Talks with Sri Aurobindo

19 JULY 1940

PURANI: Hitler has called the Reichstag and is delivering a Speech.

SRI AUROBINDO: Instead of a triumphal entry, a triumphal speech?

PURANI: He is going to offer peace to Britain.

SRI AUROBINDO: He knows Britain won't accept. Why does he offer it?

SATYENDRA: To keep a historical record that he was a peace-loving man. (Laughter) He is creating a New World Order and becoming a protector of small nations, taking them under protection without any loss of their honour and prestige.

SRI AUROBINDO: They are rather being kicked into the New World Order.

SATYENDRA: Anyhow our India is joining the international federation. The Women's Mission is going to China. The Nehru family will be represented.

SRI AUROBINDO: Without the Nehru family there can't be anything international. (Laughter)

SATYENDRA: Vijayalakshmi is the President.

SRI AUROBINDO: They can send Nehru as the head of the delegation. (Laughter)

SATYENDRA: No, Begum Hamida won't like a mere man being put at the head of the ladies.

SRI AUROBINDO: Which one was Hamida in yesterday's photo?

SATYENDRA: The one on the right. On the left was Amrita Kaur, She doesn't look so terrible.

SRI AUROBINDO: As in her speech? No, she looks quite matronly and amiable. Whose Begum is she? Or who is her Nawab?

PURANI: I think an I.C.S. man called Hamid.

SRI AUROBINDO: And she is Hamida? Just as Hindu names have Dev and Devi.

Then followed talk about censorship, for all our letters were now being censored.

SRI AUROBINDO: Even insured letters are being censored. It is better that it is being done by some special body instead of by the police. By the way, is Jaswant in prison now?

PURANI: Yes, in B class, very happy, gets books to read and is carefully looked after, he writes.

SRI AUROBINDO: By the Imperial Government? (Laughter)

PURANI: Yes.

SRI AUROBINDO: Then they haven't started killing the communists yet? It is lucky he is in prison, otherwise he would have sent all sorts of communist pamphlets here. For how long has he been sentenced?

PURANI: It is under the Defence of India Act. Simply interned.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is for the duration of the war? That means from five months to fifty years. (Laughter) Some people say that the war will last fifty years.

PURANI: Then Churchill and Hitler will be no more.

SRI AUROBINDO: No, it will become a normal condition of life. From this occasional bombing and no serious damage, it is not unnatural to suppose that the war will last fifty years.

PURANI: I don't think the present R.A.F. bombing of Germany will affect it materially very much.

SRI AUROBINDO: If it can destroy the industrial cities then it will.

EVENING

SRI AUROBINDO: The original date to attack England seems to have been last Monday. So they have changed the date now.

PURANI: Oh, was the talk in Turkey about that?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, Hitler's dates regarding France and other countries proved to be true.

PURANI: That shows they were all planned in cooperation with the people inside.

SATYENDRA: There is a Peshawar prophecy that Hitler's decline will begin from 27th July and that he will try to commit suicide on the 9th of August.

SRI AUROBINDO: For failing to enter into England in triumphal march?

SATYENDRA: But such an easy misfortune is not for him; he won't die like that.

SRI AUROBINDO: Oh!

NIRODBARAN: We will be quite satisfied with that.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, we are not vindictive. Is that the war contribution from Peshawar?

SATYENDRA: Yes.

NIRODBARAN: Franco has declared his rights over Gibraltar.

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, this is the first time he has spoken about it publicly. (Then addressing Purani) You have seen some Japanese commercial man's proposal?

PURANI: No.

SRI AUROBINDO: He has gone to Europe, to Italy, for some mission or trade purpose. He is said to be an important man. He says Germany and Italy should make an axis with Japan. They will be exhausted after the war and lose all spring for action. Japan and these countries may help one another by trade agreements between East and West. Here the implication seems to be that Japan would represent the East and that the whole East would be left under Japanese influence.

After some time Purani brought in the subject of art.

PURANI: Sammer has a queer idea. He says that nowhere in Europe and India was there any popular art. Only in Russia has it come now. Communism has brought in popular art, he says.

SRI AUROBINDO: That is the stock-in-trade argument of all communists.

PURANI: I was staggered. He has no knowledge of Indian history. I told him that even today there is a village in Pondicherry where pottery is done and the village is known for it. These carvings on the wooden seat² of the Mother which is such a fine piece of art were done by an ordinary workman. The Mother was pleased with it.