After his acquittal in the Alipore Bomb Case, on 6 May
1909, Sri Aurobindo’s journalistic career started again with the weekly Karmayogin in English and Dharma in Bengali. The Karmayogin was essentially a review of,
what the sponsors envisaged, national religion, literature, science,
philosophy, and its first issue appeared on 19 June 1909, when just a few days
hence we will be celebrating its centenary. The weekly was discontinued on 2
April 1910 when Sri Aurobindo was in a boat taking him to the French Pondicherry.
Sri Aurobindo with his powerful pen commented, inter alia, on the political and other significant events of the
time. The piece selected here is one of them. And there is something amazing
about it even today.
It is often said by the disparaging and unseeing
intellectuals, as if they have no life’s spirit breathing in them, that what
Sri Aurobindo wrote a hundred years ago is applicable no more in the current
situation, that his is ‘read-only’ text frozen for all time without dynamism,
without relevance to the modern realities, that it is time-barred. This is to
totally miss the essentials of those thoughts which come from a deeper fount of
knowledge carrying in it the strength and efficacy of the timeless.
Take for example the disturbing Hindu-Muslim antagonism
that became fiercely acute during the colonial days. He was forthright in
stating that Hindu-Mahomedan unity cannot be effected simply by political
adjustments or flatteries. Much of the difficulty arises because of general misunderstanding
of things. He writes:
We must strive to remove the causes of misunderstanding
by a better mutual knowledge and sympathy; we must extend the unfaltering love
of the patriot to our Musulman brother…; but we must cease to approach him
falsely or flatter out of a selfish weakness and cowardice. We believe this to
be the only practical way of dealing with the difficulty. As a political
question the Hindu-Mahomedan problem does not interest us at air, as a national
problem it is of supreme importance. We shall make it a main part of our work
to place Mahomed and Islam in a new light before our readers, to spread juster
views of Mahomedan history and civilisation, to appreciate the Musulman's place
in our national development and the means of harmonising his communal life with
our own, not ignoring the difficulties that stand in our way for making the
most of the possibilities of brotherhood and mutual understanding. Intellectual
sympathy can only draw together, the sympathy of the heart can alone unite. But
the one is a good preparation for the other.
What is it in this that is not applicable today? There
has to come about a deeper psychological change everywhere, a change with
liberal education to begin with, a free and progressive education that prepares
the mind and the heart and the physical as true instruments in the service of
the growing spirit of man, a change arising from the aspiration of the deeper
soul within everyone of us, that the nobler and higher faculties might enter
into our life with the thousand prospects opening out before it. The task is
implementation, and it is to accomplish that that the enlightened society should
prepare itself. A force has been released into operation and the obligation is
we receive it and let it work within us. Perhaps in it is the key to tackle all
the problems that arise due to various types and grades of antagonism, problems
also perpetrated by all kinds of degenerate attitudes. But let us read Sri
Aurobindo. ~ RYD
We extract in our columns this week the comments of
Srijut Bepin Chandra Pal's organ, Swaraj, on the Government's pro-Mahomedan
policy and its possible effects in the future. We are glad to see this great
Nationalist again expressing his views with his usual orginality and fine
political insight. We do not ourselves understand the utility of such a
campaign as Srijut Bepin Chandra is carrying on in
The first three or four issues of Swaraj disappointed
our expectations. A sense of the unreality of his position seemed to haunt the
writer and robbed his writing of the former strength and close touch with the
subject. It was the old views, the familiar thought, the well-known manner, but
it neither convinced, illuminated nor inspired. This month's Swaraj is more
confident and effective, although the thing still seems to be in the air. The
passage extracted and the admirable character-sketch of Srijut Shyamsunder
Chakrabarti are the best things in the issue. Bepin Babu seems to have
recovered the copious vein of thought, the subtle and flexible reasoning, the
just and original view of his subject which made one wait with impatience for
every fresh number of New India. His attitude towards the Reform scheme and the
Mahomedan demand for a separate electorate is the attitude which has
consistently been adopted by the Nationalist party in
That time has not yet come. There is absolutely no
reason why the electoral question should create bad blood between the two
communities, for if we leave aside the limited number who still hunger after
loaves and fishes or nurse dead delusions, the reforms have no living interest for
the Hindu. His field of energy lies elsewhere than in the enlarged pretences of
British Liberalism. His business is to find out his own strength and prepare it
for a great future, and the less he meddles with unreal politics and nerveless
activities, the better for the nation. The Mahomedan has not progressed so far.
He has to taste the sweets of political privilege and find them turn to ashes
in his mouth. He has to formulate demands, rejoice at promises, fume at
betrayals, until he thoroughly discovers the falsity and impossibility of his
hopes. His progress is likely to be much swifter than ours has been in the
past, for he gets the advantage if not of our experience, at least of the ideas
now in the air and of the more bracing and stimulating atmosphere. He is more
likely to demand than to crave, and his disillusionment must necessarily be the
speedier. And it is then that he too will seek the strength in himself and
touch the true springs of self-development. Our best policy is, to leave the
Mahomedan representatives on the councils to 'work out their destiny face to
face with the bureaucracy, with no weightier Hindu counterpoise than the
effete politicians, the time-servers and the self-seekers.
Of one thing we may be certain, that Hindu-Mahomedan
unity cannot be effected by political adjustments 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. We shall do well in trying
to solve the problem to remember that misunderstanding is the most fruitful
cause of our differences, that love compels love and that strength conciliates
the strong. We must strive to remove the causes of misunderstanding by a
better mutual knowledge and sympathy; we must extend the unfaltering love of
the patriot to our Musulman brother, remembering always that in him too
Narayana dwells and to him too our Mother has given a permanent place in her
bosom; but we must cease to approach him falsely or flatter out of a selfish weakness
and cowardice. We believe this to be the only practical way of dealing with the
difficulty. As a political question the Hindu-Mahomedan problem does not
interest us at air, as a national problem it is of supreme importance. We shall
make it a main part of our work to place Mahomed and Islam in a new light
before our readers, to spread juster views of Mahomedan history and
civilisation, to appreciate the Musulman's place in our national development
and the means of harmonising his communal life with our own, not ignoring the
difficulties that stand in our way for making the most of the possibilities of
brotherhood and mutual understanding. Intellectual sympathy can only draw
together, the sympathy of the heart can alone unite. But the one is a good preparation
for the other.