All human knowledge is like a jigsaw puzzle. At first you know only a few things and by and by you add other bits of information because they connect with what you already know. It is a moment of great joy when you accidentally discover something which is a missing piece of the puzzle, and which connects two parts of knowledge you already have.

As I was looking at the books on the shelves of our local library in London my eyes fell on a biography of Sir Stafford Cripps. Was this the same Cripps to whom Sri Aurobindo had sent that famous telegram? Was this the same man who had replied with such dignity to him? Strange that we know next to nothing about Cripps although we can not stop repeating how the tragedy of the partition of India would never have happened if this man’s proposal had been accepted by the leaders of the country in 1942.

I did not lose a minute and borrowed the book that day. The first thing I did was to look at the index in the hope of finding what his biographer might have said about his exchange of telegrams with Sri Aurobindo. No, he wasn’t under ‘S’ and he wasn’t under ‘A’. Maybe he was classified under ‘Ghose’? But he wasn’t under that either. How could it be that a piece of information that was so important to us, the followers of Sri Aurobindo, was not even mentioned once in this exhaustive biography of Sir Stafford Cripps? Perhaps this is the sad truth, that no one actually registered how important that communication was.

We know that the national leaders did not think that Sri Aurobindo could advise them since he had left the field of active politics long before this incident. They may have imagined that a man who was immersed in his spiritual pursuits would not have understood the complexities of the issues at stake. Possibly they dismissed Doraiswamy’s visit and his verbal message as totally irrelevant to their work and this is why the whole incident has been lost from public memory. But I expected that at least Sir Stafford would have spoken of it to someone, that there had been at least one person who supported his proposal. Obviously no one had taken note of that if he did mention it to anybody.

This biography, which is aptly called “the Cripps Version”, is written by a historian who is a professor of Modern History at Cambridge. If you think it is all academic jargon you are wrong because this biography reads like a novel and has a flowing language which can pull in a reader’s interest. The book is almost entirely built up with the material the author has culled out of Sir Stafford’s diaries. And it is not only one diary that we see the quotes from. An incident is often reconstructed from the point of view of several people who had all noted it in their diaries. One can assume that maintaining a diary was a very popular activity in Britain because we see paragraphs quoted from his children’s dairies, his aunt’s diaries as well as the diaries of his close associates and colleagues.

What kind of a man was Sir Stafford Cripps? What was his background and how important was he in his own country? I was even curious to know what he was like in his personal life. I have known his name since my school days and yet it was only when I saw the cover of this book did I actually see his face. I was amazed to find that there was so much to know about him but somehow he has remained just an undefined silhouette in our minds.

His real name was Richard Stafford Cripps although somewhere in his early adult life he dropped the “Richard”. Interesting to us is the fact that he was born in London on 24 April. The year he was born, 1889, Sri Aurobindo was in his final year at St. Paul’s School. The street in Fulham where he was born in London is only a kilometre away from Cromwell Road where Sri Aurobindo was living at that time. Cripps was brought up in a privileged and aristocratic environment. He was keenly interested in science and did his M Sc from University College London although he had been accepted at Oxford. In actual fact, Oxford would have been a more advantageous choice considering that he wanted to eventually enter politics in later life. There he would have been able to make those crucial social contacts which are so necessary to the life of a politician but he chose University College London because it had better laboratory facilities. This may seem as a minor detail but essentially it shows that he was true to himself. Again interesting to us is the fact that he ended his student life after getting his M Sc in 1910, the year Sri Aurobindo left active politics and came to Pondicherry.

Stafford Cripps took up a career in law after getting a degree in science. This was only one of the many contradictions in his life. Although he was born into a wealthy family he chose to be a socialist and joined the Labour Party. He always stood out of the crowd. People were always baffled by the fact that he was a vegetarian, never drank and towards the latter part of his life gave up smoking. Today such a choice would seem the sensible thing to do but for British society of the 1930s this was considered something striking, because he belonged to the upper class and could afford to have best of luxuries. At a time when most people could not even dream of possessing so much wealth he was willingly choosing to live a simple life.

He studied science because that was the natural bent of his mind and what truly interested him, but he took up law as a profession firstly because his family was already well-known in the legal circles and he could take over his father’s chamber but also because a legal career was a sure road to a political career. Although it was his family connections that started off his law practice, in the end it was his own hard work that made him successful and famous. He could easily put in a 15-hour day. In fact, all his life he worked unusually long hours in spite of his unstable health. He suffered from digestive problems which were always aggravated when he was under stress.

His biographer notes: “The uncanny accuracy with which he could recollect and pinpoint relevant documents became the stuff of anecdotes.” He became well-known for his phenomenal memory and for the way in which he held his cross-examination of the expert witnesses. He made sure that his preparation was flawless. “A Rolls-Royce mind, you knew as soon as you met him.” This was a comment from one of his young admirers.

Had he never entered politics he would still have made his mark in England. Having a background in science he specialised in patent law. Very few other lawyers of his time had that rare skill of having an equally deep knowledge of legal procedures as well as of science. By pursuing that double knowledge   he made a contribution to the field of patent law by developing a means of evaluating the ‘inventive step’. It demands that the inventor should be able to demonstrate that he is actually capable of manufacturing the product. This is still taught to law students as the “Cripps test”.

In 1930 he became the Solicitor-General and was given the customary knighthood. Since then he was known as “Sir Stafford”. He was also elected to the House of Commons, having already joined the Labour party. By the early 1930s he was making sure steps in his political career.

All these years, having only seen him mentioned in books connected with Sri Aurobindo, I had imagined that he had come only once to India, bearing in his hands the gift of his proposal which was rejected. From this biography I learnt that he had, in fact, come three times to India and always in connection with some mission or the other relating to the independence of the country. His relationship with India had started much before his first visit and continued well after the political ties had ended. It would indeed be a difficult task to go into all the details of what the Cripps Mission was and to go into an exhaustive discussion about why it failed. A rough idea of the situation however is necessary so that we can better understand why Sri Aurobindo went to such lengths to try and convince the decision makers of the merits of his proposal. 

That famous 1942 visit was actually his second trip to India. The Second World War had reached a crucial point, the British had lost Singapore and Hong Kong and now the Japanese were almost at our doorstep. There was a pressing need to get India to participate in the war and to help the British to win it. The deal that Cripps wanted to strike on behalf of the British Government was that India would be given a Dominion status in exchange for that help and it was understood that this status would eventually become self-government.

Stafford Cripps’s first visit was in December 1939. It was supposed to be an unofficial one but from the Indian side it was taken as seriously as an official trip. For Cripps the purpose was to get a first-hand view of the communal relations and to see how the different groups could be brought together to participate in the solutions that would eventually have to be worked out for the whole country. In India people were aware that he was seen by many in Britain as a possible future Prime Minister. His third visit in March 1946 was called the Cabinet Delegation and it was to chart out the details of the transfer of powers in the context of the Indian independence. He tried his best to avoid partition but did not succeed.

Let us go back to that famous second visit about which we know so much already. Sir Stafford Cripps came to India on 22 March 1942 and on 11 April he announced officially that his offer had been rejected. This was a time when communications were slow and urgent messages were sent by telegram. Telephones existed but there were only a few of them and their connections were unreliable. Bearing this in mind it is really remarkable how quickly Sri Aurobindo took the step of sending him a message. That message is dated 31 March and begins with the words “I have heard your broadcast.” This radio broadcast by Cripps was made on the 30 March and it followed his press conference held on the 29.

We know that during the war years Udar-da had a radio and that at the beginning, every day Pavita, the Englishwoman, and Pavitra-da used to go to his house and note down by shorthand the news which was being broadcast, then write it out in longhand and maybe even type it out, then send it to Sri Aurobindo. At first the Mother did not want the radio to be brought to the Ashram but after a couple of years Udar-da insisted that they take it so that Sri Aurobindo could hear the news himself. In our present world of round the clock news flashing out of over a dozen TV channels in every house that story of the radio being brought to the Ashram is almost out of a fairytale.

Considering that Sri Aurobindo had taken the unusual step of actually sending a telegram and an envoy to Sir Stafford the question that begs to be asked is, “Why was this proposal rejected?” Every party who was involved in it had a different answer to that question because it was a complex situation, but if we reduce it to a simple answer it would be that there was a great deal of misunderstanding and mistrust among the Indian leaders. Gandhi was against the war on grounds of non-violence, not realising the magnitude of Hitler’s evil intentions. He was so sure that the British would lose the war that he even publicly commented that the Cripps’ proposal was a “post-dated cheque on a failing bank”. One of the major stumbling blocks to the agreement was the matter of the leadership of the Indian Army, the other being the role of the Viceroy and the extent of his powers.

At this point let us take a look at the telegram sent by Sri Aurobindo to Sir Stafford.

I have heard your broadcast. As one who has been a nationalist leader and worker for India’s independence though now my activity is no longer in the political but in the spiritual field, I wish to express my appreciation of all you have done to bring about this offer. I welcome it as an opportunity given to India to determine for herself and organize in all liberty of choice her freedom and unity and take an effective place among the world’s free nations. I hope that it will be accepted and the right use made of it putting aside all discords and divisions. I hope too that a friendly relation between Britain and India replacing past struggles will be a step towards a greater world union in which as a free nation her spiritual force will contribute to build for mankind a better and happier life. In this light I offer my public adhesion in case it can be of any help in your work.

This message was sent on 31st March. Since it is written out in complete sentences it doesn’t look like the usual telegram but it could not have been anything else because the answer to that is a telegram sent by Sir Stafford the very next day, 1 April 1942.

I AM MOST TOUCHED AND GRATIFIED BY YOUR KIND MESSAGE ALLOWING ME TO INFORM INDIA THAT YOU WHO OCCUPY UNIQUE POSITION IN IMAGINATION OF INDIAN YOUTH ARE CONVINCED THAT DECLARATION OF HIS MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT SUBSTATIALLY CONFERS THAT FREEDOM FOR WHICH INDIAN NATIONALISM HAS SO LONG STRUGGLED.

The most striking thing is that this exchange of messages is not mentioned in this detailed biography. Sir Stafford kept a diary in which he noted everything that happened to him and from which Clarke, the biographer, quotes extensively. How strange that he has not written anything about this sole voice agreeing with him, coming from a remote corner of the country, from a small town governed by the French. Cripps stopped writing his diary after his last visit to India but before that he noted every personal observation, every impression and every hope and apprehension. It could also be that he did write about Sri Aurobindo’s telegram in his diary but that the biographer did not consider it important enough to quote it in this book.

Sri Aurobindo did not stop at that message; he sent Doraiswamy Iyer, the Madras lawyer, who was a disciple and an important member in the life of the Ashram, to go to Delhi as his emissary and to speak to the leaders. He also sent this telegram to C. Rajagopalachari who was in Delhi and was participating in these talks:

IS NOT COMPROMISE DEFENCE QUESTION BETTER THAN RUPTURE. SOME IMMEDIATE SETTLEMENT URGENT FACE GRAVE PERIL. HAVE SENT DORAISWAMI INSIST URGENCY. APPEAL TO YOU TO SAVE INDIAN FORMIDABLE DANGER NEW FOREIGN DOMINATION WHEN OLD ON WAY TO SELF-ELIMINATION.

The fact that Rajagopalachari is mentioned as agreeing with the proposal is an indication that at least he could get that message to Cripps. In fact, let me quote Clarke’s very words about that situation and we can see how faithfully he maintained what Sri Aurobindo had asked him to convey.

On the Congress side, Rajagopalachari spoke out prominently along these lines: refusing to blame Cripps himself, urging rapprochement with the Muslim League, and arguing that for Britain to quit India at its moment of peril from Japanese invasion would constitute betrayal.

After Cripps’s departure the Indian leaders blamed him for the failure of the talks. Nehru, who had so far been seen as a friend of Sir Stafford, now openly criticised him. In fact, Nehru had been very warm to Cripps’s proposal at first and for a while it seemed as if the mission had been successful. But suddenly the tables turned at the last minute and it was formally rejected. Later Nehru said in a public speech: “I am happy that the negotiation failed and we were not caught in that snare.” The situation became even more volatile and the Quit India movement was launched in August of that same year.

A peep into KR Srinivasa Iyengar’s biography of Sri Aurobindo reveals an interesting anecdote told by Nirod-da. After Cripps’s mission was declared a failure Sri Aurobindo told those who were around him that he knew this mission would fail. They asked him why he had taken the trouble to send an emissary if he knew that it would fail. Nirod-da says “He smiled in his usual enigmatic way, and said: “Well, I have done a bit of nishkama karma (disinterested work)” 

Cripps rose gradually from being the leader of the House of Commons in 1942 to the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, the equivalent of the Finance Minister. During the War he was made a member of the War Cabinet and later the Minister of Aircraft Production. This must have been a particularly suitable post considering that he actually had constructed a life-size working model of one of those very early planes in the grounds of their country house when he was a teenager. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position he held from 1947, he worked unusually long hours, starting early in the morning. In the end he had to resign due to ill health and after two years of fighting against cancer he died in 1952 just three days before his 63^rd birthday.

He is remembered as the rival of Churchill and his opposite in every way. While Churchill did not hide his strong reluctance to give independence to India, Cripps had always sympathized with India’s desire for democracy. He was related to the India Conciliation group, made up of British people who supported the Indian freedom movement. Churchill was known to be fond of luxuries but Cripps believed in renouncing them. So much so that he was often referred to as “the English Gandhi”. Churchill once said of him: “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”

It is something of a discovery to read that he had a strong inner life. He believed that “trying to remedy the inequalities in the world” was being faithful to the Christian teachings. He even wrote a book which he called “Towards Christian Democracy”. In 1948 in an address at the Westminster Chapel he spoke about his belief that the aim of life was to establish the Kingdom of God here on earth.

There is a diary entry from his early youth which gives us an indication about his inner reflections. He writes “…it is the re-genesis of the divine spirit which is needed and not a genesis. Every child is born with the same amount of divine spirit, that spirit may be crushed or it may be encouraged, or it may succeed or fail in spite of everything—but it can not die…” This is written in July 1910 when he was 21 years old.

He is remembered in England as “Austerity Cripps” because he advocated austerity in public spending. He took charge of the country’s finances after the Second World War and tried to build it up. It was generally understood that he was extending to the life of the whole nation his personal preference for living austerely. The war had already brought a lot of hardships so people were not exactly pleased to deny themselves the good things of life even after the war had ended.

Since Cripps was born into a Christian culture he expressed his feelings in a Christian way. But clearly what he was seeking was something beyond religion. He wanted to bring to his country an ideal way of life. He was not interested in talking, what mattered to him was to see his thoughts turned into actions. To him his work in the outer world was directly connected to his progress in the inner world.

As I come to the final chapters of the book I realise that Peter Clarke, the author has a style which is so engaging that what could easily have become a dull book about a British politician, who wasn’t particularly colourful or witty, has turned out to be a fascinating volume about a man who was so closely connected to the independence of India. The author makes sure that the reader never loses sight of Cripps the man as he reads about Cripps the member of the War Cabinet or Cripps the Minister for Economic Affairs. The details of his innermost aspirations make the book worth reading.

Here is what he wrote in his diary on 16 April 1946, in India, after a day spent in talking to Jinnah and being unable to persuade him to change his stance.

This is the really critical time and I feel personally that I must leave no stone unturned to get a favourable result for the future of 400 million people hangs in the balance in the next few days. May God give us wisdom to do what is right. I have never felt a heavier responsibility on my shoulders than just at this moment. I still feel we must succeed somehow. That is our duty and our debt to India…

Let us look into what he writes in his diary a few days later on 20 April 1946, which was a Good Friday. This was written during a short break spent in Kashmir while the crucial talks were still on. Although it is a diary entry it was meant to be read by his wife Isobel.

In the evening light it was a quite unforgettable sight. I had to wander off alone, it was too beautiful to share with anyone but you—it was that beauty which makes one happily sad—a deep sadness for humanity, an overwhelming sense of the smallness of man and his inability to cope with life…Somehow it seems peculiarly appropriate that this should be Eastertide and somehow this and Easter and our job all seem fitted in together—I am not sure how but I am sure that they are. This is perhaps God’s answer to my and your prayers for guidance and out of this experience will come wisdom to deal with what is so intensely difficult a problem. I am sure that beauty and peace give wisdom and perhaps in the next 3 days God will give his guidance.

Behind the broad lines of history are individuals, made up of body, mind and heart—and a soul. We can gather from what he says in his telegram to Sri Aurobindo that he knew how he had inspired the nation towards independence. He probably didn’t know more than that. How interesting it would have been for Cripps, on a personal level, if he had understood who Sri Aurobindo really was.

A few days after Sir Stafford’s death his wife received a letter from Clementine Churchill, the wife of Winston Churchill, with the following words: “I know that Stafford was upheld by an intense spiritual life and an unshakable faith.”

As I took the book back to return it I had one last glimpse at his photo. Here was a man I had heard so much about, who is almost a part of Ashram history, and yet I had been unaware of the most basic facts of his life. The more we know the more we discover that there is so much more to know, and every piece of knowledge is one more piece added in an infinite jigsaw puzzle.

[All quotations are from The Cripps Version: The Life of Sir Stafford Cripps (Penguin, 2002). Quotations from Sri Aurobindo as well as the telegraphic message from Cripps are from Autobiographical Notes (Pondicherry 2006).]