|
Part Three
Public Statements and Other Communications on Indian and World Events 1940 1950
Section One Public Statements, Messages, Letters and Telegrams on Indian and World Events 1940 1950
On the Second World War 1940 1943
Contributions to Allied War Funds
We are placing herewith at the disposal of H.E. the Governor of Madras a sum of Rs. 500 as our joint contribution to the Madras War Fund. This donation, which is in continuation
of previous sums given by us for the cause of the Allies (10,000
francs to the French
We feel that not only is this a battle waged in just self-defence and in defence of the nations threatened with the
world-domination of Germany and the Nazi system of life, but that it is a defence of civilisation and its highest attained social, cultural
and spiritual values and of the whole future of humanity. To this cause our support and sympathy will be unswerving whatever
may happen; we look forward to the victory of Britain and, as the eventual result, an era of peace and union among the nations
and a better and more secure world-order. 19 September 1940
Notes about the War Fund Contributions
[1]
As to your suggestion about a note on the subject of the contribution to the War Fund Sri Aurobindo does not feel very
much inclined to enter into any public explanation of his action or any controversy on the subject. In his letter he made it very
clear that it was on the War issue that he gave his full support and he indicated the reason for it. Hitler and Nazism and its
Page – 453
push towards world domination are in his view an assault by a formidable reactionary Force, a purely Asuric force, on the
highest values of civilisation and their success would mean the destruction of individual liberty, national freedom, liberty of
thought, liberty of life, religious and spiritual freedom in at least three continents. In Europe already these things have gone
down for the time being except, precariously, in a few small countries; if Britain were defeated, that result would be made
permanent and in Asia also all the recent development such as the rise of new or renovated Asiatic peoples would be miserably
undone, and India’s hope of liberty would become a dead dream of the past or a struggling dream of a far-off future. The abject
position to which the Nazi theory relegates the coloured races is well known and that would be the fate of India if it conquered
and dominated the world. Mankind itself as a whole would be flung back into a relapse towards barbarism, a social condition
and an ethics which would admit only the brute force of the master and the docile submission of the slave. It is only by
Britain’s victory in the struggle to which she has challenged this destructive Force that the danger can be nullified, since she
alone has shown at once the courage and power to resist and survive. This is Sri Aurobindo’s view and, holding it, he could
do nothing else than what he has done. There is no just reason here for any misunderstanding. This is what you can explain to
anybody who questions, if it is necessary.
[2]
This letter should not be sent.1 This is a time to remain quiet. I did not intend by my contribution and letter to the Madras
Governor to start any political action or political controversy. Let them stand for themselves. If anything farther is necessary
at any time about it, I shall myself see to it. 22 October 1940
1 The letter referred to was written by Anilbaran Roy, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo’s, in
answer to questions raised by an acquaintance. — Ed.
Page – 454
On the War: An Unreleased Statement
Sri Aurobindo’s decision to give his moral support to the struggle
against Hitler, which was made at the very beginning of the war, was based like all his actions on his inner view of things and on
intimations from within.2 It was founded on his consciousness of the forces at work, of their significance in the Divine’s leading
of the world, of the necessary outer conditions for the spiritual development in which he sees the real hope of humanity.
It would not serve any purpose to speak here of this view of things: but some outer considerations of a most material kind
easily understandable by everyone can be put forward which might help to explain his action to the general mind, although
they do not give the whole meaning of it; it is only these that are developed here.
The struggle that is going on is not fundamentally a conflict between two imperialisms
— German and English, — one
attacking, the other defending itself. That is only an outward aspect, and not the whole even of the outward aspect. For the
Germans and Italians believe that they are establishing a new civilisation and a new world-order. The English believe that they
are defending not only their empire but their very existence as a free nation and the freedom also of other nations conquered
by Germany or threatened by the push to empire of the Axis powers; they have made it a condition for making peace that the
nations conquered shall be liberated and the others guaranteed against farther aggression. They believe also that they are standing up for the principles of civilisation which a Nazi victory would destroy. These beliefs have to be taken into consideration
in assessing the significance of the struggle.
It is in fact a clash between two world-forces which are
contending for the control of the whole future of humanity. One
2 The textual basis of this statement was an essay written by Anilbaran Roy and
submitted to Sri Aurobindo for approval. Sri Aurobindo thoroughly revised and enlarged
the first four paragraphs and added seven new ones, transforming Anilbaran’s essay into
an entirely new piece that may be considered his own writing. In revising, he retained
Anilbaran’s third-person “Sri Aurobindo”. — Ed.
Page – 455
force seeks to destroy the past civilisation and substitute a new one; but this new civilisation is in substance a reversion to the
old principles of dominant Force and a rigid external order and denies the established values, social, political, ethical, spiritual,
altogether. Among these values are those which were hitherto held to be the most precious, the liberty of the individual, the
right to national liberty, freedom of thought; even religious liberty is to be crushed and replaced by the subjection of religion to
State control. The new ethics contemn and reject all the principles that can be summed up in the word “humanitarianism”; all
that is to it a falsehood and a weakness. The only ethical values admitted are those of dominant Force on the one side and, on
the other, of blind obedience and submission, self-effacement and labour in the service of the State. Wherever this new idea
conquers or can make its power felt, it is this order of things that it seeks to establish; it is not satisfied with setting itself up
in one country or another, it is pushing for world conquest, for the enforcement of the new order everywhere, securing it,
— this
at least Germany, its principal agent, conceives to be the right method and carries it out with a scientific thoroughness by a
ruthless repression of all opposition and a single iron rule.
The other Force is that of the evolutionary tendencies which
have been directing the course of humanity for some time past and, till recently, seemed destined to shape its future. Its workings had their good and bad sides, but among the greater values it had developed stood the very things against which the new
Force is most aggressive, the liberty of the individual, national liberty, freedom of thought, political and social freedom with
an increasing bent towards equality, complete religious liberty, the humanitarian principle with all its consequences and, latterly, a seeking after a more complete social order, which will organise the life of the community, but will respect the liberty
of the individual while perfecting his means of life and helping in every way possible his development. This evolutionary
world-force has not been perfect in its action, its working is still partial and incomplete: it contains many strong survivals from
the past which have to disappear; it has, on the other hand, lost
Page – 456
or diminished some spiritual elements of a past human culture which ought to recover or survive. There are still many denials
of national freedom and of the other principles which are yet admitted as the ideal to be put in practice. In the working of
that force as represented by Britain and other democracies there may not be anywhere full individual freedom or full national
liberty. But the movement has been more and more towards a greater development of these things and, if this evolutionary force still remains dominant, their complete development is inevitable.
Neither of these forces are altogether what we need for the future. There are ideas and elements in the first which may
have their separate value in a total human movement; but on the whole, in system and in practice, its gospel is a worship of
Force and its effect is the rule of a brutal and pitiless violence, the repression of the individual, not only a fierce repression
but a savage extinction of all that opposes or differs from it, the suppression of all freedom of thought, an interference with
religious belief and freedom of spiritual life and, in an extreme tendency, the deliberate will to “liquidate” all forms of religion
and spirituality. On the side of the other more progressive force there are, often, a limited view, grievous defects of practice, an
undue clinging to the past, a frequent violation of the ideal; but at the same time the necessary elements and many of the
necessary conditions of progress are there, a tendency towards an enlargement of the human mind and spirit, towards an increasing idealism in the relation of men with men and of nation with nation and a tolerant and humane mentality. Both are, at
present, or have been largely materialistic in their thought, but the difference is between a materialism that suppresses the spirit
and a materialism that tolerates it and leaves room for its growth if it can affirm its strength to survive and conquer.
At present the balance in the development of human thought and action has been turning for some time against the larger
evolutionary force and in favour of a revolutionary reaction against it. This reaction is now represented by totalitarian governments and societies, the other tendency by the democracies;
Page – 457
but democracy is on the wane everywhere in Europe, the totalitarian idea was gaining ground on all sides even before the war.
Now with Hitler as its chief representative, this Force has thrown itself out for world-domination. Everywhere the results are the
same, the disappearance of individual and national liberty, a rigid “New Order”, the total suppression of free thought and
speech, a systematic cruelty and intolerance, the persecution of all opposition, and, wherever the Nazi idea spreads, a violent racialism denying the human idea; outside Europe what is promised is the degradation of the coloured peoples to helotry
as an inferior, even a subhuman race. Hitler, carrying with him everywhere the new idea and the new order, is now master of
almost all Europe minus Great Britain and Russia. [Faced with the stubborn opposition of Britain he is turning southwards and
if the plan attributed to him of taking Gibraltar and the Suez Canal and forcing the British fleet out of the Mediterranean and
its coasts were to succeed, he would be able with his Italian]3
ally to dominate Africa also and to turn towards Asia, through Syria and Palestine. There [
]4 would be then nothing that could stand in his way except Russia; but Russia has helped his projects by her attitude and seems in no mood to oppose him.
The independence of the peoples of the Middle East and Central Asia would disappear as the independence of so many European
nations has disappeared and a deadly and imminent peril would stand at the gates of India.
These are patent facts of the situation, its dangerous possibilities and menacing consequences. What is there that can prevent them from coming into realisation? The only material force that now stands between is the obstinate and heroic resistance
of Great Britain and her fixed determination to fight the battle to the end. It is the British Navy alone that keeps the war from
our gates and confines it to European lands and seas and a strip of North Africa. If there were defeat and the strength of Britain
and her colonies were to go down before the totalitarian nations,
3 Sri Aurobindo cancelled the bracketed passage during revision but did not write
anything to replace it. — Ed.
4 MS there
Page – 458
all Europe, Africa and Asia would be doomed to domination by three or four Powers all anti-democratic and all pushing for expansion, powers with regimes and theories of life which take no account of liberty of any kind; the surviving democracies would
perish, nor would any free government with free institutions be any longer possible anywhere. It is not likely that India poor
and ill-armed would be able to resist forces which had brought down the great nations of Europe; her chance of gaining the
liberty which is now so close to her would disappear for a long time to come. On the contrary, if the victory goes to Britain, the
situation will be reversed, the progressive evolutionary forces will triumph and the field will lie open for the fulfilment of the
tendencies which were making India’s full control of her own life a certainty of the near future.
It is hardly possible that after the war the old order of things can survive unchanged; if that happened, there would again be a
repetition of unrest, chaos, economic disorder and armed strife till the necessary change is made. The reason is that the life of
mankind has become in fact a large though loosely complex unit and a world-order recognising this fact is inevitable. It is ceasing
to be possible for national egoisms to entrench themselves in their isolated independence and be sufficient for themselves, for
all are now dependent on the whole. The professed separate self-sufficiency of Germany ended in a push for life-room which
threatens all other peoples; nations which tried to isolate themselves in a self-regarding neutrality have paid the penalty of
their blindness and the others who still maintain that attitude are likely sooner or later to share the same fate; either they
must become the slaves or subservient vassals of three or four greater Powers, or a world-order must be found in which all
can be safe in their freedom and yet united for the common good. It will be well for India, if in spite of the absorption of her
pressing need, she recognises that national egoism is no longer sufficient. She must claim freedom and equality for herself in
whatever new order is to come or any post-war arrangement, but recognise also that the international idea and its realisation
are something that is becoming equally insistent, necessary and
Page – 459
inevitable. If the totalitarian Powers win, there will indeed be a new world-order,
— it may be in the end, a unification; but
it will be a new order of naked brute Force, repression and exploitation, and for the people of Asia and Africa a subjection worse than anything they had experienced before. This has been recognised even by the Arabs who were fighting England
in Palestine before the war; they have turned to her side. Not only Europe, Asia and Africa, but distant America with all her
power and resources is no longer safe, and she has shown that she knows it; she has felt the peril and is arming herself in
haste to meet it. In the other contingency, there will be not only the necessity for a freer new order, but every possibility of its
formation; for the idea is growing; it is already recognised as an actual programme by advanced progressive forces in England
and elsewhere. It may not be likely that it will materialise at once or that it will be perfect when it comes, but it is bound to
take some kind of initial shape as an eventual result in the not distant future.
These are some of the more obvious external considerations which have taken form in Sri Aurobindo’s contribution to the
War Fund accompanied by his letter. It is a simple recognition of the fact that the victory of Great Britain in this war is not
only to the interest of the whole of humanity including India, but necessary for the safeguarding of its future. If that is so,
the obligation of at least a complete moral support follows as a necessary consequence.
It is objected that Britain has refused freedom to India and that therefore no Indian should support her in the War. The
answer arises inevitably from the considerations stated above. The dominant need for India and the World is to survive the
tremendous attack of Asuric Force which is now sweeping over the earth. The freedom of India, in whatever form, will be a
consequence of that victory. The working towards freedom was clear already in the world and in the British Empire itself before
the War; Eire, Egypt had gained their independence, Iraq had been granted hers; many free nationalities had arisen in Europe
and Asia; India herself was drawing nearer to her goal and the
Page – 460 attainment of it was coming to be recognised as inevitable. If the totalitarian new order extends over Asia, all that will disappear; the whole work done will be undone. If there is the opposite result, nothing can prevent India attaining to the object of her aspirations; even if restrictions are put upon the national self-government that is bound to come, they cannot last for long. In any case, there is no moral incompatibility between India’s claim to freedom and support to Britain in the struggle against Hitler, since it would be a support given for the preservation of her own chance of complete liberty and the preservation also of three continents or even of the whole earth from a heavy yoke of servitude. There remains the objection that all War is evil and no war can be supported; soul-force or some kind of spiritual or ethical force is the only force that should be used; the only resistance permissible is passive resistance, non-cooperation or Satyagraha. But this kind of resistance though it has been used in the past with some effect by individuals or on a limited scale, cannot stop the invasion of a foreign army, least of all, a Nazi army, or expel it, once it is inside and in possession; it can at most be used as a means of opposition to an already established oppressive rule. The question then arises whether a nation can be asked to undergo voluntarily the menace of a foreign invasion or the scourge of a foreign occupation without using whatever material means of resistance are available. It is also a question whether any nation in the world is capable of this kind of resistance long-enduring and wholesale or is sufficiently developed ethically and spiritually to satisfy the conditions which would make it successful, especially against an organised and ruthless military oppression such as the Nazi rule; at any rate it is permissible not to wish to risk the adventure so long as there is another choice. War is physically an evil, a calamity; morally it has been like most human institutions a mixture, in most but not all cases a mixture of some good and much evil: but it is sometimes necessary to face it rather than invite or undergo a worse evil, a greater calamity. One can hold that, so long as life and mankind are what they are, there can be such a thing as a righteous war, — dharmya
Page – 461 yuddha. No doubt, in a spiritualised life of humanity or in a perfect civilisation there would be no room for war or violence, — it is clear that this is the highest ideal state. But mankind is psychologically and materially still far from this ideal state. To bring it to that state needs either an immediate spiritual change of which there is no present evidence or a change of mentality and habits which the victory of the totalitarian idea and its system would render impossible; for it would impose quite the opposite mentality, the mentality and habits on one side of a dominant brute force and violence and on the other a servile and prostrate non-resistance. 1940
[1]
Calcutta is now in the danger zone. But the Mother does not wish that anyone should leave his post because of the danger. Those who are very eager to remove their children can do so, but no one should be under the illusion that there is any safe place anywhere. 6 April 1942
[2]
It appears that there are some who think of Pondicherry as a safe place and this is one of their reasons for remaining. This may turn out to be a serious error. Pondicherry can be a safe place only if the Japanese think it not worth their attention because it has no military objectives and no importance as a port or an industrial centre. Even then bombs might fall by accident or mistake, as the town is well in the war-area. But there are local circumstances which might lead them to think it a place of capital importance from the military point of view and in that case it would be exposed to all the dangers and horrors of modern warfare, a place under military occupation and a field of battle. Those who elect to remain here, must dismiss all idea of an assured personal security. Either they should be
Page – 462 463 those who prefer to die here rather than live elsewhere or, at the least, they must be prepared to face any eventuality, any risk, discomfort or suffering. These are not times when there can be a guarantee of safety or ease. It is a time of great ordeals, an hour for calm, patience and the highest courage. Reliance on the Divine Will should be there, but not the lower vital’s bargain for a guaranteed or comfortably guarded existence.
On the War: Private Letters That Were Made Public
[1]
You have said that you have begun to doubt whether it was the Mother’s war and ask me to make you feel again that it is. I affirm again to you most strongly that this is the Mother’s war. You should not think of it as a fight for certain nations against others or even for India; it is a struggle for an ideal that has to establish itself on earth in the life of humanity, for a Truth that has yet to realise itself fully and against a darkness and falsehood that are trying to overwhelm the earth and mankind in the immediate future. It is the forces behind the battle that have to be seen and not this or that superficial circumstance. It is no use concentrating on the defects or mistakes of nations; all have defects and commit serious mistakes; but what matters is on what side they have ranged themselves in the struggle. It is a struggle for the liberty of mankind to develop, for conditions in which men have freedom and room to think and act according to the light in them and grow in the Truth, grow in the Spirit. There cannot be the slightest doubt that if one side wins, there will be an end of all such freedom and hope of light and truth and the work that has to be done will be subjected to conditions which would make it humanly impossible; there will be a reign of falsehood and darkness, a cruel oppression and degradation for most of the human race such as people in this country do not dream of and cannot yet at all realise. If the other side that has declared itself for the free future of humanity triumphs, this terrible danger will have been averted and conditions will have
Page – 463 been created in which there will be a chance for the Ideal to grow, for the Divine Work to be done, for the spiritual Truth for which we stand to establish itself on the earth. Those who fight for this cause are fighting for the Divine and against the threatened reign of the Asura. July 29th, 1942. Sri Aurobindo
[2]
What we say is not that the Allies have not done wrong things, but that they stand on the side of the evolutionary forces.5 I have not said that at random, but on what to me are clear grounds of fact. What you speak of is the dark side. All nations and governments have been that in their dealings with each other, — at least all who had the strength and got the chance. I hope you are not expecting me to believe that there are or have been virtuous governments and unselfish and sinless peoples? But there is the other side also. You are condemning the Allies on grounds that people in the past would have stared at, on the basis of modern ideals of international conduct; looked at like that all have black records. But who created these ideals or did most to create them (liberty, democracy, equality, international justice and the rest)? Well, America, France, England — the present Allied nations. They have all been imperialistic and still bear the burden of their past, but they have also deliberately spread these ideals and spread too the institutions which try to embody them. Whatever the relative worth of these things — they have been a stage, even if a still imperfect stage of the forward evolution. (What about the others? Hitler, for example, says it is a crime to educate the coloured peoples, they must be kept as serfs and labourers.) England has helped certain nations to be
5 The paragraphs that follow were extracted from a letter that Sri Aurobindo wrote to a disciple in answer to questions raised by him. The complete letter is reproduced in Letters on Himself and the Ashram, volume 35 of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SRI AUROBINDO. The extracted passages were revised by Sri Aurobindo and published in 1944 in The Advent, an Ashram-related journal, and in a booklet issued by the Ashram. — Ed.
Page – 464 free without seeking any personal gain; she has also conceded independence to Egypt and Eire after a struggle, to Iraq without a struggle. She has been moving away steadily, if slowly, from imperialism towards co-operation; the British Commonwealth of England and the Dominions is something unique and unprecedented, a beginning of new things in that direction: she is moving in idea towards a world-union of some kind in which aggression is to be made impossible; her new generation has no longer the old firm belief in mission and empire; she has offered India Dominion independence — or even sheer isolated independence, if she wants that, — after the war, with an agreed free constitution to be chosen by Indians themselves. . . . All that is what I call evolution in the right direction — however slow and imperfect and hesitating it may still be. As for America she has forsworn her past imperialistic policies in regard to Central and South America, she has conceded independence to Cuba and the Philippines. . . . Is there a similar trend on the side of the Axis? One has to look at things on all sides, to see them steadily and whole. Once again, it is the forces working behind that I have to look at, I don’t want to go blind among surface details. The future has to be safeguarded; only then can present troubles and contradictions have a chance to be solved and eliminated. . . .
***
For us the question does not arise. We made it plain in a letter which has been made public that we did not consider the war as a fight between nations and governments (still less between good people and bad people) but between two forces, the Divine and the Asuric. What we have to see is on which side men and nations put themselves; if they put themselves on the right side, they at once make themselves instruments of the Divine purpose in spite of all defects, errors, wrong movements and actions which are common to human nature and all human collectivities. The victory of one side (the Allies) would keep the path open for the evolutionary forces: the victory of the other side would drag back humanity, degrade it horribly
Page – 465 and might lead even, at the worst, to its eventual failure as a race, as others in the past evolution failed and perished. That is the whole question and all other considerations are either irrelevant or of a minor importance. The Allies at least have stood for human values, though they may often act against their own best ideals (human beings always do that); Hitler stands for diabolical values or for human values exaggerated in the wrong way until they become diabolical (e.g. the virtues of the Herrenvolk, the master race). That does not make the English or Americans nations of spotless angels nor the Germans a wicked and sinful race, but as an indicator it has a primary importance. . . .
***
The Kurukshetra example is not to be taken as an exact parallel but rather as a traditional instance of the war between two world-forces in which the side favoured by the Divine triumphed, because the leaders made themselves His instruments.6 It is not to be envisaged as a battle between virtue and wickedness, the good and the evil men. After all, were even the Pandavas virtuous without defect, quite unselfish and without passions? . . . Were not the Pandavas fighting to establish their own claims and interests — just and right, no doubt, but still personal claims and self-interest? Theirs was a righteous battle, dharmyayuddha, but it was for right and justice in their own case. And if imperialism, empire-building by armed force, is under all circumstances a wickedness, then the Pandavas are tainted with that brush, for they used their victory to establish their empire, continued after them by Parikshit and Janamejaya. Could not modern humanism and pacifism make it a reproach against the Pandavas that these virtuous men (including Krishna) brought about a huge slaughter that they might become supreme rulers over all the numerous free and independent peoples of India?
6 Sri Aurobindo’s correspondent had objected to a paragraph in an essay written by Nolini Kanta Gupta and published by the Ashram, in which Nolini compared the Allies to the Pandavas and the Axis powers to the Kauravas. — Ed.
Page – 466 That would be the result of weighing old happenings in the scales of modern ideals. As a matter of fact such an empire was a step in the right direction then, just as a world-union of free peoples would be a step in the right direction now, — in both cases the right consequences of a terrific slaughter. . . . We should remember that conquest and rule over subject peoples were not regarded as wrong either in ancient or mediaeval or quite recent times, but as something great and glorious; men did not see any special wickedness in conquerors or conquering nations. Just government of subject peoples was envisaged but nothing more — exploitation was not excluded. The modern ideas on the subject, the right of all to liberty, both individuals and nations, the immorality of conquest and empire, or such compromises as the British idea of training subject races for democratic freedom, are new values, an evolutionary movement; this is a new Dharma which has only begun slowly and initially to influence practice, — an infant Dharma which would have been throttled for good if Hitler succeeded in his “Avataric” mission and established his new “religion” over all the earth. Subject nations naturally accept the new Dharma and severely criticise the old imperialisms; it is to be hoped that they will practise what they now preach when they themselves become strong and rich and powerful. But the best will be if a new world-order evolves, even if at first stumblingly or incompletely, which will make the old things impossible — a difficult task, but not absolutely impossible. The Divine takes men as they are and uses men as His instruments even if they are not flawless in virtue, angelic, holy and pure. If they are of good will, if, to use the Biblical phrase, they are on the Lord’s side, that is enough for the work to be done. Even if I knew that the Allies would misuse their victory or bungle the peace or partially at least spoil the opportunities opened to the human world by that victory, I would still put my force behind them. At any rate things could not be one-hundredth part as bad as they would be under Hitler. The ways of the Lord would still be open — to keep them open is what matters. Let us stick to the real, the central fact, the need to remove
Page – 467 the peril of black servitude and revived barbarism threatening India and the world, and leave for a later time all side-issues and minor issues or hypothetical problems that would cloud the one all-important tragic issue before us. Sri Aurobindo 3. 9. 1943 Page – 468
|