Alipore Alipur : a suburb of South Kolkata & headquarters of South 24-Parganas district of West Bengal. It was at Alipore that Warren Hastings built the Belvedere Estate where the Governor’s palace came up. Thereafter more & more Government buildings, mansions of top British bureaucrats & businessmen came up there. It was the safest place to build the sprawling Jail for the enemies of the Raj. (1) Hemendranath: The Alipore Bomb Conspiracy Case has become a part of the Indian national struggle for independence. The Chief Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta, Mr Kingsford, had become very unpopular because of the severity with which he punished persons accused of political offences. (2) Abinash: All the sedition cases against Yugāntar, Bande Mataram, Sandhyā, etc., were heard by Kingsford. It was he who ordered [15-year old] Sushil Sen’s caning. For these & other reasons the people were aroused against Kingsford. Barin became obsessed with the idea of killing him. When a book-bomb sent to Kingsford failed to explode, it was decided to finish him off by throwing a bomb right at him…. In the meanwhile Kingsford was transferred to Muzaffarpur. Before this, Barin had sought Aurobindo-babu’s view about assassinating the French mayor of Chandernagore. He came & said: “Sejda, I want to kill the mayor of Chandernagore…. He broke up a national meeting there & persecuted the local population.” Aurobindo-babu replied: “So he ought to be killed? How many people will you kill in this way? I cannot give my consent to this. Nothing will come of it.” ― “No, Sejda, if this isn’t done; these oppressors will never learn the lesson we have to teach them.” ― “Very well, if that’s what you think, do it.” (3) Purani: On 14 April 1908, Khudiram & Prafulla Chāki received a bomb from Barin & two tested revolvers from Abinash. But the bomb they hurled at the carriage they thought was Kingsford’s, actually carried two rich white women. Prafulla shot himself to death; Khudiram allowed himself to be caught & was hanged on 31 August 1908. On 1st May, police raided 32, Muraripukur; subsequently 26 members of the Yugāntar Party were arrested. Early morning of May 2, Sri Aurobindo Ghose was taken into custody from his residence at 48, Grey Street. On 17th May 1908, the case was brought up before Mr Birley & on 18th May the case was officially begun. Sarojini issued an appeal for funds for the defence of Sri Aurobindo. A preliminary enquiry was held on the 19th of August & the accused were charged with sedition & conspiracy. It was charged that after the partition of Bengal the accused had preached sedition through the Bengali weekly Yugāntar & had conspired together to wage war against His Majesty’s Govt. that they sought to overawe the authorities by violence & had collected arms & made extensive preparations for manufacturing bombs. Among the other charges were that they had attempted to wreck the train by which the Lt.Gov. Sir Andrew Fraser was travelling, had thrown a bomb into the residence of the Mayor of Chandernagore, fired at Mr Allen, the District Magistrate of Dacca & sent Khudiram & Prafulla Chāki to murder Mr Kingsford. One of the accused, Narendra Nath Goswami, turned approver during the enquiry & more persons were arrested as a result of his disclosures. Kanai Lal Dutta & Satyendra Nath Bose shot Goswami dead in the Presidency Jail Hospital on 31 August. In November they were hanged in the jail: Kanailal on 10th & Satyendra on 21st. (4) Abinash: The trial lasted for more than a year during which we were kept in Alipur Central Jail. After the three of us (Aurobindo-babu, Sailen & I) were arrested, we were taken first to a police station & then to the Lal Bazar hājat where we were kept in separate cells. On the third day we were brought before the Presidency Magistrate. While we were at the hājat, CID officers came to try to make us give confessions. They tried to frighten us with all kinds of tales: “Barin has confessed; Upen & Ullāskar too”, &c. None of us could believe that Barin & others had confessed. From the Presidency Magistrate’s Court we were sent to Alipur Central Jail. Just at the moment that the three of us, following police instructions, were getting into a horse-carriage, my younger brother Upendra forced his way through a contingent of policemen & a large crowd of people, tossed a daily newspaper to us & slowly walked away; his age at that time was thirteen or fourteen. When we looked at the paper we learned that Barin had actually confessed. Aurobindo-babu simply said, “Has Barin gone off his head?” During the first days…we were kept in groups of three, four, five or six to a cell. Later we were kept together in a very large room. People arrested in different places were brought & kept with us…. One day I asked Aurobindo-babu to explain a verse from the Upanishads to me. He explained it to me in a very simple & easy-to-understand way. I told [this] interpretation to the great Pundit Tarkachudāmani. He exclaimed with great joy: “Why Abinash, I could never have explained this as simply as Aurobindo-babu has.” ...One of our companions, Hem Sen (q.v.), used to hide a little of the food that he got from outside. The next morning he distributed it to everyone. In the middle of the night some people took the food out & had a lot of fun sharing it with those who were still awake. Hem used to shout a lot while distributing the food in the morning. I usually got a share. Once, when I was passing out some of Hem’s biscuits, I noticed that Aurobindo-babu was awake. I stuffed three or four biscuits into his hands. He chortled with delight like a child, stretched out on the floor & started munching them. During our free time we sat in a circle with Aurobindo-babu & played ‘word making’. Hem Sen taught ju-jitsu almost every morning. In this way our days passed & the trial went on. . . . During the trial, Aurobindo-babu sat in the first place on the first bench, I sat next to him. He was always absorbed in meditation. Sometimes he said a word or two to me. Mr Das & the other lawyers asked each of us to write down whatever we had to say in our defence. I used to write down whatever had to be said about Aurobindo-babu for Barrister Das. Sometimes I even used to answer questions for him. After the trial had gone on for more than a year, judgement was delivered on 6 May 1909. Aurobindo-babu was acquitted; Barin & Ullāskar were sentenced to be hanged & I & nine others given transportation for life. Some received jail-terms of a few years & others were freed…. No one gave a thought to his own fate at that time. The farewells began. People started embracing Aurobindo-babu; he told Barin & Ulhās: “You won’t be hanged.” To me he said: “You’ll return soon.” We came back to our senses…. During the first days in Alipur jail, we were kept in groups of three, four, five or six to a cell. Later we were kept together in a very large room. People arrested in different places were brought & kept with us. It was during this period that suddenly at eight one morning Kanai Dutt & Satyen-babu killed Noren Gossain, the government approver, in the hospital compound with a revolver. That very day around noon we were put in the 44 Degree cells, one person to a cell. Kanai & Satyen had already been put in the first two cells. When it was time to go to the court, we were all handcuffed, dumped into the van & taken together. We had a lot of fun in the courtroom during the trial. We were kept inside a cage with handcuffs fastened to our wrists & attached to a chain. Barrister Chittaranjan Das drew Beachcroft’s attention to the fact that it was illegal to keep someone handcuffed before the honourable judge; we raised our arms, chain & all, to show him. The judge replied: “This is an arrangement made by the police for reasons of security. I do not want to interfere with it.” At that moment we lowered our arms, unshackled ourselves & again raised our now free arms for him to see. The judge was rather astonished & said: “If they can in any case release themselves, of what value is this arrangement?” Needless to say we had learned to open our handcuffs in a trice. (5) Hemendranath: The regular trial began on the 19th of October 1908, before Mr Beachcroft, Additional Sessions Judge of Alipore. There were two groups of accused: in one there were 33 & in the other 9. The prosecution was conducted by the famous lawyer, Mr Eardley Norton, while Shri Aurobindo was at first defended by Messrs Byomkesh (q.v.) & K.N. Chowdhury. Shri Aurobindo had voluntarily embraced poverty, & public Chakraborty subscriptions were raised for his defence. The amount however was soon spent & a time came when there was no one except Chittaranjan left to defend him…. 4,000 paper exhibits & about 500 material exhibits in the form of bombs & explosives were filed. Altogether 222 witnesses were examined; in the sessions court 208 witnesses were called. The case lasted up to 13 April 1909. The jury summed up its opinion on 13th & 14th April & on 6th May 1909 Mr Beachcroft delivered his judgment: seventeen accused, including Sri Aurobindo, were acquitted; 36 convicted; Barindra & Ullāskar Dutta were sentenced to death, ten were given transportation for life; others received jail-terms of a few years. There was an appeal against the two death sentences before the Chief Justice, Sir Lawrence Jenkins (q.v.) & Mr Justice Carnduff; they reduced them to transportation for life to the Andamans along with those given the same sentence. [Hemendranath Das Gupta, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, Builders of Modern India series, Govt. of India, 1960, 1969, 1977; A.B. Purani’s Life of Sri Aurobindo, 1978; Abinash Bhattacharya, “Sri Aurobindo”, Mother India, July 2012, pp.528-39; &c.]
... Experiences in Alipur Jail (1908-1909) Pain and Ananda As for divine rapture, a knock on head or foot or elsewhere can be received with the physical Ananda of pain or pain + Ananda or pure physical Ananda—for I have often, quite involuntarily, made the experiment myself and passed with honours. It began, by the way, as far back as in Alipur jail when I got bitten in my cell... but an experience I had could not have been true if there was no levitation." Could you kindly tell me what the experience was if, that is, it is tellable. I remember X once told me that it was at Alipur you found your body in equilibrium in a lifted angle. Is that it? There were other things but not at present tellable! You can put it like this. "I take levitation as an acceptable idea, because... outer knowledge—what we ordinarily call knowledge? The capacity for it can come with the inner knowledge. E.g. I understood nothing about painting before I did Yoga. A moment's illumination in Alipur jail opened my vision and since then I have understood with the intuitive perception and vision. I do not know the technique of course but I can catch it at once if anybody with knowledge speaks of ...
... bombs had been manufactured. On a point of right jurisdiction. Thornhill transferred the case to the Court of the District Magistrate at Alipur. Sri Aurobindo, along with a few others, was now taken in a carriage to the Alipur Court, and from there to the Alipur jail. An unknown gentleman told Sri Aurobindo that, as he was likely to be placed in solitary confinement, if he had any message to send... taken to the cell assigned to him; "the bath, after four days, was heavenly bliss.... I, too, entered my lonely cell. The doors closed, and my prison life at Alipur began.... Next year, on 6 May, I was released." II The "Alipur Case" - or the Manicktolla Bomb-Factory Case - or the Muzzaferpore Bomb Outrage Case as it came to be variously called was the talk of the whole country for... for grazing. Both cow and cowherd were daily and delightful sights. The solitary confinement at Alipur was a unique lesson in love. Before coming here, even in society my affection were confined to a rather narrow circle, and the closed emotions would rarely include birds and animals.... At Alipur I could feel how deep could be the love of man for all created things, how thrilled a man could be ...
... concluded that the "affirmations" or "sayings" were none other than the "three madnesses" Sri Aurobindo had described in one of his letters to his wife, which had been produced in court during the Alipur Trial. 6 Besides rendering some financial assistance, Rangaswami Iyenger also bore the cost of publication of Yogic Sadhan, which Sri Aurobindo had composed in a spell of automatic writing under... Asia, "the leader, the hero of tomorrow". One interesting event during the six months' stay at Shankar Chettiar's house was Sri Aurobindo's 23-day fast. He had fasted once earlier - at the Alipur jail - for ten days, throwing away the prison food into the bucket; that had passed for illness with the warders! At Pondicherry it was a longer trial of endurance, but apparently there were no serious... intervened at last; and the Muzzaferpore bomb-action and the subsequent year-long incarceration of Sri Aurobindo proved, as we saw, a blessing in disguise to him. A year's seclusion in the Alipur jail — a year's enforced sadhana - worked no doubt a great transformation in Sri Aurobindo. His horizon widened, the mists cleared, and he was able to see the Divine behind men, things, events, behind ...
... physical pleasure...." He added reflectively, "It is, probably, these two forms of sukshma vidyut that are the basis of the phenomena of heat & cold—such at least is the theory suggested to me in Alipur jail." Practice makes perfect. So later he could say confidently, "I know very well what ecstasy and Ananda are from the brahmananda to the sarîrananda, and can experience them at any time." ... crickets outside! Of rupa, or seeing not mere images but actual forms, "of which there were some instances in the jail & afterwards" there was "none here." Nevertheless, many experiences in the Alipore jail were now reemerging "on a new basis of perfection." The sweet taste of the nectar in the throat returned. Diluted at first, but later "much stronger, denser and more frequent and continuous ...
... The Amrita Bazar Patrika, Friday, March 18, 1910. MR. ARAVINDA GHOSE-MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE "Mr. Arabinda Ghose, who was since his release from 'hajut' [jail] in connection with Alipur Bomb case, residing in the house of his uncle, Babu Krishna Kumar Mitra, is reported to have mysteriously disappeared during last few days. He was last traced to Dakhineshwar 'Kalibari' where Rama... accessible to almost anyone known or unknown, who goes to call on him." What a far cry from present-day 'leaders'! Among the most frequent callers were C.R. Das, Sri Aurobindo's advocate during the Alipore Bomb Case, the Modern Review's editor Ramananda Chatterji, and the Sanskritist Gispati Kavyatirtha. 1 G. C. Denham was then Special Assistant to the Deputy Inspector-General of Police ...
... for so bold a' programme. In May, 1908, he. was arrested in the Alipur Conspiracy Case as implicated in the doings of the revolutionary group led by his brother Barindra; but no evidence of any value could be established against him and he was.acquitted: After detention of one year as under-trial prisoner in the Alipur Jail, he came out in May, 1909, to find the party organisation broken,... weekly, the Dharma. But at last he was compelled to recognise that the nation was not yet sufficiently trained to carry out his policy and programme. Moreover, as his twelve month's detention in the Alipur Jail was spent entirely in the practice of Yoga, his inner spiritual life was pressing upon him for an exclusive concentration. So in April, 1910, he sailed for Pondicherry in French India. Sri Aurobindo ...
... Karmayogin No. 21, 27 November 1909 Karmayogin No. 21, 27 November 1909 Karmayogin The Alipur Judgment The Judgment of the Appeal Court in the Alipur Case has resulted in the reduction of sentences to a greater or less extent in all but two notable instances, and on the other hand, the maintenance of the finding of the Lower Court in all but six cases ...
... drawn up by the lawyers on his behalf, not made by himself. [While in the Alipore jail Sri Aurobindo became ill.] Sri Aurobindo did not fall ill while in prison; he was in normal health except for a superficial ailment for some time which was of no consequence. A year's seclusion and meditation in the Alipore jail no doubt worked a great transformation in Sri Aurobindo.... Once again—now... Autobiographical Notes Autobiographical Notes Corrections of Statements Made in Biographies and Other Publications Autobiographical Notes The Alipore Bomb Case The Amrita Bazar Patrika asked editorially: " ... but why were they (Aurobindo and others) pounced upon in this mysterious manner, handcuffed and then dragged before the Police Commissioner.... The earth was brought to me by a young man connected with the Ramakrishna Mission and I kept it; it was there in my room when the police came to arrest me. The case commenced before the Alipore Magistrate's Court on the 19th May, 1908 and continued intermittently for a Page 84 whole year. Mr. Beachcroft, the magistrate, had been with Sri Aurobindo in Cambridge.... The case in ...
... plunged fully into politics. When the Bande Mataram case was brought against him, he resigned his post in order not to embarrass the College authorities but resumed it again on his acquittal. During the Alipur Case he resigned finally at the request of the College authorities. Now [after resigning from the Bengal National College] Sri Aurobindo was free to associate himself actively with the Nationalist ...
... the resignation was because of the Bande Mataram case, so as not to embarrass the authorities. After the acquittal, the College recalled him to his post. The final resignation was given from the Alipur jail. The Nationalists wanted to propose Lajpatrai as President, not Tilak. No Nationalist leader was seated on the dais. Page 116 ...
... Talks with Sri Aurobindo VIVEKANANDA'S VISITATIONS IN ALIPORE JAIL The following note throws further light on the subject of Vivekananda's visitations to Sri Aurobindo in Alipore jail: It was written by the editor of Mother India , the journal in which these talks first appeared. See also the talk of 25 January 1939. Nirodbaran's report of Sri Aurobindo's... ss and of the Divine as all beings and all that is,... happened in the Alipore Jail.... To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher plain of consciousness leading to the Supermind he was already on his way in his meditations in Alipore Jail." (pp. 107-108) Further light on Vivekananda's coming to Sri Aurobindo... Aurobindo's statement about his discovery of the Supermind after the pointer, given in Alipore by Vivekananda's "spirit", to the Higher Consciousness-planes of divine dynamism above the mind—provides some body of detail to the general indications found in the published writing of Sri Aurobindo on this subject. Thus we read in Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother. "It is a fact that I was hearing ...
... Part III PILGRIM OF ETERNITY C HAPTER 15 Chandernagore : Inn of Tranquillity I Ever since his acquittal in the Alipur case - a turn of events not at all to the Government's liking - Sri Aurobindo had repeated intimations from divers sources that he was a "marked" man still, that the Damocles' sword might fall on him... twenty, Birendranath Dattagupta. Satish had been with Biren but had managed to come away; it was doubtful if Biren could have escaped. Shams-ul-Alam had more than distinguished himself during the Alipur proceedings and in other political cases by his excessive zeal to get the accused convicted, and the revolutionaries had had their eye on him for some time, and on their behalf Biren had now - as he... am under the very nose of the Government as it were! Of course, there would be no use trying to connect Sri Aurobindo with the murder. That sort of smart linking-up had ignominiously failed in the Alipur case, and would fail again if attempted. Sri Aurobindo was not the sort of man to get directly implicated in such acts of terrorism, much less to leave clues behind him. Why not - more prosaically ...
... control. Once in that condition I fell asleep. The warder saw me in that posture and reported that I was dead. The authorities came and found me quite alive. I told them the warder was a fool." In Alipore Jail his sadhana moved very fast. And it showed physically, as had happened when he was doing prana-yama. His hair, for instance. The boys were greatly struck by its brilliance. They thought at first... rapture," he wrote in 1932, "a knock on head or foot or elsewhere can be received with the physical Ananda of pain or pain and Ananda or pure physical Ananda.... It began by the way as far back as in Alipore Jail when I got bitten in my cell by some very red and ferocious-looking warrior ants and found to my surprise that pain and pleasure are conventions of our senses." The Yoga also throws up some... Aurobindo. So when he saw anger coming up and possessing him —"it was absolutely uncontrollable when it came"—he was very much surprised to see it in his nature. "While I was an undertrial prisoner in Alipore, my anger would have led to a terrible catastrophe which luckily was avoided. Prisoners there had to wait outside for some time before entering the cells. As we were doing so the Scotch Warder came ...
... November 1909 Karmayogin Facts and Opinions The Bomb Case and Anglo-India The comments of the Anglo-Indian papers on the result of the appeal in the Alipur case are neither particularly edifying nor do they tend to remove the impression shared by us with many thoughtful Englishmen that the imperial race is being seriously demoralised by empire. From the... are not thrown without hands and men are not shot for political reasons unless there is Terrorism in the background. All we have contended,—and our contention is not overthrown by the judgment in the Alipur appeal, which merely proves that the conspiracy was not childish, and by no means that it was a big Page 327 or widespread organisation,—is that the attempt of the Anglo-Indian papers to ...
... death over extraordinary work." When independence and red tape come into collision, it is usually independence that gets tripped up. Bankim was sent back in a hurry to Magistrate's work, this time at Alipur. But his ill-luck followed him. He was shipwrecked again in a collision with Anglo-Indianism. Walking in Eden Garden he chanced across Munro, the Presidency Commissioner, a farouche bureaucrat with... own astonishing likeness to the founder of Christianity and was away to spread the light of the Gospel among the heathen—after a lapse of time Page 101 Bankim was allowed to come back to Alipur. But this was the last stage of that thankless drudgery in which he had wasted so much precious force. His term of service was drawing to a close, and he was weary of it all: he wished to devote his ...
... Congress was broken to pieces. In May, 1908, he was arrested in the Alipur Conspiracy Case as implicated in the doings of the revolutionary group led by his brother Barindra; but no evidence of any value could be established against him and in this case too he was acquitted. After a detention of one year as undertrial prisoner in the Alipur Jail, he came out in May, 1909, to find the party organisation... created by Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa. But he saw that the hour of these movements had not come and that he himself was not their destined leader. Moreover, since his twelve months' detention in the Alipur Jail, which had been spent entirely in the practice of Yoga, his inner spiritual life was pressing upon him for an exclusive concentration. He resolved therefore to withdraw from the political field ...
... Mother's Chronicles - Book Five 50 In the Alipore Jail "Mr. Aravinda Ghose and a few other persons have been acquitted in the Alipore bomb case," wrote the Daily Hitavadi, a Calcutta journal, in its edition dated May 9, 1909, "and it is not unlikely that one or two more will be acquitted on appeal. Mr. Beachcroft, the Judge, has openly... the prisoners, now swelled in number, Page 460 were taken to Alipore Jail. After four days they had a bath, and a change of clothing—prison uniforms — before entering their cells. There Sri Aurobindo remained for a year during the magistrate's investigation and the trial in the Sessions Court at Alipore. And how did the prisoners fare in the Jail ? When Sri Aurobindo was... puffed rice). There was no arrangement for a bath. A European Sergeant used to give me a share of bread and tea off his own meal." He was to meet kindness and humaneness from others. "At the Alipore prison, I was not treated as a political prisoner, but kept in a solitary cell. The early morning meal here consisted in a preparation called lafsi made up of rice and gruel. At midday, meal used ...
... Yugantar (for there was no declared editor) were Barin, Upen Banerji (also a subeditor of the Bande Mataram) and Debabrata Bose who subsequently joined the Ramakrishna Mission (being acquitted in the Alipur case) and was [ ] 2 prominent among the Sannyasis at Almora and as a writer in the Mission's journals. Upen and Debabrata were masters of Bengali prose and it was their writings and Barin's that ...
... body whose whole object, semi-open rather than secret, is the subversion of British rule. Mr. Norton, taking advantage of the presence of Sj. Aurobindo Ghose in the dock, attempted to build up in the Alipur case an elaborate indictment of the whole national movement as a gigantic conspiracy, but he did not neglect the individual cases and made some attempt to conceal the extrajudicial object of his oratory... this is used to prejudice men under trial on a serious charge. Mr. Norton trifled with the traditions of the British bar by his pressing of trivial and doubtful evidence against the accused in the Alipur case, but it seems to us that Mr. Grey has departed still farther from those lofty traditions. And what if the Patiala Court decides that the Arya Samaj is a seditious body, seditious in origin, seditious ...
... Autobiographical Notes Corrections of Statements Made in Biographies and Other Publications Autobiographical Notes General Note (referring especially to the Alipur Case and Sri Aurobindo's politics) There seems to be put forth here and in several places the idea that Sri Aurobindo's political standpoint was entirely pacifist, that he was opposed in principle ...
... a very dangerous man and involved in that busy life of his, was continuously absorbed in inner concentration? Sri Aurobindo at Alipore Jail, Calcutta, after his arrest in May 1908 in the Alipore Bomb Case (photograph from police records) In Alipore jail he had his second important realization — this time of the omnipresent Brahman, the One within whom everything exists, and of the cosmic... sources. One of these, as mentioned in Sri Aurobindo’s personal notes, was Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, who had died in 1886, and another was Vivekananda. ‘[Vivekananda] visited me for fifteen days in Alipore Jail and, until I could grasp the whole thing, he went on teaching me and impressed upon my mind the working of the Higher Consciousness … He would not leave me until he had put it all into my head ...
... wrote a strong letter on the subject to Subodh. From that time Bepin Pal had no connection with the Bande Mataram. Somebody said or wrote that he resumed his editorship after I was arrested in the Alipur Case. I never heard of that. I was told by Bejoy Chatterji after I came out from jail that he, Shyamsundar and Hemprasad had carried on somehow with the paper, but the finances became impossible, so ...
... what it needs. Fastings also were not outside the purview of his tests, and prolonged Fastings at that. "I fasted twice, said Sri Aurobindo, "once in Alipore Jail for ten days and the other time in Pondicherry for twenty-three days. At Alipore I was in full Yogic activity. I was not taking any food. I was throwing away all of it into the bucket. Of course, the Superintendent didn't know. Only the... there is no reason why somebody else should not succeed." Comparing the two fasts, he said, "The Alipore fasting gave more results than the second one. Though the fast lasted only ten days I lost ten pounds, whereas here the fast lasted twenty-three days but the loss of weight was less. At Alipore I was having tremendous visions which were all experiences on the vital plane. But as a part of my mind... perfection] is backward and nearing completion only in the immunity from disease, — which I am now attempting successfully to perfect and test by exposure to abnormal conditions." It was also at Alipore jail that Sri Aurobindo obtained, Page 191 in a moment or two, the power to appreciate painting. A line from Manmohan's letter dated 4 April 1889, seems to indicate that his brother ...
... this century (from an old postcard) 458 Sri Aurobindo after his arrest (from author's collection) 465 Sri Aurobindo's cell at Alipore (from author's collection) 493 Sri Aurobindo after his release from Alipore (from Abhay Singh's collection) 498 Front page of the Karmayogin (from the journal's microfilms, courtesy Nehru Memorial Museum & Library) 529 ...
... followed), all the individual cases would be joined and sent up for trial by the District Magistrate, Alipore, as the proper jurisdictional authority. So Sri Aurobindo and all the other prisoners were sent to Alipore Jail to await trial which came to be known as the Alipore Bomb Trial. ‘My prison life in Alipore began on May 5. Next year, on May 6, I was released,' wrote Sri Aurobindo and he observed ph... by the Government who were making out that he was the kingpin, the root of all this evil! People were bewildered as much as they were shocked and grieved. The Alipore Bomb Trial commenced before Mr. Birley, District Magistrate of Alipore, on May 17, 1908. This was the preliminary trial. Altogether forty-two persons had been arrested of whom three were released for want of sufficiently incriminating... Sri Aurobindo for All Ages VII: The Alipore Bomb Case - One Year in Jail (1908-1909) ON FRIDAY night I was sleeping without a worry. At about five the next morning [May 2, 1908] my sister rushed to my room in great agitation and called me out by name. I got up. The next moment the small room was filled with armed policemen! Superintendent Cregan, Mr. Clark ...
... was arrested in connection with the Muzzaferpore outrage, and was later moved to Alipore, and placed in solitary confinement. 19 May 1908 to 5 May 1909 The Alipore Bomb Case and the trial of Sri Aurobindo provoked nationwide interest. It was in the course of his solitary confinement in the Alipore Jail that Sri Aurobindo had his great mystic experience —Narayana darshan —which... Several of Sri Aurobindo's unpublished writings, including poems, were taken away by the police and filed among the 4,000 exhibits in the Alipore Case. Many are totally lost, but some have been recently recovered and posthumously published. 20 The Alipore Trial served in no small measure to make Sri Aurobindo's name a household word in India. Having sensationally demolished the prosecution's... Sri Aurobindo's open involvement in politics lasted about three and a half years, from the middle of 1906 to the beginning of 1910. This included a whole year of incarceration in the Alipore Jail in connection with the Muzzaferpore outrage which had caused the death of two innocent European ladies. A few dates may be given as the significant landmarks of Sri Aurobindo's political period: ...
... Indomitable Sri Aurobindo on the Young Companions of His Days of Trouble In May 1908 Sri Aurobindo was indicted in the Alipore Bomb Case. He was kept for one year as an undertrial prisoner in the Alipore Jail. It was here that he came closer to most of the young lads who had joined the nationalist movement. In the following passages Sri Aurobindo speaks of these... marvellous sign of manifesting the age of gold, a religious bent of mind and in the hearts of many, a longing for yoga and half-expressed yogic powers. Sri Aurobindo in Alipore Jail Ashok Nandi, accused in the Alipore Bomb Conspiracy Case, belongs to this second category. Those who know him would hardly believe that he might be involved in any conspiracy. He had been sentenced on slander and... the inner sense of the Gita’s verse — once in a while it even appeared as if the sublime and divine statements of Krishna at Kurukshetra were coming out of the same lotus lips of Vasudeva in the Alipore dock. Without reading the Gita to be able to realise in the Bible the spirit of equality, renunciation of the desire for fruit, to see the Divine in all things, etc., is the index of a not negligible ...
... accused from the very beginning to the end of the trial in all the Courts and "was possessed of all the materials." He brought out a narrative of the trial in The Alipore Bomb Trial (Law Publishers, 1922). He says in the Preface: "The Alipore Bomb Trial was the first State Trial of any magnitude in India, because it was held at a time when discontent reached its highest point in Bengal and it concerned... knew that he would be acquitted," wrote Sri Aurobindo. When he spoke at Uttarpara just after his release from Alipore jail, Sri Aurobindo was more explicit. It is a very important document, this Uttarpara speech, for here he speaks for the first time about his spiritual experiences in the Alipore Jail. He says, "When the trial opened in the Sessions Court, I began to write many instructions for my Counsel... to defend Sri Aurobindo. The court was occupied with these up to 13 April 1909. Charles Portent Beachcroft was the District and Sessions Judge for 24-Parganas and Hooghly at the time of the Alipore Bomb Case trial. A good cricketer, he had been a scholar at Clare College, Cambridge, during the same two years that Sri Aurobindo was a fellow at King's College of the same university. Both A.A. Ghose ...
... remarks made by Sri Aurobindo much later in answer to questions and in correction of certain misstatements about his life in the Alipore jail are given below: "Ferrar who had been my class-mate could not come and meet me in the Court when the trial (Alipur) was going on and we were put in a cage lest we should jump out and murder the judge. He was a barrister practising at Sumatra or... Governor of Bengal. He visited us in Alipur Jail and told Charu Chandra Dutt, 'Have you seen Aurobindo Ghose's eyes? He has the eyes of a mad man!' Charu Chandra Dutt I.C.S. took great pains to convince him that I was not at all mad but a Karma-Yogi." 163 "I knew something about sculpture, but I was blind to painting. Suddenly one day in the Alipore Jail while meditating I saw some... "How true is all this I realised first in the Alipore jail.... I, too, (like Bepin Chandra Pal) understood in the Alipore jail this essential truth of Hinduism, and for the first time realised Narayana, the Supreme Divine, in the human bodies of thieves, robbers and murderers...." 156 Upendranath Bandyopadhyaya, a co-accused in the Alipore Bomb Case, has given a graphic pen-picture in his ...
... - 34). It was used as evidence in the Alipore Bomb Trial, and later cited in the Rowlatt Report (1919). Rediscovered after independence among 13 This file was later reproduced in Terrorism in Bengal: A Collection of Documents , volume 4 (Calcutta: Government of West Bengal, 1995), pp. 647 - 749. Page 1168 the Alipore Bomb Trial papers, it was reproduced in... prosecution in the Alipore Bomb Trial. Published here for the first time. The Morality of Boycott . 1908. This essay was found in Sri Aurobindo's room at the time of his arrest on 2 May 1908. This circumstance suggests that it was meant to be published in the next or a forthcoming issue of Bande Mataram . It was transcribed and put in as evidence in the Alipore Bomb Trial, and... interview to a correspondent of the Empire, a Calcutta daily, on 15 August 1908, his thirty-sixth birthday. At that time he and a number of others were being tried in the Alipore Magistrate's Court in what became known as the Alipore Bomb Trial. P UBLICATION H ISTORY All the Bande Mataram articles reproduced in this volume first appeared in the newspaper on the dates indicated ...
... to the overmind intelligence complementaries. Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine In Sri Aurobindo’s own words, his work on Ilion (then entitled The Fall of Troy, an Epic) was started in Alipur jail¹ in 1909 and later resumed in Pondichery where he took refuge in April 1910. The whole work, a long poem written in hexameters,² and left unfinished, was finally published in 1957, seven... Top right: Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, beauty and fertility. She is supposed to have been washed up on the shore by the waves, (relief c. 470 BC). Page 67 Notes 1. Alipur: Soon after his return from England, at the end of the 19th century, Sri Aurobindo became deeply involved with the young nationalist movement that had taken birth in Bengal. On May 1908, following ...
... to be arrested. His trial and that of the other revolutionaries, mostly young students who had broken off their studies to fight for the Motherland, is known in Indian history as “the Alipore Bomb Case”, after Alipore Jail in Calcutta where the accused were imprisoned. The trial, presided over by a former Cambridge acquaintance of Aurobindo, lasted a full year. Barin and one companion were sentenced... sentences; Aurobindo was acquitted for lack of evidence as to his involvement in the attack. Aurobindo’s year-long stay in Alipore Jail was used by him as an intensive retreat which resulted in a series of ever widening spiritual realizations. The Aurobindo who left Alipore Jail on 6 May 1909 was not the same who had entered it with his hands tied together and a rope around his waist. He now saw his ...
... Prince of Wales was to visit India soon, and Mahatma Gandhi said he must be boycotted. The spinning of charkha and wearing of 194C. R. Das was the lawyer who defended Sri Aurobindo in the Alipur Bomb Case and got him released from prison. His speech in the coutt was a masterpiece and one of the highpoints of the Freedom Movement. 195A form of strike action, used often during the Indian... there was an echo from the crowds along the way. The police threatened to beat us with lathis 206 , but we continued shouting, always getting a response from the huge crowds. Then we came to Alipore Jail, where Sri Aurobindo had been incarcerated. It was 9 p.m. Our names were entered, we were given two smelly blankets and one bowl each, also smelly and rusty. You have read the fine description ...
... individually. The love which my countrymen have heaped upon me in return for the little I have been able to do for them, amply Page 492 Sri Aurobindo after his release from Alipore repays any apparent trouble or misfortune my public activity may have brought upon me. I attribute my escape to no human agency, but first of all to the protection of the Mother of us all... " In fact, unlike the Anglo-Indian press, many Indian newspapers which had followed closely the unfolding drama in the two Courts for one full year, welcomed Sri Aurobindo's release from the Alipore Prison. Emotional Bengal rapturously poured its heart out. The Daily Hitavadi (Calcutta, 8 May 1909) wrote a long article entitled 'After All This Time.' Here is a short extract. ...
... le on the face of it that the judges had to open the hearing of the appeal by expressing their inability to find the sedition alleged! My name has been brought twice into conspiracy trials. In the Alipur Case, after a protracted trial and detention in jail for a year, I was acquitted, the Judge condemning the document which was the only substantial evidence of a guilty connection. Finally, my name... existence I was ignorant till his arrest at Darjeeling. I think I am entitled to emphasise the flimsy grounds on which in all the cases proceedings originated, so far as I was concerned. Even in the Alipur trial, beyond an unverified information and the facts that my brother was the leader of the conspiracy and frequented my house, there was no original ground for involving me in the legal proceedings ...
... have occurred recently which compel attention. One is the death of the convicted prisoner Ashok Nandi of consumption brought on by exposure and neglect during fever in the undertrial period of the Alipur Case. We exonerate from blame the jail authorities who were exceptionally humane men and would have been glad to deal humanely with the prisoners. But their blamelessness only brings out the barbarity... character, who was convicted for the publication in his paper of the reports of Srj. Aurobindo Ghose's speeches delivered at a time when Mr. Kolhatkar was absent from Nagpur. The Sessions Judge of Alipur declared on the police reports of these speeches that so far from being seditious or violent they told in favour of the speaker and not against him. We find it difficult to believe that the newspaper ...
... in order to see what truth there was in various methods. I fasted twice—once in Alipore jail and once here. The Alipore fasting gave more results than the second one. Though the fast lasted only ten days I lost ten pounds, whereas here the fast lasted twenty-three days but the loss of weight was less. At Alipore I was having tremendous visions which were all experiences on the vital plane. But as ...
... ( After listening to a passage from Satprem's manuscript: ) It's very good! I'd like to see their faces... it would be funny. After this, I go on to Alipore: the Supraconscient. It's going to be fascinating. Its difficult. No, it's very good. It will be a beautiful book— unusual . It's an original way of presenting things. Interesting, mon... don't have what we human beings have here. They have no Ignorance, they have no Unconsciousness, but they have the sense of diversity and of separation. What about Sri Aurobindo's experience at Alipore, then? You know, that well-known experience when he saw Narayana in the prisoners, Narayana in the guards, Narayana everywhere?... That is the Supreme. Oneness. Is it a supramental experience... into living bluish light, so I thought, "Ah, a good word for my translation!" ( Mother again tries to remember, then gives up. ) Anyway, the important thing is what you told me: the experience at Alipore is supramental. Oh, yes! He used the word Narayana because he hadn't yet developed his own terminology; but he isn't referring to the gods: it's the supramental experience. ( A few days ...
... into himself or "dazed" as some of his friends thought. If he did not reply to questions or suggestions it was because he did not wish to and took refuge in silence. Sri Aurobindo now [in Alipore jail] started reading the Gita and learning to live its sadhana; he fully apprehended the true inwardness and glory of Sanatana Dharma. It should rather be said that he had long tried to apprehend ...
... Part I — Recollections and Diary Notes Champaklal Speaks Photograph in Alipore Jail When we went to Calcutta we visited the solitary cell in Alipore Jail where Sri Aurobindo was detained in 1908-09. We saw that a photograph of Sri Aurobindo was kept there along with framed pictures of many gods and goddesses. I did not like it but I did not speak about ...
... experience in Sardar Majumdar's house in the room on the top-floor. After that I had to rely on inner guidance for my Sadhana. In Alipore the Sadhana was very fast – it was extravagant and exhilarating. On the vital plane it can be dangerous and disastrous. I took to fasting at Alipore for ten or eleven days and lost ten pounds in weight. At Pondicherry the loss of weight was not so much, thought the physical ...
... beings and all that is, which happened in the Alipore jail and of which he has spoken in his speech at Uttarpara. To the other two realisations, that of the supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects and that of the higher planes of consciousness leading to the Supermind, he was already on his way in his meditations in Alipore jail. Moreover, he had accepted from Lele as... Publishing ] House. It is not a fact that Sri Aurobindo's wife Mrinalini Devi was residing at Sj. K. K. Mitra's house in College Square; Sri Aurobindo himself lived there constantly between the Alipore trial and his departure to French India. But she lived always with the family of Girish Bose, principal of Bangabasi College. Page 96 One is unable to understand the meaning of the saying ...
... but they had no idea of the kind of sadhana. He speaks about this himself as follows: "I spent the first part of my imprisonment in Alipore jail in a solitary cell and again after the assassination of Noren Gossain to the last days of the trial when all the Alipore case prisoners were similarly lodged each in his own cell. In between for a short period we were all put together. There is no truth behind... Life of Sri Aurobindo CHAPTER - VI In Alipore Jail and After On 2 May 1908, Sri Aurobindo's residence, 48, Grey Street, Calcutta, was searched by the police. He himself was arrested. It has been stated by some magazines that earth from Ramakrishna's hut which was brought by Sri Aurobindo, was with him when he was arrested. Here is what Sri Aurobindo... turned approver, was assassinated in the hospital by Kanailal Dutt. After this incident the prisoners were separated, and on 14 September Kanailal Dutt was hanged in the jail. On 19 October the Alipore case was committed to sessions. In the case there were two groups of accused: in one there were 33 and in the other 9. Exhibits produced were 4000, and other objects constituting the evidence, 300 ...
... of meditation and His trysting-ground. Is Sri Aurobindo speaking here of his own experience in prison during his political life? Yes. Sri Aurobindo is referring here to his experience in Alipore jail. But what is interesting in this Aphorism is the contrast he points out between the material prison where only his body was confined, while his spirit, unfettered by social conventions and ...
... in something much more serious; he was trying to make bombs. And he ended by blowing up his fingers in an explosion during a test. Caught in this maimed condition, he was sent up for trial in the Alipore Bomb case, although he could not be convicted. Our counsel managed to prove that the state of his hands was due to their being crushed under an iron chest.¹ Let me in this connection announce one... energy" – fully lived up to his name: he was indeed an inexhaustible fount of energy and enthusiasm. When they used to escort us in a prison van from the jail to the court room (during the trial of the Alipore Bomb case), we rent the air all the way with our shouts and songs as we drove along. It was Ullaskar's idea; he led the chorus and the rest of us followed. Some of the old refrains still ring in ...
... influence of Sri Aurobindo, the revolutionary par excellence, and "a mighty prophet of Indian Nationalism" of the age. After having spent a year in jail as an under-trial prisoner in the historic Alipore Bomb Case, he was taken in hand by Sri Aurobindo and with him he remained ever since. He passed away at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram on 7 February 1984. ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7 Alipore Court "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage" –Lovelace IT was as it were a wheel within a wheel, a circle within a circle, a play within a play. The comedy of our trial was being staged within the world-play... world-play, and on the court-room stage itself we the undertrial prisoners had been doing our little private drama. The stage was set in the room of the Alipore Sessions Court. One corner of the room was fenced off so as to form a square enclosure but with wire netting that enabled us to see and breathe. They had also left a small passage through the netting for our entrance and exit, and a sentry had... break through the cage. Inside, a few benches had been laid where we might sit, for we could not obviously be kept standing the whole day. We were some thirty-five in all. They used to take us from Alipore Jail in a carriage – by carriage I mean a horse-drawn vehicle, for motor-cars had not yet come. As we left jail, they would handcuff us in two's, the right hand of one being tied to the left hand of ...
... It gives a sort of excitement or an impetus to the vital being but the general effect does not seem to be sound or healthy. I fasted twice : once in Alipore jail for ten days and another time in Pondicherry for twenty-three days. At Alipore I was in full yogic activities and I was not taking my food, and was throwing it away in the bucket. Of course, the Superintendent did not know it, only two ...
... it was my Lover and Friend who sat there and smiled.'12 The following two interesting experiences in the Alipore jail may be noted: 'I... knew something about sculpture,' wrote Sri Aurobindo in one of his letters, 'but (I was) blind to painting. Suddenly one day in the Alipore jail while meditating I saw some pictures on the walls of the cell and lo and behold the artistic eye in me ... the thick of intense political and literary activity, to major realisations of the Bramhic Silence, Nirvana and also of the universal dynamic presence of the Divine. And, in 1908, when he was in Alipore jail during his trial under the charge of sedition, he received through numerous experiences and realisations the assurance of the liberation of the country and also the knowledge of the initial lines... or even a culminating finale.'¹¹ Of the next major realisation we learn from Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech in which he has given a soul-stirring description of the experiences he had in the Alipore jail in which he was detained in May 1908 under a charge of sedition until May 1909 when he was acquitted. In the jail Sri Aurobindo spent almost all his time in reading the Gita and the Upanishads ...
... seven of the Convicts sentenced to transportation in the Alipore bomb case were despatched to the Andamans. Every precaution was taken to maintain secrecy and there was no gathering or demonstration at the jetty. Three of the prisoners, Poresh Chandra Maulik, Upendra Nath Banerji and Sudhir Kumar Sircar, are detained temporarily in the Alipore Central Jail owing to illness. From the Records of Home... Report — English, 1908, p. 297/2) Statement of Sudhir Kumar Sarkar of May 11, 1908 ( The statement of accused aged about 18 years, made before Mr. L. Birley, Magistrate of the 1st Class, at Alipore on the 11th day of May 1908, in the English Language .) Sudhir’s confession : Q: Do you wish to make a statement to me? A: Yes. Q: Do you understand that I am a Magistrate and that anything... the draft was in the handwriting of Phani Bhusan Mukherjee, a student of Sahebgunj. L.H. Barton Superintendent of Police The 10th May 1908. Criminal Investigation Department, Bengal. The Alipore Bomb Trial was the first State Trial of any Magnitude in India A few Reports of Evidence and Cross Examination of Witnesses : Mr. Norton then dealt with the case of Sudhir Kumar Sarkar. ...
... publication. She said it was easier for her in America than in England, but she had to see. We'll see. Page 271 ADDENDUM ( Letter from Sri Aurobindo to C.R. Das, his lawyer in the Alipore bomb case. ) 18 November 1922 Dear Chitta, It is a long time, almost two years I think, since I have written a letter to anyone. I have been so much retired and absorbed in my Sadhana that... myself free for it in either case.... Aurobindo On Himself , XXVI.438 × C.R. Das, Sri Aurobindo's lawyer in the Alipore bomb case. There are three letters; one dated November 18, 1922, to C.R. Das, and the two others to Barin, Sri Aurobindo's younger brother, dated November 18, 1922 and December 1, 1922. The letters ...
... century became a terror to the British rule and paved the way for succeeding generations to win the country's freedom. After having spent a year in jail as an under-trial prisoner in the historic Alipore Bomb case, he was taken in hand by Sri Aurobindo and with him he remained ever since. After the Master's passing he has been continuing as a trustee and the Secretary of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. ...
... were not so perplexing after all) : It gives a sort of excitement to the vital being, but the effect does not seem. to be very sound. I fasted twice—once in Alipore jail for ten days and the other time in Pondicherry for twenty-three days. At Alipore I was in full yogic activity. I was not taking any food. I was throwing away all of it into the bucket. Of course, the superintendent didn't know. Only the ...
... in something much more serious; he was trying to make bombs. And he ended by blowing up his fingers in an explosion during a test. Caught in this maimed condition, he was sent up for trial in the Alipore Bomb case, although he could not be convicted. Our counsel managed to prove that the state of his hands was due to their being crushed under an iron chest. 1 Let me in this connection announce... energy"—fully lived up to his name: he was indeed an inexhaustible fount of energy and enthusiasm. When they used to escort us in a prison van from the jail to the court room (during the trial of the Alipore Bomb case), we rent the air all the way with our shouts and songs as we drove along. It was Ullaskar's idea; he led the chorus and the rest of us followed. Some of the old refrains still ring in ...
... conference of the Nationalists. 1908, January - Sri Aurobindo meets the Maharashtrian yogi Vishnu Page 586 - Bhaskar Lele at Baroda. May 2 — Sri Aurobindo is arrested in the Alipore Bomb Case. He is defended by Chittaranjan Das. June 30 — A large area at Tunguska in Siberia is devastated, supposedly by the falling piece of a comet. July 22 — Tilak is sentenced to... Sicily, leaves 160,000 victims. 1909 — Morley-Minto Reforms. April 7 - American explorer Peary reaches the North Pole in his sixth attempt. May 6 - Sri Aurobindo is acquitted in the Alipore Bomb Case. May 30 — Gives his famous speech at Uttarpara. June 19 — First issue of The Karmayogin (English weekly). July 25 — French aviation pioneer Bleriot flies over the English ...
... list was written the name of Aurobindo Ghose. He was arrested on 5 May 1908 and locked up in the prison of Alipore, a suburb of Calcutta, together with more than twenty other suspects, under the charge of ‘waging war against the king,’ the British-Indian equivalent of high treason. ‘The Alipore Bomb Trial, as it became known, was “the first state trial of any magnitude in India.”’ 11 The judge was... treated with the reverence of a king wherever he had gone,’ and that he ‘in fact was considered not only as the leader of Bengal but of the whole country.’ His fame had spread even more because of the Alipore Trial, and the British authorities regretted that they had let him go scot-free once more. Letters of that time prove that the highest circles examined the possibility of doing away once and for all ...
... Gandhi. Page 270 like an animal in a cage," as he wrote in his Karakahini (Tales of Prison Life). No, it was not "the old familiar Aurobindo Ghose" who came out of the "Ashram at Alipore," it was "a new being, a new character, new intellect, life, mind, embarking upon a new course of action" who reentered the world of action. Changed was the tenor of his writings from the Bande... Bande Malaram to the Karmayogin. Not that he did not write on politics, he did. Nor did he immediately give up all his political activities, or retire into solitude after his Vasudeva experience at Alipore Jail. No, quite the contrary. Immediately upon his release on 6 May several advocates had taken Arabindo Babu to the Bar Library. With great respect some of them touched his feet with their hands ...
... for the public face. In private he would go up to revolution. He wanted a Provincial Board of Control of Revolution. Barin once took a bomb to him. The name of Surendranath Banerji was found in the [Alipore] Bomb Case. But as soon as Norton pronounced the name there was a 'Hush, hush' and he shut up." With his customary modesty —notwithstanding his disclaimer —Sri Aurobindo did not breathe a word... prevent even Sri Aurobindo being returned as a delegate and were using unfair means to chuck out men of pronounced nationalistic views from the list of the delegates...." This took place after the Alipore Bomb Case was over, and the other Page 388 Nationalist leaders, like Tilak, were exiled and languishing in prison in Mandalay or elsewhere. "Nothing daunted, Sri Aurobindo begun his ...
... Khulna with a warrant of arrest. Out of consideration for my father and others who were in service, I surrendered myself voluntarily. There were about ninety of us lodged in Alipore Jail, all arrested in connection with the Alipore Bomb case. Besides us there were some others brought from Bombay and Madras. The jail became a veritable den of high spirits and amusement. Sri Aurobindo went into meditation... Mémoires of Sri Aurobindo ( Sudhir lived with Sri Aurobindo like a family member for almost a year. Later, he looked after Sri Aurobindo when they both were in the Alipore Jail in the year 1908-1909. Here are a few experiences and anecdotes recounted by Sudhir, originally in Bengali. ) It was the year 1907. I had stepped into my seventeenth year. The idea of a University... will be taken as natural, and there will be no anxiety.” Such a tender-hearted and considerate person Sri Aurobindo was at the same time the main figure in a secret revolutionary conspiracy! At Alipore Jail The next phase was one of searches and arrests. At Narayangarh, there was a bomb attack on the viceroy’s train; the engine was damaged and the train derailed. Then came the Muzaffarpore bombing; ...
... the Mofussil are the most influential members, which engineered a compromise in the absence of the Nationalist leaders. Sj. Tilak was a prisoner in Mandalay jail, Sj. Aurobindo Ghose under trial at Alipur, Sj. Khaparde and Sj. Bipin Chandra Pal absent in England. The compromise was reluctantly accepted by many of the Nationalists present,—as we have ascertained by correspondence with some of the chief ...
... otherwise........ Page 124 "There was no issue of the marriage. During Sri Aurobindo's trial at Alipore which lasted a full twelve months Mrinalini lived with her parents at Shillong or with her uncle Girish Babu in Calcutta. She paid several visits to her husband at Alipore Central Jail in the company of her father. She never evinced any visible agitation during those exciting times... Miss Sudhira Bose , a classmate of hers with whom she lived in closest intimacy till the day of her death. Sudhira was a younger sister of late Debabrata Bose, an associate of Sri Aurobindo in the Alipore Bomb Case, who after his acquittal at the trial , turned a Sannyasin1 and joined 1. Taking the name of Swami Prajnananda. Page 122 the Ramakrishna Mission. Miss Sudhira ...
... book 1 is, I am compelled to say, fiction and romance with no foundation in actual facts. I spent the first part of my imprisonment in Alipore jail in a solitary cell and again after the assassination of Noren Gosain to the last days of the trial when all the Alipore case prisoners were similarly lodged each in his own cell. In between for a short period we were all put together. There is no truth behind ...
... of Bengal, and the whole country. On May 2 Aurobindo was arrested from his Grey Street quarters. The first phase of the trial took place at the court of L. Birley, the District Magistrate of Alipore, and it lasted from 19 May to 19 August 1908. "He seemed to be a credit to his Scotch origin," Sri Aurobindo wrote in Karakahini, and went on to give a lively description of Birley. "Very fair, quite... ubiquitous Eardley Norton led the Crown in the Page 453 trial in all three Courts —the Magistrate's, the Session Judge's and the High Court. Describing the drama being played out in the Alipore Magistrate's Court, Sri Aurobindo said, "Looking at the amazing spectacle I often thought that instead of sitting in a British court of justice we were inside a stage in some world of fiction.... The ...
... century became a terror to the British rule and paved the way for succeeding generations to win the country's freedom. After having spent a year in jail as an under-trial prisoner in the historic Alipore Bomb Case, he was taken in had by Sri Aurobindo and with him he remained ever since. After the Master's passing he continued as a Trustee and Secretary of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. His apprenticeship ...
... one centre of the multiple Divine, not as the Parameshwara." That's exactly what I have just said. I am not going to begin all over again. What? Sweet Mother, when Sri Aurobindo was in Alipore, 1 Vivekananda came for fifteen days and explained something special to him. What part of Vivekananda was it, the psychic being or the atman? Page 224 It could very well be his mind... ) Convinced? Page 231 × Sri Aurobindo was arrested for sedition on the 1st of May, 1908 and detained in Alipore jail for a year. The British Government, taking its stand on his articles and the reports of his speeches, held him in fact responsible for the entire revolutionary movement. ...
... institution. By that time the Swaideshi and Boycott agitation had begun. I thought of taking men under my own instruction to teach them and so I began to collect this band which has been arrested. [In Alipore Jail] I was in a state of sweet self-intoxication, almost beside myself in a sort of overwhelming beatitude, when I was counting my last days, with the halter round my neck and shut up in the 'condemned ...
... Sri Krishna who sat there, it was my Lover and Friend who sat there and smiled.¹ The following two interesting experiences in the Alipore jail may be noted: I... knew something about sculpture, but [I was] blind to painting. Suddenly one day in the Alipore jail while meditating I saw some pictures on the walls of the cell and lo and behold! the artistic eye in me opened and I knew all about... even a culminating finale....² Of the next major realisation we learn from Sri Aurobindo's Uttarpara Speech in which he has given a soul-stirring description of the experiences he had in the Alipore jail in which he was detained in May 1908 under a charge of sedition until May 1909 when he was acquitted. In the jail Sri Aurobindo spent almost all his time in reading the Gita and .the Upanishads... against the wall. I could not have held my body like that normally even if I had wanted to and I found that the body remained suspended like that without any exertion on my part.² While in the Alipore jail, Sri Aurobindo was also on his way in his meditations to two other realisations: that of the Supreme Reality with the static and dynamic Brahman as its two aspects, and that of the higher planes ...
... Misleading the Witness An interesting scene comes to my mind. Nolini and I were the chief actors in this drama. To identify Nolini in the Alipore Bomb Case, the postmaster of Joshidi and the level-crossing pointman had been summoned to the Alipore court. Some forty of us accused were made to stand in two rows for the identification parade. I positioned myself just behind Nolini and told him... Sudhir was arrested in Khulna. Sri Aurobindo and many others had already been apprehended. Finally, thirty-eight were indicted and spent one year in jail as undertrial prisoners in the celebrated Alipore Bomb Case. Their attitude towards life puzzled the jail authorities. They had no fear of punishment or death. For much of his time in jail, Sri Aurobindo remained in trance, unconcerned about his... before realising the Mother Bhavani, you will hasten your own downfall”. Barin answered, “When we see vultures sucking blood out of our Mother’s body, how can we sit down to meditate?” (S) 1908 – Alipore Jail Co-prisoner with Sri Aurobindo In practice I have seen very few men like Sudhir who can endure by adopting a “don’t care” attitude. I have seen many who have desperately fought with ...
... will deplore. The deceased officer was perhaps the ablest, most energetic and most zealous member of the Bengal detective force. It was his misfortune that he took the leading part not only in the Alipur Bomb Case in which he zealously and untiringly assisted the Crown solicitors, but in the investigation of the Haludbari and Netra dacoities. The nature of his duties exposed him to the resentment of ...
... inscription: "(Composed in the Alipur Jail)". Sri Aurobindo was a prisoner in Alipore Jail between 5 May 1908 and 6 May 1909.Who. Circa 1908–9. Published in the Karmayogin on 13 November1909. Page 699 Miracles . Circa 1900–1906. Reminiscence . Circa 1900–1906. A typewritten copy of this poem was an exhibit in the Alipore Bomb Case in 1908 (see Bande... The Mother of Dreams . 1908 9. Published in the Modern Review in July 1909, two months after Sri Aurobindo's release from the Alipore Jail. The following note was appended to the text: "This poem was composed by Mr. Aurobindo Ghose in the Alipore Jail, of course with-out the aid of any writing materials. He committed it to memory and wrote it down after his release. There... national movement. Between and May 1908 he was the editor of the daily newspaper Bande Mataram , and had little occasion to write poetry. In May 1908he was arrested and imprisoned in Alipore Jail. During the year of his detention he managed to compose a few poems that were published after his release in May 1909. Between June 1909 and February 1910, Page 701 ...
... – the Bang Bhang – Sri Aurobindo left his academic assignment in Baroda and moved to Calcutta where for five years he shone like a meteor in the darkening sky. In 1910, after an epiphany in the Alipore Jail he left for Pondicherry where he lived for the next 40 years until he passed away in 1950. During those 40 years he produced his great classics including The Life Divine, The Human Cycle ...
... 1908 Divorce from Henri Morisset. Mother moves to 49 rue de Levis. January: Sri Aurobindo meets the tantric yogi Vishnubhaskar Lele. Realization of mental silence and Nirvana. May 2, the “Alipore Bomb Case”: imprisonment of Sri Aurobindo for one year. 1910 February, Sri Aurobindo escapes to Chandernagor, in French India. April 4, Sri Aurobindo takes refuge in Pondicherry. April ...
... to inform the authorities that he was never greatly in the habit of writing letters before and, after the exposure of his private correspondence with his friends and family by the prosecution in the Alipur case, he has almost dropped the practice, except in urgent matters of business. It is possible, therefore, for this part of the investigation to be carried on very cheaply, and the Government must ...
... Brahmabandhab, 305; arrest on, 5 May 1908, 308; at Police Station, 308,317; before chief Presidency Magistrate, 310; at Alipur Jail, 310ff, 317; "master mind" behind extremism, 311; Alipur "Yogashram", 312; Sarojini's appeal for defence fund, 312, 324; on Eardley Norton, 313ff; on Alipur Jail, 315ff; on God's manifestation in prison, 316; experience of Vasudeva, 319ff, 322-3, 362, 371, 387, 389; on the... Aiyar, V. Krishnaswami, 221 Aiyar, Nagaswami, 378 Aiyar, V. V. S., 266, 378, 391,405,525 Akbar, Emperor, 8, 11, 293 Ali, Muhammad, 527 Alt, Shaukat, 527 Alipur Case (Manicktolla Bomb Case), 310ff, 359. 367 Alipur Jail, 202, 307, 310, 330, 388, 444, 490,525 Ambedkar, B. R., 496-497 Ambirajan, S., 13fn. Amrita (Aravamudachari), 405, 525, 536, 540 Amrita Bazar ...
... wills are expressed as actions. And it all makes a sort of life—a life in other worlds, different worlds. × In the Alipore jail: "I was mentally subjected to all sorts of torture for fifteen days. I had to look upon scenes of all sorts of suffering...." (See A.B. Purani, Life of Sri Aurobindo , p. 122.) ...
... possessing me. It was absolutely uncontrollable when it came. I was very much surprised as to my nature. Anger has always been foreign to me. At another time while I was an undertrial prisoner at Alipore jail, a terrible catastrophe was avoided. Prisoners had to wait outside for sometime before entering the cells. As we were waiting a Scotch Warder came and gave me a push. The young men around me became ...
... government reluctantly abandoned the idea of an appeal. A second option was to deport Babu Arabindo without trial. Just as they had done to K.K. Mitra and others in December 1908. But then the Alipore Bomb Case trial was still going on. But now? What excuses could the government find? Rather it risked evoking an outcry by the English public. Fearing the public opinion, the Secretary of State, Lord ...
... Sri Aurobindo - a biography and a history C HAPTER 14 Karmayogin I A whole year in prison, in Alipur most of the time; in the eyes of the outside world, a year of bleak or baneful incarceration. Yet, for Sri Aurobindo himself, the jail had been no cage of confinement, but a veritable Yogashram where Purushottama had befriended him, and... much common ground - but there was some significant difference in stress as well. Sri Aurobindo had spoken at Bombay after his Baroda nirvanic experience, while at Uttarpara he spoke after the Alipur experience of Narayana darsan. Yet it was the same man, dedicated to the service of the Mother, the man self-poised and self-giving and exuding iron resolve and tremendous purpose. At Uttarpara... and now". But such communications are seldom articulate to any definite purpose. There could be exceptions, of course, and Sri Aurobindo himself later claimed that Vivekananda had spoken in the Alipur jail to him and that Rammohan Roy had given the material that went into the book Yogic Sadhan 8 But these were events of no more than marginal relevance to the "work" Sri Aurobindo had to do ...
... his role and writings in Bande Mataram, but he was not convicted. By now he had become a prominent extremist leader famous all over India. The following year he was jailed and prosecuted in the Alipore Bomb Case for “treason against the Crown”, a crime punishable by hanging. No sufficient proof was found against Aurobindo Ghose because a key-witness for the prosecution was killed by the revolutionaries... onwards the yoga never stopped and he followed his own path, concentrated in yoga even when intensely preoccupied with politics and journalism, and especially during his year-long incarceration in Alipore Jail. According to his own report he, like Mirra, received help from beings on the occult levels: from Ramakrishna and Vivekananda – both then deceased – and throughout from the Great Mother and Sri ...
... Lord Morley mocked at Mr. Mackarness and his supporters as more Indian than the Indians. We may well quote him again and apply the same ridicule, the ridicule of the autocrat, to Mr. Beachcroft, the Alipur judge, who acquitted an avowed apostle of the ideal of Page 120 independence. Mr. Gokhale, at least, has become more English than the English. A British judge, certainly not in sympathy ...
... Absolute, Impersonal, 75 Dead or alive, 156 Adventure, 109, 113 Death, 134, l60, 186-9, 206, 211, 212, 213, 220, 261 Adwaita, 7 Descent, 33, 76, 78, 146-7 Alipore jail, 11, 12 Descent of the Supermind, 85, 87 Arya, 2, 56, 67 Divine body, 95-6, l63 Ascent, 33, 76, 78 Divine, integral, 71, 75 Ashta Siddhi, 17-8, 241-3 Dying, new way... 1906 (Left for Bengal), 1 Physical mind, 132-4, 141, 172, 180,212 1907 (Realisation of undefinable reality beyond space and time), 9 Pondicherry, 14-5, 17, 23, 39, 49 1908 (Alipore Jail experiences), 2, 11-3 Prakriti, 73 1909 (Uttarpara speech), 11 Prayanama, 7-8, 50, 70 1910 (To Chandernagore), 13-4 Prayers and Meditations, 40, 42-5, 49, 51-6 ...
... raided Maniktala Garden, arrested a number of revolutionaries including Barindra. The same morning Sri Aurobindo was arrested in Calcutta. 1908-09 An under-trial with 35 others in Alipur Jail in the Maniktala Bomb Case. During trial Sri Aurobindo remained indrawn, unconcerned. August 31 : For turning approver Narendra Goswami was killed in prison by Kanailal Datta... the north who would practice and establish Poorna Yoga (Integral Yoga). 1910 June: Fasted for twentyone days to test his mastery over bodily functions already attained in Alipur Jail. During the period, carried on day-to-day work with unimpaired energy and broke the fast with his usual measure of normal food. 1910-14 Years of extreme hardships. Constant ...
... Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7 Alipore Jail IN Alipore Jail we spent a whole year, from 2nd May 1908 to 6th May 1909, as undertrial prisoners. This period might be divided into four distinct phases, according to the type of quarters we were allotted and the kind of life this gave us. These phases were however not of equal length. ...
... in April 1910. × Barindra, Sri Aurobindo's younger brother. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the Alipore Bomb Case in 1908, he was released from the Andamans in 1920 and came to stay here in 1923. He left for good on 25.12.1929. ...
... upwardly fixed gaze of Sri Aurobindo's was not a new phenomenon begun at Chandernagore. It had already drawn the attention of no less a person than the Lt. Governor 1 of Bengal at the time of the Alipore Sedition Case. He asked Charu Dutt, "Have you seen Aurobindo Ghose's eyes?... He 1 The same Lt. Governor Andrew Fraser (attempt on his life was made on 6 Dec. 1907) who had collected ...
... has likewise told us that the subtle being of Vivekananda came to him in Alipore Jail to give him certain instructions. Meanwhile there came to us running, one afternoon, a young man – Satish Sarkar – to give Sri Aurobindo the news that Shamsul Alam, the Police Inspector who had been the mainstay of Government in the Alipore bomb case, had just been shot down, on the steps of the High Court, by Biren ...
... has likewise told us that the subtle being of Vivekananda came to him in Alipore Jail to give him certain instructions. Meanwhile there came to us running, one afternoon, a young man—Satish Sarkar—to give Sri Aurobindo the news that Shamsul Alam, the Police Inspector who had been the mainstay of Government in the Alipore bomb case, had just been shot down, on the steps of the High Court, by ...
... the thick of intense political and literary activity, to major realisations of the Brahmic Silence, Nirvana, and also of the universal dynamic Presence of the Divine. And, in 1908, when he was in Alipore jail during his trial under the charge of sedition, he received through numerous experiences and realisations the assurance of the liberation of the country and also the knowledge of the initial ...
... the thick of intense political and literary activity, to major realisations of the Brahmic Silence, Nirvana, and also of the universal dynamic Presence of the Divine. And, in 1908, when he was in Alipore jail during his trial under the charge of sedition, he received through numerous experiences and realisations the assurance of the liberation of the country and also the knowledge of the initial lines ...
... 54 In 1908 Sri Aurobindo was, if anything, graver and serener, unattached to the ebb and flow of the political flood. The second great spiritual experience which came to him in the Alipore Jail completed the transformation; from the 'still centre' of detachment he passed on to the circle of purposeful commitment. So far his surface mind had attended to problems like the formulation of ...
... awakened from his sleep and arrested the same morning. In all more than thirty suspected persons were arrested. Aurobindo entered the jail of Alipore, a Calcutta suburb, on 5 May; he would remain locked up there till 6 May 1909, for exactly one year. The Alipore Bomb Case was ‘the first state trial of any magnitude in India’ and ‘the most important state trial ever held in Calcutta.’ Aurobindo was... his imprisonment in Alipore Jail. Now Nolini Kanta Gupta, Bejoy Nag, Suresh Chakravarti, Saurin Bose and others sought shelter with him and solace from his presence. Practically all of them had been students before they became activists, and Aurobindo did everything possible to give them some education and to act as their protector and elder brother. The convicted in the Alipore Bomb Case were tried... of Swami Vivekananda, who had died in 1902, six years before. ‘I didn’t know about the planes [i.e. the gradations of being]. It was Vivekananda who, when he used to come to me during meditation in Alipore jail, showed me the Intuitive Plane. For a month or so he gave instructions about Intuition. Then afterwards I began to see the still higher planes … It was the spirit of Vivekananda who first gave ...
... when people here claimed to have got the Supermind. I myself had made mistakes about it. I didn't know then about the planes. It was Vivekananda who, when he used to come to me during meditation in Alipore Jail, showed me the intuitive plane. For a month or so he gave instructions about intuition. Then afterwards I began to see the still higher planes. I am not satisfied with only a part of the Supermind... Banerji, the sub-editor, published some correspondence for which I was arrested on a sedition charge. But as nothing could be proved I was acquitted. When I was arrested a second time and detained in Alipore Jail, the Bande Mataram was up against disastrous financial difficulties. Hence the editors wrote something very strong and the paper got suppressed. I started the Karmayogin some time after my ...
... hesitation that most certainly I was. A deliberate defiance of the law! That was an unpardonable offence. Afterwards, during the Alipore Bomb case, this was cited against me on behalf of the prosecution in order to prove that I was an old offender. But the judge of the Alipore court, Beachcroft, had rather taken a fancy to me. He did not take any note of this point and dismissed it as school-boy bravado ...
... authorship, etc.—proceeded as it were from the surface, without in any way affecting the deeper inward peace. 102 Second came, not many months afterwards in his solitary cell in the Alipore Jail, his experience of the omnipresent Deity in the form of Narayana, Vasudeva. As he described his experience later in the course of the celebrated Uttarpara Speech delivered on 30 May 1909: ...
... Shakti , 21 Afghanistan, 170,229 Agni, 116,117 agriculture, 39 see also peasantry, village Ahimsa , 55 , 123, ISI , 168,218,219,246 see also non-violence Ajatashatru's, 96 Alipore Bomb Ca se , 46 (fn), ISO, 159 Alipore jail, 47 , 48 , 214 Allies (in World War II ), 226, 236, 238-239 altruism, 80 , 102, 112 Ambedkar, B. R., 204,205 America , 59 , 81 , 174,237 Americans, 77 , 239 Andhra ... action, 13,246 editor of Bande Mataram, 17 principal of Bengal National College,27 behind the Nationalist movement, 195 -196,246 Bande Mataram sedition case, 27. 195-196 Surat Congress, 35 Alipore Bomb Case, 47 withdrawal from politics, 71 , 110-111 , 151 departure for Chandernagore, 71 departure for Pondicherry, 71, 83 meeting with Mother, 113 calls for his return to politics, 148-149 ...
... Lala Lajpat Rai, Tilak, Ashwini Kumar Dutt, etc., are deported under various repressive laws. The Nationalist movement goes underground. 1908, May2 Sri Aurobindo is arrested in the Alipore Bomb Case; spends a year in jail and is acquitted on May 6, 1909. 1909 he Morley-Minto reforms provide separate electorates for Indian Muslims. 1909, May30 Sri Aurobindo's ...
... fright. But he was not a man to be frightened. They may have poisoned him. You know Moropant afterwards turned moderate. More than one Indian army were ready to help us. I knew a Panjabi Sentinel at Alipore who spoke to me about the revolution. Once Nivedita came to Baroda to see the Gaekwad and told him that his duty was to join the revolution and she said to him : if you have anything to ask ...
... and leading articles, and also some planned series including The Doctrine of Passive Resistance. It ceased publication in October 1908, six months after Sri Aurobindo was imprisoned in the Alipore Bomb Case. A weekly edition of Bande Mataram was published from June 1907 to September 1908, in which editorials and articles from the daily edition were reprinted. The play Perseus the Deliverer... 13). SABCL Volume 5 includes two versions: the first draft "The Descent of Ahana" (p. 537) and the revised and enlarged "Ahana" of 520 lines (p. 523). "Invitation" was composed in the Alipore Jail in 1908 or 1909 and first published in the weekly Karmayogin, November 6, 1909. "Who" was first published ih Karmayogin, November 13, 1909. In SABCL "Karma" and "Appeal"... the Deliverer (See 65). Volume II, Contents: 1895-1908: Translation: Vikramorvasie (See 97). 1902-1915: Baji Prabhou (See 5); Nine Poems: "The Mother of Dreams", composed in Alipore Jail in Page 381 1908 or 1909 and first published in the Modem Review,July 1909; "An Image", "The Birth of Sin","Epiphany", first published in the Karmayogin, November ...
... lock-up at Lal Bazar, Calcutta. Proceedings are instituted by the British government to deport Sri Aurobindo, but are later abandoned. May 5 Taken to Alipore Jail. May 5 , 1908 - May 6, 1909 Undertrial prisoner at Alipore. Spends his time reading the Gita and the Upanishads and in meditation and the practice of Yoga. Has the realisation of the Cosmic Consciousness and ...
... reading Nivedita's book, The Master As I Saw Him . As a rule, it is in talk that such flashes come—at least in his case it was so. NIRODBARAN: You said the other day that his spirit visited you in Alipore Jail and told you about the higher consciousness from which, I suppose, these intuitive flashes come. SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, he did tell me. I had no idea about things of the higher consciousness. ...
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