Mother's Chronicles - Book Six

22

Acquitted

As at Chandernagore, so also at Pondicherry. "I remained in secrecy in the house of a prominent citizen until the acquittal, after which I announced my presence in French India," Sri Aurobindo was to clarify later. He sent a letter to the paper The Hindu of Madras, which it published the next day, on 8 November 1910.

BABU AUROBINDO CHOSE AT PONDICHERRY

A Statement

Babu Aurobindo Ghose writes to us from 42, Rue de Pavilion, Pondicherry, under date November 7, 1910:

"I shall be obliged if you will allow me to inform every one interested in my whereabouts through your journal that I am and will remain in Pondicherry. I left British India over a month before proceedings were taken against me and, as I had purposely retired here in order to pursue my Yogic sadhana undisturbed by political work, I did not feel called upon to surrender on the warrant for sedition, as might have been incumbent on me if I had remained in the political field. I have since lived here as a religious recluse, visited only by a few friends, French and Indian, but my

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whereabouts have been an open secret, long known to the agents of the Government and widely rumoured in Madras as well as perfectly well-known to every one in Pondicherry. I find myself now compelled, somewhat against my will, to give my presence here a wider publicity. It has suited certain people for an ulterior object to construct a theory that I am not in Pondicherry, but in British India, and I wish to state emphatically that I have not been in British India since March last and shall not set foot on British territory even for a single moment in the future until I can return publicly. Any statement by any person to the contrary made now or in the future, will be false. I wish, at the same time, to make it perfectly clear that I have retired for the time from political activity of any kind and that I will see and correspond with no one in connection with political subjects. I defer all explanation or justification of my action in leaving British India until the High Court in Calcutta shall have pronounced on the culpability or innocence of the writing in the Karmayogin on which I am indicted."

'Innocent.' The Calcutta High Court pronounced its verdict on the same 7 November. This was the case of the Karmayogin. On 25 December 1909, Sri Aurobindo had written an article, 'To my Countrymen,' under his own signature.

Briefly, this is how the case had evolved. On 18 June 1910, the Chief Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta had pronounced the article 'To My Countrymen' as seditious. He sentenced Manmohan Ghose, the printer of the Karmayogin, to six months' rigorous imprisonment. Two weeks later, the Magistrate directed that Babu Arabindo Ghose "should be proclaimed an absconder

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and that his property should be attached." Thereupon, the government seized the Dharma's press and appropriated one fourth of Manicktolla garden, the other three parts belonged to the other three brothers. Following which an application was filed in August for an appeal. The appeal was finally heard by Justices Holm wood and Fletcher on 25-26-27 October. These two British judges allowed the appeal, set aside the conviction and sentence, acquitted the printer, and released him from bail. Their judgments, though separate, concurred. Both the judges opined that the article 'To My Countrymen' could not be considered seditious. Exactly what the Secretary of State Morley had told Viceroy Minto months earlier.

Many secret reports were in the files of the government concerning Sri Aurobindo. A good number of comments were made by top Anglo-Indian bureaucrats. Many letters and telegrams were sent back and forth from England to India, between Viscount John Morley, the then Secretary of State for India, and Fourth Earl of Minto, Gilbert Eliot, the then Viceroy of India. Why?

A secret report of the Government, laying squarely the blame on Sri Aurobindo, says, "His is the master mind at the back of the whole extremist campaign in Bengal."

"A dangerous character," opined the Lt-Governor of East Bengal and Assam, "more especially dangerous in that he is preaching a religious patriotism." This was in reaction to the article in the Karmayogin of 31 July 1909, where Sri Aurobindo had written, "Our ideal is that of Swaraj or absolute autonomy free from foreign control. We claim the right of every nation to live its own life by its own energies according to its own

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nature and ideals. We reject the claim of aliens to force upon us a civilisation inferior to our own or to keep us out of our inheritance on the untenable ground of a superior fitness."

Referring to the article, the Home Secretary of the Government of India said the same thing in a secret report. "It will be seen that the whole policy is anti-British and the goal is 'absolute autonomy, free from foreign control.' "

Minto was much perturbed by the strong reaction shown by Members of Parliament back home. "I have been somewhat exercised," he confessed to Morley on 14 April 1910, "by the questions in the House of Commons about Arabindo Ghose. He is the most dangerous man we have to deal with at present

and he has great influence with the student class____ In the

meantime Arabindo has disappeared and it will be very unfortunate if there should seem to be any sympathy with him at home."

Morley tried to soothe the Viceroy. "As to the famous Arabindo ... you are mistaken if you think that there is any sympathy with him at home." Then he spoke about what was troubling him. "That is not the point. The point is, in my mind, that the institution of proceedings against him was a foolish blunder, from the side of policy.... Is a conviction reasonably certain in this case? I should think decidedly not, and I hope not. So far as I can make out, the article (so far back as last X' mas) simply paraded passive resistance and abstention from taking part in public life. That may be as odious and objectionable as you please, but it is at least doubtful whether any decent court will find it to be sedition."

'Decent court' ? Maybe the Secretary of State had in mind

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the judges of British courts at home? Evidently he did not grasp the biased mindset of most of those who were dispensing justice in India. Some of them had decidedly peculiar notions of justice. Here was the Chief Presidency Magistrate who found the article to be 'seditious.'

Just a few lines from the famous article of 25 December 1909 will make the reader grasp the reason behind the Indian bureaucracy's rage.

"We [the Nationalist Party] demand,... not the monstrous and misbegotten scheme which has just been brought into being but a measure of reform based upon democratic principles and effective voice in legislation and finance, some check upon an arbitrary executive. We demand also the gradual devolution of executive Government out of the hands of the bureaucracy into those of the people."

Minto felt snubbed. "As to the celebrated Arabindo," he wrote back to Morley, "I confess, I cannot in the least understand your hope that we shall not get a conviction against him! I can only repeat what I said to you in my letter of April 14°' that he is the most dangerous man we now have to reckon with ... and has an unfortunate influence over the student class, and Indians who know him well have told me he is quite beyond redemption. Surely you cannot hope that such a man should remain at large ? We had to consider two courses of procedure against him—deportation and prosecution in accordance with law.... In the meanwhile Arabindo is in Pondicherry where he seems to have formed some undesirable French connections and will probably sail for France." A reference to Paul Richard, no doubt.

To Minto's letter of 26 May Morley answered on 15 June.

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"You say you cannot in the least understand my hope that you won't get a conviction against the redoubtable Arabindo. The belated proceedings were a thorough blunder from the first.... I have not met a single person, having read the indicted matter, who thinks there is any indictable sedition in a single line of it. Nothing will induce me to pretend to support the action taken," he told the Viceroy firmly. 'Your information may be good about the mischief that the man may have tried to brew but we have information here that he means to 'retire from the business' of political agitator. Deportation! I should think not."

From the time of Sri Aurobindo's disappearance from Calcutta in February of 1910, there had been plenty of speculation about his whereabouts. Some were wild, some were way off the mark, as we have already seen. It is only towards late April or maybe early May, that the British government became finally certain that he was indeed in Pondicherry. Bengal Government's Chief Secretary confirmed it to the Indian government's Chief Secretary, Home Department, in a communiqué: "He is still at Pondicherry and is being watched by the Madras Police. Should he attempt to escape by way of Colombo he will be arrested under the Fugitive Offenders Act." The bureaucracy had no doubt that Sri Aurobindo was trying to escape from India to avoid arrest. The administration took immediate steps to prevent him escaping once again. It sent warrants of arrest from Calcutta to Colombo, Madras and Bombay. As the French law did not permit the serving of a British warrant on a French ship, Ceylon police officials were briefed in detail on how to carry out the arrest of Sri Aurobindo.

Ultimately, following his acquittal, the warrant against Sri

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Aurobindo was withdrawn on 21 November 1910, as were the orders proclaiming him an absconder and the attachment of his property. The same day, a Home Department official announced that "the warrant out against Arabindo has been cancelled and he can return to British India without fear of molestation from Government whenever his likes."

The government officials were dismayed. "Arabindo Ghose is apparendy at Pondicherry and not anxious to return at present. But, if he were to do so," wrote the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bengal despairingly, "we could not of course touch him."

As we have seen, there was never any lack of sensation mongers. The same Home Dept. official who announced the cancellation of the warrant of arrest against Sri Aurobindo, added, "Meanwhile there is reliable information to the effect that Arabindo has come by steamer from Pondicherry to Chandernagore where he is keeping himself closely shut up parody because he is ill with an abscess in the stomach."

Such was the 'reliable' news fed to the government by its spies, whose flights of fancy ranged pretty wide.

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