in the prevailing conditions?

India, at that time, was completely in the clutches of the British. The last attempt to drive away the foreigners was made about forty years earlier (The Sepoy Mutiny, 1857) and thereafter the entire country remained downcast and depressed. On the establishment of the Indian National Congress, the political torpor had been removed to some extent but its influence was limited to a very small section of the people of the country. The life of the nation was not awakened; the sole preoccupation of quiet, serene, and ascetic Sri Aurobindo was how to awaken the country. At first he looked for political means. Thereafter, he sought to acquire the skill in yoga. After all, yoga itself is the shrouded skill of action.

Right after coming to Baroda, Sri Aurobindo wrote a series of essays in the Indu Prakash, an English weekly published in Bombay.²⁶ Some of them were political in nature while the others were critical analyses. The publication of these essays started on 7 August 1893 and continued till the March issue of the following year. The editor of this weekly was Mr. K.G. Deshpande, his friend from his Cambridge days.

These political essays reflect Sri Aurobindo’s exemplary love for his country and the inner fire embedded in his tender heart—the fire that after a few years became manifest in the fiery articles published in the Bande Mataram. There he started denouncing the policies of the Congress Party. This is because the Congress was then an institution of a handful of people. It did not turn into a national institution; it failed to awaken the nation and as a consequence, it did not find a place in the heart of the nation. It is surprising that Sri Aurobindo who had just come back from England could not tolerate the anglomania of the Congress; he wanted to turn the party into a totally nationalistic institution. It is to be remembered that this happened in 1893; twelve years later, that is to say, much later, on the occasion of the partition of Bengal, came the national awakening. In such a distant past, what a scathing article was penned by a young man who was then merely twenty-one years old:

Our actual enemy is not any force exterior to ourselves, but our own crying weaknesses, our cowardice, our selfishness, our hypocrisy, our purblind sentimentalism. ... (Therefore) our appeal, which is the appeal of every noble spirited and self-respecting nation, ought not to be to the opinion of the Anglo-Indians, no, nor yet to the British sense of justice, but our appeal is to our reviving sense of manhood, to our own sincere fellow-feeling— and this sympathy and fellow-feeling are towards the silent and suffering people of India.

Just a few years later, he expressed this feeling beautifully in Bengali in one of his letters to his wife Mrinalini Devi²⁷:

I know I have the strength to uplift this fallen race; not physical strength, I am not going to fight with a sword or a gun, but with the power of knowledge. The force of the Kshatriya is not the only force; there is also the Brahman force, which is founded on the basis of knowledge. This is not a new feeling in me, not of recent origin, I was born with it, and it is in my very essence. God sent me to the earth to accomplish this great mission. At the age of fourteen the seed of it had begun to sprout and at eighteen it had been firmly rooted and become unshakeable.²⁸

As the country woke up after a lapse of twelve years, it woke up with this very ideal of self-fulfilment. Are we not feeling even today the need for manliness in our independent India? In another essay, criticising the policies of the Congress, Sri Aurobindo remarked that the Congress was not yet an institution of the masses, that the leaders of the party were worshipping fake political gods (created particularly by the British) and that the Indian patriots had more to learn from the French than from the British regarding the means of organising the nation. To put it in other words, Sri Aurobindo was hinting at the fact that we would become self-established should we channelise our national endeavour to awaken the masses and thereby, it would be possible to attain national fulfilment. Needless to say that in this very life we saw these means leading the country to independence.

These political essays of Sri Aurobindo were brought out under the caption New Lamps for Old. Apart from reviewing the then policies of the Congress, he dealt at length with the weaknesses of the national character and the decrepitude of the nation. It is really a wonder that he, at that tender age, had such an exemplary analytical power. While discussing the imperfections of the educated Bengali youth, he lambasted the existing educational system. He also made some caustic comments on the imperfections in the character and education of the administrators of the ICS cadres.

Amongst his critical essays, his analysis of the genius of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya is particularly special. Entering into the realm of Bengali literature, Sri Aurobindo was particularly drawn to the personality of Bankim. In later years, he hailed Bankim as a rishi (seer). His well-known essays in English on Bankim have really made the latter immortal. Is it that Sri Aurobindo knew even at that time that the mantra of “Bande Mataram” would awaken the country within a few years or that at some auspicious moment, without the instruction of anyone in particular, the whole nation would accept this life-giving mantra? It was Sri Aurobindo and his followers who tried to give, in reality, a concrete shape to the Ananda Math by Bankim. An attempt was also made once to establish a Bhabani Math on the lines similar to Ananda Math. These political essays of Sri Aurobindo alarmed the moderate leaders of the Congress Party (how many people can tolerate true criticism?) and a certain leader of the party warned Mr. K.G. Deshpande, the editor of the Indu Prakash, that he would be in trouble if he continued to bring out articles of this genre. As a consequence, Sri Aurobindo discontinued writing for the Indu Prakash; he was thus prevented from developing his ideas in the weekly. In the book Karakahini (Tales of Prison life), it has been stated somewhere that Ranade, the high-minded, well-known leader of the Congress, and a social reformer, once met Sri Aurobindo and exhorted him to refrain from meddling in politics and instead write constructive essays on prison reforms etc.

Thus, Sri Aurobindo stopped publishing his articles for the public. Perhaps he felt that the appropriate moment had not come yet. Hence, on one hand he took a plunge into the study of Indian literature, philosophy etc., and on the other, launched the ground work for revolution, founding secret societies. However, the second activity commenced towards the end of his life in Baroda. He learnt Sanskrit all by himself and read the Vedas, the Upanishads, and other philosophical works; he perused deeply the poetical genius of ancient poets like Kalidas, etc. and he started writing poems as well.

At about the same time, he was slowly leaning towards yogic sadhana too. In the beginning of his stay in Baroda, Mr. Deshpande, his friend from Cambridge days, told him about the benefits of yoga, but Sri Aurobindo initially did not evince any particular interest in it. However, within a few years, as he finished reading books on Sri Ramakrishna, the works of Swami Vivekananda as well as the Upanishads and various other books on Indian culture, he started feeling an inspiration for spiritual sadhana. However, it may be mentioned that even while he was in England he used to have inner experiences and, returning to India, he found manifold increase of his inner experiences. Having felt the inspiration for doing sadhana, for a certain period of time he looked for a competent guru, but to tell the truth, he did not really have a guru. He got a glimpse of Swami Brahmananda (who was the guru of Swami Balananda of Deogarh) at a place called Ranganath on the banks of the river Narmada and thereafter he learnt some yogic disciplines from a Maharashtrian yogi called Lele Maharaj. But all this was merely a pretext; he had begun to advance on the path of yoga through numerous difficulties towards the Light of Brahman burning in his heart.

While in Baroda, Sri Aurobindo married Mrinalini Devi, the daughter of Mr. Bhupal Chandra Bose. She was a worthy lifepartner²⁹ to Sri Aurobindo. How beautifully Sri Aurobindo called her to join the mission of his life: “Will you then try to become the mad wife to match the mad husband, like the queen of the blind king (in Mahabharata) covering her eyes with a piece of cloth and living as a blind person?” And he put forth to her this wonderful individuality of Mother India by saying, “Whereas others regard the country as an inert piece of matter and know it as the plains, the fields, the forests, the mountains, and the rivers, I know my country as the Mother, I worship her and adore her accordingly.”