Within a short span of sixteen months i.e. the whole of 1907 and four months of 1908, Sri Aurobindo became well-known all over the country by virtue of his dynamic political activities. During this period he continued writing for Bande Mataram, participated in various conferences, and delivered speeches in public meetings and associations. Going through the reports of these speeches, one may be inclined to think that Sri Aurobindo was leading a life of feverish external activity. But that is not entirely true. Even in the midst of the whirlwind of activities, he remained deeply absorbed in yoga.
On his way back to Calcutta after the Surat Congress fiasco, Sri Aurobindo delivered a few public speeches in Bombay and in a few other cities in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. These speeches were not only packed with energy and patriotic spirit but they also brought to light the real nature of the national movement. In a language supremely powerful and serious, Sri Aurobindo endeavoured to make his countrymen understand that the on-going national movement was not merely a political movement—it signalled the awakening from the age-long slumber into which the country had sunk, her resurgence destroying all obscurities and rising to her self-consciousness. The self-consciousness of India is her spiritual consciousness. He declared that it was God himself, who was at the root of this national awakening—He was also the invisible leader of this movement.
These speeches that he delivered seemed to gather inspiration from the power high above. Sri Aurobindo appeared to be deeply absorbed in yoga, yet he attended to all of his external activities. From the reports published in the newspapers regarding his speech in Nagpur, it has been learnt that the general public of the city were simply moved by his calm yogic appearance. One of his colleagues had once written that when Sri Aurobindo was staying in Calcutta, he used to remain completely indifferent to his household affairs. It so happened that on some days he remained engrossed in meditation or writing and there used to be no provisions for his household expenses. His colleagues, therefore, had to take care of it.
Sometime after this episode, the wheel of fate of the country changed, the trumpet call was heard, and finally came the call of Rudra. “Mother India had put a blood-mark on the forehead of her sons.” (This quote has been translated from Anandamath). A few of Sri Aurobindo’s closest followers had to lay down their lives and a few others had to pass through relentless ordeal. The valour and fearlessness shown by the Bengali youth who led a comfortable life and were averse by nature to hardship and suffering, could be shown only by a handful of people devoted entirely to God. The majority of these young lads had a spiritual bent of mind. The Gita was their spiritual refuge and the Anandamath by Bankim Chandra used to instil in their minds the inspiration for patriotism and for attaining the noble ideals of the Santan Sangha (Association of sons). This was their slogan:
What if we all have to depart
Chanting Bande Mataram in chorus!
***
Let the life pass
Chanting Bande Mataram en masse!
(Rough translation from Bengali)
As the leader of this group of young people, Sri Aurobindo too had to submit to this ordeal, as it was to reassure them in the thick of their sorrows and sufferings. This is just one part of the memorable episode. On the other part of it, if we reflect deeply, we will find that it was Sri Krishna himself who pushed Sri Aurobindo in the solitude of a prison cell, taking him away from the field of external activities in order to realise his supremely profound yoga. On the eve of the battle of Kurukshetra, Sri Krishna showed his “universal form” to Arjuna, his dearest disciple. Sri Aurobindo too witnessed the same universal form in a prison cell. Sri Aurobindo, however, did not see the universal form of the Divine in a divine embodiment called Sri Krishna, he saw it in the midst of the world, of the entire creation. He realised Brahman, he realised that the whole universe is pervaded by Brahman. This great realisation became in later years the foundation of his yoga. This was so sudden that Sri Aurobindo himself did not expect that he would be in dire straits soon. In Karakahini (Tales of Prison Life) he writes:
On Friday, 1 May 1908, I was sitting in the Bande Mataram office, when Shri Shyamsundar Chakravarty handed over a telegram from Muzaffarpur. On reading it I learnt of a bomb outrage in which two European women had been killed. In that day’s issue of Empire I read another news item that the police commissioner had said that he knew the people involved in the murder and that they would soon be put under arrest. At that time I had no idea that I happened to be the main suspect and that according to the police I was the “main killer”, the instigator and secret leader of the young terrorists and revolutionaries. I was unaware that this day would mark the end of a chapter in my life, and that there laid before me was a year’s imprisonment during which period all my human relations would cease; that for a whole year I would have to live beyond the human society, like an animal in a cage. And when I would re-enter the world of activities it would not be the old familiar Aurobindo Ghose. Rather, it would be a new being, a new character, intellect, life, mind, embarking upon a new course of action that would come out of the “ashram at Alipore”.43
While working in politics, Sri Aurobindo came in contact with different cross sections of people; the most important amongst them was none other than the youth. It has been said earlier that Sri Aurobindo was the leader of the youth. It has been found in almost all countries in the modern era that it is the young who are in the vanguard of national resurgence. This is because they do not have family responsibilities and their heart is resplendent with the radiance of the future. No other community can wake up so spontaneously with such an exuberance of vitality; hence, they have an immeasurable capacity to sacrifice. It is they who can embrace pain cheerfully; it is they who can renounce all the riches of life gleefully.
During the national upheaval, a section of the Bengali youth came to the conclusion that it would be easier to achieve freedom through armed revolution—at least the national demand would be fulfilled before long, if they could create an atmosphere of fear in the minds of the alien administrators. It has been said that the stimulation by Sri Aurobindo was instrumental in awakening this Kshatriya force. They would not perhaps have done anything horrible suddenly, but they had to take up the cudgels eventually in view of the dire condition prevailing in the country. One of the reasons for adopting extreme measures was that in those days the government used to resort to repressive measures indiscriminately and the Indians had to suffer at the hands of the whites, not only neglect and indifference but also harassment and insult, and in many cases, they could not even get proper justice in the court of law.
Most of the revolutionaries harbouring this line of thinking were the best workers of the Nationalist Party and, therefore, co-workers of Sri Aurobindo. It has been mentioned earlier that Barindra Kumar, the leader of this group, was the younger brother of Sri Aurobindo. Shri Upendra Nath Bandyopadhyay, one of the leaders, was the managing director of Jugantar44, a Bengali daily, and also a colleague of Sri Aurobindo at the Bande Mataram office. As a consequence, the police suspected that Sri Aurobindo was as much the visible and obvious leader of the Nationalist Party as also the secret leader of the underground revolutionary groups. Mr. Norton, the public prosecutor, tried ridiculously, at the time of trial, to prove the charges against Sri Aurobindo with this argument. However, immediately after the assassination at Muzaffarpur, the bomb-making factory at Maniktala came to light; and soon Sri Aurobindo was arrested along with the members of the revolutionary groups and was also charged with all of them on grounds of murder and mutinous conspiracies.
A few days before his arrest, Sri Aurobindo moved from his rented house in Scott’s Lane to another house in Gray Street. He made arrangements for publishing in a new format a nationalist daily entitled Nava Shakti. The office was in his new house. One or two of his co-workers were also there with him, and they too were arrested.
Sri Aurobindo has given a fascinating account of his arrest and related incidents in Karakahini. In this context, the humorous description he has given of Cregan, the police superintendent, makes us laugh even at this cruel irony of his fate. The army of police like heroes, pistols in hand, charged up the stairs and crowded in front of the room where Sri Aurobindo was asleep. As he woke up, he witnessed this tumultuous scene. He says, “From Cregan’s words it seemed as if he had entered into the lair of some ferocious animal, as if we were uneducated, wild, lawbreakers, and that it was unnecessary to speak or behave courteously towards us. But after the sharp exchange the sahib grew a little milder. Benod babu (a policeman) tried to explain something to him about me. After which Cregan asked me: ‘It seems you are a B.A. Is it not a matter of shame for an educated person like you to be sleeping on the floor of an unfurnished room and in a house like this?’ ‘I am a poor man, and I live like one,’ I said. ‘Then have you worked up all this mischief with the idea of becoming a rich man?’ Cregan countered in a loud voice. I did not make the attempt to answer considering how impossible it was to explain the love of motherland, sacrifice or the sublimity of a vow of poverty to this thick-skulled Briton.”45
After this incident, however, and even during his year-long incarceration, Sri Aurobindo was not mistreated by anyone; on the contrary, he received very cordial treatment from the prison authorities of which he has given a very interesting account. It provides great amusement to the reader. However, he would never get agitated even if someone misbehaved with him. In his book Nirnbasiter Atmakatha (Memoirs of a Revolutionary in Exile) Shri Upendra Nath Bandyopadhyay has written: “It was very painful for everybody to see and at the same time remain patient when the guards of the prison would for ‘official reasons’ take him out of the court with his hands cuffed—but Sri Aurobindo remained totally unperturbed, not even for a moment was there ever a change in his attitude. At the time of the trial too, his followers were astonished to see his unruffled stance—he remained completely unconcerned, as though he was seated in a posture of yoga!”
The humorous tale of his trial as narrated by him in Karakahini is worth reading. The wonderful picture he has drawn of the magistrate of the lower court, Mr. Norton, the public prosecutor, and of other witnesses, brings to light clearly the farcical nature of the trial. Finally, after a long trial extending over a period of a year, he was acquitted as he had been declared completely innocent. He entered prison on 6 May 1908 and on the same date in 1909 he was let out. He had an insight beforehand that he would be released from prison.
The entire country was in a state of tumult at the arrest of Sri Aurobindo and his companions. What an incredible situation in this land of the “sick and unconscious”! What indomitable courage in the bosom of the emaciated Bengali youth! What a divine inspiration for self-sacrifice! What a “never seen before” determination for the sake of the country! In India and in England as well, the British sensed danger. On one hand, they continued to turn the tide with help of the Moderates, and on the other, they tried to trample the extremists through ruthless repression. Needless to say, the national movement received a serious jolt at this sudden stir. The efforts towards revolution were temporarily thwarted. Thus the Jugantar stated:
The Rakshasas broke the sacred pitcher
Even before Thy invocation, O Mother!
This is the beginning of the revolution in India. Later on, in spite of the draconian repressive measures unleashed by the British, efforts were on to bring about an armed revolution through the initiatives of Rash Behari Bose and Jatindranath Mukherjee (Bagha Jatin). But that is another story.
While the whole country stood stupefied at this arrest, arrangements for the trial of Sri Aurobindo and his comrades proceeded with great enthusiasm. Once the hearing of initial witnesses and evidences at the lower court was over, they were sent to the Session’s Court at Alipore. The trial continued for days together.
During the trial, Sri Aurobindo got the help of a generous person who later gave away all of his wealth for the sake of the country and became a well-known figure not only in India but all over the world. He was Chittaranjan Das, the distinguished barrister, who was fondly called Deshabandhu (friend of the country) by his countrymen. It was Chittaranjan who, as though as an instrument of God, helped Sri Aurobindo in his acquittal. As soon as the news of Sri Aurobindo’s arrest spread, a lot of money came in spontaneously to help him defend his case in the court of law. Sarojini, Sri Aurobindo’s sister, made all arrangements for his defence at the trial; but within a short period of time, all the money so collected was spent. At that time, Chittaranjan came forward to help Sri Aurobindo. Chittaranjan was then on the path to earning fame as a barrister, yet for about a year, with almost no remuneration, so to say, the sacrifice he made for Sri Aurobindo was unparalleled. This magnanimity ushered him to his future greatness and every Indian remembers his sacrifice even today with reverence.
On the occasion of this trial, the public witnessed not only his stupendous sacrifice and greatness but was also captivated by his scholarly legal knowledge and splendid eloquence. The inspired speech that he delivered at the end of the trial before the judge and the assessors in order to prove Sri Aurobindo’s innocence revealed so beautifully the latter’s ideal of life that today it appears to be a marvellous prophecy—like the memorable poem “Salutation” of Rabindranath, one feels like reciting over and over again the words uttered by Chittaranjan: “Long after this controversy is hushed in silence, long after this turmoil, this agitation ceases, long after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the lover of humanity. Long after he is dead and gone, his words will be echoed and re-echoed not only in India, but across distant seas and lands.”46
Even before this incident, Sri Aurobindo had been locked in a deep bond of friendship with Chittaranjan. In the field of politics, Chittaranjan was an adherent of the Nationalist Party founded by Sri Aurobindo, and he used to lend financial help to the English daily Bande Mataram. Such was the harmony in their thoughts that Sri Aurobindo himself in his own inimitable style translated into English verse Sagar Sangeet (The Song of the Sea), the famous Bengali poem by Chittaranjan. Sri Aurobindo had so much confidence in the political vision and activities of Chittaranjan that after the latter’s demise he declared that Chittaranjan alone, after the death of Tilak, had the power to establish Swaraj in India. Before he was elected President of the Gaya Congress in 1922, Chittaranjan, while he was on a tour to Madras to spread his own political ideals, met Sri Aurobindo in Pondicherry and discussed at length politics and spiritual matters with him.
Everyone was enthralled by the cogency of his arguments and the depth of his legal knowledge which dismantled the web of witnesses that the government laid out for proving Sri Aurobindo’s connection with revolution and conspiracy. Mr. Norton, with little valid evidence, tried indirectly to prove that Sri Aurobindo was propagating the ideal of independence driven by his malice towards the British and was instigating the whole country towards revolution by forming the Nationalist Party. With this conclusion in view, Norton sahib read out many letters, essays and speeches of Sri Aurobindo. Notable amongst them was a postcard allegedly written by Barindra Kumar which stated that this was the right time for distributing “sweetmeats”. It is said that the police intercepted this card before it reached the destination and Norton wanted to prove that “sweetmeats” stood for “bombs”. Far from accepting this bizarre argument, the assessors decided, thanks to the explanation provided by Chittaranjan, that the said letter was totally fraudulent. Although the judge did not subscribe to the assessors’ decision, he opined that this kind of evidence was absolutely of no value.
Except the account of his political activities, there were no special personal witnesses against Sri Aurobindo. However, Naren Gossain, the approver, tried to entangle Sri Aurobindo by hobnobbing with him in prison. In the book Karakahini, we get an account of how he used to talk to Sri Aurobindo and all the others. But since Gossain was assassinated in prison, whatever he had said earlier was technically not acceptable in the court of law.
On the other hand, setting at naught the smoky mesh of arguments put forth by the public prosecutor, it was Chittaranjan who firmly declared that whatever Sri Aurobindo had done so far in the field of politics was in no way illegal. To propagate the ideal of independence is not an illegal act. Patriotism cannot, by any act whatsoever, be considered as an offence. In his final verdict, Beachcroft, the judge, consented to this very argument. Sri Aurobindo was declared completely innocent by the judgement of his classmate.47
Note:
On 6 May 1949, an impressive commemoration ceremony was held in the same room of the Sessions Court, Alipore, where Sri Aurobindo and his companions were tried. Shri Rama Prasad Mukhopadhyay, the Honourable Judge of the Calcutta High Court, unveiled a portrait of Sri Aurobindo from the undertrial period. On this occasion, a few of Sri Aurobindo’s colleagues, namely, Shri Upendra Nath Bandyopadhyay, Abinash Chandra Bhattacharya etc. were also present. Upendra Nath paid glowing tributes to Sri Aurobindo and said that the era of Sri Aurobindo was approaching. Mr Mukhophadhyay, the judge, remarked that the world was startled by an atom bomb but in Pondicherry perhaps something more powerful was being created. The whole country was delighted at this remarkable reception accorded to Sri Aurobindo by the Government of West Bengal in Independent India.