The Pioneer, 14 April 2016
Sri Aurobindo's vision of India had no place for pseudo-secularism,
vote-bank politics and repudiation of Bharatiya civilisation. The Sage was also
the quintessential internationalist, yet his internationalism was not a
rootless cosmopolitanism but steeped in Sanatana Dharma [extract – read full article below]
Trinamool Congress
Member of Parliament and Harvard historian, Sugata Bose, recently quoted the
Sage out of context in the Lok Sabha. BJD Member of Parliament, Bhartruhari
Mahtab, did well in countering Bose, in pointing out how the Sage’s words were
cited without referring to the context in which they were made. Unlike West
Bengal, where the comrades once monopolised all avenues of discussion and
intellectual quest and the ‘syndicated’ Trinamool members now, which has given
up on all semblance of intellectuality, Odisha has a vibrant tradition of
discussing Sri Aurobindo’s thoughts, not only in institutions of higher
learning but also right down to the grassroots and in far-flung districts
through pathachakras and study-circles. Mahtab’s rejoinder was symbolic
of the awareness that the people of that State have for Sri Aurobindo’s works.
It is strange that a
Harvard historian should have indulged in such academic theatrics to score a
political point, and that too by citing one of the most fascinating minds — not
according to Marxist standards, though — of modern India. But then Bose’s
knowledge of Sri Aurobindo is limited. One witnessed, a few years ago in
Kolkata’s Jadavpur University, how Bose confessed, just after he had delivered
a talk on Sri Aurobindo, his ignorance of the Sage’s interventions during the
Cripps proposal. Studying any historic and complex personality in silos and in
isolation may not be the right academic or ethical approach; studying Sri
Aurobindo in such a manner is especially not advisable. Let us examine some of
that which Bose left out from Sri Aurobindo.
In his historic and
immortal Uttarpara speech, Sri Aurobindo, unequivocally said how he realised
what the Hindu religion, Sanatana Dharma, meant. For Sri Aurobindo, and
one hopes Bose may be in a position to publicly quote this some day, “This
Hindu nation was born with the Sanatana Dharma, with it, it moves, and
with it, it grows. When the Sanatana Dharma declines, then the nation
declines, and if the Sanatana Dharma were capable of perishing, with the
Sanatana Dharma it would perish. The Sanatana Dharma that is
nationalism...”
For Sri Aurobindo,
the ideal was “an Indian Nationalism, largely Hindu in its spirit and
traditions, because the Hindu made the land and the people and persists, by the
greatness of his past, his civilisation and his culture and his invincible
virility, in holding it, but wide enough also to include the Moslem and his
culture and traditions and absorb them into itself”. Any attempt to cite this
passage in its entirety by the likes of professor Bose, would invariably invite
the bamboo-like wrath of the TMC high command.
On the communal
question, especially exacerbated around 1909, Sri Aurobindo, in his
characteristic frankness wrote, “We do not fear Mohamedan opposition; so long
as it is the honest Swadeshi article and not manufactured in Shillong or
Simla, we welcome it as a sign of life and aspiration.” Interestingly, Sri
Aurobindo argued against shunning the “awakening of Islam” in India “even if
its first crude efforts are misdirected against ourselves”; for he saw “all
strength, all energy, all action” as “grist to the mill of the nation-builder”.
He was, however, ready, “when the times comes” to “meet in the political field,
to exchange with the Musulman, just as he chooses, the firm clasp of the
brother or the resolute grip of the wrestler”.
Of one thing, Sri
Aurobindo was extremely certain, and it was that “Hindu-Mahomedan unity cannot
be effected by political adjustment or Congress flatteries. It must be sought deeper
down, in the heart and in the mind, for where the causes of disunion are, there
the remedies must be sought”. He was also clear that one needed to cease
approaching the “Musulman brother” “falsely or flatter out of a selfish
weakness and cowardice”; better mutual knowledge and sympathy" was the
way out. Sri Aurobindo insisted on nationalists working towards that. Professor
Bose would of course not dare to refer to the ‘falsely’, ‘selfish weakness’ and
flattery bit. It would be tantamount to repudiating the politics he has made
his own.
In a letter to one of
his close disciples, sometime in 1934, Sri Aurobindo refuted a position which
accused the Swadeshi movement of antagonising Muslims. “As for the
Hindu-Muslim affair”, he noted, “I saw no reason why the greatness of India’s
past or her spirituality should be thrown into the waste-paper basket in order
to conciliate the Moslems who would not at all be conciliated by such a policy.
What has created the Hindu-Moslem split was not Swadeshi, but the acceptance
of the communal principle by the Congress... and the further attempt by the
Khilafat movement to conciliate them and bring them in on wrong lines. The
recognition of that communal principle at Lucknow made them permanently a
separate political entity in India which ought never to have happened; the
Khilafat affair made that separate political entity an organised separate
political power.” Professor Bose, would be hard-pressed to explain away this
aspect of the Sage’s stand, it has no shades of semblance to the politics he
has adopted. Such words are out of place in the vote-bank politics frame-work
that his party has unabashedly adopted in Bengal today.
As an aside, it
becomes clear as to why the comrades never discussed Sri Aurobindo’s
contribution and ensured that a conspiracy of silence shrouded his legacy.
Sample the following reply that the Sage gave to a question posed to him
sometime towards the end of 1938: “Under communism they [the people] are
conscious slaves.... They are bound to the State, the dictator and the party.
They can’t even choose the dictator. And whoever differs from them is
mercilessly suppressed.... The whole thing whatever its name is a fraud...”
When a disciple
pointed out (December 1939) how some object to Vande Mataram as the
national song and of how some Congressmen support the removal of parts of the
song because the argument is that the song speaks of Hindu gods, like Durga,
and that is offensive to the Muslims, the Sage answered in his inimitable way:
“But it is not a religious song: it is a national song and the Durga spoken of
is India as the Mother. Why should not the Muslims accept it? It is an image
used in poetry. In the Indian conception of nationality, the Hindu view would
naturally be there. If it cannot find a place there, the Hindus may as well be
asked to give up their culture...”
From a comprehensive
reading of the vast corpus he has left behind, one aspect clearly emerges in
Sri Aurobindo’s vision of India: It had no place for pseudo-secularism,
vote-bank politics and repudiation of Bharatiya civilisation. Sri
Aurobindo himself, while being the inveterate nationalist, was also the
quintessential internationalist, yet his internationalism was not a rootless
cosmopolitanism; it was anchored in the very spirit and soul of, as he himself
would perhaps say, Sanatana Dharma.
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