Reminiscences

IX

Two Great Wars

We have been through two great World Wars in the course of our life in Pondicherry. This was quite an experience.

The two Wars were identical in their inner nature and import. From our point of view, they were both of them a battle of the gods and the titans. On one side were the instruments of the gods, on the other of the titans. It is a curious thing, if not altogether strange, that Germany and, to some extent, Russia should have sided with the titans and England and France and America fought on the side of the gods.

This is something that happens always in the history of man, this battle of the gods and the titans. Whenever there is a New Creation in the offing, and man is to be carried a step forward in his evolution, there comes up ranged against him the forces of Evil who do not want him to rise to a higher level of consciousness, towards the godhead. They want to hold man bound down in their grip.

Such a moment of crisis came to man in the time of Sri Krishna. The Kurukshetra War is known as a war of righteousness, dharma-yuddha; it was a war of the gods and the titans. On the battlefield of Kurukshetra Sri Krishna gave his message that was to initiate the New Age that was coming. In exactly the same way, Sri Aurobindo began to proclaim his message with the opening of the guns in the first World War. The War began in August 1914; on the 15th August of the same year came out the first number of his Review, the Arya. Another point of note: the Arya continued almost as long as the War lasted. The "official end" of the War came towards the close of May, 1921; the Arya ceased in January of the same year. The Mother had arrived in the meantime to make Pondicherry her home.

The War left India practically untouched and without any major upheaval. It came and blew over like a stray wind, even as the raids of the Emden did on the Indian seas. Our memories of the War are still associated with that

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strange episode. The German cruiser passed by the shores of Pondicherry without doing any damage here, though Madras city received a few shell-shots. But I distinctly remember how many of the local residents, that is, those who lived on the Pondicherry sea-face, fled pell-mell towards the west, in the direction of the present Lake Estate. They packed themselves into rows of "push-push" carts—we had no rickshaws in those days—and looked for safety among the ravines of the Red Hills, or perhaps was it to hide themselves in the waters of the Lake, like Mainaka of the Indian legend?

India had been under the protection of England, so it was Europe that had to bear the burnt of the attack. We escaped with just a mild touch, though it did produce a few ripples here and there. First and foremost of these was the birth of the Bengali army—not a professional army of paid soldiers serving under the Government, but a corps of national volunteers. With the sole exception of the Punjabis and the Gurkhas, Indian troops were not in those days considered as on a par with European soldiers in the matter of fighting capacity. And Bengalis of course were treated with special contempt. They had of late shown some courage or skill in the art of secret assassination, but in the opinion of many that was a "dastardly crime". But a trained and disciplined army was quite another matter. Now, a band of young men from Chandernagore taking the opportunity provided by the War formed themselves into a corps of Volunteers, some fifteen of them. They were French citizens and were therefore to join the War on the side of the French and the British. They arrived in Pondicherry on their way to France, a band of young men beaming with courage and intelligence. Our Haradhan was among their number. The picture of young Haradhan, a tall erect figure of a man, calm and audacious, still lingers in my mind. He used to narrate to us on his return from the War many stories of his experiences. Once he had even been shipwrecked by a torpedo and had to swim for his life to a life-boat off the coast of Tunisia. Haradhan has recorded his experience of the War in a book

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let entitled "The New Ways of Warfare", modelled on Barin's "Principles of Modern Warfare" that we used to read in our early days.

Some of the War scenes of Pondicherry come to mind. Here there was no question of volunteers. France has compulsory military training and Frenchmen on attaining the age of eighteen have to join the armed forces and undergo military training for a full period of one or two years. The Renoncants of Pondicherry, that is, those Indians who had secured their full citizenship rights by renouncing their personal status under the Indian law, were also subject to this obligation of compulsory military service. There was in consequence a great agitation among our local friends and associates. They had to leave in large numbers to join the French forces. Among them was our most intimate friend, David, the noted goalie of our celebrated football team. He had only just been married. I remember how regularly his wife used to offer worship to Mariamma (Virgin Mary) praying for his safety and well-being, during the period of nearly three years that he had to be away: they were of course Christians. The plaintive tones of her hymns still ring in my ears. David returned after the War was over, perhaps with the rank of Brigadier. I still remember the welcome he was accorded on his return. He later became the Mayor of Pondicherry. I also recall the story of our Benjamin. His mother burst into sobs as she learnt he was to leave our shores. There were so many mothers and sisters who had to shed bitter tears as they saw off at the pier the boatloads of men. Benjamin however did not have to go. He became a "reforme", that is, disqualified in the medical test.

Within the country itself, Indian patriots with terrorist leanings tried to use in their own way this opportunity to bring England down to her knees. One such group, "the Gadar party", as it tried to land arms and ammunition obtained by ship from America, was caught red-handed. Another was led by "Tiger" Jyotin, our Tejen's father as you all know, who waged open war with the police at Buri-balam

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in Orissa and died fighting with all his followers. We have a cinema film of the dramatic episode here. A third consisting of our 'refugee' patriots assassinated the tyrannical Magistrate, Ashe, through a conspiracy hatched in Pondicherry itself.

Whether or not such sporadic acts and activities had any real utility may be open to question. But a great and noble movement does not keep within the bounds of "expediency"; it proceeds along the lines of its inner urge and law. These patriots and revolutionaries had shown how much could be achieved by ,a nation of slaves, even in that epoch and under those circumstances, by a band of slaves and prisoners bound hand and foot by their chains; they had worked to the utmost of what was possible then and according to their capacity. The World War had brought them an opportunity; they thought they might be able to shake England off the seat of her power. They had taken it as self-evident that England's difficulty was going to be our opportunity.

From a larger point of view, the first Great War can be taken as ushering a finale to the French Revolution. The Revolution had rolled to the dust the heads of a single monarch and his queen. But the end of this War saw the disappearance of practically all the crowned heads of Europe. Those that remained like the monarchy in England were left as puppets without power. This was an external symbol whose real significance lay in the awakening of the masses and their coming to power. This meant that not only wealth and affluence but also education and culture were no longer to be the privileges of the few; they must be made available to all. Money and position must be within everybody's reach, all must get a chance to show their merit. To use our own terminology, the higher Light and Consciousness that are descending on earth and helping man forward in his march to the heights were now to find their fulfillment: they would be firmly established and become a living force in the general level of mankind.

That is why in the second place the message brought by

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the War was that of freedom and autonomy for all, for the individual as well as for the collectivity or nation. Colonialism was to cease to exist; even the smallest nations were to win their freedom. This new era of progress was begun by the First World War.

A third boon was to lay the foundations of an International Society. This no doubt implied that the different countries and peoples of the world were to attain their freedom and autonomy. But in order that the smaller units might be left in security and there might be a check on unjust dealings among the nations, there had to come into being a Society of Nations where the representatives of all the nations could meet. This is what came to be known as the League of Nations. The unity of the human race was to be founded on a complex harmony of the diverse groups of men.

The ideal now was to create a race of men endowed with the highest gifts of education and training—what in the view of the sages and mystics would be a race of god-men— the transformation of man from the animal-state to that of the gods. But that was precisely what stirred the opposing Forces to action. They were to keep man distracted, lure him from the good path into evil ways, change him, not into a god but a demon, a titan, a ghoul. (Goethe once had presented this picture.) That is how man got his notion of the super-race, and the notion took concrete shape among a particular people and some particular individuals. That is what lay behind the rise of Hitler and his Nazis in Germany. Stalin and his Bolsheviks appeared as their counterparts in Russia. Mussolini was their henchman, a "satellite" in modern parlance. Our Puranic scriptures tell of the ancient Shumbha and Nishumbha, Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu, Shishupala and Raktadanta, dual power of Evil defying the Divine Power. Something similar seemed to be happening again.

Here was precisely what lay behind the origins of the second Great War: the descent of Evil incarnate to bar the descent of the Divine Power

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