On The Mother

CHAPTER 30

The Mother's War

I

In the last months of 1940, although Hitler had had to abandon his idea of invading Britain, the Luftwaffe sporadically continued its aerial warfare and among the cities receiving special attention were London, Coventry, Southampton, Bristol, Sheffield and Manchester. There was punitive counteraction too, and so the War entered 1941, extended to North Africa, and caused widespread destruction and dislocation. The seesaw between attack and counter-attack went on, and the comparative lull in Europe was too good to last much longer. Realising at last that a successful invasion of Britain was impossible so long as the mass of his troops had to keep guard in the East, Hitler took the fateful plunge and on 22 June ordered an attack on Russia all along the border. Brest-Litovsk fell a couple of days later, and a relentless advance was maintained towards Leningrad, Moscow and Kharkov. Russia lost considerable territory, but also inflicted heavy damage on the Nazis. Then, on 7 December, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, and declared war on Britain and the USA. Four days later, Hitler too declared war on America. Now it was a global conflict indeed, and the War was to rage with redoubled fury on land, sea and air. Hong Kong fell, Rangoon was raided, and in the opening months of 1942, Singapore fell, Java fell, and the Andamans as well. It was clear that India was vulnerable to attack, and indeed the Japanese bombed Calcutta, Visakhapatnam and Madras. India was now almost in the thick of the War, and that was the time for a fresh searching of hearts and a bold rethinking about ends and means.

II

The Mother's New Year prayers always had, as we have seen earlier, an urgency of temporal and spiritual relevance in the perspective of the collective Yoga of the Ashram and of the unconscious Yoga of humanity, but the wartime prayers were even more, for each was almost a winged squadron of the spirit and made straight for the intended target. The Mother herself has admitted: "During the war it was wonderful, it was like a prophecy of what was going to come."¹ Thus, after Munich, on 1 January 1939:

Will be the year of purification.

O Lord, all those who take part in the divine work implore Thee that by

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a supreme purification they may be liberated from the domination of the ego.²

Then, in the middle of the 'phoney' war, on New Year's day 1940:

A year of silence and expectation ...

Let us find, O Lord, our entire support in Thy Grace alone.³

Evidently the Mother was not deceived by the 'phoney' war with the combatants safely entrenched behind the Maginot and Siegfried Lines. Britain and France were vulnerable, and Grace alone could sustain them! Sure enough, French resistance was to crumble like a pack of cards, and France was to reject the grace of the offer of 'union' with Britain extended by Churchill. After the fall of France and the failure of Hitler to invade Britain, the prayer for 1941 was thus wrung out of the depths of the Mother's heart and soul:

The world is fighting for its spiritual life menaced by the rush of hostile and undivine forces.

Lord, we aspire to be Thy valiant warriors so that Thy glory may manifest upon the earth.

No ambiguity here! It was a war between the divine and the Asuric forces, and the Allied front was God's front, and the place of the Mother's warrior-children was with the Allies alone.

Although the Mother hadn't minced matters in her New Year prayer, in the early months of the year a few sadhaks and visitors to the Ashram continued to talk glibly or thoughtlessly, making mock of the Allied war effort. The Mother therefore found it needful to utter a word of warning and admonition on 6 May:

It has become necessary to state emphatically and clearly that all who by their thoughts and wishes are supporting and calling for the victory of the Nazis are by that very fact collaborating with the Asura against the Divine and helping to bring about the victory of the Asura. . .. ⁴

She wrote again, on 25 May, with a sense of extreme urgency:

The world situation is critical today. India's fate too is hanging in the balance .... People and forces in India have acted in such a way as to invite Asuric influences upon her: these have worked insiduously and undermined the security that was there.

If India is in danger, Pondicherry cannot be expected to remain outside the danger zone. It will share the fate of the rest of the country. The protection I can give is not unconditional .. any sympathy or support for the Nazis (or for any ally of theirs) automatically cuts across the circle of protection .... The Divine can give protection only to those who are whole­heartedly faithful to the Divine .... ⁵

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It is surprising that, almost a month before Hitler's attack on Russia and over six months before Pearl Harbour and the entry of Japan into the War on Hitler's side, the Mother should have so clearly inferred the grim shape of unfolding possibility, and especially of India's involvement in the global War. The Mother's occult vision seems to have told her of the imminence of the extension of the War to Russia and the Pacific, the death-grapple between Japan and the USA, and the quick fall of the French, British and Dutch colonial possessions to Japan on the march.

III

In the early years of Japan's career of aggression - first in Manchuria, then in China - Sri Aurobindo didn't seem to attach much importance to it. But things assumed a different complexion when, after the eruption of the War in Europe, Subhash Chandra Bose escaped from India, established contacts with the Nazi and Japanese leaders, and organised the Indian National Army on foreign soil for the liberation of India from the British yoke with the aid of Japanese arms. After Japan's entry into the War against Britain and the USA, Subhash Bose's broadcasts to India, and the fall of Singapore and Rangoon, people in India were perhaps even more confused than before. While Gandhiji and the Congress leaders advised only withholding of support to the British war effort in India, the INA asked for active all-out resistance to the British Government in India. This was a further serious complicating factor, and as the first months of 1942 registered a series of spectacular Japanese victories, many in India - in their flawed knowledge and half-ignorance - began to feel and even hope that British power would soon collapse in India too, and that the INA and the Japanese supporting army would accomplish their 'Chalo Dilli!' plan of conquest. But Sri Aurobindo had no doubt whatsoever that the winning of freedom with Japanese help was not the way to solve India's problem, and he declared:

Japan's imperialism being young and based on industrial and military power and moving westward, was a greater menace to India than the British imperialism which was old, which the country had learnt to deal with and which was on the way to elimination.⁶

For the fateful year 1942, the Mother distributed this prayer:

Glory to Thee, O Lord, conqueror of every foe!

Give us the power to endure and share in Thy victory. ⁷

The victory would be to those who endured, but without faith ther.could be no endurance. As Japanese arms steadily advanced in the Pacific and Indian Ocean expanses overrunning Malaysia and the Dutch East Indies,

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and as the War approached the shores of India, on 11 March 1942 Churchill offered to create a new Indian Union with a Dominion Constitution to be framed by India's own representatives after the War. In the meantime, the Indian leaders were invited to join a responsible Central Government and help the allied war effort. When presently Sir Stafford Cripps arrived in India to work out the details of an Indo-British concord, Sri Aurobindo extended an open welcome to him on 31 March 1942:

I have beard your broadcast. As one who has been a nationalist leader and worker for India's independence, though now my activity is no longer in 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 organise 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 right use made of it, putting aside all discords and divisions. I hope too that friendly relations between Britain and India replacing the past struggles, will be a step towards a greater world union in which, as a free nation, her spiritual force will tribute to build for mankind a better and happier life. In this light, offer my public adhesion, in case it can be of any help in your work.⁸

Stafford's response to this unexpected but authoritative support was he was "most touched and gratified" by the kind message from one who occupied a "unique position in [the] imagination of Indian youth".

IV

While such was Sri Aurobindo's reaction - which was also the Mother's ­ to the Cripps Mission, some of the sadhaks were critical. The day after Cripps' broadcast, there was a discussion in Pavitra's room, and the Mother happening to come that side, joined the group and spoke her mind with supernal calm. Although an exact account is not available, she is reported by one of the group to have said:

One should leave the matter of the Cripps' offer entirely in the hands of the Divine, with full confidence that the Divine will work everything out. Certainly there were flaws in the offer. Nothing on earth created by man is flawless, because the human mind has a limited capacity. Yet behind this offer there is the Divine Grace directly present. The Grace is now at the door of India, ready to give its help .... But if it is rejected the Grace will withdraw and then the nation will suffer terribly, calamity will overtake it.⁹

The Mother then referred to France rejecting Grace in 1940 when Churchill, after the evacuation from Dunkirk, offered a 'union' and joint

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nationality with Britain to fight Hitler, the common enemy. The Grace withdrew, and the. soul of France went down:

But India, with her background of intense spiritual development through the ages, must realise the Grace that is behind this offer. ... My ardent request to India is that she should not reject it. She must not make the same mistake that France has done recently .... ¹⁰

Later in the day, the sadhaks came to know about Sri Aurobindo's message to Cripps (in response to his broadcast) and his telegraphic reply. But not content with his public espousal, Sri Aurobindo also sent Duraiswami Aiyar as his personal emissary to the Congress Working Committee then holding its meeting in Delhi. Sri Aurobindo's (and the Mother's) point of view was that India had more to fear from Japanese imperialism than from the British, which after all was on its way out. It would be advisable to get into the seats of power now that the chance had come, without squeamishly arguing about the exact legal basis of that power. The Cripps Proposals also offered an opportunity for Hindus and Muslims to work together and thereby once and for all lay to rest the ghost of the 'Two Nations' theory. And, above all, it was necessary to organise the collective strength of the country and repel the very real danger from Japan. ¹¹

V

But it was all to no purpose. Gandhiji had described the Cripps Plan as "a post-dated cheque on a bank that was crashing"; and that was enough for the Congress leaders! Since Britain's was quite obviously the losing side, why then rush to its support? The Congress thus shied away from the invitation to join the Central Government. Divine wisdom was cavalierly vetoed by short-sighted political calculation, the proffered Grace was spurned, and the possibility of a free and united India was jeopardised irreparably. On coming to know about the rejection of the Cripps Proposals, the Mother only said out of the sadness of her heart and her infallible occult perception: "Now calamity will befall India."¹² Years later, K.M. Munshi was to say in the course of a speech in Delhi on 16 August 1951:

He [Sri Aurobindo] saw into the heart of things ... when the whole country wanted to maintain neutrality, it was he of the unerring eye who said that the triumph of England and France was the triumph of the divine forces over the demonic forces. We were very angry, but it was a fact ....

He spoke again when Sir Stafford Cripps came with his first proposal .. We rejected the advice ... but today we realise that if the first proposal had

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been accepted, there would have been no partition, no refugees, and no Kashmir problem.¹³

.

The question may be asked if, with his cosmic consciousness, Sri Aurobindo couldn't have known that his word would be rejected, indeed accompanied by "ungracious remarks for the gratuitous advice". This was to be the subject of a talk in his room, and here is Nirodbaran's record of the conversation:

When the rejection was announced, Sri Aurobindo said in a quiet tone, "I knew it would fail." We at once pounced on it and asked him, "Why did you then send Duraiswami at all?" "For a bit of niṣkāma karma" was his calm reply .... We know the aftermath of the rejection of the Cripps' Proposals as well as the failure of the Cabinet Mission: confusion, calamity, partition, blood-bath, etc.¹⁴

Certainly, after the rejection of the Cripps offer, the situation in India was grim enough, whichever way one looked at it. In their perverse purblindness the Congress leaders, not only rejected the Grace that came with the Cripps offer, but they also queered the political pitch by mouthing aggressive slogans and adopting uncompromising postures. The leaders were obviously confused, and the mass of the people even more so; and things came to a point of no return when, in August 1942, spurning the seasoned appeals of statesmen like Rajagopalachari, the Congress under Gandhiji launched the Quit India movement. Repression followed, there was some sporadic sabotage and underground action, but happily that didn't bring about a breakdown in the administration or seriously impair the war effort. On the contrary, the Indian army, greatly strengthened by the new recruits (some of whom were the Mother's ardent disciples), became a notable fighting instrument and magnificently served the Allied cause in different theatres of the War.

VI

The collapse of the sudden expectations raised by the Cripps Mission coupled with the advance of Japanese forces through Burma towards Calcutta created a climate of uncertainty and apprehension all over India. Disciples wrote frantic letters to the Mother seeking her advice as to what they should do. Was it wise to stay on in Calcutta, Madras - or even Pondicherry? Suppose the Japanese should bomb the coastal cities, or attempt a quick landing? On 6 April, Sri Aurobindo wrote to a disciple:

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

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eager to remove their children can do so, but no one should be under the illusion that there is any safe place anywhere. ¹⁵

Answering a similar inquiry, the Mother wrote on 26 May 1942 in rather more uncompromising terms:

During bombardments, to those who quake for their skins and flee:

Why should you be in safety when the whole world is in danger? What is your special virtue, your special merit for which you should be so specially protected?

In the Divine alone is there safety. Take refuge in Him and cast away all fear. ¹⁶

Those that elected to remain in Pondicherry - in the Ashram - were asked to dismiss "all idea of an assured personal safety". It was not possible in times like those to give a guarantee of safety or ease, and people should be prepared to face any eventuality whatsoever. The real need was "reliance on the Divine will ... but not the lower vital's bargain for a guaranteed and comfortably guarded existence". On 29 July, again, Sri Aurobindo wrote to a sadhak with a renewed and strident emphasis:

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.

The question was not whether Britain and the other Allied nations had not committed mistakes in the past; nations, like individuals, were knotted with imperfections. But one could see on which side of the inner struggle they had ranged themselves. If the Nazi-Fascist-Japanese combination won, there would be an end of "freedom and hope of light and truth", and there would be the "reign of falsehood and darkness, a cruel oppression and degradation for most of the human race". If the Allied side won, this danger to humanity and the future would have been averted. And so Sri Aurobindo concluded his letter with the forthright declaration:

Those who fight for this cause are fighting for the Divine and against the threatened reign of the Asura.¹⁷

VII

While the War raged with undiminished fury on the several fronts ­ notably on the Russian, where the Germans were advancing towards the Caucasus - Sri Aurobindo's seventieth birthday was quietly celebrated in

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the Ashram on 15 August 1942. The occasion was marked by the publication of his Collected Poems and Plays in two volumes, and also the first number of Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, published by Sri Aurobindo Pathmandir, Calcutta. By now the sadhaks in the Ashram numbered about 350, and children were admitted too, owing to the exigencies of the War.

The latter half of 1942 was a time of unprecedented uncertainty and anxiety, for the future hung in the balance by the slenderest thread. Then, worker after 15 August, there were the first faint but distinct signs of a swing in favour of the Allies. On 6 November, the formidable German army was decisively halted in front of Stalingrad; in October there was the massive Allied offensive in Egypt with Rommel's 'invincible' army now in full retreat; and the American navy scored a sensational victory over the Japanese at Guadalcanal. With 1943, there was a clear turn for the better, for the German army before Stalingrad surrendered to the Russians, and that was indeed the beginning of the end of Hitler.

VIII

The Mother's New Year prayer for 1943 was tempered on the anvil of the Moment, and was a call for commitment to the Divine Cause:

The hour has come when a choice has to be made, radical and definitive.

Lord, give us the strength to reject falsehood and emerge in Thy truth, pure and worthy of Thy victory. ¹⁸

On the other hand, the spasmodic movement from 1942 to 1943 had by no means been easy for India. While providentially the War had been kept out of India, a sort of civil strife had been precipitated by the Quit India movement and by the widely scattered underground guerilla groups. And the situation had been further aggravated by the terrible famines in Bengal, Bijapur and elsewhere. There were serious shortages, there was a sudden spurt in the cost of living, and there was a serious erosion of values as well. Some of the sadhaks were still assailed by speculations on the rights and wrongs of the Allied cause, and many questioned the description of the War as a dharma yuddha, with the Allies cast for the role of the righteous Pandavas. These questions and doubts that were floating in the Ashram atmosphere were given a sharp formulation by Dilip, and on 3 September 1943, Sri Aurobindo gave in the course of a long reply his considered view of the matter. Sri Aurobindo began by saying that, imperfect as they were, the Allies were on the side of the evolutionary forces. England, France and America - the Allies of 1943 - were the nations that had given to the world the ideals of liberty, democracy, equality, international justice and the rest. They had crossed their imperialistic designs and actions with the spread of these anti-imperialistic

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ideals and the planting of democratic institutions. Wasn't the British Commonwealth idea quite a unique force fashioning a free future? It was necessary to look at things from all sides and think mainly about the future. It was really a war between two occult forces, the Divine and the Asuric:

What we have to see is on which side men and nations put themselves; if I 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 and might lead even, at the worst, to its eventual failure as a race .... The Allies at least have stood for human values ... ; Hitler stands for diabolical values .... 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....¹⁹

Then, adverting to Nolini's reference to Kurukshetra, Sri Aurobindo said that the parallel between the Mahabharata war and the war initiated by Hitler should not be pushed too far. At Kurukshetra, the side favoured by the Divine (Krishna) triumphed, "because the leaders made themselves His instruments". The Pandavas were flawed men, though much less so than the Kauravas; and the War could also be viewed as a clash between rival imperialisms. But the heart of the matter was that the victory of the Pandavas was necessary in the particular historical context for the onward march of the race:

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.²⁰

IX

In the meantime, the Allied forces, after a series of victories in North Africa, invaded Sicily on 10 July, Mussolini resigned on 25 July, and by 15 August all Sicily was in Allied hands. On the very day Sri Aurobindo wrote the above letter to Dilip, the Allies invaded the Italian mainland itself, and in a matter of days, Italy capitulated. On the Russian front, there were

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reverses for the Nazis, and in the Far East and the Pacific, for the Japanese. And so 1944 opened rather more promisingly than the immediately preceding years, and was greeted by the Mother with the following prayer for the New Year:

O Lord, the world implores Thee to prevent it from falling back always into the same stupidities.

Grant that the mistakes recognised may never be renewed.

Grant lastly that its actions may be the exact and sincere expression of its proclaimed ideals.²¹

In her occult seeing, it was already clear to the Mother that the War was being won, and only total discomfiture and defeat awaited the Nazis and the Japanese militarists. But what next? The Mother was looking into the future, scenting possible unsavoury developments, and warning people against them. The victors mustn't lose the peace by relapsing into the old "stupidities" that had generated two sanguinary global wars within a single generation.

On the divers fronts the run of Allied successes continued throughout the year. There was a Russian breakthrough in Poland on a 40-mile front, there was vigorous anti-Japanese action in Burma, and on 5 June the long­awaited - and, by the Nazis, much dreaded - Allied invasion of Normandy began, and on 15 August, the Allies invaded Southern France. Hence­ forth. the Axis powers were to be mainly on the defensive. By the middle of September, the Germans had been largely pushed out of France, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, and the Allied forces were within German territory and pursuing the still retreating Nazis.

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